The Flop House - Ep.#408 - Waterworld, with Todd Vaziri
Episode Date: November 4, 2023Special effects WIZARD Todd Vaziri joins us to discuss a flop so EPIC it had multiple nicknames about how it was a flop (but still has some pretty great special effects). That's right, we're discussin...g 1995's infamous bomb: Waterworld! And don't worry, fans of more recent bad movie discussion -- next episode we leap Back to the Present with a discussion of Mafia Mamma.Check out our season of streaming shows, FLOP TV!If you want to help out crew members and others affected by the SAG/AFTRA strike, you can Donate to the Entertainment Community Fund here.The Wikipedia page for WaterworldRecommended in this episode:Blackberry (2023)Past Lives (2023)Heartburn (1986)
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On this episode we discuss
Waterworld
Inspired by the animated series Pirates of Dark Water
Not really, but yeah, it is on you know Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy.
I'm Stuart Wellington.
I'm Ellie Kaylin, leader on I'll tell you about flop TV, our monthly flop online broadcasting
internet series.
But first guys, we've got a special guest with us on this episode today.
Who is it?
Are you ready for an introduction?
Yes, sir.
Interviews please.
I'll do it.
This is someone we should have had a long time ago, a real luminary in the world of movie
production and movie effects.
That's right.
Visual effects artist and supervisor Todd Vizieri.
He's worked on all your favorite movies, Soldier, the 1999 and mid-Summer night stream.
The name Sturvecos.
All your favorite films.
Sturvecos.
Yeah.
And also.
Sturvecos is quite a lot.
And he spent the past, what Todd?
Like 20 years working on, it seems
like every single major motion picture that gets released.
Yeah, you named a few of them.
Yeah.
Now, what would be highlight for you?
If you were going to give a highlight reel, Todd, what would you think?
Well, he neglected, you know, bones and driven and the 2000, uh, Dungeons and Dragons, you know, there's a few,
you could keep scraping.
I was gonna mention bones, but it's true.
Todd has mentioned us.
He is the one of only two effects artists
who have worked on both Dungeons and Dragons movies.
But you had much more of a hand in the most recent one.
You were very much in charge for that one.
That's right.
The reason the first one wasn't that great
had nothing to do with me
and the reason why this one was good had almost everything to do with me.
Yeah.
Also, I will put notice, Missile of Bones, which I saw recently and thought was pretty
fun.
I like that movie.
It's kind of wild.
I mean, you go in with the right expectations.
Bones is fine.
Yeah.
So in the original Johnson Dragons, you did all the animation for the beholders, right?
Okay, I'm gonna tell you that I know what a beholder is. I don't know what a beholder is. I that's the thing. I knew nothing about Dungeons Dragons going into that movie and I know nothing about Dungeons Dragons going into this movie.
So I did
this big end battle at the end the mages make like fireballs and they throw fireballs and I was just making stuff. I'm like, I don't know, I'm going to make these make the fireball appear and
then they can throw it. I was just making up stuff. And I remember reading some of the
comments from fans from that original 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie and saying, whoever
did those mages fireballs, they totally get Dungeons and Dragons. And I'm like, hey,
I sure I was just making
stuff up. So that's right. So let's pull out our players handbook and make some characters
so I can introduce you to the world of Dungeons and Dragons.
All stories going to be thinking about for the whole rest of the episode.
Todd, thanks so much for coming. We've talked about some movies you've worked on, but we have never gone after the effects
because they always look great, even when the, say story supporting those effects is not
up to snuff.
But we apologize for the movies that we have talked about of yours in the past.
Don't, because you guys, I've been a big fan, if I may have an opening statement for a second,
it's such an honor to be here.
On my time too, yeah.
Yeah, okay, thank you very much.
I'm president of it.
I'm not, I just, it's such an honor to be here.
And you know, you hear one of your favorite podcasts
is a show where three guys make fun of a movie,
how bad it is.
And it's like, that sounds kind of gross, you know,
on the surface, but you guys love movies.
And there's, it's all out of love.
And it's not cruel.
And if anybody understands that it's a team effort,
that there's a lot of people involved,
and any number of things could go wrong at any point,
you know, it's all out of love for movies and just
I'm really, I'm really happy to be here. So I never take that kind of stuff personally.
I'm glad that you say that because this is the number one thing I struggle with with
the premise of our show is like as a girl or I'm like, I don't know, why do we have to
be mean to any of that? I mean, I don't think we are. But like, you know, even the appearance
of the least of me.
Yeah. And Dan's throwin is always like this not even the appearance of the least of the level of us.
Yeah, and Dan's the one who's always like, this movie's okay.
But I think all of each of us goes into watching these movies secretly hoping that we're
going to be like, this was good.
We liked this one.
Yeah.
And it's a disappointment when they're not.
So the premise of the show is that we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.
Today, we're going to watch a movie that Todd, you specifically asked for it.
You requested this film, and that film is Waterworld.
That's right.
Waterworld, the movie that very briefly put Kevin Kossner's career quite off track.
I guess the postman was like Waterworld, but with the male was the one that really put
it off track.
Yeah, those together.
It was a winding road for him to get all the way to jelly stones so he could rehabilitate that image.
It's the movie that actually is.
He was the park ranger, and he's like, got to take down those bears.
What?
It's the movie that asks you, what if the world but waterier?
Well, the world's pretty watery as it is.
No, no, you have no idea.
No, no, real watery.
Like, just super wet, just so moist.
Yeah.
Just dripping.
So Todd, what is that one?
Yeah, the world owes you.
Yeah.
The world is pretty runny.
What is the world of the earth?
What is the world of the earth?
What is the world of the earth?
So Todd, what was it about water world that you wanted to talk about?
Well, I kind of figured maybe something with the visual effects slant to it,
because I think it's actually a very,
it takes place in production at an interesting time
for visual effects when we were moving away
from purely optical effects and optical compositing
and getting into the digital world,
where this is a couple years after Jurassic Park,
and it's contemporaries, our movies like Twister and,
let's see, 1996 Independence Day, things like that.
So we're slowly getting into the digital world
where simple digital effects were still not so simple.
So it's kind of like a bridge between two worlds. I thought that would
be an interesting way to look at it. I mean, when folks talk about the most infamous flops
of all time, what are worlds usually in the discussion and what we can get into the definition
of what the flop means in this particular case? So, and I also, I remember seeing it and going,
So, and I also, I remember seeing it and going, okay, I mean, it wasn't terrible. I mean, I'm a big Kevin Costner fan and I sort of, you know, I didn't come out of it
going, what a stinker.
But this was infamous.
This was infamous.
I mean, it was, well, was fish tar was one of them and was it Kevin's gate?
Was this as well?
Well, I think that was, yeah, they called this Kevin Skate and Fistar.
Does he kill a bunch of people?
Yeah, because a bunch of people, he, well, convinced them to commit suicides.
They could ride the water world, which he said was going to be a roller coaster at Universal
Studios.
Turned out to be a stunt show.
So you couldn't really ride it, but can we talk about the stunt show?
No, we'll talk about the stunt show, which I never got to see and I regret it.
I've heard nothing but great things about it.
But it definitely was one of those movies like Ishtar
and like Heaven's Gate, where the discussion about it
became so much about how much it cost
that the actual quality of the film,
whether it was good or not,
was like already at a deficit.
So there's something about movie critics,
especially in the past.
I feel like now movies are so routinely expensive
that it's not as big a thing.
But back then, if a movie cost a lot of money, movie critics did not like that.
It made them very mad ahead of time.
And they hated the idea that-
It dominated the discussion.
It pre-release.
This is back then.
So Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, it cost this much money.
It cost overruns, scheduling overruns.
It's like that's now what the movie defines the movie.
And so it's so weird that they cared so much because they would act as if it was some
sort of moral failing or there was some randomness, like hazard associated with it.
It's like, well, if the studio loses money, then that's on them.
That's fine.
They are risking it. In the meantime, this
movie is employing people. What are you mad about, per se, in real terms?
I've never understood this like, oh, I can't believe that movie costs this much money.
And it's like, well, unless you're a shareholder, I mean, who cares? If you like watching movies, you know, the, the, the,
the last thing on your mind is what's the price tag of this movie?
If I was a, if I was a conspiratorial type of person, which I was as a teenager when Water
World came out, but I'm not now, I would say that a certain type of corporate media is
using the, was using the high budgets of movies to direct the anger of people
over the frivolous use of wealth by the wealthy towards Hollywood stuff, which is relatively
harmless as opposed to the real 1% of things.
And I feel like that's the kind of anger.
Now it feels like these Marvel movies cost a lot of money, but like, I don't know, that
dude has $100 billion
and is trying to colonize another planet
so that he can have like brain slaves.
That seems worse.
I feel like there's a greater understanding now
of what's a, what's a truly immoral use of money.
Well, I mean, also for whatever reason,
like success justifies itself where it's like,
you know, like the Marvel movies,
like they make back a tremendous amount of money too.
So like no one's like, what a waste, you know, it's like, yay, you know, it returned on
investment.
You know, it's a weird sort of place where as long as the capitalism works correctly,
like people are like, okay, but if someone spends a lot of money on a flop, it's like anger
rather than just like, well, that's what happens.
This is also, I think Kevin Cosmer was due for the period in every American stars life
when they reach a height of success and people want to take them down.
I think he was a little, this is like kind of still the hangover from Dances with Wolves
right?
He won Best Director, which is bonkers, which is objectively bonkers. And so I think
people were ready for him to fail at this. I think a lot of people thought he was directing
this movie because the director's name is also Kevin, which he was not. And also the director,
at some point there was a rumor that your director was ousted and Kevin Costner finished the film.
Yeah, if you read the scene, it seems like whether or not he actually directed any
of it, he was taking an extremely heavy producer's hand in it.
Yeah, and the knives were being sharpened for him.
I mean, it was celebrity culture, royal culture, they love their stars and then they also
love to tear them down.
And after dancers with wolves, dance with the fools,
Big Hit, Oscar winning, and Robin was principally before this, right?
Yeah.
It was right before this, because that was like 91, right, or 92, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, the pre before that was untouchables. I mean, you know, bull Durham, I think,
was before this. So he's riding high. And then, you know, big budget fiasco shooting on water, cost overruns,
the hurricanes destroying the set.
I mean, that's, and I'm talking about this before we talk about the movie, because this
is all the pre-release mumbo jumbo.
Yeah, yeah.
You've eliminated.
Everyone heard ahead of time.
This is a disaster before the movie had come out yet.
And let's just say it, Jean Triple Horn has made a lot of powerful enemies.
There were a lot of people that night in the upper Jean Triple Horn.
Ready to take her down too.
She has three horns.
How dare she have three?
There's so many more American to zero horns.
Exactly.
There's three wish I had three hands.
I have each of the horns.
It's cool.
It was like they say, grab the gene by the triple horns.
Yeah.
Now, did you, do you guys see this movie in the, I remember seeing in the theater and being
like, no, that was good.
I don't know what people were complaining about.
I saw it in the theater and I was like, that was a fun action science which made, I mean,
even at that time, I had an idea in my head that it was, that it was kind of mad Maxi.
And then I, I kind of got into really got into the mad Max movies and I was like, oh yeah, water world is, is very mad Maxi. But I remember watching it, yeah,
when it was in the theaters and being like, that was fun. Yeah, I saw it on HBO when it was new to
like premium, I was like, this is fine. Like I, I do think it either needs to be longer or shorter,
but, but it was okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw it all sorts of stuff in the theaters and I was like, I, you know, I have my problems
with this, but some stuff was pretty wacky and some of it was actually like really good.
And then there's some tonal problems, which is probably my biggest problem with the movie.
Yes.
Spoiler alert, but just tone, inconsistent tone.
Very inconsistent.
And it's a movie that essentially by the end, it's like, oh, this feels like a different,
tonally, this is a different movie than it was.
Yeah, that's true.
But let's talk about it, guys.
Now, out of, this is, I'm going to tell you about the experiment that I did.
Out of curiosity, and because I wanted to kind of compare my experience to viewers, I watched
the extended cut of the film, which is, was recreated using footage that was used in the television release, which is longer original.
Because I want to get a sense, because originally this movie was going to be three hours long, and the studio was like, Kevin's
Cosner's last movie was three hours long, like we're not doing any more of this three hour Kevin Cosner's stuff.
And so they cut it way down to two hours and 15 minutes, and I wanted to compare it to your guy's experience of watching the theatrical cut, which is what
I assumed you watched, because that's the one that's more readily available.
Okay.
Yeah.
So let's talk through it whenever I get to a scene that isn't in the theatrical, I want you
to yell Kevin and I'll stop.
Okay.
You don't have to yell Kevin, but you can.
I don't know.
Just go down.
Yeah, exactly. I want you to go, Kevin, but you can. I don't know. Just go for the moon. Yeah, exactly.
I want you to go Kevin, like you've just forgotten.
Yeah, go for the moon.
When you went on a holiday, yeah, exactly.
So we open with the universal logo globe, which floods.
Oh no, the sea levels are rising on the universal logo.
As a kid, this blew my fucking mind apart.
I love it.
Anytime a movie plays with the logo of the studio, I love it.
As a kid, I love that.
I still love it.
You know, I loved it when when cat value shows up at the beginning of cat value instead
of the Columbia logo.
I liked it.
And into the spider, cat value showed up in front of the, so the Columbia logo.
Great stuff.
I love that anime cat value.
It's like, it's like how for years, I would lean over and tell my movie going companion
that the new line logo is
the new one that the Lord of the Rings production fixed for the new line studios.
I like it when when dark Phoenix reaches up and cracks the X-Men logo on the cover of
the book. I like it when you mess with the logos. Anyway, I always like when the Hulk is like,
when the Hulk is like, is like either supporting his logo or smashing it. Yeah, great.
I was lucky enough to mess with the opening titles
of the Universal logo for another great film,
Van Helsing, with the big, which we did.
The letters, the letters come up
and then they all get burned up individually and melt away
and there's an iris to the first shot.
And I got to do that, that was a lot of fun.
They didn't even provide me with a clean version
of the Universal logo, it still had like a Comcast company or an MCA logo side. I had to
paint that out of the thing. So I was like, yeah, great. But yeah, I'm a sucker for the
custom studio logo. I feel like it shows you that they're doing something special with
the movie. You know, they're going a little bit beyond. Did you work on like a man house that did you work on the dark universe logo from the mummy where it's
the universal minute spins around since dark universe because I think they expected to
get more use out of that logo than they got.
Yeah.
What they were only they were expecting to make more than just what two movies.
I mean, they only really made the one of them too.
Yeah, what do you mean?
Dracula and told her to Dracula and told was kind of, was, was going to be it
and then they kind of like, they were like, that wasn't, that was a love opening.
The real dark, yeah, yeah, exactly. That was, that's the, that's the, that's the,
friends and family of the dark universe of the, of the dark universe.
You know what, guys, fam, our universe is dark enough as it is? We don't even have an actual dark universe.
Yeah, these are the news.
Yeah, we all the light we cannot see.
Anyway, there's a voiceover that tells us the ice caps have flooded in the future.
Those who survive have adapted to a new world.
How do they adapt?
Well, we see as on an ocean going catamaran, a lone sailor peas in a cup, pours it into
a filter and then drinks the water that comes out.
That's how they've adapted. They drink their own pee. That's our hero. I'm going to do really. You're right off the bat. in Cadamaran, a lone sailor peas in a cup, pours it into a filter and then drinks the water that comes out.
That's how they've adapted.
They drink their own pee.
That's our hero.
I'm going to do really, you're right off the bat.
Okay, so the narration.
You know, there was no telling of a prophecy, no on-screen titles or story or anything like
that, but a narration that they don't do anywhere else in the movie.
Yes.
I actually wonder, I don't think it was required.
I think it would have been a lot more mysterious if they just kind of, that's how they started
the movie.
Not like they're doing a do a bait and switch, like a spoiler alert plan of the apes kind
of a thing.
But just like, it could have been a little bit more mysterious, but they just wanted to
say the future, polar ice gabs melted.
I just, you know, if you just take out that narration, I wonder how the film would have been perceived
a little bit differently.
Just like my favorite one to think about is Predator, the opening shot of the spaceship
launching, sending something onto Earth.
If that show wasn't in the movie, how different the movie would have been, if you didn't know
anything about the marketing going into it, it would have been, if you didn't know anything about the marketing going into it. Yeah.
It would have been like, whoa, does this guy just live here?
Is he natural to this earth?
Well, but that is the kind of question that you get from studios all the time.
I imagine this they're like, how are people going to know this takes place in the future
and not like on some alien planet?
It's like, well, they'll watch the movie and they'll see there's copies of National Geographic
hanging around.
Right.
Yeah.
But they like spoiler alert later on, one of the big reveals is that the polar ice caps
melted and people live on water and that all the cities are flooded under water.
Like that's a huge emotional reveal for one of the characters.
Right.
So it's weird that we the audience are like, yeah, we fucking know that dude.
I mean, I don't want to.
At the beginning, don't.
Yeah, the guy told us.
Like, I don't usually like to make assumptions, but it is one of the things when I'm like,
this probably was added.
Like, you know, like, the.
Oh, for certain.
I doubt the screenplay had that.
Yeah.
My guess is that they just didn't want anyone confused right off the bat that they had either
had a test audience were worried about a test audience that people would not would be wondering
what's going on rather than following the story.
This one doesn't bother me that much because it's so quick and it's not, it doesn't give
you a lot of information.
It's tiny.
It's very tidy, but it is unnecessary.
So anyway, the Mariner drinks his own pee.
He's kind of a sterile loner.
This is our hero, Kevin Costner.
I think the only movie in his filmography where he drinks his own pee and he has a confrontation
with another loves it.
I'll look it up.
Yeah, wait, yeah, just do. Can you do a Google search for Kevin
Kossner drink pee and tell him what comes up?
Tim Cup. What do you think was in the cup? Good. Yeah, good point. That's why he's like,
I need a new tin cup. The uric acid is eating away at the bottom of a tin cup. Yeah.
So he has a confrontation with another lone sailor who steals the Mariners' limes. But it's okay, Cosmic Justice, they're both ambushed by smokers, were essentially pirates.
And they're not, they don't really smoke, but they're, I guess they do smoke at different
points.
They do smoke cigarettes all the time.
They do smoke cigarettes a lot, but they're essentially pirates.
It's funny that the thing that they're called is about the fact that they smoke cigarettes,
which they do in Dennis Hopper's character throws them out as rewards of, and not the fact that they're pirates is about the fact that they smoke cigarettes, which they do in Dennis Haberskater shows them out as rewards them and not the fact that they're pirates.
But anyway, Kevin Koster.
And this is the first example of Kevin Koster's mayor and her being a hard man in this
hard world because like he just races away.
He's like, you know, you got what you deserve for stealing my lives, getting killed, you know,
and he'll do some surprisingly cruel things in this room.
It's a brutal opening with, you know, first you see of drinking his pee, you see all
alone no dialogue.
I actually really love that stuff.
You're just kind of figuring out what's on his boat, what's on, and then he meets that guy.
And he just basically signs that guy's death warrant.
He gets him killed and he barely even looks back. He's like,
oh, and I'm like, I'm like, rare and to go. I'm like, this is pretty good. I mean, the elephant
in the room in this whole thing is, you know, Mad Max, the road warrior. Sorry, Ozzy. I know of it
as the road warrior. I know it's really called Mad Max too, but I'm just going to have to say the road warrior a million times. And who is a, you know, the titular mad Maximus is a brutal guy who learns, you know, seeks and finds
his humanity. And I'm like, okay, this is a Mad Max ripoff. Sure. On the water. Go for
it. And it's a pretty solid start. I think it is. I mean, it's a, it's even going farther
back than Mad Max. This is a classic Western trope, the bad man or the hard man learns how to love it. But the,
the aesthetic of this is so Mad Max on the water in a way that is hard to.
Yeah, right down to like occasion, it'll be like the kooky character. You know, like, yeah,
like exactly like the guy with the big glasses or whatever, you know, but of all the me,
Mad, Mad, well, literally of all the men met, Matt,
well, it literally there's a guy who there's a guy who's firing a machine gun who just
gets super into it and crazy and is firing all over the place.
And he's got like a mask that looks like a pig's nose.
And it's like, yeah, this is like, this is straight out of George Miller.
But of all the Mad Max ripoffs, this is the one that does it the best, I think.
Stewart, what are we going to say?
Sorry, I cut you off.
I was going to say that also like with this opening, we get a hint of the like workings
of his ship, a thing that like as a kid, I was like fascinated by this like incredible
cross sections. Like, how does this fucking, how does this guy's cool life work with all
these gizmos and gadgets and crap?
There's all this police and steam punk stuff and stuff. But anyway, he does, he wrecks
the other guy's ship, leaves him to be killed by the smokers. Truly, as the Mariner has said, nothing's
free on water world. I think it is kind of dumb that they call it water world. But anyway,
the Mariner, he stops at this artificial A-Toll town. It's kind of like a little fortress
and he's led in because he has a jar of ultra valuable dirt to sell them. And he exchanges
it for chits that he can use to buy hydro, which is what they call water.
Even though they call it water world, water is the number of words used for water, which
is interesting.
They don't say hydro world.
I want to say, even though this triple eventually go bad for the Mariner, I was sort of surprised
by how much society still seem to be functioning.
Because this guy arrives
with a bunch of dirt and they don't immediately just kill him for all that dirt that they
want.
There's a exchange of dirt for shits and no one's robbing him.
It's very much the town in the road warrior where the good people live.
There's still some people who want a real society.
In the extended version, there's a lot of talk about that.
Like you see much, you see more of this town and you see the people kind of running it
a little bit more.
But anyway, we'll get to that.
He buys it from Helen, Jean Triple Horn, who's a kind of tough shopkeeper who takes care
of Anola, a little girl, who has a strange tattoo on her back that is clearly a map, but
everyone is like, we can't, we don't understand it. We don't know how to read this thing.
It kind of looks like, it kind of looks like you, Simmy Sam saying back off, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's just a tattoo in her back of Calvin peeing on ground.
It's a prophecy that says, you will grow up to be Mac than Veronica Mars.
Yeah. That's what the professor says.
Oh, shit. Really? Yeah, that's her.
In the extended version of this, there's just more conversation.
He talks to Helen Moore, that there's a guy there who will find out later is the henchman
of the villain and they have a longer conversation.
Anyway, the mirror, he wants to eat.
This is the scene where he's walking around and oh, he's got his ski boots on that he
self-adjusted on the bottom of the ocean, which is if anybody's put on ski boots, it's like, I don't know, I'd rather, kind of rather
go barefoot. I'm like, I don't want to walk around on ski boots.
Well, he's got to hide his feet as we find.
There's also, I mean, this thing with like, um, the golden age man.
I think a Muto would not, uh, would, yeah, the, the golden age Sandman who has
a gas mask for a mask, it looks really cool, but it's like, those are hard to
wear. Like, it's hard to see and breathe out of those.
They're not for every, the, one of these details that I
kind of liked is when he was like, he's stepping up to the bar to Helen's bar and he kind
of stumbles. He just, I never interpreted that as like him with the boots. It's just
that he's not used to being on a relatively stationary ground. And I love that kind of
detail, but then it's undercut previously when he's like,
hey, I've got dirt. He holds up the dirt and he pulls out a big giant handful and he just lets it
go in the wind. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then the very next scene is him bartering and the guy
takes a giant handful and eats it. It's like, you can't do that. This is a little shit, man.
Yeah. It's inconsistent in some ways.
There's a lot of weird, like when we did his hopper who's constantly smoking cigarettes,
like, we're getting all these cigarettes.
Yeah, and in the extended version, he's obsessed with golf and he's watching golf videos
on a TV that he has rigged up.
And it's like, I don't know, the movie also makes it clear.
This is hundreds of years after civilization has fallen apart.
Like nobody remembers the old civilization.
None of this technology should work at any more at all.
You know, but anyway, but it's a movie.
What are you gonna do?
It's a movie about a fisherman, because as we find out, the town elders are like, hey,
before you leave, can you impregnate a local so we can add to our genetic stock?
And then they notice he has gills.
He's a Muto and they try to lynch him, but the sheriff of the A toll who thinks he's the
hero of the movie, but the movie is going to ignore him for vast, vast swaths of it.
They lock him up.
They lock, Sheriff locks up, Kevin Costner in a cage.
And now here's a scene, I don't know if you guys saw where the townspeople are debating
what to do with him and whether to kill him or not. And they found all these devices on his ship that they assume are weapons.
And it's like a yo-yo and like a thymaster.
And they're like, these are clearly torture devices.
Like, and it's kind of a dumb joke about how they misunderstand what these artifacts are.
And Helen comes in, she says, our way of life is are dying.
There used to be all these other a-tools.
We don't hear from them anymore.
What's going on?
We have fewer supplies.
So a theme in this one that I think is not quite there
in the theatrical is that mankind is doing the same thing
over again.
It's a new civilization that's still based on
over consumption and still not based on sustainability.
And so it's entered this cycle of,
and it's something that the Deacon complains about later,
as I'll talk about.
Like they've entered the cycle again of destroying their world around them, and it's an interesting
theme that I feel like is not, even in the extent of when it's not quite super gracefully
done, but it's an interesting way for them to bring it in.
But we don't have time for that, because we're going to introduce to maybe the most annoying
character in the movie, possibly Gregor, played by Michael Jeter, who normally I love.
Oh. It's kind of like a cookie forgetful scientist, who's like Helen's surrogate father, you know.
Hell, I think you've ever seen Michael Jeter on stage.
I've seen the only thing I've seen of him on stage is the performance he did at the Tonys
when he, when he won for, for Grand Hotel. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, I think my affection for him.
I don't know. I didn't find this guy. I know. I mean, he's basically, this is basically like him and the Fisher King, but a little
bit mad back. I think you're missing a lot of in this version of it, the one I watched.
There's a lot of him kind of bumbling around and not anything so for him going, oh, but
where's this all? But I lost it. Oh, and I'm like, a little of this goes a long way.
I had to look where he was born and where he grew up
and it says Tennessee.
And I don't think it's from the same world
as grew from Despicable Me,
which is essentially what is the accent is
in this movie.
Yeah, there's no reason to have that accent.
It doesn't make any sense to me what, like,
Dennis Hopper has a heavy Southern accent in this.
Like, they all have different accents.
Kevin Costner has this weird accent
that comes and goes throughout the days.
And he goes Southern every once in a while too.
Yes.
And it's like, why, I don't understand why these accents,
like that's not how accents work,
that like, why are they genetically,
you know, inherited accents that Gregor is from,
like, he's from Eastern European stock, I guess.
He has this kind of like, grew accent, but anyway.
But Gregor goes and talks to him, the Mariner, we listen when we see the Mariner has webbed
feet. They're not like super webbed. I don't know how much they'd actually help you in
the water, but they're crazy. I've seen better on frogs on frogs.
Anyway, next morning.
It's a new junior. And these feet, because the prosthetics, they tried to limit the number of times that he would
have to go through that prosthetic, because working on the water, working on the sun, out in the sun,
these things looked beautiful once they were applied, apparently. And the minute
casters stood up, they started to crack and break apart. So pretty much every shot that you see it in has digital
augmentation to make it look less janky. Really? And then a lot of the wide shots they just gave
up, it's, I don't forget about it. We're not even gonna see them. I'll do the appliance, yeah.
That's interesting because it certainly didn't, it didn't look digitally to me and so much of this movie is.
It's good work. Yeah, and so much of the movie feels real is the other thing. Like watching
this, it was like, oh yeah, it really feels like they built these sets. Like it really felt like
they were in these places. Yeah, you were texting me the whole time, you're like,
this is so much better than all this CGI guard which we get these days.
I was like, this is why practical effects are the best. This is why in Iron Man, when he's walking around in a real practical costume, that's
when he's the best.
He's like CGI, making Todd mad.
Yeah, no, not at all.
No, I mean, the story behind the production of like some of the sets was quite amazing.
It's a technological and engineering achievement. They had to build, I mean, they basically build giant boats, and that's what the set was.
And they tried their best to put it out on the open water so they would have not the 360
view.
They were never in, like, in truly open water, but like a 270-degree angle field of view
so they could see the atoll and then see the horizon and pan and have a lot of freedom
to shoot. But what that requires is then they basically made boats and then assembled
them out on the water. And these were all like had to be actual maritime like compliant
pieces of equipment. Like whenever they would, I mean, everything on the set had to be super
light because the buoyancy would get all messed up. And they had all these readings so
that every time more people or equipment went on it, they had to change it on the fly.
They adjusted the buoyancy of it so that it wouldn't sink. I mean, it's crazy. Can't imagine
why this movie costs so much. And we just say in general, for maybe those who don't read as much about this or
aren't in the business, shooting on water is notoriously difficult.
Like, jaws, like Steven Spielberg advised against water parole because of jaws.
There are all these problems with Titanic and stuff that we're really.
Well, you think you read about the experiences they had during jobs, which were some very
difficult, and they're using real boats that look like modern boats at the time.
The like, the water world is using is making like made up sea cities, you know, and things
like that. It's really astounding. Like the engineering that went into it must have been phenomenal.
But, uh-oh, is the mayor are going to get to enjoy that? Because the next morning, the townspeople have
sentenced him to immediate execution by being lowered into a pool of algae or something that's
going to recycle him into his component parts. Seems like a mistake, if he's a Mudo.
Yeah, but they're stopped by an attack from the smokers, led by their king Deacon, played
by Dennis Hopper. And there's a big battle. There's lots of cool stunts in this.
This is a very aqua Mad Max where instead of cars, it's jet skis and boats.
This is basically the water world stunt show.
You can see Universal Studios.
Like, even some of the story beats are the same.
They mash it up a little bit, but that stunt show is really a highlight of Universal Studios. And yeah, it's great.
Now, do they have the part where a plane is leading water skiers? Because I was like,
this is the most amazing shit. I think they do. I think they do. Yeah. There's definitely a plane
in the stunt show, right? I love the idea that this band of pirates have so much style that they're like, we're going
to come in.
What we're going to do is we're going to ramp some water skiers that are going to be
led by a prop plane over the fall.
Yeah, they're going to build boats that have ramps that go into the water.
So their skis or whatever and skiers can fly over the walls.
I love how we're supposed to see like jet skis
as intimidating pieces of equipment.
And we're already, okay, we're just trying to swallow that down.
And then all of a sudden you see this,
it's close up of four guys on water skis.
You don't even know what they're being pulled by.
It's like, these guys are water skis, all right?
Okay, they're coming to kill.
And then the camera pulls out and it's a plane pulling them.
Which, it's like, this is the goofy nature of this movie.
It's like a plane pulling guys on water skis.
And one technical note, I wanna say that
pretty much anytime you see a cable or a wire in this movie,
what they did was they tried to,
they had cables and wires on the set doing all this stuff, but they can never achieve
the attention and safety concerns that would be required. So pretty much every wire you
see as a digital wire and every wire that was there has been digitally erased because the plane
they tried to have a plane drag those waterscares and it wouldn't work because of the power
that was required.
The plane couldn't handle it.
So it's a helicopter that it's actually dragging them.
The plane is there, but the cables attached to the helicopter have all been painted out
and new wires have been
added between the waterscares and the plane.
And that continues out the rest of the movie.
And you don't even think about it.
It's really, it's great work.
That's a lot of work to put in for the idea of a plane pulling water skiing.
Tim pirates.
Now I'm mad.
Now I agree with Entertainmenter Lee and premiere too much. So Gregor,
he has an airship that he's made. He accidentally escapes and it's like a hotter balloon that never
runs out of hot. He's just floating in it for the rest of his life. He does for months.
He shows up forever and he's always got it. He accidentally escapes. He's a real wizard
of Oz situation. I don't know. I, no, I don't know how it works.
I can't come back before Helen and Anola can join him
and Anola's a little girl again.
Helen frees the mariners from his cage.
He's desperately trying to unlock it
as if he's worried about drowning
even though he has gills.
I guess it's the algae is gonna eat him away.
It's like slopp.
It's like mud.
Yeah.
I mean, they kind of cause a lot.
Dead body being lowered into it earlier in the movie.
And it's like, it must be really gross gross and maybe it'll clog up his gills.
Yeah, that's true.
My clogger, that's a good point.
She says, I'll free you if you help us escape, lots of stunts, lots of danger.
They managed to trick the bad guys into blowing up the Deacon's boat and they leave.
And the Deacon has survived, but he lost an eye in the battle.
And there's a scene here, I don't know if it's in theatrical one, where he's walking
around the atoll with his accountant, who's a guy on a top don't know if it's in theatrical one, where he's walking around the A-Tool
with his accountant, who's a guy in a top hat
and a leather rest and glasses in a big book.
And he's like, what stuff have we got?
And he's like, well, there's some of this,
but there's no weapons, there's none of this,
there's no gojuice, which is what they call oil.
And the Deacon is like, there used to be more stuff,
like there used to be more A-Tools with more stuff on them.
Like, we don't get any good stuff anymore.
And we learn they're looking for the girl with a map on her back.
And Deacon gives a sermon about how God didn't mean for man and fish to become one.
And this fish man is a blasphemy.
And they've got to go.
You know.
Well, no, that would have set up the idea of Deacon.
Like, I didn't mean that.
In the, the other one, you don't know why he's called Deakin. Exactly.
Like, yeah.
Well, at the towards the end, he gives like a sermon, but it's the first time anything
like that has happened.
So like this idea of him is this sort of quasi religious leader.
You completely went over my head until I get like at the end.
I'm like, I guess he's like, that's what he is, but it's not there. So, meanwhile, the Mariner, he's with the ladies on his boat, and he's pretty grumpy,
and he's like, my boat's in bed, Shay, that's broken.
It's not good.
I don't have enough hydro for all three of you.
We should just throw a Nola overboard, and this is when in a moment that was heavily
hyped in the trailers, Gene Triple Horn takes her clothes off and offers to have sex
with them in exchange for their lives, but he refuses. And then she threatens him with a harpoon gun
and he drops a sail on her and then hits her over the head with him or knock around.
Nails her. It's very rough. Yeah. Yeah. He is, he's, he's almost a little too rough.
Yes. Well, and I think that's what I think. I think I think and the movie is like it's true.
He is he is a he's a they do a really good job of making him into a surly, not likable
guy in these first sections of the movie. Like he doesn't like anybody. He's mean. You
know that's going to change because it's a movie. But the but the it's never quite as
bad as it could be because Kevin Kusner's performance is a
little like not all the way there.
I feel like it's especially for a guy who made multiple post-apocalyptic movies.
He never seems to be quite post-apocalyptic enough.
No, that's the thing.
He just seems like kind of like a comfortable California guy.
Yeah.
He works best in-
Because it's got a little ponytail thing. He Because go a little like a little like ponytail thing.
He works best not in period things.
I think he was Robin Hood, Dan.
He was widely decried part of Robin Hood, even though that was a big success.
Like, I like Kassner, but I do think he has a very specific range that he operates best
in. And here, yeah, he doesn't ever seem like he's got maybe the edge that the movie would
want him to.
He thinks he's, yeah.
I also think that for me, the biggest problem with the movie is these wide tonal chefs,
where everything else in the movie is pretty bright and wide eyed and characters with
very broad and literally, you know, like with the villain at the end of the movie saying,
you know, they, I don't know where we're going.
This is all horse shit.
I don't, I don't know.
As opposed to say, like a fury road,
where you know Immortan Joe is like full of shit.
But he never comes right out and say,
I don't know what he's thinking about anything.
But Kevin Costner's Mariner,
he's in a different movie.
It's ultra serious, ultra cruel,
and there's more cruelty to come.
It doesn't fit, like the music is extremely heroic.
Yes.
In a very...
By the end of the movie, it is almost cartoonishly heroic.
And it's like, what movie were we watching?
And that was also a thing from behind the scenes, apparently.
There was a much darker score that was thrown out, and then a new one was written very quickly.
But, Trent Resner and Atticus Ross, right? You have to. score that was thrown out. And then a new one was written very quickly. So I tried to
resonate against Ross, right?
You have to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's by George Eomeroder.
I would have loved that. That would have made some sense on this. Fantastic. So Deacon,
he's back at the tanker ship that he calls home. He's in a big tanker ship. And he's
trying on a pretty bad looking fake guy. I remember this so well from seeing it with
theaters and how funny it is. this kind of poorly, this really
unconvincing fake eye that he throws away. And he gets in an old car and drives it through
the tanker. That's how huge it is. He's got to go talk to an old man, played by the
other guy when he gets in the car. What music do they play? Some jazzy version of Peter
Gunn thing. Yes, they're playing the Peter Gun theme. That's right. I mean, just say a jazzy version of Peter Gunn theme. Yeah, like the Peter Gun theme. That's right.
I mean, just say a jazzy version of the Peter Gun theme is redundant.
It's a very jazzy theme.
Yeah.
It's a song that makes no sense in that moment.
I don't know if it's supposed to be diagetic that this is the music he plays when he's
driving around.
Like, it's a weird choice.
It's very weird.
And-
Very, very the kind of music King Cooper would listen to while being driven around.
Sorry, yeah.
I mean, I will say Dennis Hopper, you know, he, he gives his best like, like, be great
Jack Nicholson is the Joker performance here.
I mean, Dennis Hopper's having fun with it.
It seems or at least pretending to have fun with it.
Like he's, I feel like he's doing fine in it.
Yeah.
You know, he, he had great success with speed as the women and he's just kind of continuing.
He's like, he was, he's put his whole
whole heart into this. One thing about the tanker, they don't reveal that it's a tanker.
It's a stone place. It's just a big place. That's true. I think they were like, oh man,
the audiences are going to go fucking apeshit when they see that it's the Exxon Valdez.
And it's like, even back then, I remember like, oh, okay. It's the ex I felt.
They keep calling it, they just keep calling it the Ds over and over and over and over.
And like, is this like a Ds nuts bit?
Oh, yeah, it was, it's named after their patron saying Eddie Deezin, I guess.
That was just a specific event, a specific time too, that I feel like it had been like reference
so much that probably at the time you're like, oh, great.
And I got the ex I'mB, that'll be these reference.
And now people watching it probably are like, what?
Well, and in the extended cut, there's a scene where earlier in the movie, Dennis Hopper
walks past a portrait of the captain of the XNB LDS.
And it says captain and his name under it and he goes, and he's like, St. Joe or whatever,
you know, watch over.
We do have, I saw that.
And it's one of the things where it's. And we'll be able to do that.
But it's one of the things where it's like, it's very weird to have a such a topical
reference in a movie set in a post-pocket future.
But also about a ship that famously sunk like that leaked and or like didn't sink all
the way, I guess.
But like, it's not like this was, it's like if they were real, they were in the Titanic.
And it's like, you mean a ship that is not seaward?
Right. Like what? They had to put a lot of work into making it.
Anyway, then also oil tankers, they deteriorate real fast.
Like, there's no way one would last a song.
But, I want to say, is he, he's trying to find out
how much oil they have.
And it turns out they only have two months left.
They learn that, it's called goju's.
They learn that from talking to an old man who, his whole job is,
he sits in a rowboat in the tank,
where, on top of the oil, and tells them,
and I was like, is that Carl Olde Olson from late night with Conan O'Brien?
Yes, it was.
William Preston, it's Carl Oldie.
That's awesome.
Oh, yeah.
I love that shit.
Like, I love that there's a weird dude in the tank.
Yeah, that's the most man-backsy, Ely.
In a good way.
Yeah, that's just, and he has one of the best lines in the movie later in the movie.
Yeah, I think. But he's, that is, that's a good way. Yeah, that and he has one of the best lines in the movie later in the movie. Yeah, I think. But he's that is that's a good detail there. Either way, it's a good,
weird thing where it's like and he just is in the dark all the time because he can't light anything
because the oil will go up. So, but I don't know how he knows there's two months left. I guess by
what how close he used to the roof of the tank, but anyway. So then we see and I let me know if this
stuff is in the in the shorter version. We're back on the catamaran. Helen is going without water, so Nola can have some.
And Nola tries to thank them.
She goes up to the marners, goes, thank you for not killing us.
And he doesn't want to talk to her.
And she gives them a kiss on the cheek and he shoves her away and runs to the other side
of the boat.
And she found, and it was one of these moments where it was like, oh, this guy is not
just a mean guy.
He's like, he does not, he cannot handle emotion. Like he does
not understand human closeness. And so, and she finds some crayons on the boat and he gets
really mad that she's drawing all of his boat. So he throws her overboard and then helps
Helen to save her. Yeah, that's, that's in it. That's throwing overboard. And that, that's
the kind of like part where I'm like, wow, movie going for it. Like the hero just threw a little girl into the open city.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think I'm around and picked them up.
But he's he'd push a small child into the ocean.
And I think that scene, it has more depth to it.
Having seen him, having seen that girl try to be close to him and him, not be able to handle
it as opposed to just, I'm mad as opposed to just being like when I was single, I could do whatever I wanted. But now I've got a lady and a, not be able to handle it. As opposed to just, I'm mad. As opposed to just being like,
when I was single, I could do whatever I wanted.
But now I've got a lady and a kid,
get a man out of here.
That's exactly how it reads in the theatrical.
Yeah.
So they get attacked by the smokers antique fighter plane.
And in the fight, Helen manages to damage the boat
with some bad harpooning.
And the mariners angrily chops off her hair
in retaliation with a big gun.
And it's a pretty good stunt where he like climbs at the very top and then when the attention
releases it like flings him into the ocean, I thought that was kind of cool.
That's awesome.
It's great.
It's great.
It's great.
It's, you know, later he eats a fresh.
Well, I'll give you a production note about the plane.
I'll let it by another than Jack Black.
That is. Was that Jack Black?
Yeah, yeah.
It's a pretty cool gag.
How they're wrapping the cable around the, the, the, the Mariners boat.
The last two.
And so, but that's, that would be extremely dangerous to do out in the open water.
They couldn't, they couldn't get that tied up so that for, for framing and for timing
to give the camera operators something to frame, they did a version of that with a helicopter.
And they framed helicopter in frame, spinning around and doing the thing.
And the helicopter was painted out and a plane was added in its place.
And it looks good.
It doesn't look like.
All these helicopters doing plane jobs, you know.
Yeah.
Oh, there's some background work later in the movie that looks not very good, but
all this stuff looks really good.
So they, oh yes, they get attacked.
There's a scene that I have to assume is not the theatrical cut where the Mariner eats
a cherry tomato off of this little tomato plane he has and he cuts it up into little pieces
and he's eating the pieces one by one is Helen and an olalok on it.
He does not share with them.
He like makes such a real show of not sharing this tomato with them.
Does he eat all gross like that Lord of the Rings guy?
No, not as gross as that.
I mean normal.
How you eat cherry tomatoes, dude.
Yeah, with maximum.
When your son's about to die, yeah.
They stop and meet a manic thrifter played by Kim Coates who is a real Terry.
He's great in this.
But it's like he's really doing us again, putting us all into it, that it's a real kind of
George Miller Terry Gileam type character.
So I'm just constantly jabbering to themselves and you know, and he has real paper and he
wants to trade it for Helen and Ola, but Kevin Costner only agrees to trade Helen to
him for 30 minutes.
Then he thinks he thinks has a second thoughts about it and says deals off.
They have a duel for a moment.
You think that the drifter has won, which would be a strange way for the movie to turn when
there's a lot of it left, but no, he has killed this drifter.
I feel like that Kim Coates brings like a darkness to that performance.
So it's not just like a silly Terry Gileam character.
There's like a grounded like, oh no, this guy will kill us. Yeah.
Yeah. This guy, this is a, this is a dangerous unstable person. I agree. So later on Helen
is berating the mariners. She's like, we need food. Where's the food? And so he jumps
into the water and uses himself as bait to catch an enormous fish monster, which they then
cook. And that's a bit. I also remember very well from the movie from seeing the theater was like
he'd jumping in and this huge thing swallowing him and then him like, and that was, that
was all practical.
They got a real fish to get a real giant prehistoric fish monster, real mutant fish monster.
They had to breathe it.
That's the hard thing.
Who, which fish naturally eats Kevin Costner?
Yeah.
And they got that one.
Yeah.
And Kevin Costner's doctor was like, I told you to stay away from this bitch. Yeah. And so there's a scene here now where Helen, she
hears music and she goes over and the Mariner is listening to some kind of very saxophone
heavy jazz on some sort of wind powered CD player is that this is not the theatrical cut,
right? He has like a little CD player that's powered by fans and he's listening to jazz music.
And it's crazy.
I think a lot of musicians are powered by their fans.
Good points are good point. It's the power of the audience that keeps them going. Yeah,
certainly Metallica is, you know. And a lot of jazz is breezy.
Yeah, but the idea that he has, as we little learn, he's getting his relics from the bottom
of the ocean. He went down the bottom of the ocean, found a functioning CD player, but he gets that he has, as we little learn, he's getting his relics from the bottom of the ocean.
He went down the bottom of the ocean, found a functioning seeding player, but he gets
he just dry out.
When director fitted, did he get any dirt in it, I guess, put it in a Ziploc bag with
some uncooked rice.
It was possible.
There's a thing.
And you guys have heard the book Lucifer's hammer.
No.
It's about an asteroid is about to hit the earth.
And this guy is like, this area is going to get floated.
What book so that I own do I need to save?
And he's double Ziploc bagging science texts and great works of literature so that hopefully
they'll survive getting water logs.
Maybe that happened with somebody did that with their disc man when they saw the flood
waters rising.
Um, uh, I have to preserve the Empire Records soundtrack.
Yeah, yeah, for future generations.
I have to preserve William Shatt's Tech World, for Tech Wars.
Book of tapes.
No, but it's only volume two.
I don't know how it got to be a tech war.
So she tells how Anola was a foundling whose basket drifted into the A-Tall and she said,
and she got permission to raise Anola, but she was not allowed to have her own children
because resources are so limited.
You can never have children, you can raise this one.
And the Mariners, and she's like, do you have any friends?
The Mariners like, yeah, I got this boat.
That's my friend.
And Helen goes, that's pitiful.
I pity you.
And I don't not remember any of this in the video.
And she gets Helen some chalk for Nolan.
He goes, I'm not giving you to her.
This is just a borrow.
Anyway, so that's all.
It's a lot of the scenes that we're about building up their characters as often happens these movies get.
I remember the borrowing part.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There's a bit of borrowers.
What is trying to cut the plane loose when it's wrapping the cable around the mast where
it gets way up top at the top of the mast and he finds a bunch of little cartoons that
a no lose drawn. I think that's a good touch. Like it's a good bit. Yeah. And I understand I don't like what my kids draw on the walls of my house and they're
my kids. The idea that likes someone's coming in. So we're recording this after we did our
shows at Vitiates and Los Angeles, which will someday be public fuelable. We don't know when.
And we I forgot that in three minute, a baby when it moves, we watched that Steve Gutenberg,
his whole deal is he's painting this huge mural of him and the other act of and the other stars of the movie
on the inside of their apartment building.
And it's like this little girl is just doing what Steve Gutenberg's doing.
Just drawn pictures of herself all over the walls of this house with this boat.
The next day, so the enolescent mentioned she can't swim.
And the next day the man or takes her for a swimming lesson and she loves it.
But unfortunately, the smokers ambushed them using a combination of an island where they've strung up
dead men like puppets seem to be waving and saying, come on over, like those the cats side of
them. And seeing come on over, come on over, baby. Yeah, exactly. The cats, the cats in Chinese restaurants
that are just waving you in to come in and enjoy it. And some underwater jet skiers. And the image
of them waiting underwater is very silly to me. They're underwater on their jet skis.
Well, not just the image, but it's like he uses his periscope under underwater scope and
he's looking and he's panning around.
He's open water and then he pans past the jet skis and he slowly comes back.
He does a little double to his real loony to his move.
Yeah.
I have one production note when he was teaching and Nola how to swim.
You know, a lot of that is costner, lots of amazing underwater photography in this movie.
But for him to be able to do all those moves, he couldn't do those without real flippers.
So he has real flippers on and those were all digitally painted out and then they had
to put CG versions of his feet on his feet, so you don't notice that.
And so if you do Google search for Kevin Costner feet CGI, you are going to find something
for anyone who's into that.
Just stop at feet, it's good at feet.
Yeah, yeah.
Lots of really good stuff there.
But no, the reason I bring it up is that that would be, you know, in today's technology and
the way we do things, that is trivial.
That would not even be mentioned in any articles or any stuff.
We would do it for, like, 40, 50 shots, an augmentation of somebody's body part of the
end to get rid of a prop or something like that.
It was a really big, kind of, like that.
And it was a huge deal, even for a handful of shots.
And nobody, nobody looks at that
scene and thinks about it at all.
It's cool.
Todd, you weren't on Henry Cavill mustache removal duty, right?
No, no, I was not.
What a crazy story, huh?
It's a question.
And then you watch Mission Impossible and you're like, yeah, that mustache character.
I like it.
Yeah, totally.
I, like, all those people who had to do that work, at least they got paid to do it.
And it's like, they could have added $40 million more to Justice League's budget.
And it would have been worth it for him to wear that mustache in the past.
That's how much higher quality, I think, mission impossible is than the Justice League movie.
But anyway, I think I just left the mustache in.
They should just have to do that with the mustache.
But Superman should have woken up with a fucking mustache.
Yeah.
And they shaved it by shooting his lasers off a pear, you know, like he does my
comics.
Shakes his head at the hand at the clouds and say, Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. pit like the mustache based in food but devil Superman. You're not saying you don't think
that he would, you know, Superman was asleep. He'd come in and slow mustache. I'm just
I do. Yeah. Yeah. Drop penis on his head. Sure. Yeah. Seems kind of low rent for Mr.
Mick. But like he has a fifth dimensional if with him for superpowers. But yeah. Okay.
Sometimes the simplest is the best simple. You know, you're exactly putting a mustache on
a man who didn't have one putting a mustache on a sleeping man or a we're eating a tree to make a man.
Two people who don't get to have an eight.
Mr. Mitchell Pettelick could put a mustache on Superman.
Look, if that kid can grow leaves on his ankles and Mr. Mixing Fitelick could put a mustache
on Superman.
Yeah.
Anyway, the smokers attack, the Mariners hurt in the escape and Helen tells and then she goes, and all those maps for dry
land and he goes dry lands a myth.
There's no such thing.
I've gone faster, I farther out than anybody else and they have never seen it.
And she's like, so where'd you get your dirt and all your cool stuff?
And he puts her in kind of like dirt.
What'd you get to?
He puts her, Helen, in kind of a class in canvas diving bell and takes her down underwater.
And this is the big reveal where we see the ruins of these sunken cities.
There's skyscrapers everywhere. And it's a real whole new world, you know, moment.
It's Denver.
Is it Denver?
It's trying to, it's Denver.
Identify the city and I couldn't.
Denver landmarks are like a Denver national bank or whatever in there.
And then all the iconic global landmarks. Yeah, exactly.
You're version didn't have them eating an omelette and being like, oh, what is this unique combination flavors?
They just found under there. Yeah, in the bubble.
I would say you have the last yellatin wave to them as they go by Denver native.
And it's like ironically, we saw her as it goes. Kind of, I don't know.
Yeah, but you're saying Todd in the last shot.
No, it ties in the ski lift that you see.
Yeah.
And with the ski boots from earlier.
So they're in that general vicinity.
I like that a lot of these shots.
The city ruins are kind of underlit.
So I'm like, oh, somebody really lit up this joint before those flares are really doing
their work.
Super visible.
You gotta be able to see this stuff.
I mean, and that's, and honestly, it's an art direction nightmare.
It's supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean, but you gotta be able to see this stuff.
Yeah.
And how do you do that?
Well, you have to artfully, you know, figure out a way to indicate depth for these things.
And this was all miniatures.
They were huge,
like, well, which, where's it, Viserie? Were they miniatures or were they huge?
They were huge. They were huge. They were huge.
They were a jumbo shrimp, all right? They were.
They were.
No, it's a, a attorney arm out.
It's like how in the making of the Lord of the Rings, they were referred to some of these
cities as bigatures.
Bigatures. Exactlyatures, exactly.
Miniatures.
I mean, at one twenty fourth scale, the skyscraper is still pretty big.
Still big.
Still, the tower board.
The tower board thinks, still towers over mere humans.
And they shot it not underwater.
They shot those miniatures, a driver wet, which is just a way you have to smoke up the stage and maintain consistent
smoke and film your passes that way.
And it gives the impression of underwater.
But the actors who were, you know, the cosner and holding the flare and everything, they
were shot underwater blue screen, which is very difficult and painstaking.
They didn't shrink the actors.
To put them on the big trucks.
Yeah, would that cost more or less?
I think that would have added a little to the budget.
Yeah, and the insurance cost.
The cost of the contracts has no shrink.
Yeah, if the enlarging doesn't work, then the insurance costs are considerable.
Yeah, it's like the story about a born on the 4th of July, where Alure stone was like, well, Tom Cruise, I want to inject you with a serum that will paralyze
your legs for two days. And Tom Cruise was like, let's do it. And the producers were like,
we cannot pay the insurance bills if you do that. We, we will not like that. That's what
I heard. Yeah. That's where I read. Yeah. And that Tom Cruise at that time was like, go
for it. This is my chance to prove I'm a real actor. I'll have my legs parallel. It
would be, it'll prove I'm a real actor
if instead of acting like my legs don't work,
you will inject me with something
that will make it actually not happen.
You know, it's in that post-raging bull area.
Everyone was all about body mod.
Anyway, so they see the sunken city when they surface,
surprise, surprise, the smokers are on the boat.
Why did they think that was a good time
to go on a date in the city?
They didn't get a sitter, and Anola gets kidnapped to the adults escape by jumping into the water
and kissing so that the mariners can gill breathe for both of them, which is not really how breathing
works. I'm trying to move before guys. I'm trying. It doesn't work.
But he goes, I'll breathe for both of them, both of us.
I think it reminded me of that Roger Moore. I think it was a view to a kill where he's
in a car that gets the bad guys sunken underwater.
And in order to act like he's dead, he opens up the tire pressure of the tires and he
grabs the air out of the tires.
I don't think that would work either.
No, probably not, probably not.
And the smokers burn the boat and they take Anola.
Now we're back on the Smokers big city, you know, wink, wink.
We don't know what's a tanker yet.
And the deacon is trying to get Anola to tell him where dry land is.
And she is fully little girl in an action movie now.
She's like, the mariners gonna come get me.
He's gonna kill all of you.
You're all gonna die now.
And later on she has a line that I love where she goes.
They go, what's this?
You don't even know his name.
And she goes, he doesn't have a name, so death can't find him.
Which I think is a great line.
Does it make sense that death has to be done?
I was loving that shit.
It's a great line that again doesn't make sense.
That's why I did it.
I was like, I'm not six guns in the air when she said that shit.
That's why I walked up there with that like, my pages.
Yeah, I'm here to pick somebody up for the afterlife.
Oh, yeah, what name?
Oh, they didn't give me a name.
Well, then I guess your paper's not the answer. He's the overseer. He's got gills and wimpy. He's like, Oh, one gill guy. Come on. Yeah. Come on.
He looks like the guy who was going to be in the big jail, but they cut him out. No,
sorry. I don't know anyone around here. Sorry. So she's so short of it. Anyway, back on
the burnt wreck of the Mariners boat. Is this in the theatrical cut that Helen and the Mariner make love sincerely here? No. She's like, she's like, why didn't you choose to
go with me for it? And he's like, because you didn't want it. And she's like, well, we're
all going to, we're going to die. So do it to me now, Fishman. And they, you see them making
out. And then there's shape of water. Gil is Gil stuff okay. And he's like, I insist.
Yeah. And then there's a moment where there's a, and then after that, there's a, and she's
despairing.
She's like, she's like, we're going to die here.
There's no way.
And he's like, we can never give up.
Fish man never give up.
But then he's the smoke from the boat and maybe was watching them do it.
I don't know.
It's Gregor in his airship.
He has just been floating around for days in that thing.
And he takes them to a new mini atoll that just boats lash together, the survivors in the
earlier attack.
There's some arguing, there's some time killing in the, so I know that this is different.
In the extended cut, the mariners steals a boat.
He says, they go, you can't take that.
He's like, well, either give it to me or I'm just going to take it.
He goes back to his catamaran and he finds a drawing of palm trees that anola drew.
And he compares it to a magazine picture of palm trees that he has in his picture.
Oh, I saw that one.
So that's in the movie earlier.
That's in the movie earlier.
Right.
Yeah, they switched it around.
There's just some research on it.
But the part where he leaves is not there.
And when he comes back, oh, so then two smokers on jet skis show up the atoll and they're
like, okay, let's take everything.
And the mariner leaps out of the water, kills both of them.
And he's like, I'm gonna go back for anola.
And Gregor is like, oh, he does want to find dry land.
And he's like, this isn't about dry land.
This doesn't exist.
He takes one of the jet skis.
He takes a Molotov cocktail and throws it in the water.
And that lights up the trail of oil that I guess the other jet ski was trailing.
And he follows that back to the
bad guys.
It's kind of cool.
It's a little moment. And that's not, and I was reading up that that's not the actual
cut. So in the movie, right, you don't know how he gets a jet ski or how he finds the
bad guys.
No, no, no.
Just kind of shows up. Yeah. So they cut that, which I'm surprised.
You can just assume he has access to jet skis.
I mean, the punishment thing is that one.
Exactly. Well, that jet ski rental guy must have learned his lesson.
He just rented a Punisher from the Jetsky,
he rented a Jetsky to Punisher.
Kissed that baby goodbye.
Yeah.
If he had rented a Punisher to the Jetsky,
the Jetsky Zoom Center goes,
I need a vigilante that a lot of people have mistakenly turned into a hero in their minds.
He's like, well, we have one.
It's the Punisher.
Here it is, his name's Frank Castle.
So anyway, he takes that jet ski back.
Back at the smokers place, the bad guys are like, it's hard to read the map on this girl's
back.
Let's just cut it off.
But they're discussing that.
The Mariners sneaks on board.
He kills a guy with this jet ski and the other people that are in that room think it's hilarious.
They're like, that's how tough these guys are.
The Deegan gives a very long speech to his followers when the Mariners sneaks around
on their, on their cityship.
It takes a long time.
This is where you could easily have cut it much shorter.
And I don't know why they didn't, you know.
Yeah.
I think they wanted to get production value out of that set.
That's possible.
That's possible.
Which is really amazing and cool.
It's built like it's full scale.
I mean, actors are walking around it, but it's built and they did not shrink them.
But it's built at the end of it is trunk.
It's a little forced perspective so that it would be less.
So if an actor was all the way at the back, they would look huge.
You know, one of those fun house type things, but it's a gorgeous set.
And they consider doing it by the coast to get that light and they realized we're not
going to do this.
We're not going to do it there.
We're going to, I think they ended up shooting it like in Pasadena or something, just
an open field.
Yeah, great.
And then all ladies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You want the smokers to have a future.
And then that's CG water all around them.
That's interesting.
Those really cool shots.
It all looks really good.
And when I heard, I don't know if this is true.
What I heard was that they had planned to sink either this
or the Atoll set to turn it into a reef,
but that they used toxic paint.
And that, so it would never be a natural reef
and they had to remove all of it.
And that added to the cost.
They're like, we don't have to pay for dismantling it.
We're creating a real coral reef right here.
We're making the oceans better.
Use the paint that is not poisonous to fish, right?
Oops.
Ooh.
That's the head.
And so they check the paint and it has a bunch of fish bones on.
Yeah.
And the paint just went through.
I thought it was sponsored by the band Fishbone.
I didn't realize.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And obviously one of the highlights of this
giant set is painted in very large letters underneath where the deacon gives a speech are the
words no smoking. How ironic. How all the cousins are smoking. They're all smoking all time. And so
he gives the speech. He goes, okay,, get this thing moving. And everybody goes away.
And that's when the mariners shows up and starts arguing with them.
And at any moment, the decon be like, it could be like, the whole army of people that
were standing here a moment ago, can you take care of this guy?
But instead, it becomes a TED-A-Ted.
And they're all working.
I guess they are working, yeah.
That's the way to do it.
They don't have money for nothing and chicks for free.
They got to work for living.
Yeah. The smokers rowing. I mean, come on, that's the way to do it. They don't have money for nothing and chicks for free. They got to work for living. Yeah.
The smokers rowing, I mean, come on, that's funny.
That's true.
That they're rowing this enormous thing and they can't, and they can't do this.
They're spoke because they're, they're lungs are bad.
Yeah.
And cut to the decant saying, I don't know where we're going.
We haven't figured it out yet.
It's kind of good.
Yeah.
The, the, the, the Mariner, he holds a flare over an open, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, like, there's a lot of, I guess, blowing out of
the sides, but not so much at the top.
Deck area is still intact enough that he can do his mariners shit, you know.
Yeah.
And poor Carl O'Lealson, he just is vaporized in a ball of flame, you know.
But he says the line.
I forgot what the line is.
Oh, thank God.
Oh, thank God.
Oh, thank God.
That's right.
Cut down to your line.
Because he's so done with this life. He didn't even. Oh, thank God. That's right. Cut down to go on.
So he's so done with this life.
He didn't even ask for this.
Yeah.
That's right.
I forgot that it was Othega.
And the, that actor's super funny.
I always loved him when he was on Conan O'Brien.
Not really understanding what he was saying a lot of the time, but that was the joke.
Anyway, so the whole tanker blows up, explosions, fight, fight, fight.
And the movie gets kind of goofy from this point on.
It becomes, the stunts since action stuff gets sillier.
There's a lot more of the Deacon saying silly things.
The Deacon tries to escape that old plane with Anola very speed to the other movie we
just watched.
He gets from the bad guy, tries to escape with a girl in the plane.
But Mariner snags it with a grappling hook and it crashes.
He rescues the Anola, he hugs her.
And I found that hug after the extended cut feels very meaningful. Like that he has
like, that he's like, this is why I came back to save you because I love you. You're someone
who I've come to care for. And I'm sure in that I don't, it probably, if that shot is
in the theatrical cut, I imagine it doesn't have quite the same meaning to it.
It's just like, he did it. I mean, it was a terrible plan, but he did succeed.
He managed to pull it off anyway. Yeah. The action leading up. I was just going to say,
like every moment when every step of his plan relies on him finding what he needs right next
to him. Right there. Yeah. So he's like, Oh, an anchor. Great. And a cable. I can attach that.
Cool. I'll slide down. Wow. Another cable. Perfect. This was one of those moments where I was
really like, Oh, action movies are predicated on the idea
of people doing physical things that would only work
if they were pre-planned ahead of time.
Like, there's no way to do these things spontaneously.
But Todd, you were gonna say something.
Well, the action that leads up to him
doing the zip lining thing
is the most inconsequential action in the movie.
I did remind you what it is.
At this, whenever it turns,
I've found that the older I get, the less, the more action scenes
just become kind of like a stew that I kind of like belly of the, of the, of the d's.
Yeah.
He's in the belly of the d's and he's just picking off guys and they, they, they, they, they
yeah.
And like their whole place is blowing up.
This is another one of those things about action movies where like the henchmen, it's like,
shit is going down everybody, but then there's still loyal to the bar.
They got to get that guy, so everything is blowing up, but they're like, where is he?
Where there he is?
And they're still going at him.
And he says, do do do do go down these cool moves and stuff, totally in consequential.
But when he's on the top and he ziplines down and explosions behind, I mean, that's a really
cool stunt that Costner did himself, those close ups of him doing
it, that's him.
I think for a couple of the wide shots, it is a stunt performer.
Pretty cool, and then he lands, and there's a tracking shot of the plane taking off, and
he's running alongside it, and he throws the anchor up to it, the conveniently placed
anchor.
Pretty neat shot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Pretty, pretty cool.
But a lot of this action stuff, maybe I could suggest a reason it doesn't land as well.
Up until this point, it's like the reason the Mariner, I guess, is the best at being
a guy on a boat is because he has a cool boat and he has fans.
Is there all the time he knows it really well?
He has fans and gills.
Yeah.
Like, this part of it is just like, well, why is he like just like a good action guy?
Like, this doesn't play to his boat or gill-based strengths.
What is this?
Yeah.
That's true.
This part of the movie, I have to admit, it starts feeling very generic
to me. Before that, even the action scenes had kind of like a, even though even as Mad Max
rip off, as they are, they had a certain personality and character to them. And here it just feels
like John McLean could be doing this. Ethan Hunt could be doing this. Like there's
nothing like, you just played it.
Yeah, his name two of the best guys. No, no, but I mean, like, but they're just guys.
They're not fishermen who live in a water world, you know, this could be any, this could
be any.
Even hunter grow gills if he needed to.
That's true.
If there's one action star, I imagine Tom Cruise is, they're like, Tom, for this movie,
we need to surgically implant gills in your neck.
Now you may not be able to breathe air anymore.
All right.
I'll do it for the part, you know, anything.
I was just amazing.
Like, we need you to have gills and you just start concentrating really hard.
And let's just open up because that's my training.
Yeah.
Well, to Dan's point, like earlier in the movie when they're escaping the A-Tall, when
he fires a grappling hook and he pulls the machine gun boat to hit the other, I mean,
that's up his way of house.
That's his strength, sliding, zip lining down and being kind of James Bondy inside the thing.
It's, it's, I mean, anything involving running should not be his strength.
He, it's not like he's doing laps around the catamaran, like he doesn't have a lot of room
to do that.
The beginning of the movie, he stumbled.
Yeah.
And try to land.
So, so, he tried, so they, just at that moment, Gregor and Helen and the sheriff, he's
back in the movie,
they show up in the airship, they save our heroes.
Deacon tries to climb aboard, but they knock him off into the ocean.
And that's when as the smoker tanker sinks, it's revealed to be the Exxon Valdez.
Oh, it all the whole time.
It was this.
It was my theater was howling.
They were like, how we get that?
Anyway, the Deacon tries to,
there's so much that doesn't make sense.
I mean, oil tankers, they deteriorate fast
from having oil in them.
Also, it's famously, it was a tanker that leaked
so the idea that they are now storing all their oil
and it doesn't make sense.
It's dumb.
It's a dumb reference.
So Deacon shoots the airship,
which causes Anola to fall out of it.
And this is the goofiest moment I feel like in the whole movie.
And it's the most nineties moment where the Mariner bungee jumps out of the airship and grabs
her and pulls her up just in time for the Deacon and Tufus henchmen to crash their jet skis
into each other and explode.
Together.
It's the end of the earth.
I love that moment.
What was their plan?
Were they gonna, was one of them gonna stop stop when they got to a Nola, were they
just going to smash into her like, they were so distracted by the awesome, but this
awesome, bodacious stuff.
That's going to be a regular.
I thought, how did he measure that right?
I thought it was great other than I'm pretty sure that the fireball started before they
all collided, but that's possible.
I think that that bungee stunt, the only thing
that would have made it goofier to me is if they added a sproing sound effect to it.
It's such a, it's not how ropes work. Like I don't know what they're doing. You know, it's
but anyway, maybe they have a shot like a die hard to style shot where like she's, they
spring up into the camera with the fireball beneath them and you see a whole set of other
things. But that's it. But no, no, but that's in there. It's a looking down. And you see the
mirror and like looking up and you see his face. And I'm like, this is die hard too.
Yeah. Which is it's if they had just gone one step lower and not shown cosner's face, you know, I think it would have been
a little less like a Stagee, but when he looks up and you see his face, it kind of doesn't.
Well, this wasn't a football sport.
It was pitched as diehard on the entire ocean, which is a limited amount of space, you
know, still boundaries.
Yeah.
What if some bad guys were trapped on the entire ocean?
I feel like they could have gotten away with just having Deacon fall out of the airship
into the ocean.
You don't need to.
You don't need to shark by the amount of mid air.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that would be great.
That big fish that we saw eating earlier, yeah.
Just have it jump up and eat them.
And it's like, Kevin Goss was like, thanks buddy.
But they like that extra little beat
so that they could make us think for a moment
that what an old was gonna die at the end of all this,
you know. Anyway, they, they, they,
they client, they get back in the airship
and Gregor finally decodes the map on the back of her,
that there are numbers on it that he couldn't understand,
but he kind of coordinates them with,
I forget where he got this document from, it was from the Mariner Nod.
And he realizes that they're longitude and latitude lines that science that they have
forgotten at this point.
But now he's like, oh, it must relate to where the earth, the earth is within relations
to the sun and blah, blah, blah.
So they, he now knows where dry land and he goes, dry land is that way and points in the
exact opposite direction of where they're going.
They get to dry, they're floating for a long time.
They get to dry land.
I actually really like the moment where the mariner wakes up in the boat in the basket and
there's a seagull that is landed on the edge of the airship and that's what tells them
there in your dry land.
I thought that's a nice touch, bringing it a little bit of Noah, a little bit of the
Columbus story into there, you know.
And then our bungee jumped off the boat after that.
Yeah, he goes watch this.
He's going to be radical.
Yeah, to be fucking dope.
He goes, hey, hey, do you think Chester Cheetah could do this and he jumped out, yeah.
So they're marveling at the, they go to dry land, fresh water, there's trees, there's
horses, they're marveling at all of it.
They find a cabin with some skeletons inside.
It's why it's white, right?
No, it's not white. It's why it's why, right?
No, it's not a lot. It's not a why because in the, in the theatrical cut, I don't think
you find out exactly where they are. In the extended cut, they do another reveal at the
end. It's what, what's left of a no, those people is there. They're great. They, they made
it, but the Mariner, he's got to be on the Marin, you know, he's got a, in the water.
Yeah, Dan.
Back up just one quick moment. I know we're close.
Yeah, Dan. Back up just one quick moment. I know we're close to the end.
But like, hmm.
So, purportedly, this is the skeleton couple, you know, before they died.
Yeah.
Set an ola out to see, like, Moses like, but on the whole open ocean, like, yeah, it was
a dump.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I don't understand.
Apparently they put her in a basket and just floated her out and she was lucky
enough that she found other people before she died.
Yeah, before she died.
Straight to that at all.
Exposure, because also the thing is babies, they last less long than regular than grown-up
people.
I love the notion.
You don't say.
No, they have to eat like every, they can't hold that much food in their tummies.
They got to eat like every few hours.
They're constantly towing.
You should tell me.
So you got to imagine that basket was also full of, just full of poop, just grumps.
Yeah. They're not really hoping. You should tell me this. You gotta imagine that basket was also full of just full of poop, just gross.
So of all the things in the movie that are big leaps of logic, this is certainly the biggest.
And why did they, and she, a hell of a, they must have known they were dying.
And it's like, so they, it doesn't, not of it makes sense.
Anyway.
They were all dying, man.
Yeah.
You even dying since the day you were born.
Are they, you know, telling the land?
The tune that she's been humming the whole time was born. Are they in the twilight? You know what I'm saying?
The tune that she's been humming the whole time was that music box.
I don't buy that.
If she was a baby, when they put her in it, there's no way.
Yeah, they find a music box.
But she remembers everything.
They made it to that.
Well, that's when she draws things that come from her memories of the dry land.
Like she, even before her vision and object permanence was fully, fully developed, she could
see horses and that's a problem.
I mean, this is a problem.
The plot is.
The plot is.
Like, on a script level, this is one of the things that annoys me the most is like, they're
just like sort of tossing in this kind of pseudo-chosen one child.
I mean, like, she's not special, but she has like a map to the promised
land.
And it's also, I don't know.
They're doing a lot of the thing that movies do too much of, in my opinion, which often,
which is like, got to tie up every reference. Everything's got a point to something else.
So like, if she's humming a tune, it's got to be that she heard it there. If she's drawing
things, it's got to be that she's stuff she remembered. Like, there's no, I think can't
happen in just beyond its own. It's got to pay pay the same, we're like, if they can't just be on a tanker, it's
got to be the Exxon Valdez, you know, it's got to tie up to something. A lot of IP is what
I'm saying. The Exxon Valdez IP was very valuable for the time, you know.
The name recognition is huge. People like the movie.
Well, like if Benedict Cumberbatch is going to play a villain in a Star Trek movie, it can't
be a new character. It has to be con, you know, that kind of stuff.
Anyway, Anola's mad because the Mariners leaving them and she doesn't want to say goodbye
to them.
She runs away and says, say goodbye.
And the Mariner kisses Helen and he goes, well, I'm leaving, but everyone I'll see.
I'll tell them to go to dry land.
I'll tell them the direction of it.
And I almost want her to be like, did you see most of the other people on the ocean?
I don't know. They want them here necessarily.
They were dicks. And I think none of this is in this.
Every crazed drifter I come across. I will tell others where there's a lady and a little
girl that they can bring their paper to. And she says, before you go, I have a gift I
want to give you. I don't want to give. She goes, I'm going to give you a name because
he doesn't have a name. And she tells him the story of a great sailor who angered
the God of the sea. And so it was cursed to wander the earth for 10 years and could never
get home. And his name was Ulysses. And I'm going to name you Ulysses.
And Leopold Bloom. That was Captain.
That was Stubing. So I'm naming you Ulysses. And he goes, well, technically you should
name me Odysseus. And she's like, forget it, forget it, just leave then.
I don't need that kind of shit.
Anyway, that wasn't in our cut, right?
I think that's just an eccentric.
And he sails off.
And then, and I know that this is also not in the theatrical cut, Helen and Anola, they
climb a peak and they find a plaque that tells them, this is the spot where Sir Edmund Hillary
and Tenzing Norge first set foot on Mount Everest.
And I was like, come on. And it's treated like it's the Statue of Liberty reveal in
Plenty of the Apes. Like, oh, right. And it's totally unnecessary. It doesn't matter. It has no meaning.
The Statue of Liberty has a meaning in Plenty of the Apes because what it shows him is this is earth
and the things he loves, had loves have been destroyed. You know, whereas, okay, it's the top of my nevrest, who gives a shit?
I don't, like it doesn't mean anything to anybody.
Yeah.
I guess soon there's some shit like that.
Yeah, it's gotta be a tall mountain.
It's above the water, okay.
But, and that's the end of the movie.
And that's the end.
I mean, it's unfair to comparative road warrior, like I said, but it's like, road warrior has
none of those like cutesy tie-ins, like, did not a lot of setup pay off.
It's just, it's just pure adrenaline, pure momentum and a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, like, did not a lot of set up payoff. It's just, it's just pure
adrenaline, pure momentum and a purely adrenaline.
And that in those in the Mad Max movies, there's so except the, I mean, the first one is
set in just kind of like a near future. They still the civilization. But in the normal
Australia, normal Australia where there's a bigger gang swirling around killing people.
But in the, in the sequels, they're clearly living in the detritus of an earlier age, but there
isn't any of that like, yeah, none of that cute stuff or like, you know, we, you know,
we, it's not like Zardaz where it's like, oh yeah, where I took it from the Wizard of
Oz anyway, that it's our world.
It's a, yeah, there's just not, you don't need it.
You don't need that stuff unless it is something like Flynn the apes word is so thematically meaningful, you know, but what are worlds?
Should we get to file judgment stands?
We're talking about one full time.
Yeah, we should get final judgment before that. I'm going to pitch you the makers of
pure from the from the makers of pure mutes pure adrenaline for when you're too shielded
out. You'd pure adrenaline to come in and even it back out
to send it yourself, you know, between the two you got everything you need. Yeah. Yeah,
just watch like a safety brother's movie or something. Okay. That's the, that's might be too
much pure adrenaline at that point. Yeah, just listen to more ornico flow or whatever it's called or no
flow. Hi, I'm flow from an ornico. So final judgments is this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,
our movie, you kind of like I'm going to say I think it's pretty clear from the way I've been talking
about it.
I think probably most of us agree, but I'm not going to make any assumptions.
It's going to be a kind of like, it's like, certainly nowhere near the failure it was made
out to be.
It either needs, I think, more of the stuff that got cut from it, because that sounds like
it would have deepened it, or it needs less of the stuff that's in the theatrical cut because then it could be more of just an adrenaline rush, it's like a little
two between between but I think it's pretty good, I mean enjoyable.
Yeah, I'm with you, I'm gonna say it's a movie I kind of like I wish there was two more bungee jump scenes but that's okay.
there was two more bungee jump scenes, but that's okay. I remember seeing in the theater and being like, yeah, this is good, but not like loving it. And I kind of feel the same
way. Like I think, totally, it doesn't all work. And like, Kastner feels overly harsh
in large chunks of what seems like a fun romp. But yeah, I don't know, it's fine. It's,
yeah, I mean, I would love for a movie, a studio to put out a water world these
days.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a movie I like.
I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stuff as much as I've been raking on certain aspects
of it.
But it's a movie that in the extended version really works even much better.
The tone is not quite as perfect, but it is less jarring. It's hard, a movie like
this, it's hard to know who you're making it for. Like, it's, it has to be a PG-13 movie
because it's so expensive. So it can't be quite as rough as it needs to be. And it's, it's
a movie in search of an audience. And like, I'm that audience, but I don't know how much
of me there is in the world. I mean, there's a lot of me and Hollywood, I guess, like,
kind of the nerdy Jewish guys. And so they want to see the movies and the make them.
But there's a, but it's, it's a movie that I got,
I feel like I got unfairly slammed.
I don't see a world where this gets great reviews
across the board and is nominated for awards,
but I would like to see a movie like this more
where it's a big action movie that's not based on a thing.
Like this is, I mean, this is,
it should say adapted from the Mad Max movies, but it's like that it's a somewhat original thing and I don't
know, and it's very, you said it didn't get, it won't get nominated for awards, but it
did get nominated for best stunt show, right?
Yes, I mean, I think it was nominated for a sound award, I think, but like this is the
kind of thing that, I mean, there's a, I'm excited that I live in a world where
Fury Road exists, which is like the much better version
of this kind of thing, and it does get the respect it deserves.
But it just shows you the level of quality
a movie like this has to be at to get respect.
It has to be Fury Road, which is nearly perfect.
And Water World, which is very imperfect,
I think it doesn't, it didn't get a fair shake,
but I like it.
Todd, what do you think?
You hate it, right? Uh, uh, no, I'm gonna make it unanimous. It didn't get a fair shake, but I like it. Todd, what do you think? You hate it, right?
Uh, uh, I, no, I'm gonna make it unanimous.
It's a movie, I kind of like,
I would never go out of my way to defend this movie.
And I'd probably, I don't know if I'd recommend it
unless you, you know, really wanted to see some
beautiful vistas and, you know, hang out on the water.
I, you really a big Kamikaze fan.
There's a lot to like about it,
and there's a lot to like nitpick.
And it's actually kind of fun to talk about after
and do it with the people you're watching it with
and do a post mortem and go, what worked and what didn't.
Because there's a lot to talk about.
And I especially liked what Dan said is like a little more
or a little less probably would have been better
because where we are, it's a little disjointed in all
the place.
I feel like this is a movie that works best in a world where it can be the length that
needs to be and does not have to sell Mariner action figures.
And then it can kind of be the movie that it wants to be as opposed to the movie that
it needs.
It reminds me a lot of the David Lynch Dune in some ways, where it's like, this doesn't
totally work. There's a lot of neat, interesting things in it, but this is not something that I would
sell coloring books or play sets off of. And this kind of had to do that, you know.
And it's a big swing. I mean, this is the production. I mean, it looks like it. It's a big
swing. Nothing looks like this movie. And that's kind of cool. It's crazy to say I didn't think about this till now how much of this movie takes place in full daylight under under the sun
with and like it's not something you see a lot in these types of movies it like is
there's almost there's very few night scenes there's almost no night action
scenes like everything is like right on camera right on screen they can't hide
things you know unless they're digitally cleaning it up but it's amazing how
there's there's a story to be made There's a book to be written about how all special effects movies afterwards
owe a debt to Waterworld, I guess. But I'm not going to write that book. I don't know enough
about it. It would take some kind of special effects king to do that.
Yeah. We don't know any of those. No, no, no, no, no. I don't know, I don't know. No. I'm Jordan Kershola, host of Feeling Scene, where we start by asking our guests just one question.
What movie character made you feel seen?
I do exactly what it was.
Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Joy Wang, slash Chabutipaki.
That one question launches amazing conversations about their lives, the movies they love, and
about the past, present, and future of entertainment.
Roy, in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I worry about what this might say about me, but I've brought Tracy Flick in the film
election.
So if you like movies, diverse perspectives, and great conversations, check us out!
This is real.
New episodes of Feeling Scene drop every week on MaximumFun.org.
Oh my god, hi, it's me Dave Holmes, host of the Pop Culture Game Show Troubled Waters.
On Troubled Waters, we play a whole host of games, like one where I describe a show using
a limb rig that I guess have to figure out what it is.
Let's do one right now.
What show am I talking about? This podcast has game after game, and brilliant guests who
complain. I was disnamed Dave, it could be your faith, so try it. Life won't be the same.
Big business starring that middle earnlily, Tomlin. Close. But no. Oh, is it troubled waters?
The pop culture quiz show with all your favorite comedians. Yes, troubled waters is the answer.
To this question and all of my life's problems.
Now, legally, we actually can't guarantee that.
But you can find it on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, today the flamp house is sponsored in part by Smalls.
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We're also sponsored by Babel.
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And we also have a jumbo tron.
This one is for MJ and it's from Mora who says, Happy anniversary. The traditional gift for the fourth anniversary is fruit.
So here's a shout out from the peaches.
Me and the goolee girl are incredibly lucky to have you as a husband and father.
Here's to many more years of wing nights,
singing silly songs to that baby.
And you patiently explaining board game rules to me.
I love you so much.
That's, you know, you just talked about the difficulty of explaining board game rules.
It's a good test.
And board room rules.
Yeah.
Board room rules.
It's a good test of patience and kindness.
Yeah.
So it's a good marker of what sounds like a nice relationship.
Before we go, I just want to mention the Flop House
is also brought to you by The Flop House.
And of course, as I've said many times, November 4th,
it's the first Saturday of the month,
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We go, we give a presentation, we go through a movie,
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And on episode four, we're halfway through
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Guys, I've been really enjoying doing flop TV with you.
It's been super fun.
And we're gonna have these next three episodes.
And then I think we'll take a break and then we'll see what the future may hold for it.
And I also want to mention, as I did last week, that Hades number three, the most recent
issue of my Hades comic series, starring the Disney villain of the same name, is out in
stores now from Dynamite. And it's a third issue of a fun story. It's a high story. It's
an ancient gree story. It's a funny story. It's a five issue mini series.
Pick up issue three.
Maybe pick up issue one and two.
Go to your local home bookstore.
Buy it there.
Do it.
I'm telling you.
Do it right now.
Do it.
You're listening to this on your headphones.
Get in your car or walk over there.
Get money out of your pocket.
And it to that guy.
The guy with a cup of tea.
Dan, go do it right now.
Dan, do it.
All right.
Let's move on to letters from listeners. Are you a listener? Yes, you are. Did you write
a letter? Who knows? I don't know. Maybe. Well, you know. Is this one yours?
Unless they forgot. They wrote it in some kind of blackout stupor. And they'll hear it on
the podcast and they'll be like, well, I don't remember saying that. They're putting words
in my mouth. This first one is from Mr. McCullough first thing with held.
For reasons we'll see.
Data.
Uh-huh.
On episode 407, Jason takes Manhattan.
I learned that a character in the movie was named Mr. McCullough.
I'd like to think my father is Mr. McCullough, but at my age, I am now two.
Anyway, to hear Stuart say my name over and over again in the episode was a bit disconcerting
to say the least.
I would think I would think a fantasy pleasure to introduce to a true fantasy.
Yeah.
Hearing about getting drowned in a bucket of toxic waste.
McCullough is not the most uncommon name, but still you don't tend to hear it 30 times
on your favorite podcast.
My question is, as that ever happened to you in a movie,
some nugget of the movie was so close to your personal life
that it took you a back
and maybe took you out of the movie a bit.
Maybe it was set in your hometown
or your alma mater,
matter.
I believe Ellen is a good,
isn't that the guy from Cars?
Yeah, the Mater is the guy from Cars.
Yeah, played by Larry T. guy, Larry T C guy.
You know what was happening? I was never mind. I believe Elliott has spoken before about how
the main character of E T sharing his first name has been a problem for him. Very much so.
The plot of a movie ever hit so close to home that basically ruined the movie magic. Mr.
McCleller first name with help. Now, I mean, yeah,
obviously the word, the name thing is a little different, I guess. I, I, I, I too, when
I was a kid, because of a credit kid, a lot of my classmates kept saying Daniel son
to me all the time. Okay. I'm like, did that last for your whole life? I like, but no.
Okay. No, not at all. I mean, but no, okay, no, not at all.
I mean, having the last name McCoy has been more in the way of lifelong name references.
I remember that what I was when I was used to host a live talk show on a stage in a,
in a, in a theater, I, I wanted Dan to do a segment on it called the Real McCoy with Dan
McCoy.
And Dan was like, please do I have to call it that?
I don't want to call it that.
He got so frustrated.
Yeah, you know, you get a life of people asking whether that's what you are and that's
what we get you.
I would say anytime there's a character name, anytime there's a character name Stewart
in something they are usually not the coolest dude in the world.
What about what about Stewartuver? Yeah, Stuart Stuver.
Yeah, Stuart Stuver.
What's that?
Yes, Stuart Smolley is that the one who says his family?
He's awesome.
Stuart Little might be like Judy Greer's new husband.
Since she divorced the main character, like that sort of thing.
Yeah.
I'm like a busy body.
Everybody loves Stuart Little.
Yes, Stuart Little.
People love him. People love him. It's not to love him. He's a man. I got an opt-out of a woman's vagina.
I'm going to try to get her. I guess I saw a different movie.
It's too, I mean, one thing you could say that might your name, but the Todd's in popular culture.
Exactly. It's not great. It's rough out there for Todd's.
I think we could be playing in the next game.
We could be playing and I don't think it's a good idea for us to get involved.
We'll just get sad.
Yeah, I've been collecting pop culture media references to Todd and it's always like,
Todd, you know, it's like the weasel Todd who screwed you on something and it's not
great.
I mean, it takes you out of the movie or show.
Take share of the movie, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, when it's something's close to home, like I think of like, if a movie is
take place at a location that you know really well, and they take certain liberties with
how they drive around and they walk two blocks and
they're all of a sudden a block.
Tell me about the fall of dioramas in the, in the night at the museum movie and they
go to an Egyptian wing in the museum of natural history.
Excuse me.
The museum of natural history hasn't even, has a mummy in it.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Night at the museum.
I mean, for me, it's like I grew up in Chicago.
There's so many things about like driving around in Chicago.
I mean, Blue's brother is the most ridiculous example, but you know, just, all Ferris
Bueller's day off, there's no way he could have done all that in one day.
If you're sure he's pretty good at what he does.
But Richard Kimball get framed by a one-armed man.
Is that possible in Chicago?
You find that man. I just got some of that.
I'm just my careson Ford point everybody.
And people don't break into song in Chicago nearly as much as they do in the movie Chicago.
Yeah. But it's like continuity errors. If you're into the movie, no one cares. Nobody
needs even notices. I mean, you get a little talk all and then that's it.
I think it was on your Twitter feed, Todd, that you highlighted that moment at the end
of Jurassic Park where the rapture disappears for a moment on screen.
Oh, yeah.
I was like, I had never noticed that before.
I've seen that movie so many times and it's, and it's once now it's so clear to me when
I see it, but it's like, I never, it never occurred to me ever.
It's literally one frame.
It was a rendering error.
It's hard to notice, but even more importantly, back up a little bit, so they're being chased
by those two raptors.
They didn't notice that T-Rex in the building.
And that's what I've had before.
The T-Rex where it's been established at length that when he steps, it causes the ground
to shake.
Right.
But he's just, he's knock up on them.
I mean, behind them going, shh, shh,
except he couldn't put his hand to his lips
because his arms are so cold.
Yeah, well, his arms are like on just tippy toes
and is making the, you know, the flat stones, like,
tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy tippy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then he jumped up in the air,
Bongo sound, Bongo sound, as his feet spin around,
and then, boom!
Yeah.
I mean, to me, it's like, whatever's in the frame,
that's what the audience is care about. It's like, you know, and somebody pops, I mean, it me, it's like whatever's in the frame, that's what the audience is care about.
It's like, you know, and somebody pops it.
I mean, it's the whole basis of like, buster-key, and then like comedy.
It's like, what's true.
What happens in the frame is the world.
And it's a little cheap to have the T-rex come in, but, you know, it's a little cheap
says Todd was here about Steven Spielberg.
Wow.
I've mentioned this, I think before so I won't linger on it, but there's like work
stuff to like watching that movie late night about a late night comedy show and just being
baffled at how wrong it is about everything, especially considering, you say like a female
late night host is impossible. They're not funny. No.
That's just not the most possible.
The writers that the female writers
are all these days.
They're a bit unbelievable.
We have some sort of horrible reactionary.
No, it was just wrong factually in a lot of the ways
that those things are run.
And I know that like the part, like it's,
it was written by Mendy Kayling who, you know,
is a television person, but not a late night person.
But I'm like still like you should know better than some of this.
I'm sure you know the person to talk to at least about that.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyone else?
Yeah, I mean, anytime anybody does something weird in a bar, obviously the most, I've
said this a million times, but anytime somebody bellies up to a bar and they ask for a drink
and they're like, leave the bottle. I'm like, how the fuck would they charge this person
for?
How do you judge how much
they're drinking? That doesn't make any sense. And it also seems unsafe.
Yes, that's very true. Let me get out my, let me get out my scale and also an empty bottle
so I can tear this thing first before wearing the remaining liquid in here. Hold on, I have
to call Archimedes to help me figure out how much you've been displaced
from today.
Archimedes was just John Tafer with his inventory system.
More as everybody.
Let's move on.
Here's one.
I think this is most specifically for Stuart.
Dears to do work, yeah, makes sense.
From Daniel last name with hell.
Well, the title of the
subject heading is Warhammer 40,000 plus horror monsters. Yeah, seems like it's for
still.
What what what chaos gods do you think famous horror movie monsters would follow? And
here's where we get into trouble. Because Stewart Because Stewart has a, a stomach virus. So he's not sitting next to me like I thought he
might be earlier and can't pronounce these words for me. But, uh, he's, Jason, is Jason
a servant of corn? He's a pretty good job.
He's a pretty good, working for slanish. Slantish. Slantish.
Our zombies just the expression of a Nurgle's love and are the Grimm ones just following Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z- pronunciation of that one when I worked at the hobby shop was when kids would call it Tiznich.
Yeah, for those not in the know, I think I got pretty close considering it spelled TZ
E N T C H. So, Zeech.
If you don't think they would follow a chaos, God, maybe they're part of a different faction of WH 40K. What do you think? Keep flopping.
Yeah, what they mean? Obviously this reading this letter is mainly a Dan mispronouncing very common words delivery system. I mean, I feel like they're all worshiping corn, the Lord of slaughter and
bloodshed and skulls. But I don't know, like, I feel like there's horror
elements to all four of the K.S. Gods, not including, of course, the horned rat or Malol,
the K.S. God who kills the other K.S. Gods. But, you know, like, Nurgle, there's a jolliness
to him. I think there's obviously a little bit of, like, Freddie Krueger's humor. I don't
know if I would say slan ash, he does play with
people's fantasies a little bit. So that makes sense too. Although that's more like Wishmaster
territory. I think this is, I'm now my, all my hosts of my co-hosts are checking their
phones. So I think it's time for us to move on.
I was just looking up a more war hammer stuff.
I was looking at it to be like,
we're going to go and read up.
Yeah.
Well, let me, I'm like, let me get all this down.
Let me type it into my memo notes so that I can make sure to get all these characters,
characters.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I guess we've all learned something that's a day about.
Absolutely.
Warhammer.
And so, I can mention you're not a Dungeons and Dragons guy, but you're heavy
into Warhammer, right?
Uh, uh, pass.
No, wow.
No.
All I know for Warhammer is what I've learned from Stuart over the years on the flop.
Yeah.
That's enough.
Yeah.
So if Amazon Studios is listening to this podcast and they're starting to staff out their
teams working on their new hit Warhammer 40,000 TV show, produced by Henry Cavill.
Todd Viserys your guys, what we're saying.
Hey, let's do recommendations of movies that we saw recently and enjoyed. And you know what? Because it's an old favorite trope of the show, let me recommend something.
I saw on a plane on the way out to do our video live shows just this last weekend.
I watched Blackberry, the movie about the Blackberry. And yeah, it's another one of these movies that in the broad outlines, I'm like, I can
usually take or leave this type of film if they're done.
Poorly, I'm like, this could have just been like a feature magazine article about a company.
But when they're done, well, there's a lot of sort of-
It's like a book about a company. But when they're done, well, there's a lot of sort of, just like a book out of
company.
Well, there could be a lot of juice in the, in the business machinations of these things.
A lot of juice in the blackberry.
Yeah. At first when I was watching this movie, I thought that sort of the lead nerds played
by Jay Barrichell. And I believe the director of the movie did the other like kind of made nerd
guy. I don't remember his name apologies. No way to find out. Yeah, there's no way.
Couldn't have looked it up beforehand. Look it up. Look it up your own time. Listen,
it's a little field trip for you. I like to leave one page left unwritten. So there's
an interactive component to every show. Wow. No, I found them a little broad at the beginning, but as the movie went on, I think it
it rounded them out nicely.
And Glenn Howardson is never funnier than when he's just yelling and bafflement about
these nerds who cannot conduct business and getting angry and throwing things around.
I don't know.
It was just a funny, informative movie that really did capture a moment where it's like,
oh yeah, there was a time between no phones ruling our lives and the iPhone ruling our lives.
There was this brief burst of a company that like shot through the air
and then went away.
What to learn from it?
Who knows?
But it was a fun movie to watch.
What do you guys want to recommend?
I'm going to recommend a movie.
I also watch on a plane on the flight back from LA.
I watched past lives directed by Celine Song.
I believe also written by Celine Song.
That's right.
It was, oh, no, ha, snake dim. It just revealed Todd was also going to recommend
past lives. So please add on to this. I'm sorry for snake in the on this one. But I watched
this movie on a plane. It was exactly at my alley. I was crying louder than the babies on the plane. There, it is, you know, the story of two people who were very close children separated
over the years by a fair amount of distance, and it kind of follows their friendship.
And like the possibilities of love and it's just like so like heartbreaking at times and beautiful
and there's this fucking monologue by John Magaro who plays Gretelese husband that just
like crushed me. It's so good. Todd, please add on to what I have to say.
Yeah. I mean, I was going to recommend this to It's probably my favorite movie, The Year So Far. It's just outrageous.
Please go see it.
It's one of the-
I would like to just agree a little bit.
What I liked about the movie is it's not necessarily so much about lost love, because
I don't think that there's any real indication that she ever seriously is like, I'm gonna
leave my husband for it.
It's more like, it's about reaching a point in your life and you're like, there are other
paths that I could have taken, like sort of mourning for, you know, the myriad of possibilities
that existed in an earlier point in your life, more than like the love of a person, and
also that he represents, you know, for her as an immigrant like a cultural identity she didn't take as well.
So I think, yeah, I really liked that too. These are all true. This is all correct. I think there's
a lot of layers and nuance to all the performances and the fucking scores incredible. Like it makes,
like it makes people Skyping, like a montage of people Skyping super romantic.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
Elliot.
I haven't seen it yet and I really want to.
I'm going to recommend a movie that I liked a lot and like Waterworld, it's contemporary
reviewers.
I think we're unfair about it and didn't really quite get it.
And that is the movie Heartburn starring Merrill Streep and Jack Nicholson from 1986.
It's a Mike Nichol's movie, Nora Efron wrote it,
based on her book that itself was based on
the end of her marriage to Karl Bernstein
of Woodward and Bernstein's fame.
You know, the musical duo, Woodward and Bernstein.
And there's, it's about, the woman who is a,
a woman who's a writer, she does cookbooks,
and she marries a newspaper,
a kind of reporter columnist.
And it's not a plot heavy movie so much
as it is tracking their relationship
as they meet, get married, have a child,
and the stresses that put on them,
puts on them and how their marriage disintegrates.
And I really liked a lot.
It's a movie that is somewhat uneven
and it's not like a hilarious comedy
and it's also not a tear-drinking drama, and it's not like a hilarious comedy, and it's also
not a tear-drinking drama, but it felt like a very kind of real stakes kind of natural
film to me.
And I really like both Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson are both playing characters who kind of want
to believe that they are like the people who are playing them.
Like Jack Nicholson is playing a man who thinks of himself as Jack Nicholson, but is not.
And there's a scene where Spoiler, where Merrill Streep discovers that he has been cheating
on her and has the evidence and his reaction is so defeated in a way I don't think I've
ever seen Jack Nicholson play a part in a movie before.
And I was like, oh, this is a guy who thinks he's super cool and super tough, but is not.
He thinks he's Jack Nicholson, but he's not Jack Nicholson.
As opposed to like, came in like the last detail or something, where he's raging against
the dying of the light, you know.
And so I found their performances really kind of vulnerable and natural in a way that I'm
not used to seeing from them in some ways.
And apparently when it came out, everyone was like, what is this movie?
This movie is not good enough.
These actors are not good enough in it.
And I'm kind of surprised by that.
So that's heartburned.
The title makes you think it's going to be an action movie,
but it's not.
I have never seen this one because, in part,
as you mentioned, it was kind of gotten
mixed reviews at the time.
And I've really wanted to see it ever since reading
that great Mike Nichols' biography. I actually like it since reading that great Mike Nichols biography.
I actually like it more than some other Mike Nichols movies that I think are more well received.
But it was mentioned to me a long time ago by a friend of the show, Cassandra Eurosh,
and I keep me to get around to it.
And watching it not being aware of its reputation, I really enjoyed it.
So now that I've told you about it,
I guess I raised that from your memory,
get a men and black normalizer
and then go watch Hartburn, I guess,
and don't get it confused with Hart Beeps,
the Paul Schrader film about Paul Schrader.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you have a backup, Todd?
All right, you sure.
A backup, Todd.
Yeah, I'm ready to go.
God, I wouldn't that be great to have a backup time.
No, it's like, I'm in a publicity.
It never works.
You think it's going to.
Damn, damn.
Yeah.
Michael Keaton tried to tell us.
I'm going to do it.
Break the rules into a mini recommendation and then a real recommendation.
My mini recommendation is sort of tied to water world where if the precursor to water world,
which is a highly hyped movie with a big star,
cost overruns, and just a complete chaos, and ultimately being a movie that is tonally all over
the place, but has a lot of value. And again, if it was a little longer, a little shorter, it could have
been like really sweet. 1993's last action hero. Again, it's weird to recommend this movie
because it is a mess,
but there's so much to like about it.
I remember I missed that when it was in the theaters
and it was everywhere.
It was so advertised everywhere.
And I finally saw it on HBO.
I was like, oh, this is a fun movie.
There's a lot of fun, smart stuff in this.
John McTaren, indirected it,
director of predator and die hard in October.
You know what he's doing, but yeah, this went a little goofy and there's tonal problems,
but it's one of the most self-aware movies ever.
It's in Lamb Hoons, Hollywood, big time, and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies to the point.
I mean, there's a scene in the movie where in the movie movie, they go into a video store and you see a stand up for Terminator 2, a cardboard cutout and
it's the lone as the Terminator and Terminator.
I mean, that's great.
Come on.
I feel like it's such a movie that like, yeah, it doesn't fully work and totally it's
all over.
If it was more a comedy, it probably would be better than if they're trying to be both
comedy acts, but like, it's a special movie that like plays off of Lawrence Olivier's
hamlet, like at the end, they're up against death from the seventh seal.
Like there's so much, it's a movie about movies as opposed to like an action movie, and I
think a lot of people didn't recognize that at the time.
Yeah.
And that's Tom Nunean is one of the bad guys in it, right? That's right. And is. Can't go off the time. Yeah. I mean, and that's Tom, Tom Nunein is one of the bad guys in it, right?
That's right. And is Charles Dan. Charles Dan is so good. And Anthony Quinn's in it, right?
Yeah. I think so. And definitely. Is that, is that what's his name? Is that a William
dad? I think it's me and McKellen. Yeah, yeah, I think it's him reprising from Bill
Ted's bonus journey. I mean, I do like that, but I agree that the tone, like the tone
was my problem. Like if there's like, you know, there's dry comedy, you know, like there's
too much wet comedy in that movie for me. Like when, like, when they're in like the movie
and it's like pointing over and it's like, that guy's got a cartoon cat. I'm like, that's
not the same type of movie.
No, but just in a movie world.
Yeah, I know.
It just gets a little scatter shot.
The first time when he goes in, when they set, when they, when he is just, when Schwarzenegger's
character in the movie is non-stop quipping.
And the kid is like, a little, is like what?
Like it's, it's a, yeah, that's a movie that I have a lot of sentiment for.
But then as soon as they, it's a movie that can't quite get its, can't quite get its,
there's a funny moment in there where the teacher is showing them the hamlet.
And the teacher is played by Lawrence Olivier's former wife, Joan Ploughwright. And she goes, this stars Lawrence Olivier, who you may know from these commercials and
clash of the Titans.
And she says, it's such disgust.
Does this dainn clash of the Titans?
It's so funny.
And I always thought that was such a funny thing.
That's what she thinks is gross, not the commercials.
Clash of the Titans, thinks, what was beneath him?
My real recommendation is a movie called Reality.
It's on Max right now.
It stars what is her name?
Sydney Swini and it's a movie I really didn't know anything about going into it, which
is the way I recommend it to see this.
It's about reality winner,
who it's played out in a really interesting way. It's been directed by the person who staged
the play that this is based on, and if you go even a little bit further, the play and the movie
is 100% based on the recordings,
the FBI recordings that were taken when she was taken into custody. So knowing that at the
naturalism of the dialogue and how it all plays out, at no point there's any narration at the
beginning, there's no titled cards to tell you what's going on. You're just thrown into the situation. And it's extremely human how it plays out.
And I was riveted.
And again, a lot to talk about at the end of this movie.
Reality now on Max.
Sounds good.
OK.
Todd, before we go, is there anything
you would like to plug or anything you would like to direct
people towards? Or just, you know, a final thought. Why not? I'll put it up. I don't
know. Movies are cool. Movies are terrific. I will say, and just to get real here, I'm
going to put, turn my hat sideways and my chair sideways a little bit. You've gotten
this in letters a lot, and I'm going to just echo that sentiment that no matter
what's going on in my world at the time, maybe I'm up, maybe I'm down, especially when I'm down.
I know there's a new episode of The Flop House.
I'm like all of the viewership, listenership of the flop houses behind me.
We all want to thank you for putting on such a great show for all these years.
And it's honor to be here.
And we're very grateful for what you do.
Oh, thank you.
You tricked us.
You turned it around on us.
So it was a big time.
Yeah.
I was expecting you to have a big time.
Yeah.
Well, thanks so much for saying that. Go see a Star War. I was expecting you to big time us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks so much. Go, go,
go, yeah, Star Wars. I don't know. Plug that. How about that? If you want to support
Toxie, any movie that comes out, he's looking at all of them. Has it been enough press
about Star Wars? Yeah. Yeah. It's very obscure movie. Well, thank you. Obviously to Todd our guests, Todd Waziri, you can find him online, including
on a social network that I won't plug anymore because I don't like it, but you can find him
there. Look him up. And thank you to our producer, Alex Smith. You might find him under how old, you might find him under Lydia Burrell, he's a man of many names.
Real chameleon. Thank you to our network maximum fun over at maximumfun.org. You can find a lot of
other great podcasts. Check them out. They're co-op now. If you like that kind of thing,
it's another reason to like the company. If you like workers owning a piece of the company and you should, then yeah.
And hey, if you have a moment, why not leave us a nice review over at iTunes. It really
does help us out. I mentioned not liking another social network. I will say that maybe
if you want to see Flophouse news, we should start plugging the Instagram
more. We got a great Instagram where I put a bunch of reels of stuff. I know that Metta
is also not a great company, but at least the environment of being on Instagram is more
pleasant than being on other social networks.
I hate to break it to you. Apple's got plenty of issues too, because they're in our
right to drink. There's no big tech companies that are true, true, true. So support little tech companies like the housecast.
They're all low-cebe as-cash productions. Homegrown podcast.
We're a little company.
We're in three no-names with no tech.
Yeah.
Anyway, speaking of no-names for the flat-house, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stewart
Wellington.
I'm Ellie Kalen and I'm Todd Viserie.
Okay, bye.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
That's a wrap.
Yeah, we did.
Yep.
Real sex.
That's a wrap.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now you know what I mostly associate a common phrase with.
The end of the HBO documentary series.
Documentary series.
Yeah, it's a documentary series.
Okay.
So you can tell people you're into documentaries.
I've seen all the middle eight real sex loves.
Yeah.
Alright.
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Of artist-owned shows.
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