Ep.#408 - Waterworld, with Todd Vaziri

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Waterworld!

[0:04] Inspired by the animated series, Pirates of Dark Water.

[0:08] Not really, but I just thought, you know.

[0:12] Hey everyone, welcome to The Flop House.

[0:39] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:40] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] I'm Ellie Kaelin.

[0:42] Later on, I'll tell you about Flop TV, our monthly flop online broadcasting internet series.

[0:48] But first, guys, we've got a special guest with us on this episode today.

[0:52] Who is it?

[0:53] Are you ready for an introduction?

[0:54] Yeah, sure.

[0:55] Introduce me, please.

[0:56] I'll do it.

[0:57] This is someone we should have had a long time ago.

[1:00] A real luminary in the world of movie production and movie effects.

[1:05] That's right.

[1:06] Visual effects artist and supervisor, Todd Vizzieri.

[1:09] He's worked on all your favorite movies.

[1:11] Soldier.

[1:12] The 1999 A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[1:15] The Mr. of Echoes.

[1:16] All your favorite films.

[1:17] Mr. of Echoes.

[1:18] I like Mr. of Echoes quite a lot.

[1:22] And he spent the past, what, Todd, like 20 years working on it seems like every single

[1:26] major motion picture that gets released.

[1:28] Yeah, you named a few of them.

[1:30] Yeah, that's right.

[1:32] Now, what would be a highlight reel?

[1:34] If you were going to give a highlight reel, Todd, what would you pick?

[1:38] Well, he neglected, you know, Bones and Driven and the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons.

[1:45] You know, there's a few.

[1:46] You could keep scraping.

[1:47] I was going to mention Bones, but it's true.

[1:49] Todd has mentioned us.

[1:50] He is one of only two effects artists who have worked on both Dungeons and Dragons movies.

[1:54] Whoa.

[1:55] But you had much more of a hand in the most recent one.

[1:57] You were very much in charge for that one.

[2:00] That's right.

[2:01] The reason the first one wasn't that great had nothing to do with me, and the reason

[2:04] why this one was good had almost everything to do with me.

[2:08] Also, I will brook no dismissal of Bones, which I saw recently and thought was pretty fun.

[2:14] I like that movie.

[2:15] It's kind of wild.

[2:16] I mean, you go in with the right expectations.

[2:18] Bones is fine.

[2:20] So in the original Dungeons and Dragons, you did all the animation for the Beholders, right?

[2:25] Okay, I'm going to tell you that I know what a Beholder is.

[2:29] I don't.

[2:30] I don't know what a Beholder is.

[2:31] That's the thing.

[2:32] I knew nothing about Dungeons and Dragons going into that movie, and I know nothing about

[2:35] Dungeons and Dragons going into this movie.

[2:37] So there's a big end battle at the end.

[2:40] The mages make fireballs, and they throw fireballs, and I was just making up stuff.

[2:45] I'm like, I don't know.

[2:46] I'm going to make the fireball appear, and then they can throw it.

[2:49] I was just making up stuff, and I remember reading some of the comments from fans from

[2:54] that original 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie and saying, whoever did those mages' fireballs,

[3:00] they totally get Dungeons and Dragons.

[3:04] I'm like, hey, sure.

[3:06] I was just making stuff up.

[3:08] That's great.

[3:09] So let's pull out our player's handbook and make some characters so I can introduce you

[3:13] to the world of Dungeons and Dragons.

[3:15] That's all Stuart's going to be thinking about for the whole rest of the episode.

[3:20] Todd, thanks so much for coming.

[3:22] We've talked about some movies you've worked on, but we have never gone after the effects

[3:28] because they always look great.

[3:31] Even when they say story, supporting those effects is not up to snuff.

[3:36] But we apologize for the movies that we have talked about of yours in the past.

[3:39] Don't, because you guys – I've been a big fan.

[3:43] If I may have an opening statement for a second.

[3:46] It's such an honor to be here.

[3:47] Sure.

[3:48] I'll give some of my time to you.

[3:49] Yeah, okay.

[3:50] Thank you very much.

[3:51] Impressive, Evan.

[3:52] No, I just – it's such an honor to be here.

[3:55] You hear – one of your favorite podcasts is a show where three guys make fun of a movie,

[4:02] how bad it is.

[4:03] It's like, that sounds kind of gross on the surface, but you guys love movies.

[4:08] It's all out of love.

[4:11] It's not cruel.

[4:13] If anybody understands that it's a team effort, that there's a lot of people involved,

[4:18] and any number of things could go wrong at any point, it's all out of love for movies.

[4:25] I'm really happy to be here.

[4:27] So I never take that kind of stuff personally.

[4:29] I'm glad that you say that because this is the number one thing I struggle with,

[4:34] with the premise of our show.

[4:36] It's like, as I grow older, I'm like, I don't know.

[4:39] Why do we have to be mean to anything?

[4:40] I mean, I don't think we are.

[4:41] You're not.

[4:42] Even the appearance of cruelty.

[4:43] Dean's even the least mean out of all of us.

[4:45] Yeah, and Dan's the one who's always like, this movie's okay.

[4:48] But I think each of us goes into watching these movies secretly hoping that we're going to be like,

[4:52] this was good.

[4:53] We liked this one.

[4:54] And it's a disappointment when they're not.

[4:56] So the premise of the show is that we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[4:59] Today we're going to watch a movie that, Todd, you specifically asked for.

[5:04] You requested this film, and that film is?

[5:07] Waterworld.

[5:09] That's right, Waterworld.

[5:10] The movie that very briefly put Kevin Costner's career quite off track.

[5:15] I guess the postman was like, Waterworld, but with the male.

[5:18] It was the one that really put him off track.

[5:21] It was a winding road for him to get all the way to Jellystone so he could rehabilitate that image.

[5:27] It's the movie that asks you.

[5:29] He was the park ranger, and he's like, got to take down those bears.

[5:32] It's a movie that asks you, what if the world but waterier?

[5:38] The world is pretty watery as it is.

[5:40] No, no.

[5:41] You have no idea.

[5:42] No, no.

[5:43] Real watery.

[5:44] Like just super wet.

[5:45] Just so moist.

[5:46] Just dripping.

[5:48] Sultry.

[5:49] So, Todd, what is it about Waterworld?

[5:51] The world owes you.

[5:52] The world is pretty runny.

[5:56] The world owes you is of the earth.

[5:59] So, Todd, what was it about Waterworld that you wanted to talk about today?

[6:02] Well, I kind of figured maybe something with a visual effects slant to it

[6:06] because I think it's actually a very, it takes place in production at an interesting time for visual effects

[6:13] when we were moving away from purely optical effects and optical compositing

[6:18] and getting into the digital world where this is a couple years after Jurassic Park

[6:24] and its contemporaries are movies like Twister and, let's see, 1996, Independence Day, things like that.

[6:33] So we're slowly getting into the digital world where simple digital effects were still not so simple.

[6:42] So it's kind of like a bridge between two worlds.

[6:45] I thought that would be an interesting way to look at it.

[6:47] I mean when folks talk about the most infamous flops of all time, Waterworld is usually in the discussion

[6:54] and we can get into the definition of what the flop means in this particular case.

[7:00] So, and I also, I remember seeing it and going, OK, I mean it wasn't terrible.

[7:07] 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.

[7:14] It had its problems.

[7:16] This was infamous. I mean it was, what was Fishtar was one of them and was it Cabin Skate was this as well?

[7:22] Well, and I think that was, yeah, they called this Cabin Skate and Fishtar.

[7:25] Because he killed a bunch of people?

[7:26] Yeah, because a bunch of people, well, he convinced them to commit suicide so they could ride the Waterworld,

[7:31] which he said was going to be a roller coaster at Universal Studios.

[7:34] It turned out to be a stunt show, so he couldn't really ride it.

[7:37] Can we talk about the stunt show?

[7:38] No, we'll talk about the stunt show, which I never got to see and I regret it.

[7:41] I've heard nothing but great things about it.

[7:43] But it definitely was one of those movies like Fishtar and like Cabin Skate where the discussion about it became so much about how much it cost.

[7:52] That the actual quality of the film, whether it was good or not, was like already at a deficit.

[7:57] Because there's something about movie critics, especially in the past.

[8:00] I feel like now movies are so routinely expensive that it's not as big a thing.

[8:04] But back then, if a movie cost a lot of money, movie critics did not like that.

[8:08] It made them very mad ahead of time and they hated the idea that –

[8:11] It dominated the discussion.

[8:12] Yeah.

[8:13] Pre-release.

[8:15] This is back then.

[8:16] So Premier Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, it's like it cost this much money.

[8:20] It cost overruns, scheduling overruns.

[8:22] It's like that's now what the movie – what defines the movie.

[8:26] Yeah.

[8:27] It's also weird that they cared so much because they would act as if it was some sort of moral failing or like there was some hazard associated with it.

[8:37] It's like, well, if the studio loses money, then that's on them.

[8:41] That's fine.

[8:43] They are risking it.

[8:45] In the meantime, this movie is employing people.

[8:48] It's like what are you mad about per se in real terms?

[8:53] I've never understood this like, oh, I can't believe that movie cost this much money.

[8:58] It's like, well, unless you're a shareholder, who cares?

[9:02] If you like watching movies, the last thing on your mind is what's the price tag of this movie?

[9:10] If I was a conspiratorial type of person, which I was as a teenager when Waterworld 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.

[9:31] 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.

[9:39] Now it feels like these Marvel movies cost a lot of money, but I don't know.

[9:43] That dude has $100 billion and is trying to colonize another planet so that he can have brain slaves.

[9:49] That seems worse.

[9:50] I feel like there's a greater understanding now of what's a truly immoral use of money.

[9:54] I mean also for whatever reason, success justifies itself where it's like –

[10:00] You know, like the Marvel movies, like they make back a tremendous amount of money, too.

[10:05] So, like, no one's like, well, what a waste, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, return

[10:10] on investment.

[10:11] You know, it's it's it's it's a weird sort of place where as long as the capitalism works

[10:16] correctly, like people are like, OK, but if someone spends a lot of money on a flop, it's

[10:22] like anger rather than just like, well, that's what happens.

[10:26] This is also I think I think Kevin Costner was due for the period in every American star's

[10:31] life when they reach a height of success and people want to take them down.

[10:35] I think he it was a little this is like kind of still the hangover from Dance with Wolves.

[10:40] Right.

[10:41] He won best director, which is bonkers, which is objectively bonkers.

[10:45] I know.

[10:46] And so I think people were ready for him to fail at this.

[10:49] I think a lot of people thought he was directing this movie because the director's name is

[10:52] also Kevin, which he was not.

[10:54] And also the the director, at some point there was there's a rumor that your director

[10:59] was ousted and Kevin Costner finished the film.

[11:01] Yeah.

[11:02] If you read behind the scenes, like it seems like whether or not he actually directed any

[11:07] of it, he was taking an extremely heavy producer's hand in it.

[11:11] Yeah.

[11:12] Yeah.

[11:13] The knives were being sharpened for him.

[11:15] I mean, it was celebrity culture, you know, royal culture.

[11:19] They love their stars.

[11:20] And then they also love to tear them down.

[11:22] And after, you know, Dance with Wolves, big hit, Oscar winning.

[11:28] And Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves before this, right?

[11:31] Yeah.

[11:32] Right.

[11:33] Before this, because that was like 91.

[11:34] Right.

[11:35] Or 92.

[11:36] Yeah.

[11:37] Right.

[11:38] Yeah.

[11:39] You know, the pre before that is Untouchables.

[11:40] I mean, you know, Bull Durham, I think, was before this.

[11:41] So he's riding high.

[11:42] And then, you know, big budget fiasco shooting on water, cost overruns, the hurricanes destroying

[11:50] the set.

[11:51] I mean, that's.

[11:52] Yeah.

[11:53] And I'm glad we're talking about this before we talk about the movie, because this is all

[11:55] the pre-release mumbo jumbo.

[11:57] Yeah.

[11:58] Yeah.

[11:59] Dominated.

[12:00] Everyone heard ahead of time.

[12:01] This is a disaster.

[12:02] Before the movie had come out yet.

[12:03] And let's just say it.

[12:04] Gene Triplehorn has made a lot of powerful enemies.

[12:05] There are a lot of people that are knifing down for Gene Triplehorn.

[12:08] Ready to take her down, too.

[12:09] She has three horns.

[12:11] How dare she have three?

[12:13] There's so many more Americans with zero horns.

[12:15] Exactly.

[12:16] Yes.

[12:17] You may wish I had three hands.

[12:19] Grab each of the horns.

[12:21] It's.

[12:22] It's.

[12:23] Well, it's like they say, grab the gene by the triple horns.

[12:25] Yeah.

[12:26] Now, do you do you guys see this movie in the I remember seeing in the theater and being

[12:30] like, no, that was good.

[12:31] I don't know.

[12:32] Yeah.

[12:33] We're complaining about.

[12:34] I saw in the theater and I was like, that was a fun action science fiction.

[12:35] I mean, even at that time, I had an idea in my head that it was that it was kind of Mad

[12:41] Maxi.

[12:42] And then I I kind of got into really got into the Mad Max movies.

[12:44] And I was like, oh, yeah.

[12:45] Waterworld is is very Mad Maxi.

[12:47] But I remember watching it.

[12:48] Yeah.

[12:49] And when it was in the theaters and being like, that was fun.

[12:50] Yeah.

[12:51] I saw it on HBO when I was new to like, I was like, this is fine.

[12:56] Like I, I do think it either needs to be longer or shorter, but but it was OK.

[13:05] Yeah.

[13:06] Yeah.

[13:07] I also saw it in the theaters and I was like, I, you know, I have my problems with this,

[13:10] but some stuff was pretty wacky and and some some of it was actually really good.

[13:15] And then there's some tonal problems, which is probably my biggest problem with the movie.

[13:19] Yes.

[13:20] Spoiler alert.

[13:21] But just tone in inconsistent tone.

[13:23] Very.

[13:24] We'll get into.

[13:25] So.

[13:26] But, yeah, it's a movie that, especially by the end, it's like, oh, this feels like a

[13:29] different tonally.

[13:30] This is a different movie than it was.

[13:32] Yeah, that's true.

[13:33] Let's talk about it, guys.

[13:34] Now, out of this, I'm going to tell you about the experiments that I did out of curiosity.

[13:38] And because I wanted to kind of compare my experience with yours, I watched the extended

[13:42] cut of the film, which which is was recreated using footage that was used in the television

[13:47] release, which is longer than the original, because I want to get a sense because originally

[13:50] this movie was going to be three hours long and the studio was like Kevin Costner's last

[13:55] movie was three hours long, like we're not doing any more of this three hour Kevin Costner

[13:59] stuff.

[14:00] And so the they cut it way down to two hours and 15 minutes.

[14:03] And I want to compare it to your guys experience of watching the theatrical cut, which is what

[14:06] I assumed you watched, because that's the one that's more readily available.

[14:09] OK.

[14:10] Yeah.

[14:11] So let's let's talk through it.

[14:12] Whenever I get to a scene that that isn't in the in the theatrical, I want you to yell

[14:17] Kevin and I'll stop.

[14:20] You don't have to yell Kevin, but you can just go, yeah, exactly.

[14:26] I want you to go, Kevin, like you've just forgotten when you went on a holiday.

[14:32] Yeah, exactly.

[14:33] Yeah.

[14:34] So we open with the universal logo globe, which floods.

[14:36] Oh, no.

[14:37] The sea levels are rising on the universal logo as a kid.

[14:40] It just blew my fucking mind apart.

[14:42] I love it.

[14:43] Anytime a movie plays with the logo of the studio, I love it.

[14:46] As a kid, I loved it.

[14:47] I still love it.

[14:48] Still, you know, I loved it when when Kat Bell, you shows up at the beginning of Kat

[14:51] Bell, you instead of the Columbia logo, I liked it into the Spider-Man.

[14:54] You showed up in front of the Columbia.

[14:56] Great stuff.

[14:57] I love that.

[14:58] And it's like it's it's like how for years I would lean over and tell my movie going

[15:03] companion that the new line logo is the new one that the Lord of the Rings production

[15:07] fixed for the new line studios.

[15:10] I like it when when Dark Phoenix reaches up and cracks the X-Men logo on the cover of

[15:15] the book.

[15:16] I like it when you mess with the logos anyway, or the Hulk is like when the Hulk is like

[15:19] either supporting his logo or smashing it.

[15:22] Yeah, great.

[15:23] I was lucky enough to mess with the opening titles of the universal logo for another great

[15:27] film, Van Helsing, which we did the letters, the letters come up and then they all get

[15:33] burned up individually and melt away.

[15:38] And there's an iris to the first shot.

[15:39] And I got to do that.

[15:40] That was cool.

[15:41] That was a lot of fun.

[15:42] They they didn't even provide me with a clean version of the universal logo.

[15:45] It still had like a Comcast company or an MCA logo.

[15:49] I had to paint that out of the thing.

[15:52] So I was like, yeah, great.

[15:54] But yeah, I'm a sucker for the, you know, custom studio logo.

[15:58] I feel like it shows you that they're doing something special with the movie.

[16:01] You know, they're going a little bit beyond.

[16:03] Like Van Helsing.

[16:04] Like Van Helsing.

[16:05] Did you work on the Dark Universe logo from The Mummy, where it says Universal and then

[16:09] it spins around and says Dark Universe?

[16:11] Because I think they expected to get more use out of that logo than they got.

[16:16] Yeah.

[16:17] Wait, they were only they were expecting to make more than just what, two movies?

[16:21] I mean, they only really made the one of them, too.

[16:24] Yeah.

[16:25] And Dracula Untold or whatever.

[16:26] Dracula Untold was kind of was was going to be it.

[16:29] And then they kind of like they were like, uh, that wasn't that was a soft opening.

[16:33] The real.

[16:34] Yeah.

[16:36] That was that's the that's the friends and family of the Dark Universe of the of the

[16:40] Dark Universe.

[16:41] You know what, guys?

[16:42] Our universe is dark enough as it is.

[16:44] We don't need an extra dark universe.

[16:46] Yeah.

[16:47] We need all the light we cannot see.

[16:50] Anyway, there's a voiceover that tells us the ice caps have flooded in the future.

[16:54] Those who survive have adapted to a new world.

[16:57] How do they adapt?

[16:58] Well, we see as on an ocean going catamaran, a lone sailor pees in a cup, pours it into

[17:03] a filter and then drinks the water that comes out.

[17:04] That's how they've adapted.

[17:05] They drink their own pee.

[17:06] That's our hero.

[17:07] I'm going to I'm going to derail you right off the bat.

[17:09] OK, so the narration, you know, there was no telling of a prophecy, no on screen, you

[17:14] know, titles or story or anything like that, but a narration that they don't do anywhere

[17:19] else in the movie.

[17:20] Yes.

[17:21] I, I actually wonder.

[17:23] I don't think it was required.

[17:24] I think it would have been a lot more mysterious if they just kind of this is how they started

[17:27] the movie.

[17:28] Not like they're going to do a bait and switch like a spoiler alert, Planet of the Apes kind

[17:33] of a thing.

[17:34] But just like it could have been a little bit more mysterious, but they just wanted

[17:37] to say the future.

[17:38] Yes.

[17:39] Polar ice caps melted.

[17:40] I just you know, if you just take out that narration, I wonder how the film would have

[17:45] been perceived a little bit differently.

[17:47] Just like my favorite one to think about is Predator, the opening shot of the spaceship,

[17:53] you know, launching, lifting, sending something on the Earth.

[17:57] If that shot wasn't in the movie, how different the movie would have been.

[18:01] If you didn't know anything about the marketing going into it, how it would have been perceived

[18:06] differently.

[18:07] Whoa, does this guy just live here?

[18:08] Is he natural to this Earth?

[18:10] Well, but that is the kind of question that that you get from studios all the time.

[18:14] I imagine this.

[18:15] They're like, how are people going to know this takes place in the future and not like

[18:17] on some alien planet?

[18:18] It's like, well, they'll watch the movie and they'll see there's copies of National Geographic

[18:21] hanging around.

[18:22] Right.

[18:23] Yeah.

[18:24] But like, spoiler alert.

[18:25] Later on, one of the big reveals is that the polar ice caps melted and people live on water

[18:30] and that all the cities are flooded are underwater.

[18:34] That's a huge emotional reveal for one of the characters.

[18:36] Right.

[18:37] So it's weird that we, the audience are like, yeah, we fucking know that, dude.

[18:41] I mean, I don't want to.

[18:42] The guy at the beginning told me.

[18:43] Yeah, the guy told us.

[18:44] Like, I don't usually like to make assumptions, but it is one of the things where I'm like,

[18:48] this probably was added, like, you know, for certain.

[18:51] I doubt the screenplay had that.

[18:53] Yeah.

[18:54] My guess is that they just didn't want anyone confused right off the bat, that they had

[18:57] either had a test audience or worried about a test audience that people would not would

[19:01] be worried, wondering what's going on rather than following the story.

[19:04] This one doesn't bother me that much because it's so quick and it's not it doesn't give

[19:08] you a lot of information.

[19:09] It's tidy.

[19:10] It's very tidy, but it is unnecessary.

[19:11] So anyway, the mariner drinks his own pee.

[19:13] He's kind of a surly loner.

[19:14] This is our hero, Kevin Costner.

[19:15] I think the only movie in his filmography where he drinks his own pee and he has a confrontation

[19:20] with another.

[19:21] I'll look it up.

[19:22] Yeah.

[19:23] Just do.

[19:24] Can you do a Google search for Kevin Costner drink pee and tell me what comes up?

[19:29] Tin cup.

[19:30] What do you think was in the cup?

[19:31] Good.

[19:32] Yeah.

[19:33] Good point.

[19:34] It's that's why he's like, I need a new tin cup.

[19:35] I pee.

[19:36] The uric acid is eaten away at the bottom of my tin cup.

[19:38] Yeah.

[19:39] So he has a confrontation with another lone sailor who steals the mariners limes.

[19:44] But it's OK.

[19:46] Cosmic justice.

[19:47] They're both ambushed by smokers who are essentially pirates and they're not they don't really

[19:52] smoke.

[19:53] They do.

[19:54] They do smoke at different points.

[19:55] They smoke cigarettes all the time.

[19:56] They do smoke cigarettes a lot.

[19:57] But the but they're essentially pirates.

[19:59] It's funny that.

[20:00] thing that they're called is about the fact that they smoke cigarettes, which they do

[20:03] and Dan Stoppard's character throws them out as reward stuff, and not the fact that they're

[20:06] pirates.

[20:07] But anyway, Kevin Costner-

[20:08] And this is the first example of Kevin Costner's Mariner being a hard man in this hard world

[20:15] because he just races away, he's like, you know, you got what you deserve for stealing

[20:20] my limes, getting killed, and he'll do some surprisingly cruel things in this movie.

[20:26] It's a brutal opening with, first you see him drinking his pee, you see him all alone,

[20:31] no dialogue, I actually really love that stuff, you're just kind of figuring out what's on

[20:34] his boat, what's on- and then he meets that guy and he just basically signs that guy's

[20:40] death warrant, he gets him killed, and he barely even looks back, he's like, uh-huh.

[20:47] And I'm like, I'm like raring to go, I'm like, this is pretty good, I mean, the elephant

[20:52] in the room in this whole thing is, you know, Mad Max, the road warrior.

[20:56] Sorry, Aussies, I know of it as the road warrior, I know it's really called Mad Max 2, but I'm

[21:01] just gonna have to say the road warrior a million times, and who is a, you know, the

[21:05] titular Mad Maximus is a brutal guy who learns, you know, seeks and finds his humanity, and

[21:14] I'm like, okay, this is a Mad Max ripoff, sure, on the water, go for it, and it's a

[21:19] pretty solid start.

[21:20] I think it is, I mean, it's a- even going farther back than Mad Max, this is a classic

[21:24] western trope, the bad man or the hard man learns how to love, but the aesthetic of this

[21:31] is so Mad Max on the water, in a way that is hard to-

[21:35] Yeah, right down to like, occasionally a little bit like the kooky character, you know, like

[21:39] the guy with the big glasses or whatever, you know.

[21:44] But of all the Mad- well, literally there's a guy who's firing a machine gun who just

[21:48] gets super into it and crazy and is firing all over the place, and he's got like a mask

[21:52] that looks like a pig's nose, and it's like, yeah, this is like, this is straight out of

[21:56] George Miller, but of all the Mad Max ripoffs, this is the one that does it the best, I think.

[22:00] Stuart, what were you gonna say?

[22:01] Sorry, I caught you off.

[22:02] I was gonna say that also, like, with this opening, we get a hint of the like, workings

[22:08] of his ship, a thing that like, as a kid, I was like fascinated by, this like incredible

[22:12] cross sections, like, how does this fucking- how does this guy's cool life work with all

[22:17] these gizmos and gadgets and crap?

[22:19] There's all this police and steampunk stuff and stuff, but anyway, he does- he wrecks

[22:24] the other guy's ship, leaves him to be killed by the smokers, truly, as the Mariner has

[22:28] said, nothing's free on Waterworld.

[22:30] I think it is kind of dumb that they call it Waterworld, but anyway, the Mariner, he

[22:33] stops at this artificial Atoll town, it's kind of like a little fortress, and he's let

[22:38] in because he has a jar of ultra-valuable dirt to sell them, and he exchanges it for

[22:42] chits that he can use to buy hydro, which is what they call water, even though they

[22:46] call it Waterworld, water is no longer the word used for water, which is interesting,

[22:51] they don't say Hydroworld, uh, and he-

[22:53] I wanna say, even though, uh, this, you know, this trip will eventually go bad for the Mariner,

[22:59] I was sort of surprised by how much society still seemed to be functioning, because like,

[23:05] this guy arrives with a bunch of dirt and they don't immediately just kill him for all

[23:10] that dirt that they want, you know, like there's an exchange of dirt for chits, and no one's

[23:15] like, robbing him, you know?

[23:17] It's very much the town in the Road Warrior where the good people live, you know, like,

[23:21] there's still some people who want a real society, and in the extended version, there's

[23:26] a lot of talk about that, like, you see more of this town, and you see the people kind

[23:31] of running it a little bit more, but anyway, we'll get to that.

[23:33] He buys it from Helen, Jean Triplehorn, who's a kind of tough shopkeeper, who takes care

[23:38] of Enola, a little girl, who has a strange tattoo on her back, that is clearly a map,

[23:43] but everyone is like, we can't, we don't understand it, we don't know how to read this

[23:46] thing.

[23:47] It kind of looks like, it kind of looks like Yosemite Sam saying, back off, right?

[23:50] Yeah, yeah, she has a tattoo on her back of Calvin peeing on ground.

[23:55] It's a prophecy that says, you will grow up to be Macklin, Veronica Mars.

[23:59] Yeah, that's what the prophecy says.

[24:01] Oh shit, really?

[24:03] Yeah, that's her, Tina Manzarino.

[24:06] In the extended version of this, there's just more conversation.

[24:08] He talks to Helen Moore, that there's a guy there who we'll find out later is the henchman

[24:13] of the villain, and they have a longer conversation.

[24:15] Anyway, the mariner, he wants to leave.

[24:17] This is the scene where he's walking around, and oh, he's got his ski boots on that he

[24:23] salvaged from the bottom of the ocean, which is, if anybody's put on ski boots, it's like,

[24:26] I don't know, I'd kind of rather go barefoot.

[24:28] I'm not going to walk around in ski boots.

[24:30] Well, he's got to hide his feet, as we find out.

[24:31] There's also, I mean, the thing with like the Golden Age Sandman.

[24:34] That sounds like a thing a Muto would not, would do.

[24:37] Yeah, the Golden Age Sandman, who has a gas mask for a mask, it looks really cool, but

[24:41] it's like, those are hard to wear.

[24:43] It's hard to see and breathe out of those.

[24:45] For every, one of these details that I kind of liked is when he was like, he's stepping

[24:49] up to the bar, to Helen's bar, and he kind of stumbles.

[24:52] He just, I never interpreted that as like him with the boots.

[24:56] It's just that he's not used to being on a relatively stationary ground, and I love that

[25:01] kind of detail, but then it's undercut previously when he's like, hey, I've got dirt, and he

[25:07] holds up the dirt, and he pulls out a big, giant handful, and he just lets it go in the

[25:12] wind.

[25:13] I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, and then the very next scene is him bartering, and the guy takes

[25:17] a giant handful and eats it.

[25:19] It's like, you can't, you can't do that.

[25:22] This is valuable shit, man.

[25:24] Yeah, it's inconsistent in some ways.

[25:27] There's a lot of like weird, we'll meet Dennis Hopper, who's constantly smoking cigarettes.

[25:32] I'm like, where are you getting all these cigarettes?

[25:35] In the extended version, he's obsessed with golf, and he's watching golf videos on a TV

[25:41] that he has rigged up, and it's like, I don't know.

[25:43] The movie also makes it clear.

[25:45] This is hundreds of years after civilization has fallen apart.

[25:48] Nobody remembers the old civilization.

[25:51] None of this technology should work anymore at all, but anyway, it's a movie.

[25:56] What are you going to do?

[25:57] It's a movie about a fish man, because as we find out, the town elders are like, hey,

[26:00] before you leave, can you impregnate a local so we can add to our genetic stock, and then

[26:04] they notice he has gills.

[26:05] He's a MUTO, and they try to lynch him, but the sheriff of the Atoll, who thinks he's

[26:09] the hero of the movie, but the movie is going to ignore him for vast swaths of it.

[26:14] They lock him up.

[26:16] Sheriff locks up Kevin Costner in a cage.

[26:19] And now here's a scene, I don't know if you guys saw, where the townspeople are debating

[26:22] what to do with him and whether to kill him or not, and they found all these devices on

[26:26] his ship that they assume are weapons.

[26:28] It's like a yo-yo and like a Thighmaster, and they're like, these are clearly torture

[26:32] devices.

[26:33] And it's kind of a dumb joke about how they misunderstand what these artifacts are.

[26:38] And Helen comes in, she says, our way of life is, are dying, there used to be all these

[26:42] other Atolls, we don't hear from them anymore, what's going on, we have fewer supplies.

[26:46] So a theme in this one that I think is not quite there in the theatrical is that mankind

[26:51] is doing the same thing over again.

[26:54] It's a new civilization that's still based on overconsumption and still not based on

[26:58] sustainability.

[26:59] And so it's entered this cycle of, and it's something the Deacon complains about later

[27:03] as I'll talk about.

[27:04] Like they've entered the cycle again of destroying their world around them.

[27:08] And it's an interesting theme that I feel like is not, even in the extended one, it's

[27:12] not quite super gracefully done, but it's an interesting way for them to bring it in.

[27:16] But we don't have time for that because we're getting introduced to maybe the most annoying

[27:20] character in the movie possibly, Gregor, played by Michael Jeter, who normally I love, who's

[27:25] kind of like a kooky, forgetful scientist, who's like Helen's surrogate father, you

[27:29] know?

[27:30] Elliot, have you ever seen Michael Jeter on stage?

[27:33] I've seen, the only thing I've seen of him on stage is the performance he did at the

[27:37] Tony's when he won for Grand Hotel.

[27:40] Okay.

[27:41] That counts.

[27:42] I think my affection for him, I don't know, I didn't find this guy, I mean, he's basically,

[27:48] this is basically like him and the Fisher King, but a little bit magnified.

[27:51] It is, but I think you're missing a lot of, in this version of it, the one I watched,

[27:55] there's a lot of him kind of bumbling around and knocking things over and going, oh, but

[27:58] where's this?

[27:59] Oh, but I lost it.

[28:00] Oh.

[28:01] And I'm like, a little of this goes a long way.

[28:02] A little.

[28:03] I had to look where he was born and where he grew up and it says Tennessee.

[28:08] And I don't think it's from the same world as grew from Despicable Me, which is essentially

[28:13] what his accent is in this movie.

[28:15] Yeah.

[28:16] There's no reason for him to have that accent.

[28:18] It doesn't make any sense to me what, like Dennis Hopper has a heavy Southern accent

[28:21] in this.

[28:22] Like they all have different accents.

[28:23] Like Kevin Costner has this weird accent that comes and goes throughout the movie.

[28:26] And he goes Southern every once in a while too.

[28:29] Yeah.

[28:30] And it's like, why?

[28:31] I don't understand why these accents, like, that's not how accents work that like, why

[28:33] are they genetically, you know, inherited accents that Gregor is from it?

[28:38] Like, because it's from Eastern European stock, I guess he has this kind of like grew accent,

[28:42] but anyway.

[28:44] But Gregor goes and talks to him.

[28:46] The Mariner, this is when we see the Mariner has webbed feet.

[28:49] They're not like super webbed.

[28:50] I don't know how much they'd actually help you in the water, but they're kind of webby.

[28:54] I've seen better.

[28:55] Yeah.

[28:56] Yeah.

[28:57] On frogs.

[28:58] On frogs.

[28:59] Anyway, next morning.

[29:00] It's Mutant Jr.

[29:01] And these, these feet, because they, you know, the prosthetics, they tried to, you know,

[29:04] limit the number of times that he would have to go through that prosthetic.

[29:09] Because you know, we're working on the water, working on sun, out in the sun.

[29:14] These things look beautiful once they were applied, apparently.

[29:17] And the minute Kostner stood up, they started to crack and break apart.

[29:23] So pretty much every shot that you see it in has digital augmentation to make it look

[29:29] less janky.

[29:30] Really?

[29:31] Which is.

[29:32] Yeah.

[29:33] And then a lot of the wide shots, they just gave up.

[29:35] It's a don't forget about it.

[29:36] We're not, we're not even going to see it.

[29:37] Do the appliance.

[29:38] Yeah.

[29:39] That's interesting.

[29:40] Because it certainly didn't, it didn't look digitally to me.

[29:44] And so much of this movie is.

[29:45] It's good work.

[29:46] Yeah.

[29:47] And so much of the movie feels real is the other thing.

[29:49] Like watching this, it was like, oh yeah, it really feels like they built these sets.

[29:52] Like it really felt like they were in these places.

[29:54] Yeah.

[29:55] You were texting me the whole time.

[29:56] You're like, this is so much better than all this CGI garbage we get these days.

[30:00] I was like, this is why practical effects are the best.

[30:03] This is why, this is why in Iron Man, when he's walking around in a real practical costume,

[30:08] that's when he's the best.

[30:10] It's not CGI.

[30:11] Making Todd mad.

[30:12] Yeah, no, not at all.

[30:14] No, I mean, the story behind the production of, like, some of the sets were, was, is quite amazing.

[30:21] It's a, it's a, like, technological and engineering achievement.

[30:24] They had to build, I mean, they basically build giant boats and that's what the set was.

[30:30] And they tried their best to put it out on the open water so they would have, not, not a 360 view.

[30:35] They were never in, like, in truly open water, but like a 270 degree angle field of view.

[30:40] So they could see the atoll and then see the horizon and pan and have a lot of freedom to shoot.

[30:47] But what that requires is then they basically made boats and, and, and then assembled them out on the water.

[30:55] And these were all, like, had to be actual maritime, like, compliant pieces of equipment.

[31:01] Like, whenever they would, I mean, everything on the set had to be super light because the buoyancy would get all messed up.

[31:08] And, and they had all these readings so that every time more people or equipment went on it,

[31:13] they had to change it on the fly.

[31:15] They adjusted the buoyancy of it so that it wouldn't sink.

[31:18] I mean, it's crazy.

[31:20] Can't imagine why this movie cost so much.

[31:22] We should say, in general, like, for maybe those who don't, like, read as much about this or aren't in the business,

[31:29] like, shooting on water is notoriously difficult.

[31:33] Like, Jaws, like, Steven Spielberg, you know, like, advised against Waterworld because of Jaws.

[31:41] You know, like, there are all these problems with Titanic and stuff.

[31:46] You read about the experiences they had during Jaws, which were very difficult.

[31:50] And they're using real boats that look like modern boats at the time.

[31:53] They, like, Waterworld is using, is making, like, made-up sea cities, you know, and things like that.

[31:59] It's really astounding.

[32:00] Like, the engineering that went into it must have been phenomenal.

[32:03] But, uh-oh, is the mariner going to get to enjoy that?

[32:06] Because the next morning, the townspeople have sentenced him to immediate execution

[32:09] by being lowered into a pool of algae or something that's going to recycle him into his component parts.

[32:14] Seems like a mistake if he's a Muto.

[32:16] Yeah, but they're stopped by an attack from the Smokers, led by their king, Deacon, played by Dennis Hopper.

[32:22] And there's a big battle. There's lots of cool stunts in this.

[32:25] This is a very aqua Mad Max, where instead of cars, it's jet skis and boats.

[32:29] This is basically the Waterworld stunt show.

[32:33] You can see Universal Studios.

[32:35] Like, a lot of the, even some of the story beats are the same.

[32:38] Like, they mash it up a little bit.

[32:40] But, like, that stunt show is really a highlight of Universal Studios.

[32:45] And, uh, yeah, it's great.

[32:47] Now, do they have the part where a plane is leading water skiers?

[32:54] Because I was like, this is the most amazing shit.

[32:56] Yeah, I think they do.

[32:57] I think they do, yeah.

[32:58] There's definitely a plane in the stunt show, right?

[33:00] I love the idea that this band of pirates have so much style that they're like,

[33:07] we're going to come in, what we're going to do is we're going to ramp some water skiers

[33:12] that are going to be led by a prop plane over the fucking wall.

[33:16] Yeah, they're going to build boats that have ramps that go into the water so their ski-dos or whatever

[33:22] and skiers can fly over the walls.

[33:25] I love how we're supposed to see, like, jet skis as intimidating pieces of equipment.

[33:30] And we're already, okay, we're just trying to swallow that down.

[33:32] And then all of a sudden you see this close-up of four guys on water skis.

[33:37] You don't even know what they're being pulled by.

[33:39] It's like, these guys are water skis, alright?

[33:42] Okay, they're coming to kill.

[33:44] And then the camera pulls out and it's a plane pulling them.

[33:49] Which, it's like, this is the goofy, you know, nature of this movie.

[33:54] It's a plane pulling guys on water skis.

[33:57] And one technical note, I want to say that pretty much any time you see a cable or a wire in this movie,

[34:03] what they did was they tried to, they had cables and wires on the set doing all this stuff,

[34:12] but they could never achieve the attention and safety concerns that would be required.

[34:17] So pretty much every wire you see is a digital wire,

[34:21] and every wire that was there has been digitally erased.

[34:24] Because the plane, they tried to have a plane drag those water skiers, and it wouldn't work.

[34:31] Because of the power that was required, the plane couldn't handle it.

[34:35] So it's a helicopter that's actually dragging them.

[34:38] The plane is there, but the cables attached to the helicopter have all been painted out.

[34:43] And new wires have been added between the water skiers and the plane.

[34:48] And that continues throughout the rest of the movie.

[34:52] And you don't even think about it. It's great work.

[34:55] That's a lot of work to put in for the idea of a plane pulling water skiing pirates.

[35:02] Now I'm mad. Now I agree with Entertainment Weekly and Premiere. Too much.

[35:07] So Gregor, he has an airship that he's made. He accidentally escapes in it.

[35:12] It's like a hot air balloon that never runs out of hot air.

[35:15] He's just floating in it for the rest of his life it seems.

[35:18] Just for months afterwards.

[35:20] He shows up forever and he's always got it.

[35:22] He accidentally escapes. It's a real Wizard of Oz situation.

[35:25] I don't know how it works. I can't come back.

[35:27] Before Helen and Enola can join him. Enola's a little girl again.

[35:30] Helen frees the mariner from his cage.

[35:32] He's desperately trying to unlock it as if he's worried about drowning even though he has gills.

[35:37] I guess it's the algae that's going to eat him away.

[35:39] It's like sloth.

[35:41] I mean they show a dead body being lowered into it earlier in the movie.

[35:45] And so it's like it must be really gross and maybe it'll clog up his gills.

[35:48] Yeah, that's true. It might clog it. That's a good point.

[35:50] She says, I'll free you if you help us escape.

[35:52] Lots of stunts, lots of danger.

[35:54] They manage to trick the bad guys into blowing up the deacon's boat and they leave.

[35:58] And the deacon has survived, but he lost an eye in the battle.

[36:02] And there's a scene here. I don't know if it's in theatrical one.

[36:04] Where he's walking around the atoll with his accountant who's a guy in a top hat and a leather vest and glasses and a big book.

[36:10] And he's like, what stuff have we got?

[36:12] And he's like, well, there's some of this, but there's no weapons.

[36:14] There's none of this. There's no go juice, which is what they call oil.

[36:17] And the deacon is like, there used to be more stuff.

[36:20] Like there used to be more atolls with more stuff on them.

[36:22] Like we don't get any good stuff anymore.

[36:24] And we learn they're looking for the girl with the map on her back.

[36:27] And deacon gives a sermon about how God didn't mean for man and fish to become one.

[36:32] And this fish man is a blasphemy and they've got to destroy him.

[36:35] Well, no, that would have set up the idea of deacon.

[36:41] Like I didn't.

[36:43] In the theatrical one, you don't know why he's called deacon.

[36:45] Exactly. Like, well, at the towards the end, he gives like a sermon.

[36:49] But it's the first time anything like that has happened.

[36:52] So like this idea of him is this sort of quasi religious leader.

[36:57] You completely went over my head until I get like at the end.

[37:00] I'm like, I guess he's like, that's what he is.

[37:02] But it's not there.

[37:05] So meanwhile, the mariner, he's with the with the ladies on his boat.

[37:09] He's pretty grumpy and he's like, my boat's in bad shape.

[37:11] It's broken. It's not good.

[37:13] I don't have enough hydro for all three of you.

[37:14] We should just throw a Nola overboard.

[37:16] And this is when in a in a moment that was heavily hyped in the trailers.

[37:21] Jean Triple Horn takes her clothes off and offers to have sex with them in exchange for their lives.

[37:25] 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 an oar.

[37:32] Just nails her. It's very.

[37:34] Yeah, yeah.

[37:36] He is he's he's almost a little too rough.

[37:41] Well, and I think that's what I think.

[37:43] I mean, I think in the movie is like it's true.

[37:46] He is he is a he's they do a really good job of making him into a surly, not likable guy in these first sections of the movie.

[37:54] Like he doesn't like anybody is mean.

[37:57] You know, that's going to change because it's a movie.

[37:59] But the but the it's never quite as bad as it could be because Kevin Costner's performance is a little like not all the way there.

[38:08] I feel like it's especially for a guy who made multiple post-apocalyptic movies.

[38:12] He never seems to be quite post-apocalyptic enough.

[38:15] No, that's the thing.

[38:16] He just seems like kind of like a comfortable California guy.

[38:19] Like, you know, he works best.

[38:22] He's got a little like a little like a ponytail thing.

[38:26] I mean, he he works best not in period things.

[38:32] I think he was Robin Hood, Dan.

[38:35] He was the most widely decried part of Robin Hood, even though that was a big success.

[38:44] Like, I like Costner, but I do think he has a very specific range that he operates best in.

[38:50] And here, yeah, he doesn't ever seem like he's got maybe the edge that the movie would want him to.

[38:59] I also think he's yeah.

[39:02] I also think for me, the biggest problem with the movie is these wide tonal shifts where every everything else in the movie is pretty bright and wide eyed and characters with very broad.

[39:16] And, you know, like with the villain at the end of the movie saying, you know, I don't know where we're going.

[39:21] This is all horse shit.

[39:23] As opposed to, say, like a Fury Road where, you know, Morton Joe is like full of shit.

[39:28] But he never comes right out and say, I don't know anything about anything.

[39:32] But Kevin Costner's Mariner, he's in a different movie.

[39:36] It's ultra serious, ultra cruel.

[39:39] And there's more cruelty to come.

[39:41] It doesn't fit like even the music is like extremely heroic.

[39:47] You know, very by the end of the by the end of the movie, it is almost cartoonishly heroic.

[39:52] And it's like, what movie were we watching?

[39:54] Well, and that was also a thing, you know, from behind the scenes.

[39:57] Apparently, like there was a much darker.

[40:00] uh, score that was thrown out and then a new one was written very quickly.

[40:04] So, uh, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, right?

[40:07] Yeah.

[40:08] Yeah.

[40:09] Yeah.

[40:10] Uh, Giorgio Moroder.

[40:11] Oh, I would have loved that.

[40:13] That'd be amazing.

[40:14] Get some synths on this.

[40:16] Fantastic.

[40:17] Uh, so Deacon, he's back at the tanker ship that he calls home.

[40:20] He's in a big tanker ship and he's trying on a pretty bad looking fake guy.

[40:23] I remember this so well from seeing it with theaters and how funny it is.

[40:26] This kind of poorly, this really unconvincing fake guy that he throws away.

[40:29] Uh, and he gets in an old car and drives it through the tanker.

[40:33] That's how huge it is.

[40:34] He's got to go talk to an old man, played by-

[40:36] But wait, hold on.

[40:37] When he gets in the car, what music do they play?

[40:40] Some jazzy version of Peter Gunn theme?

[40:42] Yes.

[40:43] Yes.

[40:44] They're playing the Peter Gunn theme.

[40:45] What is this movie?

[40:46] I mean, to say a jazzy version of the Peter Gunn theme is redundant.

[40:48] It's a very jazzy theme.

[40:49] Yeah.

[40:50] Yeah.

[40:51] It is a song that makes no sense in that moment.

[40:52] I don't know if it's supposed to be diegetic, that this is the music he plays when he's

[40:56] driving around.

[40:57] Like, it's a weird choice.

[40:58] It's very weird.

[40:59] It's very, very the kind of music King Koopa would listen to while being driven around.

[41:04] I mean, I will say Dennis Hopper, you know, he gives his best like, like B grade Jack

[41:10] Nicholson is the Joker performance here right now.

[41:12] Oh yeah.

[41:13] I mean, Dennis Hopper's having fun with it, it seems, or at least pretending to have fun

[41:15] with it.

[41:16] Like he's, I feel like he's doing fine in it.

[41:17] Yeah.

[41:18] I feel like he had great success with speed as the villain and he's just kind of continuing.

[41:23] He's like, he was, he's put his whole, whole heart into this.

[41:27] One thing about the tanker, they don't reveal that it's a tanker.

[41:30] It's just some place.

[41:31] It's just a big place.

[41:32] That's true.

[41:33] I think they were like, oh man, the audiences are going to go fucking apeshit when they

[41:38] see that it's the Exxon Valdez.

[41:40] And it's like, even back then, I remember like, oh, okay, it's the Exxon Valdez.

[41:47] They just keep calling it the D's over and over.

[41:49] I'm like, is this like a D's nuts bit?

[41:52] Yeah.

[41:53] It's, it was named after their patrons saying Eddie Deason, I guess, uh, that was such a

[41:56] specific, uh, event at a specific time too, that I feel like it had been like referenced

[42:02] so much that probably at the time you're like, oh great.

[42:04] And I got the Exxon Valdez reference and now people watching it probably are like, what?

[42:09] And in the extended cut, there's a scene where earlier in the movie, Dennis Hopper walks

[42:14] past a portrait of the captain of the Exxon Valdez and it says captain and his name under

[42:18] it.

[42:19] And he goes, and he's like, I, St. St. Joe or whatever, you know, watch over.

[42:22] We do have that.

[42:23] I saw that.

[42:24] But it's one of the things where it's like, it's very weird to have a, such a topical

[42:28] reference in a movie set in a post-apocalyptic future, but also about a ship that famously

[42:33] sunk like that leaked and, and, or like didn't sink all the way, I guess, but like, it's,

[42:38] it's not like this was, it's like if they, if they were real, they were in the Titanic

[42:41] and it's like, you mean a ship that is not seaworthy?

[42:44] Right.

[42:45] Like what they, they had to put a lot of work into making it anyway.

[42:47] Then also oil tankers, they deteriorate real fast.

[42:50] Like there's no way one would last as long, but I want to say is he, he's trying to find

[42:53] out how much oil they have.

[42:54] And it turns out they only have two months left.

[42:55] They learn that it's called go juice.

[42:57] They learn that from talking to an old man who his whole job is he sits in a row boat

[43:01] in the tank where with the, on top of the oil and tells them.

[43:04] And I was like, is that Carl Oldie Olson from late night with Conan O'Brien?

[43:08] Yes, it was.

[43:10] Carl.

[43:11] Oh, that's awesome.

[43:12] I love that shit.

[43:13] Like I love that there's a weird dude in the tank.

[43:17] Yeah.

[43:18] It's the most mad maxi.

[43:20] In a good way.

[43:21] Yeah.

[43:22] And he has one of the best lines in the movie later in the movie.

[43:24] I think.

[43:26] But he's, that is, that's a good detail in there.

[43:28] Either where it's a good weird thing where it's like, and he just is in the dark all

[43:30] the time because he can't light anything because the oil will go up.

[43:32] So, but I don't know how he knows there's two months left, I guess by what, how close

[43:36] he is to the roof of the tank.

[43:37] Anyway.

[43:38] Um, so then we see, and I, let me know if this stuff is in the, in the shorter version.

[43:43] Uh, we, we're back on the catamaran.

[43:44] Helen is going without water.

[43:46] So Nola can have some and Nola tries to thank them.

[43:48] She goes, she goes up to the martyrs.

[43:49] She goes, thank you for not killing us.

[43:51] And he doesn't want to talk to her.

[43:52] And she gives him a kiss on the cheek and he shoves her away and runs to the other side

[43:55] of the boat.

[43:56] And she found, and it was one of these moments where it was like, Oh, this guy is not just

[44:01] a mean guy.

[44:02] He's like, he, he does not, he cannot handle emotion like he does not understand human

[44:06] closeness.

[44:08] And so, and, uh, she finds some crayons on the boat and he gets really mad that she's

[44:11] drawing all over his boat.

[44:13] So he throws her overboard and then helps Helen to save her.

[44:16] Yeah.

[44:17] That's, that's in it.

[44:18] That's in there going overboard.

[44:19] And that, that's the kind of like part where I'm like, wow, movie going for a little girl

[44:26] into the open.

[44:27] Yeah.

[44:28] Yeah.

[44:29] He does turn around and pick them up, but he said, push a small child into the ocean.

[44:34] And I think that scene, it has more depth to it.

[44:37] Having seen him, having seen that girl try to be close to him and him not be able to

[44:42] handle it as opposed to just, I'm mad as opposed to just being like, when I was single, I could

[44:46] do whatever I wanted, but now I've got a lady and a kid get him out of here.

[44:49] That's exactly how it reads in the theatrical.

[44:51] Yeah.

[44:52] So they get attacked by the smokers, antique fighter plane, and in the fight, Helen manages

[44:56] to damage the boat with some bad harpooning and the Mariner angrily chops off her hair

[45:01] in retaliation with a big knife.

[45:03] That's a pretty good stunt where he like climbs to the very top.

[45:06] And then when the tension releases, it like flings him into the ocean.

[45:09] I thought that was kind of cool.

[45:10] Yeah.

[45:11] Awesome.

[45:12] It's great.

[45:13] The stunts in this are great.

[45:14] Like that's, you know, uh, later, uh, he eats a, I'll, I'll, I'll give you a production

[45:18] note about the plane, uh, piloted by, uh, none other than Jack Black.

[45:23] Um, that is, yeah, yeah.

[45:26] It's a pretty cool gag how they're wrapping the cable around the, the, the, the Mariners

[45:31] boat.

[45:32] Um, and, uh, so, but that's, that would be extremely dangerous to do out in the open

[45:38] water.

[45:39] They, they couldn't, they couldn't get that tied up so that for, for framing and for timing

[45:43] for, to give the camera operators something to frame, they did a version of that with

[45:46] a helicopter and they framed helicopter in frame, uh, spinning around and doing the thing.

[45:53] And the helicopter was painted out and a plane was added in its place.

[45:57] And it looks good.

[45:58] It doesn't look bad.

[45:59] All these helicopters doing plane jobs, you know?

[46:02] Yeah.

[46:03] Oh, there's some background work later in the movie that looks not very good, but all

[46:07] this stuff looks really good.

[46:09] Um, the, uh, so they, uh, oh yes, they get attacked.

[46:13] Uh, there's a scene that I have to assume is not in the theatrical cut where the Mariner

[46:17] eats a cherry tomato off of this little tomato plane he has, and he cuts it up into little

[46:20] pieces and he's eating the pieces one by one as Helen and Enola look on it and he does

[46:24] not share with them.

[46:25] He like makes such a real show of not sharing this tomato with them.

[46:29] Um, does he eat it all gross?

[46:31] Like that Lord of the Rings guy, you know, I mean, normal, how you eat cherry tomatoes,

[46:37] dude.

[46:38] Yeah.

[46:39] With maximum squish.

[46:40] Yeah.

[46:41] Yeah.

[46:42] Uh, they stop and meet a Manic Drifter played by Kim Coates, who, uh, is a real Terry Gilliam

[46:47] esque.

[46:48] Kim Coates is great in this.

[46:49] He's it, but it's, it's like, he's, he's really doing this again, putting us all into it,

[46:52] but it's a real kind of George Miller, Terry Gilliam type character.

[46:54] So I'm just constantly jabbering to themselves and, you know, and, uh, he, well, he has real

[46:58] paper and he wants to trade it for Helen and Enola, but Kevin Costner only agrees to trade

[47:02] Helen to him for 30 minutes.

[47:03] Uh, then he thinks of, he thinks, uh, has a second thoughts about it and says, deals

[47:08] off.

[47:09] They have a duel for a moment.

[47:10] You think that the drifter has won, which would be a strange way for the movie to turn

[47:14] when there's a lot of it left, but no, he hasn't killed this drifter.

[47:17] I feel like that Kim Coates brings like a darkness to that performance.

[47:22] So it's not just like a silly, uh, Terry Gilliam character.

[47:26] There's like a grounded, like, Oh no, this guy will kill us.

[47:30] Yeah.

[47:31] Yeah.

[47:32] This guy, this is a, this is a dangerous, unstable person.

[47:33] Uh, I agree.

[47:34] Late.

[47:35] Uh, so later on, Helen is berating the Mariner.

[47:36] She's like, we need food.

[47:38] Where's the food?

[47:39] And so he jumps into the water and use himself as bait to catch an enormous fish monster,

[47:43] which they then cook.

[47:44] And that's a bit, I also remember very well from the movie, from seeing the theater was

[47:47] like him jumping in and this huge thing, swallowing him and then him like, and that was, uh, they

[47:51] got a real fish to, they got a real giant prehistoric fish monster, real mutant fish

[47:55] monster.

[47:56] They had to breed it.

[47:57] That's the hard thing.

[47:58] Who, which fish naturally eats Kevin Costner.

[48:01] Yeah.

[48:02] They got that one.

[48:03] Yeah.

[48:04] And Kevin Costner's doctor was like, I told you to stay away from this fish.

[48:06] Yeah.

[48:07] Uh, and so there's a scene here now where Helen, uh, she hears music and she goes over

[48:13] and the Mariner is listening to some kind of very saxophone heavy jazz on some sort

[48:17] of wind powered CD player is that this is not the theatrical cut, right?

[48:20] No, no, no.

[48:21] He has like a little CD player that's powered by fans and he's listening to jazz music and

[48:26] it's crazy.

[48:27] I think a lot of musicians are powered by their fans.

[48:29] Good points.

[48:30] Good point.

[48:31] It's the power of the audience that keeps them going.

[48:34] Yeah.

[48:35] Certainly Metallica is, you know, um, and a lot of jazz is breezy.

[48:39] Uh, yeah.

[48:41] The idea that he has, as we later learn, he's getting his relics from the bottom of the

[48:44] ocean that he went down the bottom of the ocean, found a functioning CD player that

[48:47] he gets.

[48:48] He just dried out.

[48:49] Wind retrofitted CD player.

[48:50] That didn't get any dirt in it, I guess.

[48:53] He put it in a Ziploc bag with some uncooked rice.

[48:55] It was fun.

[48:56] That's possible.

[48:57] Yeah.

[48:58] Have you guys ever read the book Lucifer's Hammer?

[48:59] Uh, it's about an asteroid is about to hit the earth.

[49:02] And this guy is like, uh, this area is going to get floated.

[49:05] What books that I own do I need to save?

[49:06] And he's double Ziploc bagging science texts and great works of literature so that hopefully

[49:12] they'll survive getting waterlogged.

[49:13] Maybe that happened.

[49:14] Somebody did that with their disc man when they saw the floodwaters rising.

[49:18] I have to preserve the Empire Records soundtrack for future generations.

[49:23] I have to preserve William Shatner's Tech World or Tech Wars.

[49:26] Tech Wars?

[49:27] Book on tape?

[49:28] Oh no, but it's only volume two.

[49:29] I don't know how it got to be a tech war.

[49:33] So she tells how Enola was a foundling whose basket drifted into the atoll.

[49:38] And she said, and she got permission to raise Enola, but she was not allowed to have her

[49:43] own children because resources are so limited.

[49:45] They said, you can never have children, but you can raise this one.

[49:47] And the Mariners, and she's like, do you have any friends?

[49:50] The Mariners like, yeah, I got this boat.

[49:51] That's my friend.

[49:52] And Helen goes, that's pitiful.

[49:53] I pity you.

[49:54] And I don't, I don't remember any of this and Helen some chalk for Nolan.

[49:58] He goes, I'm not giving it to her.

[50:00] borrow. Anyway, so that's all. It's a lot of the scenes that were about building up

[50:03] their characters as often happens in these movies gets cut out.

[50:05] I remember the borrowing part. Okay. Yeah, there's a bit when he's trying to cut the

[50:12] plane loose when it's wrapping the cable around the mast, where he gets way up top at the

[50:18] top of the mast and he finds a bunch of little cartoons that Enola's drawn. I think that's

[50:22] a good touch. Like, it's a good bit. Yeah. And I understand. I don't like it when my

[50:26] kids draw on the walls of my house, and they're my kids. The idea that like someone else will

[50:30] come in. So we're recording this after we did our shows at Vidiots in Los Angeles, which

[50:36] will someday be public viewable. We don't know when. And I forgot that in Three Men

[50:40] and a Baby, one of the movies we watched, that Steve Guttenberg, his whole deal is he's

[50:43] painting this huge mural of him and the other stars of the movie on the inside of their

[50:48] apartment building. And it's like this little girl is just doing what Steve Guttenberg's

[50:50] doing, just drawing pictures of herself all over the walls of this house or this boat.

[50:54] The next day, so Enola hasn't mentioned she can't swim. And the next day, the mariner

[50:57] takes her for a swimming lesson, and she loves it. But unfortunately, the smokers ambush

[51:01] them using a combination of an island where they've strung up dead men like puppets. They

[51:07] seem to be waving and saying, come on over. Like those, the cats inside of...

[51:11] And singing, come on over, come on over, baby. Yeah, exactly. The cats in Chinese restaurants

[51:16] that are just waving you in to come in and enjoy it. And some underwater jet skiers.

[51:21] The image of them wading underwater is very silly to me. They're underwater on their jet

[51:25] skis. And not just the image, but it's like he

[51:28] uses his periscope, underwater scope, and he's looking and he's panning around, he's

[51:33] open water, and then he pans past the jet skis and he comes back, he does a little double

[51:38] take. Yeah, it's a real Looney Tunes move, yeah.

[51:42] I have one production note when he was teaching Enola how to swim. A lot of that is Costner,

[51:49] amazing underwater photography in this movie. But for him to be able to do all those moves,

[51:53] he couldn't do those without real flippers. So he has real flippers on, and those were

[52:00] all digitally painted out, and then they had to put CG versions of his feet on his feet,

[52:06] so you don't notice that. So if you do a Google search for Kevin Costner

[52:11] feet CGI, you are going to find something for anyone who's into that.

[52:14] Just stop at feet, it's good at feet. Lots of really good stuff there.

[52:18] But the reason I bring it up is that that would be, with today's technology and the

[52:25] way we do things, that is trivial. That would not even be mentioned in any articles or anything.

[52:30] We would do it for like 40, 50 shots, an augmentation of somebody's body part,

[52:35] or they had to get rid of a prop or something like that.

[52:37] It was a really big deal back then. And to remove Henry Cavill's mustache, yeah.

[52:40] Exactly. But this was a huge deal, even for a handful of shots, and nobody,

[52:45] nobody looks at that scene and thinks about it at all, which is cool.

[52:48] Todd, you weren't on Henry Cavill mustache removal duty, right?

[52:51] No, no, I was not. What a crazy story, huh?

[52:56] And then you watch Mission Impossible, and you're like, yeah, that mustache, yeah, totally.

[53:03] All those people who had to do that work, at least they got paid to do it. And it's like,

[53:06] they could have added 40 million more dollars to Justice League's budget,

[53:09] and it would have been worth it for him to wear that mustache in Mission Impossible.

[53:13] How much higher quality I think Mission Impossible is than the Justice League movie.

[53:16] They should have just left the mustache in.

[53:18] They should have just had Superman with a mustache, why not?

[53:20] Superman should have woken up with a fucking mustache.

[53:22] Yeah, and then he shaves it by shooting his lasers off a mirror, you know, like he does in the comics.

[53:27] Shakes his hand at the clouds and say, Mr. Mitzapitalik, you did it again, you imp.

[53:35] You know, and that's the excuse.

[53:37] I think you're thinking of Mr. Mustache Pitalik, the mustache-based imp who would bedevil Superman.

[53:44] You're not saying, you don't think that he would, you know, if Superman was asleep,

[53:47] he'd come in and slap a mustache on him.

[53:49] I do know that, yeah.

[53:50] Yeah, draw a penis on his head, sure, yeah.

[53:52] He seems kind of low rent for Mr. Mitzapitalik.

[53:54] He is a fifth dimensional imp with superpowers, but yeah, okay.

[53:58] Sometimes the simplest is the best, you know.

[54:00] Simple pleasures, you know.

[54:01] Exactly.

[54:02] Putting a mustache on a man who didn't have one.

[54:04] Putting a mustache on a sleeping man or eating a cherry tomato in front of two people who don't

[54:09] get to heaven.

[54:10] Mr. Mitzapitalik can put a mustache on Superman.

[54:12] Look, if that kid can grow leaves on his ankles, then Mr. Mitzapitalik can put a mustache on

[54:15] Superman, yeah.

[54:16] Anyway, the smokers attack, the mariners hurt in the escape, and Helen tells, she goes,

[54:26] Enola's map is for dry land, and he goes, dry land's a myth.

[54:29] There's no such thing.

[54:30] I've gone farther out than anybody else and I've never seen it.

[54:33] And she's like, so where'd you get your dirt and all your cool stuff?

[54:36] And he puts her in kind of like-

[54:36] Where'd you get your dirt, dude?

[54:38] Where'd you get your dirt, dude?

[54:40] And he puts her, Helen, in kind of a glass and canvas diving bell and takes her down

[54:43] underwater, and this is the big reveal where we see the ruins of these sunken cities.

[54:48] There's skyscrapers everywhere, and it's a real whole new world, you know, moment.

[54:55] It's Denver.

[54:56] Is it Denver?

[54:57] I was trying to identify the city and I couldn't.

[55:00] Denver landmarks, there's like a Denver National Bank or whatever in there, and then it ends

[55:04] with the-

[55:04] All the iconic global landmarks.

[55:07] Your version didn't have them eating an omelet and being like, oh, what is this unique combination

[55:12] of flavors?

[55:12] That they just found under there, yeah.

[55:14] In the bubble.

[55:15] We see Hallie's skeleton wave to them as they go by, Denver native.

[55:19] It's like, ironically, we saw her as it goes, kind of?

[55:23] Yeah, but you're saying tied in the last shot.

[55:26] It ties in the ski lift that you see, ties in with the ski boots from earlier, so they're in

[55:32] that general vicinity.

[55:34] I like that a lot of these shots, the city ruins are kind of underlit, so I'm like, oh, wow,

[55:41] somebody really lit up this joint before those flares are really doing their work.

[55:46] Super visible.

[55:48] You gotta be able to see this stuff.

[55:51] Honestly, it's an art direction nightmare.

[55:53] It's supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean, but you gotta be able to see this stuff.

[55:57] And how do you do that?

[55:57] Well, you have to artfully, you know, figure out a way to indicate depth for these.

[56:02] And this was all miniatures.

[56:05] They were huge.

[56:08] Well, which was it, Vaziri?

[56:09] Were they miniatures or were they huge?

[56:11] They were, keep your story straight.

[56:13] They were jumbo shrimp, all right?

[56:16] Aliens, ace attorney, arm out.

[56:20] It's like how in the making of the Lord of the Rings, they referred to some of these

[56:23] cities as bigatures.

[56:25] Bigatures, exactly.

[56:26] Miniatures.

[56:27] I mean, at 1 24th scale, the skyscraper is still pretty big.

[56:32] The tower of Orthanc still towers over mere humans.

[56:37] And they shot it not underwater.

[56:39] They shot those miniatures dry for wet, which is just a way you have to smoke up the stage

[56:45] and maintain consistent smoke and film your passes that way.

[56:49] And it gives the impression of underwater.

[56:53] But the actors who were, you know, Costner and holding the flare and everything, they

[56:58] were shot underwater blue screen, which is very difficult and painstaking.

[57:03] They didn't shrink the actors.

[57:08] To put them on the bigatures.

[57:09] Yeah, would that cost more or less?

[57:11] I think that would have added a little to the budget.

[57:13] Yeah, and the insurance costs.

[57:14] Costner's contract says no shrinking.

[57:17] If the enlarging doesn't work, then the insurance costs are considerable.

[57:21] Yeah, it's like the story about Born on the Fourth of July, where Oliver Stone was like,

[57:25] well, Tom Cruise, I want to inject you with a serum that will paralyze your legs for two

[57:28] days.

[57:29] And Tom Cruise was like, let's do it.

[57:31] And the producers were like, we cannot pay the insurance bills if you do that.

[57:35] We were paralyzed.

[57:36] That's what I heard.

[57:37] Yeah, that's what I read.

[57:38] Yeah.

[57:40] And that Tom Cruise at that time was like, go for it.

[57:42] This is my chance to prove I'm a real actor.

[57:43] I'll have my legs paralyzed.

[57:45] It'll prove I'm a real actor.

[57:46] If instead of acting like my legs don't work, you will inject me with something that will

[57:50] make it actually not happen.

[57:52] It's in that post Raging Bull era.

[57:53] Everyone was all about body mod.

[57:55] Anyway, so they see the Sunken City when they surface.

[57:58] Surprise, surprise, the smokers are on the boat.

[58:00] Why did they think that was a good time to go on a date in the city?

[58:04] They didn't even get a sitter.

[58:05] And Enola gets kidnapped.

[58:07] The adults escape by jumping into the water and kissing so that the mariner can gill breathe

[58:11] for both of them, which is not really how breathing works.

[58:14] Carbon dioxide doesn't work.

[58:19] But he goes, I'll breathe for both of them.

[58:21] Both of us.

[58:21] It reminded me of that Roger Moore.

[58:23] I think it was a view to a kill where he's in a car that gets the bad guys sunk at underwater.

[58:29] And in order to act like he's dead, he he opens up the tire pressure of the tires and

[58:34] he he grabs the air out of the tires.

[58:37] I don't think that would work either.

[58:39] No, probably not.

[58:40] Probably not.

[58:41] And the smokers burn the boat and they take Enola.

[58:44] Now we're back on the smokers.

[58:45] Big city, you know, wink, wink.

[58:47] We don't know it's a tanker yet.

[58:48] And the deacon is trying to get Enola to tell him where dry land is.

[58:51] And she is fully little girl in an action movie.

[58:54] Now she's like, the mariner is going to come get me.

[58:56] He's going to kill all of you.

[58:57] You're all going to die now.

[58:58] And later on, she has a line that I love where she goes, they go, what is you want?

[59:01] He don't even know his name.

[59:02] And she goes, he doesn't have a name.

[59:03] So death can't find him, which I think is a great line.

[59:06] Does it make sense that death has to look in the phone book?

[59:09] I was loving that shit.

[59:10] It's a great line that, again, doesn't make sense.

[59:13] Firing my six guns in the air when she said that shit.

[59:15] That's why I'm here to pick somebody up for the afterlife.

[59:21] Oh, yeah.

[59:21] What name?

[59:22] Oh, they didn't give me a name.

[59:24] Well, then I guess you're talking about he's got gills.

[59:27] He's got gills and wet feet.

[59:30] Yeah, come on.

[59:30] He looks like the guy who was going to be in the big jail, but they cut him out.

[59:33] No, sorry.

[59:34] I don't know anyone around here.

[59:35] Sorry.

[59:36] So she's so sure of it.

[59:38] Anyway, back on the burnt wreck of the Mariner's boat.

[59:42] Is this in the theatrical cut that Helen and the Mariner make love sincerely?

[59:46] Yes.

[59:47] No.

[59:47] She's like, oh, yeah, yeah.

[59:49] She's like, why didn't you choose to go with me for it?

[59:51] And he's like, because you didn't want it.

[59:52] And she's like, well, we're all going to we're going to die.

[59:54] So do it to me now, fish man.

[59:56] And they see the making of a line.

[1:00:00] Shape of water 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

[1:00:07] This is there's a and she's despairing. She's like she's like we're gonna die here

[1:00:10] There's no way and he's like we can never give up the man fishmen never give up

[1:00:14] 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

[1:00:19] He's just been floating around for days in that thing and he takes them to a new mini atoll

[1:00:24] That's just boats lashed together the survivors from the earlier attack. There's some arguing

[1:00:29] There's some time killing in the so I know that this is different in the extended cut the Mariners steals a boat

[1:00:34] He says he goes you they go. You can't take that. He's like, well, either give it to me

[1:00:38] I'm just gonna take it. He goes back to his catamaran and he finds a drawing of palm trees that Nola drew and he compares

[1:00:45] It to a magazine picture of palm trees that he has in his

[1:00:48] That's in the movie in the movie earlier, right?

[1:00:51] Yeah, they switched it around I do some research on it

[1:00:54] But the part where he leaves is not there and when he comes back

[1:00:57] Oh, so then two smokers on jet skis show up the atoll and they're like, okay

[1:01:00] let's take everything and the Mariners leaps out of the water water kills both of them and

[1:01:06] Pete and he's like I'm gonna go back for a Nola and

[1:01:09] Gregor is like, oh he does want to find dry land and he's like this isn't about dry land

[1:01:13] That doesn't exist he takes up he takes one of the jet skis

[1:01:16] 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

[1:01:21] Ski was was trailing and he follows that back to

[1:01:25] That's kind of cool. It's a moment and that's not and I was reading up that that's not the theatrical cut

[1:01:31] So in the movie, right, you don't know how he gets a jet ski or how he finds the bad guys

[1:01:34] No, it's gonna show up. Yeah. Yeah, they cut that which I'm surprised you can just assume he has access to jet skis

[1:01:40] I

[1:01:44] That jet ski rental guy must have learned his lesson he just rented a Punisher from the Jets

[1:01:48] He's dread to know a jet ski Punisher kiss that baby. Goodbye

[1:01:58] I need a vigilante that a lot of people have mistakenly turned into a hero in their minds. Well, we have one

[1:02:04] It's the Punisher here. His name is Frank Castle

[1:02:08] So anyway, he takes that jet ski back back at the smokers place the bad guys are like

[1:02:12] It's hard to read the map on this girl's back. Let's just cut it off

[1:02:15] But they they're discussing that the Mariner sneaks on board

[1:02:19] He kills a guy with his jet ski and the other people that are in that room think it's hilarious. They're like, ah

[1:02:25] That's how tough these guys are the Deacon gives a very long speech to his followers when the Mariner sneaks around on the on there

[1:02:31] On their cityship. It takes a long time that this is where you could easily have cut it much shorter

[1:02:37] And I don't know why they didn't you know, that's a cool

[1:02:39] I think they wanted to get production value out of that set the that's possible, which is really amazing and cool. It's built

[1:02:46] Like it's it's full-scale. I mean actors are walking around it, but it's built and they didn't

[1:02:51] They did not know but it's built at the end of it is shrunk

[1:02:56] It's a little forced perspective so that it would be less. So if an actor was all the way at the back

[1:03:01] They would look huge

[1:03:03] You know one of those funhouse type things

[1:03:04] But it's a gorgeous set and they they considered doing it by the coast to get that light and they realized

[1:03:11] We're not gonna do this. I mean, we're not gonna do it there

[1:03:13] We're gonna I think they ended up shooting it like in Pasadena or something. Just an open field

[1:03:19] And then

[1:03:21] Yeah, you want the the smokers to have a future and then that's CG water all around them

[1:03:27] Oh, it's just those really shots. It all looks really good. And that what I heard

[1:03:31] I don't know if this is true

[1:03:32] What I heard was that they had planned to sink either this or the a toll set to turn it into a reef

[1:03:36] But that they use toxic paint and that so it would never be a natural reef and they had to move all of it and that

[1:03:42] Added to the cost but they're like we don't have to pay for dismantling it. We're creating a real coral reef right here

[1:03:46] We're making the oceans better. He used the paint. That is not poisonous to fish, right? Oops

[1:03:58] I thought it was sponsored by the band fishbone. I didn't realize

[1:04:02] Yeah

[1:04:04] And obviously one of the highlights of this giant set is painted in very large letters

[1:04:10] Underneath where the deacon gives a speech are the words no smoking. How ironic

[1:04:15] it's

[1:04:16] How all the cousins are smoking? They're all smoking all time. And uh, so

[1:04:21] He gives the speech he goes. Okay, everybody get this thing moving and everybody goes away

[1:04:25] and that's when the mariner shows up and starts arguing with them and at any moment the deacon be like can be could be like

[1:04:31] Uh, all the whole army of people that were standing here a moment ago

[1:04:34] Can you take care of this guy? But instead it becomes a tete-a-tete and they're all working. I guess they are working

[1:04:40] Yeah, that's the way you do it. They don't have money for nothing and chicks for free. I gotta work for a living

[1:04:44] Yeah, the the smokers rowing. I mean, come on, that's funny

[1:04:49] That they're rowing this enormous thing and the end they can't then they can't use their smoke because their lungs are bad

[1:04:53] Yeah, and cut to the deacon saying I don't know where we're going. We haven't figured it out yet. It's kind of good

[1:04:59] Yeah, the the the mariner he holds a flare over an open pipe line an open pipe

[1:05:06] That just goes straight down to the oil. They should have a cover for that. That's harder to remove

[1:05:10] That you know and he says I'll drop this in here if you don't give me an Ola and they go he's bluffing and they

[1:05:15] Just drops it in and the whole place explodes

[1:05:17] Yeah, he's really making a gamble there that what what does happen happens where it's like there's a lot of I guess blowing out

[1:05:25] Of the sides, but yeah

[1:05:27] Deck area is still intact enough that he can do his Mariners shit, you know

[1:05:32] Yeah, and that poor call deals and he just is vaporized in a ball of flame, you know

[1:05:36] Was that great the line I forgot what line is? Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. Oh, that's right

[1:05:45] He's so done with this life he didn't even ask for this. Yeah, that's why I forgot that it was oh thank God and

[1:05:50] the

[1:05:51] That that actor is super funny. I always loved him when he's on Conan O'Brien

[1:05:55] Not really understand what he was saying a lot of the time, but that was the joke

[1:05:57] Anyway, so the whole tanker blows up explosions fight fight fight and the movie gets kind of goofy from this point on it

[1:06:04] Because the action stuff gets sillier. There's a lot more the Deacon saying silly things

[1:06:10] The Deacon tries to escape in that old plane with Enola very speed to the other movie

[1:06:15] We just watched the video for the bad guy tries to escape with with a girl in the plane

[1:06:19] But now Mariner snags it with a grappling hook and it crashes. He rescues Enola

[1:06:23] He hugs her and I found that hug after the extended cut

[1:06:26] Feels very meaningful like that. Yeah, he is like that

[1:06:29] He's like this is why I came back to save you because I love you

[1:06:33] 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

[1:06:38] I imagine it doesn't have quite the same

[1:06:39] Meaning to it's just like he did it. I mean it was a terrible plan, but he did succeed

[1:06:45] Anyway, yeah

[1:06:47] I was just gonna say like every moment when every step of his plan relies on him finding what he needs right next to him

[1:06:54] Right there. Yeah, so he's like, oh an anchor great and a cable I can attach that cool slide down Wow another cable perfect

[1:07:00] This was one of those moments where I was really like, oh

[1:07:04] Action movies are predicated on the idea of people doing physical things that would only work if they were pre-planned ahead of time

[1:07:10] Like there's no way to do these things spontaneously, but but I thought you were gonna say something

[1:07:14] Well, the action that leads up to him doing the ziplining thing is the most inconsequential action in the movie

[1:07:22] At this whenever it turns I found that the older I get the less at the more action scenes just become kind of like a

[1:07:28] Stew that I he's in the belly

[1:07:31] Yeah, he's in the belly of the D's and he's just picking off guys and they think yeah

[1:07:36] And it's like their whole place is blowing up. This is another one of those things about action movies. We're like the henchmen

[1:07:42] It's like shit is going down everybody, but then they're still loyal. They've still got their eye on job

[1:07:47] And they yeah, they gotta get that guy

[1:07:49] 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

[1:07:55] Good all these cool moves and stuff totally inconsequential

[1:07:58] But when he's on the top and he zip lines down and explosions behind him

[1:08:01] I mean, that's that's a really cool stunt that Costner did himself those those close-ups of him doing it. That's him

[1:08:08] I think for a couple of the wide shots. It is a stunt performer

[1:08:12] Pretty cool. And then he lands and and there's a tracking shot of the plane

[1:08:18] Taking off and he's running alongside it and he throws the anchor up to it the conveniently

[1:08:24] place to anchor

[1:08:26] pretty neat shot

[1:08:27] Yeah, pretty pretty cool. But a lot of this action stuff. Maybe I could suggest a reason it doesn't land as well

[1:08:35] Up until this point. It's like the mariner like the reason the mariner I guess is

[1:08:40] the best at being a guy on a boat is

[1:08:43] because

[1:08:44] He has a cool boat and he has lives there all the time. He knows it really well is fins and gills

[1:08:51] Yeah, like this part of it it's just like well, why is he like just like a good action guy?

[1:08:56] Like yeah, this doesn't play to his boat or gill base

[1:09:01] What is yes, that's it

[1:09:03] This part of the movie I have to admit it starts feeling very generic to me before that

[1:09:07] Even the action scenes had kind of like us even though that even as Mad Max ripoff as they are

[1:09:12] They had a certain personality and character to them in here

[1:09:14] It just feels like John McClane could be doing this Ethan Hunt could be doing this

[1:09:18] Like there's nothing like two of the best guys

[1:09:21] No, no, but I mean like but they're just guys they're not fishmen who live in a water world

[1:09:25] You know, this could be any this could be even hunt to grow gills if he needed

[1:09:30] If there's one action star, I imagine Tom Cruise's they're like Tom for this movie

[1:09:33] We need to surgically implant gills in your neck. Now. You may not be able to breathe air anymore

[1:09:36] All right, I'll do it for the part, you know anything

[1:09:39] What I was just like we need you to have gills and he just starts concentrating really hard

[1:09:43] Let's just open up because that's my training

[1:09:47] It's a dance point like earlier in the movie when they're escaping the Atoll when he fires a grappling hook and he pulls that the

[1:09:53] Machine gun boat to hit the other. I mean, that's that's up his a whale house. That's his yes. Yeah, that's his that's his stroke

[1:10:00] He's sliding, ziplining down and, you know, being kind of Bondi inside the thing.

[1:10:05] It's I mean, anything involving running should not be his strength.

[1:10:09] It's not like he's doing laps around the catamaran.

[1:10:11] Like, he doesn't have a lot of room to do that.

[1:10:13] The beginning of the movie, he's stumbled and so.

[1:10:17] So fight.

[1:10:18] So he tried.

[1:10:20] So they just at that moment, Gregor and Helen and the sheriff, he's back in the movie.

[1:10:25] They show up in the airship.

[1:10:26] They save our heroes.

[1:10:28] Deacon tries to come aboard, but they knock him off into the ocean.

[1:10:31] And that's when, as the smoker tanker sinks, it's revealed to be the Exxon Valdez.

[1:10:36] Oh, yeah.

[1:10:38] All the whole time.

[1:10:39] It was this my theater was howling.

[1:10:42] They were like, we get that.

[1:10:44] Anyway, the deacon tries to it's the deacon.

[1:10:49] There's so much that doesn't make sense.

[1:10:50] I mean, oil tankers, they deteriorate fast from having oil in them.

[1:10:53] Also, it famously was a tanker that leaked.

[1:10:56] So the idea that they are now storing all their oil in it doesn't make sense.

[1:10:59] It's just it's dumb.

[1:11:00] It's a dumb reference.

[1:11:01] So Deacon shoots the airship, which causes Enola to fall out of it.

[1:11:05] And this is the this is the goofiest moment, I feel like, in the whole movie.

[1:11:09] And it's the most 90s moment where the mariner bungee jumps out of the airship

[1:11:13] and grabs her and pulls her up just in time for the deacon

[1:11:16] and two of his henchmen to crash their jet skis into each other and explode together.

[1:11:19] It's perfect.

[1:11:20] I love that moment.

[1:11:22] Were they going to was one of them going to stop when they got to Enola?

[1:11:25] Were they just going to smash into her?

[1:11:26] Well, they were so distracted by the awesome bungee.

[1:11:29] By this awesome bodacious stunt they just saw, so tubular.

[1:11:33] They're like, how did he measure that right?

[1:11:35] I thought it was great.

[1:11:36] Other than I'm pretty sure that the fireball started before they all collided.

[1:11:42] But that's possible.

[1:11:44] I think that bungee stunt, the only thing that would have made it goofier to me

[1:11:46] is if they added a sproing sound effect to it.

[1:11:49] You know, it's it's such a it's not how ropes work.

[1:11:52] Like, I don't know what they're doing.

[1:11:53] You know, it's but anyway, maybe they had a shot like a diehard two style shot

[1:11:58] where like she's they spring up into the camera with the fireball beneath them.

[1:12:03] And yeah, that's it.

[1:12:04] But no, no. But that's in there.

[1:12:06] It's looking down.

[1:12:08] And you see the mariner like looking up and you see his face.

[1:12:12] And I'm like, this is diehard, too.

[1:12:14] Yeah. Which is it's if if they had just gone

[1:12:20] one step lower and not shown Cosner's face, you know,

[1:12:26] I think it would have been a little less like stagy.

[1:12:29] But when he looks up and you see his face, it kind of doesn't.

[1:12:32] Well, this movie was pitched.

[1:12:34] It was pitched as diehard on the entire ocean,

[1:12:38] which is a limited amount of space.

[1:12:40] Yeah. What is those boundaries?

[1:12:41] Yeah. What if some bad guys were trapped on the entire ocean?

[1:12:45] But I feel like they could have gotten away with just having Deacon

[1:12:48] fall out of the airship into the ocean like you don't need to.

[1:12:52] The last shark bite him out of midair.

[1:12:54] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that would be great.

[1:12:56] That big fish that we saw earlier.

[1:12:59] Yeah. Just have it jump up and eat him.

[1:13:00] And it's like Kim Goss was like, thanks, buddy.

[1:13:03] But they like that extra little beat so that they could make us think

[1:13:07] for a moment that what I know was going to die at the end of all this, you know.

[1:13:10] Anyway, they they they they get back in the airship

[1:13:15] and Gregor finally decodes the map on the back of her,

[1:13:19] that there are numbers on it that he couldn't understand.

[1:13:21] But he kind of coordinates them with.

[1:13:23] I forget where he got this document from.

[1:13:25] It was from the Mariner, not.

[1:13:26] And he realizes that there are longitude and latitude lines

[1:13:29] that that is a science that they have forgotten at this point.

[1:13:32] But now he's like, oh, it must relate to where the earth,

[1:13:35] the earth is in relation to the sun and blah, blah, blah.

[1:13:37] So they he now knows where dry land and he goes, dry land is that way

[1:13:41] and points the exact opposite direction of where they're going.

[1:13:45] They get to dry.

[1:13:46] They're floating for a long time.

[1:13:47] They get to dry land.

[1:13:48] I actually really like the moment where the Mariner wakes up in the boat,

[1:13:52] in the basket, and there's a seagull that has landed on the edge of the airship.

[1:13:55] And that's what tells them they're near dry land.

[1:13:57] I thought that's a nice touch.

[1:13:59] Bring in a little bit of Noah, a little bit of the Columbus story into there,

[1:14:02] you know, and then he bungee jumped off the boat after that.

[1:14:06] Yeah. He goes, watch this.

[1:14:07] It's going to be radical.

[1:14:09] Yeah. To be fucking dope.

[1:14:11] Hey, hey, do you think Chester Cheetah could do this?

[1:14:13] And he jumped out. Yeah.

[1:14:14] So they're marveling at the they go to dry land, fresh water.

[1:14:18] There's trees, there's horses.

[1:14:19] They're marveling at all of it.

[1:14:21] They find a cabin with some skeletons inside Hawaii.

[1:14:23] It's Hawaii, right?

[1:14:24] So it's not Hawaii.

[1:14:25] It's not Hawaii.

[1:14:26] Because in the in the theatrical cut, I don't think you find out exactly

[1:14:29] where they are in the extended cut.

[1:14:31] They do another reveal at the end.

[1:14:33] That's what's left of Enola's.

[1:14:34] People is there.

[1:14:35] They're great. They made it.

[1:14:37] But the Mariner, he's got to be on the Marin.

[1:14:39] You know, he's got to be in the water.

[1:14:41] Yeah. And back up just one quick moment.

[1:14:44] I know we're close to the end.

[1:14:45] Mm hmm. So purportedly, this is the skeleton couple,

[1:14:50] you know, before they died.

[1:14:52] Yeah. Set Enola out to sea like Moses, like.

[1:14:56] But on the whole open ocean, like.

[1:14:58] Yeah, it was a dumb.

[1:14:59] Yes. And I don't understand.

[1:15:02] But apparently they put her in a basket and just floated her out.

[1:15:04] And she was lucky enough that she found other people.

[1:15:07] Yeah. Before she died.

[1:15:07] Straight to that at all.

[1:15:08] Of exposure.

[1:15:09] Because also the thing is, babies, they last less long than regular

[1:15:12] than grown up people on the open ocean.

[1:15:14] You don't say.

[1:15:15] No, they have to eat like every.

[1:15:17] They can't hold that much food in their tummies.

[1:15:18] They got to eat like every few hours.

[1:15:20] They should test this.

[1:15:21] So you got to imagine that basket was also full of just full of poop.

[1:15:24] Just gross. Yeah.

[1:15:25] So of all the things in the movie that are big leaps of logic,

[1:15:29] this is certainly the biggest.

[1:15:32] And I why the and she sounds like they must have known they were dying.

[1:15:36] And it's like, oh, so they it does.

[1:15:37] None of it makes sense.

[1:15:38] Anyway, we're all dying, ma'am.

[1:15:41] Yeah. Well, you've been dying since the day you were born.

[1:15:42] Are they implying that the tune that she's been humming the whole time

[1:15:47] was that music, that music box?

[1:15:48] Yeah, I don't buy that.

[1:15:49] If she was a baby and they put her in it, there's no way.

[1:15:52] Yeah. They find a music box.

[1:15:53] She remembers everything.

[1:15:55] They've made a play of that.

[1:15:56] Well, she draws things that come from her her memories of the dry land.

[1:16:00] Like she even before her vision and object

[1:16:03] permanence was fully, fully developed, she could see horses.

[1:16:06] I mean, this whole idea of being like this, this is like on a script level.

[1:16:12] This is one of the things that annoys me the most is like they're just like

[1:16:16] sort of tossing in this kind of pseudo chosen one child.

[1:16:21] I mean, like she's not special, but she has like a map to the promised land.

[1:16:25] Well, and it's also that they're doing a lot of the thing that movies do

[1:16:29] too much of, in my opinion, which often which is like

[1:16:32] got to tie up every reference, everything's got to point to something else.

[1:16:35] So like if she's humming a tune, it's got to be that she heard it there.

[1:16:38] If she's drawing things, it's got to be that she's the stuff she remember.

[1:16:41] Like there's no I think can't happen and just be on its own.

[1:16:44] It's got to pay the same.

[1:16:44] We're like if they can't just be on a tanker, it's got to be the Exxon Valdez.

[1:16:49] You know, it's got to tie up to something.

[1:16:51] A lot of IP is what I'm saying.

[1:16:53] The Exxon Valdez IP was very valuable at the time.

[1:16:55] You know, the name recognition is huge.

[1:16:57] Yeah. People wouldn't like the movie.

[1:17:00] Well, like if Benedict Cumberbatch is going to play a villain in a Star Trek movie,

[1:17:03] it can't be a new character.

[1:17:04] It has to be con, you know, that kind of stuff.

[1:17:06] Anyway, Enola's mad because the mariner is leaving them.

[1:17:09] And the and she she doesn't want to say goodbye to him.

[1:17:13] She runs away instead of saying goodbye.

[1:17:14] And the mariner kisses Helen.

[1:17:16] And he goes, well, I'm leaving.

[1:17:17] But everyone I'll see, I'll tell them to go to dry land.

[1:17:19] I'll tell them the direction of it.

[1:17:21] And I almost want her to be like, did you see most of the other people on the ocean?

[1:17:24] I don't know that we want them here necessarily.

[1:17:26] They were dicks.

[1:17:27] And I think none of this is an emergency.

[1:17:30] Every crazed drifter I come across.

[1:17:33] I'll tell mothers where there's a lady and a little girl that they can

[1:17:36] they can bring their paper to.

[1:17:37] And she says, before you go, I have a gift I want to give you.

[1:17:40] And he goes, I don't want to give.

[1:17:41] She goes, I'm going to give you a name because he doesn't have a name.

[1:17:43] And she tells him the story of us, of a of a great sailor

[1:17:47] who angered the god of the sea and so was cursed to wander the earth

[1:17:51] for 10 years and could never get home.

[1:17:52] And his name was Ulysses.

[1:17:53] And I'm going to name you Ulysses.

[1:17:55] Leopold Bloom.

[1:17:57] I thought it was Captain Stubing.

[1:17:59] So I'm naming you I'm naming you Ulysses.

[1:18:01] And he goes, well, technically, you should name me Odysseus.

[1:18:04] And she's like, forget it, forget it.

[1:18:06] Just leave. Then I don't need that kind of shit.

[1:18:07] Anyway, that wasn't in our cut, right?

[1:18:09] OK, I know. I think that's just the extent of it.

[1:18:11] And he sails off.

[1:18:13] And then and I know that this is also not in the theatrical cut.

[1:18:16] Helen and Enola, they climb a peak and they find a plaque that tells them

[1:18:21] this is the spot where Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

[1:18:24] first set foot on Mount Everest.

[1:18:26] And I was like, come on.

[1:18:28] And it's treated like it's the Statue of Liberty reveal

[1:18:30] in Planet of the Apes, like, oh, right.

[1:18:32] And it's totally unnecessary.

[1:18:33] It doesn't matter. It has no meaning.

[1:18:35] The Statue of Liberty has a meaning in Planet of the Apes

[1:18:37] because it shows him is this is Earth and the things he loves

[1:18:41] has had loves have been destroyed, you know, whereas, OK,

[1:18:44] it's the top of Mount Everest.

[1:18:45] Who gives a shit? I don't like it doesn't mean anything to anybody.

[1:18:48] Yeah, I assume there's some shit like that.

[1:18:50] Yeah, it's got to be a tall mountain. It's above the water.

[1:18:52] OK, but and that's the end of the movie.

[1:18:54] And it's unfair to compare it to Road Warrior, like I said.

[1:18:58] But it's like Road Warrior has none of those like cutesy tie ins,

[1:19:01] like not a lot of set up payoff.

[1:19:03] It's just it's just pure adrenaline, pure momentum.

[1:19:07] And that's hardly in the dialogue.

[1:19:09] Raves, Todd Vaziri.

[1:19:12] And in those in the Mad Max movies, they're so except the I mean,

[1:19:14] the first one is set in just kind of like a near future

[1:19:17] where they still have civilization.

[1:19:18] But yeah, yeah, yeah, normal Australia, normal Australia,

[1:19:21] where there's biker gangs swarming around killing people.

[1:19:23] But in the in the sequels, they're clearly living in the detritus

[1:19:28] of an earlier age.

[1:19:29] But there isn't any of that, like, yeah, none of that cute stuff or like,

[1:19:33] you know, you know, it's not like Zardoz where it's like, oh, yeah,

[1:19:36] where I took it from the Wizard of Oz anyway, that it's our world.

[1:19:39] It's a yeah, there's just not that you don't need it.

[1:19:42] You don't need that stuff.

[1:19:43] Unless it is something like playing the Apes, where it is so thematically

[1:19:46] meaningful, you know, but what a world.

[1:19:49] Should we get to final judgments?

[1:19:50] Thanks, guys.

[1:19:50] About one time.

[1:19:51] Well, yeah, we should get final judgments.

[1:19:53] But before that, I'm going to pitch you the makers of pure

[1:19:55] from the from the makers of pure moods, pure adrenaline.

[1:20:00] For when you're too chilled out,

[1:20:02] you need pure adrenaline to come in

[1:20:04] and even it back out to center yourself.

[1:20:08] You know, between the two, you got everything you need.

[1:20:10] Yeah.

[1:20:11] Yeah, just watch like a Safdie Brothers movie or something.

[1:20:13] Yeah.

[1:20:14] Yeah.

[1:20:15] Yeah.

[1:20:15] Okay.

[1:20:16] Except, wait a minute, that might be too much

[1:20:19] pure adrenaline at that point.

[1:20:21] Yeah, just listen to more Ornoco Flow

[1:20:24] or whatever it's called.

[1:20:26] Ornoco Flow.

[1:20:30] Hi, I'm Flow from Ornoco.

[1:20:31] So, final judgments.

[1:20:36] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie

[1:20:39] or a movie you kind of like?

[1:20:41] I'm gonna say, I think it's pretty clear

[1:20:44] from the way I've been talking about it.

[1:20:46] I think probably most of us agree,

[1:20:48] but I'm not gonna make any assumptions.

[1:20:50] It's a movie I kind of like.

[1:20:51] It's like certainly nowhere near the failure

[1:20:54] it was made out to be.

[1:20:56] It either needs, I think, more of the stuff

[1:21:01] that got cut from it,

[1:21:02] because that sounds like it would have deepened it,

[1:21:04] or it needs less of the stuff that's in the theatrical cut,

[1:21:07] because then it could be more of just an adrenaline rush.

[1:21:10] It's like a little two betwixt and between,

[1:21:13] but I think it's pretty good.

[1:21:15] I mean, enjoyable.

[1:21:17] Yeah, I'm with you.

[1:21:18] I'm gonna say it's a movie I kind of like.

[1:21:19] I wish there was two more bungee jump scenes,

[1:21:21] but that's okay.

[1:21:22] Uh-huh.

[1:21:24] I remember seeing it in the theater and being like,

[1:21:25] yeah, this is good, but not loving it,

[1:21:28] and I kind of feel the same way.

[1:21:30] I think tonally it doesn't all work,

[1:21:32] and Costner feels overly harsh in large chunks

[1:21:36] of what seems like a fun romp,

[1:21:39] but yeah, I don't know, it's fine.

[1:21:41] Yeah, I mean, I would love for a movie,

[1:21:44] a studio to put out a water world these days.

[1:21:47] Yeah, I mean, it's a movie I like.

[1:21:50] I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stuff

[1:21:53] as much as I've been ragging on certain aspects of it,

[1:21:55] but it's a movie that, in the extended version,

[1:21:59] really works even much better.

[1:22:00] The tone is not quite as, is not perfect,

[1:22:03] but it is less jarring.

[1:22:05] It's hard, a movie like this,

[1:22:06] it's hard to know who you're making it for.

[1:22:08] Like, it has to be a PG-13 movie

[1:22:10] because it's so expensive,

[1:22:11] so it can't be quite as rough as it needs to be,

[1:22:13] and it's a movie in search of an audience,

[1:22:16] and like, I'm that audience,

[1:22:18] but I don't know how much of me there is in the world.

[1:22:20] I mean, there's a lot of me in Hollywood, I guess,

[1:22:21] like, kind of, you know, nerdy Jewish guys,

[1:22:23] and so they want to see my movies and they make them.

[1:22:25] But there's a,

[1:22:28] but it's a movie that I feel like got unfairly slammed.

[1:22:31] I don't see a world where this gets great reviews

[1:22:34] across the board and is nominated for awards,

[1:22:36] but I would like to see a movie like this more,

[1:22:38] where it's a big action movie that's not based on a thing.

[1:22:42] Like, this is, I mean, this is,

[1:22:43] it should say adapted from the Mad Max movies,

[1:22:46] but it's like that it's a somewhat original thing,

[1:22:49] and I don't know, and it's very fun.

[1:22:51] It won't get nominated for awards,

[1:22:53] but it did get nominated for Best Stunt Show, right?

[1:22:56] Yes, I mean, I think it was nominated

[1:22:58] for a Sound Award, I think,

[1:22:59] but like, this is the kind of thing that,

[1:23:01] I mean, there's a,

[1:23:02] I'm excited that I live in a world where Fury Road exists,

[1:23:06] which is like the much better version of this kind of thing,

[1:23:09] and it does get the respect it deserves,

[1:23:11] but it just shows you the level of quality

[1:23:14] a movie like this has to be at to get respect.

[1:23:16] It has to be Fury Road, which is nearly perfect,

[1:23:19] and Waterworld, which is very imperfect.

[1:23:21] I think it doesn't, it didn't get a fair shake,

[1:23:22] but I like it.

[1:23:23] Todd, what do you think?

[1:23:24] You hate it, right?

[1:23:25] No, I'm gonna make it unanimous.

[1:23:27] It's a movie I kind of like.

[1:23:28] I would never go out of my way to defend this movie,

[1:23:30] and I probably, I don't know if I would recommend it

[1:23:33] unless you really wanted to see some beautiful vistas

[1:23:36] and hang out on the water.

[1:23:38] I'm really a big Kevin Costner fan.

[1:23:41] There's a lot to like about it,

[1:23:43] and there's a lot to nitpick,

[1:23:44] and it's actually kind of fun to talk about

[1:23:47] with the people you're watching it with

[1:23:49] and do a post-mortem and go, what worked and what didn't?

[1:23:52] Because there's a lot to talk about,

[1:23:54] and I especially liked what Dan said,

[1:23:58] is like, a little more or a little less

[1:24:00] probably would have been better,

[1:24:02] because where we are, it's a little disjointed

[1:24:05] in all of the place.

[1:24:06] I feel like this is a movie that works best

[1:24:08] in a world where it can be the length it needs to be

[1:24:10] and does not have to sell Mariner action figures,

[1:24:14] and then it can kind of be the movie

[1:24:16] that it wants to be as opposed to the movie that it needs.

[1:24:19] It reminds me a lot of the David Lynch Dune in some ways,

[1:24:22] where it's like, this doesn't totally work.

[1:24:24] There's a lot of neat, interesting things in it,

[1:24:26] but this is not something that I would sell

[1:24:28] coloring books or play sets off of,

[1:24:30] and this kind of had to do that.

[1:24:32] And it's a big swing.

[1:24:33] I mean, this is a production, and nothing looks like it.

[1:24:37] It's a big swing.

[1:24:39] Nothing looks like this movie, and that's kind of cool.

[1:24:43] It's crazy to say, I didn't think about this until now,

[1:24:44] how much of this movie takes place in full daylight

[1:24:47] under the sun, and it's not something you see a lot

[1:24:51] in these types of movies, is there's very few night scenes.

[1:24:55] There's almost no night action scenes.

[1:24:57] Everything is right on camera, right on screen.

[1:24:59] They can't hide things,

[1:25:01] unless they're digitally cleaning it up,

[1:25:02] but it's amazing how there's a story to be made.

[1:25:05] There's a book to be written

[1:25:06] about how all special effects movies afterwards

[1:25:10] owe a debt to Waterworld, I guess,

[1:25:12] but I'm not gonna write that book.

[1:25:14] I don't know enough about it.

[1:25:15] It would take some kind of special effects king to do that.

[1:25:19] We don't know any of those.

[1:25:20] No, no, no, no.

[1:25:21] Me neither.

[1:25:22] I don't know any.

[1:25:23] No.

[1:25:27] I'm Jordan Kershiola, host of Feeling Seen,

[1:25:29] where we start by asking our guests just one question.

[1:25:32] What movie character made you feel seen?

[1:25:35] I knew exactly what it was.

[1:25:36] Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

[1:25:41] Joy Wang slash Shobu Tupaci.

[1:25:43] That one question launches amazing conversations

[1:25:46] about their lives, the movies they love,

[1:25:48] and about the past, present, and future of entertainment.

[1:25:51] Roy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

[1:25:54] I worry about what this might say about me,

[1:25:56] but I've brought Tracy Flick in the film Election.

[1:26:01] So if you like movies, diverse perspectives,

[1:26:03] and great conversations, check us out.

[1:26:05] Oof, this is real.

[1:26:06] New episodes of Feeling Seen

[1:26:08] drop every week on MaximumFun.org.

[1:26:12] Oh my gosh, hi, it's me, Dave Holmes.

[1:26:14] Host of the pop culture game show Troubled Waters.

[1:26:16] On Troubled Waters, we play a whole host of games,

[1:26:18] like one where I describe a show using a limerick

[1:26:21] and our guests have to figure out what it is.

[1:26:23] Let's do one right now.

[1:26:24] What show am I talking about?

[1:26:25] This podcast has game after game

[1:26:27] and brilliant guests who come play.

[1:26:29] The host is named Dave.

[1:26:31] It could be your fave, so try it.

[1:26:33] Life won't be the same.

[1:26:34] A big business starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin.

[1:26:37] Close, but no.

[1:26:39] Oh, is it Troubled Waters, the pop culture quiz show

[1:26:41] with all your favorite comedians?

[1:26:42] Yes, Troubled Waters is the answer

[1:26:45] to this question and all of my life's problems.

[1:26:48] Now, legally, we actually can't guarantee that,

[1:26:50] but you can find it on MaximumFun.org

[1:26:53] or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:26:56] Hey, today, The Flaphouse is sponsored in part by Smalls.

[1:27:00] Now, I don't know about you,

[1:27:01] but I have two little kitties that live in my house

[1:27:04] and I love them to pieces.

[1:27:06] In fact, I love them so much,

[1:27:07] I need to give them pieces of food all the time.

[1:27:10] And you know who makes delicious pieces of food?

[1:27:13] Smalls, and those pieces are nutritious and healthy,

[1:27:16] just like the type of food

[1:27:17] you would find in your refrigerator.

[1:27:19] So, do you wanna give your cat protein-packed recipes

[1:27:23] made from preservative-free ingredients?

[1:27:25] That's where you're gonna get them, right from Smalls.

[1:27:27] Smalls recently kicked off a partnership

[1:27:29] with the Humane Society.

[1:27:31] They've donated over a million dollars worth of food

[1:27:34] to help cats through the Humane Society,

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[1:27:39] Whether you donate $3 for treats,

[1:27:42] $5,000 for vaccines,

[1:27:45] or $7 for spaying or neutering,

[1:27:47] it's up to you, you can donate.

[1:27:50] So, we love Smalls, our cats love Smalls.

[1:27:53] When I bring the box inside,

[1:27:55] the cats rub all over that thing,

[1:27:56] and not just because it's the box,

[1:27:57] it's because it's filled with stuff they like.

[1:27:59] So, is your cat food giving back to cats in need?

[1:28:03] Well, Smalls is.

[1:28:04] So, if you wanna give Smalls a try and ditch kibble forever,

[1:28:07] head over to smalls.com slash flop

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[1:28:26] that's promo code FLOP for 50% off your first order,

[1:28:29] plus free shipping.

[1:28:31] We're also sponsored by Babbel.

[1:28:33] Guys, what do you call a person who speaks three languages?

[1:28:36] Right, trilingual, I'll answer for you.

[1:28:37] Someone who speaks two languages, bilingual.

[1:28:40] Someone who speaks one language, American.

[1:28:42] Wah, wah, wah, wah.

[1:28:44] But it's true, only 22% of Americans

[1:28:46] speak a language other than English at home.

[1:28:48] I know it is something that I am deeply disappointed

[1:28:50] in myself about.

[1:28:51] I've always wanted to speak another language.

[1:28:53] I feel like it's really limited me as a traveler,

[1:28:55] as someone who kind of can get into the mindset

[1:28:58] of people in other parts of the world

[1:28:59] to know their language to be able to speak that way.

[1:29:01] So, why not start learning a new language this fall

[1:29:04] and be the exception to that, not the rule?

[1:29:06] With Babbel, you start speaking a new language

[1:29:08] in just three weeks.

[1:29:10] Why Babbel?

[1:29:11] It works.

[1:29:12] I've been playing with Babbel, I've been enjoying it,

[1:29:14] and I find that the words get into my head quicker,

[1:29:17] I can remember them a little bit easier.

[1:29:19] I think because the way they lead you through

[1:29:21] the learning of it feels very natural,

[1:29:23] feels very organic.

[1:29:25] It's taking you through real situations.

[1:29:27] It's not telling you to ask where the library is,

[1:29:29] although I do wanna know where the library is

[1:29:31] when I travel to different places,

[1:29:32] even though I can't read those books

[1:29:33] because I don't know the language yet.

[1:29:35] Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for a private tutor

[1:29:37] or fooling yourself with a language app

[1:29:40] that's basically just a game.

[1:29:41] We love games, but they're not gonna teach you languages.

[1:29:44] Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons are designed

[1:29:46] by over 150 language experts

[1:29:48] to help you start speaking a new language

[1:29:49] in as little as three weeks.

[1:29:51] Might take you a little longer,

[1:29:52] but it could be as little as three weeks.

[1:29:53] Probably won't take you less, but who knows?

[1:29:55] Maybe you're just that good at it, I don't know.

[1:29:57] One study found that using Babbel for 15 hours

[1:30:00] is equivalent to a full semester at college.

[1:30:03] A study found that.

[1:30:04] Someone studied it and found that.

[1:30:06] And like I said, I found the Bible courses

[1:30:08] are super quick, they're super easy.

[1:30:10] I found I had to slow myself down

[1:30:12] because I was enjoying them so much

[1:30:14] and I was finding them so straightforward and so simple

[1:30:17] that I was going through them really quickly

[1:30:18] and I kind of wanted to make sure

[1:30:20] that the words stuck in my head.

[1:30:21] You pick up real things that you would say,

[1:30:24] how to talk to people, how to order food,

[1:30:26] how to ask for directions, how to speak to people in stores

[1:30:28] without having to use an app on vacation

[1:30:30] because you know it now

[1:30:31] and you're not learning the stuff

[1:30:32] that would be neat to know, but isn't that useful?

[1:30:34] Like how to say dinosaur in other languages,

[1:30:36] which I do want to know.

[1:30:38] Let's just say that when it comes

[1:30:39] to Babbel's language learning,

[1:30:42] I like, or me gusta, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, there you go.

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[1:31:10] but go to babbel.com slash flop for 55% off.

[1:31:14] And we also have a j-j-j-j-j-jumbotron.

[1:31:17] This one is for MJ and it's from Maura,

[1:31:22] who says, happy anniversary.

[1:31:25] The traditional gift for the fourth anniversary

[1:31:27] is fruit, so here's a shout out from the peaches.

[1:31:30] Me and the ghouly girl are incredibly lucky

[1:31:33] to have you as a husband and father.

[1:31:35] Here's to many more years of wing nights,

[1:31:38] singing silly songs to that baby,

[1:31:40] and you patiently explaining board game rules to me.

[1:31:44] I love you so much.

[1:31:45] That's, you know, we just talked about the difficulty

[1:31:48] of explaining board game rules.

[1:31:51] It's a good test of-

[1:31:52] And board room ghouls, yeah.

[1:31:54] Board room ghouls.

[1:31:56] It's a good test of patience and kindness.

[1:31:59] So it's a good marker

[1:32:01] of what sounds like a nice relationship.

[1:32:03] Before we go, I just want to mention

[1:32:04] The Flophouse is also brought to you by The Flophouse.

[1:32:07] And of course, as I've said many times,

[1:32:10] November 4th, it's the first Saturday of the month,

[1:32:12] it's the next episode of Flop TV,

[1:32:14] our online TV version of The Flophouse.

[1:32:16] You get to see us and hear us.

[1:32:18] Instead of just hearing us, we give a presentation,

[1:32:21] we go through a movie,

[1:32:23] and we answer questions from the audience.

[1:32:24] It's super fun.

[1:32:25] We're on episode four,

[1:32:27] we're halfway through our six-episode season,

[1:32:29] and we're going to be doing Over the Top on November 4th.

[1:32:32] Over the Top, starring Sylvester Stallone's arms

[1:32:34] and also the rest of his body,

[1:32:36] they're attached to his arm wrestling move.

[1:32:37] That's why I put it that way.

[1:32:38] Tickets are at theflophouse.simpletics.com.

[1:32:41] Again, that's theflophouse.simpletics.com.

[1:32:44] You can get a ticket for that episode or buy a season pass,

[1:32:47] and the season pass gets you access

[1:32:49] to the videos of all the previous episodes.

[1:32:52] So if you can't join us on November 4th,

[1:32:55] don't despair.

[1:32:56] Your ticket still gets you access to that video.

[1:32:58] Guys, I've been really enjoying doing Flop TV with you.

[1:33:01] It's been super fun.

[1:33:02] And we're going to have these next three episodes,

[1:33:04] and then I think we'll take a break,

[1:33:06] and then we'll see what the future may hold for it.

[1:33:08] And I also want to mention, as I did last week,

[1:33:10] that Hades number three,

[1:33:12] the most recent issue of my Hades comic series,

[1:33:14] starring the Disney villain of the same name,

[1:33:16] is out in stores now from Dynamite.

[1:33:19] And it's the third issue of a fun story.

[1:33:21] It's a heist story.

[1:33:22] It's an ancient Greece story.

[1:33:23] It's a funny story.

[1:33:23] It's a five-issue miniseries.

[1:33:25] Pick up issue three.

[1:33:26] Maybe pick up issue one and two.

[1:33:27] Go to your local comic book store.

[1:33:28] Buy it there.

[1:33:29] Do it.

[1:33:30] I'm telling you, do it right now.

[1:33:31] Do it.

[1:33:32] You're listening to this on headphones.

[1:33:32] Get in your car or walk over there.

[1:33:34] Get money out of your pocket.

[1:33:35] Hand it to that guy, the guy who wears the comforter.

[1:33:37] Dan, go do it right now.

[1:33:38] Dan, do it.

[1:33:39] All right.

[1:33:41] Let's move on to letters from listeners.

[1:33:45] Are you a listener?

[1:33:45] Yes, you are.

[1:33:47] Did you write a letter?

[1:33:48] Who knows?

[1:33:49] I don't know.

[1:33:49] Well, you know.

[1:33:51] Is this one yours?

[1:33:52] Unless they forgot.

[1:33:53] They wrote it in some kind of blackout stupor,

[1:33:55] and they'll hear it on the podcast,

[1:33:56] and they'll be like,

[1:33:57] well, I don't remember saying that.

[1:33:58] They're putting words in my mouth.

[1:34:01] This first one is from Mr. McCullough,

[1:34:05] first name withheld,

[1:34:06] for reasons we'll see.

[1:34:07] David Norton.

[1:34:09] On episode 407, Jason Takes Manhattan,

[1:34:12] I learned that a character in the movie

[1:34:13] was named Mr. McCullough.

[1:34:16] I'd like to think my father is Mr. McCullough,

[1:34:18] but at my age, I am now too.

[1:34:20] Anyway, to hear Stuart say my name

[1:34:22] over and over again in the episode

[1:34:24] was a bit disconcerting, to say the least.

[1:34:26] McCullough's not the most-

[1:34:27] I would think a fantasy pleasure

[1:34:29] to hear Stuart say my name over again.

[1:34:30] A true fantasy, yeah.

[1:34:31] Hearing about getting drowned

[1:34:33] in a bucket of toxic waste.

[1:34:37] McCullough's not the most uncommon name,

[1:34:38] but still, you don't tend to hear it 30 times

[1:34:40] on your favorite podcast.

[1:34:42] My question is-

[1:34:43] Favorite?

[1:34:44] Has that ever happened to you in a movie?

[1:34:46] Some nugget of the movie was so close

[1:34:48] to your personal life that it took you aback,

[1:34:50] and maybe took you out of the movie a bit?

[1:34:52] Maybe it was set in your hometown,

[1:34:53] or your alma mater.

[1:34:56] Matter.

[1:34:57] I believe Elliot has spoken-

[1:34:59] Isn't that the guy from Cars?

[1:35:01] Yeah, Mater is the guy from Cars.

[1:35:03] Yeah.

[1:35:04] Played by Larry T. Cable guy.

[1:35:06] Larry T. C. guy.

[1:35:08] You know what was happening?

[1:35:09] I was-

[1:35:10] Nevermind.

[1:35:10] I believe Elliot has spoken before

[1:35:13] about how the main character of E.T.

[1:35:14] sharing his first name has been a problem for him.

[1:35:16] Very much so.

[1:35:17] Has the plot of a movie ever hit so close to home

[1:35:20] that it basically ruined the movie magic?

[1:35:22] Mr. McCullough, first name with help.

[1:35:24] Now, I mean, yeah, obviously the name thing

[1:35:27] is a little different, I guess.

[1:35:30] I too, when I was a kid, because of Karate Kid,

[1:35:35] a lot of my classmates kept saying Daniel-san

[1:35:37] to me all the time.

[1:35:39] Okay, did that last for your whole life?

[1:35:42] I like, but no.

[1:35:44] Okay.

[1:35:44] No, not at all.

[1:35:45] I mean, having the last name McCoy

[1:35:47] has been more in the way of lifelong name references.

[1:35:53] I remember that when I was,

[1:35:54] when I used to host a live talk show on a stage

[1:35:58] in a theater, I wanted Dan to do a segment on it

[1:36:01] called The Real McCoy with Dan McCoy.

[1:36:03] And Dan was like, please, do I have to call it that?

[1:36:05] I don't want to call it that.

[1:36:06] He got so frustrated.

[1:36:09] Yeah, you know, you get a life of people asking

[1:36:11] whether that's what you are and that's what it gets you.

[1:36:15] I will say anytime there's a character named,

[1:36:17] anytime there's a character named Stuart in something,

[1:36:20] they are usually not the coolest dude in the movie.

[1:36:23] Well, what about, what about Stuber?

[1:36:25] Yeah, or Stuart Smalley.

[1:36:26] I haven't seen Stuber.

[1:36:27] What's the, yeah, Stuart Smalley,

[1:36:29] is that the one who saves his family?

[1:36:31] Stuart is all I know.

[1:36:33] Stuart Little.

[1:36:33] Might be like Judy Greer's new husband

[1:36:37] since she divorced the main character,

[1:36:38] like that sort of thing.

[1:36:40] Yeah.

[1:36:41] I'm like a busybody.

[1:36:41] Everybody loves Stuart Little.

[1:36:43] Yeah, Stuart Little.

[1:36:44] People love him.

[1:36:45] That's not to love him.

[1:36:46] He's a mouse that popped out of a woman's vagina.

[1:36:48] He drives a car.

[1:36:50] I guess I saw a different movie.

[1:36:52] Stu, I mean, one thing, you could say that about your name,

[1:36:56] but the Tods in popular culture, not exactly cool.

[1:37:01] Yeah, not at all.

[1:37:02] It's not great.

[1:37:03] It's rough out there for Tods.

[1:37:06] I've been collecting-

[1:37:06] It's the one X-Men game we could be playing

[1:37:08] and I don't think it's a good idea for us to get involved.

[1:37:10] We'll just get sad.

[1:37:11] Yeah, I've been collecting pop culture media references

[1:37:15] to Todd and it's always like, Todd, you know,

[1:37:18] it's like the weasel Todd who screwed you out of something

[1:37:22] and it's not great.

[1:37:25] But I mean-

[1:37:26] Takes you out of the movie or a show?

[1:37:28] Takes you out of the movie, yeah.

[1:37:29] Yeah, I mean, when something's close to home,

[1:37:32] like I think of like, if a movie takes place

[1:37:37] in a location that you know really well

[1:37:40] and they take certain liberties with how they drive around

[1:37:44] and they walk two blocks and they're all of a sudden

[1:37:46] a mile and a half away.

[1:37:48] The Hall of Dioramas in the Night at the Museum movie

[1:37:52] and they go to an Egyptian wing

[1:37:54] in the Museum of Natural History, excuse me?

[1:37:57] The Museum of Natural History has a mummy in it?

[1:38:00] I don't think so.

[1:38:00] I don't think so, Night at the Museum.

[1:38:02] I mean, for me, it's like, I grew up in Chicago.

[1:38:05] There's so many things about like driving around in Chicago.

[1:38:09] I mean, Blues Brothers is the most ridiculous example,

[1:38:11] but just Ferris Bueller's Day Off,

[1:38:15] there's no way he could have done all that in one day.

[1:38:17] If you're-

[1:38:18] I don't know, he's pretty good at what he does.

[1:38:21] But it-

[1:38:21] Could Richard Kimball get framed by a one-armed man?

[1:38:24] Is that possible in Chicago?

[1:38:26] You'll find that man.

[1:38:27] Oh, I just lost my Harrison Ford point to everybody.

[1:38:32] But if you're into the movie-

[1:38:33] And people don't break into song in Chicago

[1:38:34] nearly as much as they do in the movie Chicago.

[1:38:36] Yeah.

[1:38:37] But it's like continuity errors.

[1:38:40] If you're into the movie, no one cares.

[1:38:42] Nobody even notices.

[1:38:43] Yeah.

[1:38:44] You get a little chuckle and then that's it.

[1:38:46] I think it was on your Twitter feed, Todd,

[1:38:47] that you highlighted that moment at the end of Jurassic Park

[1:38:50] where the raptor disappears for a moment on screen.

[1:38:53] Oh, yeah.

[1:38:54] I was like, I had never noticed that before.

[1:38:55] I've seen that movie so many times,

[1:38:57] and now it's so clear to me when I see it,

[1:39:01] but it never occurred to me, ever.

[1:39:03] It's literally one frame, it was a rendering error.

[1:39:05] It's hard to notice,

[1:39:06] but even more importantly, back up a little bit.

[1:39:09] They're being chased by those two raptors.

[1:39:11] They didn't notice that T-Rex in the building?

[1:39:16] This is an issue I've had before.

[1:39:17] The T-Rex where it's been established at length

[1:39:19] that when he steps, it causes the ground to shake.

[1:39:22] Right.

[1:39:22] But he snuck up on them.

[1:39:24] The T-Rex was behind them going, shh, shh,

[1:39:27] except he couldn't put his hand to his lips

[1:39:28] because his arms were-

[1:39:29] Yeah, his arms.

[1:39:30] Where he's like on his tippy toes

[1:39:32] and he's making the Flintstones, like.

[1:39:35] Yeah, and then he jumped up in the air,

[1:39:37] bongo sound, bongo sound, as his feet spin around,

[1:39:39] and then pew, yeah.

[1:39:41] I mean, to me, it's like whatever's in the frame,

[1:39:43] that's what the audiences care about.

[1:39:45] It's like when somebody pops,

[1:39:47] I mean, it's the whole basis of like Buster Keaton

[1:39:49] and like comedy.

[1:39:51] Yeah, that's true.

[1:39:51] What happens in the frame is the world,

[1:39:53] and it's a little cheap to have the T-Rex come in,

[1:39:56] but you know, it's-

[1:39:57] Yeah.

[1:39:58] A little cheap, says Todd.

[1:40:00] about Steven Spielberg. Wow. I've mentioned this before so I won't linger on it but

[1:40:07] there's like work stuff too like watching that movie Late Night about a

[1:40:13] late-night comedy show and just being baffled at how wrong it is about

[1:40:18] everything especially considering a female late-night host is impossible

[1:40:23] they're not funny. No, it's not. Dan said not just the host but also the writers that the female writers are unbelievable.

[1:40:30] It's a long-standing bit where you paint me as some sort of horrible reactionary. No, it's just wrong factually in a lot of the ways those things are run and I know

[1:40:36] that like the first like it was written by Mindy Kaling who you know is a

[1:40:41] television person but not a late-night person but I'm like still like you

[1:40:43] should know better than some of this. I'm sure you know the person to talk to at

[1:40:47] least. Yeah, yeah. Anyone else? Yeah, I mean anytime anybody does something weird in a

[1:40:53] bar obviously the most I've said this a million times but anytime somebody

[1:40:57] bellies up to a bar and they ask for a drink and they're like leave the bottle

[1:41:00] I'm like how the fuck would they charge this person? How do you judge how much

[1:41:05] they're drinking? That doesn't make any sense and it also seems unsafe. Yes,

[1:41:09] that's very true. Let me get out my scale and also an empty

[1:41:15] bottle so I can tear this thing first before weighing the remaining liquid in

[1:41:20] here. Hold on, I have to call Archimedes to help me figure out how much has been displaced from here. Archimedes is just John Taffer with his inventory system that he sells everybody. Let's move on. Here's one I think this is most

[1:41:36] specifically for Stuart. Dear Stuart. Yeah, makes sense. From Daniel, last name with hell.

[1:41:42] Well, the title of the the subject heading is Warhammer 40,000 plus horror

[1:41:50] monsters. Yeah, seems like it's for Stuart. What chaos gods do you think famous

[1:41:59] horror movie monsters would follow? And here's where we get into trouble

[1:42:02] because Stuart has a stomach virus so he's not sitting next to me like I

[1:42:08] thought he might be earlier and can't pronounce these words for me but uh. I don't want to hear that shit. Is Jason a servant of corn? Is Freddy Krueger

[1:42:20] working for Slanish? Slanish? Are zombies just an expression of Nurgle's love and

[1:42:29] are the gremlins just following Zeech to change their ways? Yeah. My favorite

[1:42:39] mispronunciation of that one when I worked at the hobby shop was when kids

[1:42:43] would call it tiznich. Yeah, for those not in the know, I think I got pretty close

[1:42:50] considering it's spelled T-Z-E-E-N-T-C-H. Zeech. If you don't think they would follow a chaos

[1:43:00] god, maybe they're part of a different faction of WH40K. What do you think? Keep

[1:43:04] flopping. Yeah, obviously this reading this letter is mainly Dan mispronouncing

[1:43:12] very common words delivery system. I mean, I feel like they're all worshipping corn

[1:43:19] the lord of slaughter and bloodshed and skulls but I don't know like I feel like

[1:43:25] there's horror elements to all four the chaos gods not including of course the

[1:43:29] horned rat or Malol the chaos god who kills the other chaos gods but you know

[1:43:34] like Nurgle, there's a jolliness to him. I think there's obviously a little bit

[1:43:39] of like Freddy Krueger's humor. I don't know if I would say Slanish. Well, he

[1:43:45] does play with people's fantasies a little bit so that makes sense too

[1:43:48] although that's more of like Wishmaster territory. I think this is now my all my

[1:43:53] hosts of my co-hosts are checking their phones so I think it's time for us to move on.

[1:43:58] I was just looking up more Warhammer stuff. I was looking at it to figure out what I was going to recommend.

[1:44:07] So I can go and read up. Yeah well let me I'm like let me get all this down let me type it into my

[1:44:11] memo notes so that I can make sure to get all these characters.

[1:44:16] Okay, well I guess we've all learned something today about Warhammer.

[1:44:24] So Todd, you mentioned you're not a Dungeons & Dragons guy but you're heavy into Warhammer, right?

[1:44:29] Pass. No. All I know for Warhammer is what I've learned from Stuart over the years on the plot line.

[1:44:41] That's enough. Yeah, so if Amazon Studios is listening to this podcast and they're starting to staff out their teams

[1:44:49] working on their new hit Warhammer 40,000 TV show produced by Henry Cavill, Todd Vaziri's your guy is what we're saying.

[1:44:58] Hey, let's do recommendations of movies that we saw recently and enjoyed and you know what because

[1:45:06] it's a it's an old favorite trope of the show let me recommend something I saw on a plane

[1:45:13] on the way out to do our videos live shows just this last weekend I watched Blackberry, the movie

[1:45:20] about the Blackberry and yeah it's another one of these movies that in the broad outlines I'm like

[1:45:31] you know I can usually take or leave this type of film if they're done

[1:45:35] poorly I'm like this could have just been like a feature magazine article about a company

[1:45:40] but when they're done well there's a lot of sort of just like a book about a company

[1:45:46] well there can be a lot of juice in the in the business machinations a lot of juice in the

[1:45:50] Blackberry. At first when I was watching this movie I thought that sort of the lead nerds

[1:45:59] played by Jay Baruchel and I believe the director of the movie did the other like

[1:46:04] kind of made nerd guy I don't remember his name apologies no way to find out yeah there's no way

[1:46:10] couldn't have looked it up beforehand look it up look it up your own time listener it's a little

[1:46:15] field trip for you I like to leave one page left unwritten so there's an interactive component

[1:46:21] to every show um wow no I found them a little broad at the beginning but as the movie went on

[1:46:27] I think it it rounded them out nicely and Glenn Howerton is never funnier than he's just

[1:46:34] yelling and bafflement about these uh nerds who cannot conduct business and getting angry and uh

[1:46:43] throwing things around um I don't know it was it was just you know a kind of a funny

[1:46:50] informative movie that really did sort of capture a moment where it's like oh yeah there was a time

[1:46:56] between no phones ruling our lives and the iPhone ruling our lives that there was like

[1:47:01] this brief burst of a company that like shot through the air and then went away um what to

[1:47:08] learn from it who knows but it was a fun uh movie to watch what do you guys want to recommend I'm

[1:47:14] going to recommend a movie I also watched on a plane on the flight back from LA I watched

[1:47:19] past lives uh directed by Celine Song I believe also written by that's right up your alley it was

[1:47:25] oh was that oh no haha snaked him uh it just revealed Todd was also going to recommend past

[1:47:31] lives so please add on to this I'm sorry for snaking you on this one uh but I watched this

[1:47:37] movie on a plane it was exactly at my alley I was crying louder than the babies on the plane

[1:47:42] uh there uh it is you know the story of two uh two people who are were very close children

[1:47:51] separated over the years by a fair amount of distance and uh it kind of follows their friendship

[1:47:59] and uh like the possibilities of love and it's just like so like heartbreaking at times and

[1:48:06] beautiful and there's this fucking monologue by uh John Magaro who plays Greta Lee's husband

[1:48:13] that just like crushed me uh it's so good uh Todd please add on to what I have to say

[1:48:19] I mean I I was going to recommend this too it's it's probably my favorite movie of the year so

[1:48:23] far uh it's it's just outrageous please go see it uh it's it's wonderful I would like to say

[1:48:29] just to disagree a little bit what I liked about the movie is it's not necessarily so much about

[1:48:35] lost love because I don't think that like there's any real indication that like

[1:48:40] she ever seriously is like I'm gonna leave my husband for it's more like it's about reaching

[1:48:46] a point in your life when you're like there are other paths that I could have taken like sort of

[1:48:50] mourning for you know the myriad of possibilities that existed in an earlier point in your life

[1:48:56] more than like the love of a person and also that he represents you know for her as as an immigrant

[1:49:03] like a cultural identity she didn't take as well um so I yeah I really liked that

[1:49:10] these are all true this is all correct I think there's a lot of layers and nuance to all the

[1:49:15] performances and the fucking score is incredible like it makes like it makes uh people skyping uh

[1:49:23] like a montage of people skyping super romantic yeah yeah it's great Elliott um I haven't seen

[1:49:30] it yet and I really want to I'm going to recommend a movie that I liked a lot and like

[1:49:35] Waterworld it's contemporary reviewers I think were unfair about it and didn't really quite get

[1:49:40] it and that is the movie Heartburn starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson from 1986

[1:49:45] it's a Mike Nichols movie uh Nora Ephron wrote it based on her book that itself was based on

[1:49:50] the end of her marriage to uh Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein's fame you know the

[1:49:54] musical duo Woodward and Bernstein and uh there's it's about a woman

[1:50:00] who is a woman who's a writer, she does cookbooks,

[1:50:03] and she marries a newspaper kind of reporter columnist.

[1:50:06] And it's not a plot-heavy movie

[1:50:09] so much as it is tracking their relationship

[1:50:11] as they meet, get married, have a child,

[1:50:14] and the stresses that puts on them

[1:50:16] and how their marriage disintegrates.

[1:50:18] And I really liked a lot.

[1:50:21] It's a movie that is somewhat uneven

[1:50:23] and it's not like a hilarious comedy

[1:50:24] and it's also not a tear-jerking drama,

[1:50:27] but it felt like a very kind of real stakes

[1:50:29] kind of natural film to me.

[1:50:31] And I really like both Meryl Streep

[1:50:34] and Jack Nicholson are both playing characters

[1:50:36] who kind of want to believe that they are

[1:50:39] like the people who are playing them.

[1:50:40] Like Jack Nicholson is playing a man

[1:50:42] who thinks of himself as Jack Nicholson, but is not.

[1:50:45] And there's a scene where, spoiler,

[1:50:47] where Meryl Streep discovers that he has been cheating

[1:50:49] on her and has the evidence.

[1:50:50] And his reaction is so defeated in a way

[1:50:54] I don't think I've ever seen Jack Nicholson

[1:50:56] play a part in a movie before.

[1:50:58] And I was like, oh, this is a guy

[1:50:59] who thinks he's super cool and super tough, but is not.

[1:51:04] He thinks he's Jack Nicholson, but he's not Jack Nicholson.

[1:51:06] As opposed to like him in like The Last Detail

[1:51:08] or something where he's raging

[1:51:09] against the dying of the light, you know?

[1:51:10] And so I found their performances

[1:51:12] really kind of vulnerable and natural

[1:51:16] in a way that I'm not used to seeing from them in some ways.

[1:51:19] And apparently when it came out,

[1:51:20] everyone was like, what is this movie?

[1:51:21] This movie is not good enough.

[1:51:22] These actors are not good enough in it.

[1:51:24] And I'm kind of surprised by that.

[1:51:25] So that's Heartburn.

[1:51:27] The title makes you think it's gonna be an action movie,

[1:51:29] but it's not.

[1:51:31] I have never seen this one because in part,

[1:51:35] as you mentioned, it was kind of,

[1:51:37] got mixed reviews at the time.

[1:51:39] And I've really wanted to see it ever since reading

[1:51:42] that great Mike Nichols biography.

[1:51:46] I actually like it more than some other Mike Nichols movies

[1:51:48] that I think are more well-received.

[1:51:52] But it was mentioned to me a long time ago

[1:51:55] by a friend of the show, Ksenia Yarosh.

[1:51:57] And I keep meaning to get around to it.

[1:51:59] And watching it, not being aware of its reputation,

[1:52:02] I really enjoyed it.

[1:52:03] So now that I've told you about it,

[1:52:05] I guess erase that from your memory.

[1:52:07] Get a Men in Black Neuralizer

[1:52:09] and then go watch Heartburn, I guess.

[1:52:11] And don't get it confused with Heart Beeps,

[1:52:12] the Paul Schrader film about-

[1:52:14] Oh yeah.

[1:52:15] Oh yeah.

[1:52:17] Did you have a backup, Todd?

[1:52:20] Yeah, sure.

[1:52:21] A backup, Todd?

[1:52:22] Yeah, I'm ready to go.

[1:52:23] God, wouldn't that be great to have a backup, Todd?

[1:52:27] No, it's like multiplicity.

[1:52:28] It never works.

[1:52:28] You think it's going to, but it doesn't.

[1:52:29] Oh, damn, damn.

[1:52:31] Michael Keaton tried to tell us.

[1:52:33] I'm gonna break the rules into a mini recommendation

[1:52:36] and then a real recommendation.

[1:52:38] My mini recommendation is sort of tied to Waterworld,

[1:52:40] where the precursor to Waterworld,

[1:52:43] which is a highly hyped movie with a big star,

[1:52:47] cost overruns, and just complete chaos,

[1:52:50] and ultimately being a movie

[1:52:52] that is tonally all over the place,

[1:52:56] but has a lot of value.

[1:52:57] And again, if it was a little longer, a little shorter,

[1:52:59] it could have been like really sweet.

[1:53:02] 1993's Last Action Hero.

[1:53:04] Again, it's weird to recommend this movie

[1:53:07] because it is a mess,

[1:53:09] but there's so much to like about it.

[1:53:12] I remember I missed that when it was in the theaters

[1:53:13] and it was everywhere.

[1:53:14] It was so advertised everywhere.

[1:53:16] When I finally saw it on HBO, I was like,

[1:53:17] oh, this is a fun movie.

[1:53:18] There's a lot of fun, smart stuff in this.

[1:53:21] John McTiernan directed it,

[1:53:22] director of Predator and Die Hard and Hunt for October.

[1:53:26] He knows what he's doing,

[1:53:27] but yeah, this went a little goofy,

[1:53:30] and there's tonal problems,

[1:53:32] but it's one of the most self-aware movies ever.

[1:53:34] It's Lamboons, Hollywood, big time,

[1:53:37] and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies to the point.

[1:53:41] I mean, there's a scene in the movie

[1:53:43] where in the movie movie,

[1:53:44] they go into a video store

[1:53:46] and you see a standup for Terminator 2,

[1:53:49] a cardboard cutout,

[1:53:50] and it's Stallone as the Terminator in Terminator 2.

[1:53:53] I mean, that's great.

[1:53:56] It's a movie that doesn't fully work,

[1:53:59] and tonally, it's all over.

[1:54:00] If it was more a comedy,

[1:54:02] it probably would be better

[1:54:03] than if they're trying to be both comedy and action,

[1:54:04] but it's a special movie

[1:54:06] that plays off of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet.

[1:54:11] At the end, they're up against death from the seventh seal.

[1:54:15] It's a movie about movies

[1:54:16] as opposed to an action movie,

[1:54:18] and I think a lot of people didn't recognize that at the time.

[1:54:21] And Tom Noonan is one of the bad guys in it, right?

[1:54:25] That's right.

[1:54:26] That's great.

[1:54:27] And is-

[1:54:28] Can't go wrong with a Nooner.

[1:54:29] Charles Dance.

[1:54:30] Charles Dance is so good.

[1:54:32] And Anthony Quinn's in it, right?

[1:54:34] Yeah, I think so.

[1:54:35] And death from the seventh seal,

[1:54:37] is that, what's his name?

[1:54:39] Is that William Sadler again?

[1:54:41] I think it's Ian McKellen.

[1:54:43] Yeah.

[1:54:44] I don't think it's him reprising

[1:54:45] from Bill and Ted's bogus journey.

[1:54:49] I mean, I do like that movie,

[1:54:51] but I agree that the tone,

[1:54:52] like the tone is my problem.

[1:54:53] Like if there's like, you know,

[1:54:54] there's dry comedy, you know,

[1:54:56] like there's too much wet comedy in that movie for me.

[1:54:58] Like when they're in like the movie

[1:55:00] and he's like pointing over,

[1:55:01] and he's like, that guy's got a cartoon cat.

[1:55:03] I'm like, that's not the same type of movie.

[1:55:05] No, but it's just in a movie world.

[1:55:07] It's just a movie world.

[1:55:08] Yeah, I know.

[1:55:09] It just gets a little scattershot.

[1:55:10] The first time when he goes in,

[1:55:12] when they set, when he is just,

[1:55:15] Schwarzenegger's character in the movie

[1:55:16] is nonstop quipping.

[1:55:18] And even the kid is like a little,

[1:55:21] it's like, what?

[1:55:22] Like it's, yeah, that's a movie that I have a lot of,

[1:55:25] I have a lot of sentiment for.

[1:55:28] But then as soon as they,

[1:55:30] it's a movie that it can't quite get its,

[1:55:32] can't quite get its,

[1:55:33] Doesn't get its extra.

[1:55:35] There's a funny,

[1:55:35] there's a funny moment in there

[1:55:36] where the teacher is showing them,

[1:55:40] Hamlet.

[1:55:41] And the teacher is played by Laurence Olivier's

[1:55:43] former wife, Joan Plowright.

[1:55:45] And she goes, this star is Laurence Olivier,

[1:55:47] who you may know from these commercials

[1:55:50] and Clash of the Titans.

[1:55:51] And she says,

[1:55:52] it's such disgust.

[1:55:54] Just disdain, Clash of the Titans.

[1:55:57] It's so funny.

[1:55:58] And I've,

[1:55:59] and I always thought that was such a funny thing.

[1:56:00] Like, that's what she thinks is gross.

[1:56:01] Not the commercials.

[1:56:02] Clash of the Titans, she thinks,

[1:56:03] what was beneath him.

[1:56:05] My real recommendation is a movie called Reality.

[1:56:08] It's on Max right now.

[1:56:11] It stars,

[1:56:13] what is her name?

[1:56:14] Sydney Sweeney.

[1:56:15] And it's a movie I really didn't know anything about

[1:56:20] going into it,

[1:56:21] which is the way I recommend it to see this.

[1:56:24] It's about reality winner who,

[1:56:28] it's played out in a really interesting way.

[1:56:32] It's been directed by the person who staged the play

[1:56:37] that this is based on,

[1:56:38] which, and if you go even a little bit further,

[1:56:41] the play and the movie is 100% based on the recordings,

[1:56:45] the FBI recordings that were taken

[1:56:48] when she was taken into custody.

[1:56:50] So knowing that,

[1:56:52] the naturalism of the dialogue and how it all plays out,

[1:56:56] at no point there's any narration at the beginning.

[1:56:58] There's no title cards that tell you what's going on.

[1:57:00] You're just thrown into this situation.

[1:57:02] And it's extremely human how it plays out.

[1:57:06] And I was riveted.

[1:57:09] And again, a lot to talk about at the end of this movie.

[1:57:12] Reality, now on Max.

[1:57:16] Sounds good.

[1:57:17] Okay.

[1:57:19] Todd, before we go,

[1:57:20] is there anything you would like to plug

[1:57:22] or anything you would like to direct people towards

[1:57:25] or just a final thought?

[1:57:28] I don't know.

[1:57:29] Why not open it up?

[1:57:30] I don't know.

[1:57:31] You don't have to.

[1:57:32] Movies are cool.

[1:57:32] Movies are terrific.

[1:57:33] I will say, and just to get real here,

[1:57:36] I'm gonna put, turn my hat sideways

[1:57:37] and my chair sideways a little bit.

[1:57:39] You guys, I mean,

[1:57:41] you've gotten this in letters a lot.

[1:57:44] And I'm gonna just echo that sentiment

[1:57:47] that no matter what's going on in my world at the time,

[1:57:52] maybe I'm up, maybe I'm down,

[1:57:54] especially when I'm down,

[1:57:56] I know there's a new episode of The Flophouse.

[1:57:59] And you guys, we really,

[1:58:03] all of us, I'm like all of the viewership,

[1:58:05] listenership of The Flophouse is behind me.

[1:58:08] We all wanna thank you for putting on such a great show

[1:58:10] for all these years.

[1:58:12] And it's an honor to be here.

[1:58:13] And we're very grateful for what you do.

[1:58:17] Thank you.

[1:58:18] But you tricked us.

[1:58:18] You turned it around on us.

[1:58:19] It was supposed to be.

[1:58:20] I did.

[1:58:21] Ha, ha, ha, ha.

[1:58:22] I was expecting you to big time us.

[1:58:24] Yeah, yeah.

[1:58:25] Well, Todd, thanks so much for saying all that.

[1:58:27] Go see a Star War.

[1:58:28] I don't know.

[1:58:28] Plug that.

[1:58:29] How about that?

[1:58:30] It's like if you wanna support Todd,

[1:58:31] see any movie that comes out.

[1:58:33] He's working on all of them.

[1:58:34] Hasn't been enough press about Star Wars.

[1:58:37] No, no.

[1:58:38] It's a very obscure movie.

[1:58:40] Well, thank you.

[1:58:44] Obviously to Todd, our guest, Todd Waziri.

[1:58:46] You can find him online,

[1:58:50] including on a social network that I won't plug anymore

[1:58:53] because I don't like it.

[1:58:54] But you can find him there.

[1:58:57] Look him up.

[1:58:58] And thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:59:03] You might find him under HowlDot.

[1:59:04] You might find him under Lydia Burrell.

[1:59:06] He's a man of many names.

[1:59:08] A real chameleon.

[1:59:10] Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:59:12] Over at MaximumFun.org,

[1:59:14] you can find a lot of other great podcasts.

[1:59:16] Check them out.

[1:59:17] They're a co-op now.

[1:59:19] If you like that kind of thing,

[1:59:21] it's another reason to like the company.

[1:59:22] If you like workers owning a piece of the company,

[1:59:25] and you should, then yeah.

[1:59:27] And hey, if you have a moment,

[1:59:30] why not leave us a nice review over at iTunes?

[1:59:35] It really does help us out.

[1:59:37] I mentioned not liking another social network.

[1:59:39] I will say that maybe if you wanna see Flophouse News,

[1:59:44] we should start plugging the Instagram more.

[1:59:46] We got a great Instagram

[1:59:47] where I put up a bunch of reels of stuff.

[1:59:49] I know that Meta is also not a great company,

[1:59:51] but at least the environment of being on Instagram

[1:59:56] is more pleasant than being on other social networks.

[1:59:58] I hate to break it to you.

[1:59:59] Apple's done.

[2:00:00] Plenty of issues, too, because there's no there's no big tech companies that are that are true true true

[2:00:07] Uh, so support little tech companies. They're all

[2:00:10] productions

[2:00:12] Homegrown podcast we're a little company no names with no tech. Yeah

[2:00:17] Um, anyway, speaking of no names for the flop house. I've been dan mccoy. I've been stewart wellington

[2:00:23] I'm ellie caylan, and i'm todd vaziri

[2:00:27] Okay. Bye

[2:00:30] Bye

[2:00:35] That's a wrap yeah, we did yep real sex that's a wrap, uh

[2:00:42] Yeah

[2:00:44] now, you know what I mostly associate a

[2:00:47] common phrase with

[2:00:49] um the end of the uh

[2:00:52] The hbo quote documentary series doc series. Yeah, it's a docuseries

[2:00:58] Okay. Um

[2:00:59] So you can tell people you're into documentaries

[2:01:04] I've seen all the real sex clubs. Yeah

[2:01:09] All right

[2:01:11] Maximum fun a worker-owned network of artists owned shows supported directly by you

Ep.#408 - Waterworld, with Todd Vaziri

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