ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - PATRICK WILLEMS Talks Marvel, "content" creation & more! - Crossover Universe Podcast

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

YouTuber Patrick H. Willems talks Marvel, Fast and Furious, and the surprising writer of We're Back: A Dinosaur Story. On the Crossover Universe Podcast, Heather Antos and Ryan Arey interview a cross-section of guests from Hollywood, comics, publishing, and even content creators like Patrick.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I think it's a terrible idea because I don't, it's not nothing misogynistic. That sounds like I lead into a different podcast. Wow, Ryan. Hey, welcome everybody to the ScreenCrush Crossover Universe podcast. I am here with my co-host Heather Antos. And I'm here with Ryan Airy. How's it going, Ryan? I'm good. I'm good, Heather. So this is a new thing. This is an actual podcast. It's going to be fun. We have a special guest coming on.

We have Patrick Willems a little bit later. I've heard of them. Yeah, he's good people. He's a fellow YouTuber, much smarter than me. So I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say and feeling dumb when he starts to talk about Bollywood. I do wanna also plug a fun thing that we're gonna try out. We're gonna do a little segment called Hear Me Out at the end of this episode where Heather and I,

and maybe Pat if he wants to play along, say our brutal hot take that we think the internet should embrace, especially in the form of commenting. Heather, what's going on? Talk to me real quick, because I think you've been better. I've got a fever, Ryan. I'm not feeling so great.

And is the cure cowbell or is it a literal fever? It's a literal fever. I'm here with my gatorade. I'm here. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Did some traveling this weekend. I was at a convention. Where at?

Which convention? New Brunswick. I was up in East, it's called East Coast Comic Expo. It's up in Moncton, New Brunswick. It's kind of like just north of Maine. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful area, very rural. But yeah, it was a lot of fun, a lot of lobster there. Okay, now was the convention good apart

from being riddled with disease? How did it go? It was a good show, it's a small show, maybe like 3,000 people, so nothing like the New York Comic Con, 150,000 like we're used to. Well, I've only ever been to the two Comic Cons and then the New Jersey Super Expo where you and I we did a live show. It was like an encore live show that ended up having to be a screen crush unplugged acoustic performance. And you riffed the whole thing with me. And gosh, was I grateful

because that was a fun convention, but an incredibly stressful show. I think everybody had a good time, though. It was a great time, yeah. I was worried. I have never seen you so stressed in the entire time I've known you. Oh, God. I have been way more stressed than that. My main thing was people paid for a show. That's true.

Yeah. So, like, if people pay for a show, I want to deliver it. But there were just all these things that, like, weren't set up, A, V, Y. But I think they got a different, like they got a fun thing, they got a more personal interaction with us. Absolutely, yeah. Which is really cool, yeah.

I got some cool news to tell you. So we got screeners for Ironheart, and I've only seen, now we don't know when this is coming out, we know it's going to drop on a Sunday, we're probably going to stack these. So by the time you guys see this, we've probably already talked about it on the channel, but I want to see Heather's reaction.

I'm in the second episode of Ironheart. Some graphic designer put my name on a keyboard. Like on a screen, yeah. So like I'm canon in Star Wars and in the MCU now. So I feel like Thanos. I'm going to have like a whole gauntlet full of these franchises that I have cameos in. You know, I had nearly forgotten

that Ironheart was coming out. You would have completely, you know, well, Disney's not really done much for it. I got to say. It's weird that they're doing the schedule like, OK, they're dropping three episodes in the first week. They announced I was like, OK, cool. So like maybe you don't really get the gist of it. You need to like, you know, like the first episode maybe isn't that straight.

They've done and or did that right. The first three episodes dropped on the sameist of it. You need to like, you know, like the first episode maybe isn't that straight. They've done, and or did that, right? The first three episodes dropped on the same day of season one. And I thought, well, maybe, maybe they're doing that. And then they're gonna like have these come out until fans that no, they're dropping all three episodes the next week. It's almost like they can't wait to get rid of it.

Except then it would be they're gonna. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they've already like, there's already leaks coming out about which episode Mephisto shows up in and stuff like that. Which we're not gonna, I haven't watched that far ahead of mine, watched the first episode, but then I kind of skimmed, I skimmed the second episode for my name, like I do every Marvel show. And then it just happened to come up. So that was pretty cool. I don't know which screen crush fan works at Marvel. They could have been referencing a different Ryan Airy. That would be, to quote

Christopher from The Sopranos, some fucking coincidence. But they might have done that. Which episode does Palpatine return in? Palpatine, they actually save him for episode seven, which they didn't plan or announce, but it still comes back later on. Oh. I guess, yeah.

Oh, gosh. I had a hard time even making a joke about that. It still hurts. That movie came out in 2019, six years ago, right? There are children who were not born who have children of their own when that movie came out. And I, at least where I'm from. And I still can't get over that.

I was so upset, literally, after somehow Palpatine returned. That was... I mean, Ben and Ray Kissing, I literally slid out of my chair to the floor. In a good way or a bad way? Bad way. Just literally, I literally cringed so hard I slid to the floor. I don't know. I think like the servers on Archive of Our Own went down that night because of all of the fanfic that was coming out.

The other thing about Ironheart is, I don't know where people get their advertisements now. Cause like when we were doing live shows in LA, people were like, hey, there's a Captain America movie coming out in a couple of weeks, remember? But when I was in the airport, they had like massive walls that were Captain America, Brave New World advertisements.

It's not like we're all watching the same shows at night and we see trailers for them on the shows. It's kind of hard, like, you have to be plugged into so many different platforms to see these advertisements. So maybe they are publicizing it, but it's kind of getting lost in the noise. I'd be curious because I'm watching other things

at Disney Plus and the trailer's not popping up anywhere. I'm on the internet, it's not popping up anywhere. It's not getting TV spots, like, you know, I feel like my algorithms, your algorithms, are probably set up where if it was gonna pop up, it'd pop up and- I see it on socials for sure. Yeah.

But that's because I subscribe to like discussing film. Yeah. And channels like that. So that's probably why it's popping up on mine. I mean, like I said, only one episode in, I love Dominique Thorne, she's great. She's great in Wakanda forever. Haven't Anthony Ramos, I haven't seen enough of him.

He looks incredibly silly in the Hood costume. You know what I never read before? I read this today, not to dive into comics, but I never actually read the Hood comic book. I haven't either actually. It's good, Brian K. Vaughn. It's really good. I mean, it's one of those like early 2000s

Marvel max issues. And for you kids, Marvel max is when they got rid of the comics code authority so they could say swear words. So they say both F words in it. They say the R word. There's like, there's all these more like old man because like at the time you can watch an episode of South park and that was acceptable among my people.

But that kind of thing bumps out at like, oh, that's kind of immature, but it's a really good story. I never really knew that character until Civil War. And he looks like badass in the comic and Anthony Ramos is this guy. He's a guy in a cape, man. He looks like Larry David on that sign flood episode where he's the man in the cape.

Oh man, don't, don't. I hope it gets better though, like I said. Don't do, don't do my man Anthony Ramos wrong like that. Can you talk, because we don't get to talk very often. What are you guys, and that's, you know, if you guys don't know Heather at all, which I'm betting that just statistically speaking, most of you don't, Heather's constantly signing NDAs

for things because she works on so many different properties through IDW, you read all these scripts ahead of time. I'm not gonna ask you what you signed NDAs for or anything like that, but like what comics are coming out that you guys are really excited about? So we, I did, I will say I did sign some pretty, two pretty big NDAs this week though for some very exciting things. I wish we could hear about it. I know, I did sign some pretty two pretty big NDAs this week though for for some very exciting things

Um, I wish we could hear about I know I know if I told you i'd have to kill you but um This the summer we are having a brand new Godzilla comic come out. Uh, Godzilla number one the kaisai era where Um, there's a group of teenagers that are getting the powers of the kaiju kaiju There's a group of teenagers that are getting the powers of the Kaiju Kaiju Now is that part of any Godzilla can it's a brand new brand-new Godzilla universe never seen before it's kind of that's fun. It's kind of like mixing superhero powers with with with Godzilla So it's really really cool. It comes out

Right around San Diego Comic-Con. So we have that coming out. We also have a book that I'm working on that I'm really excited about called Red Shirts, which is all about... Oh, cool. Yeah. The Red Shirts from the Star Trek Original Series era. If you know nothing about Star Trek, you know about Red Shirts and that they die

a lot. And we're telling their story in this. red shirts and that they die a lot. And we're telling their story in this and well, they die a lot. You know, that's great. That reminds me of, well, it inspired the show, but one of the all-time best TNG episodes, Lower Decks, which is about the people who like scrubbed the floors basically, like the lower officer, the people who aren't, who are just like the enlisted officers. That sounds awesome. Yeah. Who's doing that? Christopher Cantwell, who actually is the creator

of the TV show, Halt and Catch Fire, if you ever watched, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. So he's writing that one. Well, that's a get. So it's super great. Yeah.

We've got some cool stuff coming out. And I think by the time this is out, you guys will have seen it, but we've got a pretty huge centers breakdown. They just got finished up today. And centers was one of the most intimidating things I've ever written. Because for one thing, it's, you know, it's about the black experience and the blues, and I'm not exactly the right guy to give insight into that. So there was a lot of research, but I love doing any video where I get to learn, right? So there were so many things like about,

you know, West African hoodoo and all these other different cultural things that I'd never heard of before, different blues musicians. So the video honestly could have been four hours long. Like we could have like done scene by scene in that film, but we kind of restricted it in that way. Like our winter soldier breakdown is going to be over an hour

because I'm literally going in every single scene and say, well, in this scene, like our Winter Soldier breakdown is going to be over an hour. Because I'm literally going in every single scene and say, well, in this scene, but with centers, we kind of gave more of like a broad overview while still covering the whole thing, but great film. I wish I could have seen it in IMAX. I can't wait to watch it. I actually got to see it in IMAX. I saw it in IMAX twice.

It was so good. So, so, so good. I don't know if you ever watch Ryan Coogler talk about different formats, like film formats. He's such a nerd for that stuff. I guess there's like 16 or 17 different ways you could have watched it. Like there's the thing where the screens are on the side.

But I think talking about film formats. I was gonna say. Is a perfect transition, right? To talk about our guest. Yeah. Heather, what can we possibly say about our guest today? Well, I mean, he probably can talk more about film formats and film theory than anyone else I know.

And this guy is one of the first video essayists I remember ever seeing. Oh yeah. He did an MCU video about colors and why the MCU looks kind of bad. His short films went viral, although my favorite one I don't think went viral. Maybe I'll ask him about that one.

He's to my knowledge, the only video essay has to turn his videos into a feature length film. And he's just absolutely one of the best. He's the first guest we ever had on a talk back here. Say hello everybody to Mr. Patrick H. Willems. How you doing Pat? I hope we didn't catch you at a bad time. No, I'm just, I feel like I'm like beet red

from just blushing while I was off camera during the intro. That was very nice. It's a pleasure to be here. Blushing because we talked about you or because we talked about Palpatine returning. Well, that was like 10 minutes ago. So I like, I cooled off and then I feed it up again. But pleasure to be here.

Great to see you both. Oh man, Pat, thanks for coming. Now I've met it earlier, like you and I met because we had, there was, I used to work at a summer camp where I taught kids video. And one of my former campers, it turns out, was your intern. And I know her as Betty.

You had a completely different name for her that I guess she goes by now. Elsie. Elsie, Elsie, yeah. And then, yeah, she sent me, and I'm so glad, because I consider you a dear friend and somebody in the YouTube space who I can complain to about different things.

Yeah, I mean, we need, as much as we do have, what I hear is like the ultimate dream job of middle schoolers these days. Yeah, which those kids should really aim higher. Right. But I but but so despite that, there's still a lot of stuff to complain about with our jobs like like every job. And and yeah, I do like when we get together and, you know, unload our frustrations about the world of YouTube.

Wow, not just YouTube, but also, dare I use the word cinema these days, I think that movies, you've done a great job on your channel, right? So like over here, we rarely get to cover things like centers, you know, because we're like, we're doing the Marvel and the Star Wars and all that stuff. Whereas like, you know, you went to Bollywood, doing the Marvel and the Star Wars and all that stuff. Whereas like, you know, you went to Bollywood, went to no Bollywood was not a place you went to India to cover Bollywood. You went you were literally, you and created Bollywood and stood in the

middle of it. That is true Bollywood. It's now a neighborhood and it didn't used to be. Also, I'm gonna I want to be sorry. No, no, just just before anyone gets mad at me making, saying that sentence, I am joking. Bollywood is a name, is a nickname for an industry. It is not a real place. Well, I'm heartbroken.

It's funny though to look at your stuff now, right? And you're doing like high concepts, things like going to India. And I remember when you started out, right? Like I remember seeing your very early videos. So how did you, how did you start out doing this? Like what was your profession before? And then how did that lead into just going, Oh, I think I might want to talk about this on a video for a while. The okay, the super condensed version of this, because you know, it's a long story. I last month or no, at the start of the month, I logged into my

YouTube account and give me a little notification that said, Hey, congrats, happy birthday, your channel is 14 years old today. And then I proceeded to walk into traffic because I am, you know, I'm like on death's door anyway, but um, but basically, I started the channel in 2011. And I, and for a very and for a long time, the I was never looking to make the channel like profitable or make a career on YouTube. I was looking at YouTube the way people generally look at Vimeo,

which is this is just a portfolio. This is for me to make, to just do filmmaking work that hopefully will get some attention and then lead to work elsewhere, which is why when you look at the first six years of the channel, I there is absolutely no strategy. I was going about it really stupidly. The channel was named after me, but I was not in most of the videos. Were they like sizzle reels, things like that you had cut like, oh, no, no, no, they were all like, like narrative short

films and stuff like that. So like, like the like the the What If Wes Anderson directed X men, like which was Yeah, that was the, the thing I was best known for for a long time that came out in 2015. Like the channel was not I would see that at Alamo like that that gets played like all over the place. Yeah, when there's when there's an X men movie, it's part of the Alamo pre show. But I but like back when I made that. And even after I made that the channel didn't make money and

had a very, very small audience. So it was just stuff like that. Like I have a super brief like one line cameo in the X-Men video, but I'm not like in it. And so, so basically like an individual video might like go viral or do well, but then the channel would not the audience would not increase, no one would stick around. And I would take like a month to make every video. And you know, like, like I had hoped, occasionally, a video would do well, it would get attention, it would seemingly lead to opportunities where especially after the X men one where I'd be like, you know, meeting with like producers and production companies and

developing projects and stuff like that. And basically every single thing just inevitably fell apart. Nothing, nothing usually does statistically. Yeah, nothing. As it usually does, statistically. Yeah, I learned. I got really excited that I was like, oh, great. It's all happening. Done with YouTube now. And then everything fell apart.

And then I was back at YouTube. And I was like, I don't have any ideas that are as good as what if we're directed. Can I step in real quick? Because my favorite video, I think, of your short films like that was Werner Herzog's and yeah, that I think that was inspired, man. Like that video. I don't know who you got to do Herzog in it, but it was hilarious. That was my friend Scott, who was a Juilliard trained actor.

You know, we put that training to good use. That kid. See, here's the thing. If I was smart about this, I would have, I already had the idea for it, I would have had that come out like, two weeks after the Wes Anderson x men. Instead, I really made it like four months later. So there was like no momentum there. But then basically, what eventually happened is I decided to give YouTube one last shot and try to see if I could like, make it work. And I decided that instead of trying

to make like big ambitious, like potentially viral videos, I would just like aim for like a consistent schedule and just make a video that came out every Wednesday. And I was like, I'll give myself three months to see if I can make that work. And then three weeks in, I I released the my first video essay called Why do Marvel's movies look kind of ugly? That was your first? Yeah, that was the one of the biggest ones you've ever done. It's the biggest one I ever did. So really, I peeked at it's like my Citizen Kane, you know, I've never I've never topped the first one. My first video that I hosted was Spider Man two versus amazing

Spider Man two. And it's not the biggest I think the Ultron one like but as far as a video essay, it's by far the biggest one and was the first one. Right. Yeah, it's yeah, it is weird to look back and be like, Oh, wow, I've all these years later have not topped that I mean, I've made better videos, but like, well, no, I was about these years later have not topped that. I mean, I've made better videos, but like, Well, no, I was about to say, like, you you put that out what 2016?

Yeah, yeah, it was a the week after election. Yeah, it's peak Marvel. And you know, it's peak Marvel time. And it's it's a it's a hot take title, right? It's a and it's a concept that isn't it. It's smart, but it's not too heady that the casual consumer can't understand it. You know what I mean? And I know exactly. It's very user friendly. Yeah. Well, because at the time, I again, I like I've established I

was so bad at like YouTube strategy at the time, I thought no one would watch it. Because I was like, it's about color grading. Yeah, no one cares about that. Right. And then it did well. And then I learned more and was like, Oh, wait, I understand exactly why this did well. And it's like, it's the thing that I wish I could, I think we all wish we could do every time, but is really hard to do when I got lucky with that, which is the video, obviously, it had a, you

know, a kind of like had a, you know, a kind of like attention grabbing, you know, discussion starting, like hot take title, about a popular thing. But then it's the thing where it articulated a thing that people had sensed, but not put into words. And so it became like, the thing where people would like send it to their friends and be like, Oh, this is this thing that I was like trying to, to like explain, but I didn't know how to say it. And like, and for these, if you can, like,

hit that nail on the head of like, no one has quite talked about this, but people have like, been feeling it before, then that's perfect. And as I and as it's clear, I've never done it as well since. So basically what you're saying is you made Fetch happen. Yes. Well, you also did. Heather, you said that, not me, but I will take it. Well, you also did in that video that worked so well

is like one of the strengths of the MCU was that the color palette kind of looks, the movies look similar. And you were saying that was a weakness. But you, years later, I remember you did another video. And I remember it so well, because I love peanuts. And you did this thing where you were auto against a wall. And one of your friends came up like,

what's wrong, Patrick? And you're like, everybody likes these Marvel movies so much, but I don't. And you were like Charlie Brown not knowing how to celebrate Christmas. It was a great video where you have legitimate gripe with the MCU. And this is like 2018 2019.

I will tell you it was it was like two months before endgame came out. Yeah. So that was that was the the impetus for it. And yeah, it was a three parter, which I was like, I'm going to put all of my thoughts on the MCU into these three, and then never make a video about Marvel movies ever again. Yeah, that didn't work out quite so well for you, but you really don't go there that often, though. Wait, excuse me. No, I've never, I have not done a, like,

strictly Marvel video since then. I'll, like, I'll mention it. You've addressed it. You have addressed it. Oh, yeah. I'm not, like, I will never say the word Marvel, but I have not made a video like specifically focused on a Marvel thing in six years. That video is great too, cause at the end of it,

you talked about how one of the weaknesses of the MCU was, it's not like the comics, it's like the crossover events in the comics, but you wanted all the in-between stories. And then you said, yeah, I want to go, it makes me want to go read like Jason Aaron's run on Thor. And I was like, I got to go read that run. And I did, and it's amazing.

So like anytime, yeah, you're so great. Both of you have been so great about recommending comics to me over the years. Another video that I appreciate, I think people who watching this channel appreciate is how to analyze cinema, which was fantastic. That was one of my favorite ones. Patrick does this thing in it where you just,

as an example, you can make a video about Home Alone, but as an example, you analyzed Home Alone and you brought up the color in it and how blue is a color that typically means away from home and red and orange and yellow mean home. So it's kind of the opposite of Star Wars where blue means good and red means bad. And even just little details like that you're so great at making

us take things that are familiar and looking at them in different ways. What Why? What? Why'd you put that video together? That was a funny one. So I nebula the company that I'm heavily involved in, like like indie streaming platform that have, you know, I, they have produced and financed the recent movies I've made. And they started a thing a few years back called nebula classes that were kind of like for lack of a better term, like, kind of like masterclass, but taught by like, creators like about, you know,

like how to do different things. And, and I, you know, and they asked me to do one of the classes, and I was like, great, I'll do one on like film analysis, like, you know, basically just asked me to do one of the classes, and I was like, great, I'll do one on like film analysis, like, you know, basically just like put like a cinema studies degree into a video. And, and then I wrote the whole thing. And then suddenly, like, legal realized that, oh, this, this is not like a regular video, like this this using this footage will not be fair use if we like pay you to make this. And and this is like, and as much as I'm doing analysis in it, the purpose of

it is this is like a class first and foremost. And so they're like, we're not, we can't afford to license the footage from it. So I ended up making another class for them called how to make a movie. But and so I just took the script from the how to analyze movies and just made it and put it on my own channel. And so that's why it doesn't quite feel like one of my regular videos, because it was literally made for a separate thing. But yeah, I just and this is a thing.

It was actually I believe it was Devon from the channel Legal Eagle, who had suggested this to me several years ago. He was like, you should do a video where you like explain how to do like, just like like how how film theory works, and pick a movie that everybody has seen, but no one's ever like thought that seriously about and then like apply all of film theory to it. And I was like, Oh, maybe that maybe I should do that. And then took me like three years to do it. But that was basically it. And it's

like, I've seen Home Alone a trillion that. And then it took me like three years to do it. But that was basically it. And it's like, I've seen Home Alone a trillion times, I know it by heart. It's a movie that that is like not taken seriously, but is like deceptively well made. And so I thought that would be a fun example to be like, let's like, extract every bit of meaning we can from this like wacky family film and be like, Oh, actually, like, the color theory of the film is like so deliberate. And just every angle is so deliberate. And and there's so much meaning packed into like every frame. And it's been a funny one because like that video, it like, you know,

did average views when it came out, but then has just like steadily evergreen, it just keeps going. And it's like, I've gotten multiple emails and letters from like, high school teachers who have told me, Oh, I use that in my classes for just like teaching students how to discuss and analyze art and I use that in my classes for when I have a hangover, and I need the kids to stop watching. That's what I'm here for. So, you know, I know it's kind of like

the most trivial question of all time, where do you get your ideas? But you have such a swath of very intricate, you know, topics that you cover, right? You have, what is cozy cinema, right? Where you talk about the sweaters in film and then you have, is Speed Racer the most important film of the 21st century, which it is?

You know, all the way to the color grading and the deep dive into Bollywood. And you kind of bounce around all over the place from these very, very serious topics to things that might seem a little more surface level. And how do you pick and choose from from where you get these? Well, it's very helpful that I only do a video about like every three or four weeks. Unlike Ryan, who has to just crank them out so fast. I'm writing so much right now. And can either of you please give me an Ironheart script? I'll give you $50 right now. And can either of you please give me an iron heart script. I'll give you $50 right now.

truly until you mentioned it in the intro. I was like, I didn't know that show was coming out. Pretty good so far, man. They're pushing kugler because continually. But so as far as the ideas it will so I just with like everyone in my life, I just like talk about movies all the time and I think about movies all the time. And, and what kind of like determines for me, like, if I'm going to make a video is because

it usually like, I'll have it up, like an idea for a video, and then it will take me anywhere from four to 12 months to actually sometimes like multiple years to actually get around to making it. So I just kind of like, I could tell like marinates in like, in my brain for like a long time as like, and then maybe eventually, like, I kind of like crack some larger part of the take or some new thing comes together, I'm like, Okay, now I've got like a stronger thesis, like I'm ready

to make it now. But it's really just like, what for me, a video is worth making is if it's a subject or topic, that if I was not making videos, I would still like obsessively research and just monologue to my friends about like, here's the stuff I learned, or have you ever like looked at these movies and like, like what they actually kind of mean or represent in, you know know in like the history of cinema and like and and their impact on like are the way they reflect a larger cultural trend it's it's always just the stuff that I am obsessed with I look forward to your

video essay on the film I introduced you to Patrick a dinosaur story I mean oh we're back in your story by wasn't I Watch that and it was yes No, it's no, no, it's not but Ryan do you know who wrote the screenplay shit I do not Please enlighten me. Uh Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley. You're shitting me. Nope. Pulitzer Prize winner. John the

John Patrick. Yes. Oh, yeah, the John Patrick. Yes. Obviously, the writer of doubt wrote that movie. Oh my god. Wow, that reminds me one of my favorite showbiz metaphor stories about David Lynch directing that shampoo commercial. You guys ever heard that one? No. So David Lynch just once, like,

I read this when Wes Anderson directed that like milk or coke commercial. People were like, oh, what'd he sell out? And people were like saying, hey, one guy in this thread said, I worked crew on a shampoo commercial once and David Lynch directed it. It wasn't an obscure shampoo commercial. It was like for L'Oreal. He just

knew the money and that's okay. You can just apply your craft in technical ways and get away with it. That's the thing, like, especially unless you're making like, big mainstream movies, directing movies takes years of your life and doesn't pay very well. So like, right, almost every, like film director that you've heard of, unless they are so I mean, actually, even the ones that are so crazy, successful, you think they don't need to in between movies, they're just like directing

commercials, like I wait. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, no. This is Yeah, please. But I have I have a more important follow up because we lost right over this the guy who wrote doubt. Yeah, right.. No, no, no this is yeah, please but I have I have a more important follow-up because we lost right over This the guy who wrote doubt right that incredible play the movie starring Meryl Streep and everything also directed the movie Yeah. Yeah. Yeah is is we're back a dinosaur story good It's it's I have a great fondness for it Okay, so it's not a heavy gem. It's Can you fucking believe this guy wrote this movie, but it's also

Ryan, when did you last see we're back? I was in probably single digits. Okay, it is deranged. It is truly okay. I will say Steven Spielberg produced the both the greatest dinosaur film and the worst dinosaur film within the span of a year. And I will let you decide which is which. Wait, that movie came out in the early 90s? Okay, so I would have been 11 or 12. If I've seen it, I don't know. Maybe I've just seen the trailer. Because now for some reason the song from Oliver and Company stuck in my head. But it's not in that movie.

No, it's not that. But there is a song and it is sung. Is it, who's it? Is it John Goodman? It's John Goodman. Yeah. Well, John Goodman is the T-Rex. Yeah, it's John Goodman. There is a song.

Do you guys know my favorite childhood thing to revisit? This is like a fashion. I think I told this to Greg Alba on his podcast. Do you remember the Brave Little Toaster? Oh, I love the Brave Little Toaster. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing movie, right? So I just remember being just a terrifying movie. It was it's horrifying. Yeah. But you know, movies were back then. It was a Disney Channel movie. I didn't have the Disney Channel. So like a friend taped it on the VHS to whatever we

had it. But there's a part of that at the end where the Brave Little Toaster jumps in these gears to sacrifice his life for his friends. And if I'm ever like really, and I just need to cry, I don't like put on the news, I don't put on like Rudy, I put on the brave little toaster. Cause that little guy at the end, he just, he gives it all for his friends, you know?

It's true. Yeah, I'm, I have not watched that since I was maybe eight years old. You don't need to unless you need a really good cry. Maybe maybe you love john love it because john love it plays the radio in it. I mean, who among us does not? I least I enjoy john love it. Yeah, okay. So I gotta see we're back a dinosaur story I don't know what's

just right on YouTube I think it's shocking how many movies blowout is free on YouTube what yeah that was a good clip from blowout for our winter soldier breakdown was like actually if I seen blowout and so like I was looking forward streaming and lo and behold some some dude just put it up on YouTube damn I mean also Ryan if you needed a clip, I mean, I've got it ripped. I've got the Criterion Blu-ray.

I've got it in my big like hard drive stack of movie files. The thing is I didn't know the clip. So Winter Soldier, right? We're doing this breakdown edit. That isn't just like reading IMDB facts. In fact, we found mistakes on IMDB we point out to call out other people who do just read IMDB facts. So the Russo brothers, you know,

they referenced all these things that they were influenced by, like the shootout in heat, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things they talked about was blowout. And so I realized it wasn't necessarily the tone, like a scene in the movie, it was the tone. It was that John Travolta's character keeps trying to do the right thing

and just it's kind of inevitable that he ends up in this bad situation. And they wanted to create that feeling without the actual terrible ending. So it's a Captain America film. So that's more what it was. It was hard for me to like articulate what I was looking for. So I was kind of just going through and looking for scenes. I don't even think on a technical level, they replicated it like there's no split screens or anything like that in the film.

I wish that a Marvel movie looked like a Brian De Palma movie, but none of them do. No. Blowout is like one of my favorite movies ever. I love it so much. I need to watch it all the way through. I've never actually seen it. Yeah, I know. I like I think De Palma is like one of my guys. One of my projects in in lockdown five years ago was finishing watching every single movie. Yeah. And I think blow out my number one. Really?

No shit. All right. You know, we were talking, you haven't seen every Scorsese and this weekend, I'm gonna see you again because we're gonna go watch Alice Doesn't Live Here anymore with Marsha Lucas present. Yeah.

Which I'm pretty stoked about. I know. I'm not gonna ask any questions about Star Wars. Not a word I will want to. Well, well, well, you'll just ask about, you know, the stained glass window. Yeah, yeah. And then I'll bring up hair the prequels about your divorce. Because that's like my my fan theory that I put in videos before. But that might get awkward. Right? Yeah, no, that is yet. I that's what how many I'm trying to get outside of the documentaries. I

feel like there are maybe like four score says he's I haven't seen. And that's one of them. So hey, and across the list, apparently one of the good ones. I've never seen it either. And I'm looking forward to it. What are the good ones? Yeah, he's got a he's got a like a few that are all right. Well, I don't know how much the color of money holds up. I really, really love the color of money,

but it's not in his high canon, I don't think. Well, here's the thing. I think that movie rocks, and it is maybe mid-tier for him. Back, pow, you know? So back though, that's a good transition to this next thing, right? So you, one of my favorite videos you've ever done

was Who Killed Cinema? Because you talked about like all these different things, why people don't go to movies. It's a great video. I'm not gonna spoil it for people. Listeners, viewers, heads up, it's like 90 minutes long. That video is way too long. No, it's not.

Because look, I always tell everybody, they ask how long you want this to be, and I say, as long as it is good. Like, if you have more things to say and if the edit's compelling, you can always take things out. That is true. You had a video where you were like,

here's, I think it was five suspects. Everybody from David Zasloff to Marvel movies to Netflix on who killed Sinema, and I think it was important that you addressed them all the way that you did. But what I really loved about that video was you, and we don't get to do this very often with our stuff, you chose a concept, which is it's a murder mystery

we're figuring out a crime. And you always have like sidekicks and stuff like that. None of them as adorable as Doug, but it was a great concept for that. We all related to it and it kept people, maybe that's why I didn't even notice it was an hour and a half. We all related to it and it kept people, maybe that's why I didn't even notice it was an hour and a half.

Where did that particular high concept come from for that video? That is a really good question. That was a video that I've, you know, when I said that it usually like takes a while for me to actually get around to making it, that was one such example. I think that maybe took about two

years to finally make. But originally, it was a thing where a couple months before that video came out a video that I'd been promising to make for years. I released about my long standing beef with the word content. I remember that. I can't. Yeah, I cannot hear the word content. I hate it. I because of that. Yeah, same. So I've had a long standing beef with the word content to the point where we are just dropping in our merch store. Amazing. Content no perfect hats. Yep. So to plug the merch. But so I, but this is the thing that I like, I've been, I, you know,

if you go back through like my social media accounts, just like other videos, I would always mention I don't like the word contents to describe like creative work. And then I, and so I thought about it for years and years and years and finally committed to making a video, like articulating all these reasons why I don't like that word. And the way I'd originally been conceiving it was that the video we would talk about the, like the evolution of this word, especially like in this modern era. But then it would also get into why, especially like into the way that content is also now

it used to describe like, movies and TV and the way that the I think like the mindset, especially from like studio executives, in terms of like referring to the work they're producing as content is leading to like a devaluing of and degradation of cinema. And and then and then there are larger trends that are that kind of like connect to this, if I having an impact on just like this, this, this art form, you know, potentially being in a bad place. And then the more I worked on it, the more I realized, oh, these are two separate videos, I will, like,

it would just be like hours and hours long, if I were to try to make it all as one thing. So I was like, the content one will be its own one. But then it will kind of like, like thematically tee up. Yeah, the next one about like, what is up with the state industry, yeah, cinema. And what are all of these like problems are things that that that that might be responsible for it being in a bad place. And so that's how it got there. And then it was something where because what like and what we collected so

much research for the Who's Killing Cinema one, and I'm incredible, incredibly detailed video. Thank you. And I was working with with my team of, of Jacob Torpy and Michael Curran, who write on everything that I do. I've known them since high school. They've you know, whether it's like they you know, they wrote Night of the Coconut, they wrote the dinner plan that we're finishing up now.

They work on every video we do. And one of and we're trying to figure out like what's a good like, like, conceptual premise for, for this video about, like cinema being like potentially in decline, or, and we knew that we it was split into these chapters. And then one of them threw out what if we did it as like a murder mystery, where we went through a list of suspects, and then we could, you know, have like, kind of like a, like a conspiracy board with like strings and stuff like that up on the wall

and, and, and then structurally, it just made a lot of sense because like each suspect is like its own chapter. And it just like, like, I mean, like, I think that's the best video we've made. And that's just one of those instances where like, it just the the combination of like topic, and and then like, narrative premise, connected so perfectly that I'm like, I wish I could do that every time. And that's another one like that. The how to watch movies

video that you did that's just instructive. I mean, if I think about that all the time, it naturally comes up in conversation when we talk here on the channel, when we talk about like the state of Marvel and things like that, I always bring up points that you make in that video. I think it's very tied into the internet and everything that kind of drives the movie industry right now. Are there any like ideas that you've had percolating in your brain for videos for years that you're still like struggling, that you're like, I don't know if I'll ever come up with the way. Yes, I'm pulling up just in my notes app,

the list of potential video topics. And I'm trying to think. I hope the Venture Brothers is one of them. I've always wanted to see you cover that show. No one, nobody's covered that. Like, and I love that show so much. It's better than Rick and Morty. I would too. It is. It's really. Here's the thing I because the

venture brothers had as it went on its release schedule got so weird. There would just be like, oh, I know seasons. And so at some point, I was like, it's been too long. I can't remember what happened. I'm not going to watch the new season. I'm gonna go rewatch it all from the start. I never got around to doing it. So we just like haven't seen the last like two seasons. But like, oh my god, I'm so jealous. But when I was in college, I was I was so into it. So at some point, I

got to go back to that show. I remember that started in 2004. And you're right, the movie that ended it just came out. Yeah. that's an amazing show though. It's been it's been a long time but like so who knows if I rewatch it all maybe maybe I'll then make a video about it. In terms of the ones that I've had on the list for four years it's funny. A couple of them I'm actually planning on making in the near future. So I won't mention what those are. Oh, there was one that I was going to make last year that I even announced like

this is the next video. And because it's such a technically complicated one that so dependent on the location, and the location we had lined up, just fell through. Were you going to go to the tube in the fugitive where he jumps to make a movie about the fugitive? Because you'll do that. You went to like Kevin Smith's comic book shop or, you know, your Kevin Smith video and stuff. I know. Wait, here's the thing, Ryan. Okay. Did I get it right? No, no, I didn't. I wish I had. No, the Kevin Smith video, I shot it all at my parents' house.

Oh, you were going to go, but then the unfortunate thing happened. Right, okay, so wait, sorry, but we're off topic. What is the place that technically is- No, the technically complicated one is a video about long takes and oners. Oh, cool. You were gonna go to space and do gravity

is what you were gonna do, and that just didn't- Yes, exactly. Yeah, with the rest of OK Go. Right, cool. You were gonna go to space and do gravity is what you were gonna do. And that just didn't. Yes, exactly. Yeah, with the rest of OK GO. Right, right. On treadmills. The Wonders video, what's technical? Are you gonna actually try to do it in a Wonder? Yeah.

That'd be cool. Cool, that's really hard. Yes, trust me. I spent a lot of time thinking about like, okay, can we mount the teleprompter on to on to a gimbal? And how heavy? Wow, yeah, for the camera operator? Or do I memorize the script? Actors do it, you're gonna want to use the teleprompter. Yes, I would say you have a teleprompter. But then you have

a second person, you know, you just have people care, you know, carrying it, you have a second person, you know, you just have people carrying it. You have a second person there or something. Yeah, yeah. You have extra help. One of my favorite Wanners, we just in our centers video, we pointed out like, hey, when Coogler does a Wanner, it's for a reason. It's to show you the white side of the street

and the black side of the street. One of my favorite Wanners ever was in that show, Children's Hospital. Did you guys ever see that? The adult swim show? Yeah, yeah, they did an episode that was like, we're doing this show live, right? Like they did a live show.

And so to prove that it was live, I believe it was all in a oner. And they shot it in the same hospital where they shot scrubs. And there were all of these technical things that went incredibly wrong in the live show. Like the elevator hasn't worked since they shot scrubs here.

Take the stairs. And they're trying to like get to the next scene where the people are upstairs and they've said everything. Oh, it's wrong with their live stats keep going i believe it was shot in a wonder that's one of my like for comedy you don't normally think of a wonder uses a comedic tool but it worked great in that and if i'm wrong i'm wrong and it's still a great episode of children's hospital i mean here's the thing maybe maybe it's for the best

that we had to delay that video a year or more and uh because now i can watch that episode and incorporate it in. And if it's not a one right, you'll still enjoy yourself. Even in terms of comedy, like the studio is done like all in like really long takes or oneers. And I think that works really well for comedy in that show. And so as I was watching it, I was like, oh, whenever I finally make this video,

I'll obviously have to incorporate this. Well, and there's a whole episode that is about how hard it is to pull off and that is the comedic premise of the episode. Exactly. That like he keeps screwing everything up for them. Good episode. Before we get into Hear Me Out,

so I wanna hear what Heather's controversial take is and Pat, if you have one, that's always fun too. As far as Wonders Go, where do you land on the bonfire of the vanities opening? I know you're a Poma guy. So I was the Poma. I'm a big Poma guy. I think that is a bad movie. Yeah, it's I did make a video about it. One of your best videos. Yeah, I agree. What the cost $80,000. Yeah, it's I

mean, the movie just like, I have either of you guys read the devil's candy. The book about. I Ryan, are you familiar with it? The continue on? Okay, I'll follow along. It's the book by Julie Salomon, where she was like, I didn't even know the name of the writer of doubt. But anyways, go ahead. I were De Palma gave her full access to the production of the Bond Friday the Vanities even like pre production and casting and she was embedded in the whole thing and just documented the entire process and it just so happened that that movie

turned out to be a disaster. And it is like the greatest making of movie book ever. It's it is read that it is sounds fascinating read it is it is like a fiasco what happened on that set? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I got to read that. The I mean, the wonder that opens that movie is incredible. It is I was just curious if you thought that it actually served a good narrative purpose or if it's showing off.

Um, I think it's doing both. I like especially a problem that I have with wonders now is because camera digital cameras are so much lighter and easier to maneuver. And then also with visual effects technology, you can like stitch a bunch of things together and like, they're wonders are just way easier to do than they used to be. So there used to be a lot fewer of them. And I like the way that the pma would often deploy it, which would be sometimes for, you know, suspense, like in, like, the untouchables. I are in

Bonfire of the Vanities. It's like, this like big, like ostentatious kind of like, I like, like, like, like the curtain going up at the beginning of a production. It's like, it's like sweeping you in with this big showy thing. And it's I like, just like following this guy, like, like through all these tunnels and elevators and everything. And it and the whole movie, it's meant to be about this, like, really

ostentatious, like, like, you know, like ultra rich world. And so especially like that, that one, like, you know, he's just like, drunkenly grabbing handfuls of salmon and stuff, and it ends in the winter garden in lower Manhattan. And that's the kind of thing where I think the over the topness of it works. I mean, I think that's the best part of the movie, the first like eight minutes. And, and I just I like the idea, I think that's the best part of the movie, the first like eight minutes. And I just, I like the idea. I like opening a movie with like this big, like attention grabbing flourish.

And I think that is one of the few things about that movie that works. So you guys heard it here first, Patrick H. Willems thinks the bonfire of the vanities works, which takes us into Hear Me Out, where we get to say our fun little, I don't know, controversial, just things that we're thinking are on our minds.

I got one, Heather, I know you got one. We don't know what each other are gonna say yet, but you wanna, Heather, what's yours? So I picked mine specifically because Patrick's here. I know Patrick is a fan of the Fast and Furious movies. here. I know Patrick is a fan of the Fast and Furious movies. So my Hear Me Out is I am a firm believer of the coma theory of the Fast and Furious films that everything that happens after the first film is because Dom is in a coma. And everything in two, three, all the way to X is a product of his subconscious explaining the Outlander stunts, the meta levels, the plot lines that make

no sense, Letty's return with amnesia, the wish fulfillment that he's nearly indestructible. I just he's in a coma. That's just yeah. Pat, you got a thought on that? I love it. I to me that franchise has gotten so over the top meta when it realized what it was that it stopped being as interesting for me. But Pat, what are your thoughts on it? I have a lot of thoughts on this. So Heather, this is when he gets in that accident at the end of the first movie. Yes.

Okay, so what what would make more sense to me. And also this kind of connects with my my feelings about the late like later in psalmist of the franchise in general. Because so franchise in general. Because so I like f9. Fast X just lost me fair. And I think and I think it's I think eight is one of the worst as well. Yeah, but like, stay them fighting on the plane with a baby. Yeah. And that but also that is a fun scene. But also, at the

time, Han was dead. And the guy who killed Han was just welcomed into the family without anyone saying Han's name. And I'm like, that is unacceptable. But I but basically, that's for Han as justice for Han. As much as I do like nine, especially after fast x, I think the series should have ended with seven seven is such a perfect, beautiful ending. And and it and it is largely directionless after that. At the end of seven, Dom basically dies and then is revived. If you say that the movies after seven are a

coma dream, that makes way more sense to me. Because I also have a hard time then then being like, so he just dreamt all of Tokyo Drift, which he's not involved in. Well, but no, he is involved at the end. He also dreamed What is it to where Brian? What where he's not there at all? Yeah, I think that makes sense though, because I have dreams

that I'm not always the main character in every single scene. I think it makes more sense if he has the coma after one, because let's face it, there's a big difference between this point break film where they're stealing DVD players and like Nando V-movies have one of my favorite tweets of all time.

It was like, oh yeah, Dom, when he's unloading DVD players and Fast One. Hey, did I ever tell you that my brother's a CIA operative and we used to do missions together? And like, it just gets to a point, for that franchise, whatever Roman goes like, this is messed up, how are we still alive?

And like, he started to call everything out. I was like, ow, you're like that kid we made fun of who realized we were making fun of you and now you're in on a joke and it's not fun anymore. I was like, oh, you're like that kid we made fun of who realized we were making fun of you and now you're in on a joke and it's not fun anymore. I was that kid, personally. I will say this is a very interesting theory and I will think about it a lot, especially because at the rate they're going,

we just might never get Fast X part two. I don't think we are. Is it called Fast X part two? Why do people keep doing parts one and two? I guess Harry Potter really really set everybody up for something there. Well, I mean, look, what was it was Mission Impossible dead reckoning part one and then it was Mission Impossible the final reckoning. So yeah, but now we're never gonna get part

two. We're never gonna know what happened. But the thing is, what most of these movies do is they make if they split into two parts, they like make them together or like back to back or fast x ends on of all the part one movies ends on the biggest cliffhanger. There's a giant explosion. It's like, is everyone dead? They had not even written part two yet. Dead, they had not even written part two yet. Like that and and the rate it's going now it's like, I like it seems like there's there have been no updates on it. No, I really have

no idea. Imagine it ends there. Yeah, I think that's it guys. That's it. Norma. But movies normally take two to three years to make no update. We haven't gotten in me things. So like, But normally, but movies normally take two to three years to make, but no updates isn't good. It's not like in production, we haven't gotten anything. So like, even if it was like, we're in pre-production now, like, let's say they fast track it and film it, you know,

over the next six months and then editing, like we're still not getting it till like 2027. And there was pretty much always a like two year break between movies in that series. And now if they get this made, it'll probably be at least a four year break. Okay, so here's mine, right? It's completely unrelated. There's no way to seamlessly transition this. The other day, Jason Sudeikis was on a podcast, he talked about Ted Lasso season

four, and he said that it's going to be a woman's soccer team. That's the big reason they're doing part four. Richmond, AMC has succeeded and they're off to that. I think it's a terrible idea because I don't, it's not nothing misogynistic. That sounds like a lead into a different podcast. Wow, Ryan. But it is, but it is a bad idea for that reason.

I mean, secondary to that though. No, because he's already done a soccer team. I wanna see a Ted Lasso season where he's in a completely different environment that is rife with toxic masculinity or whatever other problem. I wanna see him in like a really dysfunctional post office or a police or a team.