The Weekly Planet - Kick-Ass - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

In 2010 we got the second live action Mark Millar comic adaptation in Kick-Ass. Set in the "real world" where superheros only exist in fiction it follows Dave Lizewski as the first person to done a costume and fight crime. The result was something brutal, bloody and funny and a film that was fairly unique for the time enough that it became a moderate success. Thanks for checking out our Caravan Of Garbage reviewSUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNHelp 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-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/9qubm5z66pcHelp 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-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The 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.

From your ghost lent the most the Academy Award nominated director of poor things and the favorite comes kinds of kindness a darkly hilarious and unpredictable film that critics are calling mind bending Lee brilliant featuring an all star cast led by Emma Stone Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe kinds of kindness is a wild ride that will leave audiences discussing the experience long after it's over. Don't miss kinds of kindness in select theaters June 28. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. In the early 1980s, gay men started to get sick from AIDS. Years before ACT UP, before HIV was discovered, before the history you know, there were people on the front lines of the fight against AIDS. Joe Sonnobin. Michael Cowan.

Bobby Campbell. I'm Dane Stewart, and in the new season of my podcast, Resurrection, I tell the stories of heroes of the early AIDS movement. Like the story of a cabaret singer and a sex worker who invented safe sex and saved millions and millions and millions of lives. Go check out Resurrection wherever you listen to podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Welcome back everybody to another episode of Caravan of Garbage where we're kicking

off a new series. Oh kicking! Very good. That I said that. Well, accidentally. It's still very good. I think you say kicking off every time also. Yeah, but this time I really mean it. Oh!

Because we're looking at the two kick-ass movies aren't we? He nearly said it again. Shut up! He nearly said it again. Hey shut up alright? Yeah, that's right and just so you know we call them kick ass in Australia. That's right. And that's how we're going to refer to them.

Yeah. Unless we switch midway through. Which we might. Switch back. Yeah, please leave a like for whatever way we be doing it. That's right. So this is from the twisted minds of Mark Miller and John Romita Jr. and the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughan. But I want to make it clear. There's too many twisted minds.

No see the thing is I want to make it clear that everything they've done here is normal to me because my mind is more twisted than theirs. Wow. Yeah, that's right. How do you even function day to day? How do you hold a regular conversation? I'm just bored all the time. Just so bored. Because you're thinking about, I don't know, bats and ghouls?

Yeah, ghouls, goop. You know? Rotting eggs. Running with scissors. Oh wow. You can't even comprehend it. You're a maniac. You're eggs. Running with scissors. Oh wow. You can't even comprehend it. You're a maniac.

You're already recalling with fear. Yeah. But I'm not. Terrified. To me that's all normal. No it's normal isn't it for you? Yeah yeah yeah. A dead bird.

Oh no. Hehehehehehe. Normal. Well speaking of normal, this was in an era of what if superheroes were real? And we had a bit of that prior with like mystery men I guess, which was more like the corporatization of superheroes and obviously we've got that with the boys now, it's more common. But this is like what if superheroes were not real but then they become real but they're just people? Yes.

Yeah. They'd have a bad time. Everyone would have a bad time. Yeah, absolutely. Everyone's making a terrible mistake here. There's a lot of homages to various superhero characters and even real life people. That guy you see at the start in the bird costume who jumps off the building and dies. I think that's a homage to that French guy who tried to fly off the Eiffel Tower and died immediately. Just plummeted like a rock.

I laugh but that's sad. He had some issues, clearly. Yeah, we can't show all of that footage but it just looked like a man wrapped in paper bags. But we can show footage from Melbourne's own Birdman Rally. Oh my god. Where a bunch of men attempt to, and it's always men, and they attempt to build assorted flying machines to fly across the Yarra River and nobody makes it more than about a foot.

No. It's assorted just peddling off a pier machines. Absolutely. Various letting gravity take its natural course machines. So, a bit of background on this movie. It's the second live action adaptation of Mark Millar's work, the first being Wanted, which is very different than the song's material.

Oh yeah, that's right. And that's very loosely based, isn't it? I attribute a lot of Mark Millar's success in Hollywood. He gets a lot of stuff green lit. Yeah. You know, I think he's got some great premises and ideas, but also I suspect they say, hey, we're going to change a bunch of stuff. And he's like, yeah, that's fine.

Pretty much. I saw a bunch of interviews and he's just like, the original comic still exists and you give me a lot of money to, you know. That's right. Come up with more premises to be turned into movies. Which I'll do. So Mark Millar met Matthew Vaughan at the premiere of Stardust and he pitched the idea because Matthew Vaughan wanted to do American Jesus which later got adapted into a Netflix series.

So at that point he'd only done three scripts for the comic, none of the art at that point. And Matthew Vaughan was like, you know what, yep, I'm going to pivot to this. So what they started doing was developing them in tandem. I see, yeah. So the movie came out before the comic finished like the first run. Interesting. And they do deviate if you've ever read it. They do. We'll probably talk about that later but yeah there are some differences. I think one of the differences is this is certainly, I wouldn't call it family friendly but it is certainly

uh, it's less mean I think. It's less mean than Super. Yeah it is, that's true. Which is a movie I enjoy but it's very grim. It's less mean, it. Yeah it is, that's true. Which is a movie I enjoy, but it's very grim. It's less mean, it does, this movie obviously came out in 2010. It does have some edginess that perhaps hasn't aged as well as it could have. It's got a bunch of 2010 stuff that hasn't aged well. MySpace, Paris Hilton references, flip phone selfies. They don't have selfie cameras on their phones, can you even imagine it it? Craig Ferguson can you even imagine it? I can't imagine that he's delightful. Yeah. The three amigos Dave and his two friends yeah they

hang out in a... Two Quicksilvers! Mason Two Quicksilvers! Marvel Cinematic Universe, Fox X-Men Universe and also WandaVision Two Quicksilvers. And there's another guy. Yeah yeah yeah Clark Gregg or Clark, whatever his name is. But that's not his name. Neither of those things are his name. His name is, his name is... He's from Hot Tub Time Machine. Yes. And later seasons of The Office. Ah, I've clicked too far James. His name is... Duke? Clark Duke. It's Clark Duke. You are so close. Yeah. There he is. God, good stuff. Anyway, they hang out at a little Comic book store slash cafe. Yep called atomic comics and it's proudly emblazoned with its with its website

WWW atomic comics com still exists right parked by a comic book company promoting adult comics I don't think in that sense but just like mature not in that sense But like just like comics for grown-ups and it's promising a bunch of titles coming soon and their last Instagram post was in 2020. Okay great. So looking forward to that. Can't wait. Yeah. What happened in 2020? I wonder why they stopped. It's not important. I'm sure they're just they're just stockpiling comics. They're probably stockpiling titles yeah. They're probably hand-drawing each one. Each one is its own little work of art. But anyway these three amigos, they're all,

they're rapping, James. They're rapping about superheroes and what they'd be like in real life. And Dave, played by Aaron Johnson. Quick super. Yes, he's like, I'm gonna give it a whirl. And you know what? I think at this point, Aaron Johnson,

pre-Aaron Taylor Johnson, he's got that lanky vibe. Oh yeah, yeah. Like that spindly look that Kick-Ass does have in the comics. I think that worked really well. Absolutely. A geek. A nerd. A nobody. Hideous. Yeah. Gross. Yuck.

Do you know this was also rejected by every studio that they approached. They were like, get rid of the girl. The little girl who's a murderer and murders everybody. Yeah. But that's the, that's Big Daddy. Look, look, I like the premise. I don't, you know, I think this-

Oh, you endorse all the things that these characters do, do you, Mason? Yeah, cause it's normal stuff to me. It's normal, boring stuff. It's like a trip down to the shops to me is what it is. But so I do, but I, you know, I think this movie carries this adaptation off very well. But I mean, what is this movie

with that Big Daddy and Hit Girl? Absolutely. You know what hit girl absolutely yeah yeah they're the juice they're the juice yeah exactly so Matthew Vaughn ended up raising the money at a dinner party and had it made independently he's got a lot of rich friends he's worked with like Guy Ritchie and stuff he worked on like lock stock and various other richie by name guy richie by nature not wrong you did a Latin would have made the big bucks for that one you've married Madonna she's got that Lager Virgin money. Oh yeah, he of course did before this layer cake as well with Anne McRae. And we get some Guy Ritchie style, what's in this?

We get a little Dexter Fletcher cameo, we get a little Jason Fleming cameo. Oh my god, love seeing that. So after they shopped it around, after they'd made it, they ended up selling it to Universal for more than what they were asking for And Universal were like, oh actually we like this thing that you've done. We like the hit girl thing more of that Please it's like I knew what I was doing. I had a twisted mind. Well, you don't think so But they thought he had a twisted mind. Yeah, absolutely I you know what?

I think this walks the line really well on the The fights are very kind of brutal and comic book-esque, but it's also like, oh you got stabbed because you tried to attack two men. Well it's interesting because I think this movie starts out with a kind of grounded look towards fighting and superheroes and a lot of stuff in the sense of like, yeah if you did try and fight two guys they would simply beat you up. Skills are no skills, there's two big guys. But it's sort of, the movie's connection to reality sort of-

It ebbs and flows. It ebbs and flows, and by the end, you know, there's jet packs and machine guns and- Well, to spoil some of the comics, I guess, it ends up in the kick-ass universe because it all gets combined with like Nemesis and Crononauts and wanted, they all become one big Miliverse situation.

Dave ends up getting real superpowers. That's true, yeah. He kinda gets rewarded and anyway, he flies off into the sun or something at the end. You know what else I was thinking watching this? You know that the big fight that he gets into with all the thugs and it gets filmed and it goes viral? I don't think that would go viral now.

I think that would maybe go to the top of like a Reddit fight page and it would just be hundreds of comments being like, no, I wouldn't have done it like that. This is all, this is fake. This is an ad for something. This is an ad for vitamins or something. I mean, if you wanted to go viral, you should have done a makeup tutorial. That's right.

From your ghost, Lentimus, the Academy Award nominated director of Poor Things and the favorite comes kinds of kindness a Darkly hilarious and unpredictable film that critics are calling mind-bendingly brilliant Featuring an all-star cast led by Emma Stone Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe Kinds of kindness is a wild ride that will leave audiences discussing the experience long after it's over Don't miss kinds of kindness in select theaters June 28th. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. In the early 1980s, gay men started to get sick from AIDS. Years before ACT UP,

before HIV was discovered, before the history you know, there were people on the front lines of the fight against AIDS. Joe Sonnobin. Michael Cowan. Bobby Campbell. I'm Dane Stewart, and in the new season of my podcast, Resurrection, I tell the stories of heroes of the early AIDS movement. Like the story of a cabaret singer and a sex worker who invented safe sex and saved millions and millions and millions of lives. Go check out resurrection wherever you listen to podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.

Absolutely. Oh my goodness. That's what gets the big views these days. I mean that's what Nicolas Cage did in this movie. He did, it's true. Inspired casting, I think. I don't know if he sought this out or they tracked him down. Again, watching some behind the scenes stuff, Mark Miller imagined the cadence of the character as kind of a Nick Cage-esque dude. Which also happens to be an Adam West style dude. Well that was Nick Cage's addition to it.

Yes. So they didn't say, can you do this Adam West thing? He took that on. I think that 100% works. Yeah, absolutely. The costume also for him in the comic is very different. It's kind of like a bandana and a coat. And this is, it's basically Batman.

It's Batman without stepping on any tradebugs. Yes, it's Adam West West Batman mannerisms and manners and like a Christian Bale, like brutality, which is interesting. But with guns. With guns. I wish I loved the costumes in this more. Like generally speaking.

Is that the point though, that they're kind of shitty? Yeah, no, I guess, yeah. But I mean, maybe it's the marketing genius within me, James. Sure. That wears his local. You got a lot of wolves in you, don't you? You better believe I do. You got two wolves within you. Maybe it's maybe maybe it's the marketing genius within me James sure that where's he's like you got it You got a lot of wolves in you don't you so you better believe I do You got two wolves within you one who's incredibly twisted and one who's a marketing genius exactly right well I named this didn't I?

Does alright? He needs a logo. He needs something. Yeah, just the B down his belt. It's not enough. Yeah fair enough. Yeah look I do love his performance. I think he's great I love that part of his disguise is putting on a longer handlebar mustache. Like, I love all of that. I don't love that they changed his backstory from the comic. Yeah, so in this movie,

he has kind of a more cliched superhero origin story, as would befit somebody in a comic book, that he was a police officer, and he was one of the best. He's one of the good ones. And then he gets framed for drug dealing and he gets put in prison and when he does his wife dies but gives birth to a little girl and when he comes out of prison he decides he's going to get revenge on the bad guys and train his daughter to be a vigilante killer but in the comic books he's also a lunatic but in this case he's just a lunatic who wanted to give his daughter an exciting life. So he's like I'll train her as a killer

He's an accountant and he basically takes his daughter away from his wife I'm the notes to her Yeah And the way they are able to to afford everything is because he's selling vintage comic books to buy Weaponry and safe houses and all of that and similarly to the movie he does get executed at the end But no, I think that think that more leans you to how much of a lunatic this guy is. I think it's a more interesting backstory.

The comic book version. Yes, for this particular thing. And speaking of Hit Girl, look, I understand the criticism of the time, right? It's like, well, this little girl, she's swearing and doing karate and tearing people's throats out or whatever. But it's not real, it's acting.

Well, exactly, it's an intentionally awful thing to do to a child. Like, that's, it's not real. It's acting. Well exactly. It's an intentionally awful thing to do to a child. Like that's, it's not a stirring endorsement. Like it doesn't end well really for anybody. She survives but barely and her dad is killed and she's like ruined for life. Yes. Yeah, and apparently also the way that she is in a lot of, well less of the psychopathic stuff is based on Mark Miller's own daughter who was around that age that this was released More of the fun elements than the the crazier stuff. It was fun Yeah

I really like this era of Matthew Vaughan action and I would say up to like the first Kingsman between like this and up through X-Men also a Mark Miller comic book that was adapted Oh, yeah, that's and made some changes which I think were for the better Yeah, I think the movie is better than the comic. Colin Firth for example. Colin Firth, yeah. We've talked about it before but the art I think is to kind of... Everyone looks the same. It's like Dave Gibbons.

We'll talk about it another time. We'll talk about it another time, Mason. It's comic book legend Dave Gibbons. He's great. Yeah, but it doesn't work for that, I think. But yeah, the moment where they transition from that Teddy cam and into the fight scene of Big Daddy like storming You know the warehouse the corridor fight at the end all of like all of that is just wonderful

I wish you'd kind of go back to that because seeing our girl more recently Like it's yeah recently than when you saw it in cinemas. Have you seen it again? I haven't seen it again I'm saying whatever I saw our guy. I didn't like it very much once was enough Just enough once was enough that that was enough. Once was enough. That was the furthest into the twisted might of Matthew Vaughan you'd ever want to go, I think. That might be true, yeah. I also think the jet pack is slightly too far for what this is.

That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. It ramps up maybe just that little bit too much for me. Yeah, because in the comic books, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl's last stand is just them going into the building and killing everybody with a flamethrower and Hit Girls on cocaine Yeah Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. You should check it out. Yeah. Anyways, you know what it's time for then What's it time for? Kick trivia! Love it. Yeah

Daniel Craig and Mark Wahlberg were considered for the role of Big Daddy before Nicolas Cage was cast I don't like either of those. I like one of them as a person. Yeah. But not for this role. Didn't you say that you find Mark Wahlberg loathsome? I did say that. Don't you keep saying that? I do say that. You say that a lot. And I stand by it, yes. It was also reported by a THR that Brad Pitt was going to take on that role but then he ended up doing Inglourious Basterds. I don't like that either. None of those work. I think Nicolas Cage was perfectly cast for this. Completely agree. The name of the lead character, Dave Lususky, was chosen at a charity auction run by kick-ass

co-creator and writer Mark Miller prior to the publication of the first issue of the book. The auction winner chose to use his own name. Nice. Yeah. I mean you would, wouldn't you? Imagine if his name was Mr. Sunday Movies. I'm Mr. Sunday Movies.

Nice. I'm a regular teenage boy. Now I've been punched in the nuts. I've been stabbed. Oh this is great Mason. The music during the scene with the strobe lighting is Adagio in D minor by John Murphy. Do you know what this is from Mason? What's it from? It's from the movie Sunshine which is everybody's favorite movie. Oh it is changed for this. There are some elements that have been changed. Edgier. I guess so but it's a wonderful It's a wonderful piece of music. You know what? Here's a little piece of trivia. Oh, yeah, and it really proves that the kick trivia

It's really it really proves that this movie is set in an alternate universe Yeah at the start of the movie our three amigos are leaving a cinema, which is showing the spirit three Can you imagine that world? Oh no, I can't actually. That doesn't make any sense. That's insane, honestly. Did they make the spirit one and two in this universe? They couldn't have.

Surely they just jumped ahead. They jumped ahead. Maybe that's the crazy universe we live in. Well, that's even too twisted for your mind, maybe. It's getting up there. It's still normal. Right. Now the box office for this on a budget of 30 million dollars

It made 96.2 which is also incredible because it is an R rated comic book movie. Mm-hmm And also it wasn't a big brand. That's you know Yeah, though it is interesting that like in an era where it took Superman 40 Whatever years to get onto the big screen and Batman well like you know That man had his 66 movie then there's like a 30 year gap Mm-hmm like this just came out while the comic was happening. It's kind of wild right? Yeah, it's a 20 year gap Between what? Batman. Oh, yeah, 23. I'm just I'm just I'm just letting you know. I don't want to know anything. Okay I'm just letting the viewers know that we know they don't want to know anything. They don't come here to know things

Yeah, all right. They come to hear from your twisted mind and then hope they can sleep at night. They don't want to know anything. They don't come here to know things. Yeah, yeah. They come to hear from your twisted mind and then hope they can sleep at night. That's right. You know? Squishing an ant and then you sniff it. Yeah. And you're like, oh.

That's twisted. To me, it's normal. This is also the second most pirated film of 2010 with 11.4 million downloads on BitTorrent. That's ahead of Inception, which was number three. Avatar, of course, was number one. But I think that speaks to how popular this movie was and obviously why it did get a sequel a few years later. Yeah. A different director. Yeah, and a couple of cast changes. A couple of cast changes, yeah, which we'll talk about next week.

I haven't seen that movie, I think, since cinemas. Same. So it's gonna be very interesting to come back and for you to hate it like you did then. I did hate it then, but I can't remember why I hated it. This one, Vibrant Fun liked it. Like it a lot, yeah. And also next week we're gonna be talking about how Kick Ass 3 potentially. Really? Oh yeah! Makes sense.

Yeah. But look, if you do want to see that early, you can actually head over to BigSandwich.co. Do you know why? Why? Well, because there's early videos like these ones. There's bonus podcasts. Oh yes. We do movie commentaries.

Wow. Aren't there so many video game let's plays also that are also exclusive? Yeah. Yeah man, yeah. Also we have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. That comes out every Monday, Sunday at bigsandwich.co.

But that's on YouTube. It's got its own Spotify. It's all over the place. It's got its own Apple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fun. It's probably playing on whatever app you're currently using. Yeah spreadsheet Yeah, it's on there. It's on there ski free. It's in the background. That's right. It's the thing that's chasing you Ski-free it's gonna get you our podcast is Lawrence old enough to know what that is or do I have to specifically? Message him and explain he knows what Google is no

I mean this this yeah, but the ski free thing at the end because he'd have to play ski free. It's true It's not an in PC purchase anymore. It's a great point You'd have to you know, he'd have to play it in browser and then collect footage or what? I don't know. I don't know how he does things. Anyway, I guess we're out here aren't we? That's right. Okay. Goodbye Grab that gemmy guys. We'll see you next week. Goodbye. Goodbye