The Worst Idea Of All Time - REVIEW: Tiptoes
Episode Date: April 6, 2020This was originally a pay-walled episode available only to Patreon supporters. Please consider if you can #PayTheBoiz at patreon.com/join/TWIOAT.Welcome to the 90 minute (or 91 if you watch the French... version) Gary Oldman internet-loved treasure, Tiptoes. It's a movie about little people. It's a movie with a lot of stars. It features possibly the most abrupt ending in cinema history. Timbo and Guyguy dig into family dynamics of Matthew McConaughey coming from a family of little people and hiding it from his partner, Kate Beckinsale. Including his brother, Gary Oldman. I mean... Just how? You know? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Carol and Steven's life together was perfect.
I've gotta get going.
Right this second.
Hey, baby.
Hey, sweetie.
I love you.
There's one small problem.
Hi.
I'm Ralph. I'm his brother. We're twins.
Are you parents? Um...
Yeah.
It can tear them apart.
I think you gotta let me know that everyone in your family's a midget.
A walk down the aisle.
Last day, he was a very lucky guy.
I just hope he's smart enough not to screw it up.
Is just a beginning.
There'll be rough patches, there's no doubt about it.
Canal Plus and Langley Productions proudly present command performances
from Kate Beckinsale,
Matthew McConaughey,
Patricia Arquette,
and in the role of a lifetime,
Gary Oldman.
Well, you crazy assholes,
you did it.
You got us to watch the 2003
Matthew McConaughey-led
Gary Oldman shiningshining starring,
Peter Dinklage co-starring, inextricable plot tiptoes.
He also left out the great Kate Beckinsale and Patricia Arquette.
Truly a cavalcade of stars for this one.
And first things first, I guess McConaugaughey is the in a sense he's the traditional
romantic lead but i don't feel like he's doing the heft of the work in this film
no he is the lead of sorts uh guy hi how are you all right yeah good man hey tim uh i've just
finished watching tiptoes uh movie that I was first told about by a friend
after we'd seen, what did we even go to?
We went to Detective Pikachu together.
And after we'd watched that,
we got home and we were talking about the movie
and smoking weed, which is not relevant,
only this elevated how funny I found the premise of this movie
in the first place.
And he said, have you heard about the McConaughey dwarf movie?
And I mean, I hadn't.
And I guess, was this on your periphery?
Yeah, definitely.
This is a movie that probably, well, for me it was a couple of years ago,
caught the attention of the corners of the internet that I hang out in,
and people went fucking wild.
It was one of those things where someone found out about it,
and then suddenly there was a trailer, and everyone was like,
oh, fuck.
The trice.
Yeah, for anyone who is listening along and hasn't seen the movie or uh you know i i would recommend
watch the trailer alone the trailer i mean does that try to do something that hit guy they have
just been hit by the audio of the trailer i know that you never listen to these episodes but that's
what happens in the patreon palace oh wow that's a nice touch now uh now we've done about 30 of these that's enough
of uh experiencing it only with your ears this is a movie that literally has to be seen to be
believed so i want you to pause the podcast and watch the goddamn thing it does a thing that so
few trailers do which is it accurately represents both in tone quality
and story the movie that you are deciding whether or not to watch and um when i say it must be seen
to be believed i mean i just i can't make clear enough gary oldman portrays a little person in
this movie and i don't want to say convincingly, because I don't know enough about the physicality of the role,
but emotionally, the guy brings it.
Yeah, he's great.
He is undeniably great with his acting skills in it.
So let us first open the can of Tiptoes 2003 and figure out what the plot is,
which actually isn't that complicated, really.
This is a romantic...
I was going to say...
No, it is.
Well, yeah.
I'm going to say a romantic comedy drama
that is centered around, at least initially,
Matthew McConaughey and Kate Beckinsale,
two beautiful people
who we open the movie
they're smooching
she's a painter
he's a firefighter
or he trains firefighters
and it's about their life together
they've been together for
I got the sense it was sort of
about a year and a half
something like that
they have spoken at some point
about getting married
Matthew McConaughey disappears at the start of the movie rousing suspicion from his
partner uh carol his name is steven because he's going to what is in essence his family um what
are they called a reunion but yeah literally it's not it's a it's a little person
convention but so much of his family has uh dwarfism that they all get together at these
conventions and that's right hang these these cheapskate motherfuckers have trojan horse their
family reunion into an entirely unrelated convention. Or another interpretation is that they consider
the other people living similar lives to them
as their extended family.
That's true.
But that's a decision that might not be reciprocated
by a lot of people who just want to go to a little person convention.
They don't want to deal with an entire, you know,
the baggage and the emotional highs and lows that come with uh a genuine family unit inserting
themselves inside of what is a celebration that's true i think you know the the ethics of that
particular decision aside you've done a great job of framing the top of the movie. And from there, the plot just, it is, if you remove the facts.
It thickens.
Well, barely.
If you remove the fact that Matthew McConaughey comes from a family of dwarves
or little people, I'm actually not sure what the appropriate word to use.
This movie champions the word and distinction that his family are dwarfs.
Some of the other characters refer to these people as midgets,
and McConaughey gets upset at that,
and then Kate Beckinsale says,
I don't really care about the language,
but later in the movie we see the worm turning
as she starts to...
She cares a lot. language but later in the movie we see we see the the worm turning as she starts to i think the m word is uh pretty universally recognized as a pejorative but this movie was
made 15 years ago so like maybe there is new um better lingo as well so apologies uh on behalf
of guy myself if we're not using the correct non-clementia but may I grab the reins
on the plot again at your insistence go ahead so he refuses to tell his partner where he's going
he has not told his partner that he has a lot of family members who have dwarfism and so she's like
a little bit suspicious but not too suspicious
maybe he's seeing another woman something he he's not telling her what it is she's like this kind of
weird it is revealed very uh quickly up top that she's pregnant she's carrying a baby and matthew
mcconaughey steven has quite a weird um angry, bad reaction to this.
Not the sort of joyful one you'd expect to see in a movie
where a couple in love have an announcement that they're going to get married.
So she's, sorry, that they're going to have a baby.
So that happens, and there's a bit of friction between them.
And then, I can't even remember what happens immediately
after that is that that's when his brother turns up right which is gary oldman uh at yeah at their
garage loft space um yeah so mcgonaghy's dealing with the news badly and he disappears to work
and then out of nowhere pops Gary Oldman.
Kate Beckinsale, understandably surprised.
She has not heard tell, I don't know whether or not
McConaughey has a brother at all.
And the movie plays this, you know, they sort of,
they draw confusion and plot out of this as best they can
and yeah i mean what what fires is a very primitive uh rom-com plot where it's a will
they or won't they kate beckinsale continues to carry the baby and learn about the family
uh mcconaughey rails against the idea that i guess it's it's an identity crisis for him more than
anything isn't it that's what it's meant to be it is it's an identity crisis for him more than anything isn't it that's what
it's meant to be it is it's him wrestling with himself i wouldn't describe it as primitive
necessarily this movie is fucking interesting because what it has tried to do at least is uh
i think laudable and um kind of ambitious and there it is shining a light on uh the lives of
little people and their plight
there's um a bit made about the various medical conditions that's associated with dwarfism and
i think it i mean i imagine i haven't had a lot of experience around it but uh gives a
hopefully pretty accurate depiction of um the sorts of things that little people have to deal
with in their day-to-day um there's a great scene where the parents meet each other
so kate beckinsale's parents meet matthew mcconaughey's parents who are both dwarves
and uh that's um that's a bit of fun because they kind of play with the fact that the dad's
totally fine with it but kate beckinsale's mom is very taken aback but then suddenly isn't and
then the problem without any sort of clue in the dialogue
or the scene whatsoever the problem then becomes uh that matthew mcconaughey is is not jewish which
is then immediately resolved when he agrees to have a jewish wedding um and then everything's
fine which is where's a weird scene it's fucking bizarre. It sort of played like a, yeah.
I mean, I can see what they're doing.
It doesn't quite earn the right to do it,
but they say, well, obviously,
we've got to talk about the elephant in the room.
And the issue, I think,
is that the elephant to which they're referring
is unseeable to literally anyone else.
We watched Kate Beckinsale starting to panic and uh it's yeah as as you've outlined it all it all turns out fine i just want to say this movie
was um from from them from the research i've done, this movie originally,
the original cut that was turned in by director Matthew Bright was significantly longer than the film we just watched.
That makes perfect sense to me because this ending is abrupt.
Apparently it was two and a half hours long.
Wow.
And it's screened at a film festival in austin texas and uh none of them than start uh
co-star of the film peter dinklage himself referred to it as gorgeous but the people
who fired bright then uh rapidly drastically changed the cut and ruined the movie that sucks
man uh yeah i mean it's that's hollywood baby that's showbiz who knows who
knows if dinklage was right though because i have so much love for peter dinklage he is like a delight
anytime he pops up in it on screen or even if you hear him because he is uh i think a pretty um
sought after voiceover artist as well now he uh is not great in this film he is playing
a surly french marxist misogynist for some reason who hooks up with um patricia arquette who is
portraying this uh sort of drifter hippie chick and it's like he's very unlikable but i just can't get past the accent it's not great
yeah it's the kind of french accent you do at a party with your friends uh i don't know if you're
playing a game and you're not a professional actor it's controversial to say but you know
gary oldman almost does a better job of of portraying a little person in the film
than Peter Dinklage does of a French person.
I can't co-sign that.
Because the thing they have to do with Gary Oldman,
which creates some really funny scene setups,
is he always has to be behind a bench or a couch or something.
So, for example, in scene where um the parents are
meeting each other they he is inextricably behind the bar in the house just serving everyone drinks
everyone's outside having barbecue uh courtesy of matthew mcconaughey's dad who's a very passionate
barbecuer um and gary oldman just has to sort of stay inside in the living room
because we've been set up with the fact that he is making the drinks behind the bar.
And there's a lot of those kind of shots.
They have at some points used some nifty little tricks of the camera
so that you do see a full body shot of Gary Oldman.
And I did try in my head to reverse engineer,
particularly the ones where he was lounging on the couch.
It might be distasteful for me to get through how I think they did it.
I'm not fully sure.
Well, the special effects in this movie involved,
I mean, to make up for the very unnatural way that one must walk when you're walking on your knees, they've given Gary Oldman's character a quite pronounced limp and a cane.
And I have also, on the trivia page of IMDb, I've also discovered that Gary Oldman kept his jeans extremely high and tight for the entire film
in order to create the illusion of a small person.
There's no getting away from it, folks.
You're watching Gary Oldman walking around on his knees
for a lot of this film,
which is...
Here's why that's difficult.
All of these characters suck,
except Gary Oldman.
Gary Oldman is not only doing fantastic acting.
You don't have to be playing a good character to do good acting.
You don't warm to anyone else in this movie.
Everyone's pretty deplorable.
To be honest, Kate Beckinsale's character is sort of redeemed in the third act quite big time.
But throughout, Gary Oldman is just sort of a salt-of- salt of the earth guy who's trying to get through his life
he's fallen
on hard times but he's
a good guy he's looking out for people around him
he gets the absolute
shit
taken out of him early in the film as well
yeah
he does he walks in on his ex
well sort of walks in on her
no actually he turns to her for shelter He does, he walks in on his ex Well, sort of walks in on her No, actually
He turns to her for shelter
Yeah, that's right
Because he's sort of
I don't want to say destitute
But what is going on with him?
It's like, is he without a home when we meet him?
I think, it seems to me that they've
Him and Peter Dinklage have ridden their motorbikes from wherever they might be based.
Because he has a home at the end of the film.
True.
So he just has nowhere to stay in Los Angeles.
True.
So he goes back to his old sweetheart Sally.
And they were high school sweethearts.
And they, I think, have been on again, off again.
She's at the convention.
Matthew McConaughey knows her very well.
There's a lot of history there.
And so he's like, hey, I just sort of need to crash at your house.
And she's kind of like, let's get back together, right?
Even in that brief moment, she's like, let's do it.
Let's get back together.
And he's like, no.
And then the man who Sally is seeing at the time comes in,
who's a douchebag, and then they get in a tussle.
Yeah.
She seems to be sort of, play it as it lies, that kind of person.
Because in some way they must get back together,
or at least get emotionally involved, because he becomes upset once again later in the film
when she has sex with some sort of celebrity.
I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
Was that a real...
I don't know who that guy is,
but the film makes you feel like he's a real singer.
I don't know if that's true.
Just before we get too far back into plot,
I just want to continue sharing some of this information
about the production and Gary Oldman's time
on and off screen in it.
Because a brilliant piece of trivia is that
Gary Oldman would often make his famous mousse soup
for the cast and crew
and insisted everyone eat it instead of the provided catering.
He claimed it,
he claimed it, and I quote, quote awoke the machines within end quote needed for his
once in a lifetime performance is is this true this sounds like bullshit where are you reading
this it goes uh it goes along with other fantastic pieces of trivia such as when asked what it was like playing a dwarf,
Gary Oldman said it was very uncomfortable
because of the way his knees would rub, rub, rub on the ground.
Yeah, this sounds like a quality interview that he gave.
What is this, Variety?
Hollywood Reporter?
This is the best piece of trivia I've found.
In this film, Peter Dinklage drank so much water
he became the
official water champ he was soft at first but got it done in three long chugs
this this sounds like you wrote that last one yeah i would have gone to a little bit more
trouble for it to make sense but um it seems like not only
you know parts of the the crew in the filmmaking process they were having fun with it but it seems
to me like the internet has had a lot of fun with this since and uh and rightly so like you know it
is incredible to consider how much work gary oldman is doing as an actor uh that you do almost forget he is portraying a little person and
you know you've got to feel for like i don't i mean i don't know if it's condescending to say
this but you've got to feel for peter dinklage or any other number of little people actors who
you know here's a role with some real fucking emotional heft. Yeah.
One of not many in the history of cinema.
And for Gary Oldman to kick in the door,
then climb down on his knees and just act the absolute pants off of it,
it's got to break your heart.
He does a great job.
And again, it's 2003.
And considering that,
it is a pretty forward-looking movie um
you know it's uh it's not perfect but it's not for the subject material it's for the subject
material it's not nearly as problematic as as you might imagine you know i'd like to see scarlett
hansen have a crack at that role actually this is a movie that has been made with love and care you know like that much is obvious
the the director i think elements of it may be a misguided and i think lots of the script is shit
um and there's weird despite the fact that this is a breezy 90-minute watch,
or 91 minutes if you watch the French version,
and I really would like to know what that extra minute is
because I saw the English version.
It's an apology for Peter Dinklage's accent.
It just takes 45 seconds at the end of the film.
Where was I going with that?
I can't remember what i was saying you were saying it's a breezy 90 minutes uh it's a well-intentioned film oh yeah yeah okay yeah it's made with love
um i i want to see this original cut that's like two and a half hour long version because
it is possible that that was a good movie you know i think it's
unlikely the best of intentions peter dinklage said it was he uh you know he said in an interview
described it as as would you say gorgeous gorgeous yeah and i think i read separately
somewhere else he used the word uh maybe beautiful something like that and you get little hints of
what i think the rest of this film is
there is a sequence there's sort of like a little mini scene where there's a phone call between
matty mcconaughey and kate beckinsale and kate beckinsale is shown in extreme close-up we're
just getting like her lips in this very shallow depth of field that shot is crazy and they really fucking go back to it like it comes out of nowhere
and it's a visual uh style or language that isn't repeated anywhere else in the movie but i reckon
the rest of it is probably a lot more of those bold moves you know i reckon that's what's on
the cutting room floor some real big artistic sweeps.
Yeah.
I have no reason to doubt that.
I sort of think it's... We haven't even got to the end of the plot yet.
It is...
I would not...
I guess I'd be curious to see the longer version
because the ending right now as it stands is,
as you've said, abrupt.
Fucking nuts.
And sort of pretty crazy. It's kind of... When you know that the ending of pretty crazy it's kind of when you know that
the ending's crazy it's kind of what you suspect might happen but you don't think they'll just go
out and actually do it and then just leave it like that you're not roll credits on the moment
so what happens is we're watching the not so gradual it's pretty sudden disintegration of
matthew mcconaughey's character in the face of bringing a baby into the world um that might have dwarfism as well yeah quite late in the piece it's introduced that his character
might have um anger management issues yeah yeah but this is not discussed at any point
earlier in the for the first hour you're sort of like oh he's just a regular guy he's occasionally maybe a little bit of an arsehole but then it's like oh no he's yeah she suggests about midway
through the film that he should probably seek therapy um for basically like you know denying
his family and hiding it from her and that he doesn't deal with the side of his his life and
who he is very well which i think is
um well intentioned i think that's probably good advice from kate beckinsale uh which obviously he
doesn't take very well but you know is what it is but then kate beckinsale has the baby and he
fucking like punches a hole in the wall in the delivery room while they're talking to the doctor
about uh hormone therapies that the
baby's going to get like that's that's not and everyone kind of the doctor is there um and
everyone just kind of goes on like okay well you know you're a little bit upset it's like
nah man that's that's cooked you can't do that you can't punch a hole in a wall in a
fucking hospital not with a newborn baby there it's absolutely you can't do that you can't punch a hole in a wall in a fucking hospital not with a newborn
baby there it's absolutely you can't and they fight the way they fight in front of the baby
also i mean again not a parent not my place to say but it's just it doesn't seem to me to be on
breaks your heart um but you know it's a high-stress situation. People aren't perfect.
Matthew McConaughey's character isn't.
And this is actually, like, there's a lot of things this film,
it wins you over with.
And I think Kate Beckinsale's treatment of their relationship
is something that really appeals to me.
Because she kind of, like, I feel she really tries at the beginning.
And she kind of, she actually does all this independent research.
She starts meeting with members of his family she befriends and strikes up quite a close kinship with
gary oldman who is matthew mcconaughey's brother in this um and she ends up really bettering herself
after initially coming out and using pejorative terms and saying, oh, I don't care about, you know, I don't care about that stuff,
when she uses the wrong terminology,
and Matthew McConaughey Brussels was at it,
she has a great journey to caring about these people,
learning about them, getting over herself,
trying to bring Matthew McConaughey into that newfound
sort of world of knowledge and love with her
fails to do so and then she's like you know what bro you can't i'm not going to bring a baby into
the world with you when you're going to be such a fucking douchebag and i'm like good shit kate And so she takes her child to...
She sort of leaves...
The woods.
Yeah, she leaves McConaughey
and she goes to the woods to live with Gary Oldman
and his house,
where inevitably and eventually we wind up
underneath a moonlit sky.
And Gary Oldman and her are having a moment
that is rampant with sexual tension
before Kate Beckinsale gently turns to Gary Oldman
and says,
you can kiss me, Rolf.
And he does.
And no sooner have their lips met
than the credits roll
and you're just left to talk to Tim
about what the fuck just happened.
It's so abrupt that is the most abrupt credit roll i've ever seen in my life it's just like
a a kiss boom we're done we're out of there we don't we didn't i don't even know if we're supposed to have a good idea of what's going to happen with matthew mcconaughey's character
but also we don't really care my main fascination in this film was peter dinklage i've got to say um i love
the guy yeah as i said he didn't do a great job in this movie i don't think not his best work
his accent but that's that's that's that's what is fun about it i think a good exercise might be
for us to list all of the reasons outside of the
plot and story of the movie all the like all the things that would get you say you tim to to be
like fuck it i have to watch this movie so obviously you've got gary oldman portraying a
little person which is a fascinating funny and interesting all at once uh you've got peter
dinklage putting on the performing this very over-the-top.
It's not a great acting performance,
but you can see he's having fun with it.
A very over-the-top French Marxist motorcycle-riding kind of arsehole
who at one point you get to see with sort of Coolio-style cornrows or braids.
What bit of the movie does he have cornrows in?
It's probably closer to braids.
I can't place it exactly,
but I remember seeing it thinking,
fucking why not?
Why would this guy not do that with his hair?
I watched a little bit of this movie
very late last night so so that
i could do this it's like it's it's later it's later in the um what the shit anyway it's later
in the film but i mean if you if you want to see peter dinklage putting on a fringy accent with
hair like coolio and the gangsters on the kid the i, I thought I, this is a sidebar,
but I was going to say in the gangsters paradise video,
but I most vividly remember Coolio and his hairstyle and the intro for
Nickelodeon television show,
Ken and Cal.
That's the reference point folks.
I don't remember him being in it.
No guy.
Um,
not to say he's not,
he's not in the show,
but they got a theme song with coolio being coolio
just rapping it like a music video it's good get you don't see a lot of that kind of uh intro
anymore with just like a musical artist playing themselves describing the premise of the show
and that's a real shame that needs to come back i think this film could have
been served by something like that if i was to select a musical artist to uh do a bit of the
plot here it's actually a great way to just get some of the um story out of the way so we can
really just rip into to the fun and characterization movies should open with the song explaining the setup what's about to
happen yeah it's it's nice i've always loved uh lauren lapkus's podcast intro for that very reason
it's perfect it says hey that's what you're about to listen to it's fucking i think for some reason
christina aguilera is coming into my head for this film. I think she would do a great job of telling us what Tiptoes is all about.
2003.
Oh, it's because of the baby.
I was trying to figure out what the title was about.
It's the baby.
What do you mean?
Wasn't that what you say?
You like hear the pitter patter of little feet?
No way. That still doesn't make sense no it's tiptoes tiptoes definitely something to do with uh trying to
make yourself taller getting up on your tiptoes it feels a little on the nose doesn't it but that's
what it's got to be right i guess so the guy. The guy who directed this film, is his name Matthew Wright?
Bright.
Bright, sorry.
He had a crack at a Ted Bundy film one year before this came out.
And unfortunately, it was before True Crime Podcast had done the heavy lifting of getting people excited about seeing, I don't know, Zac Efron portraying a serial killer.
And it lost a tremendous amount of money.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
It's just called Ted Bundy.
And I think I was just looking at it before.
I think it was a budget of maybe like 1.3 mil.
And it took tens of thousands of dollars in the box office.
Well, you hate to see it, actually.
If I go into his IMDB,
Tiptoes was kind of it for this guy.
Yeah, Tiptoes was the last thing he's made, eh?
It's the last entry in his filmography.
He's sort of building quite a solid bank of work and it looks like the trajectory is entry in his filmography. Which is a bit sad. Quite a solid bank of work,
and it looks like the trajectory's going in the right direction.
And then you put out one film in which Gary Oldman portrays a little person,
and suddenly your name is Mud in Hollywood.
This film didn't even get a theatrical release, unfortunately.
It went straight to DVD.
Fuck, man.
It's so crazy. and that was not the intention
you this is a fucking 2003 man i can't remember exactly what mcconaughey was up to at the time
but people knew who he was he's a good looking leading man kate beckinsale uh probably just
before all of the what were the um goddamn vampire underworld or whatever underworld
the underworld series gary oldman is a timeless classic everyone's known he's been great for ages
um peter dinklage game of thrones wasn't out so he wasn't as famous as he is now but people still
knew he was a great uh you know it's really solid acting talent. This was a fucking good-ass cast.
And I'd love to know how much this movie cost.
But unfortunately, I haven't been able to find that information.
Because I reckon it'd be quite a lot.
Underworld and Van Helsing and The Aviator,
all starring Kate Beckinsale,
came out the same year or immediately after Tiptoes.
I mean, this is right at the height of at the height
of her arrival and fame mcconaughey meanwhile had just put out how to lose a guy in 10 days
opposite it was huge uh kate hudson the wedding planner um like and what did uh gary oldman had been in hannibal
in the so in 2001 like all of these people are not the height of their fame necessarily but
certainly at the peak of you know they're all three qualified a-listers alongside peter dinklage
and patricia arquette who are two well-recognized character actors and for it to be buried without
a cinema release like i guess the internet wasn't
around as prevalent then can you imagine the furore if this if this trailer and this movie
was announced in modern times i reckon it would probably make a lot of money yeah do you i yeah
i think it would but i think not for the right reasons. I think people would be like, definitely, yes, I will see this.
This shouldn't exist.
This weird anachronistic film.
But then I keep coming back to the fact that the mission of this film is laudable.
And I do think it was made with really strong intentions and a lot of love from the director.
with really strong intentions and a lot of love from the director um it's not this is certainly not a film that is poking fun of dwarfism or little people and i like the little um moments
that we get of seeing some realistic portrayals of the sort of trials and tribulations of
particularly the medical aspects of dwarfism like peter Dinklage hooks up with Patricia Arquette
and they're getting freaky in a cheap hotel room
or a motel room alongside Gary Oldman,
who there's only one room left.
It's like Jesus, you know?
There's only one space left, so they had to share the room.
And just like Jesus, Peter Dinklage fucks Patricia Arquette. But then, because he's had so much boo room and uh just like jesus peter dinklage fucks patricia arquette but then
because he's had so much booze and stuff he gets uh he gets a lot of pain he gets uh very ill and
um gary oldman has to explain to patricia arquette that it's just sort of part of the territory
it's a lot of um pain and sort of suffering that comes with being a little person.
It's all good stuff.
It's dark.
It's gripping.
It's personal.
It's what drama is.
You get a shot of Peter Dinklage.
But then you've got Gary Oldman.
His hair is beautiful.
He pulls out a little fucking revolver and he's back against the wall ready to shoot this motel owner
who pretty reasonably is just like,
hey, you guys, it's 3 p.m., it's checkout,
you've only paid for one night.
And he's like, okay, I'm going to escalate this
to the highest possible degree and draw a gun.
And before he can do anything,
he somehow pleaded such a persuasive case
of the lifestyle to Patricia Arquette
that she just bursts out the door and starts beating this guy's ass hard.
She's a loose cannon, though.
She's ready to go off at anyone.
I don't think it took a lot for her to get there.
What do you think of her character?
What do you think of Patricia Arquette's character in this?
She, I don't know, like, she's not specifically very well drawn she's fun to play like her and
peter dinklage is just nice whenever they're on screen because i don't know that they i don't
know that they were given scripts i feel like everyone else maybe was given a guiding script
and then they were like okay patricia peter you go away you create backstories for your characters and
then you can just come and fill out the world of the movie and this is a fucking stunning indictment
on patricia rakeet's sense of imagination if she came up with this and then they went away and they
sort of thought about it initially for five minutes and then forgot about it for two weeks
and then suddenly they were on set and patr dinklage just started doing the accent
and rolled right ahead with it and patricia aki was like well abrasive drunk woman i guess
yeah she's um she's basically a two-dimensional version of someone you'd meet at uh burning man
you know yeah a lot of like peter dinklage wakes up after he's been in extreme pain in that hotel
room with all of these uh gemstones and crystals laid on his body that patricia keeps put there
it's nice little touches like that you know there's a bit of fun to be had in this film
murphy mcconaughey's character is so irredeemable though it's so crazy to get um the arguably sort
of central person we at the outset of the film he's set up to be the star but
he isn't really by the end and he's just a fucking nightmare the dudes are hey here's a question so
they go to a party in the middle of this movie right and i think it's part of the journey of
kate beckinsale coming to terms and normalizing um all these little people who are in her life now via Matthew McConaughey's family.
And Matthew McConaughey inextricably brings two female recruits
who he's training to be in the fire service.
Who the fuck's up with that?
I guess it's probably explained in the two and a half hour version.
It's two and a half hour movie stuff.
Because they're obviously seeding...
The idea... You see glimpses of the fact that Kate Beckinsale half-hour movie stuff because it's obviously they're obviously seeding like you know the idea
you see glimpses of the fact that kate beckinsale might be afraid that mcconaughey's up to no good
before it comes out that um he's just trying to not cover i guess but you know that he's just not
he's not being open about his family uh and so i feel like the because we see him interacting with one of those
firefighting cadets at work uh i feel like in the two and a half hour movie is probably revealed to
be a like a bad person like some sort of uh i imagine she's drawn as some sort of selfie
selfish and greedy seductress who wants mcconaughey for whatever reason um and kate beckinsale's i
don't know threatened by or whatever i feel like in the two and a half hours you would have seen
a big fight around that character at some point do you reckon they fucked guy montgomery the
recruit and matthew mcconaughey's character and in the two and a half hour vision no i don't think
so mcconaughey's character's got a lot of problems but i don't think uh loyalty to his partner is one of them i don't trust this movie enough i reckon he i reckon
he did cheat on her why else would you put all these weird things in the movie it's so weird
that he brings those two women to the party it's not explained even a little bit i want to introduce
you to two of my junior colleagues who I've brought to this swanky,
another family reunion slash general party.
That party looked fucking dope, though.
It looked like a really good time.
Like, the house itself was fantastic,
and everyone looked like they were having a ball
until...
Who did Peter Dinklage get in a big fight with was it sally his old sweetheart or was
it someone else there was that was the party where sally is fucking this this muso in a um room that's
like a dining room with these huge open bay windows looking out onto a very full patio of people
and she's fucking this dude and we are led to believe
that it's invisible to the party goers because the lights are off and it's not until gary albert
walks in and turns the lights on but it's like oh yeah we could see you it's like no you'd definitely
be able to see that she's right up against the window yeah it's uh it's not quite perfect, but sometimes it gets so close
that it scares the shit out of me.
I would recommend Tiptoes to literally anyone.
It is just as a cultural curiosity, it is well worth stopping by.
And at 90 minutes, it does breeze straight through.
I mean, the ending will arrive very quickly
but also
Matthew Bright
directed
this movie. He also wrote it under
the pen name
Bill Weiner. What the
fuck is that about?
You kidding me?
Um
no I'd like to have a chat to matthew and find out what that was all about
i think what needs to happen now is that i think they need to remake tiptoes and they need to do
it properly and they could involve a lot of the same people.
Gary Oldman died, didn't he?
No.
I keep thinking he's dead.
Because I keep getting him confused with someone.
And I don't know who it is.
Gary Oldman is super alive.
One day I will... Who played Snape?
Oh, Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman. One day I will... Who played Snape?
Oh, Alan Rickman.
Alan Rickman.
Sorry, I keep thinking of him.
I don't know why I confused those two.
They're pretty fucking different.
Anyway, they need to remake Tiptoes, I think.
Because, here's the thing.
I don't know of any other film that tries to tackle with the subject matter
of what it's like to be a little
person or the intersecting worlds of uh having little people in your family or being a little
person and sort of you know the the interesting intersections with the rest of society it's uh
it's good it's ripe terrain and i want to see it done right and i'd like to see the studio not wrestle
out of the director and writer's hands who may call himself mr wiener on occasion that's you
got to trust the creative process all right let him release his movie i want peter dinklage to
definitely be there again i could take or leave patricia Arquette. I think Kate Beckinsale has had her day.
I insist upon Matthew McConaughey
reprising his role as a fucking asshole
punching a wall in a hospital.
And I want to see all the other little people
because I think all of them did great performances.
I didn't see any of them drop the ball
except Peter Dinklage's accent.
Ah, yeah, but he's he's a he's a
big draw now so you got to keep him around bankable as fuck so i think i got two tiptoeing
back in there's the subtitle oh it's not a remake it's what it's not a remake it's just the same
characters in the modern day um yeah yeah it's like one of those reboots where it's kind of um
no it's a sequel it's a sequel well i don't know what i got right the first time
so why bother a perfect film for me uh a loving three out of five honestly three out of five for
this movie 90 minutes you're not going to miss an hour and a half thank you so much for voting for it
everyone I know that this has been a long
journey this has been in the polls
for ages among the Patreon
Deciders Club which you can be part of
by contributing $10 a
month to our Patreon
and then you get to decide which of these
movies we watch in the present
day we're trying to crank through slightly
more of these than normal we normally do one present day, we're trying to crank through slightly more of these than normal.
We normally do one a month,
but we're trying to do a couple a month at the moment.
So thank you for this delight.
Can't wait to see what you find for us next.
And Guy Montgomery, I'm glad you had a good time.
I think you had a good time.
Sounds like you had a good time with this one.
I did. I had a good time.
It was, yeah, It was a rare delight at the hands and mercy of our barbaric listeners.
So thank you so much.
Also, if you are in London, England,
it's probably worth mentioning that we are coming to the London Podcast Festival
on Friday the 6th of September for a live show,
the likes of which we have not put on before and will not put
on again this is going to be a very special event you will not want to miss this that's right should
we announce it now or should we do that later no later because we got to iron out all the kinks i
think figure this thing out but suffice to say it's high stakes yeah it's high stakes so that's
the worst day of all time it's part of the lond it's high stakes. So that's the worst day of all time.
It's part of the London Podcast Festival.
We are there on the 6th of September.
Very excited.
Our first trip as a podcast to the United Kingdom.
So if you are there or know anyone there
who can make it along,
please send them our way.
We'd love to see you.
Otherwise, continue to choose kindly and wisely.
And thank you.
RIP Gary Altman.
Tiptoes.