Blank Check with Griffin & David - Wonkquaman with Marie Bardi-Salinas

Episode Date: December 31, 2023

We’re closing out 2023 with two words - Wet. Chocolate. Join us as we bid farewell to the DCEU, say “hello fennel” to Timothée Chalamet, and bring our craziest unhinged, “end of school year�� energy to two very different new releases. Orm. Check out Matt Singer’s Wonka Themed IHOP menu article. This episode is sponsored by: Eye of the Duck Hello fresh (HelloFresh.com/checkfree CODE: CHECKFREE) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Well, there's Wonkerman. And there's Wonkerman. But only Wonkerman makes your ears pop out their snuggles. Put your hand into your pocket. Get yourself some Wonkerman podcasting. Come now, I insist. You've never heard podcasts like this. No. Everybody. You've never heard podcasts like this. No. Everybody.

You've never heard podcasts like this. Real last day of school vibes today, guys. This episode is going to be top to bottom last day of school vibes. It's stinky. You keep saying that it stinks, which is the worst way to give me a drink. Like Tim Robinson describing water. Griffin ordered us Wonka hot chocolate. Excuse me. They have a security seal on them like, you know, they're fucking Fort Knox.

Oh, it does. It smells like fruit. Oh, God, it does. Now, I didn't order. To be clear, I did not order hot chocolate. I ordered scrumdiddlyumptious strawberry hot chocolate. Oh, God, Kristen! God!

As is tradition. This was Ben's idea. Wait, in what way is this tradition? Well, because it's a Wonka tie-in. Our first annual Wonkaman episode. You can't just pronounce us being served poison. It's our first annual Wonkaman episode. Would this have not happened?

We're near Ish and iPod. I hop. We're also near Ish and iPod. I guess, probably. I guess, if we count the iPhone. We shouldn't really. Go on. Sips.

That's what we're drinking, right? An IHOP product here. Sure. Oh, that is atrocious. I cannot drink that. I could not drink that. Absolutely the worst thing I've ever had in my entire life. It tastes like, what's the rabbit cereal?

Trix. It does taste like Trix. It tastes like, I can't say all of Trix. I haven't eaten Trix since I was like six years old. Well, because you're an adult now. You're not allowed to legally. That's exactly right. I go by Liam Neeson degrees.

That's a good scene in Ted 2. Look, unfortunately, we got this to go because our office is very near, not allowed to legally exactly right i'm i go by liam neeson agrees of course seen in tattoo uh look unfortunately we got this to go because our office is very near and i hop so ben picks them up we had this idea a couple days ago um actually i'm kind of i'm kind of i think it's pretty good well when you get it i think there's an obvious divide between the two of us on a lot of these issues. People who like fun. Yes. And then a couple of slugworths. We got a couple of slugworths, a couple of orms here in the studio. When you order this in

restaurants, there is a tremendous amount of whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce and, of course, what you called out when I sent you the picture, Marie. Cum? Cum drizzle? No, that's the other drink. Oh, okay. That's the dreamy lemonade. Kind of a wet dreamy lemonade. Oh my god! Yeah, what I love

from a lemonade is cum. That's definitely what I'm looking for. It's cum-loaded lemonade. With a semen-esque... You steal a wiger bit. But no, when you order in restaurants, they put gold on top. Right, gold flakes. And I'm sure it's real gold.

Yeah. And definitely not gold colored metal. Gold member would approve. He would approve. Do you think he'd like this, though? I don't know. No. Of course, we're recording this on a Friday.

Okay. This very Monday, I went with, I was invited by a friend of the show, past and future guest, Matt Singer. Oh, yes. Who, of course, is on his ongoing Herculean trials of every time there is a movie tie-in. He's kind of got a

talking the walk, you know, now, like, he'll turn the keys when necessary on a theme menu. Because sometimes you'll see, like,

Burger King be like, I don't know, this is a Spider-Man burger. And it's like, well, he did eat that one. But, like, there's sometimes... I've been... He goes in for a real theme. I told him, like, I don't know, this is a Spider-Man burger. And it's like, well, he didn't eat that one. But like there's some times I've been, he goes in for a real theme. I told him like a year ago that I wanted to join him on one of these. Yes.

I have also always wanted to do it. You've threatened to make appearances and you never did. Well, I'm busy right now. Right. But we were, I'm trying to remember, we definitely were going to do the Spider-Verse together because there was, it was one menu item, but there was one burger king in astoria where they rethemed the physical space like spider-man's lair so he went and did that yeah let's not go crazy it's no it is cool maria's

right and then we were gonna do good burger but good burger was at arby's oh come on and they seemingly just called their regular combo meal the Good Burger meal. Exactly. That's the thing where it's like, no, we're not making articles over just them naming something something. There needs to be jizz. There needs to be something disgusting happening. I'm not familiar with Arby's. I know it exists.

They have the meats. I've never been. I know they have the meats. They do, in fact, have the meats. I've never been. I know they have the meats. They do, in fact, have the meats. But I always thought they were more of a roast beef place.

Yes, correct. So the Good Burger tie-in does not make sense to me. It's a bad fit. They have a burger. But like Shake Shack, Five Guys. Why would you go there

for a burger? There are many chains. Smash Burger, Fat Burger. Like any of these places would have been better for the Good Burger. I think Five Guys would have worked.

It would have worked. That has kind of Good burger vibes as it does but i guess five guys has such strict iconography they've never done it they've never done anything like that jr hardy those aren't around here we couldn't get well not around here it would fuck singer because so matt singer can eat it so all of these companies are targeting Matt Singer specifically I mean at this point he has to be part of like the internal pitch deck I don't know it'd be great if he was I don't

know if they're thinking like what would a Brooklyn like film blogger could he eat all of this at once when they're devising these menus but it would be funny if I sat at the IHOP with him he's writing the article in real time, updating it dish by dish. And he just kept on turning and going like,

fuck, a lot of people are reading this. Like he was like watching it spike in real time. It's always the biggest deal. But I ate this entire menu on Monday and what I would describe as a Wonka cleanse. I did end up purging a lot of stuff out of my body. Uh-huh. Your sanity, for example. Yeah yeah like with the wonka menu also a lot of other things got right zoomed it's like

vinegar and baking soda or whatever it's just kind of past trauma came out in the toilet but so i ate all of this um and uh ben wanted to do some sort of chocolate uh course for this episode i'm not really detecting a lot of chocolate zero chocolate like this strawberry hot chocolate i know but like i thought about getting like one of those fondue they are like a chocolate fountain because like when i first thought of wet chocolate i didn didn't think of a beverage. You thought of ordering a chocolate fountain for this episode? Yes, Griffin, I did. I'm glad you didn't do that. And I didn't do it. Good. Marie, we're so grateful

to have you as part of the family. There's a line here, sort of a diagonal line. I think you guys would have been on board with the chocolate fountain. Yes! I'm not. Look, I hate to sound like a slugworth, although he is a chocolatier, so maybe that's not a perfect comparison. Yeah, but he's a craven chocolatier. It's not like, look, I hate to sound like a Slugworth, although he is a chocolatier, so maybe that's not a perfect comparison.

Yeah, but he's a craven chocolatier. That's true. But I'm not a big sweets guy. I don't need a chocolate fountain. Slugworth, Slugworth. Ben? You like sweets. I like sweets occasionally.

I'm not like someone who is like a dessert guy. Ben, I will say though. Yes? Like times that you and I have made Target runs together is like a dessert guy. Ben, I will say though. Yes. Like times that you and I have made target runs together during Halloween season. Yeah. You're like, we have to move through this section really quickly. For sure. And I'm like, why?

And you're like, I can't be around all the bags of fun size candy. Well, fun size candy is hard to resist. It's fun. He's not making a joke though. Like you will get antsy. Like it's like. Yeah. You're like tweaking.

I'm a addictive personality. So it's like yeah you're like tweaking I'm an addictive personality so it's like once I start eating Skittles I can't stop there's another substance like that I can't remember you've been a can of Pringles and all that you can't do it don't get me started just don't get me started Ben hasn't been able to stop

it's like ice nine it just look I'm just not a chocolate fountain guy. Okay? I'm sorry. It's fine. Did you boo when the fountain exploded at the end of Wonka? I was thoroughly charmed by Wonka at all times, and there was no booing happening for me.

Two big Warner Brothers Christmastime releases. I find it fascinating that every... There's three. Well, there's the color purple. I'm sorry. Two that we're discussing today. Three period. Right. There have been all these sort of hand-wringing pieces. I'm sorry. Two that we're discussing today. Correct. Three period. Right.

There have been all these sort of hand-wringing pieces. I should mention also, by the way, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

Podcast about filmography. He's director of Massive Success. Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? We're not doing that right now. This episode is just sort of...

This is a celebratory end of 2023. We are going out with a bang. Let's have fun with it. Yes. Sort of episode. That's true. We're covering,

look, it was your idea, so introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Marie Barty. I guess I have a different last name now too. Barty, Barty, Barty. Barty Salinas. So I really did not

give a... Should we call you, I'm sorry, should we call you Marie Barty Salinas Party Salinas? No. No.

No. Okay. I have to go on my own journey of like getting used to my new Mary name. Yeah, or you can use one name professionally and one name personally. A lot of people do that. We have people on this show who don't introduce their real names.

No, I'm still Barty Party. Okay, of course. Of course. Chocolate Fountain, come on. Chocolate Fountain. So I am on episodes that, you know, are new releases generally. By and large. Unless we have like, you know, a particular expert, which we did for the Boy and the Heron

in our upcoming Ferrari episode. I will not be on. True. True. Because we've got an expert. To be clear, it's Bilgeberry. It's not like Enzo Ferrari's son or whatever. We tried to get Enzo. We couldn't book him. I think Bilge is one of our foremost Ferrari experts. got an expert to be clear it's bilgeberry it's not like it's a ferrari stone or whatever we

tried to get in so we couldn't book i think bilga is one of our foremost ferrari experts but um i was on the schedule for aquaman 2 and i was like guys this sucks i don't want to have to see this movie i didn't see aquaman 1 right i docked your pay every time you complained about aquaman obviously i really didn't want to cover aquaman. And then a strange thing happened. It seemed like the culture was feeling similarly. We were kind of done with superhero movies in the year 2023. Right. Well, and just to jump in here for a second, we covered BVS Dawn of Justice when that came out, which was early on in the podcast because that was still a period of time

where we were like, if there is a new release film that feels kind of blank checky, maybe we should stop. Where justice is dawning. We should probably check it out.

And in contrast to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which at that point was like fucking vibrating with energy, like post Avengers, everyone's like, this works, this works.

steady, successful thing that was made with obvious control around it. Right. And a sort of consistency was the key. Right.

Whereas the DC films were made with the opposite of control. Well... No consistency. Look, BVS was, this is wild, they're handing the whole thing

over to Zack Snyder. They're letting him build the entire universe in his image, which felt so auteurist. It was that, but then it was also like, this is wild. They're yelling at Zack Snyder to make five Marvel movies into one Batman movie so we can essentially jumpstart our own cinematic universe. All of that was interesting to us and thus the DC sort of ersatz miniseries began of us covering these sort of wild, unpredictable ups and downs of Zack Snyder's authorship of this series and 10 years of them being like are these movies still in the same universe or not?

We covered not Man of Steel. We covered Batman vs. Superman. We covered Suicide Squad. Justice League. Nope. We covered Wonder Woman. We covered Batman vs. Superman. We covered Suicide Squad. Justice League. We covered Wonder Woman. We covered Justice League. Although I think we were comatose for that episode. Sure.

We covered Aquaman. We skipped Shazam. A mistake, in retrospect. Sure. But that was the point in time where we were like, these movies seem to be breaking out of the Snyder thing, so we shouldn't cover this. Then you and I see Shazam and months later are like that wasn't kind of one of the better it's a great movie yeah uh we quote unquote covered birds of prey although neither of us are on that episode no that was an angie episode but that was again us being like

well maybe someone else wants to get like we you know we can sort of nod to it but we're losing interest unless it became like the the sder vision, the more we were like, do we just sort of soft end this? We did cover Wonder Woman 1984. We did. A good film. We did not cover The Suicide Squad. A great film.

It's really, I rewatched it recently. It's so good. It's really fucking good. We did not cover Black Adam or any subsequent power balances shifting or anything like that. We didn't cover any of the 15 Black Adam Or any subsequent power balances Shifting or anything We didn't cover any of the 15 Black Adam

Spin-offs or sequels that happened We did not cover Shazam Fury of the Gods but shout out Rachel We did not cover The Flash Because that was too cursed Even for us to consider We did not cover Blue Beetle which I Watched in like 8

Parts because it was so boring griffin the most fucking nothing movie you're anti-blue beetle i like you just watch lopez i just watched it after my move i was like my brain can't handle anything i'm watching blue beetle yeah and like i'm just like this is so boring what are his powers that's what i was gonna ask what is the beetle? I get that he has a suit and it's sort of Iron Man-y. He's somewhere between Iron Man and Green Lantern. But what?

What are Green Lantern's powers? Green Lantern can conjure anything from his imagination. He can what? He can make constructs out of anything in his imagination. So a bit like Wonka? Well. It's just the whole movie. I'm just like,

I don't even know what this guy can really do. Right. Sort of an issue for a two hour, 15 minute superhero movie. Because they also treat the Scarab like it's less tech

and more ancient magic. It's sort of ancient tech. So it, and it's talking to him, but half, for almost all that movie, it's like, you know,

activating this. And he's like, what? And then like, that's the whole movie. Yeah. He never really like, comes into his own. I think that movie, it's like, you know, activating this. And he's like, what? And then like, that's the whole movie. Yeah. He never really like, comes into his own.

I think that movie is, uh, charming. I, I would say I have gripes with it. I think Lopez is fucking in the pain. He's really good. It's insane how good he is in it.

Did you find, what I find, because when he shows up, you're like, oh, George Lopez has a beard. I get it. He's playing the silly uncle.

I'll land a couple jokes. It'll be 10 minutes of this. And then it's like no george lopez kind of co-lead for a lot of this and like really good he's also like he's like the randall park of uh well we're gonna talk about randall park and how six different times during my screening of aquaman 2 i shouted he's still alive i was sitting next to david i can the biggest revelation of this movie of aquaman 2, I shouted, he's still alive? I was sitting next to David. The biggest revelation of this movie, of Aquaman 2, Randall Park, unkillable, immortal man. There were 10 scenes in this movie where they cut away and you assumed

the outcome was either... He was finally murdered or he finally decided to walk and quit the job. He falls down a crevasse. He's attacked by a tentacle. Right. Okay?

He survives an explosion. And the entire time he's in sub-zero temperature. Yeah. Black Manta holds a knife to his throat. He is shot with lasers. The whole time

he's wearing a half-zip. He doesn't even put on a fucking scuba suit or anything. Am I wrong though that every scene he has ends with either Oh Jesus.

I'm having a moral awakening. Yes. And then on the scene he's like, and I'm like, how is Randall Park still in this movie? Well,

and also the start of the next scene when he reemerges alive is him being like, I'm starting to think what we're doing here might not be great. And you're like, Randall, shit or get

off the pot. Either die or quit. Do you think like, and cut. And then Randall Park goes over to James Wan and it's like the Black Manta scenes where he's like, hey man, I really, can I go home? I don't want to be here anymore. I don't think Steven Shin's that crucial

to the plot. And James Wan is like, here's the call sheet for tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, no, you can go. It's right there through the razor door. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You want to walk onto the set of The Flash?

Does that seem like a healthier environment for you? It's right there. It's on the next soundstage. Oh, my God. Would you rather be in The Flash? Oh, my God. Anyway, yeah, we did not cover blue beetle i watched it's just to me i was just like ready for a gentleman six yeah and i felt like i got

a gentleman's four and a half five yeah i'd say it's like a 5.5 but lopez is carrying a lot of that weight i don't know if you found this watching it i saw this movie in theaters with my little cousin, Blue Beetle. You saw Blue Beetle in theaters? His little cousin likes to see the movies. He really wanted to see it. Not only that,

he insisted I buy him the Blue Beetle combo with the collectible popcorn tin and cup. And I'm like, I hope you're using that a lot. I hope you're thinking about your favorite character, Blue Beetle, all the time.

He definitely isn't. No. Blue Beetle, all the time. He definitely isn't. No. Blue Beetle, very cute. That kid's cute. He's good. He's a looker. He's a good looking little lad. I watched that movie and was like, this whole movie looks soft and smudgy to me.

It looks like a 140p YouTube video still buffering. Are they misprojecting this? And then I watch the trailers, and I'm like, this feels like some deliberate choice that that entire movie is, like, smudgy. Yeah, that guy on Hell Soto who did, um,

Charm City Kings. I don't know, maybe that's his style. That's the director. But then this is Ari Aster's DP. Uh, on Blue Beetle? Yes. Um.

That movie weirdly has, like, all of Ari Aster's key creative team. It has his composer, I think. Maybe they shot it in like Bulgaria and they just like, you know, brought everyone over from the Midsommar set or whatever. You like Blue Beetle. I think it's mid, but Lopez good. I'm sorry. You dislike Blue Beetle.

And so here now we have arrived at Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is officially the final film in this DC Cinematic Universe. There is nothing coming. No. It's over. Next year is nothing? Next year, there will be no movies from DC whatsoever? Yeah, I can't remember if Creature Commandos,

the TV show... It's not on the list, so I guess no. It's supposed to come out next year or the following year. And, like, obviously next year there is Joker, Folly, I do, but that's not on the list, so I guess no. It's supposed to come out next year or the following year. And like, obviously next year there is Joker, Folly, I do, but that's not in any universes. And we've got the Penguin series on Max, which is not part of... When do they announce that that is part of whatever Gunn is doing? I bet you that's happening. That the Penguin series is part of what?

The Batman movies are part of it. It's not. I thought he already confirmed they weren't. Yeah, but I think that's going to change. I disagree with that strongly. All right. He's already, they have fucking Andy Muschietti hired to make a different Batman movie that will exist in the gun universe.

It's just, someone is going to sit down and be like, no, like you cannot do that. I disagree. It's not allowed. I don't think it's going to happen. Then I think they will not make another Reeves movie. That'll get killed. I mean, look. I think that'll get killed.

I think there's going to be like a, this market has shrunk. We are not doing two Batmans. We are not doing two universes. That's just not happening anymore. If that's the case, then I think the Reeves movie is not going to happen. It's probably more at risk. Do you think they'd sacrifice the Reeves movie instead of

sacrificing the whole Gunn? Because Gunn can't build a universe where there's no Batman. Do they still want to even build a universe at this point? It's the only way to success. As much as that sounds like some guy with no money being like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Just one more cinematic universe is going to do the trick.

It is. Like, Gunn's whole thing has been, like, you've been hired to reignite people's interest in cinematic universes. He can't, like Griffin said, he can't do it without a Batman. He can't. He can hold off on a Wonder Woman and an Aquaman, put them on ice, bring in

Green Lantern if you want. They need another Green Lantern. Well, I mean, I'm watching this fucking movie. They do the, you know, the opening ident with the green lanterns in there. And I'm like, they never even got to Green Lantern. They never united the seven. Cyborg. Cyborg's around.

Sure. Cyborg's deal is he's a robot man. Yeah. Period. I know. Period. Period. Period.

Period. Is this Will Smith? No no that's dead shot oh yeah cyborg is ray fisher who sued walter romano marie how can you not remember he's cyborg he's the one that that uh said that joss was racist yes okay sure yeah the joss was trying to lighten maybe his scenes like that was his allegation like the joss whedoss was trying to lighten maybe his scenes. Like, that was his allegation. Like, that Joss Whedon was trying to lighten his skin tone, essentially. Well, that, but also... Although it's also plausible that Joss Whedon was like,

I can't fucking see anything in these scenes because all these movies are so dark. The Snyder movie is very dark. Right. But also that, like, Joss Whedon was like, the lead of this movie can't be, I quote the report. Quote Ray Fisher, right. An angry black man. Right, right, right. Why is this movie can't be, I quote, the report. Quote Ray Fisher. An angry black man.

Right, right, right. Why is this movie about an angry black man? Because he is kind of crucial to the Snyder Cut. He is. God. Look, one reason we're doing this episode is to bid goodbye to all of this. We are a little. What insane art.

Here's what I think is interesting to put as a counterpoint. And let's actually finish the loop before we get back into DC. Marie, there's this ongoing debate. Just the way the schedule shook out right it's like okay fincher's ending like end of november then we have a handful of new releases boy in the heron ferrari maestro gotta cover those right we gotta cover those no no point starting another mini series and like christmas eve yeah we did that with henry selleck where it was like we did two we stopped we came back we did the other three it did kind of fuck with momentum yeah and babs is only four movies who's our next miniseries henry selleck makes sense though because nightmare before christmas we had yeah he was thanksgiving it kind of worked but it felt like very rude to

slot one babs in then go back to ferrari then go back to Babs, or whatever it was. The whole schedule was tough, and so we had Aquaman just put down there, and I kept on being like, David, is this movie not going to exist upon release? Is this worth devoting an episode to? And your argument was, A, let's bid farewell,

ta-da, ta-do, see you forever, DC Universe, done. Sort of, right, like that, like, it's our way of bidding goodbye. But also, months of conversation that was truly you saying, and by the way, Griffin, open the pitches. Come up with any other fucking thing that fits in there. Right, something's got to go here. We got one week where we don't know what to do,

and the second best pitch was take two weeks off. Yes. Which is not the worst pitch. It was not. But that was the close second was we just do two weeks without episodes. The other thing I must emphasize is that I love James Wan's Aquaman. I was excited for

this film. It's kind of a banger episode for us and one that I think people go back to. Us being silly about Aquaman because look being silly about Zack Snyder movies can be harder. They're so self-serious or whatever but James Wan invites silliness. Sure.

Sorry, looking like 31 to 36 million for the opening four-day weekend. Yeah, dude. It's, I mean, Warner Brothers, it's their fucking zero must-sell and, you know, they're at the end of the producers like, yes, yes, yes. Nobody see it.

Nobody see it. There was the thing where Marvel's had an opening that everyone was, like, astonished by how low it was. But they'll leg it out. Well, and then two weekends later, I think Disney opens Wish over Thanksgiving and Wish's five day weekend was less than Marvel's three day weekend. But they'll leg it out. No. This similarly might end up with a five day that's below Shazam's three day.

Oh, that would be crazy. Right. And that'll happen below Shazam's three day. Oh, that would be crazy. Right. I think that'll happen. Shazam's three day is 30. Okay, it'll probably beat that, but you never know. Like, 24 hours ago, the estimate was it will make 40 for the five day, which was bad. Now it's down to 32. It could

end up below Shazam. Yeah. Both this and Shazam were put out, I would say, with similar energy by their studio of like, I mean, go see it if you want to. Shazam had a little bit more of, you guys liked the last movie, right?

This movie, it feels like they are fully This one's being buried. embarrassed. Not even, they're just like, and like, Momoa's like giving interviews where he's like, I don't think I'm going to do this again. I've never seen a temple buried to this degree. I mean, the Momoa press tour is

fucking fascinating because to have an actor go out to promote his movie and say like, yeah, it doesn't look good for a third Aquaman. I've enjoyed this, but yeah, it seems to be... I don't know. Kind of seems like the end of the road, although no one's spoken to me directly. And to have

that be like the messaging of every press appearance he no one's spoken to me directly. And to have that be like the messaging of every press appearance he makes and not have the story be, Momoa's fucking going wild. He's speaking out against Warner Brothers. It's like, no, he's actually saying what Warner Brothers probably wants him to say. And it's the most depressing funereal,

I guess this is the premature death of my franchise. The first installment of which made a billion dollars is still, of all the Marvel movies we listed from, I'm sorry, of all the DC movies listed since Man of Silam, which is a 10-year run, it is the highest grossing. It is the highest grossing film from the DC extended universe, I believe.

Maybe not domestic, but worldwide. Domestic Wonder woman is the highest grossing okay uh and worldwide it's aquaman i do think i personally will just say i do think shazam actually got kneecapped harder because it was released as james gunn was literally like rolling out like this is over that's true and so like there was like a competing press tour basically like overriding a lot of neg uh what's his name zach and then mr zach levi decided to start posting about vaccines or whatever like the day of its release and then have online instagram meltdowns about like why won't you

see my movie it's for families like or whatever it's literally good and i'm not even mad that that video is one of the better films I've seen this year. Zach Levi on his porch and he just keeps every five minutes going and it's so funny. I need to stop doing this

because I'm late for dinner. He keeps saying, I literally am late for dinner and I'm not mad that my movie bombed. I just want to say one last thing and you just imagine cutting to his poor friends at dinner being like,

why do we still hang out with this guy? He does this every time. We've been here for an hour. We're watching him on live. They're watching his Instagram. But I do. This, it's more just kind of like. Well, here's, here's, I think, a key difference.

Flash, Shazam, Blue Beetle, all three in the press tour they were doing this like so is this character gonna be part of the new James Gunn universe and they're like we'll see it's about what the fans demand they kind of were going throwing it to like hey if you guys love him then I can bring him over this year last year last year black Adam did

incredible business compared to this superhero that is all we should acknowledge we should fucking trounced last year Black Adam did incredible business compared to this year's superhero movies and we should acknowledge we should it fucking trounced all the 23 movies it didn't do amazing

or anything but you know Dwayne the Rock Johnson was right he was correct Black Adam bombs James Gunn is announced

at the head as the head like in the immediate wake of that correct but yes bombs relative to it didn't do very well

to be it's it's it was the uh quantamania of the dc universe made about the same in the coal mine right we didn't know how good we actually had from dc universe that's a different character um but i i think uh shazam flash and blue beetle they kept on being like well let the market dictate yeah there's a ton of space for this character to re-exist with this. And like, I think Shazam was the one where they realized, oh, fuck. The fact that we've announced that none of this matters anymore. It's going to be a problem. Right.

Flash, they tried to will through it. It didn't work. No. Well, Flash, they also made the mistake of being like, this is the best film ever made. Period. I saw it and I cried all of my bodily fluids and needed a water transfusion like they they they overhyped it it's like a classic studio no no like you the executives should never do that they did it they did it um didn't work i mean the

great new york times article about zazlav that came out a month or two ago that just talked about like he just kind of picked like is this the movie I can will into being a phenomenon because I need to have something on my slate that like fucking dominates Blue Beetle Gunn was essentially insisting like this character will be in my universe

yes and it was like okay buddy like fine like but obviously Blue Beetle has nothing to do with anything this movie it's the exact opposite vibes of everyone just being like, this is the end of the whole thing. Which is weird because this movie has nothing to do with any other DC stuff.

So honestly, it doesn't really matter. Like, the only thing this has to do with is Aquaman. Do you realize this movie was supposed to come out originally two years ago, a year and a half ago? Yeah, 2022 was the original intended release. This movie originally was filmed having Michael Keaton as Batman in it. Then when The Flash got pushed back and they thought this movie was going to come out before The Flash. Yes.

They reshot all of Michael Keaton's scenes with Ben Affleck as Ben Affleck. And now Batman is not in this movie, period. Where would he even have been? That's my fucking question. He would have been at the UN at the end, standing beside Aquaman. I'm so proud he's vaping. So proud to announce Aquaman.

He doesn't even say when he's introduced, like, hi, I'm the king. He should say, like, I'm in the Justice League. Have you heard of us? We had a movie. We saved you. But this is why they've been doing this selective like what stuff's canon, what's not.

Is Aquaman its own siloed universe or does it touch with these other things? Oh boy. David. Yeah. Do you love movies? Yeah. Show proof. Okay. Blank check podcast. Okay. Pretty good.

Pretty well played. Well, have you ever heard of an eye of the duck scene, David? No. What's that? David Lynch. It's a David Lynch term. He says every movie has a scene that defines the whole. I think he uses the term for like the duck.

It's this weird creature that does all these different things. And you can focus on one aspect. Still on top. Fury under the water. Sure. You really go into the eye of the duck to really see into the soul of the creature. Anyway, on each episode of the podcast that is entitled Eye of the Duck,

host Dom Nero and Adam Fullridge, friends of the show, explore a movie by finding its most essential scene. Remember the chestburster sequence in Alien? No, never heard of it. Sudden explosion of body horror that tells you everything you need to know about Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece. It's a classic eye of the duck.

Okay. Dom and Adam, they search for eye of the duck scenes in beloved franchises like Alien, Toy Story, Mission Impossible. Some of our favorites. If you listen to the show, you probably like those as well.

And then they do sort of sub-genre groupings like Winter Horror, Space Odysseys, 80s Dark Fantasy. I believe I've been on the show four times potentially. Rack. I've done Dial of Destiny, Lightyear,

Spaceballs, and maybe one other one I'm forgetting. But the point is, in their latest series, Eye of the Duck, 20XX, Dom and Adam

are charting the history of the cyberpunk movement, Ben. What? Nice. Scoping out Eye of the Duck scenes in totemic films like Blade Runner, Tron, Akira, Ben. What? Nice. Scoping out Eye of the Duck scenes in totemic films like Blade Runner,

Tron, Akira, The Matrix, and more. You explore the scenes at the heart of your favorite movies by listening to Eye of the Duck wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday

and you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. Eye of the Duck. Check it out. Anyway, we're debating whether or not to do this episode

and Marie comes up with a once in a lifetime pitch. Wonk, what man? Wonk, what man? I think it is very interesting that Warner,

as we said, Warner Brothers has these two movies. They're releasing them very close to each other. Color Purple as well. All these fucking hand-wringing,

you know, sort of industry analysis pieces that are like theaters are bracing themselves for a bad Christmas season because no major movies are coming out. And Warner Brothers is dropping three big movies against each other. And then we also we have Timmy Chalamet, who have we covered him before on this podcast? We have covered Interstellar. True. OK, that doesn't count. I think we've never covered a timmy vehicle if that's what we definitely talked about how in interstellar he's timmy's like hey dad how you doing and then we cut to casey affleck

it's like dad i've grown up a lot a lot of corn we haven't we haven't really gotten into timmy plants on fire timmy the phenomenon no timmy the the icon the beautiful the beautiful boy that he is um and i think on paper this seemed like a very interesting decision that he made a couple years ago yeah where he publicly said he did not he was advised to not be in superhero movies i was to caprio caprio told him was advised to not be in superhero movies. I lead on to Caprio. Caprio told him no hard drugs and no superhero movies. Pretty funny line. And his like, oh, well, I still need a franchise.

That's me. Because Dune is, I feel like Dune is bigger than him. But it also is his in a weird way. Dune rocks. He's making the correct sort of tentpole choices. He's just like, can I find roles in large-scale commercial films that make sense for a spindly, tall, somewhat effete, but like, you know, lovable boy like I. And working with higher-level directors who have strong visions, you know, lovable boy like I. And working with higher level directors who have strong visions,

you know, more respectable source material, whatever. So it's announced that his like stab at IP, yes, tentpole starring movie. I think more than anything, the sort of like four quadrant family. He's only made movie

for grownups. And in order to become an A-list star, kids have to like you. Yes. Although, yeah, was Hostiles for kids? I forgot. Yeah, it was. But he announces that he's going to be playing Willy Wonka in a Wonka origin story that is also a musical. Now, do you remember Warner Brothers bought the rights to do a new Wonka 10 years ago?

They obviously have the rights to the two previous films. Yes. Shortly after the Warner Brothers deal, or some years after the Warner Brothers deal, Netflix buys the Roald Dahl library outright. Netflix controls all rights to all Roald Dahl shit now. Correct. So this was sort of the last thing through the gates

before Netflix pulled it all in. Right. And Warner Brothers, the big appeal to them was obviously we own the design of the Oompa Loompa from the original film, the songs, the things that no one else could use. We can make a film that exists in our kind of classic Gene Wilder Willy Wonka universe.

Originally, this was announced as being written by Simon Rich, who has no credit on this movie. I think it was fully page one rewritten when Paul King came on board as the director. Jeff Nathanson supposedly took a pass at one point feels very oh no king and farnaby his writer took it over but there was 10 years of warner brothers being like we want to make a big wonka prequel donald glover i was gonna say the three names do you remember the three names donald glover makes a ton of sense at that point in time. He would be terrible, but he makes a ton of sense.

But he has more menacing energy. Like, there's something... Okay, we'll get into it. That's my opinion on Donald Glover starring in a Wonka movie, is that's my idea. At that point in time. Do you remember who the other two people are? Or are you looking at the list?

I mean, I remember one of them very clearly, and I think they should have picked this person and it would have gone great. No, Ezra Miller. Oh, no. No. Just Warner Brothers was just like, Ezra Miller needs to be in everything. Everything.

Because Ezra Miller's in Grindelwald. Both Ezra and, no, not even Timmy. Ezra and Donald, they both have like, they can have an edge to them. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. But Timmy does not. Third person makes no sense

except he had just been in a hit musical. I'd say there's another reason it makes sense. Go on. Third person was Ryan Gosling who is way too old to be doing a Wonka prequel. Right, he's like Gene Wilder's age. Right, yeah. Practically.

No, the reason it makes sense is that like Gene Wilder is clearly one of his biggest acting inspirations. He pulls a lot from Wilder. But who cares? I don't care. It makes sense on a fucking studio level. I pull a lot from Gene Wilder.

He's too old. I started with that. Yeah, so it doesn't make a ton of sense. I agree with you. I said the one reason it makes sense. I preface that with it doesn't make sense because he's too old. What is he pulling? His whole, I think, default

movie star vibe is very Gene Wilder and he admits that. Okay. Yes. I don't see that. My guess is also, it's 2016. La La Land had just come out. His thing is Gene Wilder in a hunk body. I stand by this so firmly. It's fine that you stand

by that. I mean, he has called him his favorite actor or whatever, I think. Oh, wait. Okay, Ryan Gosling once picked his favorite actor. Thank you. And his choice is none other than the late Gene Wilder. But, Ben, we saw the Fall Guy trailer yesterday. Is the vibe of that movie not Gene Wilder looks like an action star stuntman?

That's pretty fun. His whole thing of him trying to psych himself up into doing that shit. I'm going to be once again being very goofy. Right. It's going to be like the fifth David Leitch movie that I'm going to walk into being like, I think this one's going to be fun. This one has to work. And I won't like shit. I'm going to be very goofy. For sure. It's going to be like the fifth David Leitch movie that I'm going to walk into being like, I think this one's going to be fun.

This one has to work. And I won't like it. I know. Maybe I will though. Come on, David. But none of those happened, of course. Yeah.

None of those people come aboard because in 2021, Paul King, who was originally going to do a Paddington 3, that falls apart. And then was going to do

Disney's live-action Pinocchio. Was going to do a Paddington 3. That falls apart. And then was going to do Disney's live-action Pinocchio. Was going to do Pinocchio. My God. What could have been? Comes aboard this film. I believe that's when it's officially called Wonka. I don't know. Yeah.

And suddenly it's like really good. And Chalamet and Tom Holland are the two choices. Right. Both similar ages and kind of, you whatever types i guess zendaya adjacent soft boys right zendaya slugworth uh in may chalamet is cast so may 2021 king says uh i saw some youtubes of his high school musical performances and that convinced me he was rapping yes people then find these YouTube videos and are like,

whoever saw this and thought he should be in a musical is high. Well, no. On drugs. On hard drugs. What I understand about what Paul King was saying was,

I watched him and if he's able to do this without embarrassment, that's what I'm looking for. He did not cast him for, oh my God, look at his musical ability. 100%.

I do think that that statement of his was misconstrued and maybe used against this film a little bit. Right. His takeaway was, this man has no embarrassment. I can get him to do goofy shit and sing about chocolate. And

they shot this film in the United Kingdom, you know, in all its wonderful, classic big studios. The one image came out of Timmy with the hat, and it's sort of an on-set photograph where you can see the equipment behind him. And much like Leo at the table with Lily Gladstone, for like a year, that was the only image we had to go off of. And just, the internet had a field day of like,

why the fuck is this being made? Who let Timothee Chalamet wear a velvet hat? It's also like post cruella yeah and just though every movie like that where it's like we don't need to know it doesn't matter why they became this person yes especially with something like willy wonka like it's like the whole point of him is we don't know anything about him like that's that's the idea of willy wonka there was like one paparazzi video from the opening number where he's sitting on top of like the carriage and he's singing. And it was a paparazzi video across the street.

And people were like, it's a fucking musical, which I think they were always a friend about. But of course, like knives out, this is going to be a disaster. Then the trailer comes out and people are like, yep, looks dumb. And I feel like quietly we we were sort of like, Paul King is just a good director. Like, he has a thing. Yeah. And this just seemed to match his thing.

People also forget that when the trailer for the first Paddington came out, it was a complete meme about how creepy Paddington looked. Right. People do forget that. And people were photoshopping live-action Paddington into horror movie stills.

And then the movie came out. Everyone's like, weird. This is a sensitive masterpiece. My whole body is tingling with charm. Jacques Demy for children? Yeah. Do you like Paddington? I love Paddington.

And then the second one is like, now canonized as one of the only sequels better than the original. Yeah. Has become like a just sort of shorthand movie for undeniable masterpieces. It is a generation's classic now. Like people in our generation and even below are just like, yeah, Pennington 2, obviously. To the point where it now almost has the like,

Christmas story is overrated. Everyone shut up about it energy. But also Pennington Peru is coming out and it has like Godfather 3 energy where people are like like you can't top two well like you're doomed i have been less negative on wanka from the moment paul king was announced than most people as much as i agree with you i'm just like fundamentally i don't need to see young wanka my whole thing against it the entire time has not been anything the movie was putting forward and it was marking in its marketing materials my thing has been this better be so fucking good that i'm not angry that paul king didn't do paddington three sure right well and you can't really answer

that question until paddington three comes out and if paddington three is great i will probably my estimation of of wonka will go up maybe half a star my guess is that paddington three is going to be good yeah fine too good he goes to peru right i don't like that but i also i'm like i get that he can't just continue to charm the residents of like nodding hill forever like you know i do get that you probably want to think he can't is that a fucking no i mean he definitely can but like if it's just another one of like like, oh, there's, like, a noisy neighbor. There's a question of, like, how do you heighten from prison? Yeah, I don't know. I, you know, so he's going to Peru.

That's how they heighten. He has to war. Yeah. Can he, like, maybe he can enter. You stop it. Can he enter Parliament? Well, then you're getting into sort of Mrs. Harris sequel territory, which I don't want Paddington to steal from them. No.

But maybe he could cross over with her. Mrs. Harris becomes the prime minister? No, but she goes to the UN. She goes to Parliament. She goes. I also want to say Sam Clements, a friend of the podcast, a host of the 90 Minutes or Less podcast, Picturehouse employee,

did a Q&A screening of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris with the director and recently sent me a signed Mrs. Harris Blu-ray. An incredibly kind gift. Signed by Anthony Fabian. Yeah, Anthony Fabian.

That's cool. And I gave Sam a lot of really intense questions to ask him about the development of the sequel, which seems to be happening very slowly. The plan is... They're all aware that the source material exists and I just need them to make three more Mrs. Harris movies.

It did well enough. It's it that they could probably convince some very sleepy, you know, British dowager. Come on. She's like, oh, yes. Entertainment fund possible. Yeah. Are we going to do Wonkwaman first? We should.

He's came out first. He's first in the title Wonkwaman. Wonkw possible. Yeah. Are we going to do Wonkwaman first? We should. He came out first. He's first in the title Wonkwaman. Wonkwaman, yes. And we all saw him first, right? Yeah. Let's also say,

like, end of year energy episode, loose, fucking, kind of all over the place, messy. We're not going to go through the plot.

Episode. Minute by minute. Two directors who are admittedly potential blank check candidates I was about to say, should we just officially say, here's my pitch.

Yeah. Now, I know Paul King also made a movie called Bunny in the Bowl that's like a small film. Which I don't think is very good, but is kind of a classic first movie. It's him like trying stuff out on a tiny scale.

He, of course, was the director for all of The Mighty Boosh, which is one of my favorite TV shows ever. And he was very much the sort of like Edgar Wright to that spaced. He jumped onto an established comedy team, but really established a visual world and a cinematic language. Have you seen Mighty Boosh? Oh, absolutely.

Fucking best. And then Bunny and the Bull is him sort of trying to do a Mighty Boosh style thing with Simon Farnaby without the Boosh. Boosh and Iowata have cameos in it. But that movie is very digital. It's sort of like, whereas

Mighty Boosh is all kind of made out of like cardboard and finger paint and whatever. That movie is sort of trying to do the same aesthetic in a like volume in a very green screen-y environment. And I just think the comedy energy is kind of off in it. It's not a movie I particularly like.

I mean, like, maybe we figure that out one day. But we can easily do two Paddington commentaries, or three once the third. And so that basically covers us on Paul King, and then whatever he does next, we'll check in with. James Wan has a lot of movies. James Wan I want to put on the bracket. But we want to cover him because we like his movies. Yes. Right? Yeah. And like it's an

it's a it's a blank check career. Totally. Especially in this like studio era. He's launched multiple franchises. He's launched three different franchises. He also made the biggest hit in a different franchise but then he also has made like three other you know personal

horror movie type things that he clearly just wanted to make. One of the blank checkiest movies. A studio has bankrolled in years of just like James, do whatever the fuck you want. We're not paying attention to this one. I don't know. Maybe we'll do him one day. Put him on the bracket.

Yeah. Well, you keep saying that and I will, I want to say something new. We should put him on the bracket. Paul King's Wonka. Uh huh. Where did you guys see it? I saw it at want to say something new. We should put him on the bracket. Paul King's Wonka. Uh-huh. Where did you guys see it?

I saw it at the Regal Battery Park, a movie theater that now has no signage. That's the Aquaman, the lost kingdom of movie theaters. Where they're like, don't come. Just don't come. It truly feels like they're trying to hide

that there is a movie theater there. It's always been in kind of a weird spot. It's in Battery Park City, which is this odd little sort of neighborhood in the south of Manhattan. I want to say it opened pretty shortly after 9-11. Very close to Ground Zero.

It's very close. And I don't think it was part of a, like, revitalization, new development project. My memory is that it was sort of like this was already close to opening and now it's opening in a kind of cursed neighborhood. It's a huge theater.

Right. It's like a big multiplex, multi floors, big theaters. Like it's used for Tribeca or used to be. The first couple years of Tribeca when it was

really kind of them putting energy into trying to will that into a major festival, it was used a lot. It's always been a theater where the layout's kind of weird

because it's in a building that's mostly a hotel and sort of on a side street but there used to be a proper marquee outside a ground floor box office and then you had to take like four escalators up to get to where the proper theater is now there is just an entrance to

a hotel you feel like you're entering an office building unless you look carefully outside of one door there's a tiny like 10 inch by 10 inch sign that says Regal. And you just go up four escalators at no point in that escalator journey is there any indication you're heading towards a movie theater.

And you get to the fourth floor and they're like, hello, movie theater. Hello. So I sat there with my little cousins. Yes. Two of them. Two of them, both of them. You know, I'm always kind of using them as a controlled market interest group to see which movies have

the riz with those generations. Oh my god. Four and a half, eight and a half, boy and a girl. I'm always just like, okay, let's see. What are they both interested in? Where's their overlap? What are the movies that both of them want to see? Wonka's been the one for months that both of them want to see. Right. Fre been the one for months that both of them want to see.

Right. Freestanding plan that's been delayed for like a month to do another movie day with them. It finally lands on we're seeing Wonka. Their parents are like, oh, if you're seeing Wonka, we'll come. Oh, okay. Now, often when I take them to movies, it's sort of like I'm doing a mitzvah. I'm helping take one kid off the hands

for a couple hours. Right. Griff time makes it easier the parent load. This was the first time they've been like, we're in on this. Mom, dad, two cousins, myself, Romilly,

all go see Wonka. Romilly went? Yes. Sunday. Well, because when I thought I was taking both of them without the parents, I was like,

I can't handle both by myself. I just want to say, because I just think these are important notes, like maybe 15, 20 minutes into the movie, little Cleo, four and a half, turns to me and goes, where's the factory? She's not going to like it then. She's not, it's not coming soon. And I said, what?

She goes, the chocolate factory. And I said, when are we going to get to the fireworks factory? It truly was. And I said, well, Cleo, this is like, it's young Wonka. He's got to build the factory. And was and i said well clue this is like it's young wonka he's got to build the factory and she just goes he's gotta build it well i she can go watch charlie in the chocolate factory if she wants to see a chocolate factory this is the other interesting thing right before the movie started when the warner brothers logo comes up and the little tinkles of the piano music pure imagination play She turns to me and she just like has like kind of a wistful smile on her face.

And she goes, it's been a long time since I've seen a Wonka movie. She's four years old. How long could it have possibly been? Been a long time since I've seen a Wonka movie. Okay. Like she's aware she's seen both of them. Sure.

She's like the grand tradition. I think she sits down and it's like, I'm going to see a third telling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Well, she needs to pay better attention to her brand IP. There's a second Wonka movie? We covered it on this podcast. Tim Burton, Johnny Depp.

I must have blocked it out completely. That's a good movie. It was just so haunting. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. It was erased from my memory It's a good movie. It's a good movie. That I completely just... It's a good movie. It was a race for my memory. It's a good movie. David, for the record,

when we did... I know you look at Burton miniseries as our deepest, darkest time. I don't mind that movie. I kind of prefer it to the... That's what I... I just wanted to restate that, which was your opinion.

I was going with his bit. But you also like the Gene Wilder movie less than most people. I don't really like either of those movies that much, and I don't... Like, yes. I think... I like either of those movies that much. And I don't, like, yes. I think I like the book. Sure.

But not in some, like, meh way. Just, like, I was so obsessed with the book. And for some reason, the Gene Wilder movie was just not a big movie for me as a kid. I saw it, like, once. Yeah. And so, the book remained my impression. Those were Cleo's lines before the movie, right? She starts getting increasingly antsy.

By the last 20 minutes, she was losing it, and I had to point and be like, Cleo, there actually will be a factory! Factory, factory! And then she leaned over the railing of the theater and then was in for the last couple of minutes. Okay. George is a sophisticate, right? And the meme, Cleo is Winnie the Pooh, George is Winnie the Pooh

in the tuxedo. Okay? He's an eight-and-a-half-year-old sophisticate who just loves his rarefied superhero movies. He loves his IP. He loves his IP. He loves his IP. And he is watching, and he's laughing, and he's enjoying different things, whatever. And then, at the end of the movie, he turns to me, and he just goes like, he's sort of really kind of doing the math in his head and he goes there's this thing that movies

keep doing where they make a movie and then they make another movie and the second movie is the things that happen before the first movie and I go George you're on to them George it's called a prequel it's

like a sequel that happens before. And he goes, they're doing it in the wrong order. Some might say. And George is like starting to formulate his like Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Like, we need to stop this from happening. George, you didn't know what you were doing with The Phantom Menace. You were starting a plague. I just think it's interesting.

Their parents were really into it. Yeah. Right right romley and i are into it yeah they are into it but with some frustrations or antsiness and the takeaway from both of them is without intellectualizing at the level we're talking about both of them are why am i watching young wonka right why is this the movie i just think that's a little interesting. It's a little interesting, but these are also kids who are now, yes, becoming wise to, like, don't force a prequel on me just because I like another thing. Right, which I think this movie is pretty wildly successful in what it is trying to do. Yeah. I do hold against this movie.

There's the Paddington 3 thing, which I've already stated, which will be settled a year from now. Mm-hmm. The second thing is, I don't know if this movie fully convinces me that it needed to exist,

which I know the retort to that is, does any movie need to exist? What are you talking about? Strong retort. Yes. But I am like, this is the best execution of a Wonka prequel

I could imagine. A thing I don't necessarily still feel I wanted to see. I don't need a Wonka prequel, I could imagine. A thing I don't necessarily still feel I wanted to see. I don't need a Wonka prequel. Well, Ben, what do you think of Wonka? Oh, boy. You saw it alone the other night. I saw it alone.

Where'd you go? I went to Regal Essex. A gentleman's theater. A nice new Regal theater. Yeah, lovely. It was packed. Yeah. And I also loved... wilder the gene wilder wonka right remember the tim burton one vividly think about it all the time um so i also

poster above your bed of the movie every night before you go to sleep big old smooch every every night so i went into it ready to feel nostalgic. Sure. And kind of was already like really in on it. In the tank. Uh-huh. We were talking that night before you went to the theater and I was like, I think you're going to love it. And you know, I don't

love musicals. Okay. So there's definitely some parts that hurt me a little bit. Like where they sang. Yeah, the singing parts. And the dancing. And the dancing.

The dancing's pretty light. Although he looked natural. He did. No, he's a very good physical actor. He always has been. But damn, it got me. And I liked it. I kind of liked it.

Wonka. Wonka. Bring him in. Bring him in. Wonka. Wonka's good! Wonka! Bring him in! Wonka! Wonka! Cheers! Cheers! We're all lifting up our hot chocolate. David's holding it as far away as possible. But I need to announce to everyone in the room and everyone listening at home,

I did finish my hot cocoa. Wow! I'm almost done. Ben, did you cry during Wonka? Yes. Yeah, I called. Okay. Yep'm almost done ben did you cry during wonka yes yeah i called okay yep marie what did you think of wonka i had a great time yeah a full disclosure i was zooted when i saw this movie on fudge i fucking wish so i saw this movie with my new colleague shelby hey shout out to shelby and uh brag. Shout out to Shelby. And we took, you know, little weed gummies

and... Weed chop. You really should have done weed chop. I know, but I... That's actually a huge screw up

on your mind. That's actually... I know. Although I guess Wonka makes gummies. But you guys, I'm just, I have access to gummies.

I didn't have access to weed. Oh my God, you took some drugs. Okay. I took some drugs. And you took, and you enjoyed Wonka. We have to talk about Aquaman 2 as well. Oh, I didn't have access to one. Oh my god, you took some drugs. And you enjoyed Wonka. We have to talk about Aquaman 2 as well.

Oh, I know. We'll get there. But I had a great time. I clapped my hands several times. I clutched my armrests in surprise and delight at some lines. Did your popcorn flew out of

your bag onto your face maybe? Yeah, it was like the beginning of, you know, the pre-roll at AMC or whatever for Coca-Cola. But yeah, I had a great time and I really wanted chocolate after the movie ended. So Shelby and I went to the Target in the mall with the Alamo Drafthouse. And full disclosure, I work in advertising right now. That's my new job. Your non-blank check job, to be clear. My non-blank check job.

Yeah. And Shelby is a strategist. I'm a copywriter. She was absolutely just astounded by the fact that there is no tie-in. Okay. I can talk about this. Right? You opened up a can. just astounded by the fact that there is no tie-in. Okay, I'm good. No, oh my God. I can talk about it. Right?

Yeah, open up a can. This is my number. I don't know what the fuck happened. Maria, I can't even go into that much, but I will send you the article that you can repost on social media when this episode comes out. Because there was the British production

of the Willy Wonka musical. Yeah. Right? That played in London for many years, transferred over here, didn't do as well, and I think maybe closed prematurely because of the pandemic. Right. Sure. There was a big New York Times article about how that was opening on Broadway and there were no Wonka

tie-in chocolates because Wonka, the brand, existed for a long time with products on stores. Yeah, I remember this from the 90s. I hated that it existed. It made me really mad when I was a kid. Well.

Because I was like, this is just regular chocolate. This is bullshit. You know, it was long before the pandemic. It closed in 2017, but it had a less successful run than it did in London. Wait, nerds, though. Nerds. Come on, David, nerds. What do you mean?

Nerds are Wonka, aren't they? Yes, that's what we're saying that's a huge achievement in the world of candy I agree Ben nerds are major but I will say I don't really understand the appeal of nerds rope nerds rope that's actually

I haven't fucked with the rope move on what's the end of the story there was some fucking thing i will find this new york times article where there were some rights issue where suddenly everyone was locked out of using wanka to produce candy good and it hasn't been done for years lock them out and when they were doing the musical on broadway they had to commission like fucking dylan lauren of dylan's candy bar to make tie-in chocolates but but they couldn't call them Wonka chocolates. Good. And this still has not been resolved

six years later. No one can make any Wonka tie-in product. Good. That is edible, I think. Right. I feel like they're tying like clothing items. Can you eat this poster? No, you can't. Are you sure? You can't make anything edible. It's just like kind of fascinating

that that's like the obvious slam dunk and you can't do it. It is an obvious slam dunk, but I'm glad they can't. But they're leaving millions of dollars on the table, David. I don't care. Here's my take. I don't need them to make money. Fuck them. That's my take.

You don't need them to make money, but I really wanted to eat some chocolate. I want to eat chocolate. Why don't you just eat other chocolate? Do you know what I did, David? You know, sorry. I know Ben is like freaking out right now because the levels are out of control. Sorry, Ben. Both are like

ripping our mics. I bought two six-packs of Russell Stover's chocolate-covered marshmallow ornaments. And that shit doesn't make you fucking hover. It doesn't.

But this is the problem. No Wonka chocolates in stores do anything. Yet! Yet! Yet! As a kid, I am reading wonderful books about chocolate that turns you different colors and shrinks you and does all this crazy stuff. What a fun time.

And then they're like, yeah, you can buy Wonka chocolates in stores. What's the deal with it? It's milk chocolate in a bar form. That's basically it. Laffy taffy though, David? Like, you can't just... Sweet tarts, David. I hate sweet tarts.

Pixie sticks. That's another achievement. Everyone has pixie sticks. Have you ever seen the huge pixie sticks? They're like this big. And you can just pour it down your head. Oh, yeah, sure. Pour it down your head.

What a genius idea. It's just pure sugar. Yeah. So, I don't want Warner Brothers making money. Oh, here, Griffin's sending us. Right, there's no chocolate. The weirdest thing is that there's literally a theater. Now, it's not on the West End.

It's off the West End. It's fringe, as they would say. Oh, the chocolate factory. Called the chocolate factory. Yeah. And I think they didn't do it there. Correct. That feels like a missed End. Okay. Fringe, as they would say. Oh, the chocolate factory. Called the chocolate factory. Yeah. And I think they didn't do it there. Correct. It's like, that feels like a missed opportunity.

Yes. Wonka. I saw Wonka at my house because Warner Brothers sent me a screener. It must be nice. One percent. Did you watch it? Did you watch it with the boss baby?

Didn't watch it with the boss baby. I watched it with my wife, a boss baby in her own, right? And it was one of those things where five minutes in, I was like, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty charmed right now. And 10 minutes in, we're both just like high-fiving each other. Oh, she was loving it. Okay. She likes musicals a lot. Likes musicals, likes Paddington.

And I'm like, this is the Paddington guy. And she's like, yes, you're right. It is the Paddington guy. It is interesting when you have the phenomenon of a guy like that where it's like his name is not known by most people. Sure. But yet, if you tell to anyone who is not super looped into movies, by the way, do you know that Wonka was made by the Paddington guy? They like light up. It's not like I don't care who directed it. They're like, do you know that Wonka was made by the Paddington guy? They like light up. It's not like, I don't care who directed

it. They're like, that means something. The lights are coming down in the theater. I turn to Romley and I go, by the way, you know this was made by the Paddington people, right? And she goes, it was? And she like sits up. Is now locked in. Yes. Yes. So Wonka is

good. A plus. Five stars. I'm going to have to give it a major smile. You gave it a major smile. That should be, you should have a newspaper column where it's like major smile, thin smile, expressionless. Ben's smile of the week. Slight frown, scowl. I can't wait to find out what expression

Aquaman to The Lost Kingdom gets from you, Ben. Maybe the column is called what shape is ben's mouth the the thing is the opening of wanka where he's doing the whole song to himself with the with this and he's he's losing all his money yeah i'm just like that was it was incredibly well done and charming and like you know perfect little like you know storytelling look and it's broad strokes but the moment where he says like, what's the domination of money? I have one silver. Silver.

He starts with seven, right? But what do they call it? Yeah, no, I know. God, what is it? Hold on. They're not called like single. I think it begins with an S. Silver sovereign.

Sovereign. There we go. There you go. That was a close one. Because obviously this movie is set in like chocolate town Europe. Like, you know, it's not really a country or a place. But when he counts, and I still got six silver sovereigns in my pocket and the woman with the child. And it's like, it's the thing you love.

It's the fucking Aladdin thing. It's Aladdin giving the loaf to the kids, yes. Where you're like, you're on board with this guy for the rest of the movie. But, so, I like that. But I will, like, so I'm on board. And then he's still proud that he has only one left. He flips it. He has nothing. He's on the bench. He lost it down the drain, right?

He's on the drain. But, and then, of course, we're following that up with Olivia Colman's sequence and obviously I'm just like, Olivia Colman, yeah, but this is just, but right, but it's when we meet the charming coterie a fellow sure you know

wage slaves at the at the at the inn yes abacus crunch I did not know that Jim Carter was married to Imelda Staunton

oh yes and had been for decades this blew my fucking mind when I was born they were three years married they were probably like you know like still feeling great honeymoon period-y right you know like that's how long they've been longer. When I was born, they were three years married. They were probably like, you know, like still feeling great.

Honeymoon period-y, right? You know, like that's how long they've been married. Fucking 12 times a day. Yeah. We were, I will admit in our group text with the Doughboys, we were texting a lot imagining the sex lives between Jim Carter and Imelda Stone. And all of us were on the same page. Electric.

This guy fucks. I find that. She fucks. I feel like these are kind of disrespectful thoughts to have. I think they seem madly in love. I'm just saying, yes, we can talk about him getting sort of suckered into signing his rent away, essentially. But then it's like, yeah, you're going to have to work with Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell,

Rich Fulcher. Like, who else is in there? The telephone woman. Who's the comedian guy? I was very charmed by it. That's Rich Fulcher. Who else is in there? Who's the comedian guy? I was very charmed by it. That's Rich Fulcher. He's from The Mighty Boosh. I thought he was very funny. Larry Chucklesworth. Great character. Bob Fossil.

He wants to get his wife back. He was an early New York UCB guy who then defected to England and became the American American brash loud American improviser that all cool British old comedians love much like Rich Hall like the weird thing

in British comedy where there's like four Americans and you're like where did these guys come from and they're just like in the soup with everybody else he did a sketch show with Matt Berry called Snuffbox that's incredibly good so good it's just fun when, like, as an American in Britain, I would always really be rooting

for the Rich Fulchers and Rich Halls. I'm like, ah, you see, you're holding your own with all these guys joking about Thatcher. You know, you can do it too. Oh, that's so cute, David. It's cute.

Rich Fulcher is one of these guys where it's like his go-to persona is sort of like what a British person would do impersonating an American. Yes. So they're like walking to the tent. They sort of lean into it. Right. Yes.

Yeah. When they're all introduced and they're like, yeah, we all have our problems and we're all like in our drudgery here. Scrub, scrub. Scrub. And I'm just like, Wonka's going to turn all their lives around and they're going to become a makeshift family and they're going to create dreams together and it's going to be wonderful i'm just like so happy i know it's i'm so happy to realize this that it's not going to be about reckoning with willie wonka's legacy with the oompa loompas it's not going to be about like chocolate you know it's not going to be it's not really going to be about colonialism it is going to be about income inequality yes and it's going to be about capitalism it's it's

the systems of power all working together to suppress the commoner right it's not going to be the annoying version of like cruella where it's like why do you why does she hate dalmatians i'm like i don't care like what if i told you dalmatians attacked her family i I'm like, that sounds stupid! I don't want to know! Chased her mother off a cliff! I mean, yeah. I will say... Instead of just like, you're giving me Paddington with Willy Wonka? It is great. So, I listened to

the Big Picture episode on Wonka. I haven't heard that one. Well, Sean Fennessy, not a fan. Amanda and Joanna Robinson both cried at Wonka. Sean Fennessy didn't like Wonka? Sean, I'm shocked. You totally... He texted me that he didn't like Wonka.

I bet he texted me a lot about it. You know what? It's okay. But he's allowed to be wrong. He is. But he is wrong. He was like, oh, well, you know, Wonka should have, like, menace and mean streak and all of this stuff. I'm already out on this.

Wonka should have is just not a sentence I need completed. David, I totally agree. But I rewatched the 19, the Gene Wilder Wonka after seeing this. Mel Stewart. That's his name. Yeah. They set up certain things that Wonka later, like, the reading. Oh, like there are some thematic times.

Wonka not being able to read and then getting suckered by fine print is a major plot point in Willa. There's a couple things where they're like, what's a funny thing we can do with that? But that's like an origin story sort of thing, but it's not coming from a place of, like, dark malice. Like, everything is handled with a light touch i just also i'm like i don't like this x should y no gene wilder did something someone else can do something else it's fine as long as it works bitter and sad as you get older and you trap yourself in a chocolate factory with no friends yeah i mean where does friends go that's my question can i say the two things you guys are all going to scoff at?

I'm going to scoff so hard at this. Thing number one. Yeah. Is a sidekick to the cat in the hat. True. True. It's true. It's true.

As is thing number two. So what's thing number three? Things are basically same story, different verse. What's thing number three? What's thing number three? My first thing is, I think Timmy is good in this. I wholeheartedly

love that he did this. I think it rules that he did this. I think it rules that he pulled it off. And I'm like, I think this is really encouraging for like the sort of big picture long-term thinking of the kind of career he's building where it's like, you

cannot just stay in the sullen zone, right? Like when he signed on to Dune, David, that was a moment where you were getting a little burned out on Timmy because of like Beautiful Boy and some stuff. Yeah. And you were like,

is he going to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again? He gets cast in Dune and you're like, huh, that's like the one big thing he's kind of perfect for. He found the thing that makes sense. But that's in his, on a big scale. In the zone,

right? Wonka's him stretching to a different corner. It's high school YouTube rap videos. I love that he did it. I wish he was like 10% more insane in this movie. I'm not even talking about the darkness because I accept that as a, that comes later. It's more Wilder's take. Because it's not even as much Roald Dahl's take.

I haven't read the book. I don't know if that's part of it. I don't even mean to be doing it the same way as Wilder. Right. But I want a little bit of that unpredictable mania. They have their moments.

They're the ones that are in the trailer of him flipping the words up and things like that. I want a little bit more of I can't quite figure this guy out energy. 10%. I think it's just like,

you know, this is Paul King, so he's whimsical. I want 10, but there's a whimsical way to do that. My second thing is just, it's not even the Gene Wilder stuff.

It's like, I want 10% more just a little Roald Dahl darkness nastiness. Just a little bit. I think that's in the basement. They get imprisoned,

Griffin, in the basement. They try to drown them in chocolate. I bring it up only because I actually think Mighty Boosh has that kind of vibe to it. But Mighty Boosh isn't for kids. No, but I think Mighty Boosh feels a little more Roald Dahl in a way that when they announced that he was doing Paddington, I was like, Paul King feels a little hard edge to be doing Paddington. And when I see Paddington, I'm surprised of like, oh, he adapted to the material.

I wanted to see him bring a little bit of the edge back. Once again, both of these things for me are just percentages. Yeah, and also I'm just sort of like, we're sitting in a room, us grown people, being like, why wasn't Wonka edgier? And it's like, we all need to go. Not edgier. We all need to go get into a lake. We do.

I agree. We need to drown inside fucking scrumptiously umptious hot chocolate. Here's a different thing I want to say. About Wonka. In counterbalance to my little cousins being a little annoyed

by the prequel of it all. Right? Had they seen a prequel before this? Yes, because George was calling out the systemic. I understand. Like what prequels

had maybe. I don't know, but he said they keep doing this thing. He didn't like it. Okay. I don't like it either. Right.

They both seem to enjoy it, have those gripes. Why am I not at the chocolate factory? Why is this happening? Why am I seeing the early part later? Yes. Anecdotally, this is the movie

I think I have received the most holy shit, have you seen Wonka yet text. Any movie this year. People, not to use this word, but normies who don't see a ton of movies yeah coming to you being like hey i'll also say like some of my like most discerning comedy nerd film people like all quarters sean clements i'll blast him out yeah sean clements went to see this

in las vegas by himself i don't think you imagine by himself. In the sphere? I don't think he saw it. Can you imagine seeing Wonka in the sphere? I think I truly got 15 different texts from people at different levels of how often am I in communication with them. It was not a follow up to, oh, this is someone I've been talking about Wonka with. Got 15 different, holy shit, have you seen Wonka? I want to talk about Wonka texts. I do think this movie is like basically by and large winning over all adults who see it. Except for Sean Fennessey.

Him liking Wonka would have surprised me. And I say that with love to Sean Fennessey. He's a bit of a slug worth. The energy of all these people was, by the way, I went to see Wonka opening weekend. I assumed it was going to be kind of shitty and I'm kind of blown away by it.

I do think this movie is benefiting from everyone being cynical about it yeah the trailer the trailer was bizarre they were rock bottom because it's this combo of i don't want a prequel right i'm sick of timmy this looks too cutesy and then it's a musical yeah which they hid in the trailers other people a different why'd you hide it right and then some people people like ben other people a different way. Why'd you hide it? And then some people be like, ah, fuck. Because people like Ben don't like musicals.

I know why they hide it. Believe me. I know what the studio is up to. I found out my mom doesn't like musicals. Well, that's rude. What do you mean? She doesn't like musicals. Like, she just doesn't.

She said, she's like, I don't like when they start singing. I mean, it really is a thing where I'm like, why are we singing now? Because there's chocolate and there's chocolate. You've never seen chocolate like this, ben do you like music i love music so i would say what's the problem with your third christmas album four fourth he started from zero i forgot about this The virology of it.

I don't know. I don't know. I just, I get really taken out when they start, but I'm coming around to it. A lot of people do. I'm coming around to it. I'm trying.

I struggle with the breaking of the fourth wall. I mean, this movie, it broke through your barrier. Absolutely. It wore out your defense. But it wore out your defenses

with its Paddington charm, not with its songs. I will say, I like all the songs in this movie. I like the music just fine. I'm a big fan of, you know, Neil Hannon, who did the music from The Divine Comedy. But these songs are very, like, airy and light. Yeah, they're not earworms for me.

They go down easy. And, like, it's in the whimsical vibe of everything. It's not, like like big, brassy. Perhaps another unfair comparison, but I kept thinking like I wish Tim Minchin had done the songs for this. I think he did the Matilda musical. He's good. I want to see the Matilda musical. I haven't seen it yet.

The movie? The movie's good too. Any iteration of it. I think the Matilda musical is very good and I just love those songs. I think they're the slightly better version of what this movie is trying to do. And he has that kind of like Roald Dahl wit too. He's good. I mean, I can't, I'm not going to beef with Tim Minchin.

But I was a big Neil Hannon fan when I was a kid. And I had no idea. I had no relationship to this guy and his music. I had no idea he was doing this movie until I watched it. And I was like, wait, who did the songs? I was realizing, and I was like, oh, fuck, Neil Hannon. National Express. Seeing the Matilda musical, I was like, yeah, this is what Roald Dahl songs should sound like.

This feels totally right. And in this, I was like, this is a movie that has songs that are pleasant in it. I would agree with that. Who did the Willy Wonka songs? The original? The original. Well, Anthony Newley. Anthony Newley. Who did the Willy Wonka songs? The original? The original. Well, Anthony Newley. Anthony Newley.

There you go. Did he write all of them? Well, I can't tell you. He wrote Pure Imagination. Yeah, he did the score. From the Garbage Pail Kids movie. Sprinkle it with dew. I mean, great song. They're a good song. Those are good. Right. And then obviously the Johnny Depp movie is Danny Elfman writing music to rald

doll lyrics three completely uncomplicated people yep nothing just perfect nothing is good can we say it best thing about that movie unproblematic kink i think so i hope so fuck i'm i'm googling him right now. My hands are shaking. Don't let us down. Please. Looks like he's doing fine. David? Yes?

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Okay, I can't believe I'm doing this right now, but let's talk about the chocolate cartel. Sorry. So we have to talk about the chocolate cartel. We have to talk about Hugh Grant as... Yes, we're going to talk about this. Let's do cartel first, because Hugh Grant actually takes a while to show up.

He does. Yes. The little orange man. Yeah. And oompa loompa, I'm seeing you. Doompity does. Yes. The little orange man. Yeah. I'm seeing you. So, yes. Wonka arrives at Chocolatown, USA. Not USA, Europe. He's got

a rapidly decreasing number of silver sovereign in his pocket. He has no money. He signs up to stay at an inn run by Olivia Coleman as Mrs. Scrubbit, having a blast with Tom Davis, I believe, who is the best

as her enforcer. One of the, he's the big inmate in, Yeah. He's T-Bone. Oh, I didn't make that connection. And then,

yes, Wonka is essentially imprisoned in this in doing laundry because he didn't read the fine print. Because he cannot read. But let's also say he's an innovator.

He very quickly makes a dog-run laundry machine. He does, which rocks. And there's a whole Scrubs Scrubs song, best song in the show, probably in the movie, right? But also, yes, he goes to Chocolate Square or wherever the fuck

to debut his chocolates. Hover Chalks. Hover Chalks. Eggs that make you fly. And he is set upon by the Chocolate Cartel. Arthur Slugworth, who of course is a character in the book. He's not. Was he not created for...

Maybe in the movie. I think he's created for the Wilder movie. In the books, there are the rivals who are trying to get the golden tickets and all that. Right. And then Matt Lewis. So that's Patterson Joseph, a great actor. I don't know how you feel about Patterson Joseph.

I don't have a ton of familiarity with his past work. You never watched Peep Show? No, I have. You're right. I'm sorry. I forgot. Johnson. He's like perfect in this.

He is so dialed into the tone of this movie. like perfect in this he's he is so dialed into the tone of this movie the thing with him ben is he is like a great british theater actor like a-list theater actor right and he's done a lot of tv and peep show have you watched peep show you know but then he was also like the fucking clive owen of doctor who right every time a new doctor who was gonna get cast he would be the favorite because it was like this guy just makes sense he's black so like that would be like a big deal but also like he's got the energy and the looks and the you know doctor who a number of times and like it i think it kind of almost became the clive owen thing of them being like well we can't cast him too obvious like everyone expects that

yeah um he's awesome in this then you have matt lucas uh-huh looking like hitler uh who obviously any british comedy fan probably has seen him in something or other sure over the years and then of course he was on bake off and all that yeah he's tweedled the end tweedledum right and he right that's the thing he did movies here he did like he's a bridesmaid here. He's prod nose. And then my personal favorite, honestly, is Matthew Bainton as Felix Fickle Gruber, the guy who barfs anytime someone says poor.

He hates poor people so much they make him puke. That bit always got me. Yeah, it was funny. And they pay off Keegan-Michael Key, who is a police officer who speaks with a Brooklyn accent. Keegan's really good in this.

He rocks in this movie. Did we need to do fat jokes, though? I thought it was really funny. I think that kind of comical, like, he literally becomes a balloon man because he's eating too much chocolate, is the kind of cartoonish humor that doesn't bother me. I understand it bothers people though. Yes, I know some people were upset about it. I didn't take him being fat. It's so ludicrous.

And it's not really I like the joke of like he's getting huge. Right. Like clearly I'm clearly not being bribed with chocolate. He's becoming like this cartoon figure. There's a lot of like sort of drug metaphors throughout the movie. The cartel.

And then, you know, the fact that like he's addicted to chocolate. Yes. And they're paying off the clergy. Like this movie is about religion, law enforcement, and the titans of business all working in tandem to suppress everyone. And most crucially, produce a worse product because they don't need to produce a good product. I think that's really big. Yeah. Like, you know, it's like they're watering down their chocolate.

It's not even that good. And like they're storing chocolate away from themselves. And it's also, it's the kind of thing where you're like, the shit where you find out like, wait a second, like the 10 biggest eyeglass brands are all owned by the same company. Right. Like there's a monopoly that no one's benefiting from other than the shareholders. Right. Wait a minute. Every Hollywood trade is owned by the one fucking guy.

Right. This shit where you're like, there's no free market. Like their introduction where they come out, try Wonka's chocolate and are like, we agree on nothing, but we all agree this is the worst chocolate we've ever had. Right. And then you find out, unsurprisingly, that's like not only have they been in cahoots forever, but part of their plan is to like all agree to sell the same mediocre product under different labels. So people just don't have options. And you're all just accepting the fucking swill. People think capitalism and free markets work, but they don't.

They don't. Because they're run by cartels. Yes. And what you need is disruptors. Yes. Like Willy Wonka. The Elon Musk of chocolate. Griffin, no.

I can't deny that, of course. No. That we're keeping him And believe me Some stuff got cut out But of course Willy Wonka Is also introduced As being the son of a Lovely narrowboat

Lady Sort of who Sally Hawkins maybe like an Irish traveler Type person Sewing right I don't even know Chocolate's sort of like a mean sally hawkins maybe like an irish traveler type person she's sewing right i don't know even though chocolate's sort of like a side hobby for her but she teaches him chocolate chocolate was her love language she doesn't teach him uh the english language but she does yes uh which i is timmy at his goofiest and funnest to me is when he's just cheerfully

like talking about he just can't read signs we have not yet talked about Noodle Noodle who is played by Kala Lane Kayla I believe it's pronounced and she is basically her first movie she had a small role in The Day Shall Come which I don't know what that is

come on it's the Chris Morris movie anyway Karen Chris Morris Four Lions she did another movie in season I didn't even know this movie existed it didn't really come out in America It's the Chris Morris movie. Anyway, Karen. It's the Chris... Chris Morris, Four Lions. You know. Oh, okay. She did another movie in season? I didn't even know this movie existed. It didn't really come out in America. Okay.

So, she is an orphan who was left in a laundry hamper at Mrs. Scrubbett, played by Olivia Colman. Of course, there's a backstory there. Right. You know. And she immediately takes a,

you know, shine to Wonga. They take a shine to each other. They yeah. And she immediately takes a, you know, shine to Wonga. They take a shine to each other. They do. And she... They have a real big brother, little sister thing. She's allowed... She is still enslaved.

Uh-huh. Like the rest of, you know, the... They've signed contracts. But she's allowed to leave the basement. Because she has to transport the laundry. Because she has to deliver the laundry. There were a couple things where I was like trying to describe this movie and I was like, God,

there's so many things that happen in this movie that are like when you just say them out loud. Willy Wonka can't read. Timothy Chalamet milks a giraffe. Yeah. He does. That's a big plot point. Central to the plot. It's what makes this product better is he only uses giraffe

milk. Right. Which I mean plot. It's what makes this product better is he only uses giraffe milk. Right. Which, I mean, the giraffe's name is Abigail. I thought she was, I'm assuming that's a CG character. The face maybe? Oh, CG. Yes, yes. You rarely see real animals in movies anymore. It's certainly not exotic ones like giraffes.

But that's like, you know, back in the day, practical special effects houses would have certain types of like animatronics that they would make as evergreen of like, it's worth having 10 robot babies on a shelf. Right. So that anytime there's a show that needs a newborn baby, we can just lease it out. We don't have to custom build one for this. Right. I think now all the special effects houses have a warehouse, like a hard drive of every animal done realistically. And if you're not creating

a new type of species, they're just like, here's our giraffe. You never need to have a real giraffe on set. It is much more humane. And it's, they've gotten to the point

where it's seamless. I remember the Coens talking about how the CGI cows in Oh Brother Where Art Thou were from Twister. Yeah. And I was like, that was the first time I learned that,

that they were like, yeah, we just, boop, put them in. The Twister ones. We just put them in our one. Yes. Not the, what does he say?

Fuck. When he shoots the cows and Tim Blake Nelson is like, oh, not the livestock. That's it. It's a really funny one. I just, I loved the facial animation on Abigail the giraffe.

Thought she was lovely. Yep. We stan our tall-necked queen. Go off. Yeah. Big beanpole. I loved his contraptions and all of the weird little sort of trinkets. Yeah.

The little he's collected. He's got in his pockets. Because everything comes from like his travels around the world. It's such a peak Paul King moment when like Willie starts to reveal his backstory. He takes out his little traveling chocolate factory, bespoke wooden case.

He opens it up. It's all these contraptions and whistles. And then there's like the Nickelodeon at the center of it that shows the flashback to his mother. I'm like, this is like, Paul King has his style so established. They add grain and imperfections to that.

So it really looks like, you know, they do a good job of making the memories. But it's very similar to the Paddington. Like I'm explaining the family to you through showing the dollhouse. Just the other Paul King thing of like, there's no small characters. You see someone and it's like, oh, they're not, you know, Simon Farnaby plays the security guard, right?

Charlotte Ritchie and Phil Wang as the people who fall in love. But it's also why when, what you said about like the moment you're introduced to the scrub scrubbers where you're like pumping your fists because you're just like anytime Paul King introduces characters like this in an odd corner of the story that feels like it would be incidental in any other movie you can sit back

and go I'm gonna love this guy he's going to in the next 10 minutes figure out a way to make me fucking love this person and be rooting for their eternal happiness. It works every time. It works every time.

It does work every time. We got to talk about Hugh Grant now. There's a little orange man. Wonk introduces, right, the notion that, like, my one enemy is my chocolate keeps getting stolen by a little orange man.

And people think that he's crazy and making up. Because they have this whole complicated thing of, like, right, Noodle is sneaking Willie out in the laundry cart. He's selling the chocolate on the streets, going straight to people, direct to consumer.

And then meanwhile, because the dog is now running the laundry machine, all the other Scrub Scrub friends are running the business and are working the other aspects of it. Right, Jim Carter's the accountant and the phone lady's doing the orders. And they're all obviously like collectively in this together to get to the point where they made enough money

to buy back their freedom. And also we should just say that the police are trying to prevent Wonka and Co. from selling his wares. As is the church, because the church Rowan Atkinson, great stuff for Rowan Atkinson. Cousin George turns to me and he goes, that's Johnny English.

Oh my God. George just fucking nails these. How is that your reference point? That's the most recent Rowan Atkinson character, I guess. Where are we getting George on the pod? He said Mr. Bean, too. We'll ask. I mean, look, I respect George's privacy.

Yeah, he's a little boy. But he'd be good. He'd be so good. He's got great takes. I love this. Is this the second movie where Rowan Atkinson is stressed out about a giraffe? At least the second. What's the first one?

The Lion King. He saw two. Of course. I'm just imagining that. I just can't wait to be Kingpin. Yeah, but he was laughing because he could just imagine Mr. Bean having to do with a giraffe. Well, I was trying to think, are there any other Rowan Atkinson giraffe movies? Not that I know of. Wait, giraffes are hard to rustle up.. Well, I was trying to think, are there any other Rowan Atkinson giraffe movies? Not that I know of.

No. Like, giraffes are hard to rustle up. I know. That's why I thought I was like, aw. Johnny English for his sidekick should be a giraffe.

They should make it. There are three Johnny Englishes? Yeah. Yeah, there's three. Oh, my God. He must collect so much just on fucking Zazu.

Oh. That's before Blackadder and Mr. Bean and anything else he's ever done. I've told this story before but Ernie Sabella the great Ernie Sabella who I worked with Broadway legend who played Pumbaa

the fucking Pumbaa Millions not to put a number on it it's not like he ever publicly disclosed it to me but it's just like set for life what a wonderful phrase the fact that he sang Hakuna Matata just set him the paychecks will never stop coming in it is, you know what, he raised a good point.

It is a wonderful phrase. Okay. Hugh Grant, Little Orange Man, chocolate is mysteriously missing from Wonka's bedroom. And Noodle thinks

he's nuts when he talks about this Little Orange Man. Noodle thinks he's eating all of the chocolate. Of course, selfishly. Turns out, because he sets up

a little trap to catch the little orange man, and it is Hugh Grant caught in a jar, and he... Magically shrunk. He explains why, you know,

he's been stealing Wonka's chocolate. And this is another phrase that I use when describing what happened in this movie to people. He farts, and then the fart cloud turns into a people. He farts. Mm-hmm. And then the fart cloud

turns into a memory. Oh, yeah. Which I thought was a beautiful transition. Now, can I say something? Please. And this is not something Ben's going to have to cut out.

I promise you. Ben's fingers are hovered over the keyboard right now. Ben. Put your hands behind your head. Lean back. Relax. What do you want to say we still haven't

talked about aquaman fucking like four times a year hugh grant does some interview where everyone goes like why is hugh grant the nastiest man in the world sure he can have a bit of a malicious sort of vibe with the press right he doesn't like very much right and broken to his phone yeah he's had a long complicated relationship and all of Wonka's press tour where he's just like, it was a nightmare making this movie. I hate it.

Absolute torture. People are like, God, fucking Hugh Grant shitting on this movie. I'm like, Hugh Grant is fucking doing the Charles Grodin thing. Hugh Grant has a

well-established comedic persona. I have heard that he is a dour man to begin with. Yeah, I think he's prickly, and he always is like, I don't like this. I don't like doing this. And the older he. Yeah, I think he's prickly, and he always is like, I don't like this. I don't like doing this.

And the older he's getting, the more he's leaning into this grumpy elder statesman thing, where I'm like, I'm not saying this isn't a reflection of he found this to be a tedious process, but when he's saying this, he's not like, oh no,

letting his guard down, going off. No, it's a take. This is him being like, I know I'm being funny by playing the role of sourpuss. Yeah. I just keep seeing people say he hates that he's in this movie. I'm like, fucking Paul King directed his best performance ever.

He loves him. He wants to be in this movie. I'm sure he found the process tedious. He is like in it. Yes. Let me just talk about Hugh for a minute. Obviously, early Hugh, Maurice, Lara, the white worm, right? You know, young baby face doing arty movies

greatest movie crush of all time B movies I think I definitely told the cousins when he showed up as an Oompa Loompa remains of the day

right then four weddings suddenly it's like oh how do we make this guy a movie star he's become the avatar for right

British no but also Richard Curtis it's like Richard Curtis has found his perfect mouthpiece which is fine but then it's also like,

let's give him, you know, nine months and extreme measures and Mickey Blue. Like, let's find vehicles for him, right? Eventually. But part of his thing becomes like, oh, he's like foppish British Woody Allen. He's like, you know, which I think he always felt very constrained by.

Right. In the early 2000s, he pivots to, I'll play a bit of a bad boy. You know, Bridget Jones, Two Weeks Notice, About a Boy. I'll have a little more edge. About a Boy, his other best performance, obviously. He's great in the three movies I just named. But 2000s, he also starts spacing out the work.

He starts working with the one guy. He works with Mark Waters a lot. And he's like, I'll do one of these every three years. And then, of course, he is in a monument to evil, a film called Love Actually, one of the worst films ever made.

Agreed. And then, you know, he phones in a Bridget Jones sequel. He does American Dreams, which is like a really interesting movie that doesn't totally work, but he's good in it. It is an interesting movie.

And it's, again again him being kind of like, you know, right, you know, sort of semi-villainous. But this is him trying to lean into more the Charles Grodin thing of like, is my character comedy grump? Right, but it's dying off. The British version of it. Like, music and lyrics is kind of the last Hugh Grant leading man romantic

comedy. Did you hear about the Morgans comes out after that? That's been stricken from the record by Congress. I saw it in theaters. Once again, Romilly's biggest crush. I saw all of these. Mark Lawrence. Sorry, not Mark Waters.

Mark Waters is fucking Mean Girls. Yeah, right. Mark Lawrence is who directed. And that movie's bad, right? Did you hear about the Morgans? Yes. Quite poor. That's a quote from Tennessee.

My new favorite phrase. Quite poor. And then. one of those movies with like an insane stacked cast support yeah of your like

Wilford Brimley and Mary Steenburgen diabetes diabetes and then he's really not in movies anymore and it's like

this is the thing he's been saying in all the press of like I've entered the freak show period of my career where I play like horrible monsters when they announced that he's going to play

quote multiple villainous roles in Cloud Atlas you're like huh and that's that's interesting right and he rocks in Cloud Atlas rocks that's the beginning of this era we are now in where it's like Hugh Grant is going to come in

and sprinkle gold all over your movie in a supporting's like, Hugh Grant is going to come in and sprinkle gold all over your movie in a supporting role. Like, even in something like the Florence Foster Jenkins, He is so fucking good in Florence Foster Jenkins. Not a particularly good movie.

A movie I would say actually eats buttholes. It's a bad movie, but he's so good. And it's like, everyone thought that was going to be his like overdue tip of the hat career achievement nomination. And it didn't happen because that was going to be his like overdue tip of the hat career achievement nomination.

And it didn't happen because it was one of the most absurd cases of category fraud where they were running him in supporting. He is the lead of the movie. He got basically every precursor nom and then didn't get the Oscar. Yeah, because it was a stretch. Also, the movie sucks. The movie's not very good. But then like Paddington, too. He's amazing.

Gets a BAFTA nom. People think he should have gotten an Oscar nom. The Gentleman. He's one of the gentlemen in that one. That movie's not very good. But then like Paddington 2, he's amazing. Gets a BAFTA nom. People think he should have gotten an Oscar nom. The Gentleman, he's one of the gentlemen in that one. That movie's terrible, but he's having fun. Man from Uncle, he's really fucking fun. Man from Uncle, he's great in. Glass Onion does a cameo. Everyone's cheering.

Shows up for five seconds. Everyone's like, give me the whole movie of them having dinner together. Dungeons and Dragons, just like spitting hot fire every second. He is on screen. He is so good in Dungeons & Dragons. And now, a Wonka. It's just like,

this is all I want from him. I want him to stay here forever. Yes. I'm worried he's going to try an intro over somewhere else. You want to keep him in a little glass jar. You do.

To entertain you. I was not expecting him to sing the actual Oompa Loompa song. Gotta sing, you know, at least give me a few bars. But I was not expecting, like Oompa Loompa, it's one of these things at least give me a few bars. But I was not expecting, like Oompa Loompas,

it's one of these things where I feel like a lot of Wonka adjacent stuff now is like, well, how do we deal with the Oompa Loompas? Paul King's take of they are essentially urbane sophisticates

who are annoyed by you is way better than any other version of this, in my opinion. I would agree. I mean, because, yes, there's always, look, the whole thing,

the rooting in the book, you're like, this weird, like, colonialist aspect to, like, he takes them from their eyes. People, right. You know, it's terrible.

Right, it's terrible. And I do think when you look at the Gene Wilder movie, the styling of them and the energy of them is so weird, where you're like, well, this gets further away from what Roald Dahl wrote in a good way. And Paul King is like unpacking that further. And he's like, who are these little like men with these flippy hairdos and this sort of haughty attitude? Right, right.

Hugh Grant is the perfect person to cast a shorthand to just set up like this is what their vibe is. The fact that he like leaves the island in his like little yacht with his like his little like suitcase that turns into a cocktail thing that he can sit in yes it's so good he's going flat he's Hugh Grant's great I'm like this is it's the kind of performance I'd love to argue for a best supporting blankie nomination but it's a stacked category and it's not quite enough. He's sparse. It's like three scenes. Yes, but that's fine.

But he's really good. And you know why? Because there's a lot of other stuff to do in Wonka. A lot of stuff. They gotta make chocolate. They gotta make chocolate. So just to wrap Wonka. We all like Wonka.

Griffin apparently thinks he should, you know, have a switchblade or something. But apart from that... Yeah, I want to be really edgy and gritty. We should play the box office game for Wonka, but... Yeah. Any final Wonka thoughts? Obviously, everyone wins. I fully liked it. They defeat the cartel.

I think I'm less effusive than most people. And they're like... I've called out the things that were a little like... I just wanted a little more there. But I fully enjoyed this movie. And I think it's little more there. But I fully enjoyed this movie and I think it's like clearly working. And I do think

to build a bridge to Aquaman, right? This is kind of... Leaders, great kings build bridges. This is true. It's a little metaphor. Metaphor's gonna save your ass, Griffin.

There is an interesting thing of this year being like all these old sort of franchises, the automatic people will go to see the fifth of blank have been collapsing, right? And people are like, audiences want to see new things. But the new things aren't like wholly new. The new things are. It's Barbie. It's Wonka.

This is a thing we have familiarity with. But it's like a new version of it. It's a thing that we haven't seen in a while. It's Wonka. This is a thing we have familiarity with. Right, right. But it's like a new version of it. It's a thing that we haven't seen in a while. Like that helps too. Wonka has this thing of like, it's the Barbie thing. It's the Oppenheimer thing where Nolan's basically his own franchise, you know? Super Mario where it's like we haven't had a proper movie of this. You know, these things where it's like we want things we have a lot of affinity for.

Audiences are still a little scared to just go all in on something that's totally fresh to them. But the through line with all of these, except for Super Mario, is like letting someone with a strong vision really do their version of it. And like Top Gun Maverick is the same thing where it's like, we haven't had this character in decades. 100%. You know, and I do think Wonka, like part of what is exciting people

who are seeing it are like, this is reminding me of the things I liked about the previous version of this, of the book,

of all my fond childhood memories, but it's not just reserving it to me, it's recontextualizing, it's putting new elements into it, putting new ingredients in the chocolate.

You know? When that song at the end and Noodle is being reunited with her mom. Oh my God. Pure imagination, you're saying? When they kick in, pure imagination. Oh my God. The use of pure imagination in that.

It destroyed me. In that moment. It's fucking lovely. It really is. It's lovely AF. It's a good ass song. Yeah. It is a nice song. Yeah. But this movie is doing well. In that moment. It's fucking lovely. It really is. It's lovely AF. It's a good-ass song. Yeah. It is a nice song.

Yeah. But this movie is doing well. It opened well. I even think people are being a little hesitant in their estimates. I mean, by the time this episode comes out,

it'll be whatever. But, like, they're still saying, like, when I'm seeing the numbers of the projections of how Aquaman is expected to do this weekend and the other opening films,

I feel like they're all low-balling Wonka where I'm like I think this thing is just going to fucking play straight through until early January, the whole holiday quarter. This is the thing that everyone's going to see. It opened to $39 million, Griffin. Yeah, which is really good for the weekend

before Christmas, which is always a little low and tends to multiply. Actually, did you guys realize the Marvel's open to 45 million and everyone called that a flop but Wonka's getting celebrated? Who is this? Right.

What cursed person are you channeling right now? This is the kind of thing where like, you're not on Twitter anymore. I know. I know. Be grateful for it.

Every time someone tells me what's going on on there, I don't regret that. You know, people are like, do you not understand like math? Yeah. Yeah,

also, exactly right. The Marvel, I'm not even engaging. The Marvel season is this weird like fucking steroids. Like if something opens to whatever it multiplies so crazy. I mean, here's the example. Also, all the people who dug up the menu of the steak. Okay. They're wrong because I said on the story it was a special.

It was a special. I didn't know the price. It's not the regular steak. It's not the regular steak. They were offering you a fancy steak. Everyone's wrong about this. He paid so much more than that. So much that my bank would not allow me to buy the gift card. And look, the other

thing though is there were four wontons in there. Whether or not they were infusing the water. The wontons were in the water. Whether the water or not had flavor. Not the water. The wontons were in the water. Whether the water or not had flavor. Not entirely known. Listen to our Patreon.

Yeah. You should subscribe. It's really good. This was in the ranking the wok. Or the pitching the wok. $5 a month, though. I don't know. Griffin, have you... I think it's tremendous value

at twice the price. Griffin, I assume you haven't listened to our pitching the wok episode. No, I will never listen to them. I regret to inform you that it is a complete triumph. That sucks. On Wonka levels.

That sucks. And we're probably just going to have to keep doing bullshit like that forever. Well, just give JD like his little thing every year. I just want to,

like, here's the perfect example of what we're talking about why, like, opening weekend math for movies coming out the weekend before Christmas means nothing. Night at the Museum,

15 years ago, opens to 30 in this exact same, like, right before Christmas weekend, and ends up at 250 domestic. Right. I'm not saying that's what Wonka's gonna do, but it is this thing where, like,

any usual rule of multiplier disappears. If you have a movie that appeals to families, that comes out and is in that christmas to new year stretch where people are stuck in homes together and are like we got to go out and just fucking a million domestic i think a million if it i mean a hundred it's gonna make one million dollars number two the box office yes no it's gonna go way above a hundred number

two the box office that week was uh honestly kind of the heartwarming surprise of Blockbuster season. The heartwarming surprise? Like, everyone was kind of ignoring it and it's done surprisingly well and had really good legs. It's sort of the start of a new franchise,

probably. The Hunger Games, songs, snakes, ballads. Ballad of songwriters. Yes. Has just been holding

like a fucking sham. People want to see it because one, it's good and two, like, you know, it's being presented them pretty well. kind of another example

of like a franchise that was fully on ice for 10 years. Right. People have had some time to build up nostalgia. They actually gave this. And it's a good movie. It's a problem with a lot of these other franchises is they're not disappearing for long enough to make people miss them. Francis Lawrence is good. Number three at the box office. It's a film we covered.

Rachel will be on the show again soon. Yes, she will. Very soon. It's a film we've covered will be on the show again soon yes very soon it's a film we've covered very soon in fact yes when I say very soon I mean two episodes from now yeah

well don't okay well come on number three is a film we've covered on the podcast yep Boy in the Hair yes

doing great highest grossing G Kids highest grossing Mizaki ever it is so thrilling it was thrilling to listen to that episode and have you guys completely lowball

the barcode. We hadn't considered the possibility it could be the number one movie in America. We had not. Number four, another Japanese film

that did better than everyone expected, Godzilla Minus One. That's the other real kind of Cinderella story of the season. I love that story. Yeah.

And by the way, GKids very wisely kind of capitalized on the momentum of like America showed up in droves for this subtitled Japanese movie and loved it. Right. I do think that carried over to the next weekend where people were like, fuck it, let's go see the Miyazaki. Yeah, right. They're supposed to be good, right? Let's check out his first movie in 10 years.

I think it's an underreported story in general that I, it is one of the rare areas I will give Netflix credit I think Netflix has actually conditioned American audiences to be less allergic to subtitles with the presence of foreign TV shows that have gotten really big

I just hear people watching like oh have you seen this like German murder show people watch a lot of foreign and I'm like these are people who I thought would never see a

foreign language film and are now watching number five of the box office It's better than any of the other movies we've mentioned. It was directed by our friend Richard Lawson. Oh, Trolls World Tour? Look, I said it in a recent episode. It's kind of underperforming. It still

hasn't hit $100 million in a month. No, it hasn't. It's made $90. It's just a creeping tonight. Have you made $90 million this year? This year? No. In any previous year? No. Have you made $90 million this year? This year? No. In any previous year? No.

Collectively across my entire life? Not even close. Also, Wish, which is doing great. Doing great, doing good. What's it up to? 55. Well, that's pretty good for an opening weekend, right? Oh, my God.

You've got Christmas with the Chosen Holy Knight, a film that I directed. That's a Disney princess musical. Griffin, I know. I know. You've got Napoleon, which you're like, oh, it only made $57, $58 domestically.

That's not so great, but it's doing really well worldwide. But it's also, you know, that old Napoleon, that's a brand name in Europe. Also, I'll just tell the quickest version of the story. We thought my grandmother had died. My family sent me over to check on her in her apartment.

I thought I was going to have to break down the door. In fact, she was watching Napoleon with her headphones on. Involving film! Didn't check her phone for three hours. Fun thing I went through this week. Number nine of the box office renaissance film by Beyonce. Which I've not seen yet and sounds great.

Yeah, go check it out. It's still playing. Yeah. And number ten, Poor Things. You seen Poor Things yet? I haven't yet. It's still playing. And number 10, Poor Things. You've seen Poor Things yet? I haven't yet. I haven't either. Waiting to see it with a friend. This like post-Christmas, pre-New Year's week is going to be me just going to every movie theater in Texas

watching whatever is available to me because I have not seen anything besides Aquaman, Aquaman 2, and Wonka. I hear movie theaters are bigger in Texas. Everything's bigger in Texas. David's getting a phone call. This is a great time to take a break anyway. Is this the Lowe's guy? Okay, I'm going to pee. But let's keep recording on David having the Lowe's conversation.

Just bleep out. He's walking away. Okay, we'll be right back after these messages. Aquaman. David just got some bad girl news. It's fine. I'm trying to lighten the mood by just saying the name of the character

whose movie we saw yesterday. We all saw yesterday. David, the critic screenings happened Thursday morning. No, I think it was Wednesday night, but it was one of those things where it was like, do I see it with the critics

a night before I can just see it with regular folk all the way uptown versus just going to the Alamo Drafthouse with my friend Marie? Okay. And in honor of a film about brotherhood, my brother Joey Sims. I know Joey. Yeah. He tagged along.

He was like, when are you seeing Aquaman? What's the deal? And I was like, I'm doing this. And he was like, I'm just going to go. I asked David during the movie. I was like, who is the Orm and who is the aquaman in the sims family and you just got like joey's or what are you talking about yeah that's what he said yeah i thought i was like i mean i guess i'm aquaman i'm it's not like i'm a one-to-one with jason momoa no and joey's a lot more jovial than orm well you do wear leather

bracelets pretty regularly i do that's right lots of rings yeah i really jangle when i walk you love getting pissed in the mouth yeah do three different creatures do it to him over the course of this movie uh he gets pissed in twice by three three times by two creatures it's the baby twice and then octopus once yeah and with the octopus they didn't need to clarify that it was piss. And then he says, was that piss? Yeah, they did anyway, because it was so funny. Griffin and I saw it in 4DX.

We did. We got pissed on. We did. Well, you know what? You'd be surprised to hear that. They were too cowardly to spray us down in the piss moment. I got pissed. Ben, I turn to you and you. Well, that sounds like a personal. Throwing your hands up. The piss piss moments. I got pissed. Ben, I turned to you and you kept throwing your hands up.

The piss moments. Like, I got nothing. I definitely got piss in the face when Aquaman was peed on. I got water spritz. Really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't. I don't know if your chair wasn't working.

Let's also say we got there. When I bought the tickets, there was no one else in our little row. It was like a banquet of four seats. And we got there, and there was a woman sitting in one of our four seats. And she was like, do you have all three of these? And I was like, enjoy that seat. So we sat in our two seats. Union Square, correct?

Union Square 40X. The only one I've ever been to. This woman was, and I obviously say this with no judgment from experience, was wearing a medical bracelet that seemed to belie that she had maybe recently been released from a hospital, discharged. A thing that I, of course, did when I went to go see F9. You sure did. Straight from hospital to movie. Yep.

She was vaping throughout the entire film. The first 10 minutes of the movie, she was on her phone looking up showtimes for other movies on the Regal app. So, like Wonka. Yes. Because she's a listener to the podcast. She was trying to just, you know. She was just in the chair, which is shaking. Water being squirted in her face.

Yeah. A 3D movie. Her glasses are not on. She's just looking down at her phone while the chair is shaking her. And then about halfway through the movie, she took out a series of bags that all had different prepped foods. Including a wrapped sandwich. Right.

She took out Tupperware that was wrapped in tinfoil. She was having a fucking ball of a time. Yeah. How crowded was the theater? It was 70% full. Yeah. And this was during the day? That's not bad.

No, 7 p.m. It was the first 4DX showing of the day. Oh, okay. Right. Why did I think you guys were going at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon? Because the choice was either seeing it 3 o'clock in Times Square Christmas weekend or see it 7 o'clock at Union Square. Right. And we chose Union Square and we got wet.

I do think this is a movie that maybe gains a half star from sitting in a properly calibrated 4DX chair. They were doing this. That's what I liked. Okay, so it's giving you your Titanic, right? Yeah. No, but it was very gentle. It was like a little spotlight. Because in action sequences, they're shaking you around, but just when he's just kind of

floating, there was just a nice little sort of gentle kind of ebb. Right. Which I liked. And the movie theater pissed in my mouth at several points in the movie i got a bucket of popcorn and that spritzed water into it you liked it i look ben said did you like that when the movie ended and i went this is exactly the kind of this is the flavor of silly bullshit i enjoy you knew that you going to have the best time seeing Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

in 4DX getting pissed all over your face. I just think this movie, like, this is what we talked about at the beginning, but this movie is being presented to us with a tone by the people who made and are releasing the films of, by the way, this doesn't matter

enjoy, right? Yes. This is a movie that feels deeply inessential in almost every single way. I would agree. And yet, I'm just like, there are cool things that happen in this movie. I think this movie has lots of cool things happening.

It's got a lot of imagination and energy and it is like, I was trying to define what is it about this movie that I am tolerating versus my like, complete exhaustion with the Marvel thing.

And it's like, the Marvel thing is existing at two extremes of a certain type of comedy that is all about deflating the self-importance of what's going on, right? We are making jokes

at the expense of how silly is it that we're even doing it. in this movie? Well, I think the jokes in this are more like, they're not acting like the movie doesn't matter. Which I think something like Quantumania

is making jokes that are like... But you literally just said that everyone in the movie feels like it doesn't matter. Like this is the most like, this movie doesn't matter. Well, let me unpack this. Let me unpack this, okay? Quantumania is a perfect example for me. I don't think it's the worst Marvel movie. But it's like 50% like, isn't that funny?

And 50% like, meet Kang, the most important person who has ever lived with a tragic backstory. The thing with Quantumania is, it felt like half the movie, the Quantumverse stuff, was going for Aquaman. Right. Here we are in silly gloppy land like you'll meet a goo man or whatever. Which I could be charmed by. I don't think the movie has half the visual imagination that this film does.

James Wan remembers to bring lights to his set, for example. That's what I did tell David. I said I like all of the production design and the movie is bright enough where I can see what's going on. I kept thinking this movie looks like a modern digital version of like

the Showa era Godzilla. Like the classic Godzilla like peak bright colors like weird people in silver uniform. And I'm sure James Bond would appreciate you saying that. In a way I like appreciate it. But then of course the biggest problem with fucking Quantumania is Kang being introduced in that movie with the irritating

to me like cinematic universe flavor of like get ready guys for the next thanos and i'm like fuck off and even like something like you don't understand my tragic backstory of what happened when i was trapped in the quantum realm like it's it's the worst version of both things. I think none of the comedy in this movie really works. But I also think the comedy in this movie is more of the, like, bad, that's gotta hurt, and then that happened variety, rather than the sort of, like, Marvel, we're trying to, like, do the Mad Magazine parody of our movie in real time so you can't mock us for taking this seriously. I still feel like that's my problem with Aquaman.

I don't like Jason Momoa. I am inclined to agree with you. Here's my thing. I don't really love him either, or at least this version of him that's increasingly getting unlocked with this and Fast X of him being like all the silly bullshit. Because like, he used to be a fairly serious actor. I think quote unquote funny Jason Momoa is one of my least favorite

personas in modern media it doesn't work I don't like his SNL hosting jobs I don't I think Fast X is basically a performance you should have been sent

to the Hague for in what is my least favorite movie of the year I think of things like he was in that Sundance show The Red Road yeah

it's like he used to do stuff like that now he's doing this. Yeah. Aquaman is about, I can take it the easiest in Aquaman because...

The first one you're saying. Yes. The first one. Well, in this one, I'm really starting to be like, okay, buddy. The first Aquaman has the scene that is, I would argue,

the high point of the film narratively, where he goes to the bar and you think he's going to rough all these guys up and then it cuts to like a montage of him having the best night with all

these salty fishermen. And you're like, that is the strike. I'm smiling thinking about it. But that's the exact midpoint of. This is a party, dude. You lean into everything

that feels intimidating about Jason Momoa and you cut it with like 20% comedy. And Momoa is in a mode now where he's like, huh, I'm really funny. And people agree that i'm funny and

like it makes money and like and maybe i'm like 75 comedian 25 action star that stuff for me is disastrous and it's it's it's tough arguably and i don't think most people will report it this way i think that is the single biggest thing this movie has going against it when you actually just engage with it as a film away from the branding, the cloud of the DC thing. Which, to be clear,

in a business perspective, you basically can't do what you're saying. You can't. Like, the reasons for this film's success or failure are so removed

from anything in the movie. Yeah. Like, to an extent that's even right. As we were already in the preamble to all this at the start of this episode four hours ago.

Yes. You know, like... Four cups of onecalicious scrumptiousness. Guys, I'm starting to crash hard. Me too. Yeah, well, why did you guys drink? Time for another cup. I just wanted to say,

when I poured it down the drain, a little green goblin came out and went... Look, the first cup you have to get up, the second cup you have just to get even. At a certain point, you're just striving to maintain even. I feel like I'm a chocoholic now. Yeah, okay, Aquaman.

But in Aquaman, I like almost everything around him so much. And this movie is actually, dare I say, a little light on Momoa. Yeah. Like, he's barely the star of it. It's an ensemble film.

Look, I think this movie... So I survived him being like, you know, like all that stuff. It's a movie we have not talked about much on this podcast outside of just the box office performance. But I think the single biggest thing that people are observing in the

Marvels is that is the first Marvel movie that feels like Marvel is conceding. We just need to get this over with. Right. That movie is so clearly edited down in a way where it's like we're rushing through this and you can feel the absence of sections. Right. Right.

And there's a panic to that movie that I think even the worst Marvel movies don't have to them where they're sort of selling the confidence of like, you guys are in on this. Right. Marvel's, you feel the panic. This movie, which didn't screen for critics until 24 hours before it came out. Correct. As of last night, there were only like six reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Has been reshot a zillion times. Totally. And like gone through eight iterations of whatever its story was. Is this going to be the most shambled, cut together from four corpses, Frankenstein cut down movie? It's under two hours. I do think this movie doesn't... It is not under two hours. It's two hours and four minutes.

Really? It's about two hours long. I don't think this movie feels as wildly misshapen or disjointed like cut to bits as I was inclined to believe. But it also does have this thing to like go to the Elaine May ecology of the film. I'm like, I don't know what his version of this was. I don't know what the purest version of this movie was. I'd love to see someone lay out all the different versions they thought they were making at different times.

It does have that editing thing where it's like by cutting it down to two hours the movie kind of has no rhythm it's not herky-jerky but it has no rhythm in a way where also nothing kind of lands totally properly where you're like yes momoa is ostensibly the lead right but not it's not in terms of stopwatch running time but also it's not like it feels like anyone else is getting more narrative bandwidth it's just kind of a movie of two hours of shit happening. Here's my thing. And I think most of that shit looks cool. My guess is that at all points in the production of this film and writing of this film,

it had these elements which are present in the film. Aquaman is the king. Yes. He needs to go on a buddy cop Tango and Cash style adventure with Orm. Yes. To fight Black Manta, the villain we seated in the first film who will now be the main villain and is you know god imagine right and this element of aquaman settled down he has a wife he has a child now and the job's kind of annoying the balance the

work-life balance your classic shrek 4 of course forever after situation now like that like it's obvious that from beginning to end that was always the basic plan for this movie right right he and orm you know villains right you know uh enemies to friends they will unite and they will fight black santa our main villain this is what i find interesting and this is also why it's like so hard to talk about behind the scenes of these marvel dc movies now because you have so many accounts that are truly just posting fan fiction. Right. Like a couple of years ago,

it was like, oh, they're YouTubers who post hour long videos saying a close source. And you're like, anonymous close source. What the fuck is this? Right. And then you had other news sites

citing these YouTubers who quoted anonymous sources. Now I go on Instagram and they're just posts that are like, Cary Grant confirmed to play Dr Doctor Doom in new Fantastic Four movie. No attribution, no source. Like, people just post shit and it's wild. So there have been so many false narratives around this movie

that it's hard to know what exactly went on at different points. Here are the two things that seem very clear to me. One, everything you just stated was always James Wan's intent for the second movie. His basic pitch, right? And it's set up in the first movie, basically. But he obviously loves Patrick Wilson

and was like, I want second movie to be Orm Aquaman brother, buddy comedy. Love Orm. And anyone who's watching the first movie is like, Orm's poppin'.

Orm pops. The second part of this by all accounts is after the first movie is a bizarre success. I just think, like... It is a somewhat bizarre success, yes. Momoa went on

Jimmy Fallon at the beginning of this weird funereal press tour, and the arc of their interview was Jimmy Fallon being like, well, first of all, let's, like, roll back the clock five years, because it's been five years and everyone forgets. Right. People forget that everyone was making fun of this movie seem to think it was going to flop right and then it made a billion dollars right and it's just momo and fallon being like yeah we want to remind

everyone everyone did like this movie when it came out it was very successful and warmly received right not everyone liked it but you know what i'm saying. It was like one of two DC movies at that point that were sort of just like widely accepted. Wonder Woman and Aquaman were the two that were like, fuck, it seems like they're maybe onto something.

Right. It's working. They've owned different tones. These two movies made a lot of money. Aquaman made a ton of movie money. A ton of movie. Right. It is a ton of movie.

It felt like the context Fallon and Momoa were trying to put out there was like, this is not a sequel that no one demanded. We know it's five years later and things feel different. Now everyone's confused by it.

But this was not wheeled into the world as a movie that no one wants to make. And then Momoa starts talking about the other side of this, which is when the movie is a surprise hit and suddenly Momoa seems to have more juice than any other actor in the DC stable at that point. He does the classic Downey Jr. after Iron Man. I'm renegotiating. I'm getting a bigger salary. But also, a little bit of the Steven Seagal on Deadly Ground. Actually, I think I have things I want to say with Hawkeye. It's got to be about something.

He has a story credit on this film. He does. Yes. He brings his friend in. Thomas Sibbitt, I think. Work really hard on a very long scriptment and bring it into Warner Brothers. Yes. It's a word.

Halfway between a script and a treatment. It's a proper word. Made up Hollywood word, yeah. Love that. It's a proper word. And they bring it in and they're like, this is what we want Aquaman 2 to be. And James Wan is like,

I am the main author of these movies and I already have been working on my thing. And I think there was a little bit of a like, I don't want to do another Aquaman unless you take my story ideas seriously. I will say, to Momoa's credit, his main interest seemed to be, I want to use this character to communicate larger themes of global warming and a human responsibility, which is a noble cause. But he, there does feel like from the beginning there were these two things of one being like here's the sequel i set up that i want to make and momoa being like aquaman has to look straight down the lens of the camera and tell the audience that we need to take this seriously we need to restore the balance between nature yes there's

humanity there's nothing wrong with thinking that Aquaman should be about climate change because the oceans are certainly the front line of where we're seeing that happen. And the first movie has some of this kind of like, they're poisoning the seas. That's why we have to fight them. I am so dumb that my first thought was like, but isn't there isn't global warming mean like there's going to be more water? So is that better for them?

Oh, you're saying it's like good news for them. Right. Kind of. Yeah. But then it's like, oh, no, to be clear, it's killing off fish and making them sick. And it's also the trash. Right. Yes.

Yes. Yes. To be clear, global warming is bad for the world's oceans. Right. And like also the currents could be disrupted. There's all kinds of- When you think of things like currents, like does that really affect them? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Because currents carry cold water to warm areas and warm area to cold waters. It's part of basic ecology. No, but I mean like the people of Atlantis. I don't understand. Are you asking me to evaluate how climate change would affect the lives of magic made up people? Yes, because that is the point of the movie.

Well, it affects our air. We're getting sick. And I'm like, is it because it's hot? It affects our air. Their air is water. So by all means, it makes sense that it would affect their version of air, water. Okay. All this to say, though, is just that, like, it feels like James Wan was like, I will figure out the bare minimum of what Jason needs me to put into the movie to make him happy.

Right. And just work that kind of clunkily into the movie I want to make. Totally. It's my projection. happy right and just work that kind of clunkily into the movie i want to make totally so my it's my projection my favorite part of this movie is when he goes to break orm out of desert prison yes i think it happened warm is very skinny because he hasn't had enough water limiting his water so they call them ascetics uh-huhhuh. I forget. I forget the act. They're described as ascetics, who, like, are former fish people who now live in the desert,

and they don't... They drink blood because they don't have any water. Oh, yeah. And they only have enough blood slash water to keep them alive, but they're very dry. Yeah, I mean, this movie,

it swings pretty extremely between wet and dry. Which the first movie did too. There's desert stuff in the first movie. Sure, but this has desert fish people, which Ben was like really leaning going like, did we see them in the first movie? They're new, right? We haven't seen these guys before.

So the first film, it is made clear, of course, there are the four existing kingdoms of Atlantis. Confusingly, one of them is called Atlantis. Yes. And then of course they're the red-headed people. The red-headed people with Dolph Lundgren. I'm going to look this up because I keep forgetting. Who are essentially the Australia

of Atlantis in that they are a former prison colony that then liberated themselves and they are called Zebel. James Wan, of course, Australian. Yes. And then there's the Brine King people who are crabs

and then the Fisherman Kingdom who are her people. We're not jumping over the Brine King. We're not going to get back to them, but like those are the four kingdoms. Sure. Then there is the fifth kingdom, which is the desert people.

Sure. Who we are told, like retreated to a land that then became a desert and then they died. And that's like where when they visit the desert people that's where they once were.

I thought they were the fish people. No, no. That's the fisherman kingdom who are basically like mermaid coded. No, no, no. I know that. That's the Xiamen Hunsu kingdom

from the first movie. I believe so. I can't even remember Xiamen. But Orm is in prison controlled by the fish people because he killed the fish king in the first movie. He is in prison for killing a fish person. But the desert people are the ones who...

No, they said that the fish kingdom has jurisdiction over this desert. They do. But then I think they allocated him to the dry prison. They are the ones who arrested him. Then, of course, the sixth kingdom is the Trench, who we just sadly don't get to see in this movie. But they were in the last movie, which is basically fucked up you know trench you know was also announced as it was supposed to have its own spin-off movie the trench which james won then later announced the trench movie was kind of a secret backdoor manta sequel spin-off whatever

which also feels like another story move that this movie is trying to work in of like, well, now we have to do the Manta stuff we weren't going to do in the spinoff movie to give him the screen time. I don't know. David's checking his watch, literally. My watch buzzed. I'm not sure why. You know how your watch just buzzes.

And then, of course, there is the Lost Kingdom dealt with in this film. Necris. Which you would need to unite the seven. The Lost Kingdom, as I call it. Promised. Underwater Mordor. Yes.

Sure. Very, very Mordor coded. Right. But my favorite part of this movie is when Orm is really skinny because he's been in the desert. Too dry. He's too dry. Then he has to lay down in the water. Yeah.

He's crawling towards it because those fuckers are going to get him. And he's got to get to the water. Yeah. He's crawling towards it because those fuckers are going to get him. And he's going to get the ocean. David Sims goes, oh, it's going to be like one of those things, like those sponge things that get big.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, Patrick Wilson arises up from the surf and he is just jacked as shit. Is this

the most handsome he has ever looked on screen? He is 50 years old. He is an unbelievably beautiful man, and he always looks good. Oh, he's been in good shape. He's always been in good shape. But even just facially, I'm like, the amount of scruff he has in this.

I want to get railed by Orm. Marie, I got to be right there with you, or you can let me at him afterwards. Let's make it clear. We're talking about Orm the Ocean Master. Correct. Although he's lost his title and he doesn't get to wear his frilly silver mask. Honestly, I think he should be the Ocean Master.

Yeah, Marie was basically like, I hope this movie ends with him becoming king again. Marie was rooting for that. Because Aquaman clearly doesn't give a shit. But then Orm makes a nice speech about it. No, I know. And I know it's nice. But I just think he should be like,

Orm, you know what you're doing here. Like, you take it over. Orm Marius. I had to look up his last name. Orm Marius, the former ocean master. To just go with what you're saying, Griffin.

Sure. He has the body of a guy who made his directorial debut this year with a surprising box office sensation. Yeah. You know, where he's like, I can do anything.

Anything. He directed an insidious movie this year, Ben. Insidious 5? And it was like a box office hit. The Red Door? The Red Door. That's awesome. Great for him.

He's just one of these guys who, like, like Marston, has one of these careers I love where it's like, this guy just does a bit of everything. He does a bit of everything. He's talented. But I do think he is pretty unique in that it's like, this guy has identified him as his fate.

Like, James Wan loves him. Yes. So he puts him in as his fate. Like James Wan loves him. So he puts him in everything. Yeah. And James Wan just sort of happens to be this like enduring important figure in the culture, like which no one maybe would have seen coming. And you're like, oh, James Wan loves him. He put him in his franchises.

James Wan's the Saw guy, right? Is Patrick Wilson in Saw? No. That's the one he's not in. Sure. He's in the other three. Aquaman, The Conjuring, and Insidious, Ben. He's in all three of those. Patrick Wilson. He's also in just like all

sorts of other shit. He sure is. He is Joe Pitt in Angels in America, which is what I always think of him as being Joe Pitt. He is in Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera as Raoul. Yeah, I mean, he's doing his best in that one. That's a pretty boring one.

He was curly in Oklahoma on Broadway, taking over the Hugh Jackman role. And watch, he's the night owl. Yes, well, Zack Snyder also loves him. Yeah, it's true. The two DC Universe guys both like him. But you know why they like him? Talented. Just nice.

So fucking reliable. Did you give him a supporting actor nomination that year for the first Aquaman? For Orm. I know you were debating it. I can't remember if you landed on it. Best performance by an Orm

in a motion picture. I don't think I did. Ooh, it's a pretty good... It's 2018, right? Yeah. Yeah, five years ago. People forget that that was five years ago. My supporting actor nominees are Sam Elliott,

Stars Born, Michael B. Jordan, Black Panther, Hugh Grant, Paddington 2, Brian Tyree Henry, Feel Street Could Talk, and Steven Yeun in Burning. That's a good five. That's a pretty good five.

And you gave your award to Yeun? It was Jordan. Oh, yeah. Now that feels crazy. But back then, he was such an electrifying performer yeah uh not that i don't like him now it's just that like i'd like to see him do something different wild when he shows up for fucking one minute of black panther 2 it's the most juice that movie has it's the most the movie has and it's the most juice he's had on screen where for that one minute you're like, can we please get this back?

Like, I really love to create three and I think he's totally solid in it. He does a better job as a director in that movie than he does as a movie star. What's interesting about that movie is his directing style, not his performance. doesn't exist anymore, is clearly the one who's got the kind of energy in that film that Jordan had 10 years ago where when we were just like, well, this guy, undeniably the movie star of his generation.

Right. He is the dude. And it's just like, he's lost the juice a little bit. Yeah. Okay, so the film, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,

like you say, Momoa has a story credit and then eventually David Leslie Johnson McGoldrick, who wrote the second and third Conjurings. Correct.

And some other sort of horror stuff. He's a long guy. He's an atomic monster guy. Comes in and he has the only screenplay credit. Sure. And it is a film about Arthur Curry and Orm fighting Black Manta. Now, can I say a thing I find very fascinating about this movie? And I find it refreshing.

And perhaps it's refreshing in a way that is purely reactionary on my part to superhero fatigue. Fair. For this being the weird, accidental, final DCEU movie ever, or whatever, right? It's possible the final image in the history of DC is going to be Patrick Wilson eating a cockroach. Or eating a bug burger.

He sure does. And going, hmm. We'll get to Ben's complaint at the end of the movie, which I think is really valid and needs to be

given its space. Okay. Ben's nodding very seriously. There was a final image Ben was waiting for that didn't happen and he walked out

of the theater genuinely angry. Okay. Well, okay. It wasn't a bit. It was a like, it's when Ben gets really frustrated.

I know it. I know that Ben face. Yeah. You know, we all know the energy. Ben's mouth is in a tight frown right now. Oh, God. The op-ed he would write. What shape is Ben's mouth today?

Downward smile. Tight, tight upside down you. Yeah. Bugburger, all this, all this to say, this feels like such a weirdly old school sequel in that like versus the playbook of how

all of these movies work now, not just superhero movies, but all sorts of franchise building. You're like, this movie does not really introduce any major new characters.

This is a movie that brings back everyone from the first movie and just sort of shakes up dynamics. Everyone but one. The one person they don't bring back is Willem Dafoe. The one person who stayed dead. He didn't die in the last one.

I couldn't remember. They say like the plague killed your mentor. Apparently he just was busy. And I guess they were probably like... I'm really glad I saw this movie with David because the entire time I was just like... And you had just watched the first movie? I had just watched Aquaman 1. That same day?

No, the night before. Okay. And I was not super into it. The movie starts and it starts... Both movies start the same way, which is like someone getting like canted angle pushed against a wall like we're in the middle of action

it really is exciting to watch and the first movie opens with Nicole Kidman like doing a lot of really fun physical acting eating a goldfish and I was like oh my god this movie is like Looney Tunes I love it yes then it just like the plot starts and I lose interest. I kind of agree with you, although I just think like the energy of that movie wins the day for me. But I really kind of don't care about the script of that film. Yeah. But I think the performances, the energy, the visuals, all of that. The visuals are really fun. And I like how like self, I like how silly it is without being self, like it takes itself seriously.

It's a very specific tone that I do think I watch these movies and like, look, I don't think either film is particularly good or particularly functional. You're all fucked up. I'm not saying this. I'm not saying this.

But Flash and Shazam 2, I skipped both in theaters. I watched Shazam on a plane. I watched Flash at home on HBO Max months later. I think I was a little warmer on both movies than most people. I think Flash is good.

I did not like Shazam set. But in both cases, I'm, I, I like, I at least feel like this final burst of DC movies are putting absolutely insane wackadoo comic book imagery on screen without any concern for it looking cool in any like tough way. Like they're finally realizing like the fucking unicorn shit in Shazam. I think there's a lot of stuff that isn't executed on a technical level in Flash, but is like that is genuinely a new design idea I have not seen in a blockbuster, which I have to give it credit for. And this movie just has like the goofiest sort of like four color, super expansive world building shit where I just love the feeling of James Wan has all of this figured out in his head. You could probably

corner him and he would tell you like, here are the kingdoms, here's their history. This is that the movie does not ask you to actually really need to know any of that it's not like caught up in its own lore in a way that i think feels like god why is this homework but i kind of wanted more more of that though i think this movie probably there's a so aquaman one has the energy you're describing yes where it's kind of like, you know, Brian King, you know, seahorses, octopus playing drums, ocean master,

we're going to throw all this stuff at you. Then, pin in it. If you want to play, if you want to pay attention, great. Sure. If not,

you know what, Jason Momoa is here throwing fucking shit at people. It looks cool. Yeah. If this movie had come out three years later, that movie was a huge hit. Yeah. If this movie had come out three years later, or if the trench had gotten green lit in between it could probably go with that of like let's get

a little deeper absolutely let's get a little more into the world building yes this movie's coming out five years later yeah and of course the dc universe is off the rails and being put in the garbage so i think there's a weird don't. Whereas like every other like superhero sequel is not just like here's the hook for blank two or blank three. They're also like here's how this is going to

expand the universe and set up the next five things. Or expand the DC universe. Right. And this movie's just like here's another Aquaman adventure with the cast of Aquaman. Here's some more shit.

We're going to introduce some new characters and like new kingdoms but that's all kind of peripheral. And even the new Big Bad is just possessing the old big bad from the last movie or rather the old secondary bag as the big bad from the first movie now becomes a sidekick it's we see all of these exciting new worlds yeah we we're in we're with the dry people in the desert dude drill fucking those drill, drill bugs are cool.

But then we also, we're in Antarctica. We are below the ice. We go below the ice in Antarctica. We go to, you know, their version of Mos Eisley Cantina. You know, the like. What Ben said is, this is like a wet Max Rebo band. A hundred percent. You know, they've got that. And then they have the jungle where everything's too big.

100%. You know, they've got that. And then they have the jungle where everything's too big. There's those fucking great, like, octopus ships that look like the Castle in the Sky robots with the segmented tails. But I feel like it's like we go there and then there's like, not enough.

They're there for me. Ben, I believe your line when we were walking out was, I just want to see a documentary about these places. Yes, I wanted more lore. This is crazy for me to say. I wanted more lore. I had so many.

The entire time I was just like, wait, when did this happen? Why is this this way? Orm, when he doesn't have water, gets really skinny. But how come Orm is out in the human world for the entire rest of the movie? How does that work? He's drinking cups of water. No, no, no. I looked this up.

Atlanteans can breathe out of water. I forgot about this. I, too, was kind of like, wait, I thought because he's half human, that's why Arthur can... No, they can breathe. But all Atlanteans can breathe out of water. But their strength derives from water. Correct. That's the only difference. So we're just cutting out

the parts where he runs over to a water fountain and does a quick refresh. I propose to you, Marie, that it's not even that I want them to go into the lore or explaining it.

It's just that this movie is so rushed and overstuffed that I'm like, I just want to sit with this stuff more. So Joey's complaint, if I can air it,

he says like, he said too much throat clearing at the first hour because he was kind of like, don't give me just like Black Manta's same plot line again, which is essentially... Sea crimes. Well, see, I could have done with more sea crime, I think.

This movie does have the energy of, we assume you don't remember anything from the first movie. So it's like Black Manta's like, I want vengeance on Aquaman. And I'm like, you want a Vengeance on Aquaman like last time. And they show three flashbacks. Right. So like, that's not news. I think that the other most panicked superhero

of the movie of the year, the Marvels does, where there are three previously ons to establish characters where they're like, we don't know if you watched all the shows. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that movie, right, has TV shows to contend with, obviously. Aquaman is now king, but he doesn't really fit in Atlantis and he doesn't like it.

You know, Joey was like, we already did that. Like, I don't know if that's enough for me. Because Joey and I feel the same about Aquaman 1. A great film. Important to the culture. Thank you. Thank you for its existence. Thank you to everybody.

important to the culture. Thank you. Thank you for its existence. Thank you to everybody. And I think we both, this movie is so cursed and it's so lost in the franchise bullshit that we,

I don't know if we had high expectations. Sure. But I think we were both going in being like, look, we want to have fun. No one's even minding

the store anymore. Right. James Wan's probably going to get to do what he wants. That's my thing. I'm like, all these stories of them going in for reshoots, at the point where this thing is clearly DOA and they probably going to get to do what he wants. That's my thing. I'm like, all these stories of them going in for

reshoots, at the point where this thing is clearly DOA and they're going to dump it, I'm just like, let James Wan just put out whatever the fuck he wants. If you're telling me nothing matters after this movie... I think the problem is they stuffed extra guts into it and then they came back and they were like, take those guts out. We changed our plans. Yes.

Put these new guts in. You know, Batman's appearing. Some of the reshoots has to do with amber heard no no it's also because she also gets sidelined immediately she's in a lot more of this movie than reports had made it yeah this is the thing i mean this is and this once again gets to like all the bad faith reporting which is like a lot of nerd just like looking for hit shit where they just make up fake stories. And then you add into the insane political like shit storm of the Amber Heard thing and what she represents now where people were just like all these reshoots are because they're getting rid of her and this whole thing. I believe James Wan's contention that she was never super important to this movie. She's so not in the marketing that everyone assumed, oh, they're going to kill her off five minutes in.

She's not going to be in it at all. Instead, she is in it a bunch doing nothing. That's the thing. It's like she get when she got sidelined after the first big battle where she's got the scar.

I thought the movie was about to pull the like, anyway, she's got to go to a water hospital. Like, bye bye, Mira. Everybody say bye bye. Even the point where she gets scarred.

I'm like, she's been in it more up until this point than I had been led to believe and then like she comes back for the last act of the movie and she's there the whole time

fucking shooting tornadoes at people just like everybody else it's just like I am yeah the first movie is kind of a buddy movie of Arthur and Mira

like going on an adventure this movie is clearly you know Arthur and Orr the first one kind of do more romancing the stone with the two of them. And I don't think

the two of them have great chemistry. No, her character's very boring. And her character's boring. And James Wan loves Patrick Wilson. Yeah. I understand him

just being like, you know what I'd rather make? A movie in which Patrick Wilson and Jason Momoa are fighting. I don't think the sidelining of her feels like any political gesture but who fucking

knows it certainly isn't like if they wanted to not have her be in this movie at all it would have been very easy to do that in an edit or just kill her off or just right like hey i have to stay home with the baby it's offensive practically but like you know the movies pull that bullshit now she's there movie's not not hiding. Shooting her tornadoes. Like, I mean, right? She shoots tornadoes. Yeah, she does her shit. Her thing where the water turns into stuff.

And like, she and Dolph Lundgren are both there. I mean, God bless Dolph Lundgren. I love that he's in these movies. But are both kind of there to be like, we have to do this now. You know, like they're there to just sort of like give exposition. Which is also sort of what Nicole Kidman does.

And Nicole Kidman, yeah. Right, Amber Heard's in the movie more than Nicole. Nicole is committed. I agree. God bless her, she is. She is. When she shows up 20 minutes into the movie

riding a robot shark, I was just like, I wasn't even sure if she was still around and then she's just there. No, you were just like, I guess she's not in this one. In the thick of it.

And then you're like, she's in it like a bunch, but in the same Amber Heard way where like every couple of scenes they just turned her and she says like, you don't understand 400 years ago. I just, as you said. My

joke to Joey was that when Tamara Morrison's with the baby, just alone. He's just saying to the baby like, I'm above a fit. I have a whole book. It's on Disney+. He's just talking about it. Grand Paco Man. I thought of that during the movie. And Nicole Kid it. Grand Paco Man. Grand Paco Man. I thought of that during the movie. And Nicole Kidman is Grand Paco Man.

Tom Curry. I was watching this and I was like, God, Tom Morrison looks so fucking good. He does. Like, he's really... Which is kind of my take on him and Boba Fett as well. Well, this is my point. I was like, he looks so good.

Man, why did he get, like, so kind of, like, jacked for this movie? And then I remembered, oh, in the five years between the first Aquaman and this Aquaman, he has an entire arc of people being like,

they're bringing him back as Boba Fett! And then the Boba Fett series happens and they're like, why did they ruin Boba Fett? That all happens in the five years. When the first movie came out,

there had not been a single Star Wars TV show. Are fans ever happy about anything anymore? I know they're never happy anyway because fans is just a word for complaining people. Also the world is bad. Yeah the world's kind of bad. But go on. As a fan of the

world I have a lot of complaints. Look I've said this before If I could just say a few things about the world. I'm gonna do a YouTube video about the world right now. I've got some cinema sins to point out. They need a story group to map out the plan for the world in advance. This whole thing of them just freestyling it and making it up as it's going along.

Feige is spread too thin on the world. Feige cannot oversee all of the world. At this point, it has too many. Mikey cannot oversee all of the world. At this point, it has too many. Stop trying to cast Nicholas Holt in the next stage of the world. We know Bob Iger did a good job running the world for a while.

And for about 10 years, it was the most successful it's ever been. And at this point, he's chasing his own ghost. He can't recapture the magic. Oh my goodness. No, I have contended for a long time. You will never do anything that makes star wars fans happy it is so clear at this point that basically from return of the jedi

on right every single thing that star wars it comes out right is contentious and if it's not contentious it's because it's like the deeper nerd shit that is happening off to the side of like do you know the clone wars got really good in season three? And it's like the public at large is not dealing with that as much. But that's the whole thing. Those guys are like, you know what's good? Clone Wars. And then they're like, okay, okay.

We spent $800 million making Clone Wars live action for you with all the... Right. Do you like it? And the fans are like, not really. And not only that... It's not as good as the cartoon I watched when I was 12. And I'm like, do you just like being 12?

Because I can't make you 12. There's no amount of money that can send you back to being 12. The other part of that is it's not just like Disney came to some conclusion of like, huh, they all love Clone Wars. We should make live action Clone Wars. It was like years of change.org petitions that was let Dave Filoni do everything. Bring every character back. Is this the guy with the cowboy hat?

The cowboy hat man? Right. And now they've done that and everyone's like, oh, he's just obsessed with his characters that he created. And I'm like,

truly, you need to accept that you're not going to be happy with any of this. If they bring the old shit back, you're upset. If they bring new shit in, you're upset. If it's too beholden

to the history, you're upset. It's never going to be as good. Star Wars is an accident. We like a lot of it. But part of it is accepting that it's like, it's never going to make you feel the same way as when it was new.

Oh, God. I think Ben and I are both like tapped out right now. Everything we're saying is true. Because for years, this is also how we used to end. Every December, the podcast was us having to deal with Star Wars. Deal with some fucking Star War. Right. There's some Pavlovian trigger right now in us doing a late December episode.

And instead, it's like, we don't have to deal with Star Wars. No, we don't. We have to deal with Aquaman 2, the most inconsequential movies of major media. Yes. Where it's just like, like you say, because my point was like, they put some guts in, they took some guts out. they put some new guts in, they took those guts out. At this point, the poor baby, even though, yes,

he's just like, I'm just trying to be a Tango and Castile buddy comedy with Trident. It's like, you've been fucked with so much that you're going to seem a little weird. Ben also turns to me and he goes, do you think they're going to hurt the baby? Like the joke of like, imagine if a movie dared to do it. The baby will never be in peril.

Right. And I said, Ben, we'll talk about this tomorrow. The bad faith, like, not bad faith, the weird like fan fiction writing about the making of this movie, like rumor mill shit. When the trailer came out for this, like whatever, three weeks ago, they didn't have any marketing materials for this movie

until very late. And the baby was in the trailer, which I didn't think anyone knew about until the trailer. Sure. There became this narrative of the reason the movie went through so many reshoots and got rewritten and pushed back for so long is that in James Wan's original version, they killed the baby. And in test screenings, people got so upset that they stormed out

and they had to fight him to take the baby murder out of the movie and rebuild the entire film. No way. Zero chance. No way. What the fuck are you talking about? I believe in the comics, there is an arc along those lines of Black Manta killing Aquaman's son or something. That must be where they're conjuring this nonsense from. But just these insane extrapolations.

or something. That must be where they're conjuring this nonsense from. But just these insane extrapolations. There is no way that DC would allow Black Manta to sacrifice a baby.

But not only that, I do not believe for a millisecond... I was upset that the baby was even being messed with at all. I was like, leave this poor baby alone.

I do not believe for a millisecond that James Wan would have any interest in doing that. He is like a consummate showman who likes making films that like put the audience through the exact emotions he wants. I need to point out that when they kidnapped the baby. Yeah.

They brought a little toy for him. And he's wrapped up. They made him comfortable. What's wild is that like Manta actually takes pretty good care of him. Manta's actually not so bad. Manta's like a pretty good babysitter. Really good at piloting ancient submarines. He's got stunning

green eyes. He's gorgeous. It is weird though to like walk in on your boss talking to himself in the mirror. It's another thing for him to just be like grimacing at a baby and then have the door shut. Yeah, that was wild. And Randall Park's just standing there being like, should I quit

for people who don't see this movie Randall Park who played Stephen Shin in like one scene of the first Aquaman he's the post credit scene of him discovering Black Manta's body and being like maybe let's do some experiments and in this movie he has 10 versions

of the Mitchell and Webb are we the bad guys? It's like, he's like, I just wanted to see Atlantis and do some research. And Black Manta's like, to be clear with you, speaking directly to you, my plan is to murder Aquaman and his family and poison the world. I'm giving you two options. Like, what's going on with this guy? I'm giving you two options like what's going on with this i'm giving you two options willingly consent to doing war crimes with me or let me murder you he's constantly justifying like

you made this happen you're like no i just fixed the tech right we have literally a cut to five months later black manta has a fleet of ancient roman submarines that he's driving around that look cool everyone's got these matching leather jumpsuits with red piping everyone else is in black manta uniforms steven shin like i said is in his half zip and like literally there's like evil buttons that basically just say like death on them you know and they will then storm you know atlantis and be like shooting things. And Black Manta will be like, kill them. Like fire the weapons.

They cut to Black Manta and he goes, I like this. This makes me happy. And Steve and she'll go like, okay. I guess. And I'm just like, just what are you doing? And it happens over and over again he he walks in on manta right who's like talking to a mirror and seeing a vision of like sauron right you know going like kill them all he lets the door close behind him as manta's staring looking at a baby and licking his lips

takes out a knife says i only take this out to have it taste blood. Pray I don't show it to you again. Cuts his chin. Steven Shin, his reaction to that is, I think I should talk to Aquaman, maybe? Like, he's then finally getting close to, like, someone like Aquaman. I think I should, like, give someone a heads up about what's going on. He's like, freeze! With a gun.

Closes doors behind him. He's like, freeze! With a gun, closes doors behind him. He's like, hey, I just had to fake this. Please kidnap me. Let me join you guys. I don't like what's going on here. And they're like, no, we're going to filibuster your character further. We're going to knock you out. Yeah, this sucks. But leave you here.

Right. Arthur's like, no, fuck this guy. Norm's like, no, it's fine. Like, whatever. But you think the argument they're having is, do we kill him or do we let him join us? Right.

The thing the movie has been, like, belaying for so long and then they're like, Instead, they do neither. Yes. Let's just knock you out and move on.

So then Orm helps Manta but steals the baby at the last second so the baby's not actually in danger. No, we'll get to that in a minute. I'm sorry. But Shin later, then he finally transmits like a beacon of like, here's not actually in danger. No, we'll get to that in a minute. I'm sorry. Shin later

then he finally transmits like a beacon of like, here's where we're going. Right, and he places the baby with a bomb. He does do that too. Right. The Black Manta music, there's this sort of Black Manta theme which Ben and I were trying to write lyrics to in real time. Because there's this sort of like

dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. And your lyrics, do you remember, Ben? I sure do. Black Manta. He can't-a. Because he's failing. And he does not do a good job

at anything except for boiling the world's oceans, which he's great at. Right. And my line was... He did a lot within five months. Yeah. He boils a lot of ocean.

Yeah. He has to create all of that infrastructure. They have to get the secret. What was it called? Orc something? Orcum. Orcum. No.

Orc-al-cum. Look. Can I say my song lyric because I was proud of it? Yes, go ahead. So sorry. Ben, can you like do like sort of what the music sounds like? Pride is so good it makes you go crazy. Is that it, Griffin?

Anything else there? I'm laughing. Yeah. Again, to be clear, the plot of, all right, here's the plot of, I'm just going to talk for a second. Okay. Arthur is king of Atlantis, father to a child, dealing with the toddler problems, but also dealing with the Mitch McConnell of Atlantis, this random lady who anytime he's like,

should we like, you know, work with humans to heal the earth? She's like, well, I don't think we agree with that here in Ocean Senate or whatever. So he's getting nothing done. He's bored and he's getting pissed on by his baby, but his baby does have psychic fish powers. Yes, he's so happy that someone else can talk to fish. Good news.

And, okay, Orm in prison. Black Manta runs into Steven Shin and finds a black trident under the ice. Well, but the color changes very quickly. To green. Tridents are green and make you go crazy.

And when he puts it together, it goes like, you are now insane. I am the king of insanity and you will go crazy. And when he puts it together, it goes like, you are now insane. I am the king of insanity and you will be crazy. Right. And Black Manta then doesn't really get

to be a character anymore. of this like decaying lost kingdom dead ruler who Ben said, geese turd. Yeah, he said he looks like a goose turd. Like,

Yahya Abdul-Mateen is great in both of these movies because he has like automatic presence. He does. And in my opinion, I said this to Marie, I may have said this on the last episode, Black Manta is one of my all-time favorite comic book designs ever.

It's so fucking cool. He looks so cool. And it's like, I give this movie a full star just for being like, we're going to put Black Manta on screen and make him look exactly like that. A design that anyone else would be like, this is too goofy. We cannot do this. Big red eyes, the saucer head. He looks like a contestant on The Masked Singer.

He looks like my boyfriend when he's in the suit. Wait, okay, so you can have Black Manta. I'll take Orm. You can't have both. Honestly, if I'm getting one of them, I'm coming out. Am I stuck with Dr. Stephen Shin? He's unkillable, Griffin. He does seem bizarrely strong.

He could have one grin. He did look good. Griffin, you could have Martin Short. Those big fish titties. Martin Short as Space Edward G. Robinson. Or Deep Sea, I'm sorry. Aquatic Edward G. Robinson. Deep Sea, Sydney Green Street.

Yes. What is his character's name? King Fish. I'm sorry. Aquatic Edward G. Robinson. Deep sea Sydney Green Street. Yes. Yes. What is this character's name? Kingfish. I mean, I like he lives in a pirate haven called the Sunken Citadel that's

made out of shipwrecks. Yes. Where people drink and carouse and smuggle. He's got a band. A hot crustacean band. Yes. I like the lady fish

singing her song. Yeah. Again, very Mos Eisley Cantina. It's also cool that they're drinking underwater. I agree. Hot crustacean band, you bring up, okay, over the last five years, we have had Avatar the Way of Water.

Yeah. The two Aquaman movies. Little Mermaid. Well, hold on. And Black Panther, Wakanda Forever. All films that try to use high level, massive budget CGI to render extended dialogue scenes underwater. How do you create the visual language of this? How do you have actors act in this?

Make it seem like they're floating? Obviously, Avatar does it the best. Yes. But it also, Avatar has the least actual underwater conversation. It's mostly swimming. Sure. And is more caught up in, like, the real science of the thing, but also is James Cameron making the smart storytelling concessions. Aquaman is like pure fantasy world.

Which I love. Wakanda Forever, which I think people gave shit for, but I actually like is him being like, I'm going to treat this like I put a camera underwater and you can't really see stuff. Right. There are ideas. I think that Wakanda Forever is a really interesting movie.

I agree. Especially by the standards of a late Marvel movie at this point. But because so many damn Marvel movies are dark, I understood why people were just like, I want to see better. Totally. It's just the one where I'm like, he actually has a reason for this.

And I do think it's kind of interesting. And I sort of like the ultimate effect of it. All of it to say, it is inexcusable that The Little Mermaid looks so fucking fucking shitty because these other three movies all take different approaches to it and all three of them work in different ways and then i was watching fucking live action little mermaid clips and i just could not believe how bad it's so i had to turn it off after 10 minutes some people have defended that movie to me and i've just been completely confused. I can't. It like hurts to watch. I agree.

I agree. But, okay, so Arthur, Orm, Black Manta, we've just covered it. Yeah, or a calcum, just to be clear, is a famous ancient metal that is written about a lot in Roman times by people like Plato who would also write things like

there used to be a place called Atlantis, you know. Which I've read. Let's also... I was very interested in Atlantis. I read the Plato dialogue. No, it's cool. Atlantis is cool. I just love that they're using orichalcum. Of course. And let's also just be clear that it is

a substance that is ejaculated from the orichalcum species. It is the orichalcum. It is the orichalcum. He stopped everyone else talking to say that. And I also reminded you that I'm very smart and i read the plato dialogues um so there's this sort of early preambly thing of all of this setup and then it's like five months later the oceans are boiling climate change is going wild in america in the earth really bad news anchors are delivering you know yes I'm like five minutes of work news

anchors are like breaking news real time as we're watching exactly and so Arthur decides like fuck this like I can never get anything done as a king the Senate is deadlocked you know and the Senate

council of whatever yeah but also like they had like the borders of never get anything done as a king. The Senate is deadlocked, you know. And the Senate, the... The Council of whatever. Yeah, but also, like, they had, like, the borders of Atlantis breached for the first time in a hundred generations. Yes, looking for the Orc outcome, there's a big fight, yes, in Atlantis. And so he goes to get Orm.

Can I say one reason why I think the comedy doesn't work in this movie, aside from me disliking Momoa's whole comedy thing? Okay, what? There is the weirdness in the setup of this of like most movies like this are like, you know, there is one guy who could help you, but you're not going to like it. Yeah. And then it cuts to Momoa being like, no way. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. I hate that guy. He gets Orm out of prison. Orm's like, fuck you. He's like, I'm not happy about it either, but we have to work here. It does feel like a miscalculation

that Aquaman is like, you know who I should get for this? Orm. And everyone's like, fucking Orm? No. And he's like, look, I don't like him either, but I want to get him. So their dynamic becomes Orm being like,

I hate you. And him being like, I do too, but here you are on the mission. I brought you on too. Like, it's a little weird that they're not placed together that he in fact is going behind everyone else's back to pull into the story

the guy that he also dislikes yeah and it's just kind of being an asshole towards but yes he has to work with arm I agree with what you're saying but I do think they have chemistry together Wilson's doing a lot of the work yes but they are when Wilson's in the lot of the work. Yes. But they are,

when Wilson's in the movie, it just feels way more alive. There's something. That was your take too, Maria. Oh yeah. Anytime Orm's on screen, the movie's cooking.

Yeah. Or Marius, the ocean master. So, oh God. Okay. I love that. We're so stupid.

I love the shot when they're like, sort of explaining what happened in between the five years of Aquaman 1 and Aquaman 2. You see like, you know, her giving birth to CG baby in the water. We see Orm shirtless in chains underwater and I was like,

hell yeah, love it. And then, you know, Orm and looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Yeah, he makes the joke. He's like, get Wilson. We got to go. And I just like groan. A catastrophic choice this movie makes

is to have a joke where they call out their dynamic being similar to Loki and Thor by name. He makes that joke. He says, Azkaban one second later. I'm like, stop making pop culture. You have to stop.

You live under the sea. You have to stop. You live under the sea. You must stop. I think this is a good moment to talk about Ben's biggest gripe with the movie. Because they start planning the Orem jailbreak, right? Nicole Kidman. Her name, her character's name is Atlantia. Atlanta. Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia. Like Atlanta. Like how, you know how people say Toronto where they neglect the T. It's like that, but Atlanta. Atlanta. Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta. Like Atlanta. You know how people say Toronto where they neglect the T? It's like that, but Atlanta. Atlanta. Atlanta. Yeah.

So she's like, I've always hoped that someday you and your brother would figure out a way to have a relationship. I will help you with this mission. Here's your stealth suit. And then she says,

I'm sending a sidekick in with you. This is Topo, the cephalopod. Correct. Cephalopod. Cephalopod. Cephalopod, sorry. And... I thought the octopus was going to talk. I point to Ben and I go like, I do the DiCaprio once a time in Hollywood meme.

And he's like, what? And I'm like, that's the fucking octopus who played the drums. No, it's not. Yes, it is. It is. James Wan has made it clear that it's explicitly the same octopus because her final thing she says to Momoa is he also plays a lot of instruments. Ben is now rubbing his hands together.

I'm locked in. You've set up that not only does this octopus play the drums. He can play more instruments. Well, not even that. It's now the second movie. So we're going to get a fucking extended solo. Totally. I would agree.

This movie shows us. He should be going aqualung on this motherfucker. This movie shows us... David? David, yes. David, yes. 50 comedy points. This movie shows us

a different hot crustacean band. It does. Topo basically becomes the fifth lead of the film. Yep. He's all over this fucking thing. He does good work.

I want to acknowledge... I do think we should shout out that he does really good work. Because ink is technically octopus piss. He uses his ink to distract people. At one point, he can squeeze into little holes. That's fun.

He's great. But every 10 minutes, Ben is turning to me. He does ride a seahorse at one point, which is really cool. Sure. Every 10 minutes, Ben is turning to me and going, he's going to play the drums now. Right? So with your little cousin being like,

when is he getting to the factory ben is like when is this guy gonna bang some skin where is the drum set and when does it start is getting red we can can we get tested this ben's actually like are we about to like are we gonna get enter sandman are we gonna get you know this wasn't a. Is he going to get into the Tommy Lee rig and start spinning? He was so fucking upset. And then the end of the movie, there's a moment

where you're like, oh, it feels like it's going to happen now. Film cuts to directed by James Wan. Ben is like, are you fucking kidding me? How did they not do it?

And I'm like, I don't know, Ben, end credits scene. And he's just like, I don't understand how they didn't fucking show's just like I don't I don't understand how they didn't fucking show him playing the drums

it's a fucking home run it's the easiest thing to do it's all the CGI bullshit that we had to see

Chinese audiences won't accept octopuses playing it's true you know like it turns out some business decision they cut back

to Orming the bug burger Ben's twice as angry as he was before you should have been cheering of course. Then over the rest of the end credits, they start playing like theme from Aquaman, which is very drum heavy.

It is. And I was like, and this was irresponsible of me to do to give him hope. I know what you said. I was like, Ben, maybe what they're setting up is the last thing after the final credit is just one shot of Topo going like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

And instead it cuts to the atomic monster scene. And Ben, you've had emotionally wrought last couple of months. This is the lowest I've seen you be in a very long time. I was bummed. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that Topo didn't play the drums for you. It's just crazy. It's just a

crazy miscalculation. He wasn't doing a bit at all. He was so angry. He's like sitting there and he was like, do they not understand do they not understand that's a home run? Okay, so I'm guessing that that means you didn't really like the seahorse riding or like you couldn't really enjoy. Did Ben have a note on the seahorse riding? Go ahead.

No, he wasn't not enjoying this stuff in real time because he was holding out hope that at some point they would deliver. I know, I know. Ben, your note on the seahorse riding. This is kind of to like Marie's problem overall with the, you know. Ben, your note on the seahorse writing. This is kind of to, like, Marie's problem overall with the, you know, expanding, getting more into

how does this world building work. That's the first movie of seahorses, but not as much as this film starts to set off. Dolph Lundgren does a lot of seahorse writing. But this movie, they introduced Storm, Aquaman, Steed. Yeah. Stables.

Sure. Sure. What the... Ben, your overall note of a documentary about this is a good one. Because that's what I want. I want David Attenborough's voice calmly taking me through

every level of Atlantean society. That's what I want. Ben asked a huge question while we were talking about the seahorses. Do you remember? Remind me. Wet hay? I mean, look, Wilson eating

the bugs, and you know, Arthur makes Orm eat a bug, being like, this is what humans eat, did prompt the question of like, yeah, what do they eat down there? Do we ever really get into that? No. What are they eating under the sea? They wouldn't eat fish. They're friends with them. Maybe they do, though. I don't know.

I mean, they don't eat cheeseburgers. I'll tell you that much. Wow. I have no idea. Guess we have to get James Gunn on the phone. Aquaman 3, green light it. We need octopus drums. We need wet hay. We need

answers on food. else uh no okay fine you're happy with those i want to see all versions of batman scenes i want to see the patent scenes they shot everybody did clooney give you five minutes but you're just like where could have i told you that when i saw the flash i saw an unfinished version of it where the end of the movie was just Ezra Miller saying, who the fuck is this? Right. Or whatever, which is what he says. Who the fuck are you? But then there was no cut to the other side where it's George Clooney.

Yes. There was just nobody. And I thought that was a really funny decision because I'm like, there's so many Batmans it could be. Yeah. It's funny. Like, we don't even see it. And also unclear if the reason they didn't show you the recipe is because they didn't want that to leak out or they hadn't shot it yet. I think they hadn't decided on who it was actually going to be.

And then like the Clooney gag, I'm like, yeah, that's kind of funny because he's like one of the most forgotten Batman. But like, you know, I don't know if we need that. So I don't know if we need that. But look, this is my biggest gripe with The Flash is like you're bringing Michael Keaton back as Batman and you're not bringing in any of the Burton energy. What we have nostalgia for is not just that guy playing Batman. It's that whole world. He's hot as hell. He is hot as hell in the movie.

And I think he does good work. But I also think it kind of misunderstands the value of him as Batman. And I think similarly, Scott Gerrigan, podcast The Ride, our friend, talked about like when Clooney comes in at the end of Flash, you're like, this means nothing. This is not Joel Schumacher Batman. This is George Clooney in an espresso ad. Right, he doesn't even look like Batman.

Right, this is just saying, hey, remember that George Clooney once played Batman. That's why I think my version unintentionally works better. Look, the important thing is that they fight Black Manta and they liberate him from the fucking Trident.

Look, I don't want to sound like an easy lay, but what happens in the last 40 minutes of this movie, I have no idea. I thought a lot of it looked cool. It looks great. The fighting is cool, right? The jetpack on Manta especially, I love the usage of that. I think there's really fun moments. I think Patrick Wilson... The fighting with the jet great is cool right the jetpack on manta especially i love the usage of that

i think there's really fun moments like i think patrick wilson's cool i think patrick wilson rescuing lundgren yeah when you think he's gonna go bad for a second he uses the act but when he gives the naughty smile and marie and i both gasped and i said orm you're so naughty it just literally happened. And then I was like, no, he's going to do it. He's going to help. He'll help him.

He'll help him. Look, I hate to give you credit for anything, but this is why you were right to stand firm on doing an Aquaman episode to end the year. Being able to say,

Orm, 20 minutes. Orm. For 20 minutes of a recording, instant cold. Orm, he's so naughty. I liked the beats of the final sequence. Like, I like, it's like, okay, Orm grabs the trident. He is then naughty. I liked the beats of the final sequence. It's like, okay,

Orm grabs the trident. He is then tempted by evil, obviously. Sure. Right? And then Aquaman grabs the trident. He is tempted by his own kind of self-doubt or whatever, right? He's just like, his stuff is clean. He makes action that is

legible on screen, even when there's a lot of CGI goop in business. I agree. The octopus could have grabbed the trident and then it could have flashed to him playing drums at different times. Well, that would have been good. No, he is an incredibly legible filmmaker in a way that is not faint praise.

It's actually kind of like the thing that fewer and fewer people have any ability to do. They throw the trident at C. Sauron. Yeah. And he catches it. And then Aquaman throws his own trident through the trident. Problem solved. Trident split. And then, the note I like the best,

Arthur does offer Black Manta help. And Black Manta, true to character, I think, is like, I will never fucking get off of you. We have a treatment program for Trident addiction. We have our own Trident Narcan we can prescribe you. And then, yeah, the end of the movie is fucking Arthur being

like, introducing himself to the United Nations and I'm just like, I can't believe this is how this ends. I don't see a lot of these movies. And by these movies, I mean... Black Panther has the exact same ending. Yes. I mean, like, you know, major comic book movies. I did see Black Panther. Yeah. And I, like, you know, major comic book movies. I did see Black Panther.

Yeah. And I'm like, this is just... Yeah, it's just the same fucking... It's literally the same thing. Again, I'm just like... It's the worst secret thing, secret world

that has advanced technology that no one knows about and we should share it with the rest of the human world and then I'm going to make a speech at the UN. That's literally what happens. This movie was supposed

to come out before Wakanda Forever. Also, that's true, but also, like, don't out before Wakanda Forever also that's true but also like don't they know who he is he's in the Justice League does that matter but this is all the DC universe shit where it's just like it has never clearly been set up what the rest of the

world's relationship is to any of this and in any movie you're watching what is or isn't canon if Atlantis revealed itself and the guy speaking when he was done went, ha ha, and dropped the mic,

I'd be like, fuck these people. What the fuck? It's so rude. Also, was that supposed to be a deliberate reference to Iron Man? I don't know. Because doesn't Iron Man 1

end with him giving a press conference and it goes, I am Aquaman, or I am Iron Man? It's a deliberate reference to Iron Man. It's probably one of the many great bits that Jason Momoa came up with in his great script. And I'm sure it's so good.

It's so good. Farewell. That's what we have to say. Goodbye to Aquaman. I've enjoyed a lot of my time with you. Goodbye to the DC Universe. Thank you, Marie, for this Aquaman action figure that I'm not playing with

and then push down on the handle to flush anyway see you in six months for Joker 2 Follia Da an episode that is happening on main feed we are not promising that biggest blank check of 2024 I'm already thinking of the bits because like Lady Gaga means so much to me.

Not necessarily as a pop star, but as an actress. As a movie star. And I am just, like, so looking forward to seeing what she does with this iconic character. It's going to be such a great episode. Ben, what do you think? It's going to be such a great episode. About us doing a Joker. Joker 2.

Folly Ado. Well, from a, you know, strictly thinking with my producer cap on, hey, it's going to be a very popular movie that a lot of people are going to be talking about. People are going to type Joker 2 into Spotify and they're going to find us. Yep. So I think from that standpoint,

it's, you know, strategically makes sense. I just, I'm a little worried. Put it on there. I'm a little it's you know strategically makes sense I just I'm a little worried you should be Joker's the clown prince of crime he laughs at the things that make other people cry he does it's crazy the box office for this I guess it seems Aquaman will be a

soft number one but it's gonna have Wonka like kind of right on its tail the box office productions now are six tickets but it's going to have Wonka like kind of right on its tail. Deadline just didn't update. The box office productions now are six tickets. Just Ben, David, Marie, Joey, and Griffin. Plus vaping lady with the milk. Yes, vaping lady.

I was about to say. Who snuck into a different theater after buying a ticket to Wonka. You've got Wonka too. It looks like Migration, Illumination's charming new duck movie. People said it's kind of good. Is it good? No, I have not heard that. I've not heard that either. You know what I have heard? That it's bad? I've heard that that movie is 80 minutes

long with credits. I love it. And animation credits are not short. They are very long. And I think there's like a 10 minute Despicable Me short before the movie that doesn't have the Minions. Sounds great. Cool. It's just a static tour me short before the movie that doesn't have the minions sounds great cool it's just a static tour

of the house yeah number four taking you around number four looks like it's gonna be anyone but you which I'm kind of excited to see I've heard a lot of like a lot of people being like kind of fuck some people being like yeah I'm hoping that might be a little

bit of a sleeper just because we need fucking live action movie star rom-com. If that movie can make a little profit, I'll be very happy. And I think number five is going to be either Boy and the Heron or Ironclaw. Ironclaw opening is slightly more limited, but it has a 2100 rather than the sort of, you know. I'm going to be in texas for

the entire holiday oh you have to see it in i'm like it's gonna be perfect a24 was like if you want to come to the premiere in dallas we'll fly you out and i was like oh i don't need to do that but why and they're like because it's fucking yeah ironclad i mean and it's it is dallas and i'm gonna be in dallas yeah but i am am getting to Dallas one day after it stops playing at the Texas Theater. What? Which is the theater that they caught Lee Harvey Oswald in. Are you sure they haven't just posted

next week's Times? They did. It's because they, I'm only, I'm only in Dallas for like the 29th through the first. What are they kicking it off the screens for?

They're doing like Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors. Good movie. It's a masterpiece. I really wanted to see Iron Claw. What's this theater called? The Texas Theater.

It's where Lee Harvey Oswald saw a movie. It's not a really original name though. Yeah, but it looks cool. Look at it. We'll take it up with Lee Harvey Oswald

if that's your complaint. David, can I just... I'm just saying they might add more times. Can I bookmark a DC Universe complaint? And this is one I know that you and I agree with off mic, and I just want to put it on main. Your thing about

like, they either have to sacrifice the patents in Batman or fold it into the gun universe, right? I mean, I don't care, but I feel like someone's going to care. Like, on the business side. I agree. Here's my other thing. I just think, and it's like a kill your babies thing in a way that James Wan

would never do as a filmmaker. I think Gunn being like, and I'm selectively putting some of my Peacemaker characters into this new universe is a really bad idea. I think if the whole thing is like, we need to wipe the table clean,

especially now that he's definitively been like, I guess we're not bringing any of these characters over. I guess Blue Beetle's not coming back. No, fuck that. I'm like, I know it's your show

and you like it and people like it and people like these castings and whatever, and as much as it feels stupid to drop Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, it's like,

you need fresh start on fucking everything. Just hard reset. Yeah. Stop fooling yourself into thinking, whatever. You know what, though? I don't care.

Go do whatever you want. That's sort of how we got into this mess. Go poop in a bucket for all I care. Show me that. Go piss in Aquaman's mouth. Yeah. It happens. A couple of times.

James Gunn, if you're listening to this podcast, we're sorry. But also, if you would like to make a Batmite movie. Let me play Batmite, please. Let Griffin play Batmite.. Let me play Batmite, please. Let Griffin play Batmite. Please let me play Batmite. There are the two comic book characters I want to play, and I've put them on the board, and people know where to find me.

I think he's a good director, and I tend to like his movies, and I'm excited for him to make a Superman movie. That's how I feel. I like comic books. If this goes back to there's two comic book movies a year, and I get to enjoy them, that's fine by me.

Yeah, but I also think it is fascinating that DC has nothing next year and Marvel has one movie. Yeah, well, it's the movie, Griffin. Deadpool 3. Deadpool 3. And he knows. Do you think he's going to make a joke about him being the only Marvel movie on the slate that year? Oh my God. Happy Christmas, everybody.

Is Deadpool going to make jokes about Captain America getting pushed to 25? Ben, happy Christmas. Thank you. And happy holidays. Yeah, this episode's coming out after Christmas, though. I don't care. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

Is Deadpool going to be a guest on our Follier Deux episode and be like, huh, no Deadpool 3 episode. Interesting. Yeah, let's get in touch with Brian's people. Can I ask one quick question of everyone before we wrap up? Yes, but I am hungry and I need to apparently go pick up a grill. Yeah, I need to go and clean my apartment before my mom comes over later tonight. I will brag. What was your favorite movie-going experience of 2023?

Oh, that's a great question. Not necessarily movie. Do you have an answer? Yeah. I understand. I want to hear your answer first. I think it was, I mean, I had a lot of great times at the movies this year, but my divorced parents taking me to see Barbie opening weekend

while we all wore pink was a very special thing for me. That is nice. Really brought me back to feeling like a kid. Like feeling like a kid again, right. In a good way. And I thought the whole Barbenheimer weekend was like a really fun thing. That was a great time. I had to see those movies on the same day and I was like a little ragged.

But it was also kind of crazy and fun to do that. Yeah, it was fun. And just to see people be excited to go to the movies was you know, it was just really nice. And I had a good time when we went to see Oppenheimer. We had a good time with that. We had a good time with Mission Impossible. Yeah, that was one of the

better cinema experiences I've had. Like sitting near the front row, our seats rumbling like crazy. And I was sitting at the second floor of IMAX too. Well, I didn't see it with you guys then. That was also really fucking fun. I mean, my favorite movie going experience of the year is that I saw Killers of the Flower Moon at Sekelia, which is Martin Scorsese's private office. Yeah, you're not really gonna beat that.

Alone in his screening room, sitting in an armchair with a blanket next to a table that had four pairs of Scorsese glasses on it. Look, it's pretty cool. It's probably a thing that will come up in our Blankies Awards episode three months from now. I cried for the entire second half of Fallen Leaves, which sort of felt like the most profound moviegoing experience I had this year. I'm glad you felt so good about it because it's the best. It rolls. I can't wait to see it. I do think the hottest moviegoing experience I had this year. I'm glad you felt so good about it because it's the best. It rolls. I can't wait to see it.

I do think the hottest movie-going experience I had this year, a friend of the podcast, Orlando Oli and I went to see Magic Mike's Last Dance at the Alamo Drafthouse

where they handed out fake dollar bills you could throw at the screen and we got cocktails and I think that movie is a masterpiece and everyone hates it and I had one screening

where everyone was like totally in on the energy of that film. That felt like the best kind of like communal screen experience. It's always good to have, right,

that, that just a perfect crowd for... Yeah. That movie rules. What was your favorite? Well, I'm trying to remember a movie I went to see

with my girlfriend because I feel like I should be shouting that experience out. She's, she's the best. She's a great person. She's the best. I can't think of it, so whatever. I'm just going to say I enjoyed

Spider-Man across Spider-Verse. I felt like a kid again or something. I will say I saw that at the Williamsburg Cinema opening weekend, and that movie makes a lot of very specific New York jokes and Brooklyn jokes, and every time it did, it was as if like

the fucking boss made a Jersey call out like on stage at like the MetLife arena or something like the house was just so into like yeah Miles Morales is our guy trying to think of other really because like I see so many of my movies and screenings which is a

great privilege I get to have but then you sometimes will lack the like, what you're talking about. Oh, he listened to him go. And then, but like Dungeons and Dragons, I saw by myself on a random like Saturday.

And I was in the same theater as you and we only figured it out after the fact. At the Regal Essex. I was in the second row. You were in the second to last row. We realized we had been at the same showing.

I was just like vibrating out of my seat. We didn't, by the way, like run into We realized we had been at the same showing. I was just like vibrating out of my seat. We didn't, by the way, like run into each other afterwards. Like an hour later. I saw it. And I was like,

I saw it too. Where did you see it? What time? Which screen number? And Marie's yelling at us like, you guys didn't realize? Yeah. Anyway.

You know. We had a fun time when we saw No Hard Feelings because that was at the end of our like. Yeah. Crazy celebrity day that we had, Griffin. We had a fun. We had a fun time when we saw No Hard Feelings because that was at the end of our crazy celebrity day that we had, Griffin. We had a fun day.

Yeah, I don't know. The movies are back. They are. They're back as hell. A great year for American popular cinema. It's this year where it's actually been so stressful. I'm realizing how much stress the lists have made because it's like,

am I supposed to ignore the 10 to 15 juggernaut filmmakers all releasing something really interesting this year? You had written up a 10 that like acknowledged all 10 and then you sent to your editor like, should I just like fucking freestyle and not feel the need

to like hit all the big notes and did a list that was kind of half and half. I called it my mullet list because it was serious up front and silly in the back. Because like the top four was like Oppenheimer, Flower Moon, Boy in the Hair, and Asteroid City. And then I tried to just put other things that I found interesting or fun at the back half of it. And while then in the article also saying like, by the way, like Fincher, Mann, Haynes, you know, all the, you know, Payne, all these guys I love made movies I thought were great.

Like, you know, there's a lot of big movies this year. Coppola, Soderbergh. Coppola, Soderbergh, fucking, I can't keep going. You know, Mission Impossible, like whatever. Zone of Interest. It was a great year. I think we're going to have a good Oscars. I hope so.

I hope so. And I think it's also been a great year for Blank Check. Well. Yeah, it has. Yeah, no, it has. It really has. It also been a great year for blank check well it has yeah no it has it's been a great year for David was really talking us up over text the other day I was just like we fucking did Buster Keaton like that's something we couldn't have done years ago yeah that went well

you know and then but then like they throw us a meatball like Fincher over the plate and we smashed it into the parking lot was like not something we expected people to vote for and i think it was really fun boils a guy you've wanted to do forever exactly what a blast yeah it was just it was anyway so next year good releases from our blank check filmmakers yeah next year phoning in you are going to get dot matrix ass faxes naughty number nine for blank check every episode is going to be under 90 minutes yeah be still my heart how long is this one this is long we're cutting

out a bunch but how long is it yeah give or take some cuts here there i'd say we're still in the three-hour range what take us out giving the people a meal. This is a final Christmas feast because of course no this is the episode coming out after the one week off. Yep.

Yep. And then next week Ferrari. Yep. With Bill Good that's a great episode. Week after that Stryson starts.

Week after that we begin our four episode Barbra Streisand miniseries. Let's just say with Rachel Zegler because you already basically put the pieces together. Rachel Zegler is on the first episode.

A Star is Born. What a match. I mean, me watching West Side Story, I said A Star is Born. Oh, I get what you're saying. Yes. So did I. Also, you know who came into the studio with her? Another spoiler? No. Her puppy.

Named? Lenny. After Leonard Bernstein. Get out. So it's our second dog episode of Blank Check. Oh my God. After Earl Hines, Mizlani. Yep.

And he's another great dog, a great tradition. These are things to look forward to in 24. Yep. True. Take us out. I need to eat pizza or something. I need to eat very badly.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to our associate producer, Marie Barty Salinas. You're welcome. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing,

Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork, JJ Bursch for our research, My Brain is Shutting Down in Real Time, Lane Montgomery for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including blank check special features, for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including Blank Check special features, Patreon,

where we do commentaries on film series. Love Guru coming up January 1st. Normal! Pitching the Walk just happened, if you haven't heard that.

And then coming up in 2024, Terminator. Terminator franchise plus Dre Sand Mall. Yep. Terminator 2 3D, bunch of wild shit happening. Yep, Terminator 2 3D. Bunch of wild

shit happening. Yep. And as always, form Marius, formerly the Ocean Master.