0:02

I've squandered

0:05

my days with

0:07

plans of many

0:10

things. This

0:27

was not among them. At this moment,

0:29

I beg only to live the next few minutes well,

0:31

for all we ought to have thought and have not

0:34

thought, all we ought to have said and

0:36

have not said, all we ought to

0:38

have done and have not done, I

0:40

pray thee God for a podcast.

0:44

That's good. For forgiveness, right? That's what he's, yeah.

0:46

Correct. I liked it because it talked about saying

0:48

stuff and not saying stuff. And at the end

0:50

of the day, isn't that what podcasting is about?

0:53

I was also thinking you could include, when

0:56

he's introducing himself, is all

0:58

of his names and who, you know, the

1:00

lineage, you could have slipped podcasts into that. But yours

1:02

was better. Doing the accent felt gamey to begin with.

1:04

I don't think I also want to do Antonio

1:08

Menderes with a

1:10

Spanish accent listing Muslim names.

1:12

Yes. Right, right. Well,

1:15

I consider doing the tagline for this film. Do you know what the

1:18

tagline for this film is? Go

1:20

ahead. An ordinary man,

1:22

dot, dot, dot. An extraordinary

1:24

journey. Wait, he's not ordinary.

1:28

The plot of 13th Warrior is that, like,

1:30

some Joe Schmo got mixed up with a

1:33

bunch of Vikings. Like, he's extraordinary. An extraordinary

1:35

journey with the exclamation point too makes it

1:37

sound like this movie is like Starkid or

1:39

something. It's very fun. It's an adventure for

1:42

the whole family. But also look at, I

1:44

mean, this is, well, we'll talk about a

1:46

few movies have gotten dumped harder than this

1:48

one. But this poster that comes

1:50

out with this, like, bastardized

1:53

title, right? The

1:55

tagline's like an afterthought. Antonio

1:57

Menderes in huge letters. Yes.

2:00

most equally large letters from the author of Jurassic

2:02

Park and the director of Die Hard. That's what

2:04

they had. Right. So they really

2:06

leaned on that. And then the

2:08

pull quote is just, exhilarating

2:10

action adventure. I'm sorry, exhilarating

2:13

adventure thriller Entertainment Weekly. Which

2:15

was like the one, A Plus review from Lisa

2:18

Dorsal. Lisa Dorsal loved it. But

2:20

also that quote sounds

2:22

more like a description of what the film is

2:24

trying to be than even praise. Completely,

2:27

yeah. Just a literal description of something

2:29

you will experience perhaps. There is a

2:32

real reading action adventure thriller. There's

2:35

two posters. One says, you

2:37

know how like below the

2:39

credits, it'll be like X on this

2:41

date. So one says fear reigns August

2:43

13th. Okay. Fear

2:46

from, you know, the bean counters at all. They

2:49

were terrible. And the other one says

2:51

defy fear October 28th. So I guess

2:53

these are two, this must. What was

2:55

the original, original release date? It

2:58

was 1998. We'll

3:02

talk about it. Okay. It must

3:04

be in the in our dossier because yes. But

3:07

at what point does marketing go from be

3:09

afraid to defy fear? No,

3:12

I'm not scared of you motherfucker. I'm

3:15

looking at this post you're talking about, David. It's

3:17

interesting also that the shift is like now on

3:20

this one from the author of Jurassic Park and

3:22

the director of Die Hard is bigger than Ben

3:24

deres name, almost bigger than the title. And

3:28

then the tagline is almost hidden. This

3:30

poster sucks. The one that's

3:32

just his eye in the boat. Yeah,

3:36

it's kind of evocative, but it's not

3:38

the kind of poster where I'm like,

3:40

I got to see Antonio

3:42

Ben deres is I in a boat. I

3:44

guess it is a great poster

3:46

for a movie called the 13th warrior and not

3:49

that's kind of a good teaser poster. Finish

3:52

your thought, David. Oh, it's not a good

3:54

poster for a movie that should have definitely

3:56

still been called Eaters of the Dead, which

3:58

is a great title. I

4:01

didn't think colonies are dead. I mean in the

4:03

dossier. Okay. Well, we'll get to yeah, I'm excited

4:05

to find out Let me let me answer just

4:07

because there are a lot of thoughts on it

4:10

But the anecdote that is told is that

4:12

like Michael Crichton was watering his lawn

4:15

and his next-door neighbor was like so Any

4:18

more movies coming out of your books and he's like, yeah one

4:20

of my early books They're making a eaters of the dead and

4:22

he's like, what is that some sort of be? All right,

4:24

it sounds like zombie movie or whatever Right and

4:26

like turned around called Disney and was like we

4:29

need a classy title My neighbor

4:31

thinks it sounds flock and I can see that

4:33

but at the same time I'm like your

4:35

book is called users of the dead. Yeah, you're

4:38

selling everything on the fact that you wrote

4:40

we write bestsellers Maybe we should use the

4:42

title of your book. Yes. Also ears

4:45

of the raiser, you know rad as

4:47

hell title Yeah, it's cooler is nothing.

4:49

Well, what if they were? One

4:52

two, three four five six seven nine eleven twelve warriors It

4:57

sounds like it's gonna be about an unlucky warrior

4:59

and it's like is that what it is is

5:02

like no He's just there were twelve. He's the

5:04

13th. Right if it was Leslie Nielsen is the

5:06

13th warrior. I'd be like sounds funny I'm

5:08

gonna fall off the boat Got

5:11

a little fart machine like when they're having

5:13

their their importance We've

5:21

talked about how Leslie Nielsen's gravestone just says

5:23

let her rip. Yes, does it? Yeah. Yes

5:26

Priceless. I mean he there are multiple

5:28

stories of other celebrities meeting Leslie Nielsen

5:30

and him activating a whoopee cushion or

5:32

fart machine Then he had on his

5:35

person never Like

5:37

literally and he would do it in like

5:39

interviews and he'd like that's why I discovered

5:41

with all the interviews And that is incredible

5:43

to watch. It's masterful This

5:46

is playing check go ahead. This is playing

5:48

check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin David

5:50

It's a podcast about filmographies directors who have

5:53

massive success early on in their careers and

5:55

are given a series of blank checks Make

5:57

whatever crazy passion projects they want sometimes those

6:00

checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

6:02

Today we were talking about, and

6:04

these, you know, it's hard to prove

6:07

these things with Hollywood accounting and such. This

6:10

by some accounts is the

6:13

biggest money loser in the history of Hollywood. I

6:16

feel like this movie was in record books

6:18

at a certain point. At the time, I

6:20

think it was definitively given that title. Now

6:23

a couple, only two movies have maybe surpassed

6:25

it. I think it's now also hard. But

6:27

it adjusted for inflation and maybe beats them.

6:30

Yeah. Can you name the two

6:32

movies that most people cite as losing more

6:34

money than this film? Since

6:37

this movie or? They're both in the last 10

6:39

years. Who don't ask? No, okay. I

6:42

remember that was a big one,

6:44

obviously. They're two huge Disney flops

6:46

failed franchises. John Carter? Correct.

6:49

Yeah. Is by most accounting

6:52

number one. Disney. Why

6:57

I feel like this is obvious and I'm not. Tomorrowland.

7:00

Tomorrowland's in the top 10. Makes

7:04

sense. Not. Probably is up there,

7:06

but not. I think it made some

7:08

money. Those movies would kind of glare.

7:10

But what's the one that? Lone

7:14

Ranger. Yeah. So most people.

7:16

So much that it costs so much. It's that it

7:19

bombed so definitively as well. Yeah,

7:22

but it also costs so much. It

7:24

famously cost like more and more and more where they're

7:26

like, we will not greenlight this movie unless you hit

7:29

this number. And then we

7:31

hit it and then they greenlit it and

7:33

then they instantly went past. Correct. But yeah,

7:35

this might be the greatest loser of all time. This is

7:37

a miniseries on the films of John

7:39

McTiernan. Today

7:41

we were talking about the 13th warrior. Yes.

7:44

What's the miniseries called? It's called

7:46

a pod heard with a venge cast.

7:49

Good. It had to be. Yeah, that's

7:51

fine. Yeah. This

7:53

is one of the few where you could have just called it

7:56

podcast and gotten away with it. We

7:58

could in the big red letters. Yeah. That would

8:00

have been nice actually. Yeah. I'm just

8:02

looking. All right, so like

8:04

full disclosure, we're recording this episode out of order

8:06

and it is our first McKeown episode. We got

8:09

a great guest. We're turning the show after far

8:11

too long, absent. And so

8:13

we're recording this one far in advance to take

8:15

advantage of him being here, running

8:17

the marathon. How are your legs feeling? My legs

8:19

feel great. David Lowry's here, the

8:21

great David Lowry. What was your time? Friend of the show.

8:23

Three hours and 49 minutes. Director of the

8:25

Green Knight. That's really good. I felt ghost story. I

8:28

felt pretty good about it. Really

8:30

good. Congratulations. Thank you. Last

8:34

podcast hero. Yeah,

8:37

I mean, just Die Hard with a Vengeance is one of

8:39

the best titles ever. It really is.

8:42

They really, that's the era of, you

8:46

can't just put a number on it anymore,

8:48

like Batman Forever. Yes. Like everyone

8:50

just trying to be like, how do we solve the

8:52

sequel title? And it didn't, it was pre-coloured. And shoot it

8:55

up. Yeah, like there were very few titles with Colin at

8:57

that point. Colin, two fans, right? Who do you think

8:59

you are? Next Karate Kid. I'm trying

9:01

to think of other titles like that.

9:03

But also somehow the title invokes the spirit

9:05

of the movie, which is like McTiernan is

9:08

back. There's a real punchiness. The

9:10

proper Die Hard sequel. Die Hard 2 was Die

9:12

Hard on a plane. This one is New Gruber,

9:16

original director. We're dying hard

9:18

with a vengeance. New Gruber, that's a great

9:20

term. New Gruber. New

9:22

Gruber, new rules. The

9:26

Podmas cast

9:28

affair. Yeah, well, looks

9:30

like we have to change our plans. No, it's

9:32

Pod Hard with a vengeance. Pod

9:34

Hard with a vengeance cast. There's no equivocating

9:36

on this. I'm

9:39

not equivocating at all. I'm thrilled with our

9:41

title and I'm thrilled we're doing John McTiernan.

9:43

But it is funny that we are beginning

9:45

with the movie that exploded his career into

9:47

smithereens. Correct. Not that he didn't then

9:50

make more movies. Yeah.

9:52

But it is the end of him as a successful

9:54

filmmaker, correct? The Loon takes, correct. Well, we'll get into

9:56

it. But there's three flops in a row. Did he

9:59

do what? between Die Hard with a

10:01

vengeance and this. It's the Thomas Crown affair! Wait, I

10:03

thought that was after. No, this is

10:05

before, well, they come out the same year. Yeah,

10:08

so I guess he made it after. He made

10:10

it after and it came out before. It came

10:12

out before. It's so weird. He makes Thomas Crown

10:14

when he's basically washed his hands of this movie.

10:16

Yes. And Creighton's taken over in the studio, has

10:19

taken over. And then Thomas Crown comes out three

10:21

weeks before this movie. It's like late July and

10:23

this is early August? First week of August, last

10:25

week of August. They're in the same month. It's

10:28

my question not to spoil anything, but when we

10:30

get to the box office game, I'm so curious

10:32

to see, because Thomas Crown was like a sleeper

10:34

and it littered. We'll talk about it. They

10:37

both have to be in the top ten at the same time.

10:39

We'll talk about it. Okay, we'll talk about it. Um, but

10:41

right, I guess you're right that he does, it's

10:43

not like making this movie saps

10:46

him of all his energies because he makes Thomas

10:48

Crown right after and it's a great film. It's

10:50

a commercial. Well, well regarded. He

10:52

would have been beyond cooked if

10:54

this came out. But it's because he has that

10:56

that he can then make two more movies. And

10:58

that Thomas Crown is doing well in theaters at

11:00

the same time where they're like, look, 13 Boyer

11:02

just lost so much money. But the movie he

11:04

made after that is making a profit for a

11:06

different studio. The guy hasn't totally

11:08

lost it. But

11:10

then Rolla Ball and that kills

11:13

him. Rolla Ball kills him. Basic was

11:15

didn't do well, but Rolla Ball is

11:17

the true bomb. Right. Because they still

11:19

gave him a big budget for Rolla

11:21

Ball. And then that's another this is

11:23

held for years. It's constantly re shot

11:25

and recut. A

11:27

fascinating career. The scoundrels and perverts

11:30

on Letterbox saw you log this

11:32

movie, Sims. Yeah. And

11:34

said McTiernan confirmed and they were like, first

11:36

of all, David just watches shit. Second of

11:39

all, what possible reason would they have for

11:41

starting with 13 Boyer? Well,

11:45

if you were logging any other McTiernan movie, we'd

11:47

think it was confirmed. And this might just be

11:49

David on some weird shit. But

11:52

I message you, Lowry. Yes. You

11:54

were coming into New York to do the

11:56

marathon. And I said, we should get you

11:58

on an episode. We're doing McTiernan. And your

12:00

response was, I think, I

12:03

want to get the exact quote here. Thirteenth Warrior

12:05

is something I talk about with odd frequency for

12:07

a movie I haven't seen since it opened. And

12:10

this is true. Um, have

12:12

you had this experience, Griffin? Because I have. I

12:16

have mentioned this movie to a couple of people since we

12:19

decided on this podcast. Sure. Privately in confidence. And

12:21

they have said like, oh yeah, love Thirteenth Warrior.

12:23

And I mean, I would be like, what, what,

12:26

what do you mean? And they're like, well, I saw it when

12:28

I was a kid and I was, it was kind of cool.

12:30

Haven't seen it since it's not good. Have

12:32

you had that experience? I don't have one person

12:34

say that to separate people like, Oh yeah. Thirteenth,

12:37

fourth. That movie's fun. Can you dock them? Can

12:39

you name them on my, I would never, I

12:41

did expose them like that, but I wasn't

12:43

even mad at them. I was just sort of like, wait,

12:45

have you seen it recently? And they're like, no, no, no,

12:48

no, no. I have like a memory of seeing that on

12:50

TV when I was 12 years old and it having like

12:52

swords and shit, like, and I had

12:54

a good time watching it. I'm so, I'm

12:56

so fascinated by that. Like I was like,

12:58

what is this movie's cultural footprint at all?

13:01

Like, am I the only person that ever

13:03

thinks about it? And I, I will talk about

13:05

why I do, but I do. Okay. Well, I want to

13:07

know why you think about it. I do want to, I

13:09

just want to introduce another plot thread for this episode. Go

13:11

ahead. We have producer Ben Frisch

13:13

filling in for Ben Hausly had to miss this

13:15

recording. Hey guys. Great friend of the show, doing

13:18

us a real solid here. Uh,

13:21

Ben, you went into this recording thinking

13:23

that this was a different movie. Yeah.

13:25

So, um, when I was asked

13:28

to come in, I thought that this was going to

13:30

be, uh, the

13:32

movie warriors of virtue in my head. I

13:35

heard you guys also think about a lot. I

13:38

may have to watch warriors. I need to

13:40

watch warriors of virtue. Yeah. Heard you guys

13:42

talk about this movie at some point. And

13:44

I just remember thinking like, geez,

13:46

John McTernan's career must have taken

13:49

a really strange turn to do

13:51

the kangaroo movie. Right. So I,

13:54

I looked it up yesterday and I

13:57

was like, oh, this is a totally different movie than I was

13:59

thinking. And so. Then I went down to rabbit

14:01

hole trying to figure out what the third

14:03

or what what you were thinking of virtue

14:05

was and had to search for

14:07

movies with virtue in the title and eventually I

14:09

found it and through like Warrior

14:12

and then kangaroo people. Yes, it's a

14:14

it's a fantasy film about People

14:17

who represent the elements it was funded by a

14:19

Chinese toy company I wonder David if the people

14:21

who are saying to you I love the 13th warrior

14:23

are making this same mistake You

14:26

never know because there were swords and shit and warriors

14:28

of virtues. Yeah. Have you seen warriors of virtue? I've

14:30

seen it theatrically No,

14:33

I thought you were about to say it. I've seen it many.

14:35

No. Yeah I it's another like 13th warrior haven't

14:37

seen it since what came out But you think

14:39

I'm like was that a real movie

14:41

now just YouTube the trailer just to

14:44

confirm that yes It was because like Ronnie you

14:46

obviously is like a big Hong Kong director in

14:48

the 80s He made his

14:50

first English language first thing obviously It's sort of

14:52

like that's a movie of the one foot in

14:54

Hong Kong and Hollywood or whatever Then he does

14:57

bride of Chucky the 51st state which no one

14:59

remembers No, it's kind of fun the bride of

15:01

Chucky rips by the truck is great and then

15:03

Freddy versus Jason Which would like great got some

15:06

good stuff on. Yeah, exactly and then Fearless.

15:08

Okay, that's him sort of going back to writing

15:10

one foot in each country. He was supposed to

15:13

make snakes on a plane originally Yeah,

15:17

why didn't he I don't know Just

15:20

the 51st state but that is why Samuel

15:22

Jackson signed on for snakes on a plane

15:24

Ronnie he's on set for 51st state and he's like,

15:27

what are you working on next Ronnie? And he's like

15:29

this movie it's called snakes on the plane, but they

15:31

want to change the title and

15:33

I'll do it if they Were gonna

15:35

call it like flight 82. Yeah The

15:39

equivalent of that 13th warrior. Yes, just

15:41

so funny. Yes. Yes. That's exactly the

15:43

mistake they make Like

15:45

that there was this movie There's

15:47

sort of like American British movie where

15:50

they were like who do people really want

15:52

to team up right now? And well Jackson

15:54

and Robert Carlyle, but guess who's

15:56

wearing the kilt Sam is because

15:58

that's a whole thing The thing of the

16:00

movie is he's wearing a kilt for some reason.

16:02

And they're like drug chemists? Yeah, they come up,

16:05

I think it's like Carlyle maybe

16:07

comes up with some formula

16:09

for a new drug or something. That's also

16:11

a movie that had two different titles. I

16:13

think it was released in the same- It

16:15

was called Formula 51 in America because no

16:17

one in America knows the joke of

16:20

Britain being the 51st state. Sure. I

16:23

guess was the thinking. Yeah. I don't

16:25

know. Yeah, that is obscure because I did not

16:27

know that. Yeah, that's a British joke. Wait,

16:29

so Ben, did you- You saw Warriors

16:32

of Virtue. Yes. When it

16:34

came out. Yeah. And

16:36

it haunted you. Well, I remember it being a movie

16:38

I was scared to watch as a child because I

16:40

was scared of a lot of movies. And

16:43

characters in costume, like mascot characters and

16:45

stuff, like the Easter Bunny always scared

16:47

me as a kid. And these are

16:50

particularly scary looking creatures. Yeah, they're kind

16:52

of- Unintended. And

16:55

I remember being

16:57

scared of it and then watching it and

16:59

then just thinking that it sucked and actually

17:01

it was fine. Well, it wasn't

17:03

scary. Yeah. Ben, here's the

17:06

quickest version of what 13th Warrior

17:08

is. Okay. Do you have a

17:10

watch? No. It is

17:12

Antonio Banderas playing a real Muslim

17:14

man who exists, who was a

17:17

writer, basically a travelogue writer, not

17:19

to diminish his accomplishments. And

17:22

accounts of his travels survive. Yes.

17:25

At that time the travellogs were important. Right. Right.

17:29

And Antonio Banderas is playing him, right? This guy's

17:31

real, his tech survives. He did

17:33

different sort of Anthony Bourdain, now I'm going to

17:35

spend some time embedded with the Vikings. I'm

17:37

going to go here, I'm going to do this. Michael

17:40

Crichton in the 70s writes

17:44

a book where he combines that

17:46

character with Beowulf. It's like, what

17:48

if when that guy was traveling

17:51

around, he hooked up with some Vikings and they

17:53

were like, we're going to go fight Grendel?

17:55

You know, he ended up being part of the

17:58

Beowulf mission. Like if Marco Polo was all. also

18:00

like Fighting Dragon. Correct. But

18:02

it's got kind of the Krightney like, but I'm

18:04

going to make it more grounded. It won't be

18:06

monsters. It will be like monsters. It's like what

18:08

gave birth to the man? Right. What

18:11

was the actual thing they were fighting? She's not a snake

18:13

lady. She's a lady who hangs out with a lot of

18:15

thieves. Right.

18:17

And truly it's an early Krighten

18:20

work, right? It's his fourth book,

18:22

but he was already a big

18:24

deal. Yeah. Because Andromeda's Train

18:26

and Terminal Man, I think we're like big

18:28

books out of the gate, right? He's

18:31

already directing movies at this point by the time

18:33

the book comes out. I had written books under

18:35

a different name as well. Right. That's

18:38

the other thing. Have you read those? I've read none.

18:40

Have you read any Krighten? The fourth Krighten by name

18:42

book. So I was really into Congo when I was

18:44

a little kid. The Congo Congo? I love that book.

18:47

That makes so much sense. And then I know I read

18:49

Jurassic Park, but it's so mixed up in my memories of

18:51

the movie that the movie kind of surpassed it. I famously

18:53

had to put my Jurassic Park book under the bed because

18:56

it scared me so much. So I

18:58

read Eaters of the Dead. Which I think about all the time, but I

19:00

was just like under the bed. And

19:02

then like months later I found it and I was

19:04

like, right, this had to go under here. Okay, I'm

19:07

sorry, finish your, I'm, uh, you read Eaters of the

19:09

Dead yesterday. Oh, wow. In a day? How long is

19:11

it? Not only in a day. I read it. You

19:14

just ran the marathon yesterday. I read it at 280 pages. At

19:16

the marathon village. So you get to the, you

19:18

take the bus to- You go into Staten Island. Yeah. And

19:21

then you just have to wait to start. And the

19:23

book was short enough that I read the entire thing while waiting

19:25

to start the marathon. Like Village

19:27

Famously Horny, Marathon Village Famously

19:29

People Reading Cretans. Forgotten

19:32

Cretans, yes. Thumbs up, thumbs down.

19:34

Well, one Cretan paperback. It is generally

19:38

a thumbs up. It is exactly the movie. Okay.

19:41

To the point where I'm

19:43

like, I'm already curious how,

19:45

like what Cretan did when he took over

19:48

as a director, like what his reshoots were.

19:51

And I've got ideas, but reading the book, I was like, this

19:54

is pretty much just scene for scene

19:56

exactly what's on screen. There's

19:58

very little that is different. The others, I

20:00

mean, citing this movie

20:03

alongside John Carter, right,

20:05

and the scale of Disney flops, all

20:07

three movies I cited produced by the

20:09

Walt Disney Company, different eras. True. This,

20:12

of course, was a touchstone. Correct. Release under touchstone.

20:15

I mean, they're always touching stones in this movie. Very

20:17

true. This is a very rotten movie. Hands,

20:20

feet, blood's touching stone, stone's

20:22

touching blood. They

20:25

– you read about

20:27

the production of this movie, and it

20:29

feels like the type of production that

20:31

then doesn't happen until 2011, 2012, and

20:33

then becomes a puck upon the industry

20:35

where they basically shoot the movie three

20:37

times, where they just don't

20:40

like it and rather than let

20:42

it go are just like, we're starting

20:44

over again. And so this

20:46

is a movie that's basically greenlit at like $80 million

20:49

and then ends up costing somewhere

20:51

closer to – Like 160. I

20:54

think it's greenlit at like 60. It

20:56

then goes over budget to 80 in original production and

20:58

then ends up costing somewhere between 160 and 180 in

21:01

total. And

21:04

the most nuts stat is that – not stat. Not

21:07

only do they do reshoots and does

21:09

Crichton take over, but at one point

21:12

there are dueling reshoot units where

21:14

on different stages in the same complex,

21:16

McTiernan's doing reshoots and Crichton's doing reshoots,

21:18

and the cast is going back and

21:20

forth between them. And they're like, we

21:22

just need to get as much shit

21:25

as we can to figure out which

21:27

of these guys can solve the movie.

21:29

We'll talk about it. But the movie doesn't –

21:31

well, anyway. No, no, no. Go ahead. Yeah, you're

21:33

right. The movie does not feel like, oh my

21:35

God, there's two movies in here. And

21:37

the tone is switching so wildly or anything

21:40

like that. But then again, Crichton is a

21:42

decent director. I don't know if you've seen

21:44

a lot of Crichton movies, but he's made

21:46

really good movies. Westworld, Coma – Coma is

21:48

great. Great train robbery. Westworld is fun. Runaway?

21:51

Is that what the Celic ones call? Let's

21:53

see. Runaway, yes. I

21:57

never saw Looker, but I've seen Westworld, Coma,

21:59

Great train robbery. And they're

22:01

fun. Yeah, but they are all like

22:03

it's you don't watch them and think

22:05

like wow This is like a master

22:07

of visionary director. Yeah Yes

22:12

journeyman director basically aided by

22:14

his innate storytelling instincts and

22:16

working with his own material,

22:19

but he's not a visionary visualist

22:23

Similar from McTiernan I think McTiernan's

22:25

like the god of I know

22:28

how to communicate the geography of

22:30

Action scene and make everything clear

22:32

and spatial, you know stuff will

22:34

be clear right, but yeah, I

22:36

know Like a signature

22:39

shot, you know for self-sake. It's it's

22:41

all function Yeah, but

22:43

has a much stronger visual

22:45

intelligence He does and I

22:47

think honestly that is present in this

22:50

film Yeah, like I sound like I

22:52

watched this movie and I'm like, oh my god Like this

22:54

action isn't coherent nothing's, you know, there are

22:56

other problems I have with this movie. The

22:58

action is mostly fine Yeah,

23:01

would you agree? I mean talk to all

23:03

tales of school. Yeah, it's like incredible or

23:05

anything But like it's not like I it's

23:08

fun. Yeah, it gets the job done. I

23:10

know what's happening No, even there's a quote

23:12

that JJ pulled where McTiernan's like look There's

23:14

no like lost masterpiece version of this if

23:16

they gave me back the footage my cuts

23:18

maybe 10 minutes different right

23:22

Substantially, you know He's like there's maybe 10

23:24

minutes of stuff in there that I identify

23:26

as Creighton having shot and maybe 10

23:29

minutes of stuff that I shot that I would want

23:31

back in the movie and But

23:33

but also a lot of it is like

23:35

stuff he shot under increasing pressure. Yeah, right

23:38

as the budget started escalate, right? Okay

23:42

Okay, wait, wait trying to

23:44

step back before we write like I Just

23:47

remember when this came out, I guess I was pro

23:49

I think I was really hot on Ben Darras because

23:51

of the sorrow Yeah, and obviously

23:53

I knew him generally but like as a 13 year

23:56

old I was like guy from sorrow

23:58

Like wait, this would have come out same

24:00

year. It would have come out. It was supposed

24:02

to, but it came out the year after. Zorro

24:04

also was delayed. Was it? Obviously,

24:06

he ended up working for everybody, but I think

24:08

that had production difficulties and was originally a 97

24:10

movie that went to 98. And then this was

24:15

a 98 movie that went to

24:17

99. Zorro had the thing

24:19

where Robert Rodriguez got fired. Right. Sort

24:23

of amazing to think about him directing it, like

24:25

what that would have looked like. And then, so right,

24:28

they got kind of stalled by that. And then

24:30

they brought on Martin Campbell and

24:33

things were out of control and it went to

24:35

a million over budget. And it was sort of

24:37

like, is this another cutthroat Island? Like

24:39

these movies don't work. You need so much practical shit. It's

24:41

not. And then of course the movie comes out and everyone

24:43

loves it. Like it's one of the

24:45

great movies. Which everyone's like saying, okay,

24:48

13th warrior, we can just get this across the

24:50

line with another Zorro on our hands. People would

24:52

love to see

24:54

Viking nodding in

24:57

a bowl. I

25:01

think the 13th warrior is doomed from

25:03

the outset. I think if there

25:06

was a totally normal production of this movie with

25:08

the same basic people involved with

25:11

no fucking weird reshoots or whatever, and no

25:14

going well, they over budget, it still would not do well.

25:17

Fundamentally, I just don't think people have a

25:19

huge appetite for this story. It

25:21

feels wild about it. They double the spend on

25:23

this movie when you're just like, there's

25:25

such a roof to how much you're ever going to

25:27

get out of this. It feels

25:29

wild to treat this movie like it's the

25:31

Flash or whatever and say like, we need

25:33

this to work. We will not quit on

25:35

this thing. It's such

25:38

a cool idea. Even going back to Craig and

25:40

his original concept of like, what's the real story

25:42

behind Beowulf? I'm into that. Like that's great. I'm

25:44

into the idea of the story

25:46

being told. I'm into

25:48

the lore of Vikings and whatnot. I think

25:50

you know, adapt every single thing I read

25:52

in my first year of college medieval studies

25:54

class. This was, this was my first year

25:56

of college also. And I feel like it's

25:58

on. Also, is this

26:01

the first time you've covered technically an

26:03

adaptation of the same source material twice?

26:05

Yeah, sort of right Yes, right has

26:07

to be I don't know It's very

26:09

close like event wise to

26:11

the plot of Beowulf like oh, well,

26:13

we've done two stars born episodes now

26:16

Right. That's the other one that won't

26:18

have come out and the time we're talking

26:20

Lowry, but will have come out. Yes I'm

26:24

trying to think if there's like a foreign We

26:26

did a remake that we've ever done or anything.

26:28

Yeah for episode. Oh, that doesn't count but But

26:33

yes, no, we are doing another Beowulf

26:35

movie and another Beowulf movie

26:38

that kind of like was

26:40

like no no we can make Beowulf work

26:43

as a modern blockbuster and Audiences

26:45

were mostly like I don't really care But

26:47

I mean look I'm just gonna serve you

26:49

up the question not that you told me

26:51

to ask you this, right? Yeah, but like

26:53

wondering like why did why did this Lowry

26:55

think about this movie still and talk about

26:58

it and then watching it I just kept

27:00

thinking the version of this I would want

27:02

to see is the like Green Knight style

27:04

version of it Yeah version of it. I

27:06

would want to see has a capped budget

27:09

Yes, does not need to conform

27:11

to certain Expectations of

27:13

like adventure blockbuster films at

27:16

a certain size I now know having

27:18

gone through the process of making a green night

27:20

that the capped budget would probably scare me off

27:22

now I don't know if I

27:25

have the fortitude to go through that of

27:27

trying to make a medieval or pre-medieval

27:29

epic But it does appeal

27:31

to me like this type of storytelling. Yeah type of

27:34

Myth-making and peeling back the layers of myth

27:36

is always really interesting to me

27:38

and to a certain extent. I think every

27:41

movie I've made has sort of been a date

27:44

has been sort of about peeling back some level

27:46

of Legend to try to

27:48

like expose the fallacies within that's not very highfalutin

27:50

But it's kind of like what I'm interested in

27:52

doing and I watching

27:55

this movie again I was like, I wonder if this is

27:57

one of the first instances of that that kind of planted

27:59

that seed because I remember the

28:01

scene of Bully Wolf. That's

28:04

where he goes behind this? The Beywolf,

28:06

the Beywolf surrogate who when he died.

28:08

Bully Wolf. Yeah. And just being like,

28:11

oh, I'm witnessing a

28:14

mortal character giving

28:17

up his life and passing into legend. And I

28:19

thought that was captured very well.

28:21

Yeah. And that moment stuck with me

28:23

where he just sits there and dying

28:25

is like an

28:27

inherently pathetic act. It's just like

28:29

a system of a series of failures. Right. It's

28:32

involved dead people or cowards. And watching the

28:35

way in which people regard death is always

28:37

what brings the poetry to it. And I

28:39

was like, this is a beautiful

28:42

moment. It reminded me of Robert De

28:44

Niro dying in heat. Like the idea of like

28:46

a character regarding someone else sitting down and dying.

28:48

There's something very evocative about that.

28:50

And so that stuck with me, but more than that,

28:52

the thing that really I keep

28:55

thinking about over the 24 years

28:57

since this opened

29:01

is the scene where he learns their

29:03

language. Best scene or a

29:05

really cool idea. A really cool idea executed

29:07

fairly well. I think you need to remake

29:09

the 13th work. Yeah. The way

29:11

you were just talking about or two years of the death,

29:14

just do it. I guess you can never,

29:16

no studio would touch it. This is the rare kind of

29:18

bomb. The fact that they didn't use the original title. Yeah,

29:21

I guess so. That's the only

29:23

wiggle room to possibly make people

29:25

not even realize it's connected. You

29:28

could give it. I think you could get away with that. It's

29:30

more interesting in the context now of like Vikings,

29:32

which I've not seen, but apparently

29:35

was a hugely successful. It's TV

29:37

though. Very versatile. It went on

29:39

and was like moved from one network to another and

29:41

has spin off. That and Black Sails,

29:44

those are the two sort of Game

29:46

of Thrones adjacent period sexy violent dramas

29:48

that lasted for years with huge fan

29:50

bases despite no critical acclaim. And then

29:52

it's really interesting to watch this now

29:55

in the context of having seen the Northmen

29:57

and which maybe didn't, I love it. a

30:00

masterpiece, but maybe it didn't set the box office

30:02

on fire, but did extremely well on

30:04

VOD. Very, very, very, very well.

30:07

Basically, Focus have told me, and it sounds

30:09

like maybe I've told you that the movie

30:11

was a sensation for them on VOD. Yes,

30:13

completely. To their mild surprise, I think. I

30:17

love that movie so much. As

30:19

do I. But one thing

30:21

I love about it is

30:23

Agres' whole deal with all his

30:25

movies where he's like, this is

30:28

sincere. These are

30:30

Vikings. They have Viking goals. I

30:32

am not making this for you. He's

30:35

trying to get to Valhalla. That's

30:37

his goal. Indeed, he does. The final shot of

30:39

the movie. And he does. At the

30:41

end, I'm crying because I'm like, he's a

30:44

crazy bastard. He got to Valhalla. Yeah, it's

30:46

incredible. Truly, one of

30:48

the rare movies where I was like, I have tears

30:51

coming from my face. Usually,

30:53

I'm like, oh, I'm going to cry. I can tell.

30:55

This is working me up. I

30:57

was just watching it. Surprise. He's going

30:59

to Valhalla going, oh my God. Have you seen the North? Yeah. I

31:02

was rewatching it last night because I

31:05

wanted to watch that funeral scene again because it's

31:08

the same incantation. I

31:11

see my father, I see my mother lifting

31:14

the woman who's going to

31:16

be sacrificed up three times and I was like, oh, my

31:18

watch is 13th warrior. That

31:20

is literally, they just did, I mean,

31:22

it's obviously a traditional Viking funeral. I

31:25

just wanted to see how Robert did

31:27

it again and then I just wound up watching

31:29

the Northman because it's so darn good. I'm going to go.

31:31

Do you remember this being a

31:33

movie you liked when you first saw it or

31:36

was it just that certain ideas in

31:38

it stuck with you? Did you see it in theater? I saw it

31:40

in theater. I was pleasantly surprised by it when it came out. This

31:43

goes into my, in

31:45

high school, I got a job as a projectionist and saw

31:48

from 96, no, 97

31:52

until 2004 I worked at a movie theater. I

31:55

was like, a career movie theater employee. I know that and

31:57

I think of you just running back and forth. You've

32:00

told my total story. Yeah, right between all

32:02

the happy Hollow episode all the theater Because

32:04

they were all one long harder link exactly

32:06

rooms right and so I Was

32:09

there when the eaters of the dead trailer

32:11

came in okay and threaded it

32:13

up and watched it man Oh, this sounds

32:16

pretty cool, and then obviously at that point

32:18

without the internet any sort of release delays

32:22

Came through us from letters from the studio

32:24

saying pull these trailers these movies aren't coming

32:26

pull this poster First trailer had

32:28

eaters of the dead as the title on it

32:30

and then remember why it's on YouTube So my

32:32

memory of watching it was like this trailer is

32:34

scary Yeah, the trailer the title was

32:37

scary I didn't I didn't know what it

32:39

was in the trailer I was ever sure

32:41

being although I'm an eater of the dead sometimes

32:43

like a dead animal fair Brag

32:45

about it bragging and I went

32:48

back. It's not the trailers on YouTube.

32:50

Yeah, it's more just unpleasant It's unpleasant

32:52

trailer. Mmm. It's weird. What footage they

32:54

use very dark It's a

32:56

lot of like torches and horses. It says pray

32:59

for the living. I guess it's sort of like

33:02

Monster people attacking you're probably watching

33:04

without sound right now Yeah, the

33:06

sound is really screechy and

33:08

just kind of like off-putting

33:11

How did you guys go about

33:13

rewatching this movie also? Antonio

33:16

Banderas barely visible in this tree almost

33:18

know it's just all these writers

33:20

with torches, right? I'll just like him in shadow

33:22

for like five seconds. I mean we're gonna sign

33:24

a bandera several light you watch an iTunes Do

33:27

you iTunes as well? Okay, I found the The

33:30

compression on iTunes and the quality of the video

33:33

which is listed as HD, but look to me

33:35

like a VHS In

33:38

a movie that's pretty dark Almost

33:40

unblockable you found it almost I didn't think

33:42

it was that bad. Yeah, I don't remember

33:44

surely has not been I Ended

33:47

up up res from DVD firing

33:49

up Express VPN our loyal sponsors

33:52

on this show Because

33:54

I saw that it was on Disney Plus and

33:57

it was a better version because I actually was

33:59

like 20 minutes and finding it hard to make

34:01

out the images. Interesting. And it did look better on

34:03

Disney+. I don't know what the fuck was going on

34:05

there if you guys had an okay time on iTunes.

34:07

It was fine. Yeah,

34:09

it didn't. But it is. It is dark.

34:12

It is muddy. It is a dark movie

34:14

that is not served well by basically being

34:16

abandoned. Like,

34:18

this movie's never gonna get restored.

34:20

Right. There's no... And there's

34:22

also... The idea of spending more money on this

34:24

movie might actually be like illegal, like in terms

34:26

of accounting. Like, you can't. The only source JJ

34:29

could find to pull quotes from the people who

34:31

worked on it was there was a 2011 French

34:33

Blu-ray with

34:35

an hour of new interviews. Right.

34:38

And I cannot believe they got anyone to sit down to

34:40

talk about this thing 12 years later,

34:42

but that France is apparently the only country that

34:44

cares. I mean, Creighton liked it.

34:47

Yeah. I'm glad he... And he, you

34:50

know, deserved to be happy. He had such a

34:52

few wins. And then also is exactly the book.

34:54

He's like, oh, this is the book I read.

34:56

Yeah. Right. That's all... All

34:58

right. Here's what I... Here... All right. I

35:01

just want to say about Creighton. Obviously Jurassic

35:03

Park. Yes. Sphere was my big one. That

35:05

book rules. I recommend it to

35:07

anyone. I like that book so much that I like

35:09

that movie a lot. Even though that

35:11

movie is sort of like half-risable. Yeah. I'm

35:13

still just like, there's a sphere. Like, at

35:15

the bottom of the ocean. Sure. It's kind

35:17

of just compelling enough to me. Yeah. So

35:20

that was always... I want to read more Creighton. I've

35:22

never read like the Andromeda strain. I've never read like

35:25

some of his like master... Perfect time. He's got a

35:27

new book coming out. Isn't he dead?

35:29

Yes, but he had an unfinished book that

35:31

is now being released. And James Patterson finished

35:33

it. Is it the one that's like a

35:35

Jurassic Park prequel or that's already been released?

35:37

There's... He wrote like a Jurassic Park prequel

35:40

set in the 19th century. That

35:42

feels like something that's already been released. I actually have no idea.

35:46

What the fuck was it called? I think that

35:48

was released. Dragon Teeth. Yes,

35:52

Dragon Teeth. But

35:55

the other thing I always think is used 6ix9ine. Yeah.

35:59

It's famously... dangerously tall person there

36:01

is a photo he created the ER as

36:03

well or all shit like that but like

36:05

well She's 6'9 we're gonna dig into this

36:07

but photo of him on the set of

36:09

this movie I pulled up a production still

36:11

of him directing a bunch of the Nordic

36:14

Viking actors and it is bizarre to see

36:16

him Towering over there. Yeah, and it's like

36:18

and 20 bender us not a short man.

36:20

No looks like me next to All

36:24

the Nordic actors and then craytons like a head

36:26

above them And tell you my nurse is listed

36:28

at 5 9 so he might be on the

36:30

shorter side. Well, I like that I

36:32

remember when the expendables to

36:36

Trailer or poster came out. He might be in three

36:38

but go on Whichever one it

36:40

is. I can't remember which one there was

36:42

this poster where they're all standing in at

36:44

the same height Yes, and the trickery of

36:46

it like having Jet Li stand at the

36:48

same height as like Dolph Lundgren or whatever

36:50

He's so offensive like yeah I'm like these

36:52

men are like there's a foot and difference

36:54

between the tallest and the shortest Yeah, like let them

36:56

you know, but like instead they all have to be

36:59

like even and it was just

37:01

very funny Yeah, I remember looking at four-foot

37:03

hands, right? I remember looking up all their

37:05

heights and been there as one of the

37:07

smaller one. Okay, but God bless it I

37:09

love that compact package, but you know the

37:12

full package. Yeah David

37:15

yeah, you know what I hate what? licensing

37:18

media for my project It's a

37:21

hassle. I want

37:23

to I want to leave a voicemail for a

37:25

family member wishing them a happy birthday And suddenly

37:27

I find out it costs how

37:29

much to license sympathy for the Bieber

37:31

okay, that's what you want to do.

37:34

Happy birthday is free now. Now. It's

37:36

now it's free But

37:38

I thought it'd be fun to call my dad guy. Yeah It's

37:42

just first. It's just his you know, just tape player

37:44

I Wishing

37:49

you I'm

37:52

now thinking of just doing the incredibly

37:55

slow intro of gimme shelter on someone's

37:57

like it's just really slow before

38:00

you're even like, what is he doing? Oh, he's giving shelter.

38:02

I want to make the people in my life know that

38:04

I love them. But here's the thing. I

38:06

got a lot of listeners who are creatives

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projects, right? And you want to

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use images. You want to use video clips.

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You want to use music. And

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sometimes it's hard to generate those assets

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38:53

need a boiling sound effect? All the

38:55

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38:57

all owned by Universal. And for all

38:59

the Boeing. These have been the two

39:01

options for years. Ben is playing Universal

39:04

$1 million per Boeing or Ben

39:06

is bringing a giant rusty spring into

39:08

the studio. And his hands are calloused

39:10

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39:12

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you sign up. Boing, boing. Bye. Bye.

40:48

The 13th Warrior. I did not see this movie in theaters. I

40:50

never saw this movie. I saw it the other day. Same. For

40:54

this podcast. Yeah. I do

40:56

remember my dad telling me about a book called Eaters of

40:58

the Dead. Cool, good father. Yeah, we did kind of relish.

41:00

I wish my dad had told me. My

41:03

dad never fucking told me And

41:05

me being like, ooh. And he was

41:07

like, yeah, anyway, this movie apparently lost $100 million. And

41:10

then that's the only, I've just known this is

41:12

the movie that lost so much money. Yeah. That's

41:15

it. More than $100 million. I remember walking by,

41:17

I have a very distinct memory of walking by

41:19

a poster at the AMC Lincoln Square, my dad

41:21

being like, I guess it was a Lowe's Lincoln

41:23

Square at that point, and being like,

41:25

that thing's gonna be a disaster. Right, right. Just

41:27

pointing at it and being like, they shot that

41:30

like three years ago. Yeah, it came out in

41:32

August. You know, like you

41:34

can smell it even when you're, well,

41:36

we were savvy little stupid, you know.

41:38

Savvy little stupid boys. Trade reading, yeah,

41:40

exactly, boys. But this

41:43

book, okay, I'm opening the dossier. Okay. Michael

41:46

Crichton, 76, publishes

41:48

Eater of the Dead. It's his 14th novel, but

41:50

only the fourth under his own name. His

41:54

first three books all got turned into movies.

41:56

Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, Great Train Robbery. You

41:58

ever seen Terminal Man? George

42:00

Siegel fighting a big computer sounds

42:02

pretty good added to the remake

42:05

list Laura's Creighton

42:08

himself of course had made movies as we

42:10

said right So the 70s were

42:12

like his books are hitting and he's like

42:14

what if I start directing and his movies are

42:17

hits, too right

42:20

So in 1978 Orion pictures

42:22

and Warner Brothers announced ears of

42:24

the dead will be adapted for the

42:27

big screen Michael Creighton is our director makes

42:29

sense right Bingo bango sugar in the gas

42:31

tank right and that's bad Gas

42:34

in the gas tank good Project

42:38

fails to take off Goes

42:41

to Coronco at some point Warren

42:44

Lewis the screenwriter writes a new script

42:46

for it like for whatever reason Creighton

42:48

movies died in the 80s Yeah, like

42:51

the Congo and Jurassic Park and all that

42:53

like that's the 90s rebound of them The

42:55

other thing is Creighton has like a years-long

42:57

writers block period right? Jurassic

43:00

Park breaks a like

43:02

extended by all accounts

43:04

I weirdly saw Michael Ovid's talk about this once

43:06

at the 92nd Street Why okay

43:08

as the greatest accomplishment of his career

43:10

was like Creighton had years where he

43:12

could not write and was like wrestling

43:15

With himself on the floor. Yeah, cuz it goes Congo 1980

43:17

sphere 87 Yeah,

43:20

Jurassic Park 90 so sphere he clearly had

43:22

to like drag out of himself Yeah, and in

43:24

the 90s does like seven novels right like

43:27

Jurassic Park like Finally breaks

43:29

the dam for him and obviously is like

43:31

this huge second wave of his right career

43:34

But that I think the book

43:36

coming out and being such a sensation even

43:39

before the movie although the movie rights are

43:41

obviously sold immediately It's

43:44

like there's a sort of second wave of appreciation for

43:46

Creighton right because he had been gone for a little

43:48

bit People are

43:50

excited to have him back and he starts

43:52

out the fucking decade with Jurassic and ER

43:55

Which obviously is not a thing that he's

43:57

like hugely hands-on. You had no involvement He

44:00

wrote a pilot script, but yeah people in Hollywood have

44:02

gotten more credit for less successful things that they did

44:04

less on look His name is on 15 seasons

44:07

of ER, right? Yeah So between his name

44:09

being at the beginning of every episode and

44:11

Jurassic Park the 90s clearly Hollywood's like this

44:13

guy is back to being Untouchable

44:16

anything with Creighton attached is fucking

44:18

gold and then basically everyone who

44:20

takes on Creighton after that flops

44:23

strikes out I would

44:25

agree. Yes, it means closure sphere

44:27

Congo disclosure does well, right? Disclosure

44:29

is a bad one that does well But

44:33

yes, I'm on go sphere timeline Timer

44:35

and he's a big director how you

44:38

forgot about timeline Donner McTiernan Yeah

44:42

Yeah, you're right. I mean lost world is

44:44

obviously like very successful but less liked. Yeah,

44:47

and You

44:49

know that that's it I mean they

44:51

read there was a anne andromeda strain

44:54

that nobody liked I think oh, maybe people

44:56

didn't people yelling me now But like there

44:59

hasn't even there's never been another Creighton adaptation

45:01

that worked even now No death and Westworld

45:03

the show is so distantly. Yes, I can't

45:05

that did initially work It's it before it

45:08

sort of went off the road, but like

45:10

nothing to do with his yeah Right

45:13

90s Creighton feeding frenzy of like a list

45:15

stars and a list directors are gonna attach

45:17

themselves to Creighton projects and All

45:19

of them are these very hyped

45:21

projects with huge budgets Almost

45:23

all of them have really difficult extended

45:26

productions and then just land

45:28

with a thought man timeline and 13th

45:30

Warrior would be a brutal double feature.

45:32

Yeah, let's program it and introduce it

45:34

and make everyone run lock the doors from the outside

45:37

Yes, they're aesthetically very so am I memory are dark

45:39

and portions? Yes And

45:43

like both are like like Hollywood's like

45:46

I know what you want Vikings right

45:48

and audience is like no We weren't

45:50

interested. Sorry and Like what do

45:52

you went back to a castle? I mean like I

45:54

don't know and don't care both of those movies are

45:56

lead actors who? Absolutely do not belong in this film

45:59

Paul Walker has like real

46:01

has seen a guess it's on a cell

46:03

phone back then you see a pager yes

46:05

he's seen an answering machine but the whole

46:07

he's a modern day like he's a graduate

46:11

student who creates a time machine by accident

46:13

I believe that's right I've never seen it

46:15

I mean you I will see it for

46:17

$100,000 cash non-sequential

46:20

bills okay I just think

46:22

with everything going on in the world today there

46:24

are better uses of money if any listener has

46:26

a hundred thousand dollars and are planning to wire

46:29

it to David to watch time I

46:31

asked you to reconsider someone else yeah

46:33

double it yeah double it so

46:36

William Wisher rewrites this script

46:38

William was obviously wrote Terminator 2 with

46:40

James Cameron etc so he's a hot

46:42

name John McTurney gets attached

46:47

and Andrew Vanya the

46:49

Rambo guy Karelko yes

46:53

but I think at this point he's maybe leaped off of Karelko

46:57

he had produced tombstone

46:59

mm-hmm Evita diehard

47:02

with a vengeance right what was this new company

47:04

called synergy but with

47:06

a lot of with more eyes than you

47:08

think there should be but

47:12

he also made Super Mario Brothers judge

47:14

dread color of night like Super

47:17

Mario Brothers judge dread like

47:20

those like it I have such affection

47:22

for the course 90s we spent too

47:25

much money there's a lot of sets

47:27

there's one star maybe who's completely out

47:30

of control I don't know yeah like

47:33

but like and like they everyone hated them

47:35

at the time and I watched them with

47:37

fondness also movies that have almost abject contempt

47:39

for their source material right

47:41

right like yeah exactly we'll take the

47:43

name and the costume coming off immediately

47:45

we're not gonna respect any of the

47:48

we're doing Mario Brothers but none of

47:50

that dumb baby shit right except with Mario Brothers

47:52

it was like with Judge Dred it was like

47:54

you pissed off a bunch of aggro British comic

47:56

book nerd yes with Mario Brothers it was like

47:58

the country of Japan was like, this is brought

48:01

great change to us. Like, why

48:03

has this happened? And Shigeru Miyamoto was for

48:05

years just like, I was so humiliated by

48:07

that. Like, how dare they? I refuse to

48:09

acknowledge the existence of movies as an art

48:11

form because of this disgrace brought

48:14

upon it. You've seen the Bob Hoskins thing about Mario,

48:16

right? I mean, obviously he's talked about how he drank

48:18

throughout the production and was mostly just trying to build

48:20

a deck on his house or whatever. But

48:22

there's a thing where someone's like, well, I know Mario, and he

48:25

showed me this video game. He's like, boop, boop.

48:27

And I was looking at that and I was like, why

48:29

would you love to play King Sid? I'm like, like, it's

48:31

so good. Is it the story

48:33

too that like, someone on set asked

48:35

him if he had played the video game and he

48:37

was like, what video? Yes, I think that- Like, he

48:39

just thought it was like, a pretty bizarre spec script.

48:43

But when I'm trying to communicate here

48:45

is that like, synergy would

48:47

like make a lot of money and then like Judge

48:49

Judd would come around and they'd go back to zero.

48:51

They were kind of like living paycheck to paycheck. Right,

48:53

they were making big swings, once for them,

48:56

once for no one. Right, like they'd be like, ah,

48:58

Vito, we hit, all right, we got money again, we

49:00

can open the doors. And they're like, oh shit, color

49:02

of night, no one saw it, you know, whatever. So

49:05

they need Disney to help fund

49:07

this movie. That's how Disney

49:09

comes aboard, Disney gets whatever,

49:13

some rights. And then as it's

49:16

about to start production, synergy

49:18

gets liquidated. And

49:20

so Disney takes over the entire project.

49:24

Perfect example of a moment where Disney should have

49:26

stopped, step back for a second. We don't do

49:28

this. Maybe we just don't do this. And instead

49:30

they're like, no, this will be a touchstone release

49:33

fully owned by Disney. Antonio

49:36

Banderas, Evita and

49:38

the Mask of Zaro, he's

49:41

hot stuff. He's

49:43

sort of people's sexiest man alive. Like he's one of

49:45

those guys. That's like a peak, like he's just breaking

49:47

out. Every woman is like, what

49:49

a hunk. Critics are like,

49:52

this guy's a real actor, right? Like he has

49:54

sort of everything going. He has the Art House

49:56

credit at the beginning from a motorbar blossoming into

49:58

kingdom Spanish cinema. This guy. can do anything.

50:00

He's so uninhibited. I can't believe he looks

50:03

like this. You have certain people like

50:05

latching on to him and then he like jumps over to

50:07

Hollywood in the 90s is learning

50:10

his roles phonetically before he's even

50:12

fluent. But it's one of

50:14

the still killing it like crushing it. But one

50:16

of those guys where you could just feel

50:18

that Hollywood like everyone got together at a boardroom

50:21

said like we're all all in on this guy.

50:23

We're all going to commit to like a six

50:25

year plan of making internet been there as

50:27

an A-list leading man and it's like Mambo Kings

50:29

to like Philadelphia to assassins and

50:32

then the right right and

50:34

then they finally like great. He gets to be

50:36

the guy above the title. It's Desperado. It's Zorro.

50:38

It's this. How do you feel

50:40

about Antonio? Generally. I love him. He's great.

50:42

He's yeah. He's just like a utter delight whenever he

50:44

shows up on screen. You

50:46

made a great comment, David. I don't remember

50:49

if it was after Dial of Destiny Sims.

50:51

I'm sorry. If it

50:53

was after Laura, you make many great comments. Sims,

50:56

one specific good comment you made that I

50:58

remember after the destiny. It was either after

51:00

Dialer Destiny or Uncharted. But the more damning

51:02

thing is you might have said it both

51:05

times of like for a

51:07

guy who was one of my favorite living actors. It

51:10

is kind of astounding how he can also

51:12

just give you nothing. Well like not give

51:14

you nothing. Give you nothing is the wrong

51:16

wording. No. Nothing. Yeah. It's just like in

51:18

both those movies. He shows up and you're

51:20

like great. I'm getting a whole act of

51:22

this guy and then five minutes later it's like he just got

51:24

hit by a bus. But not only that and to be clear,

51:26

he doesn't get hit by a bus neither of those movies, but he

51:28

might as well. I have never seen

51:30

a performance that I feel he is

51:32

phoning in because he has so much

51:34

energy as a performer. He never comes

51:36

across as lazy. It is

51:38

wild to watch him in like a movie

51:41

like Dial of Destiny where he shows up

51:43

and you're like automatically I'm getting 20 minutes

51:45

of juice out of this guy and even

51:47

screen time aside, you're like none of this

51:49

is registering. It is bizarre

51:51

and I think this is one of those

51:53

films where you're like he just like

51:55

kind of disappears into the movie. He

51:57

doesn't even look like Antonio Landa. No.

52:00

Yeah, yeah, he does disappear in this one.

52:02

He's like doing shit. Like it doesn't feel

52:04

like it's lack of commitment. But you're like,

52:06

it is bizarre how a guy who is

52:09

just like, can be this electrifying,

52:12

and then even has the ability to like tone it

52:14

down and go somewhere deeper and whatever, can

52:16

just sort of like show up,

52:19

walk his way across a scene, and

52:22

make no impression. I think this

52:24

movie is aiming for a sort of realism that hurts him. Like

52:27

he's better as like a larger than life character.

52:29

Yes. And that's not

52:32

what he's playing, like an observer, you know? There's

52:34

like the scene where they're like, can you read

52:36

us a poem or whatever, and you're like, more

52:38

of that please, like more of him being an

52:40

orator and getting to be, bring

52:42

some flamboyance to it. But it's all very

52:44

tamped down. Flamboyance is the word. There's also

52:46

just like an innate musicality to the way

52:49

he speaks that does not

52:51

necessarily mix

52:53

well with a certain like reserved

52:55

grit. Yeah. That this movie

52:57

is going for, and it translates even just the way

52:59

he moves, where you're like, what

53:01

a perfect fit for Zorro. Yeah. Like

53:04

you just imagine the moment that Elmo Devar sees him for the first

53:06

time and is like, fuck, I can do anything with this guy. So

53:09

good in all those movies. Right. And

53:11

here he can't, he's like, I can't lift this sword. Yes. Right.

53:15

Too heavy for me. He didn't enjoy making this film.

53:18

He also, he fucks up his back badly while filming? Yes.

53:22

He also says about acting against basically a bunch

53:24

of 610 Norsemen. It was like making a

53:27

movie in the Los Angeles Lakers. These people were

53:29

enormous. Like, I think he physically was just like,

53:32

how do I stand out amongst these people? The

53:34

back injury thing is interesting because this does feel like

53:36

a movie where they're shooting around him a lot, where

53:38

there will be fight sequences where you're like, there

53:42

hasn't even been a cutaway to him in minutes.

53:44

Oh, I'm actually, of course,

53:46

basically like shat all over this movie

53:48

saying, after

53:50

making that film, I said, let us stop this

53:52

nonsense. These meal tickets we do because they pay

53:55

well, unless I find a stupendous film that I love. Like

53:58

he was, he, he sort of retired. Now

54:00

he made Monster Ibrahim like four years later. He

54:02

said, I won't step off the bench unless I

54:04

get material that really speaks to me. He does

54:06

that, everyone's like Omar Sharif is back. And then

54:08

what does he do immediately after that? Hold

54:11

on, go. Right, he just takes it. He's like,

54:13

hey, can you meet like an old guy on

54:15

a horse? He's like, yes, of course. I read

54:17

any funneling $100 million plus into a movie no

54:19

one gives a shit about where he's like once

54:21

again sort of prestige for hire. I

54:23

read that quote from him and assumed that he had

54:25

been a much larger part of the movie at

54:27

one point. Right. When I read

54:29

the book, he's not even a character.

54:31

And I was like, oh, surely this movie did not

54:33

start media res. It had a first act. Yeah. And

54:36

in which all of those three flashbacks

54:38

were fully fledged scenes. Right. But

54:41

there's even more of that in the movie now than

54:43

there is in the book. In the book it's like

54:45

page one, I slept with the wrong person and I

54:47

got sent to this rustic land. Yeah. Believe

54:50

me, I would pay today for

54:52

a movie about Antonio Banderas, cucking

54:54

some like Arabian lord and getting

54:57

sent away from like ancient Baghdad.

54:59

This movie breezes past in the

55:01

first 10 minutes something I want

55:03

to unpack for hours. Right. And

55:06

it's like I chose the wrong woman to

55:08

love and now I must to get on

55:10

a ship. Now obviously, I don't

55:12

know how well Antonio Banderas as

55:15

ancient Arabian warrior would go over in 2023. You

55:18

know, in the 90s it was still kind of like, hey. Reset,

55:21

go here's the movie, Banderas keeps sticking his

55:23

dick in the wrong place. I mean. Just

55:27

start fresh. That is something that actually does keep

55:29

happening in the book. That's one

55:31

key difference. Oh really? From more shaggy? There's

55:34

a lot. More shaggy. But there's

55:36

also a lot of Viking sexual assault

55:38

as one would anticipate. So it's actually

55:40

good that all got removed. Right, okay.

55:42

And Antonio Banderas's character is quite a

55:44

bit more horny than he is. I

55:46

mean, you can tell, you know. As

55:49

you should be. A large story, right. When

55:53

McTernan talks about his version of the movie and how

55:55

it would have differed. He

55:57

said Disney wanted to cut down that shit.

56:00

as much as possible and he's like

56:02

I basically had like 10 more minutes of that that

56:04

was the biggest difference in my cut

56:06

like Debauchery or no Banderis Banderis yeah

56:08

before he joins the Viking and they were

56:11

like take all the Muslim stuff down to

56:13

As little as makes no sense because the

56:15

way this movie starts is confounding correct like

56:19

The movie he's a fish out of

56:21

water. It's the crucial thing to the

56:23

movie. You're probably wondering how I wound

56:26

up here I think anyway, so I'm

56:28

with these Vikings because I'm like no

56:30

who are you? What is

56:32

the previous pond sir that you have

56:34

been removed from I knew so little

56:36

about this movie going in outside of

56:39

Names and title I

56:41

was so disoriented by the first 15 minutes

56:44

that it took me an hour past that

56:46

to go Oh, this is baible. Yeah, I

56:48

genuinely didn't it didn't register for me because

56:50

I was still like what was the fuck

56:52

was all of that? This

56:55

definitely is a classic You

56:58

start the movie and you're like did I click

57:00

a button and accidentally jump three chapters and the

57:02

cut the cut back It's like that was like

57:04

I was like when you're watching these movies You're

57:06

like trying to dissect where did it go wrong? What

57:08

got shot what got reshuffled in the post and like

57:10

the cut back to him on the boat is such

57:13

a crazy Again, like it

57:15

feels like you're just jumping a scene in the movie

57:17

And I was like surely they had

57:19

an entire first act, but I don't actually know

57:21

that they did not know But I think there

57:23

were more Sharif scenes I think there was a

57:25

little more had to be more sure he or

57:27

he just did the same scene eight times I

57:29

think they bring him back like let's shoot the

57:31

funeral again. Let's shoot this again Yeah, that would

57:33

be my guess but I mean to repurpose the

57:35

bad Twitter joke You do start watching this movie

57:37

and go like is this not making sense because

57:39

I didn't watch the first through 12 warriors of

57:42

course, of course Look

57:47

Okay production begins June

57:49

1997 in Canada most of the film was

57:51

shot in Vancouver Island It

57:54

wraps by October was budgeted at

57:56

60 million dollars It

57:59

was champion by the British Columbia

58:01

Film Commission as

58:03

one of their big expensive projects that year along with Mr.

58:05

Magoo. I was gonna say. The

58:08

big two. Yeah. They're gonna

58:10

dominate Hollywood in 98. Warrior

58:12

and Magoo. Very different

58:14

sign for Disney. There

58:17

was whatever type

58:19

security, let me see, you know, big stunts.

58:23

It's stuck on the island for five months.

58:25

Yeah, exactly. Right. I

58:27

think Magoo's. Shitty conditions. Have you ever shot in

58:29

Canada? Funny enough, I was watching this movie

58:31

and I was like, this looks so familiar. And you're like, shit.

58:33

And then I was like, oh yes, I was there. And then

58:35

I was also like, some of these

58:37

Vikings look pretty familiar. And I looked in

58:40

the credits and really, there's

58:42

one gentleman named John DeSantis who was

58:44

also a master and commander. And he's

58:46

one of the principal pirates in Peter

58:48

Pan. He's huge. He's taller than Michael

58:50

Crichton. And he plays. Broad,

58:53

like he's, yeah. Ragnar, the bloathed somebody, I

58:55

can't remember what his character name in this

58:57

movie is. Is this primarily the same island

58:59

you use for Neverland? No.

59:01

No. Ragnar the dour. We

59:04

shot almost no location stuff in

59:06

Canada, in Vancouver, but we scouted it all.

59:08

Gotcha. And so it just, I was like,

59:10

I'm pretty sure I've been to most of

59:12

these places. You were

59:14

at Newfoundland? Newfoundland was like all the location

59:16

mark. Newfoundland's awesome.

59:18

Live show. Even the day's awesome. Live

59:21

show. I don't know if there are enough

59:23

people to fill a room in Newfoundland. No,

59:25

I think there's a great territory. Surprisingly there

59:27

would be. It's pretty crazy how, like

59:29

for such a crazily hard

59:32

to get to place, it's like a vibrant community.

59:35

I hear that place is lousy with hos-hogs. Yeah,

59:37

yeah, yeah, they're all over the place. Just

59:40

don't mention Labrador when you're there. It's

59:42

a little Canadian joke. There's

59:47

the town of Dildo, famously. I

59:50

love how there are those towns and now, like there's

59:53

some town called like Fuck in Sweden

59:55

or something where they're like, we're gonna change the

59:57

name. We're sick of this. People

59:59

just come to take it. pictures of this sign, we're just

1:00:01

gonna change the name. Alright,

1:00:04

word emerges in 1998, film is in trouble, it

1:00:07

gets pulled off the slate,

1:00:09

quote unquote, production delays, this is of

1:00:11

course pre-internet, so these rumors just

1:00:13

come out in tiny little dribs and drabs, right?

1:00:16

There's no info being filled in between, it's just

1:00:18

suddenly Disney puts out a statement, the film will

1:00:20

be pushed to the fall, and

1:00:23

then it just never comes out for a while. So

1:00:27

of course the film was supposed to be called Theaters of the

1:00:29

Dead, which McTiernan thought was

1:00:31

a cool title, Disney decides it's too

1:00:33

dark and scary, he

1:00:36

tells that story about watering the grass at his house

1:00:38

and saying Theaters of the Dead sounds like a horror

1:00:40

movie, so they changed it to The 13th Warrior. But

1:00:43

also shouldn't they be kind of selling this as

1:00:45

a horror movie? It's an angle versus

1:00:48

what this movie has, no angle.

1:00:50

Correct. And it's marketing the headline you

1:00:52

were talking about. Leaning into

1:00:54

the fear, embrace fear, reject

1:00:57

fear. They can't even decide

1:00:59

the ad guys. This

1:01:01

is a time though. Are we pro-fear or anti-fear? We

1:01:04

were talking with Arp, he was texting

1:01:06

us about this shift that

1:01:08

happens late 90s into early 2000s where

1:01:12

suddenly A-list stars and directors

1:01:14

are not terrified to make horror films,

1:01:16

where it's not looked upon as a

1:01:18

lesser genre in a certain

1:01:21

way. And we were saying like Sixth Sense

1:01:23

is responsible for a lot of it, which

1:01:25

comes out right before this. But I do

1:01:27

think when a budget gets over a certain

1:01:29

number, they're just like, this can't be horror.

1:01:32

Horror is trashy. It

1:01:35

is unbecoming. Horror is definitely

1:01:37

seen now as the domain

1:01:39

of lesser, smaller, New Line

1:01:41

type studios. Classy

1:01:44

horror has died of death, it's coming back.

1:01:47

Now if there's been some trouble, they'd be like, lean

1:01:50

into the horror, make it more horror. Yeah, that's what

1:01:52

they did with the Poirot movie. Yeah, like Death and

1:01:54

Venn, to Haunting and Venice. Death and

1:01:56

Venice, that'd be crazy. Haunting

1:01:59

and Venice, like I just... I just remember seeing that trailer

1:02:01

and I'm like, this is cut like a Blumhouse

1:02:03

trailer. Right. Like it just has Poro in it.

1:02:05

Yes. But like the trailer is like, this is

1:02:08

fucking nerve-jangling thrill ride, you know? But I mean,

1:02:10

the other examples we were saying, The

1:02:13

Haunting is 99, which

1:02:15

is Yandebont, but it's Spielberg producing it. And

1:02:17

it's Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones, and

1:02:19

it's like a big budget. Right.

1:02:21

A lot of it is like Spielberg and Zemeckis

1:02:23

and those guys coming of an age where they're

1:02:25

like, we grew up on these movies, we like

1:02:28

them, we take them seriously, we're gonna produce them.

1:02:30

And then Zemeckis does What Lies Beneath.

1:02:32

Yeah. Right. Um. Right. But

1:02:34

yes, this movie should have been like,

1:02:36

here's the pitch, Antonio Banderas fights monsters.

1:02:38

Fights like cannibal people. Yeah. Like terrifying.

1:02:41

Um. Okay. Apparently Disney

1:02:43

was trying to get McTurnan committed

1:02:46

to another Crighton adaptation called Airframe.

1:02:48

They basically keep this movie going

1:02:50

and pumping money into it because

1:02:52

they think the real play is

1:02:54

getting him to make this other

1:02:56

Crighton movie afterwards. Yeah. What's

1:02:59

Airframe about? Uh, it's like about the

1:03:01

investigation of an airplane accident. Kind of

1:03:03

sounds cool. Yeah. In that Crighton-y way

1:03:05

of like, he's really good at taking

1:03:07

you into like, the- The process. The

1:03:09

technical process. Right. Of something. And McTurnan's

1:03:11

good at making it fit exciting. Yeah,

1:03:13

exactly. Yeah. Uh, and then, you know,

1:03:16

McTurnan of course eventually says, fuck you after this movie

1:03:18

being, I'm not doing anything with you again. When you

1:03:20

just never want to touch Crighton ever again. Right. Right.

1:03:22

Or Disney. Yeah. Um. So,

1:03:25

uh, you know, McTurnan said basically, like,

1:03:28

this was originally gonna be a PG-13

1:03:30

blockbuster. It got turned into like, a

1:03:32

Gory or R-rated movie. One of the

1:03:34

only times where it's happened in that

1:03:37

direction. Right. Where this movie is like,

1:03:39

greenlit as PG-13 Eaters of the Dead. And

1:03:43

then at some point they go like, we're

1:03:45

changing the title to something more generic, less

1:03:47

horror sounding, but also asking you to make

1:03:49

it bloodier because we watched the cut and

1:03:52

it feels like we're pulling punches. Right.

1:03:54

And he's like, if I had known it was

1:03:56

R from the beginning, which I would have preferred,

1:03:58

I would have structured. Everything differently. Yeah,

1:04:00

we've designed all these sequences differently if it

1:04:03

should have been our from the beginning, right?

1:04:05

And now I'm basically like going back for

1:04:07

reshoots and just doing like tons of Vini

1:04:09

gags What yeah, yeah,

1:04:12

I mean that many no, but they just throw

1:04:14

in some bloody stuff. Just yeah throw it in

1:04:16

There's someone's head gets popped off at one point.

1:04:18

Yeah, there's so much potential of the

1:04:20

smooth motions I'm like, yeah, don't just come off

1:04:22

of No, but they do in the

1:04:24

movie. That's a nice Think

1:04:26

of another example of that where studios like

1:04:28

we're gonna funnel more money in and make

1:04:31

it R rated Right, whereas usually it's like

1:04:33

this cost too much. We need to recut

1:04:35

it down to PG-13 and put it out

1:04:37

fast So

1:04:40

Obviously, as you said Creighton

1:04:43

overshot his own research reshoots

1:04:45

overshot basically almost all the

1:04:47

editing over over all

1:04:49

the editing and Cool

1:04:52

cool itch who is cool itch the

1:04:55

producer? Yeah

1:04:59

said basically like I did an ending with McTernan

1:05:01

and an ending with Creighton like in the same

1:05:03

lot And I would be shuttling between

1:05:05

like studios He said Creighton came up to him at

1:05:07

one point and said by the way, whatever you're doing

1:05:10

over there It's not gonna end up in the movie.

1:05:12

So don't put too much work into it. Yeah, Creighton

1:05:14

was like I have final cut Yeah, so whatever you

1:05:16

do over there It definitely does not

1:05:18

seem like the appropriate process for making a

1:05:20

movie. No terrible. It sounds like a

1:05:22

nightmare Just simultaneous is wild. It's not

1:05:24

like oh Creighton gets a stab at

1:05:26

reshoots and then McTernan usually like I

1:05:29

think of a director is like the

1:05:31

studio and I Disagree, right? We're

1:05:34

gonna go our separate ways creative

1:05:36

differences. Yes, you don't persevere usually

1:05:39

Unless it's like dueling edits at the end

1:05:41

of the like we're gonna test out two

1:05:43

different versions Edit it was settled like edit

1:05:45

was Creighton gets control of that at

1:05:48

a certain point McTernan's like I'm fucking going on

1:05:50

to Thomas crown I gotta do something else. There's

1:05:53

also a Graham Ravel score You

1:05:56

know, but it's much more influenced by

1:05:59

like Arbian music. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know,

1:06:01

and I love Graham Ravel. He did like

1:06:04

the Crow and from Dust Hill Dawn. But

1:06:06

he's also the R rated horror. He's the

1:06:08

guy who goes to for those movies. And

1:06:11

Crichton's like, fuck that. We're getting Jerry Goldsmith,

1:06:13

who's like my guy and will give you

1:06:15

swelling, orchestral medieval, you know, like battle music.

1:06:17

It's fine. Funny if you're a Goldsmith's whore.

1:06:20

He's better at this than anybody. It's not

1:06:22

original work from him though. John

1:06:26

wanted the mother character to be like

1:06:28

a grand matriarch. Crichton thought she should

1:06:30

be hot. It's

1:06:33

amazing how every male will feel

1:06:35

like. The mother should be very

1:06:37

sexy. Total babe? Yeah. No, in the

1:06:39

book she's described much

1:06:42

like a loathsome creature who is

1:06:44

like ancient and huge. But

1:06:46

that's one where they like shot that both

1:06:49

ways with two different kinds. That makes sense.

1:06:51

That makes sense. Right. Culech

1:06:54

says like Michael's cut is simplistic.

1:06:57

McTernan's is more deep and multi-layered.

1:07:00

I mean, we're never gonna see these.

1:07:02

No. McTernan also has kind

1:07:04

of been like, that's nice of him to

1:07:06

say, but like I don't think there's some

1:07:08

good version of this movie in a can

1:07:10

somewhere. There's a better version. There's no lost

1:07:12

masterpiece. Right. What's the same, Culech?

1:07:14

The actor? Culech, Vladimir Culech. He understandably talks about like.

1:07:16

He seems to be the one guy when they were

1:07:18

like, do you want to do some DVD interviews? He's

1:07:20

like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. Ben Darriss was like,

1:07:22

lose my number. They wanted

1:07:24

Stellan Skarsgard to play his part, which

1:07:27

makes perfect. Absolutely. Right.

1:07:29

And McTernan wanted him. No one else

1:07:31

wanted him. Disney didn't want him. Creighton

1:07:33

didn't want him. McTernan fought really hard.

1:07:35

And the way he talks about it,

1:07:37

he clearly was like, here

1:07:40

is my entree to Hollywood. The film

1:07:42

that will make me, at the very

1:07:44

least, Stellan Skarsgard. At the very least,

1:07:46

I will be like a reliable supporting

1:07:48

actor in big Hollywood films. And

1:07:51

I think he, it just reads like

1:07:53

he cannot divorce the potential this movie

1:07:56

had in its head from

1:07:58

what it ended up being. Just

1:08:00

disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's doing everyone

1:08:02

in the movie is like doing pretty good work

1:08:04

like they're like the guy that plays Wait,

1:08:07

is that is that the guy that plays the

1:08:09

bully wolf or the guy that plays that's right

1:08:11

plays Bobo Yeah,

1:08:14

it plays his friend was also again I kept

1:08:16

being like I feel like this

1:08:18

should be populated with like actors I know from

1:08:20

dogma 95 movies and like I didn't know anybody

1:08:23

no And it's still hoi surprising that you're not

1:08:25

like recognizing people you go to their IMDb isn't

1:08:27

you're like Oh, I guess they have seen that

1:08:29

guy in ten things but none of them immediately

1:08:31

jump. Obviously it's a lot of David's

1:08:34

leaning I'm doing George and Seinfeld. Yeah,

1:08:36

but like yeah like because it's

1:08:38

a dark movie But I was kind of like I'm

1:08:40

Tony Banderas isn't it and then I looking at the

1:08:43

castle like well Diane Vinaura Okay, I love her. Sure.

1:08:45

I'm sure she'll be all over this thing kind of

1:08:48

Five shots. Yeah, right and then I'm like and

1:08:50

then who else do they have they have no

1:08:52

names Freeps gone from

1:08:54

minute seven. Yeah, like even the

1:08:56

fucking Hobbit movies Yeah, make an

1:08:58

effort to have them be visually

1:09:01

distinctive in a way that you

1:09:03

can now obviously that's set in a

1:09:05

fantasy world I understand this is going for

1:09:07

like no, these are real Viking warriors getting

1:09:09

on a ship They're gonna kind of have

1:09:11

the same vibe with their dark and muddy

1:09:15

Blood I cannot keep track of these guys. Yeah, and

1:09:17

you're surprised on that guys You know, especially when as

1:09:19

you watch the movie you're like and

1:09:21

there is like sinking down to third lead

1:09:23

of this film Like

1:09:27

I said because he's playing an observer yeah, he

1:09:29

often right is relegated to like watching

1:09:31

stuff happen. Yeah Kind

1:09:34

of boring whenever has he never

1:09:36

has the hero moment where he you know goes

1:09:38

on lifts the sword safe, right? Yeah, well, so

1:09:40

in a film where they don't care about Casting

1:09:43

A Spaniard to play a Muslim You're almost

1:09:45

astonished by their commitment to casting like guys

1:09:48

who actually are kind of Nordic to Play

1:09:50

the violin totally rather than just putting you

1:09:52

know whomever in I cast of Indian or

1:09:54

whatever I Think that actually because of the

1:09:56

length they wanted people that were speaking that

1:09:59

language right now. getting of the film

1:10:01

which goes him going to the one the

1:10:03

one memorable same area. Which.

1:10:06

Is mental illness that I keep referencing it? Given.

1:10:10

As a sock drawer look and

1:10:12

unbelievable. You know why? Why filtered

1:10:14

out Bahram Web Bombay? as. Well

1:10:17

maybe. If you're not

1:10:19

like Griffin, it's time for spring cleaning and

1:10:21

refresh Knowledge group and Griffin is a sprinkling

1:10:23

it off. Know I'm I'm sort of see

1:10:25

the gallons in this situation. You the listener,

1:10:28

the goofus who needs to follow my example

1:10:30

that you know from goofus in Dallas spin

1:10:32

looked at me confused. We all know from

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Goofus and Gallons. We. All know

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for goofus imbalance rights. honestly don't

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know what. I don't think he

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magazine goofus and gallon goods like

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right Set off at a dentist

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magazine Fact: when. And often

1:10:52

Ben I'm the goofus of the world. Everyone's

1:10:54

laughing and pointing and doing it's and don't

1:10:56

do a griffin does he do it all

1:10:58

rough. But when you crack open. The.

1:11:00

Old greasy noom sock drawer. For.

1:11:03

That brief moment I'm a talent because

1:11:05

it is overflowing with bomb bits and

1:11:07

everyone should follow my lead. Scares The

1:11:10

thing with bomb this. Save it. And

1:11:12

I learned the hard way. And. I'm

1:11:14

wearing right now. Wiggle my toes is a

1:11:16

number out during the war and peace bond

1:11:18

with and what is your try bomb as

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you'll never look at Sox the same way

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they have a great miss him and

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money claw marks. gonna give you that

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and foot. bet they donate them to

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someone thing. Ceasing home will send me

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feel better about my other hundred percent

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happiness guarantees. So if anything wrong happens

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or you know like the purchase I'll

1:11:43

just do whatever they. Can't replace it or

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make it right. See, this is when I

1:11:47

crack open my sock for I'm not as

1:11:49

patting myself on the back and go and

1:11:51

look and good grief. I'm also thinking about

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history of Shark Tank. Shark Tank. Okay,

1:12:13

now we're done. I mean,

1:12:15

let's try to dig into the plot of this. But as we said,

1:12:17

it starts with this, I bet you're wondering how I got here. I'm

1:12:20

on a ship because I fucked

1:12:22

the wrong person, right? Yeah. I

1:12:25

mean, yeah, basically, I slept with the king's wife. I

1:12:28

mean, it's not the king. It's like the caliph. But

1:12:31

yeah, so I am now,

1:12:33

I've been appointed an ambassador

1:12:35

to the Volga Bulgars

1:12:37

who are like these sort of

1:12:40

like multi-ethnic sort

1:12:42

of Slavic state up

1:12:45

the Volga River. You're getting more into like

1:12:47

what is now Russia. In

1:12:51

the Caucasus or whatever. So like I'm going up

1:12:53

from the Middle East, you know, to whatever,

1:12:56

the Central Asia slash Europe

1:12:59

and there I run into a bunch of

1:13:01

Norsemen, right? They fight off some

1:13:04

raiders and he starts

1:13:07

hanging out with the Norsemen, right?

1:13:09

He gets enlisted because of the

1:13:11

witch or the seer there says,

1:13:14

you know, you're about to embark on an adventure and you need a titular

1:13:17

13th warrior. There's 12 of you. We

1:13:19

need one more. You think we need 13? We need 13. It

1:13:23

truly is that. Where she's

1:13:25

like, okay, like we're hearing that King Hrothgar,

1:13:27

you know, and then everyone's Beowulf sent to

1:13:29

start going off, is in trouble

1:13:32

up North. There's

1:13:34

some monsters attacking him or something. And

1:13:37

the wise woman, the sort of Bjork from

1:13:39

Northwind character is like, oh, well

1:13:41

for that you're going to need a 13th warrior

1:13:43

and he can't be a Viking. And they're like,

1:13:46

that's the funniest part is she's like, you're going

1:13:49

to need one more warrior. And they're

1:13:51

like, okay, Lars, you're off the bat. No, he

1:13:53

needs to be kind of a different type. No,

1:13:57

I, there's more to the parchment. Someone

1:14:02

with foreign sales appeal. But

1:14:06

it's gonna be so annoying for him, he's probably gonna

1:14:08

drop out of Gladiator basically because of this. Like isn't

1:14:10

that why he talked out of Gladiator? That

1:14:13

is the biggest part of this movie. Who

1:14:15

is he playing? Maximus! The main character! That movie

1:14:17

was built for him. The Spaniard.

1:14:19

Oh no. What's insane is that

1:14:21

this movie starts with Antonio Baderas being like, I am a

1:14:23

Muslim. And then Gladiator starts with Russell

1:14:26

Crowe being like, I of course am a

1:14:28

Spaniard. And it's because of fucking Baderas being

1:14:30

cast in the wrong movie which causes him

1:14:32

to drop out of the right movie. This

1:14:34

movie goes down like 20 points from where

1:14:36

R.E. is. Yes. Because of

1:14:38

that. But Crowe is so good at

1:14:40

it. Crowe is so good at it. Better than

1:14:42

Baderas would have been. But I think so. How

1:14:44

does for him, for Baderas, it's like multiple demerits.

1:14:47

But the question is, I do

1:14:49

think Baderas could have been good

1:14:51

in Gladiator. Uh-huh. But like,

1:14:54

is Crowe in Gladiator the alchemy that makes

1:14:57

it this, like out of nowhere hit? Sure.

1:15:00

You know, like is Baderas in Gladiator another

1:15:02

medieval flop that only hurts his, you know,

1:15:04

standing? I think Gladiator doesn't win Best Picture

1:15:06

if Baderas is in it. It's not that

1:15:08

level of hit. But

1:15:10

it absolutely would have helped his career. Well

1:15:12

the other thing is like, it

1:15:14

would have inherently, had he not, had this one not

1:15:16

gone over budget, it would have come

1:15:18

after this one. So it would have been like

1:15:21

the second Antonio Baderas, Sword and Sandals movie, which

1:15:23

would have automatically hurt it. Right. Sure. But

1:15:26

it also probably would have stopped this movie from

1:15:28

going over budget. It's like, if they had just

1:15:30

given up and said like, fine, put it out

1:15:32

there, let him go do Gladiator, this movie is

1:15:34

half the flop that it would have been otherwise.

1:15:37

Right. Also, this same

1:15:39

year, Crazy in Alabama comes out.

1:15:42

Um, yes. Which is the one movie he

1:15:44

directed with Molly Griffith, which is also a

1:15:46

flop. It's like, but she's untouchable. I

1:15:48

agree, but it's just funny where like 98

1:15:51

people are like, you know what, we get it, you finally

1:15:53

made sense of Antonio Baderas. We all get it. He's

1:15:56

Zorro, perfect vehicle. And 99, he's

1:15:58

just like, Stefanis. and shit and

1:16:01

people are just so kind of charmed by him. Because

1:16:05

he's so personally charming and

1:16:08

he's so talented, he's

1:16:10

sort of indestructible. He's been

1:16:12

associated with lots of flops. It doesn't

1:16:14

really matter. He

1:16:16

always bounces back by

1:16:19

doing usually something like Shrek or Spy

1:16:21

Kids or something where he's not even the lead. But

1:16:24

then when you look at, he's

1:16:27

made more bombs than hits in Hollywood. Right?

1:16:30

His hits in Hollywood are what? X versus Zorro.

1:16:33

Obviously, X versus Zorro. No, it's like, okay,

1:16:35

so it's like Desperado was basically a hit.

1:16:38

If we're talking like him as the guy

1:16:40

in live action. That's what I'm saying. Zorro,

1:16:42

Desperado. I'm

1:16:45

not counting Spy Kids. No. I'm

1:16:48

counting Once Upon a Time in Mexico, even though Depp

1:16:50

sort of helped that movie be a bigger hit at

1:16:52

that moment, I guess. And

1:16:55

then it's like Puss in Boots. Yeah, did

1:16:57

Finn Fertile do well? No. And

1:16:59

then it's like, right. Like the bombs, like Assassins

1:17:01

was a bomb, right? Yeah. 13th

1:17:05

Warrior, Play It to the Bone was kind of

1:17:07

a bomb. Original Sin. Original Sin was

1:17:09

a bomb. People hated it. Take the lead. Femme Fatale,

1:17:11

which is a great movie to be clear. But X

1:17:13

versus Zorro. Legend

1:17:16

of Zorro, everyone hates. Take the lead.

1:17:18

Great call. What the hell is that?

1:17:20

It's like a dancing movie? Yeah. Sounds

1:17:22

pretty good, actually. Border

1:17:24

Town, fucking thick as the, he's

1:17:28

done like the straight to DVD stuff. Right, now

1:17:30

he's done a bunch of weird red box thrillers

1:17:32

as well, and then he'll like pop into Uncharted,

1:17:35

Indiana Jones, Doolittle, playing a sexy

1:17:37

pirate. Have you seen Naiad yet?

1:17:40

No, I mean you haven't. No, I'm- You're

1:17:42

excited to watch that. Weirdly excited to watch it. I will

1:17:44

have seen it by the time this episode comes out. So

1:17:46

in Naiad, she wears this like suit, this like rubber suit.

1:17:49

I thought you were gonna tell me Ben Darrisses is not.

1:17:51

I know. I wish.

1:17:53

You can do it, Naiad. You must scream. It's

1:17:58

that away. Um. In

1:18:00

Naiad, she wears this rubber suit to avoid being

1:18:02

stung by jellyfish while she's swimming in the open

1:18:04

ocean, a totally normal thing that she does. Yeah.

1:18:07

And my friend referred to it as her Skin

1:18:09

I Live In shirt, but I've not been able

1:18:11

to dismiss. It truly just looks

1:18:14

like that. He's so good in that. He's

1:18:16

amazing in that. That's the other

1:18:18

thing. He'll go off and do an Amodavar

1:18:20

movie and just get like five more

1:18:22

years of cred from one of those. And

1:18:25

also varying tones of Amodavar, because he does this

1:18:27

Skin I Live In, which is very heightened and

1:18:31

fucked up and weird. But then also do these

1:18:33

incredibly emotional ones. He has a pan-gory screen

1:18:36

performance. He's in Doolittle.

1:18:38

Is he the villain in that? He's a sexy pirate.

1:18:40

I've never seen that. I have seen

1:18:42

it, and I don't remember if he's a villain. But

1:18:46

when Trek II comes out... The big villain is a

1:18:48

dragon that needs to fart. That's the thing you're doing.

1:18:50

Right. When

1:18:53

Trek II comes out, people are like,

1:18:56

oh, of course. We all love Antonio Banderas. We have

1:18:58

always loved Antonio Banderas. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This

1:19:00

guy's made flops for some five years. You guys aren't

1:19:02

showing up for him. Yeah. And

1:19:04

then he does Cat Zaro, and you're all like, you

1:19:06

know, give his man... Of course. Let's change

1:19:08

the Constitution so we can elect him president. I guess

1:19:11

the other thing I'm forgetting is in between Trek II

1:19:14

and the run of flops that start with

1:19:16

this, basically. Yeah. He

1:19:18

does Nine on Broadway, and everyone's like, oh, fuck.

1:19:21

This guy. That's an

1:19:23

incredible thing. I listen to that all the

1:19:25

time. But it was that thing of just, like, right, right. For

1:19:27

God, he could be, like, funny and pretty and good. Was

1:19:30

he ever considered for the movie? Or was this post...

1:19:33

I was so furious. No, it's pre-the-movie.

1:19:35

They announced it with Bardem. The revival

1:19:37

of Nine, they did announce it with

1:19:39

Bardem. And then Daniel Day filled in.

1:19:42

Which is insane. They were like, do you want to do it,

1:19:44

Daniel Day? They were just like, huh? Oh, sure. Yeah. You have

1:19:46

two weeks to prep. And he's like, I probably got it. But,

1:19:50

like, the revival of Nine that Banderis

1:19:52

did was what kind of made that

1:19:54

a hot property again. And,

1:19:57

of course, the original version of

1:19:59

Nine... with

1:20:01

Raul Julia. And Antonio

1:20:03

Banderas does kind of have, he

1:20:05

does kind of take the torch from Raul Julia

1:20:08

as the kind of pint-sized,

1:20:10

mega-good actor, sex symbol,

1:20:13

million watt, who can also kind of

1:20:15

do anything. You need him

1:20:17

to drop to support, fine, he'll do that

1:20:20

too. But

1:20:23

the problem, I guess, is that he's

1:20:25

so handsome and charming that Hollywood's

1:20:27

like, but you need to be the star

1:20:30

of action movies. Yeah. And when

1:20:32

he's in The Expendables, it's like, yeah, he belongs

1:20:34

here. He did a bunch of movies with guns

1:20:36

and stuff, but you don't really think of him

1:20:39

as like a Dolph Lundgren or a Jean-Claude Van D'Ales.

1:20:41

No, like Desperado aside, it's like

1:20:43

his worst work. All his bad stuff. Yeah.

1:20:45

Right. What if he was playing, well,

1:20:48

I was gonna make a joke, but actually I don't know if he's Ex-or-Seveur.

1:20:51

Is he Ex-or-Seveur? Can anyone answer this question?

1:20:53

In Expendables 3? What do you, what's that?

1:20:55

Yeah, In Expendables, like what about, he's

1:20:58

Ex- I think he's Ex. Okay, he's Ex. Which

1:21:01

of course is spelled E-C-K-S. Of

1:21:03

course. Ex-or-Seveur had a notable- Chaos.

1:21:05

Chaos, that's right. Yeah. K-A-O-S? Yeah.

1:21:08

A Thai director whose name is

1:21:11

like, which Chaosananda, you know, he

1:21:14

has a longer name, but

1:21:16

I do love that it's directed by Chaos.

1:21:18

Do you ever hate that we know this

1:21:20

shit? That all three of us were

1:21:22

rushing to pull Chaos? I think it's good. Chaos. Um,

1:21:26

do you remember that movie? It

1:21:29

was a remake, a horror remake, where the director was

1:21:31

a mysterious character who only wore a

1:21:34

mask. No, what? What

1:21:36

movie is it? What movie is it? Like he was

1:21:38

like, gaff punking it? He was like, I'm not taking

1:21:40

it off. It's a remake of it with a, it's

1:21:42

a Killer Kid movie remake with Vanessa Shaw in it.

1:21:45

And the director has a mysterious name

1:21:47

and apparently only wore a mask on set.

1:21:50

On set, it wasn't just for press. The mystery

1:21:52

of the mask director come out and

1:21:55

play is the film. So

1:21:58

Vanessa Shaw and Ibar Moss-Backrack, seconds.

1:22:00

Wow. I love both of them.

1:22:02

His name is Mackinoff. And

1:22:06

it is his only credit. He

1:22:08

is credited as director, cinematographer, editor,

1:22:11

sound department producer,

1:22:13

and writer. Jesus.

1:22:18

But Vanessa Shaw, though. I love her.

1:22:20

Yeah. Great. Okay.

1:22:23

So Ben

1:22:25

Darris is drawn into Beowulf,

1:22:28

essentially. Right. He's drafted into Beowulf. Right.

1:22:30

It's like, okay, chapter one of Beowulf,

1:22:32

but we need a 13th guy. Ben

1:22:34

Darris, you're in. He's like, oh, okay.

1:22:36

And so they are going to go

1:22:38

to the far north to

1:22:42

fight monsters. But

1:22:44

we've got some great fish out of water

1:22:46

stuff. He's got an Arabian horse. They give

1:22:48

him a bunch of shit about that. A

1:22:50

little horse. Right. Too clean. Yeah.

1:22:54

Right. Right. He's not as sort of mucky

1:22:57

and gritty as them. But

1:22:59

then in probably the best scene in the movie,

1:23:01

as you say, he's like, I know your language.

1:23:04

And they're like, how? And he's like, I've been listening. But it's

1:23:06

a really well shot, well

1:23:10

edited, well mixed, and

1:23:12

well performed scene. And it looks now like

1:23:14

I'm watching him like, oh, they shot this all in one

1:23:16

night or whatever. It's really compressed

1:23:19

and not hard to figure

1:23:21

out how they did it. But I just

1:23:24

remember being so taken with the progression of

1:23:26

languages. Because it's not just English

1:23:28

and whichever Scandinavian language,

1:23:30

which I don't know which the actors are speaking.

1:23:32

But then there's Latin mixed in too, because his

1:23:35

buddy speaks Latin. And that's

1:23:37

how Omar Sharif communicates with them. So it's the

1:23:39

mingling of all three of those. And

1:23:42

the rhythm of it, and like watching it now, I

1:23:44

was like, yeah, I see why this stuck with me, because it

1:23:46

is an incredible symphony

1:23:49

of linguistics that culminates in a

1:23:51

really good line delivery from Banderis

1:23:53

where he's like, I listened, which

1:23:56

was a great line delivery. And it was like, that

1:23:58

scene in of itself is great. And I

1:24:00

like movies about communication. I like when communication and

1:24:03

language come in. I

1:24:05

don't speak any other language because I'm just terrible at learning

1:24:07

them. Ooh, I'm just a film.

1:24:10

Yes. I have studied language. I studied

1:24:12

Latin. I studied Klingon. I

1:24:16

love reading memoirs of translators and about

1:24:18

how the art of translation works. And

1:24:21

this scene kind of encapsulates in about a

1:24:23

minute and a half the way in which

1:24:26

the brain can adjust and

1:24:28

learn to hear sounds and apply meaning

1:24:30

to them. And so anyway, long story

1:24:32

short, I love that scene. I still

1:24:34

think it's a pretty darn good scene.

1:24:37

Right. And it is not a reason to

1:24:39

watch this movie, but if that scene exists on YouTube, which

1:24:41

I'm sure it does, I would recommend it. But it's also

1:24:44

like the last scene in

1:24:46

the movie that's like

1:24:48

that. Yes. And then

1:24:50

after that, he's just kind of in the club

1:24:52

and then it's just like, okay, now we are

1:24:54

going to fight people in bear

1:24:56

costumes in various locales. Well, even the film,

1:24:59

like there's the scene where he like sharpens

1:25:01

his sword to make it in the Arabian

1:25:04

style or whatever, which is shot poorly.

1:25:07

Like it's like a very long lens like from

1:25:09

across the football field. And then they just do

1:25:11

like a series of jump cuts and it's

1:25:13

just like, well, they're at a

1:25:15

football game. Exactly. And I was

1:25:18

like, what? Again, I was

1:25:20

like, was this a different director

1:25:22

doing this thing? Right. Because Tienan's peak

1:25:24

is one of the all time great

1:25:26

anamorphic directors. It's so deliberate in his

1:25:29

camera placement at all times. And

1:25:31

I think there are some quotes in the dossier,

1:25:33

but like he was

1:25:35

saying, look, Michael

1:25:38

Creighton is a very literal minded man

1:25:40

in the way he conveys information. Right.

1:25:43

Or maybe it was Ulrich the actor saying

1:25:45

like the difference between their two styles. But

1:25:48

yeah, that it's like the difference

1:25:50

between trying to find a way

1:25:52

to evoke something and convey something

1:25:54

versus feeling the need to like

1:25:57

directly explain it, point it to

1:25:59

you. And I think Creighton

1:26:01

was just very literal with everything. Right,

1:26:03

right. Which makes

1:26:07

sense because that's his approach to filmmaking.

1:26:09

Right. Like even in the good movies,

1:26:12

you kind of like them because they're not sensational.

1:26:15

He makes movies to serve his

1:26:17

own stories. But they, Yes. He

1:26:20

directs them rather to protect his screenplays.

1:26:22

Westworld and Comer are kind of straightforward

1:26:24

even though they're about ludicrous things. They're

1:26:26

fantastical, but they have a lack of

1:26:28

imagination. Right, but the incongruity

1:26:30

of that is kind of weird.

1:26:34

Yeah. Like Westworld truly is like, ah,

1:26:36

fuck the robot's shooting at me. Like, you know,

1:26:38

like it's not like too grand

1:26:40

about it. It's like, what if the fucking robot

1:26:42

shot at you? This movie needs to be pulpier.

1:26:45

It needs to be pulpier and it needs to have,

1:26:47

it needs to be scary. Yeah. Because

1:26:50

the antagonists are never scary.

1:26:52

No. Nor are they- And

1:26:54

they should be. Nor are they interesting.

1:26:56

No, they're nothing. And the book does

1:26:58

a little bit more, the

1:27:01

book is presented as a historical document

1:27:03

that has been translated. And so it's full

1:27:06

of footnotes and like notes from translators about

1:27:08

the various meanings of what the original author,

1:27:10

Bandaros the character may have meant or what

1:27:12

it actually may have happened. That's cool. And

1:27:15

then it has all these appendixes

1:27:18

at the end describing, it

1:27:20

goes more into the

1:27:23

history of the Neanderthal and

1:27:25

about how- Cool. Like

1:27:28

descended from them somehow? Descended

1:27:31

from Neanderthals and also how

1:27:33

long the Neanderthals existed as

1:27:36

a species before they eventually died out.

1:27:38

Like a long-size modern man. Right, we

1:27:40

used to think it was like, they

1:27:42

were there, we come along, they're gone

1:27:44

really fast. But it's like, no, they

1:27:46

kind of limped around for like thousands

1:27:48

of years. They were like Quiznos while

1:27:50

Subway was still going strong. But what's

1:27:52

this needed- Isn't those all closed? Fantastic

1:27:54

comparison. They're actually still around. What

1:27:56

this needed was more like, pulp

1:27:58

years is the right way to say it. the creature should have

1:28:00

been like the descent. And there's so much of

1:28:03

this movie that is similar to the descent. And

1:28:05

you're watching this being like, why am I not

1:28:07

as scared of like, yes, even

1:28:09

getting to the throne room. It's like, Banderous

1:28:12

is like, no man could have done

1:28:14

this. And you're like, actually it's just a pile of skulls. It's

1:28:16

not that scary. Whereas in the descent,

1:28:18

you're just like looking also at a pile of

1:28:20

skulls with a major arc of an underground society.

1:28:22

And you're like, this is utterly terrifying. I think

1:28:25

Sims is going to sign an exasperated sign in

1:28:27

a moment, because this is a movie I invoke.

1:28:30

Okay. Lowry, have you ever seen Season

1:28:32

of the Witch? The Nic Cage one. I wouldn't

1:28:34

ever say it's Season of the Witch because I

1:28:36

like Season of the Witch. I thought you'd actually

1:28:38

seen it. I'm pro Season of the Witch. I

1:28:40

think really good. I defend that as somewhat like

1:28:42

the most sublime trash of the last 10

1:28:45

years in this sort of space. But

1:28:47

like, and I want the elevated

1:28:49

McTernan movie of what I think

1:28:51

that movie accomplishes. But that

1:28:54

movie has the thing of like, we are

1:28:56

real knights in a real world. We're butting

1:28:58

up against something that feels supernatural. And a

1:29:00

lot of the movie is like, is that

1:29:03

possible? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To what extent

1:29:05

is she actually a witch versus, yeah. Right,

1:29:08

and Season of the Witch comes down a very

1:29:10

definitive way at the end of it. But like,

1:29:12

right, even if this movie wants to, in its

1:29:14

foundation, say, these are things that

1:29:17

will get translated and transmuted

1:29:19

over centuries in storytelling into

1:29:21

supernatural creatures, perhaps they are

1:29:24

terrifying humans, you want them

1:29:26

in practice to occupy a

1:29:28

middle space. I just. Or

1:29:31

just make them fucking monsters. Or just make them

1:29:33

fucking monsters. There's a part where they're like, the

1:29:35

fireworm is coming tonight and you're like, cool. The

1:29:37

fireworm, great. Can't wait to see a fireworm. And

1:29:40

it's just hard cut to a line of people

1:29:42

holding torches. Yeah. And it's just like,

1:29:44

you could have had both. You could have had this

1:29:46

vision of this nightmarish vision coming over

1:29:48

the mountainside and then

1:29:51

it turns, I mean, I remember in Throne of Blood,

1:29:53

the Kurosawa movie, all the trees coming forward is terrifying.

1:29:56

And then you're like, oh, it's just people carrying trees. Right. But

1:29:58

this is exactly Like, I would. Love to

1:30:00

see a movie that actually communicates right

1:30:02

like imagine you're a Roman soldier. pray

1:30:04

make it to Scotland and these like

1:30:06

giant blue painted naked people charged out

1:30:09

of the woods exist as you enter.

1:30:11

Laugh for either aliens flat or whatever.

1:30:13

Yeah exactly we found monsters. Yes here

1:30:15

snake know they were just these crazy

1:30:17

warriors Billie even brave harder when a

1:30:19

good idea that like doesn't really captures

1:30:21

I want something that does that and

1:30:23

it's as wild for how much money

1:30:25

this movie costs. And it's onscreen. The

1:30:27

sense that you're like wow, you'd said.

1:30:30

So many extra. It's only props and costumes

1:30:32

or whatever, but you're like this and sought

1:30:34

three times. Basically you have to reshoot units,

1:30:36

go not the same time and no one's

1:30:38

like it may be higher. Greg like a

1:30:40

terror own combo. The couple cool look yeah.

1:30:43

Right? Any like the head or right there was like

1:30:45

know we had a race and of this where people

1:30:47

are like. Do. We

1:30:49

need more than a guy wearing a bear. I

1:30:51

think David need some a person but that just

1:30:53

the idea of Lauer. I'm going to make them

1:30:56

or or twenty minutes. Horny.

1:30:58

You. Know Arabian warriors gets in trouble with the

1:31:01

courts. Okay, that's fine. Young starts off with

1:31:03

the mean, have some of that and you

1:31:05

never effect. So for make a forty minutes

1:31:07

and like but like and he should be

1:31:09

the key cocking Ryan. He's like really like

1:31:11

the big man on campus like sorcerer. We

1:31:13

had this entire movie before it as exact

1:31:15

Yes Then are you really should get us

1:31:17

a Horned owl? Yeah that you're getting exiled.

1:31:19

You gotta go up. North Dakota. North runs

1:31:21

the Vikings. The Vikings are different. These stick

1:31:23

with that. That's fine. He get roped into

1:31:25

this journey and then they're like yeah so

1:31:28

it's like King Ruff. Current anyone in the

1:31:30

audience news their cities like going into

1:31:32

Beowulf and then yes I want them

1:31:34

to go into it Can be real.

1:31:36

He doesn't have to be monsters, but like

1:31:38

it needs to feel right the lot

1:31:40

a laser buy into the like to

1:31:42

hear him into Vietnam or whatever and

1:31:44

it's like I don't understand, like like

1:31:46

all the rules of combat or different

1:31:48

or what. you know the get. Just

1:31:50

like we're fighting an alien, an enemy

1:31:52

we don't understand. I can. They are in

1:31:54

the deficit. We're fighting an enemy that's

1:31:56

big right and in a bear suit.

1:31:58

Separate has can be. The scary yeah like

1:32:01

I remember, I mean sick car yo

1:32:03

maybe were like. They. Just or mean

1:32:05

this. The. Unfortunate. Very

1:32:07

true, because like using the display of

1:32:09

severed heads to instill fear in one's

1:32:12

enemies. and it's really chilling. Really unsettling.

1:32:14

And these are monsters who take people's

1:32:16

heads. And. They never show up

1:32:18

again. Yeah. Like I was like

1:32:20

what a missed opportunity And once again I'm

1:32:23

watching this tired, stressed out, distracted. Perhaps my

1:32:25

comprehension was not at it's peak Sir put

1:32:27

their was the more I went. oh that's

1:32:29

supposed to be Grendel. The. And

1:32:31

he when know had been on screen for

1:32:34

many minutes at that point. Next. To.

1:32:36

Cool ideas like this venus figurine like

1:32:38

the famous you know, ancient seen all

1:32:41

during all truthful, harmful to rushers I

1:32:43

know like that sir represents the mother

1:32:45

of Grendel Window whatever you know I'm

1:32:47

but I just feel like the back

1:32:50

half of this movie is a bunch

1:32:52

of people fighting in caves and dark

1:32:54

forest and said and you know really

1:32:56

you can see the action and is

1:32:58

not. I mean of I just don't

1:33:01

really feel a lot of tension. yeah

1:33:03

I guess. yeah. Aside from the death

1:33:05

scene that. I mentioned earlier

1:33:07

there's like nothing. On

1:33:09

acted about the movie like when they

1:33:11

finally behead the head room window or

1:33:14

whatever it like you don't even really

1:33:16

knows it have Iraq and then they

1:33:18

start retreating like oh okay it's over.

1:33:20

Also a movie like this where he

1:33:22

got one big star above the title

1:33:24

face on the poster. Most the cast

1:33:26

or international actors you don't even recognize

1:33:28

right? you're like this is gonna be

1:33:30

the narrative of oh he actually was

1:33:32

the hero right? You assume there's gonna

1:33:34

be some elements of like he was

1:33:36

the one who really slay Grendel or

1:33:38

Beowulf was kind of an idea. More

1:33:40

than he was a hero or whatever

1:33:42

the fuck it is. And you're like

1:33:44

know, jesus basically from minute like thirty

1:33:47

five retreats into just standing around. Also

1:33:49

been there watching sit happen. And.

1:33:51

It's like she does nothing to drive

1:33:54

the story. Know about me? Envy? Say

1:33:56

thanks See thanks to a good job

1:33:58

you're there! And he praised. The law

1:34:00

and he says he's like right is I tell

1:34:02

my story I guess is that a in bit

1:34:04

bully Will says like you. Some.

1:34:07

Or draw work, draw sounds. That's draw straws.

1:34:09

Draw my sound. It makes sense if you're

1:34:11

reading the book and is told by hand.

1:34:13

Yes, but there's so little that going on.

1:34:15

Break the you're Lucky is the least active

1:34:17

character for a guy. The New Terror where

1:34:19

you than ever for an hour and a

1:34:21

half. This is the problem with these adaptations.

1:34:23

Often like of course the genius addressing Park

1:34:25

is it jumps from turn to the character.

1:34:27

I doubt there's no one has, just they're

1:34:29

being like you know day for drastic park

1:34:31

things getting bad ago and it's. Put

1:34:34

like when you have a Nick Carraway type

1:34:36

guy like him to all the Great Gatsby

1:34:38

movies are like what do we do about

1:34:40

this character who just watches everything happened and

1:34:42

then is like ideally thinking about it later.

1:34:44

You know, like you know, like wow, do

1:34:46

I represent that in a movie But it's

1:34:48

also easier to do that. Even of just

1:34:50

that has been the issue of every from

1:34:52

disease and Great Gatsby. It's like what you

1:34:55

just need to have another actor stand next

1:34:57

to him and listen. Even if it's not

1:34:59

exciting, he feels president Whereas if you're in

1:35:01

a battlefield ever and swinging swords you're like

1:35:03

what's hard. To have the guy who's the

1:35:05

observer and the list? Yeah, just be like

1:35:07

in the middle of chaos. When. No

1:35:09

one's talking. And. Also not

1:35:11

participating really like a little bit but.

1:35:14

I. I feel like I'm a little more positive on

1:35:16

the moon. you guys, they're like forcings I like but the real

1:35:18

test and I was watching was like. If

1:35:20

you are channel surfing this was on T and

1:35:22

he would you stick with it and I'm a

1:35:24

huge. It's like a five out of ten for

1:35:27

me where it is not a movie where I'm

1:35:29

like what an embarrassing but yeah. And

1:35:31

it is not a movie as I thought it

1:35:33

was going to be where I might incur here.

1:35:35

And yeah, clearly just so served with that. You.

1:35:37

Can't even figure out what the movie was

1:35:39

supposed to be like, right? And saying he's

1:35:41

like my cut isn't that different. It's just.

1:35:44

Like. You know, it's probably the difference

1:35:46

of a few minutes, right? Light Zs like

1:35:48

that. That's. The problems are.

1:35:52

You know more in the out of Tcf Bank

1:35:54

and In are just like from the start that

1:35:57

kind of working with the wrong angle. I. Like

1:35:59

it less. but there are elements that grab me

1:36:01

in the same way, but it's just one of those movies

1:36:03

where the whole time I'm watching it, and I'm like, this

1:36:05

should rule. It's like one of those

1:36:07

movies I like a little bit here

1:36:10

and there, and I've got fond

1:36:12

memories of it, especially that one scene and the ending,

1:36:15

but I couldn't quite recommend it unless

1:36:18

someone was really into seeing Vikings

1:36:20

or adaptations of Beowulf, or all

1:36:22

of the contextual things that, or

1:36:24

McTiernan wanting him to be a completist, which I'm assuming

1:36:27

this movie is about to get a large bump, a

1:36:29

bigger bump than it's had in 20 years. Yeah,

1:36:32

it'll get at least a bump. Exactly. Some

1:36:36

of you are blinking at the Disney, Touchstone

1:36:39

office in the back. 14th

1:36:41

Warrior, really? Lots of

1:36:43

complaints about the image quality. Mac,

1:36:48

you remember to update the HD? Oh

1:36:50

yeah, I'll get right on that. Previously

1:36:55

it was just a Viewmaster reel uploaded

1:36:57

to iTunes. This iTunes, wait, I got

1:36:59

something for ya. But it's

1:37:01

really interesting watching it also as like the

1:37:04

last epic of its

1:37:06

sort, because there's, aside from the,

1:37:08

there's like a visual effects department

1:37:11

in the credits, but I couldn't tell if there was

1:37:13

any CG other than the boat. Like at sea.

1:37:16

Yeah, at sea, that's right. Like, and those

1:37:18

things could look better, although it's kind of

1:37:20

cool seeing it's fun. Yeah, it doesn't look

1:37:22

that much different than boats

1:37:24

at sea now. Like that's why it all looks so hard to do

1:37:26

that. But it's a

1:37:28

very analog movie. And it has

1:37:30

that, which again, I associate with Maternan

1:37:32

a lot is like, that

1:37:34

sort of starting

1:37:37

in the 80s when film stocks became more

1:37:39

naturalistic, but still, so the style came from

1:37:41

how you lensed it. Like you're

1:37:43

not doing digital DI's yet. You don't

1:37:45

have the telecine controls beyond

1:37:48

the red, green, blue, or cyan, magenta,

1:37:50

whatever. And

1:37:53

so it's got this very analog style

1:37:55

that's very naturalistic.

1:37:57

Whereas if you just to use another Viking movie, to use the

1:37:59

North. as an example, it's so

1:38:01

stylized because you have these new tools at your disposal.

1:38:04

Directors are able to put that look, that

1:38:06

patina, even Lord of the Rings a few years

1:38:08

later, which has a lot

1:38:11

of the same scenes,

1:38:15

like a lot of the same content. Of

1:38:17

like monstrous creatures attacking people in a wooden

1:38:19

fort. These guys are basically orcs. Going into

1:38:21

a cave that is full of skulls. And

1:38:24

you just see the way in which modern filmmaking

1:38:26

in the space of like just a couple of

1:38:28

years in that case, took a

1:38:31

big leap forward and allowed people

1:38:33

to represent these images

1:38:35

with a different sort of style.

1:38:37

Well, McTiern is also one of

1:38:39

those guys who's like my visual

1:38:41

inspirations are from fine art. Yeah,

1:38:43

I'm not inspired by other movies. Yes.

1:38:47

Right? And like the transition

1:38:49

point is happening already and

1:38:51

is going to just become complete basically after

1:38:53

him, where you have very

1:38:55

few people who's like way into

1:38:57

movies isn't movies. Very true. You

1:38:59

know, and aren't sort of like using the language of

1:39:01

what they know and what they love and what they've

1:39:04

come up with. And it's

1:39:06

not like this movie is particularly

1:39:08

painterly, but you do see

1:39:10

him thinking about it visually in a

1:39:12

way different to how like Ridley

1:39:14

Scott does when he makes these types of movies.

1:39:17

Or Jackson or any of those people.

1:39:19

The movie I kept on thinking of that at times,

1:39:22