The Worst Idea Of All Time - REVIEW: Tiptoes

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

This 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.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:16 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.
Starting point is 00:00:37 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.
Starting point is 00:00:55 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.
Starting point is 00:01:21 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
Starting point is 00:02:00 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,
Starting point is 00:02:27 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
Starting point is 00:02:54 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,
Starting point is 00:03:48 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.
Starting point is 00:04:14 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
Starting point is 00:04:30 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
Starting point is 00:04:43 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
Starting point is 00:05:29 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.
Starting point is 00:06:08 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,
Starting point is 00:06:39 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
Starting point is 00:07:24 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.
Starting point is 00:08:01 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,
Starting point is 00:08:41 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
Starting point is 00:09:23 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
Starting point is 00:10:03 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.
Starting point is 00:10:36 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.
Starting point is 00:11:21 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
Starting point is 00:12:08 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,
Starting point is 00:12:53 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.
Starting point is 00:13:32 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.
Starting point is 00:14:15 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,
Starting point is 00:14:41 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
Starting point is 00:15:08 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
Starting point is 00:15:24 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
Starting point is 00:15:42 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.
Starting point is 00:16:02 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.
Starting point is 00:16:26 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.
Starting point is 00:16:51 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
Starting point is 00:17:08 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
Starting point is 00:17:38 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
Starting point is 00:18:04 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
Starting point is 00:18:54 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.
Starting point is 00:19:23 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,
Starting point is 00:20:09 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
Starting point is 00:20:45 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
Starting point is 00:21:34 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
Starting point is 00:21:58 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
Starting point is 00:22:30 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
Starting point is 00:23:23 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.
Starting point is 00:24:05 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
Starting point is 00:24:30 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
Starting point is 00:25:07 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
Starting point is 00:25:39 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
Starting point is 00:26:00 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
Starting point is 00:26:42 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
Starting point is 00:27:17 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
Starting point is 00:27:44 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.
Starting point is 00:28:16 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
Starting point is 00:28:36 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.
Starting point is 00:29:29 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
Starting point is 00:29:53 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.
Starting point is 00:30:36 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.
Starting point is 00:30:58 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.
Starting point is 00:31:23 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.
Starting point is 00:32:05 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
Starting point is 00:32:33 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.
Starting point is 00:33:28 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
Starting point is 00:34:11 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.
Starting point is 00:34:46 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.
Starting point is 00:34:56 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
Starting point is 00:35:21 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
Starting point is 00:35:48 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
Starting point is 00:36:31 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
Starting point is 00:37:17 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
Starting point is 00:37:45 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
Starting point is 00:38:36 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.
Starting point is 00:39:15 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
Starting point is 00:39:51 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
Starting point is 00:40:28 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
Starting point is 00:40:44 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.
Starting point is 00:41:19 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.
Starting point is 00:41:36 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
Starting point is 00:42:13 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
Starting point is 00:42:41 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
Starting point is 00:43:26 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
Starting point is 00:43:42 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.
Starting point is 00:43:58 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
Starting point is 00:44:26 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.
Starting point is 00:44:55 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.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.