The Weekly Planet - From Hell - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

There is a long history of Alan Moore movie adaptation that he absolutely hates. So we're going back to revisit all those we haven't visited yet, starting with From Hell from 2001. Starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham and Ian Holm it tells a fictionalized tale of notorious serial killer Jack The Ripper. And it's pretty boring. That's our hot take. Thanks for listening to our Caravan Of Garbage review!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/EsfXnP41f4EHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-moviesThe Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Caravan of Garbage, where it's a very special time here at Caravan of Garbage, Mason. Do you know why? I'll tell you why, Mason. It's for people living alike. Oh, yeah, terrific. Love it. But also, I want to do what I think we should call an Alan Moore-a-thon.

Oh, sure, yeah. Where we go through every Alan Moore movie adaptation that we haven't already looked at. We've already done a couple. We did Watchmen. We did Constantine or Constantine. So I want to do every other thing. And I think what's interesting about every one of his adaptations

is that he hates them. And every episode of this I want to come back at the end and tell everybody specifically why he hates each particular one. Do people know who Alan Moore is? Let's do it. Oh, the listeners aren't, the viewers aren't telling us. Okay, I guess we'll have to do it. Well, he is a legendary comic book writer.

He's written other things, of course, but he is probably best known for, I would say, maybe reinvigorating the comic book industry and getting not a lot of credit or remuneration for it. Yeah. He, of course, wrote The Original Watchman with artist Dave Gibbons, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Oh, yeah, we'll be coming back to all of those. And if you're hearing any of these and going, ugh, well, that's because you've just seen the movie. You're right. You're right. You're absolutely right. They're not all bad, though, I feel. Even if he hates them, there is some definitely good stuff in there. Yeah, he wrote, of course, the Batman story, The Killing Joke,

which perhaps inadvertently sent the comic book industry down a fairly dark path, I think. I would say legendary comic book creator and by all accounts a very nice man. Just loved comics so much, created some incredible stories in that medium, got burned a bunch of times, both in terms of contracts

and being remunerated for his time and his creative efforts. And he's rich enough where he will just tell anybody anything. Sure. The truth, specifically. Yeah, which I've always enjoyed. Also might live in a cave. Maybe he's magic. Who knows?

So this is interesting. This is from a recent-ish MTV interview where he was asked about what is the state of the comics medium today. And he said the comics medium is brainless. And then he was asked, and what of the current crop of comic creators? And he said a generation of fan artists and writers who were brought into a kind of scab labor because they would have paid to write Batman. So there you go. All right then. Now the earliest adaptation of his work is obviously in the title of this,

but it's a movie called From Hell starring one John Depp from the year 2001. And going back to this, I had seen it before, it feels a bit like a kind of a Jack the Ripper, Stephen Moffat-esque adaptation, except it's pretty boring. Oh my God, it's so dreary. Well, it's interesting because the original comic book... I've been reading it, yeah. It's from 1989, or began in 1989, I should say. Yeah, and spanned, I would say, almost a decade.

Written by Moore and illustrated by Eddie Campbell. And it sort of ties together a lot of different theories about Jack the Ripper from that era. There's a lot of historical context. It's very accurate in terms of dialogue even. Yeah, and extraordinarily detailed and quite grubby. You're going to see some genitals. Yeah, you absolutely are.

Not that genitals have to be grubby. Let's not shame genitals yeah you absolutely are but uh not the genitals have to be grubby let's not but these ones are these ones definitely are definitely and someone clearly was like let's get this epic and let's compact it down to two hours and see how well that goes and strip a lot of the good stuff out of it i think one of the things and leave just a bunch of anonymous white dudes with like mustaches and odd haircuts and be like, can you tell the difference between all these guys? I can't really. No, not really. They're just circling a pentagram or whatever's going on.

What I will say about this, though, a lot of great character actors in this, many of which are not with us anymore. So the late, great Ian Holm, people know from The Lord of the Rings. Robbie Coltrane. Choo-choo. Unfortunately, the Robbie Coltrane has stopped. That's exactly right he's quite recently

passed away at time of recording and of course Johnny Depp who on the set of The Lone Ranger he got many of his necklaces and scarves

caught in a horse's bridle and he was dragged to his death what? yeah it's true I didn't know that no that's actually true and so like

we'll never know what Johnny Depp would be like in the present day but incredible Mason so he plays a character well he's actually a real guy called frederick abilene who was on the jack the ripper cases because that's what this is about sure jack the ripper is running amok he'd be murdering women and one of the things that this who could it be who in the

cast could it be given that he sounds exactly like a and home and there's been no attempt to disguise his voice at any at any point did you notice the bit where they soft focused his hand so you couldn't tell it's like an old man hand I remember the trailer for this and I'm gonna see if I can find it but I had a quick poke around and I couldn't I'm pretty sure you see Ian Holm in the Jack the Ripper outfit in the trailer yeah yeah when this came out he's wearing a t-shirt that says I'm Jack the Ripper and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. He also has a big bag of medical stuff that he's showing off

and he seems to know a lot about removing organs and murders and pentagrams and secret societies. Oh, perhaps Jack the Ripper had one of these amputation kits. Anyway, we hope we're not spoiling it for you. We are. But also, the difference between this and the comic is... James, it's an old movie. It came out in 2001.

It's so old. The comic also, it's not a mystery, the comic. And I think maybe they missed a trick here and just kind of don't make it a mystery. Yeah. But like Johnny Depp doesn't know who it is. R.I.P. R.I.P. But, you know, the rest of us do.

You know what? I think this would have suited this really well. And it would have been ahead of its time, I guess. But a Sin City style adaptation. Okay. Like using the art style of the comic. Using the art style of the comic book, yeah. You wanted to see some grubby genitals.

Yes, I wanted to see some grubby genitals. What I thought was also fascinating. And there's no way to do that on the internet. No, there's not. What I thought was fascinating about, I think, the comic book in relation to this is in this, the character of Frederick Abberline, he has magic powers where he'll take a bunch of old-timey drugs. And boy, we're getting a lot of that.

Sure, yeah, yeah. He's drinking poison and absinthe. Absinthe's not an old-timey drug. I can go to Fitzroy and get it at any bar. I'm sure it's a different absinthe, Mason, to then and now. You know, he's smoking a bunch of bloody... Reefer. Reefer, yeah.

He's doing the big reefers and all of that. But these give him magic murder-seeing future powers.. Reefer, yeah. He's doing the big reefers and all of that. But these give him magic murder-seeing future powers. Sure, yeah, yeah. And in the comic, they introduce a character very early on who claims to have had

a bunch of insight into the Jack the Ripper murders. But he's just a liar. He just lied. Yeah. He did it once as a kid and it caught on and he's like,

well, I guess I'm a liar now. Yeah, and he just kind of ran with it into very old age. And I guess to this movie's credit, I guess, one of the things

it does do well, it does a pretty good job of replicating the era and it also even replicates the murders like pretty much perfectly. They even actually, I think used,

and we can't show any of this, like actual pictures of the murders in the movie, which is pretty grim. Oh yeah. And all the crime scenes and everything that's carved into everybody,

they went out of their way to be like, let's give these murders their due yeah and also what another thing they attempted to cram in was it like and they were like we got two hours and we've got to solve this murder mystery where ian holm did it let's cram in a a romantic subplot as well yeah no good between between uh depp's character and and mary kelly played by heather. Doesn't work at all. Doesn't work at all, yeah. I think their performances are pretty good. Yeah, I don't disagree with that.

I also think it does a pretty good job of just depicting how terrible this. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring

Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for?

Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Era was, too. And I guess, I don't know whether it's exploitative or it's just, I guess, accurate of how terribly, like, these women were treated, because the women, if you don't know, were being murdered were sex workers. What's also interesting about this era is the difference between a Jack the Ripper murder and actual medicine in this era,

they're not that different, are they, really, are they? A lot of the time you could probably get away with it by being like, yeah, I was doing a, yeah, they said they had a sprained knee. Yeah, so I hit him in the head with a hammer. And he stopped. Yeah. It's Olympic.

Cured. Cured, yeah. There are too many characters in this movie. Too many, like, indistinguishable yes british sergeants and nobody has anything to do yep and uh i don't know how they could have fixed that yeah but uh like jason fleming is in this and he's in it for a scene and then he's gone for most of the movie then he's back for another scene who's jason fleming in this he's um ian holmes uh sort of cabby oh yeah uh see you've already forgotten you watch this. He's in it a bit,

but he's also... We're going to be covering this. He's also in Alex G. Sure is, yeah. So this was his bread and butter for a time, I guess. But no, you're right. Doing performances in movies

Alan Moore was guaranteed not to like. That's great. I think the most realistic thing about this fictional tale is at the end, everybody realises or already knows that Ian Holm was doing all the murders. And obviously, famously, we don't really know who Jack the Ripper was because it was in an era where people just went,

we didn't see it, so we don't know. They would say CCTV hasn't been invented yet. That's what they would say. And there's a moment where the Queen finds out that what he's been doing. And the reason he's been doing the murders is because the prince in this, he's had, I've been having an, a secret liaison and affair,

and he's married one of the women and had a secret love child. And so they want to cover up all of that. So that's why the murders are happening. And the queen's like, I didn't know he was going to do graphic, horrible murders, but at the same time, he did me a solid.

So can you just quietly just get rid of that? And I feel like that's very on brand for a queen to just go hey terrible thing in my family thanks and also don't even say anything to nobody now obviously you're referring to you know all those all those gaudy outfits megan markle wears that's exactly what i'm exactly right that's the worst thing it's the biggest scandal that's ever come to the royal family. Disgusting. I feel like this could have been like a very interesting miniseries as well, you know? Sure, yeah. And again, different era. But this is pre-prestige TV, really.

Yeah, but I also think I've seen British crime dramas, you know, before and of this era from your BBCs or whatever. And I think Michael... Cracker. Cracker, for example. Featuring the late Robbie Coltrane. Yeah, but I think even Michael Caine did like a Jack the Ripper series ors or whatever. And I think Michael... Cracker. Cracker, for example. Featuring the late Robbie Coltrane. Yeah, but I think even Michael Caine did it like a Jack the Ripper series or movie or something. Sure, yeah.

And I think there's stuff of this era which is lower budget with less famous people in it which is just better. And I think this should be like that also. And yet it is not. It's no wonder it never got a sequel, Mason. So true. Anyway, it's time for Green Trivia slash guy shouting rodney oh yes a triumphant return uh uh supercut first

yeah there it is wow here we go so mason uh in real life commissioner of police charles warren never arrived at the site of the fifth murder because he'd resigned shortly before now strangely before his resignation, he ordered that no police officer was to enter a crime scene until he arrived. Suspicious, maybe, who knows? Very suspicious, I know. Even though all of the previous victims

had been killed on the street, so no officer or investigator entered the building of the final murder for three hours because they were unaware of his resignation. Wow. And that's just some cracking police work right there, mate. Just people standing around being like, is he coming?

But that is a way. Should we call him? If you're going to go, that's a way to go. Can we call him? Do we have that? Do we have the technology? Do we have mobile phone technology? Should we send a horse or a bird or something?

Yeah. Now, the Hughes brothers who directed this, they originally wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to play the lead role. Okay, sure. There's some elevation Mason. You know what he's about, isn't he? When that fell through, they then interviewed Sean Connery, Jude Law and Brad Pitt before settling on one John Depp Mason. Now, something interesting about harvesting organs, etc.

Blue Harp is the joke that I do. Oh, yes. I just didn't. Am I going to keep doing this? Is this the last one? I don't know. Might be the last one. Yeah.

Wow. End of an era. Or I'll just bring it back for no reason. Oh, sure, yeah. Let's put a pin in it for now. Let the comments run wild, and then maybe bring it back later. Absolutely. Now this is also, and you're going to love this, Mason, this is the theatrical movie debut

of one Dominic Cooper as Constable Number Three. That's incredible. You probably remember. I don't remember that. Yeah, that's good stuff. And like I said, they're all interchangeable. Now here's the thing. This is really the reason why we're doing any of this. Oh, Alan Moore's reaction to this movie.

What does Alan Moore think of this? Now again, it's very different from the comic, but I even think even if it's an exact kind of replication or as close to as you can do of his comic books, he doesn't like that either because it's a different medium and my work exists in its own format and not everything has to be adapted for something else, etc. But anyway, he said Fred Abberline was based on real life.

He was an unassuming man in middle age who was not a heavy drinker and who, as far as I know, remained faithful to his wife throughout his entire life. He also lived into his 80s, like he didn't die early. Johnny Depp saw fit to play this character as an absent, swilling, opium-den-frequenting dandy with a haircut that, in the Metropolitan Police Force in 1888, would have gotten him beaten up by the other officers.

I did think about the haircut throughout most of this movie. I'm like, he's not getting any respect for that. No. You may as well be a wild man who grew up in the jungle. Are you kidding me? Ridiculous. What are you, Tarzan in this era? Come on.

Absolutely. Now, the box office of this, not a huge hit. Made for $35 million, made $74.6 million. The rough rule is, we've talked about this before, you need to pretty much double your budget to make any kind of money back so it i guess it didn't lose money probably but yeah not not a huge hit for the time but uh do you want another adaptation well i know alan moore does but do you do another crack at this i don't think so no no not even like a more realistic and whatever whatever oh and alan more realistic sure it's good uh well mason's Well, Mason, it's funny you say that.

It's funny you have thoughts on this because in 2015 it was reported that FX were developing a... Wait a second, you didn't want my opinion at all. No, I just wanted to say this thing that I found. Son of a bitch. FX was developing a From Hell drama series with Don Murphy who produced the 2001 film as executive producer.

So David Arada was announced as the writer of the adaptation, but... Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. You do a thing in Hollywood and you've got your claws in it forever. this is mine this is mine now yeah fair enough bad at the time i would do that i promise i'll make it better this time i don't even know if it's bad is it bad i think it's lacking mystery it's lacking it's kind of meanders a bit yes it does yeah yeah it's mostly it was i Holm. You always know what it is. It's mostly about how bad conditions were in that era. Yes. And I think I'd rather see just a story about that

as opposed to throwing in the Jack the Ripper stuff as well. Yeah. Anyways, if you know who Jack the Ripper is, leave them in the comments below, please. Oh, you think we can crack this case? Yeah, maybe. Every now and then it's like, we found Jack the Ripper's DNA and we think it's this guy.

Fuck you. No, you don't know anything. Shut up, all right? They should shut up. Unless there's a it's like, we found Jack the Ripper's DNA and we think it's this guy. Fuck you. No, you don't know anything. Shut up. All right? They should shut up. Unless there's a picture or CCTV, Mason. That's right. We're probably never going to know.

It was probably just like some absolute lunatic and there was no DNA evidence. So he got away with it despite the fact that he was probably just walking around with the blood on his hands. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because that was what you did at the time.

No, this is actually blood from a minority that you don't like. So it's fine. Oh, it's fine, is it? Well, there's a lot of that in this actually, isn't there? There is. Boy, is there? Yeah. Anyways, this is Caravan of Garbage.

Yes, we do this every week. We're going to be back. Here's a hint. I already said it. It's Alex G. But here it is. Here's a clip of it or whatever. Oh, we're doing Alex G again, are we?

Yeah. Because we did for people who don't know. If you go over to bigsandwich.co, we have all sorts of bonus podcasts and movie commentaries. I'm pretty confident one of those is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You are absolutely right. But now we have to watch it again to talk about it again. Oh, but I hate it so much. It's a bad movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Any of these, if you have seen any of these, please, please read the original source material. It's way better. Yeah, it always is. Even the good stuff, the original stuff is way better. But I'm not sure this is the worst adaptation we're going to look at. Oh, it's LXG.

No, I wouldn't even say so. Oh, no, is there worse stuff? We'll see. Oh, God. Anyways, if you don't want to see any of that early, including that LXG commentary, if you head over to BigSandwich.co, there's bonus podcasts, as mentioned, movie commentaries,

the videos, these videos actually, and a bunch of others always go up there early when Ben and Lawrence get the edit done. Or you can check out our podcast, The Weekly Planet, where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. It's on all platforms. It's got its own YouTube and it's on Spotify and you can find it. Hell yeah. Just type it in.

And there's a Shorts channel. There's a Shorts channel. There's a TikTok. There's a TikTok. There's too many social medias. Right? We're thinking about getting rid of all. No, we're not.

They're all. We're thinking about getting on more, even the ones we don't understand. We're going to get on Be Real. That's right. That's right. We're going to get on Parler. These are all good things. That's right.

We're going to get on that conservative dating app. All the ones that are just Nazis now. Yeah, we're just going to catfish a bunch of Nazis into watching this. All right. Thanks, everyone. Grabbed our Gemu guys and RIP Johnny Depp. Yeah. We are just Nazis now. Yeah, we're just going to catfish a bunch of Nazis to watching this. All right, thanks, everyone. Grabbed our Jemu guys and RIP Johnny Depp. Yeah. We'll just never know.

We'll never know what Johnny Depp in 2022... What does he look like? Right? Dunno. Probably aged like a fine wine. No doubt, Mason. Not like a withered like a grape, you know? I don't think so. Fine wine, not an old grape.

A grape. Not an old raisin. A grape, a grape. You know? All right, thanks, everyone. Just a raisin covered in pirate regalia. Hypothetically. Hypothetically, you know?

Yeah. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret.

The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.