Look Who's Talking Too with Max Minghella

Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Blank Jack with Griffin and David.

Don't know what to say or to expect.

All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack.

Mikey's back and about to face his greatest challenge, his new podcast.

That's the tagline.

That's the tagline.

It's pretty bad.

You said I should do it.

No, I said it's kind of what you'd think it would be, but I mean, it's fun.

It's fine.

The title is Look Who's Talking To.

It's kind of sells itself.

Two is underlined, just in case you didn't realize they've changed the title.

And you got two babies chewing on the title.

You've seen the poster.

You of course have seen the poster.

You have the poster tattooed on your chest, right?

Is on my back.

Does the first poster have the headphones?

The first poster has only the sunglasses.

Only the sunglasses.

And it's true, baby, no hair, right?

Hairless child.

An infant, a hairless influence.

And the headphones are gone for now.

Okay.

But there's families now above the title.

And the dogs are underneath it.

Travolta and Allie have joined.

That's a spoiler for third.

The Wilson-esque, sort of, you know, peeking over the fence vibe.

Yes.

They're sort of peeking over the fence.

Were the Look Who's Talking posters the ultimate inspiration for Wilson?

In Home Improvement.

In Home Improvement.

Did Tim Allen go in and say, and here's my big,

here's my closer?

Imagine a character who's perpetually in a state of Look Who's Talking poster.

The show starts in 91.

The show starts in 91.

Two of them were already out.

That's pretty circumstantial, but I'm willing to say that, yes, Home Improvement is ripping off Look Who's Talking.

Same year as Baby Talk.

TV spin-off of the Look Who's Talk Interesting.

1991.

We talked about it in the last episode, and it's going to branch into far more competition this episode.

Same

network.

Right home improvements ABC.

Yeah, yeah.

That the that the entire life cycle of Look Who's Talking, which spawned three movies and two seasons of television, is compressed within four years.

On top of that, it also spawns a $20 million lawsuit, a divorce, a dissolution of a marriage.

Like, I just.

A secret child.

I was tipping this off right before we started recording, but I started going down the rabbit hole because because JJ Birch, our researcher, who I must say is fired because I watched this movie.

This film is deranged.

I'm like, I need a lot more answers than I have.

He submits to us a slim volume.

So I start going to the hyperlinks to look for more answers.

And

the deeper I dug, the less answers I got, the more questions that were raised.

And I was like in a spiral last night akin to Robert Gray Smith and Zodiac.

I was starting to lose my mind.

What answer do you want?

So many.

Me too.

I was with you.

I really went on a hunt on this fucking movie.

Okay, well, I couldn't find anything

because the movie raises a lot of questions.

It's sort of like watching an MRI.

Yes, thank you.

And the more data you have, the more you need.

Totally.

I mean, my first headline question is,

What's going on with Mikey's mouth movements?

Okay, quick look.

I might have have talked.

The first question is who is talking?

Right.

Who is talking?

What is being heard?

Because last time it was pretty easy to zone in on that.

Just one.

This time we got two, three.

If you count the toilet, four.

Mel Brooks.

Mel Brooks.

If you count the toilet, four.

Look,

I watched this movie last night.

You gave it a very rude one and a half stars on Letterboxd.

I thought that was very generous of me.

The first thing I did, it's, you know, spring break.

All the children are home.

Congrats.

Uh-huh.

Look who's talking in your household.

Exactly.

And

I look at, well, what's the running?

I got to watch this thing.

What's the running time?

82 minutes.

Mwah.

Yeah.

As I correctly predicted, movie actually ends at 75 minutes.

The credits are not short.

Yes.

Lovely and short.

And then about a buck 15.

Soaking wet.

And I'm like, is this the first time we have discussed a basically kind of irrelevant movie?

Like, you know, all your questions aside.

Since like, when, like, I was just sort of thinking, it's like Spielberg, David Lynch.

We've been like tackling all these things where, like, even when it's a minor work,

like an always or whatever, you're still like, I want to pay attention.

This is a great filmmaker.

I'm not saying Amy Heckerling isn't, but I don't think anyone was really checked in for this one.

Well, this is, I'm going to push.

Dunstan was not.

around.

This is what I find fascinating about this movie is it almost feels like experimental non-narrative art.

That's one way to talk about a bad movie.

Another way is that no one bothered to write a script for a sequel that just kind of had to happen right away.

Here's what I'm going to push back on.

I think it's the opposite problem, which is they demanded a sequel right away.

They had no overriding idea outside of we promised the sister at the end of the first movie, right?

That's the one thing they have to deliver.

Yeah, they

tease that.

They promised Joan Rivers will be back.

Right.

And then, of course, she's not.

She's not back.

But they have promised promised some

shrill-pitched

comedian

will have zingers out of a baby's mouth.

I think this movie has like eight trillion ideas in a sort of like showing up late for a presentation with like a bunch of loose paperwork notes scribbled like furiously being like, okay, what about this?

Like pinning it to the board.

Like this movie keeps setting up threads and ideas that it doesn't really know how to pay off.

I was quite happy when you guys said that, you know, because originally I was maybe going to do the first movie and then we landed on this one.

And I was happy that we're doing this one because I am fascinated fundamentally with sequels.

Thank you.

Especially in this kind of period of time.

Yes.

And there's something about what, I mean, David,

you hit the nail on the head.

The movie is such a product of a rush to the movie.

Yes, it just has to happen right now.

It just has to happen right fucking now.

The, the, the, you know, the little energy of a surprise hit, it's going to dissipate.

We need, like, we cannot wait for it.

And we teed this up a little bit in the last episode, but to your point, David, even more so, I think this is the first time we've covered one of these, a phenomenon we've talked about a lot, which is specifically in the 80s and 90s.

If you had a comedy hit,

immediately it's like, hey, gun to your head, you have to make a sequel and it needs to be out the next calendar year.

Like comedy sequels were made on a saw franchise schedule of like, this is annual.

Sure.

And you, you pump them out until the, it runs dry.

What was the distance between, because the other movie I was thinking about a lot, well, two movies I thought about a lot watching this was Drop Dead Fred.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

And Three Men and a Little Lady.

Yeah.

Which I have seen.

I am proud to say that I have seen it.

I've also

and I recall being an equally sort of catastrophic.

It's the exact same problem where it's like,

this has to be a baby.

The minute it's not a baby, we have a huge issue.

No, there was a three-year gap on that

between Three Men and Little Lady.

They had to let her grow up.

I think this is a more interesting movie as a result of its Russian production.

Yes.

Three Men and a Little Lady is directed by Ernie Ardolino, who I consider a minor auteur.

Who did Dirty Dancing, right?

He directed Dirty Dancing, which is a wonderful film.

He won an Oscar for the documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancing.

Okay.

He was a great, you know, sort of gay filmmaker in the 80s, like big fan of his.

He made Sister Act, which is great.

Made Three Man and a Little Lady, which is a disaster.

He made something called Chances Are with Sybil Shepard and Robert Downey Jr.

And then he made the really weird Nutcracker movie with Macaulay Culkin, which I think kind of rocks.

And then he died of AIDS.

Yes.

Fascinating career.

Anyway, not important to Lucas.

We haven't even introduced the podcast.

We haven't.

Look, this is.

Let's blank check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin.

I'm David.

Kind of a throwback.

I took a second.

I took a second.

I'm warming up.

It's a podcast on filmographies.

Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making fast times at Ridgebond High.

Sure.

Or look who's talking.

One of the highest-grossing films of 1989 hit, at the time, the highest grossing international

performer that Columbia Pictures had ever released.

Hell yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

And they're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want or

are legally forced to pump out a Look Who's Talking sequel 14 months later.

Yep.

Yep.

This is a mini-series on the films of Amy Hackerling.

It's called Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast.

And today, Look Who's Podcasting 2.

It's us.

Yep.

We are podcasting 2.

Yes.

And who's our guest?

Our guest today, long overdue on the main feed.

He's

in the 10.

He popped in one time on the special features feed.

For the Oceans 11, for the Sinatra Oceans 11, which was, it was actually kind of distracting that you popped in because we were running so hot on that episode.

Oh, no, I thought we were so much better.

Sound asleep in sarcophagi.

No, we were like, Max came in and he interrupted us.

And we were like, this is the last thing we'd need right now is something new to talk about because this movie is boring as fuck.

Max comes in and we're like, hey, baby, how you doing?

Bring it in.

Yeah, exactly.

We threw some bones.

Yeah.

Max McGill.

Threw Max McLean.

Three here, guys.

Long-term listener.

I'm really bummed out.

You're deep in thought.

There's a lot to talk about.

You guys keep saying that.

There's so much to talk about, Ben.

I don't know.

Was your talk about meter, you know, was it maxing out as you watched this movie?

I wouldn't say it was maxing.

No.

I feel maxed out.

I mean, look, this episode's maxed out.

Yes, that is so.

We're taking it to the max today, and no one can argue with that.

um look

look who's talking to is a film by amy heckling and it came out in 1990 and it didn't even do that badly i made like 60 little hair under 60 damasta in comparison to the first it did poorly but who expected any less right i mean i doubt the good people at tri star were like

you know damn it heckerling you know like they were like yeah sure

ringing blood from the stone right for a long time the formula was like your sequel makes 40 of the previous film, and you just keep doing that until it no longer is profitable.

Now there's the expectations that sequels grow.

And there was the sort of collection of, I think, in particular, 80s action films that very quickly got canonized through VHS.

You mean those sort of the Rockies and the Rambos?

The Die Ho 2, Rambo 2, Terminator 2, Bump, Lethal Weapon 2 is another example where those all grew.

You're right.

Those went up.

Two went way up.

None of those movies, the first one made 100, and then the second one exploded, and then the sequels were big.

Comedy sequels in particular is part of them being like, rush it out.

If we make 40% of what the last one did, we're still good.

And a lot of these other franchises stopped at two.

Look who's talking, of course, pushed out a third one without Heckerling, which then was calamitous.

Right.

That one makes less than 10 million.

Yeah.

Yes.

That was a kind of who asked for this movie.

Which I think is even shorter, David, than this one.

Oh, David, you're in for it.

I unfortunately looked it it up because we are covering that on our Patreon.

Yes, on our Patreon.

245.

It is a brutal 95 minutes long.

Wow.

Oh, no.

I know.

I mean, I was really devastated to learn that.

I was hoping it was the arrest of development, the,

you know, maybe

is making the movie.

The colours.

And she keeps saying, like, it's the best 53 minutes.

Like, the time keeps going down every time she, anyway.

Max, you have been a friend of the podcast for years.

I have been.

We heard that you and Jamie Bell, a fellow friend of the podcast guest years ago still has ben's recording kit what's up with jamie we should get him to send that back we should be on the show again once we well that's the real thing we're if you're listening mate send back the according

and pick a you know whatever it's honestly fine it wasn't like very expensive gear it was a cheap ben we'll get it back to you but we uh started messaging with you guys about coming on the show.

Yeah.

The original plan was that you guys were going to do Miami Vice.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's right.

That you were were the other two friends, and that we were just going to bro out on vice together.

We have to re-vice.

We have to re-vice.

Yeah, we'll do that.

But I forget what it was.

We could re-vice.

But, like, travel plans changed, and one of you two could make it, and the other one couldn't.

And there was a vote of solidarity of, I refuse to go on without my brother, which is why that episode was guest list, right?

Then we eventually got Jamie to do contact, but like

once or twice a year, we'll message you guys and be like, anything here.

And you guys are always like, only want to come on if it's the right thing right like interrupting the ocean's 11 commentary exactly we're always talking to you but we're always looking for the right episode you were at toronto promoting a film that you directed that was premiering there shell and i saw a headline from an interview that said one of your biggest inspirations on the film was the look who's talking movies and i messaged you immediately And I was like, Max, it's on the fucking spreadsheet.

This is a done deal.

It's non-negotiable.

You have to talk Look Who's Talking with us.

I'm so happy you reached out.

I have a long history of the first Look Who's Talking film.

A good film.

When I was, I was trying to do the math on this, but it was when I was four years old.

Look Who's Talking One was, I don't know if you guys were like this.

When I was young, I used to watch movies just over and over.

Same and over.

And you and I are similar ages, Max.

Really similar.

Very similar lives.

My history is basically

an overlap of both of your childhoods.

If you guys were to combine, it might look like a horrifying thought.

Horrifying, horrifying thought.

So, anyway, I watched Look Who's Talking One on repeat for about a year straight.

I fell

quite deeply in love with Kirsty Alley, which in retrospect was a little eccentric, but I was really obsessed with her.

She's pretty,

you know,

she was pretty sexy.

Yeah, she's

the voice.

She's a real fucking woman, you know?

1989.

She was a real woman.

Also, I was on Cheers at the same time, so I was getting double trouble.

And I put together a package for her

over a course of about a year where

if I had like a pack of MMs, I would save an M ⁇ M and put it into a package.

And the idea was that this was eventually going to be your gift offering to Kirstie Alley.

Wow.

To Kirsty Alley.

And it was, you know, I was told it was sent to her.

I'm sure it wasn't.

I really hope it was thrown

into a trap.

Kierce Alley got on an envelope, put it in her mailbox.

We'll see what happens.

If you want to send stuff to Kiercey Alley, you have to bury it under this tree in the backyard.

That's how she'll get it.

I'm sure it just went straight to the dub.

But I got an autographed headshot.

Wow.

Somehow I managed to get an autographed headshot.

So that lived.

on my bedroom more for quite a long time.

Wow.

And this movie, look, when you see this movie at four years old,

it's pretty educational.

I mean, I'm talking about the first one.

David David doing the loudest paperback crinkle of all time.

It's quite educational.

You're learning how the birds and the bees and

all of that stuff.

And it is a nice balance.

You know, I think like you, Griffin,

my parents didn't show me kid movies.

There wasn't the censorship.

You found them like too cynical, sort of like, you don't need that sort of trashy stuff.

Well, the censorship wasn't like you can't watch movies where people have sex.

It was like, you can't watch bad movies.

So I remember I really wanted wanted to see three ninjas.

I wasn't allowed to see that because it was considered crap.

This was similar to my parents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any Woody Allen movie, totally fine.

But once once the three ninjas knuckled up, was an exception made?

No, no exceptions were made.

I had to sneak off to see Suburban Commando.

That wasn't permissible.

What about when the clock hit high noon at Magic Mountain?

Is that Mega Mountain?

What's that?

High Noon at Mega Mountain, I believe.

Fucking, I I don't know.

Mega Mountain.

Anyway, I don't even know what was going to that.

Well, you're talking about like a lot of

the kids stuff didn't slip through the cracks for you, but I guess this one did.

This was a perfect balance because the movie is very juvenile, but it has these sort of adult themes.

And it's why the second movie,

it all goes wrong.

It's like this balance that's quite,

you know, delicately handled in the first film.

Yes.

Just all goes off the fucking.

Have Have you re-watched the first one recently?

I did.

I watched it before.

Great.

So I had this

profound experience that was covered in last week's episode, where if you had asked me before we recorded, I was like, I have seen all three of those movies over 10 times because I watched them all repeatedly when I was a child.

And then watched the first one for the podcast and was like, I have never seen this before.

I'm not recognizing most of these scenes and everything I remembered being from this movie is actually in the second one.

Wow.

You have seen this one a million times because it was on TV all the time.

Two and three were on the Disney channel constantly.

And my parents were so weird about what they would and wouldn't allow me to watch.

There was some connection to what you were saying, but then they also had their own weird eccentricities.

But anything that was on the Disney channel, they assumed had been vetted and was okayed, even though that was not really the case.

That early 90s Disney channel was kind of a fucking junkyard.

And so I saw two and three so many fucking times, but have not seen them in 30 years.

And I was like, there are things that are burned into my memory.

And after watching one and being like, man, one's really fucking good.

This is so much more of a movie.

And this is a surprise to me.

And I haven't seen this.

And also, one is a story about two people and their characters that you kind of like.

And the baby stuff is in there and is funny, but it kind of lifts out of the movie in a way.

And it's like just sort of fun seasoning.

Yeah.

Kirstie Alley, you're with her.

Yeah.

She's going through a crazy thing.

George Siegel cheats on her or whatever, you know, knocks her up and then leaves.

All that stuff.

Travolta, is she going to figure it out with this guy?

He's so charming.

He drives a cab.

These characters have integrity.

I get so the characters have no integrity in Lucas.

This movie is.

Say that to Mr.

Toilet Man.

Straight up, I would say, and I was shocked.

It shocked the conscience to use like legal language to see how Amy Heckerling did Kierce Alley's character so dirty in this movie.

She transforms the character just for like plot reasons, essentially.

Sure.

Yeah.

It sucks.

I mean, I'm not, I can't.

We're going to dig into this.

I want to finish my point.

Fine.

Which is

when I go to rewatch this last night, I'm sort of like, okay, is this going to be even better than I remember?

Because the first one over delivered so hard.

And this has loomed

large in my memory.

And I was just like, there are images that are so burned in there.

They're dialogue exchanges that I feel like I can recite, even though it's been three decades.

And very quickly, I was like, this movie is deranged.

It is unhinged.

It is so much stranger than I remember.

And I was trying to figure out, like, why was this so big for me growing up?

Because it wasn't just I was watching it because it was on.

I was excited when it was on.

I liked the film a lot as well as a kid.

Yes.

And I totally missed.

The fact that this was poorly received, was a weird movie.

It was as good as that.

No one's telling you that.

I just forgot it.

But there was a third one.

So I was like, people must have loved this one.

They demanded that the dog.

The gravy train rolled off.

Right.

But I had a very similar experience when I sat down to watch this yesterday and I was like, oh, this is, this totally doesn't work instantly.

But in trying to reverse engineer my connection to it,

I was like, there is some weird thing to this movie of the babies talking is a much larger element in this than it was in the first.

Sort of.

Right.

But still, still not that crucial plot-wise, but there's more of it.

Plot-wise, I would say it's even less important, but there is certainly more of it.

There are more characters talking and they talk more often, right?

Yes.

But I think that that weird balance of what you're saying, of like, it is a movie that is sort of told from the perspective of children, sort of, and has this like heightened, comical, like, these are the anxieties of like a potty training or like things coming to life in your bedroom when you're going to sleep.

Like these real kind of kids' eye view anxieties blown up.

And then the other half of the movie is like adults dealing with adult shit above the heads heads of children.

Taxes.

Taxes.

I just think there was so much in this movie that I was like, I don't know what's going on, but this feels like a glimpse into the grown-up world.

Having a layabout brother who's staying on your couch for too long and figuring out what you can write off as a business expense and going through marital troubles.

Like it is such an odd marriage of the first one is really not a family film.

It is like a movie

for grown-ups.

It is basically like an adult rom-com and like a working woman movie that has this high concept baby hook that is so much less of the movie than like the cultural reputation would suggest.

And then this is actually just this Frankensteining of two things.

Well, it feels very bifurcated.

It's like you sort of switch between potty training subplots.

Yes.

Slash sort of nightmare visions.

Right.

Sort of nightmare on potty training.

Yes, which I have recently lived through.

I'm sure this is very relatable, actually.

No, no.

I would say this doesn't really uh describe there's one moment where it kind of hasn't an idea of how it actually works but we can carry on with that okay and then yeah and then this sort of

breakdown of a marriage it's it's weird that they decide to to really

create so much tension in the relationship when the charm of the first film yes is how these opposites attract yes and and also to skip over the wedding right because they're already married in this second film

I was like, why?

How did you miss the wedding?

This movie's relationship to time is insane.

But I think part of it's

the first movie is a little bit

true.

It does a lot of sort of jumping, and you just kind of get it.

But this is even more crazy, where it's just like there are weird gaps of like, sometimes it feels like the movie is spending 20 minutes of screen time on 15 minutes of real world time, and sometimes like five years elapse in the middle of a cut.

Not five years, but certainly this film takes place over, I would say, 18 months from my sort of knowledge of babies, which is extensive.

Not to brag.

Okay.

In terms of like where the daughter

is from.

Yeah.

And maybe two years, I guess, if we're counting conception, which the movie does begin with.

We do actually rewind.

Well, I was going to say, they fuck themselves immediately with the ending of the first movie.

And how do you build the sequel from this?

Right.

Because the first movie ends with them kissing, right?

Having the sort of like reconnection moment, and then immediately cuts to internal sperm flying towards the egg, and then cut to delivery room,

female baby is born.

Julie?

Oh, great question.

What are the names of the characters in this movie?

Joan Rivers coming out of the baby's mouth.

The girl is called Julie.

Nailed it.

There you go.

Yeah, all four children have the last name of Travolta's character,

Ubriaco.

Yes, of course.

Despite Bruce Willis, Mikey, not, of course, being the biological son of Travolta.

Right.

But I guess, you know, when they got married, even Molly takes the name.

They all become Ubriacos.

Did anybody else think that Mikey in this one looked younger than Mikey at the end of the first one?

Or was that just me?

It is a different Mikey, right?

Of course.

They have to reset the kids every time, I think.

I mean, if if you look at the poster for now, it's obviously brand new kids.

I mean, yeah, so I think it's like, because by the end of this movie,

Julie is kind of walking, right?

Like, she takes her first steps and stuff.

To the TriStar scene.

I love, I love, I love it.

Doing it to the tri-star music.

Not to leap ahead in the action.

This film's second TriSt.

Second Tri-Star bit.

They really wanted to know who made the film.

What happened there?

But this is what I'm saying.

Is that like temp music and then just no one decided to take it out?

This is a movie with no overriding ideas.

And like 8,000 scraps of ideas.

Because our listeners may not check in with this movie.

Yes, when Julie takes her first steps, the sort of familiar music of the Tri-Star logo

plays while that happens.

Yes.

The music that goes through every parent's head when their children start walking.

Right.

They think of a pegasus.

A mighty pegasus inside a triangle.

I love that moment in the film, unapologetically.

And there were other things in the movie.

I think this movie has flamed moments.

In the back half, I quite like.

Yes.

It did sort of win me a half.

Ben is looking at me like I'm a sick person.

The final 38 minutes is what you're referring to.

I would just, by the end of the film, I was like, you know what?

Didn't hate it.

I think you and I are completely aligned on this.

And a lot of this is probably.

Well, you have a bit of nostalgia for this thing,

and it being burned into our DNA, but I also was trying to watch it objectively.

And I'm like, I cannot argue this movie is not a mess.

It is an absolute disjointed mess.

There were moments where I was just like, fuck, these 30 seconds are good.

Here's an idea.

Here's a successfully landed joke.

Here's a little stylish bit of filmmaking.

Here's a fun performance moment.

And then like when it would cut to the next thing, I'd be like, this movie has no shape.

There are moments of filmmaking, aren't there?

There was these little things where you go like, oh, yeah, of course, it's Amy Heckling.

It's not made by

nobody.

Yes.

There's a beautiful shot when she runs into the airport hangar and comes out.

I mean, that's gorgeous.

But even just like that sequence is so, and the house burning, the apartment burning is like so high production value for like nothing.

Yeah.

And the D, the DP, who also shot the first one, there's a very specific aesthetic to these movies.

I mean,

Thomas Del Roof.

I don't know.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but it has a real look to it.

They both have a real look.

It's kind of

strange.

Slightly soft-born

feel.

They do have the fuzzy

house look.

And like, there's a lot of neon in her house, which is never explained.

Bra love is the sign she has above the TV, it looks like.

Which is the same deal in the first movie where she's just sort of decorated the whole house with neon, and you're kind of like, I feel like she's just done that because they like how it looks, not because it makes sense for her character, but it doesn't matter.

But it does give the whole thing a...

It's basically the same apartment.

I assume that it filmed again in Calgary or whatever, like it was not New York.

Well, there's more New York exteriors in this one for sure.

I think there is like she thought

one day of New York

because there are a couple specific New York locations, but most of it was still in Vancouver, which as JJ dug up in the dossier, part of that was more lax child labor laws.

We can look at the dossier.

Now, the thing that bugged me about this movie is the thing I was was saying about Kirstie Alley's character, Molly, who is now Ubriaco, I guess.

Molly Jensen, is that a

plot point in this well-designed humming script is that her brother shows up, played by

Casey J.

Elias Coaches, Casey Jones himself.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, that's him.

He didn't have the long hair, but that's that guy.

Okay.

And he's sort of coded as like, kind of like a conspiracy theorist or whatever.

He's like a little wacky.

Travolta refers to him as a fascist.

He seems to want to be a cop.

He carries a gun around all the time.

He is introduced wearing an NYPD hat.

But he's not a cop.

He's not a piece of shit.

He sucks.

He very obviously sucks.

Right.

He's not an ambiguous character.

Like, the audience is not supposed to look at this character.

Doesn't he say something pretty racist 20 years?

He does.

He says weird.

He's always saying weird.

He kind of feels like that.

Right.

Like an early 90s version of a kind of red-pilled guy.

But also.

The movie's like in his behavior, it is incredibly clear.

When characters talk about him in the movie, you could think they're talking about different people where it's like Travolta is like, he sucks.

Kirstie Ali seems to be like, look, he's my fuck-up brother.

I feel bad for him.

Olymbia Dakakis seems to be like, he's the golden boy.

Why can't your shitty husband be more like our son?

Right.

So there's a little bit of that going on.

He is seemingly very good at accounting.

Right.

He has like a weird brain that's kind of good for that, that, I guess, but everything else about him is odd.

Or he wants to be a copper.

Or a vigilante.

Yeah, ninja.

Or Casey Jones, possibly.

Right.

He wants to go find the turtle.

Or like Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Ice Agent.

He's like...

He has a gun, as you said.

Yes.

And Travolta, who is kind of the same character he was in the first movie in this.

He's basically just being like nice Finny Barberina kind of guy, right?

It's like, hey, he has a gun in the house.

We have two small children.

We should not have a gun in the house.

Right.

And Kirciali's like, relax.

And I'm like, that is not the character from the first movie.

No, 100% agree.

She knows she actually goes like this.

Is it loaded?

Yeah, right.

She says, no.

Yeah.

It's so crazy.

And it's obviously only for a stupid plot thing to happen later, right?

It's Chekhov's gun, the worst form of Chekhov's gun.

And the Chekhov's gun, it barely makes sense what they use it for.

Yes.

Yes, jump all the way to the end.

The Chekhov's gun of it is that someone.

You know what?

We should save this for later.

but that's where I was just like, I can't believe Amy's given up on her somewhat sort of like pseudo, you know, autobiographical protagonist here.

Like, you know, in the first movie, she's a bit of an Amy Heckerling.

She's going through an Amy Heckerling situation.

Here's the single biggest thing, and this can lead us into the limited

context that exists for this fever dream of a movie, is that she says she was basically legally

forced to make this movie.

Right, which we could talk about.

She did not want to do it.

And her quote was like, the story's done.

The baby talked.

There's nothing left to say.

That in her mind, it's like there is an arc to that first movie, which is like this adult rom-com happening in this single mother story that is her working through the Ramos thing.

Do you know the Ramos?

Okay, good.

But also, this, I think, what is a good rom-com hook of like single mother meeting a guy and not being able to judge him based on do I like him, but could he be a good father?

which is where the device of the baby talking is like effective in the movie is in the last 30 minutes when Mikey is like expressing to the audience his inner monologue of being like, dude, get it together.

I want you to be my dad.

And the character has this internal frustration of not being able to get who he wants to be his parents together, happily, right?

And then at the end, the baby says the one word, it's dada.

And in Amy Hackerling's mind, like complete story.

And you introduce a baby sister at the end.

It's a fun little stinger joke, right?

I'm tearing up as you

remind me of the beautiful.

And then TriStar is like, you obviously are making the baby sister movie right away.

Yeah, I mean, she kind of played herself, right?

Having

the TV.

One thing I'd love us to do, guys, before we wrap up the app is.

I think we're done, actually.

Okay, we'll see you later, Max.

Yeah, 32 minutes.

Well, done, actually.

Two hours on the clock.

Two hours on the clock.

That's not bad for the story.

No, no, go ahead.

Go ahead.

What would be the better path to take with this movie?

I have some thoughts.

I'd love to hear you.

Yeah, let's pin this.

Okay, let's pin this.

But she basically says, I had no idea, right?

And like Bob Gale and Zemakis have talked about this, too, that Back to the Future 2 ends with the like, you're kids, Marty.

And Universal was like, how ingenious that you set this up perfectly for a sequel.

And they were like, that was a dumb joke in our minds.

We never thought we'd make a sequel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in fact, we fucked ourselves.

It's kind of like Nolan having having the Joker card when Batman begins, where he's always insisted, like,

you know, it just felt like a good button for the movie.

It didn't feel like this insistent kind of like, the next movie is the Joker, get ready.

Right.

But obviously, everyone who sees the movie is like, I cannot wait to see who the Joker will be.

I love Back to the Future part two, but like Gail and Zamencus have always said, if we had planned for that to be a sequel setup, Jennifer would not have gotten in the cart with them.

Like, that was the biggest single storytelling mistake we made.

Is then Back to the Future 2 has to be like, fuck, what do we do with Jennifer?

Because we put her in the shotgun seat, right?

And similarly, I think Heckerling is just like, well, at the end of the movie, we'll just like cut to them kissing, puppet sperm, delivery room, nice little button.

And now Columbia's insisting that the sequel happen.

The weirder part of all of this, and she doesn't talk much about this movie.

She's like, I hated doing it.

I felt totally lost.

It was a miserable experience.

I don't even want to talk about it.

But the other part of this is there's this giant $20 million lawsuit that the first movie comes out October of 89.

The lawsuit is filed at the beginning of 1990.

Look who's talking to comes out the end of 1990.

And the lawsuit is

fuzzy.

It's in the dossier, but basically this couple said that they had made a short film at AFI, Amy Heckerling's alma mater, that was adapted from a short story that was about a hyper-intelligent baby that could speak to its parents, a more heightened sci-fi premise.

Right, right.

Sort of a baby genius, if you will.

Yes.

Yes.

Twin Kaplan, the best friend character in these movies, later Heckerling's producer on Clueless and Loser and regular stock company player, was Amy Heckerling's secretary/slash assistant.

They met in the early 80s when she was just a struggling actress and Heckerling was like, come work for me.

Right.

And we love Twin Kaplan.

Yes.

She's charming.

The couple who do this short, which I believe was called Special Delivery.

Yes.

It was the couple is,

what are the names?

Jeannie Myers and Rita Stern.

I don't know.

Okay.

Yeah.

So maybe it was not a couple, but this duo, right?

They submit it to Heckerling's office.

Twin Kaplan receives it, corresponds with them for months, is like, can you show me more materials?

Then, after several months, is like,

I think we're going to pass.

Yeah, we don't see a film here.

They never interact with Heckerling directly.

This is in the mid-80s.

Then in 1987, they pitch it separately to a subsidiary of Tristar.

And they're like, interesting, we think there might be something here for a TV movie.

It never happens.

Then in 89, Look Who's Talking comes out, makes a gazillion dollars.

These two file a lawsuit like immediately.

The lawsuit is not resolved until April of 1991.

Months after Look Who's Talking To comes out, but they were suing for $20 million.

There are always these cases where like Finding Nemo comes out and then someone's like, in 1946, I FedExed a package that said, what if fish talked to Disney?

And now you owe me $800 million.

Right.

And these suits usually get thrown out of court.

Right.

Or right, whatever, exactly.

Right.

There are the rare exceptions of like the Art Buckwald Coming to America case.

This was settled for some undisclosed amount.

They did not get the case thrown out.

The judge ruled that there were too many similarities.

There's often also, these cases often do get, like, a payoff is made, essentially.

Totally.

And, like, no one gets to talk about it.

And that's that.

And Twin Kaplan's like, we can't talk about it, but we're very happy with the end result.

Sort of framed it as like.

We feel like we won, but it can't be talked about.

But somewhere within this lawsuit, it seems like there's some entanglement that then amounts to Columbia forcing her to make the second movie.

It is not explained why exactly she had to do it, but yes, she had to do it.

She brought along Neil Israel, her husband,

to co-write it.

Although, obviously, we, you know, he's not the actual father of the child they had together.

That's Harold Ramos.

We talked about this all and reports vary.

This is where I go for Robert Graysmith.

But by many accounts, they are divorced by the time this movie comes out.

They certainly did not last much longer.

No.

This film was filmed in Vancouver,

much like the last film was in Calgary.

Sorry.

And

apparently, Canada has or had less restrictive child labor laws so they could have more time with the toddlers that was necessary.

Filmed for 61 days, which is so funny.

I mean, it's just funny.

I know it's not.

It's just like

how many days did you have on your two movies?

I mean, yeah, don't even ask me that question.

It's too painful to answer.

I mean, 61 Days is interesting for this film.

It doesn't feel like a movie that's been made.

Yeah.

They just did it slower back then.

And I guess they had a lot of kid wrangling to do.

That is the one thing, I guess, that does cramp your time.

But 61 Days, like Steven Soderbergh could make, you know, all six Lord of the Rings movies in 61 Days or whatever now.

Yeah, they had to get the lips moving.

That's true.

They had to get the lips.

That's not easy.

They had two days moving and make it line up in New York.

Two Days dialogue.

Yeah.

David, yes.

This episode is brought to you, The Listener by Mubi, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe.

From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover.

With Mubi, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere.

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through the creak of the door.

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What?

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Oh,

of course.

David Mussolini, colon, son of the century.

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Look,

it's an exciting project, but it's really funny to be like, guys, Mussolini!

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Just to peel back the curtain for a second.

second.

We get like messages that are like, hey, you guys good with this ad?

Yeah, here's the copy for the ad.

And as shorthand, it was texted to us as, you guys good with the Mussolini ad?

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But we celebrate Joe Wright and his newest project.

The filmmaker Joe Wright in quotes has created colon son of the century.

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And I will say, not sound like a, you know, a little nerd over here, but it is actually very interesting to consider Mussolini's rise to power in these times.

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unfortunately, something we should probably have on our minds right now.

I don't not try to be a loser right now.

You sound like me right now.

This is the kind of thing I say.

It's a very interesting part of history.

And I feel like because, you know, other World War II things became whatever, the history channel's favorite thing, you don't hear quite as much about Mussolini's family.

No, you're right, unfortunately, sadly, tragically, frighteningly.

He's not a hugely

hyper-relevant time.

And this is a theatrical, hyper-visual tour deforest starring Luca Marionelli.

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Remember that?

Beloved member of the Old Guard.

That's right.

The movie I love, the episode that people considered normal.

All right, well, sequel

checking notes here.

Great.

Calling it a towering performance of puffed up vanity it features an era bending score by tom rollins of the chemical brothers that's cool imagine techno beats storing scoring fascist rallies it just sounds kind of joe righty it does joe right you know he won't just do a typical costume drama he likes to you know think about things in a different way got futurism surreal surreal stagecraft cutting-edge visuals

guardian calls it quote a brilliantly performed portrait of a pathetic monster.

It's part political burlesque, part urgent contemporary warning about how democracies fall.

this is heavy ad copy guys usually it's kind of like shorts they you know

critical

words a gripping timely series the guardian remarkable the telegraph a complex portrait of evil financial times yeah no i i it's uh joe right uh one of the one of the scarier people i ever interviewed i've told you that story right he was he was he knows he's kind of a cool guy also that's we've batted him already he's certainly gotten interesting he's very interesting he's very interesting and he's made some great movies and he's made some like big swings that didn't totally connect.

Totally, that's really interesting.

He actually is a blank check filmmaker, unlike a lot of some people.

I get suggested, you're like, sure,

it doesn't fit the model.

This one does.

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Look, just stream great films at home.

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You can watch Mussolini or you can watch non-Mussolini things.

Yeah, they got lots of movies.

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Bye.

david

okay okay i'll be very quiet quiet oh i'm i'm used to it producer ben is sleeping oh hozzie hozzy boy is

getting some exact

getting some multiple dashes what's he sleeping on he's sleeping on one of the new beds we got from wayfair for the studio for our podcast naps.

But this is a big opportunity for us.

We get to do the first ad read for Wayfair on this podcast.

No, no, Griffin, you're clearly not listening to past recordings.

Ben did a Wayfair ad for us recently.

You listen to past recordings?

Yeah, sometimes.

That's psycho behavior.

It is.

Look.

He did that when we were sleeping?

Look, apparently we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day,

you might not think Wayfair, but you should, because Wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day finds.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Absolutely.

And just try to, David, just if you could please maintain that slightly quiet.

We don't have to go full whisper.

I just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

I mostly just think of Wayfair as a website where you can get basically anything.

Yeah, of course, but Wayfair is also the ideal place to get game day essentials, bigger selection, curated collections, options for every budget/slash price point.

You want to make like a sort of man cake?

Okay, fine.

Okay.

all right sorry you know wayfair uh stuff gets delivered really fast hassle free the delivery is free they if you for game day specifically griffin you could think about things like recliners and tv stands sure or outdoor stuff like coolers and grills and patio heaters like that's you know that's all winter months david you have like basically a football team worth of family at home you got a whole team to cheer up this is true you need cribs.

Your place must be lousy with cribs.

I do have fainting beds.

I have cribs.

Sconces?

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I'm low on sconces.

Maybe it's time to pick up a faint.

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Cleveland Browns, of course, Donte Mac, no matter what.

Okay, that's the end of the ad raid.

I want to hear more about the research.

Tell me more.

Well, this is the problem, is that it seems like however this lawsuit was settled, no one involved can talk about it anymore.

So she'll just give these offhand comments of like, it was like a big mess.

Twin Kaplan has a couple times been like, I can't say a single thing, but we're happy with how it turned out.

The people who pitched special delivery have never been able to talk about it.

The way she's put it just is, I was kind of made to do the second one.

I was not delighted with it.

The suit was filed in 19, like they approached in 1985.

Yeah, it does, I can see why they had to settle on this.

The timing is just, it doesn't look good.

Yes.

You know,

and even though it is a married couple who learns that their own born child has a full adult consciousness and a genius intellect.

So that is not Look Who's Talking, but whatever.

But according to Heckling, somehow that lawsuit ensnared her into making Look Who's Talking 2.

The specific mechanics are not clear.

She was forced into doing it for legal reasons.

She said, this is not a fun experience.

And she's also, I think, having this sort of existential panic of, am I just making Talking Babies movies now?

Right.

Like, is this my life now?

Joan Rivers.

was replaced by Roseanne Barr doesn't really explain why.

I mean, they throw up the classic like scheduling difficulty.

This is available.

Exactly.

What are you saying that about animated films?

I'm like, that is bullshit.

I can see that they were just like, Roseanne's hot, hot, hot.

I mean, I get that.

They were like, Joan Rivers is a funny end-of-movie joke, but if we're actually making the sequel, don't we want a name on the poster that's as exciting as Bruce Willis is the voice of this baby?

I guess so.

Which in 1990, saying Roseanne is the other baby is like a slam dunk.

I remember at the time feeling like a huge get.

Right.

You're just, even as a child, you're like, that's funny.

I'm laughing at that.

But as a child, you are so familiar with celebrities who have one name.

Yes.

Like, those are the celebrities that first enter our lives.

The Roseanns, the Madonna's.

Sinve Sinvet.

She's one of the Spanish.

The Arsenios.

Right.

And also has a very distinctive voice.

Like, people

impersonate Roseanne.

Now, famously, the

Stings.

Yes.

Michelangelo.

Sing was.

Leonardo.

Donatello.

Sting was one where I was like, it took me a while to be like, so his name's like not Sting at all, right?

Like, it's not like his name is like Sting Jones.

Right.

Like, and he dropped the jokes.

He just made that up.

You know what?

Roseanne is kind of the rare example in the list we just did of like, it is just her first name.

Same with Madonna.

Same with Madonna.

Right.

I always forget that that is her first name.

Cher, right?

Cher, for sure.

Yep.

Another one.

Very good.

Cheryl is Cheryl, but still.

Still.

Richard Pryor famously is the voice of the friend child in the early trailer, and apparently his performance tested horribly.

I saw the trailer for the first time.

What's the vibe?

I have not seen this.

Well,

they really push him in the trailer.

But that first teaser is...

And Richard Pryor.

It's fascinating because that first teaser, speaking to how quickly this movie was pushed around, is like 60% footage from the first movie.

It's like, remember Mikey.

And then it shows you a bunch of clips from the first movie.

And they clearly just have like a few soaking wet clips from dailies of the second one, but they like call out Richard Pryor.

He, of course, has already like his health struggles have progressed.

Yeah, this is not right, like Primo Richard Pryor in that clip on YouTube, which is very low quality.

His voice is not very clear.

Like, I could see it testing poorly being less of a thing of like, we don't think Richard Pryor is funny, and more like, this guy is struggling to speak.

Yes.

So he's replaced with Damon Wayne's in Living Color premieres sort of right before this movie comes out, like a few months before.

So like Damon Waynes is starting to get hot.

Yes.

Kirstie Alley got $2.5 million for the film.

And it came out December 14th, 1990, 14 months after its predecessor was released.

And it made $48 million domestic, which is $100 million less than the first movie.

So it's not good.

Yeah.

But it's still enough money.

And I'm seeing here,

this can't be right.

So JJ may be be fired, that the reviews were negative?

Weird.

Not sure.

That seems crazy to me.

Max, can you talk about?

Because we have not gotten to Seashell yet, sadly.

Can you talk about

the influence it had on your film in what way?

And how much of it is just sort of like the memory you had of Look of Talking versus what it actually is?

Well, sorry, what's the name of that actress we were just talking about?

Who

was the the assistant?

Twinkle.

Twink Kaplan.

Twink Kaplan.

Twink, right?

Yeah.

She's in Clifford.

There's a character in In Shell, played by Estee Heim, who is, I would say, very influenced by the Twink character in the Look Who's Talking movie.

In Look Who's Talking.

In the Look Who's Talking movies.

Shell is a very eccentric, hopefully really fun movie that's very much made probably for people who listen to this show.

It sort of exists within

the world of studio movies of the late 80s and early 90s.

And

not in a cynical way.

It's trying to sort of earnestly emulate

a sort of piece of studio product from that period of time and all of the things that come with that, including sort of strange studio notes and reshoots.

And, you know, I hope the movie contains all the textures that a movie of that period might have.

Yeah.

And

yeah, look who's talking.

The aesthetic of it, there's a slightly

even the first one, right?

There's something slightly nightmarish about it.

Yeah, well, the puppetry, too, and the yeah, yeah, you know, it's a bit of a dark movie.

There's weird fantasy sequences, heads exploding, things like that.

Yeah, it has the sort of the veneer of like a fun kids are talking, and it's John Travolta, but there is something slightly ominous bubbling underneath the surface all the time.

And so hopefully, Shell has a similar

energy.

We were talking right before Record about, and it's what I love about you, that we were talking about the films of Walt Becker

and you talking about which ones you had seen recently since your reappraisal of him as a Volcar.

You were apologizing for certain movies you hadn't seen in too long where you're like, well, I saw it before I understood who he was.

Well, you guys are totally responsible.

Well, now we're getting off topic, but for my fascination with Walt Becker.

The old dogs episode, guys, if you haven't heard the old dogs episode, the live episode, that is

top five for me all-time blank check episodes.

I've listened to that one.

I've listened to it probably 17 times.

Insane.

But to what, because you get to watch along this fucking batshit movie with an incredibly entertaining commentary.

He's really interesting.

He's a really interesting guy.

He's fascinating.

And you think that the aesthetic here reminds you a little bit of the later Becker, the kind of family?

No, it doesn't.

This movie, I do want to talk about this, though, because this movie,

I mentioned Drop Dead Fred and Three Men and a Little Lady.

It also is in the canon of

dark sequels.

Uh-huh.

Gremlins 2, the new batch.

There is some stuff here, right?

A-Pig in the City.

But going to Gremlins 2, the kind of

tri-star

jingle, like even

the

Mr.

Ed at the beginning of the film.

Yes, which Gremlins 2 does with the loony tunes.

Right, right.

We're starting to get into that territory of

children's films with a little bit of a weird volume.

And Gremlins 2 is the absolute best version of this, where it's also a like, hey, we have 8,000 ideas

movie.

It's overflowing with ideas.

It kind of throws away the first movie, not entirely, but kind of like, don't worry about

those.

I mean, some of those characters are still here, but like, that's not what's going to happen now.

And you're very much like, that's fine.

Like, it's a new movie.

This movie, it's the same builds, you know, it's the same rooms.

So it's a little harder to kind of just be like anarchy.

Well, the reason I was reinvoking Walt Becker is not because I think Walt Becker shares a commonality with the movies we're talking about, right?

But I think he's one of weirdly the last standing examples of

talk about what you were getting at with Shell, right?

This era of filmmaking where, like, they allowed enough personality to come through.

Directors still had enough control while making things that were designed to be mainstream popular entertainment, right?

There were still mid-budget movies that were healthy, that are being supported by the studio, where the stakes are low enough that they'll let you do your weird shit to a degree, but then that has to be balanced with studio note shit.

There was some odd Frankenstein middle ground.

I call it, it's like the test screening period to me in my mind.

It's like, that is the filter system that everything has to go through and has to pass.

Yes.

And you're right, before that, the filmmaker gets to be much more expressive than probably a contemporary studio gun behind it.

But there's almost like a feast or famine thing now of you hear about a lot of like big franchise movies where they pre-schedule extended reshoots and they're like look on set we will let the director do a couple takes their way

and then the producer is going to weigh in and insist that they do a couple more normal takes and then they let the director put together their cut while having another editor put together the most normal cut and then they test screen both of them and then they go into the reshoots to either amplify what they like that the director did or tone it down and make the more sort of like banal version of it like they have this whole choose your own adventure system to prevent there from ever being any personality that's too irreversible on a like $200 million scale.

And I think if people get a lower budget, they're fighting much more adamantly for like, I'm going to make this exactly the way I want with no concessions because it is so rare that anyone gets any kind of opportunity like that.

That this sort of like negotiation career filmmaking of Heckerling being like, look, if I check like six six boxes they want, will they let me do my six things over here?

And this movie doesn't have overriding, I have things I want to say, but it has like moments and sequences and ideas that feel like things that excite her, even if there's no larger excitement.

And I think that's part of like the weird soup of this movie and her even being like, I was miserable and I was forced to do this.

And I'm like, but there's stuff here.

um i i do think part of it is that it's like you get into this

there's no stuff here by the way but carry on dude max and i are gonna fight on this david yeah

the potty mr potty eats poo-poo and pee-pee people work really funny hard on this film for 61 days 61 long days

baton death march

making look who's talking to for two whole months uh yeah though the the the potty joke is funny is it a joke is it funny?

It's well,

it's sort of same.

Like this film begins with first, yes, we have the long,

and again, for a 75-minute movie, possibly too long, kind of feels like making your font to 20-point where it's like the sperm and the eggs.

And I'm like, is it going to be different than last time?

And they're like, well, we have the diaphragm joke.

First, it opens with the TriStar Pegasus running and Bruce Willis doing a Mr.

Ed impression.

He does do that.

Narrating the TriStar fanfare.

I mean, I think we were all asking for that.

And I think it pays out like a slot machine right like five dollars then it starts with diaphragm shot then it's then we have right the the the repeat of the first movie's fertilization with plus a diaphragm so there's an extra layer of um you know protection what here's the question though because bruce willis is once again voicing the sperm

christy alley is voicing the egg yes and the diaphragm and the diaphragm but that that is so but then shouldn't it be travolt

I don't know how much we should be getting into gender on blank check, but it's interesting that these sperms are male at all.

I'll say this.

Now, they're male because they're coming from the man.

I get the thinking, right?

Well, and it also, look, in the first movie, you're starting

this arc with the one little sperm becoming Bruce Willis who crosses.

So, of course it has to be female.

You know, all fertilized eggs are female until during the process, one chromosome gets introduced.

So, biologically, maybe everything should be female.

And then there's some point at which a flip gets switched, but it might be too complicated for viewers to understand this.

I don't know.

What's important is that it goes on for, this is not my point.

My point is after all of that, the film begins.

And the first thing we see is Bruce Willis baby, Mikey, getting tormented by monsters in his room, right?

This is where I was going to correct you.

That's being cross-cut with the conception because that's the whole thing.

right to the same right.

Yeah, they're having a lot of things.

Is that they're they're they're doing a little foreplay, they're doing a little bit of hanky.

She's making sure that the diaphragm's in, and then he starts screaming because his dolls are being possessed, but it's quite which are being done with like puppet masters.

That's the thing, it's kind of scary, yeah, straightforwardly scary, and you're like, well, kids do get scared of toys.

I understand the gag here, but this is just kind of a scary vibe for this movie, as Max is saying, like, to kick off with.

That's when I was.

This is kind of like demons are here.

Fuck, I was right.

Five-year-old Griff was right.

This movie's a masterpiece.

Let's go.

Like, when in the first four minutes, it's thrown all of this out.

Yes.

But right.

Then Travolta basically puts the kid back to bed.

Then they fuck.

Then the opening credits happen to the impregnation.

Right, right, right, right.

Right.

The one sperm makes it through the diaphragm, sneaking through.

Which shouldn't have been Roseanne's voice as the egg.

Do you know what I'm saying?

The logic doesn't make sense.

Totally, totally, totally.

I think there's just no right way to do this, probably, right?

Like, it's just kind of like you're snookered no matter what you try, or it should have just been uh, fucking what's his name with the silly voice who's the gym coach or whatever.

It should have been Gottfried's favorite.

Hey, look, more Gottfried, I'm happy.

Like, if this movie wanted to over-index on Gottfried, I'd be giving it a thumbs up.

He should have been the

certainly not nearly enough Gottfried, and he was still rudely given a Golden Raspberry nomination.

Jossie's Jim.

That's his, that's his sort of Play Center thing, right?

His version of Jim Berea.

I think it's Jossie's Jim.

The font is weird on the sweatshirt.

So,

yeah, it just like sets a weird tone, the monsters.

I don't know.

Max.

It's the tone of the film.

The whole movie's got that weird

nightmare energy.

It's got nightmare energy.

We sort of

lose track of Kirstiali's job.

We kind of see her once where she brings the kid to the office.

and gets reprimanded.

Yeah, and there's not much more.

And notice that the male character, sort the antagonist of that scene,

also is talking about some kind of medical issue that he's having, I believe, which sort of nods to the first film when she goes on the date with the two-paid

accountant.

And that guy did have a toupee vibe, the man.

Yeah, but I feel like Amy Heckling associates a certain kind of man she finds unattractive with them talking about their bodily functions.

But also, am I wrong in thinking that the boss at the office

who lambasts her for bringing the kid to work is Neil Israel, her husband at the time who co-wrote the movie.

Oh, is that right?

I think so.

I mean, sure, which is also funny to slot him into one of these parts.

It is interesting meta-layer to it all.

Yeah, he is Mr.

Ross.

And look who's talking to him, I believe.

Yes, that's him.

Yeah, wow, playing just like an absolute turd.

Yeah, like just come in for one scene and suck.

It is a film of like independent

sequences that feel almost entirely unrelated to one another.

Right, which is where it works.

I mean, just like, look at this fucking still image of teddy bear with glowing red eyes and a literal little demon imp over its shoulder.

It's not just like, oh, the kids worried that if the lights get turned off, the stuffed animals are going to come to life.

He's literally worried that like demons are creeping on his shelves, waiting to possess the toys.

Yes.

That is two minutes and 25 25 seconds into look who's talking to.

Now, I think maybe you guys don't agree, but we have all had that experience as young children where you're trying to get to sleep in your dark bedroom and, you know, you start to imagine weird shit about the stuff in your room.

Your previously gentle toys do take on a nightmarish aspect.

So it spoke to me.

It spoke to me too.

And I think she's quite intuitive about understanding a very young child's brain in both movies.

Even there's a scene in this movie where, you know, it's like all from Roseanne's POV and the kids are all kind of coming in and the kids, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley coming up, they're looking at her, and it is quite Terry Killium-esque.

Yes.

And then they leave, and she's just with the nanny.

And I thought that that was

quite an interesting little moment.

Like, I did connect to it.

I found it felt quite visceral.

Angry.

That's what it feels like to be a baby.

The core issue of this movie.

As we all remember, is that she has like an overabundance of Mikey ideas.

Yeah.

There's a little bit of a sense of what to do with Julie in relation to Mikey.

Uh-huh.

Right.

She has no idea what to do with Travolta and Allie.

Yeah.

And they are your main actors.

Right.

The birth sequence, which is not long after, because they do a little bit of in utero stuff with a freaky puppet, but it's, you know.

The movie after the opening credits, the movie basically jumps to her being eight or nine months pregnant.

Yeah, exactly.

Like now there's a time jump to she is at the end of her pregnancy.

But the birth sequence is a C-section where the cord is wrapped around the baby's neck, and there's the mildest suggestion of like, oh, yeah, this is like a stressful birth.

Also, kind of dark and nightmarish.

Yes.

You know, like, especially because the puppet, the baby puppet this time, is really

strange.

It's not, it's not good.

I don't know if they rushed.

Serious 2001 dream child made while blindfolded.

Is the puppet as bad in the first movie?

Maybe it kind of is.

But this is like a thing I have a fondness for.

It's like how bizarre looking the baby puppets are.

Right.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

But again, like, right.

It's like, so that's dark.

And then, yeah, once the baby is born, the vibe is basically like Travolta and Allie at each other's throats.

Travolta struggling in his new pilot career.

Allie just kind of mad at everybody.

They flash totally past the marriage, right?

It's like we're starting the movie with the insemination.

Then we're jumping ahead to she's late in her pregnancy.

Then there's the scene where she goes to visit Olympia Dekakis and she's complaining about how much she hates Travolta, refers to her, him as her husband, and you're like, oh, so they're married now.

That happened.

That happened somewhere.

Right.

And Dekakis is sort of like, he's a schlump.

He should be more like your brother.

She's the MVP of these movies, I think.

I mean, Dekakis is, she's just solid, like as a rock, right?

She's never going to, and she's in the third one, too.

Yeah, she sticks with it.

Red bless her for coming back for the next one.

I think Siegel might return for the third one.

That sounds right.

Well, we need closure on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

I wonder what he must.

Because I feel like they must just have to introduce more tension into the marriage.

Right.

I guess.

But they're like doing his accounting.

Who's accounting?

Travolta.

Because she comes from a family of accountants.

Everyone in her family has an accountant.

Right.

And it's Amy Heckling's dad, of course, once again, playing the dad

with the adding machine.

And they're doing the math on how little Travolta is making as a flight instructor, even though Mikey keeps defending that's not his main job, and Kirstie Alli's defending it's not his main job.

And they're sort of like, he's got to kick it into gear.

He's got to be more like your insane, fascist, right-wing vigilante brother.

Right.

So the movie's like trying to set up like, what is their drama going to be

when what you don't don't want is for their relationship to go through trouble?

Because the first movie is setting up actual obstacles towards them ending up together.

Right, but we're settled on, like, they have chemistry and work.

It's a victory.

Exactly.

Right.

And I think

to take the pin out of, like, what should this movie be, right?

I couldn't land on quite the right thing, but you want it to be like them going through a struggle, not with their relationship to each other,

but just like

his career is taking off.

They're both working.

They have two kids.

How do they handle all of this?

Almost as sort of like, how do we find time to keep our relationship fresh and engage with each other versus like they keep trying to have dates, but they go well.

Right, right.

Like that's sort of the charming version of it versus like all the grown-up stuff in this movie is incredibly hostile.

And it's sort of just them yelling at each other for 76 brisk minutes while Elias Kodias just fucks things up.

I guess.

Sort of.

He's in and out.

You kind of forget he exists for a while and then he's back.

You know what I mean?

Like he's not too consistent.

But do you think part of that too is like

she's created this setup with the Kirsiale character in the first movie that is a reflection of her own personal thing with the Rey Miss affair, right?

Transposing it onto a slightly different set of circumstances.

This woman having to be a single mother rather than in a marriage.

And then she's created this sort of fantasy movie version of like, and this charming movie star taxicab driver comes in, charms everyone, wins everyone over.

And then it's just like, well, now her fantasy has played out.

What happens next?

Especially while her marriage is dissolving in real time while she's making this movie with her husband.

So then the movie ends up being this reflection of a couple just being like, but what the fuck are we doing together?

Like with this weird hostility.

Yeah.

Which it's like that married to what i think are some genuine observations in why this movie hit for us when we were children max of just like this movie kind of gets the way the world looks when you are that age

um

and i also as a kid i loved all the tax scenes i mean i did i loved the tax scenes i liked i liked that scene when you know the tax season scene do you remember that scene oh i remember the tax season um i remember really liking that i'm struggling to remember it i watched this movie 12 hours ago.

What happened is what scene are we talking about here?

It's a Saturday night.

They're like, why aren't we going out in the town?

And they're all really getting into

David really related to this movie in a different way.

It's a good joke where the three of Twin Kaplan and Elias Codias have fallen in love.

Here's another, this movie's odd relationship with Time Thing.

Twin Kaplan has like five distinctly different hairstyles that almost feel like they happen out of sequential order.

When When she is introduced, she has like a tight little orphan annie Bob.

There's a stretch of scenes where she has the world's longest ponytail, but like the scenes before and after that, her hair is short.

Well, when you're shooting for 61 days, maybe

continuity just gets away from you.

I don't know.

I don't know how else to explain that.

They look like wigs, but it also makes me wonder if some of this movie was reconstructed.

in post because the other thing that comes out is that interesting and i was trying to find deeper sources for this, but it's like you're looking for something that does not exist because no one ever bothered to report on this movie because of the lawsuit who cares.

The lawsuit probably didn't fucking help anything.

Right, that everything has to get buried and yeah, but okay, what are you doing?

So, Wikipedia and the IMDb, which of course are both fan edited, both have the same claim that when this aired on cable television, which is where I watched it many times, deleted scenes

20 minutes of extra scenes.

Yeah, because they needed to get it to two hours.

Totally, yes.

But so they're just like large swaths of these of this movie missing and one of the things they said there's multiple instances of is that kirsty alle keeps having recurring fantasies that are different stylized dream sequences of travolta cheating on her and you have the one red corvette scene that's because travolta's like hey i want to some ladies in this movie they were like all right we'll do dream sequences i guess but the one example of it happens in the tax season scene which is like the three of after travolta has left the three of them are doing taxes together and kirstiali's like look at us isn't this depressing we're staying at home on a saturday night doing taxes taxes.

And then Twin Kaplan and Elias Cody S and Unison say, it's tax season.

Like it's their national holiday.

And then Kirstie Alley zones out and imagines Travolta like racing with some bibliography.

Sounds like a wild at heart-esque.

Right.

But apparently there's like a Yoko Ono John Lennon parody scene.

That sounds a little root one, but sure.

Sure, this sounds insane.

Why don't we have any of this footage?

I couldn't find it.

I would love to see all this.

I'm sure you could find the sort of extended TV somewhere.

Well, but you know, you might need a week or two.

I might need a month.

Exactly.

You might need to really go deep.

Yeah.

Could like start hitting up like VHS festivals and be like, anyone record Luke who's talking to off TV?

Because that's almost everyone.

There's also

a scene.

There's like a corporate, there's like a scene where she either threatens to spank or spanks Mikey for being bad.

The scene where Mikey pushes the stroller without, you know, asking.

And then Kirsty Alley supposedly was like, I object to spanking.

I don't, I don't want to.

It's demanded to be cut, but then it's back in the TV version.

To go to your point, though, about the film feeling like it's been reconstructed in post, it is a movie that is filled with ADR.

Yes, yes.

But in quite a bit of time.

Now, some of it is because the babies are talking.

Some is because some of the babies are talking.

It's not live audio.

I don't know if you guys caught that.

Sometimes it's inexplicable.

You'll be in like an interior scene where there's a very controlled environment environment and none of the dialogue seems to have been rewritten and yet all of the dialogue is ADR'd.

Right.

And sometimes ADR, like very apparent ADR is punching in for like two words in the middle of a sentence.

Yep.

Yeah, I noticed that too.

Right.

I thought all of that

was raising a lot of questions that didn't have answers.

Yes.

Right.

We haven't really talked about the fundamental thing,

quandary in this movie, which is that Mikey, who I guess by now is two and a half, three, somewhere in the house.

I had no fucking guess how old this kid was.

He seemed like he could be 11 months old.

He's an advanced toddler.

Sure.

But he's, I mean, he's nine months older than he is at the beginning of the movie, which is the end of the movie.

Don't ask me to.

But, you know, he's

truly seemingly ages.

Yeah, I think he goes from sort of like two and a half to three and a half slash four, and she goes from birth to like one and a half, right?

Something like that.

He is talking in this movie.

It's not like the first movie where his thoughts are merely being projected to the audience, and it's a baby, and it's clearly a baby that's just being a baby.

And he, of course, says only one word at the end of the phone.

He says, data.

Right.

Big moment.

Yes.

In that movie.

In this movie.

In this movie, whenever he's talking with the voice of Bruce Willis, the boy is going,

he's flapping his mouth.

Yes.

And is saying something constantly not

i believe what we are hearing wait really well i don't know i i i thought he was just not talking to anyone the whole time well there are but he is talking there are moments see there's so much and he said right sometimes he'll say like penis for

no penis right there's that whole sentence said in the voice of the child actor

in vancouver right right right like there so they call it out though but he's not the whole time speaking out loud, I don't think.

Well, this is what's interesting is at certain moments when the lips are flapping, they almost sync up with what Bruce Willis is saying.

Yeah.

Where you're like, did she have the kid on set do his best to say what she had written?

Dude, the final button of the movie when they're sort of, I don't know, sort of standing around together.

He is fully articulating words.

Yeah.

Right.

As a child his age would be.

As a child his age would be.

And there's something completely different in the voiceover.

He's saying something along the lines of like, I want a cookie.

And Bruce Willis is like, hey, this kid's right.

What a smooth cat over here.

Like, Bruce Willis is doing his bullshit.

But sometimes it does feel close, and they react to him as if they understand the basic thing he's trying to say.

It's illogical.

Uh-huh.

And we talked about rugrats, I believe, on the last episode.

Yes, we talked about rug rats.

And in rugrats, I don't know, Max, if you're a Rugrats kid.

I was a Rugrats kid.

As we sort of dug into it, it's like Angelica was on both sides, right?

She could speak to the babies and to the grown-ups.

Right.

Angelica is sort of, let's say, Mikey's age.

Somewhat of a Mikey, sort of a three-year-old.

Or she's got a foot in each world.

Whereas the babies would speak, but only to each other.

And it was implied that the parents couldn't hear them, essentially, when they spoke.

But she can sort of be a conduit between the two.

That logic, while blurry, is much stricter and more logical than whatever's going on in this movie.

Yes, I would agree.

Right.

Whereas this movie is basically more like, what do you think your baby's actually saying when he's talking, I guess.

I mean, look, perhaps I'm being too generous to the film, and I don't think they nail it down, but I read the attempt as

the kid has verbal capabilities, but his inner life.

is richer and deeper than what he is able to say.

Yeah.

Right.

That he is at early stages of language.

And so he is able to externalize certain things to the outside world right but they are more simple like saying the word penis six times and bruce willis is the inner monologue of what he wishes he had the language to express then they should have had a distinct voice for that for which interesting they should have had a like a baby voice even if it is like vo

like hey man there are so that there's no bad ideas right now there are moments where the kid talks in his own voice i'm saying yeah but there's really just the penis yeah i think there's maybe one or two.

Are there any others?

That's a good question.

The penis moment is what I'm remembering.

Well, we cannot forget the penis.

Well, we can talk about it right now.

It's a scene with absolutely no problematic overtones whatsoever, in which I guess they're educating Mikey on how he has a penis and his dog, his sister, does not.

They're giving Julia Bath and he's very concerned by her lack of penis.

Right.

And then they start flipping through a magazine, asking him to, they're pointing at every celebrity they see and be like, penis or no penis?

Well, first she says, I think we got to give him the talk.

And I was like, are you going going to give him the birds and the bees talk?

And the talk is just.

There are women and men.

Genitals are different.

I guess that's what I mean.

Yes.

So she takes out a magazine and points at like Sylvester Stallone

and Goldie Horn.

Goldie Hahn,

George Bush Sr.

Is there a fourth one?

I think it's no, the joke is they land on H.W.

Bush.

Rule of three.

And they can't.

And he's like, I don't know.

And they're like, ha ha ha.

Which I guess is basically just saying like, George H.W.

Bush is kind of a dweeb.

Like, I, it doesn't really transition

Bush.

Okay, that's the joke.

Do you think so?

I think it's a Bush joke.

Yes,

no matter what, it was a better version.

I was so afraid of some more.

You were afraid they were going to point to RuPaul.

Yeah, kind of homophobic joke, or like, you know, a sort of it's pat situation of like, oh, this lady looks like a man or whatever.

Some shit like that.

Sure.

So that was better, but also I was kind of like, I don't really get it.

Yes.

But then the kid learns to say penis and says penis out loud in his own voice a bunch.

Yes.

Not Bruce Willis' voice.

Sure.

Right.

I think with this movie is

the Mikey stuff in the movie works a lot better for me.

The Mikey stuff in this movie.

Yes.

Yeah, because like the travails of a toddler is something new, whereas Roseanne's character,

Roseanne, the baby, Julie, is just going through the same shit as we already saw that in the first movie.

Right.

There's no, there's nothing new there, really.

To try to tell the story of the kind of like

the, you know, a thing I relate to very strongly, which is the feeling of disruption in your world where you stop being the one baby.

Yeah.

And there's another thing here.

Well, you've actually, because of, because of your sister, Romale, you probably know that.

I'm also the only

one.

I'm an only child, so I don't have this.

Same.

Okay.

Well, Griff and I, right, we both endured the entrance of a new

sibling.

Now, you had the additional, you were way older when there was a third sibling, but that feels less traumatic.

That's probably more interesting than anything.

It was interesting.

Right.

When at that point he was kind of engaged with that.

I had the distance of being like, I'm watching what a baby is like with a little bit of perspective versus when James was born, I was three.

Yeah, and that's, it's, it's interesting.

And I had this real equilibrium.

Who the fuck is that?

So James is your Julie.

James is my Julie.

Now, supposedly, I got along great with my brother.

I've always been told that I was not, I was a smooth transition on that front.

Right.

I got along horribly with my brother.

But even when he was a baby,

I would knock him out of the crib.

I didn't like him.

What are we talking about here?

Knock him out of the crib.

Like, he's standing up and you're trying to pull him out.

What's going on?

No, he's sleeping down.

I'd be trying to push him.

I'd like to unlash the thing.

I was trying to push him out.

Yeah.

Dude, Ben, I hear stories like this.

Like, there's an extended family story where like someone put a baby down a laundry chute.

Like, it's crazy.

Children have no real empathy, so you kind of got to keep your heads on the children.

That's why I asked you when you're

when you're twins.

They don't understand death.

Sure, sure.

When your twins were born, and I've continued to ask you semi-regularly, how does your daughter get along with them?

It's not been an issue.

And I ask this with all of my friends who then have a second kid

because I'm so worried because I remember being such a fucking little menace to James and being like, let's kick this thing to the curb.

Get him out of here.

No, I think because my daughter loves like baby dolls and baby, you know what I mean?

Like all of the sort of play of babies, like feeding and right, like which a lot of kids do.

She just locked in with them as like little toys

pretty quickly.

I don't know if she, she loves them.

There's been no issue yet.

I imagine there will be issues once they can fuck with her toys.

Oh, that's sort of like the next level, right?

Where it's sort of like, then you've got this sibling who's like messing with your sister.

Well, that's when things got even worse for my brother and I.

But you're, you're starting it with them like prepping him to be like, are you ready to be a big brother and then he has this fantasy sequence of like taking her to F.A.O.

Schwartz alone and taking her out on the town Where it's sort of like oh Mikey's excited Yeah at the prospect of the responsibility

Right, sure like of being helpful or whatever right yeah

and then the movie kind of can't pick a lane between like Does he feel a need to protect her or does he not like having her around?

It will alternate.

Yeah, which I guess sort of naturalistic tracks.

Yeah.

Sort of the Mike Lee element of the Mike Lee.

Oh, yeah.

And I think Mike Lee, when I did a post on the script.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, he did.

Just came in for one week.

Yeah.

This movie is rude to Kirsty Alley's character.

It came out of the improvement.

Right, it came out of all these rehearsals where it's like so Elias Cody's, you know, Cody's, Elias Codyus?

Elias Cody.

I always say Elias Cody

chases a robber out of the house with a gun and, you know, the recycling catch is on fire.

What would you do?

And the babies are like, okay, that's interesting.

I assume that's how Mikely works.

I don't really actually know.

Well, the babies did a pass as well.

The babies did a pass.

That's

David.

What?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin David podcast bell philographies is brought to you by Booking.com.

Booking.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what I was about to say.

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God, I'm trying to think of anyone in my life, perhaps even in this room.

Ben, who's like, what's an example of someone I know who maybe has a very particular set of demands?

Bringing me in and there's only one other person in the room.

There's one other person in the room.

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

I'm definitely not someone who insists on 800 thread count sheets.

No,

that's an example of a fussy person.

Look, people have different demands.

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If you're traveling, that's your time to start making demands.

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Maybe any kind of demand.

You're traveling and I need a room with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote pod records.

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Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure.

That's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

Well, I think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you.

Yes.

You got to have air conditioning.

I need air conditioning if I'm in the North Pole.

Look, if I can find my perfect stay on Booking.com, anyone can.

Booking.com is definitely the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking for.

Like for me, a non-negotiable is I need a gorgeous bathroom for selfies.

You do.

You love selfies.

As long as I got a good bathroom mirror for selfies, I'm happy with everything else.

Look, they're again,

they're specifying, like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or a hot tub.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that?

You want one of those in the recording, Stuart?

That'd be great.

You want to start, you want to be.

I'll be in the sauna when we record.

I was going to say, you want to be the Dalton Trumbo podcast.

You want to be Splish Splash and what's going to be.

You would look good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge.

And while recording, I'm on mic, but you just were going back,

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Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag.

It's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes when sponsors buy ads based on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

They love that they get a little bonus Ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But something very different is happening right now.

That is true.

We had a sponsor come in and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Macon Blair's remake of

reimagining, whatever.

A reboot of The Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're excited to see it.

But Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

yeah it's so great let me read you the cast list here in in billing order as they asked which i really appreciate peter dinkledge jacob tremblay tremblay taylor page with elijah wood okay and kevin bacon tremblay is toxie's son his stepson his stepson okay uh wade goose yes great name give us the takes we haven't heard of them yet okay you got Fucking Dinklage is fantastic.

He's talking.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like a snack.

David, sizzling.

Yep.

And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang-ass freak.

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Trump.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches with my sleazy and sticky friends it informs so much of my sensibility your friends like junkyard dog and headbanger yeah exactly making toxic crusader jokes and so when i heard that they were doing this new installment i was really emotionally invested

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary.

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just something that means a lot to me.

And they knocked it out of the fucking park.

Okay.

It somehow really captured that sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original Toxie movies.

And they have like updated in this way that it was just, I was so pleased with it.

It's gooey.

It's sufficiently gooey.

Tons of blood, tons of goo,

great action.

It's really really fucking funny.

It just, it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version.

Cineverse last year released Terrifier 3 Unrated.

Yeah.

Big risk for them there.

I feel like it's a very, very intense movie.

And a huge hit.

More interesting, yeah, theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years.

Want to make that happen again here?

Tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicavenger.com/slash blank check to get your tickets.

Blank check, one word in theaters August 29th.

Yep, and Ben, it just says here in the copy,

wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, Summon the nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon the nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new new metal band

who are also mercenaries cool and drive a van

with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill and that's all i'll say okay and they are the most dang ass freaks of dang ass freaks i'm excited to see it and your endorsement i think carries more weight than anyone else's in the world on this seriously get your tickets now go to toxicadvenger.com slash blank check.

Do it.

Do it.

The scene I fucking loved as a kid and I really enjoyed again, maybe just out of nostalgia, was the attempt to get into Total Recall.

Okay, because when you're a kid, all you want to do is go to an R-rated movie.

Yes, but the other fun angle of it is that Travolta is just like, I kind of want to see this grown-up movie.

I got two kids now.

I never get a break.

Yeah, so it's

very, it's appropriate.

1990, right?

Like, Total Recall is the hot news.

Has just been released

in the summer?

Right.

That film came out in the summer of 1990,

and it is not appropriate for children.

He's taken to a theater that is playing on one screen, Total Recall, and on the other screen, seemingly a compilation of Betty Boop shorts.

He does say that the other option is Betty Boop.

They don't really explain, which is also kind of grown up

for a cartoon.

He also, they're separated.

He has, he's

time on his hands.

Yeah, no, you're right.

And he's actually just being the worst dad.

Yeah.

He's like living up to the stereotype of a deadbeat dad.

He also comes his way into the theater.

So he does this movie.

Charming rose.

Okay.

They kind of explain it as kind of like the old I left my shoe in the theater trick.

And I was watching it being like, damn, that's a good trick.

Because Bruce is going, like, ah, dad, come on, don't do it.

Don't do the shoe.

Return to Bruno.

Where, like, yeah, he like pockets one shoe and is like, hey, my kid left his shoe.

Can I go get it?

And that's how they get into the theater.

I mean, I love that.

I filed that away.

I know.

I was kind of like, thinking on your feet, Barbara.

And the popcorn bucket was also really ingenious.

And then when you cut out of the movie, both the kids have chocolate ice cream all over their faces and he's apologizing to them.

But did they watch Total Recall?

They did.

Yeah.

I think they did.

Yes, absolutely.

So why isn't there a scene where for the next couple of weeks, he's going like, you know, doing some lines from Total Recall.

Like, what is it?

Two weeks, right?

Yeah, you should do that.

Right?

They should do that.

Or like, consider that a divorce.

They could do that.

But this is my parents don't.

She's concerned that he doesn't have enough drive in his life, right?

Mostly because of her parents' pressure.

Yeah.

Also, he is a taxi driver come

sort of airline, sort of pilot teacher, whatever.

He does have a weird kind of life.

But he makes like $22 a month teaching classes.

And he's like, I basically don't have enough time to teach classes because I'm busy parenting and driving a cab.

What I really want is to actually get a job flying for one of the airlines.

Then Elias Codias just shows up at the door with the MYPD cap, is basically like, I'm here.

I'm going to stay on your couch with my gun.

Then she, at some point, says, like, he might be able to help you get a job.

He somehow hooks Travolta up with what seems to be a like, rent your own private jet airline.

I think it's the parents, though.

I don't think it's the brother.

Don't they say that he knows somebody?

You know what?

I wasn't paying very close attention.

It's a naughty plot.

So I don't remember the specifics, but

it's kind of like the Spanish prisoner or whatever.

It's just kind of like so dense.

There's so many double crosses.

No, I didn't remember who.

But it's like a charter airline.

Yes.

He's basically like the fanciest form of limo driver.

Right.

Like he's getting off these charter flights, and the rich people are like, where's my briefcase?

He's entitled customer.

He basically gets at this halfway point in the movie where he hates Elias Kodias.

Kirstie Alley will not brook any criticism of her beloved brother.

He's also stressed out and busy from his job, which she thought would make him happier if he had a sense of purpose, but instead it's causing more fraying at the edges.

And then they get into this fight based on the gun because

Travolta...

It's like there shouldn't be a gun in the home.

He walks out in the middle of the night and Cody has pulls the gun on him.

Yes, right.

Cody mistakes him for a stranger when he comes home late and pulls a gun on him, which is a sign of Codius maybe not having like the most responsible attitude to gun ownership where he's like, I'm pulling a gun if that door opens.

Right.

And then at the halfway point in the movie, basically they just split up.

Yeah, sort of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's still around a lot and he comes and he takes care of the kids.

Well, because he is the biological father of one and the de facto father of the other.

Does an extended dance sequence at the Jimboree equivalent.

That's freaking John Travolta we're talking about.

I got to have him dancing.

Right.

He's great.

Yeah, he's always great.

That seems awesome.

Have you ever worked at John Travolta?

I've never worked at John Travolta.

Never crossed paths.

But no, actually, that's not true.

I met him at the rap party for Primary Colors.

Okay.

Wild.

And he wasn't very nice, actually.

You would have been a teenager.

I guess I was a teenager, yeah.

I remember being

quite excited to meet him, and he wasn't particularly engaged.

That's too bad.

I mean, I'm not like

stunned to hear this.

He's maybe still in character.

Well, no.

I did.

That guy was a schmoozer.

He would have

done a double chicken

handshake.

Yeah, exactly.

One on the one on the elbow.

He would have been playing sacks.

I googled Max Mangella, John Chavolta, and all I got was an IMDb piece of trivia from the film Spiral, which you are in.

It was from the Book of Saw.

You opened the book.

Which apparently, the police basement vault door in that movie is manufactured by a company called Jules and Vincent, a sly reference to pulp fiction.

That's right.

I remember seeing that actually on the wall.

Oh, because Sam Jackson's in the movie.

Because Samuel Jackson in the movie movie.

That makes sense.

Now I make the connection.

There you go.

No, but because you weren't like, I'm making a movie.

You were like, the book of Saw has been opened, and I simply must follow.

I'm stuck between the pages like a bookmark.

Exactly.

I'm just a small cog in the saw machine.

Well, you're more of a spiral.

Spiral.

But I'm a John Travolta fan.

I think he's a movie star.

And he's specifically, you know, in the first one, especially, he's really, he's really charming.

Yes.

And I do think

David is going to shake his head adamantly.

What about Say?

But I do think that Kirstie Alley and John Travolta in this movie carry over

a

some kind of natural rapport.

Like, even though they're fighting the whole time, they have a, they have an ease with each other as actors.

I know I'll give you that.

I think it's sort of

it's kind of leftover.

It's a bit of a half-life from the last movie, but it sort of helps make the movie survive that they do have something the existing chemistry

even if they don't get to really deploy it.

Them splitting up doesn't work for me because I the whole time I'm like, they could talk through this, they just need to have like three conversations.

It's a classic rom-com shit, except like it's kind of the laziest version of it.

And

I think also the movie does Kirstie Alley dirty in that she's kind of the problem in all of the fights.

Right.

Travolta, it's basically like, hey, why don't you make enough money?

Why do you care that my brother has a gun?

Right.

Like, and so you're just kind of like, she's being a pain in the ass, which is not fair.

Annoyed that he's not happy.

Right.

Right.

And his only complaint is like, hey, we never have sex anymore, you know, or whatever.

Like, I hate the artificial obstruction in rom-coms.

And it's part of what I was so pleasantly surprised by in the first one that it's like, no, there's the moment at like the halfway point where they hook up and then she stops it because she's like, I got to be responsible.

This is almost too intense and I'm, you know, raising a child, a young child.

Which feels like a human obstacle.

Sure.

And something that can be resolved through the growth of the characters versus this, it's like the movie is trying to like throw shit at them and that just have both of them react kind of petulantly and then you get to this insane finale where like

it's a huge question

the finale that you're setting up because we have elias curtius on the couch with the gun as you said it's a chekhov's gun situation before we get to that somehow this is going to come back into play for the first time i'm the one who's like if we can backtrack slightly

There's this kind of great, but then also fully irrelevant moment where Kirsiali just gets in her head

that Travolta can't be flying tonight.

It's stormy outside.

She's scared for him.

Yes.

So she drops everything.

She leaves the children in the care of her psycho brother,

which is insane, but that's what she does.

And that sets up what is coming next.

Right.

First, she calls and she says, Hey, can you reach out to him?

And they said, No, he's already in the plane.

And she says, Can you call him?

And they say, No.

So then she gets in a cab and she seemingly arrives at the airport within 35 seconds.

Right.

She She gets there weirdly fast.

And then we cut to some b-roll from entrapment as a

windows unsealed.

Right.

And then there's a break-in from a master thief who's carving a hole in the window.

You do get all of that.

Who plays the thief?

Using expert tools.

Yeah.

Like the A-Cam operator.

To steal what, baby clothes?

Like, I don't even know what he's after in this house.

He seems to only be targeting their

decisions.

Strange contrivance to have the reason they're out of the house be she kind of has this flash of sympathy for Travolta and gets on a plane to tell him not to fly.

And he's like, she breaks.

What makes you shut up?

She breaks into the cockpit basically saying, I have a terrible feeling and I'm having like a premonition.

It's like a final destination situation.

That you're going to die.

You need to not take off on this plane.

And it feels like she's getting to the point where she like, this forces her to admit,

I love you.

I want you.

I've never stopped loving you.

I had a flash of what my life would be without you.

And he's basically like, shut up.

I work in an airport.

Like, they would tell me if it's not safe to fly.

And then, like, one second later, like, not safe to fly.

And he's like, all right, let's go home.

It's just weird.

It's just weird writing.

Right.

And they're like, I guess, like, you were proven right, but in a way that was unnecessary for you to come here because

they were never going to let me take off anyway, which sort of proves him right, which is he was like, look, if it's not safe to fly, they won't let me fly.

He's right.

So I will fly until they give me the word, which they then do.

And Hermia, and her reason for going there should be them reconnecting and loving each other, which is what's happening, but they don't really, it's not really there.

But now we have like anyways, so they're not like arguing that she's too grounded.

Yes, exactly.

But also, we're like

with insane movie rain, and we've shown her like cab driving.

They're like, all of this seems expensive and complicated, right?

This is not an easy set piece, even if we don't have like a plane taking off.

It's an expensive location it's weather it's all of this then we're cross-cutting with the thief breaking in yeah Elias Kodias responds you're like oh this is why this character has what they would have referred to as these Travis Bickle delusions of being a vigilante

he pulls his gun on the guy who then runs out right and Elias the guy who's like hey man I was just here for a baby bouncer I'm sorry chases him out to the street yeah he doesn't have any stuff with him at this point

He's like run out because he's been caught.

Right.

There's no reason to chase him.

But this guy's so overcranked with the idea of being a hero.

You're like, well, this is why he has the gun.

Except it doesn't really matter.

It's like the gun empowers him to leave, to run down the street in the hopes of shooting this guy, which doesn't happen.

And then the second he leaves the kids alone, the apartment catches on fire.

Well, he left a fucking frying pan cooking.

Not only that, they left a bucket of paper for recycling, I guess newspapers and stuff, like next to the oven.

Does anybody think this was reverse engineered?

Maybe a little bit.

You think like Kierce Alley subconsciously has kind of been like, I want to die.

I want to die in a fire.

Do you agree that it does feel like some weird final destination set up where like after the plane thing is final destination, and then this is a different final destination?

Can somebody recut?

this sequence

into a sort of final destination teaser and then submit it to the

race if you're listening.

One of those great teasers where you're like seeing a horror movie, the trailer starts, and it's just like someone going like, doo-doo-doo-doo-y frying an egg.

And you're like, what's this movie?

And then they go, huh, let me go get my knife for, you know, and you're like, oh, it's final destination.

To what we were talking about earlier.

I already watch them all, I think.

The first movie clearly has the studio note of like something more exciting needs to happen at the end.

And then there need to be stakes.

So they reverse engineer this somewhat absurd car chase thing where Mikey sneaks into the front seat of a car that's being towed and then gets stuck in traffic and they have to go save him, which proves that John Travolta cares.

And then he says dada, right?

And it like is a studio note, but it feels like the exact right size.

Oh, look, they got a tiny version of what feels like almost an action scene at the end of this movie.

They clearly came to her with a similar thing of like there need to be statements.

They need a little bit of a juicy climax.

And they throw three things at the wall at the same time that all are insane yes that are all happening parallel in a way that does feel like it's like death has an agenda there is a balance this family should not exist right

um

and it teaches and then like the kids the lesson that they love each other i guess But he's already kind of learned that lesson.

I know.

We haven't even talked about it, but the dynamic between the brother and the sister, it's so unclear.

You know, so it's like, are they ever like, you can't tell if they're even fighting or just like the juice of the movie?

I know, and it's not there at all, right?

Because he has this sequence where he, like, there's a long montage where he like remembers the first look who's talking.

If you haven't seen this movie, it has more montages than Rocky V.

Yeah, I mean, it's an absurd number for a movie that's 75 minutes long.

It has multiple like end of horizon and American saga-esque.

We also have a good reference to to that.

Thank you.

That Damon Waynes, of course, plays another toddler who has some jokes, and that there is a talking toilet voiced by Mel Brooks to represent the horrors of potty training.

I mean, I know we briefly mentioned it.

Mr.

Toilet kind of is.

He's good.

I have no issues with that.

He's going to bite your tushie if you don't give him poop and pee.

He sprays blue like spit.

He does.

When he talks.

He sprays like kind of cleaning fluid.

And they have this weird.

Come on.

You're laughing.

This weird

on the toilet that then turns into like a walrus mustache and killer vampire thing.

The thing that it gets when they're trying to first prep Mikey on toilet training, where they're like, you know, you're going to, you know, is him being like, I don't want to poop outside my diaper.

That's what nobody tells you about toilet training is that kids are like, the experience of pooping into the void is night and day from pooping into a thing that catches it right on your butt.

Sure.

And they just don't get it.

Well, it's so low hassle.

It is low hassle for them.

That's true.

I think you're like, poop in the diaper and then you take care of the rest.

But like, they start to get annoyed by getting changed because it's a fucking pain in the ass when you're like a three-year-old and you've taken a, you know, a regular person's poop.

But like,

they just, I think there's something physical about like it getting caught.

You know what I mean?

I don't know how to describe it.

There's a real thing I think the movie's getting at that I think is smart.

I have successfully potty trained my daughter too.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Only two more to go.

Yeah, seriously.

Look who's talking reboot.

Okay, listen.

A lot of people have circled this.

Oh, and also we didn't talk about the baby talk.

I don't know if you want to talk about it.

I have

so much more.

I watched.

Oh, go, keep going.

Griffin, keep going.

Well, I just want to finish this Mr.

Toilet thought.

Okay, sure.

What I like that I think is smart about this and goes back to my like, she had like scraps of ideas is that they're trying to potty train him, right?

He's against it for all the reasons you just listed, David.

I like that he basically cross-references with Damon Waynes and is like, hey, are your parents trying to do this like fucking body training bullshit?

And he's like, yeah, Mr.

Toilet, who eats your poop and your pee.

And it's that thing of like, oh, right.

Parents say different things to their kids.

Right.

And then when you put kids in a social situation, they start comparing notes and they don't track.

Right.

Because you have that earlier thing where Mikey's like in bed trying to fall asleep and he's doing the math on like, okay, so like ninjas are real, but dragons aren't.

Dinosaurs used to be real.

No, he says, like, monsters used to be real, but dinosaurs aren't, or is it the other way around?

There's like a joke like that.

That's pretty cool.

But there's a joke of like a kid starting to under, like, reckon with real-world logic of like which things and stories used to happen in history and which things are completely created.

In the way of like kids on a playground, everyone currently has their head buried in their hands as I try to unpack this.

But like comparing notes on Santa Claus and the story falling apart, I like that Damon Waynes introduces to him this thing that is like, my parents told me this and I like it.

But to Mikey, it's the scariest shit in the world.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I mean, this is the benefit of doing a baby writer room.

Yeah.

They give you.

Some insight that you wouldn't get from grown adults.

The Mr.

Toilet Prop sold at auction last year.

Oh, did it now?

In immaculate condition as part of the big Planet Hollywood auction that happened when most of the locations closed down and they got rid of the archives.

It's a little yellowed.

I don't know if we're talking immaculate.

I think it looks pretty fucking good.

Oh, man, that is fucking horrible.

Jesus, fuck me.

I see it.

That's a horrible image.

Oh, God.

I was surprised that it only sold for $5,000.

Oh, really?

For such a hero prop in good condition?

Working mechanisms.

What do you do with it after you get it?

What do you do with it?

You call a plumber.

You hook that button.

That's why this thing works.

That's right.

You're right.

I need someone to eat my poo-poo and my pee-pee.

Ben, if you saw that online on eBay for $5,000, you would be making some phone calls to see if it's doing.

Imagine your wife.

I'm sure my wife would love it.

Exactly.

You go on a date, you come home, and the guy, you know, hey, where's your bathroom?

Oh, it's the second door on the left.

You walk in there and you're confronted with Mr.

Toilet.

And I just want to say, that's the first time I said my wife.

There And I feel like this is a perfect moment.

It's a perfect moment.

My wife.

You would not submit.

So romantic.

Yeah, exactly.

I can't wait to report back to her about Mr.

Toilet.

Look, I can tell you that, not to support Look who's talking now, but Willis, Barr, and Wayans are not part of that movie, along with Amy Heckerling.

The kids have grown up in the third movie.

Right.

The now is referring to dogs.

The voices are just the dogs.

But they did, they found some real acts isn't it like diane keaton diane keaton and danny devito yes the big two i call them david gallagher from seventh heaven plays mikey sounds great who's now like five or six right yes um but yes reports of a reboot have bubbled away since 2010 when Neil Martz of the Fast and Furious and Saturnic franchises said he was considering a reboot and Amy Heckerling said,

Griffin, you tell me what I'm doing.

Oh, she did the John Carpenter.

I love the idea of a reboot because if they do that, they'll have to pay me.

Exactly.

That's like, I have no interest in being involved, but money goes in this hand here, whatever you want to do that.

But they're basically three reboot things.

Neil Boritz gets the rights.

Yep.

Screen Gems.

Jeremy Gerlick, who wrote The Breakup.

Screen Gems brings in Jeremy Gerlick to write a

and direct.

The breakup is a phenomenal movie.

The Breakup's a masterpiece.

The Breakup is

the Peyton Reed film.

That film is very good.

That's an excellent movie.

Yes, it is excellent.

And it's the kind of movie we need more of today in our rom-com-less, you know,

it's one we're talking about where it's like, there are no artificial conflicts.

That is a movie actually about people fighting in a way that feels like armed.

Right.

Yes.

But I guess nothing came of that.

Kiki Palmer.

His qualification, by the way, in writing the film was that he has four children.

He has four children, including twins.

So he's got me beat by one.

Kiki Palmer on the Nope Press Tour was basically like, let me at a Look Who's Talking talking film i don't it doesn't need to be related you know it can be a reboot it could be a sequel whatever you can just rip it off i want to do my version of that and then heckerling weighed in recently and said her and her daughter last year said that her daughter molly yes the inspiration for the first film of course was working on a script with her yes uh who knows if it'll become a thing maybe you know now that's a little sad in a way but also a little sweet of like hey maybe things came full circle for her and she decided like i'll work on this with my kid or maybe Heckling was like, How the fuck do I get something made in Hollywood?

Do I have to do a look who's talking for?

Right.

Fine, right?

I don't know.

As we've talked about, almost everyone involved in these movies is dead or incapacitated.

But I guess the idea is that Travolta's still out there.

Travolta's still out there.

The idea is that you could do grown-up Mikey, which I have to assume is the pitch.

I was thinking about that because it is the obvious way to go.

But would you lose something by telling the story from a male

perspective?

I do think there's something really beneficial in that first film.

I also think that's probably why the fucking Geralik Moritz version never came about because

even if they were writing with a female lead.

I think Neil Moritz has shown exemplary sensitivity.

That's a man with taste.

Yeah.

No, look, he's made some amazing movies.

He made so many classic films.

I mean, I know what he did last summer.

He's a Moritz.

I'm a fan of his work.

Iconic.

But I do think we're we're all agreeing that like the special sauce is that it the first movie in particular comes from a female perspective yeah and he did the escape rooms yeah where's oh well the first escape room is amazing it is yeah the second one

well the whole weird thing with the second one where there's two versions yes and they're radically different and one is lore heavy and one is not it kind of hamstrung the whole thing

yeah the first one was really promising first one rocks yeah uh

look who's talking I think there's a bit of a stigma with a talking baby.

Okay.

I think, like, the baby geniuses movies, the E-Trade ads, it just has such a.

Which then became its own sitcom as well, Baby Bob.

And what a sitcom it was.

Yeah.

Like, it has such a stigma of like the bottom of the barrel.

Like, if a baby is talking with a digital mouth,

where you're watching the worst trash about it.

I don't know if AI got involved.

Now, I do love it when AI gets involved.

My favorite.

To write the screenplay or something.

No, to me, I think AI should be making decisions at every level, right?

Just like in the movie, right?

Design,

casting,

catering.

Yeah.

I was really surprised to hear on the

what was the last pod you guys put out?

It was

Jurassic Park.

Yeah.

That you both had AI as your number one Spielberg.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a big one.

Well, no, we were saying, because people have gotten upset about this, and this will be a long settled thing, that when we did our ranking of the first half of his, or the latter half of his career, that we both put it number one there.

Oh, right.

Latter half, it's number one.

Or amended complete from.

ET has to be.

ET is my number one.

There you go.

It has to be.

ET is my number one.

You still have AI as your.

ET is my number two.

That's batshit.

I'll tell you what's batshit.

AI.

Yeah.

Yeah.

AI is the best.

Oh, it's so good.

I actually pitched an idea last episode.

The industry.

Oh, yeah.

for Look Who's Talking Now?

Yeah, yeah.

Let's hear it back.

Max might have some good feedback on this.

So I'm thinking prequel.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

He pitched this.

The title, Looketh Who Talketh Now.

Okay, he's actually punched up the title since the last and the Renaissance.

Yeah, he's making it sound as polished as it was.

It's the same basically redo the first movie in the Renaissance.

This time it's in the Renaissance.

So good.

So it'll cost a lot more.

You are adding a good 40 mil to the budget.

Just to be clear, Max, last time his pitch was just look host talking.

Or look who spoke, maybe?

I don't know.

We said, what does that mean?

And he said, it's in old times.

We didn't have the specifics of the Renaissance.

It's a fine time.

It is fine to commit it to a time.

Da Vinci being like, okay, hold still, Mona Lisa.

And then like a baby goes like, whoa, and like knocks the paint over.

Not to be the hackiest motherfucker of all time, but here's a thought spiral.

I can imagine like Tom Rothman being like, that's good.

I'm like, the baby, the knocks over the paint.

This is, I'm thinking, John Lifkow for Da Vinci.

He's like, perfect.

Lithko would be good.

Here's a genuine thought spiral I went down last night from the book of Saul.

Oh, that's very true.

A thought spiral from the book of Saul.

Who was the first baby?

Who was the first baby?

Yeah.

Usually, I mean, are we going biblical?

Well, this is my question.

I'm like, I know what the biblical answer is.

Do you?

Cain is, in theory, the first child.

Cain is the the first child, right?

They had to raise Kane, which then inspired Brian De Palma.

And John Luthko, let's be clear.

Okay, so what I'll say is that why it's called Raising Kane's?

That's also why it's called Raising Kane's.

Because that kid only ate chicken fingers.

Yes, and was a real firecracker.

And he did murder his brother when his brother took his Texas toast.

Yes, this all makes sense.

No, I was just in watching these two movies about pregnancy and childbirth and whatever.

I did like, by the way, that Colonel Briggs comes back as her doctoring.

Yeah, Don Davis does deliver

the girl.

Oh, yeah, she says that.

But if there was no historical precedent, and in theory, I understand.

He was available because they hadn't even struck the sets, probably.

They were like, we're doing a sequel.

Just sit right there,

we'll get you a turkey sandwich.

What's up?

I understand the reality that Homo sapien evolved gradually over

centuries, right?

More than centuries, my friends.

Yes.

Right.

But it is crazy to just think about someone one day being like,

I don't feel like I ate that much.

Right.

Or like, God, these eggs really aren't, they're kind of disgusting to me.

I usually love eggs.

Yeah, I'm just feeling really bloated.

And then to just have a baby come out of you.

So you're saying that the first baby was born in an e-television.

I didn't know I was pregnant style.

No.

What's going on?

But the reason you reminded me of this is in my insomnia last night at 1.57 a.m., I texted first, I googled, excuse me, first baby in the world.

And AI responded, it is impossible to definitively know who the very first baby in the world was, as there were no historical records from that far back.

Thank you, AI.

Thank you for pointing that out.

And then, so then I went on to Cura.com, the question and answer site, and someone responded, Chuck Sears, BBA and Management Information Systems.

We have no clue.

I'm assuming you mean a human baby.

I couldn't get any fucking answers to that.

I was losing my mind.

You couldn't get answers to an impossible question?

I think it's a good question.

Who is the first baby?

What has this got to do with the reboot?

Is this your pitch for the reboot?

Well, if you're not going to be able to do it all the way back, well, then why aren't we making it the first baby?

Why would we?

Oh, like Look Who's Talking Year One.

Yeah.

Huh.

Because that worked out really well, too.

Look who's talking origin.

These are very, very uncommercial pitches.

I'm not sure, honestly, that the legacy of Look Who's Talking has lasted.

It does feel like it is completely forgotten.

Which is odd to me because it felt so so fucking massive back in the day.

But do you think the title would stir the faintest recognition?

Because I don't think it would.

It's such a familiar phrase.

I feel like Three Men and a Baby, also, given that that was the highest-grossing movie of 1987.

Yes.

Has also not really stuck around.

I know Ethron was going to do it at one point, and that never seemed to come to fruition.

That's correct.

And then there was also a rumor of them doing a Disney Plus Lega sequel

of Three Men and a Bride and bringing Danson and Gutenberg and selling back.

Look, the thing with Three Men and a Baby is the title does all the work for you.

Correct.

You're happy as hell.

There's three men.

There's a baby.

Okay.

What's going to happen?

I don't care.

I'm involved.

There's a creepy ghost in the background of one shot.

Cool.

Promise of the premise.

Look who's.

There's a whole urban myth where they have like, it's a standee.

It's a standee.

It's a standee from a plot line.

From a plot line, but it looks like there's a ghost in one scene.

Like, people have to say that they're thinking, look, three men and a baby is haunted.

Wow.

Look who's talking.

It's a question to the audience.

It is.

Who's talking?

I don't know.

You told me who's talking.

But there's no question mark.

There is no question mark.

No, it's a statement.

Yeah.

Look who's talking.

You will look.

That's not a question.

You will pay your $12.

You will sit down and you will look to see who talks.

It's not a question.

It's a demand.

And of course,

as it turns out, we don't really know who's talking.

We don't really know who's talking.

And he's honestly not talking.

It's more of an inner monologue.

I guess

it's kind of a lie.

The question is, hey, who's listening?

Can they hear him?

Pay attention.

It should be called.

Look who's doing ADR.

What if more movies are just called, look,

look,

look at the screen.

Watch this.

Things will happen.

Plots will unfold.

Yeah, I...

I have to assume within the next 10 years, like over on Durana, Look Who's Talking sequel in the next 10 years.

I'm taking the over.

I think it's going to happen.

Or a reboot or a whatever

year one.

Da Vinci.

Experience Who's Talking Now, VR movie.

Okay, there we go.

Be who's talking.

You can be the babies.

You can talk.

Yeah.

Damn.

I think you're getting at something, though, which is, has the legacy of baby geniuses actually fucked with the legacy of Look Who's Talking?

I really think we have to mention Ishre Baby too.

Like, that was such a big one.

Yes.

You know, just

one of those things where

they just completely misunderstood what people wanted,

which was more of that.

Right.

Sure.

People saw it once and were like, yeah, it's funny.

And they were like, oh, you want the e-tre baby all the time?

And they were like, I guess so.

Oh, let's talk about baby talk briefly.

Okay.

Yeah.

So the TV show baby talk.

So the reason it's called Baby Talk and not Look Who's Talking is that this and the sequel were fast-tracked.

And they realized that this was going going to be on the air.

Originally, the plan was for this to be on the air the same time the sequel was in theaters.

Right.

There were some production.

Eventually, it does end up airing after March

1991.

So she was like, please change the title so it doesn't take any like shine off the movie.

George Clooney is in season one as a regular.

He is.

I watched about 12 minutes.

How was he?

He seemed quite comfortable on screen.

It felt like he might have a bright future.

Oh,

like the camera loved him, is what you're saying.

Basically, his last TV

steps ER.

Does he talk about Joe Biden?

A bunch.

He's not song Joe Biden the step.

No, but he has the hair still.

He has the shoulder length, the power.

Yeah, he had his big, which he has in the early seasons of ER or the first season.

It's not.

No, no, no, because ER is not until 94.

So after ER, he is on.

I'm sorry, after Baby Talk.

He's in the other ER.

He was on the other ER, but that's earlier.

That was in the mid-80s.

He was on a show called Body of Evidence, starring Lee Horsley.

This is not related to the Willem Defoe.

Not related to the amazing wax-dripping Madonna sex movie, Body of Evidence.

Probably one of the best candle sex movies ever made.

I think so.

I think so.

No one has sex with Lumiere, right?

No, unfortunately.

I mean, that was my notes round

on the Carnit rebook.

Yeah, and they didn't like it.

uh a two-season police procedural that clooney was the second lead on and then he gets er he was also in a pilot called the building written and starring great title uh bonnie hunt the great bonnie hunt yeah and it's about a a lady who's jilted by her fiancé goes to chicago starts a new life and apartment building across from wrigley field and it's also all about the people who live in the building the building.

I mean, it's a good title.

What if there was a building?

What if there was a building?

What if there was a building?

They tried to answer.

They only got five episodes, and then that was that.

The thing I was going to say about Baby Talk.

Baby Talk, Baby Mikey was voiced by Tony D'Anda.

Yes.

Who makes perfect sense of it?

He is renamed Mickey.

Baby Mickey.

Baby Talk.

Yes.

Yes.

George Clooney played the male lead in the romantic

figure for the Travolta.

But he is not the Travolta.

The premise of the show is that the building is under construction and all these construction workers come and visit her a bunch.

And Academy Award nominee William Hickey is the foreman of the construction site.

And George Clooney is the handsome hunky construction worker who starts visiting a bunch.

What's the problem?

If you look at Lucas talking, this is such a natural.

and organic way to spin all these horny construction workers keep coming upstairs and like interfering with her life until she falls in love with one of them they originally cast an actress named connie sellica she filmed five episodes.

The show was supposed to premiere in September 90, before Look Who's Talking 2.

She hated the show so much, she quit after five episodes.

They restarted the season, they shot it all again with Julia,

a legitimate TV star.

Sure, absolutely.

Famous most for baby talk.

She does.

She went on to design women's movies.

Yes.

She,

after

the first season, is limbasted critically, quits the show out of shame.

Sure.

So then they fire Clooney,

and in season two, they recast all parts, and Scott Bayo is the new love interest.

Bayo is the new love interest.

Bayo, I'm seeing here, described the show as a nightmare to make.

So things doing well.

And the show concludes its run.

And then 18 months later, Look Who's Talking Now

comes out.

When asked to comment on the film, Amy Herkeling recently said, Ugh, why?

I can't watch it.

That's all she has to say.

The thing I just want to share is that the critics hated Baby Talk so much that when the new stars were cast for season two, they were basically shamed by the press.

And on Wikipedia, it says, prior to the second season beginning, the new stars of Baby Talk were interviewed about their decisions to join a show that was so loathed by reviewers.

Mary Page Keller, who replaced Julia Duffy, claimed to have an indifference over the reputation of the show among critics since she had never seen the show prior to replacing Julia Duffy, Scott Bayo's defense was:

I did a show for 11 years, Happy Days, that never ever got a good review.

So we hope you guys will love it, but we're just going to do the best we can.

Wow.

And it's what the people like that's going to stay on.

And then the show was canceled, and he said it was the worst experience of his life.

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Box Office game, guys.

This film came out December 14th, 1990.

Mistake when you see what its competition was.

It's opening number two two at the box office.

$8 million.

Not bad, but not great.

Number one has been in release for five weeks.

It's still number one.

It's the family movie of the year.

It's the movie of the year.

It's one of the movies of the decade.

Is it the motion picture Home Alone?

Home Alone.

Yeah, that was pretty bad timing on their part.

Yep.

You like Home Alone?

Sure.

Wow, not a Home Alone guy.

It's not an important movie.

He hits the guys in the face.

The same way.

I also, I mean, I I grew up with it, but it was not an on-repeat movie for me.

Sure.

Yes.

But it's a classic.

Home Alone 2, I have a much softer spot for.

Yeah, because we've all been lost in New York.

Yeah.

We all have.

In a way.

In a way.

Max said that very ruefully.

And I've been found in New York as well.

That's true.

Yeah, I found myself.

And our favorite actors in it.

Donald Trump.

That's right.

Home Alone.

It's number one.

It's a big smash hit.

No, I meant Brenda Fricker, obviously.

Yeah.

That actually is maybe the single worst movie this could have opened against.

Yeah, exactly.

Just

completely all of their shine being taken.

Yeah, it's being just melted by Home Alone.

Yeah.

So who look who's talking to is making it to number two.

Number three, it's a film we've covered on the show.

It's a great film.

It's just beginning its run.

It's in its second week, but I think it's just expanded wide-ish to about a thousand screens.

One of your favorite directors, an oddball film.

It's a main feed.

Is it Edward Scissorhands?

Edward Scissorhands.

Edward Scissorhands.

You like that one, Max?

I I love that, man.

It's good.

Must be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so Edward Scissorhands, number four, is a film we've covered on this show.

Okay.

We're really getting into almost all movies on this show at this point.

We're very close to having covered all movies.

This film wins Best Picture in 1990.

It's been out for six weeks.

Okay, well, Silence of the Lambs wins in 91.

It sure does.

We've covered this.

We sure have.

And it's a Best Picture winner.

That's right.

Well, it's not terms of endearment.

No, no.

Driving Mistakes.

Not driving mistakes that wins.

That's 89.

You guys are circling this movie.

I know.

Rain Man?

Not Rain Man.

It's like 88.

I haven't covered that.

And Unforgiven Son.

Oh, it's Dances with Wolves.

Dances with Wolves.

There we go.

It's been out for six weeks.

It's made only $38 million.

So it's just beginning a long and successful box office run.

Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves.

Pretty good.

Max, do you care about Dances with Wolves?

I've only seen Dances with Wolves on a plane at the time of release.

Wow.

Very young.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I haven't made a box.

I haven't danced with the wolves again.

Yeah.

Number five at the box office.

Will we ever cover this?

We debate this director a lot because he had a strong first half.

Barry Levinson.

Nope.

Okay.

Weak second half.

Rob Reiner.

Rob Reiner.

It's one of his better movies.

It's not Few Good Men.

No, although that one is also good.

But this would have been right before that.

Misery.

Misery.

Which rocks.

Misery's great.

Yeah.

Oscar winner, of course.

Yeah.

Do you like Misery?

I've never seen Misery.

It's really good.

Isn't that crazy?

I've never seen it.

Yeah.

I don't think it's crazy because.

The premise sounds

small.

Sure.

And like, it's kind of one of those things where you're like, well, I get it.

I get what that is because I've seen it so ubiquitous.

Right.

Right.

Right.

That, like, I feel like I've seen misery.

But then when you watch Misery, you're like, this is good.

I saw Kathy Bates being interviewed yesterday while we're on the topic of Misery.

And she looks so beautiful.

She's a gorgeous woman.

Yeah.

She's Matlock now.

And now she's Matlock.

She can do anything.

Yeah, she's really she might have you ever seen uh taking off the milosh foreman film i've i've not this is the first time i'm hearing about it which i believe is her first screen credits and i think it might be foreman's first american film i think that's right it's buck henry and lynn carlin from cassavetti's faces wow are the two leads and it's like two upper middle class new york parents whose daughter goes missing and it's basically a night of them freaking out waiting for their daughter to return home and it turns out the daughter has run off to audition for an open casting call for a play with a bunch of hippie musicians or maybe it's some maybe it's not a play anyway kathy bates is in it doing an unbroken musical performance she like sings a song while playing guitar for like four minutes and is smoking hot and she's credited under some other name

uh yeah because she was barely it was her first appearance i think yeah uh yeah i don't know really cool yeah Yeah.

Number six of the box office new this week is a bit of a 90s classic.

Sorry, her name is Bobo Bates.

Great.

Is Richard Benjamin's Mermaids?

Uh-huh.

That's a movie I've never seen.

That's a big movie for me.

That's a great movie.

Because the soundtrack was ubiquitous.

It stars who I consider to be the big three, Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Winona Ryder.

Uh-huh.

And Christine Ricci.

Ricci, very young Ricci is in there.

She's really good.

Make a big four.

Make it a big four.

Sure, fair enough.

I just think it's funny that it's like, who shall we pair with Cher, the statuesque pop singer?

Perhaps a 5'3 British Burley man?

And you watch the movie and you're like, I love it.

They work.

This is great.

Number seven at the box office is The Rookie, one of the more

crass films in Clint Eastwood's filmography.

Is that him and Sheen?

Okay.

Yeah, there's a lot of rookies out there, of course, because there's later Dennis Quaid, the rookie, and then there was later Nathan Fillion with the TB's rookie.

There was a rookie of the year.

There was a rookie of the year.

There was.

On screen, and every year in every sport, there is also a rookie of the year.

Number eight of the box office, this is what I wanted to get to, is a little film that's been out for a month called Three Men and a Little Lady.

Wow.

So both unwanted sequels were being dumped on audiences.

That is really interesting.

I have no idea.

And then number nine at the box office is the new this week,

the Sidney Pollock film Havana.

Oh, with Redford.

I've always wanted to watch Havana, but Leno Lynn

really missed.

Yeah.

It really missed.

I've never seen it.

It just has one of those posters that kind of like,

who wants to see this movie?

Where it's just like, leather face is back.

I mean, look at Redford.

It looks like you could draw roads on his face.

What is the premise of the movie?

What if he went to Havana?

An American professional gambler who decides to visit Havana to gamble on the eve of the Cuban Revolution.

Havana.

So it's like Dirty Dancing Havana Nights, where it's like Dirty Dancing.

A dance

competition happened on the eve of the Cuban Revolution.

Just the Roomba with Ramla Gary in this movie.

Number 10 at the box office is Predator 2.

Okay.

Great movie.

A lot of these movies feel like they're made in completely different time periods.

Well, expand on that because I agree with you.

The idea that Edward Scissorhands exists

in the same universe as Look who's talking to a problem that has the aesthetic qualities.

but you can imagine people walking into Edward Scissorhands and being like, whoa, what the fuck is this?

Compared to the drivel they're being served.

On the opposite of what we were talking about, where we're like, that's a no-notes movie.

That is a this guy-made Batman.

We're not going to tell him shit.

That is like a complete vision.

And then Dances with Wolves is like this lunatic somehow got his way and convinced everyone to let him make a three and a half hour epic about how he he is the great one.

Yes.

Yeah.

Maybe I got to see Havana.

The whole thing with Sidney Pollock is he's made movies I liked, but Sidney Pollack is guilty of making a boring movie.

Like, he's done it.

Sidney Pollock has made like eight movies that don't exist.

Exactly.

Like, so, like, I love the firm, which is Unhinged, but I have a feeling Havana might be not Unhinged.

But it's also made like many undeniable masterpieces.

Yes.

He's made great movies.

And he was a great movie.

I've said many times before, is like maybe my favorite actor.

He's just an amazing actor.

If Pollock is swinging in,

it's Bucks, big Bucks.

I'm with you, Griffith.

If I could have any actor's career, it would be Sidney Pollack over the age of 50.

If I could have any actor's chest hair, it would be those

gray forests sprouting on Pollock's.

Your father was producing partners with him.

The Interpreter.

They had a company together for a long time.

Your dad is a producer on The Interpreter.

Do I want to?

Am I going to be a dude?

He is a producer on The Interpreter, a movie that had a very normal production.

Yes.

um nothing strange happened at all during the interpreter or i wish i knew what you were talking about because the movies vanished from memory only someone could interpret them or random hearts which also was a really smooth movie yeah and then they're both producers on margaret and infamous

they are both producers on margaret the interpreter

and random hearts harrison ford is in and those guys are not grumpy at all so i can't imagine there were any troubles there no neither of those guys has that was you know sydney was operating at sort of the end of an era where you would bring in those big guys to do passes on the script and it's like yeah there's like the five the big five you're like your robert towns like who you who are you thinking of

um i'm thinking more zalian frank you know these guys that are just getting inordinate amounts of money to do a few days work right

i think the you know this should happen right or whatever like whatever it is they do yeah but there was an investment in in the screenplay that doesn't quite exist anymore.

Yes.

Whether that was the right way to go about it, I don't know, but there was a real respect for there was a feeling of like, if we've hired a legitimate director and legitimate stars onto something that could be a programmer,

we owe it to everyone to make it a little more literate.

Well, like, and Random Hearts is a great example of like, that's a movie that doesn't exist anymore, right?

No one remembers that movie, despite it having Harrison Ford being a Sidney Pollock film.

It's based on a bestseller,

a-list talent through the you know like at every level of it right you know $90 million

right

and like $90 million because Harrison Ford wanted to do it so that probably became we got to do it right a big budget movie right and then you're like what's it about and it's like a cop

thinks a congresswoman's

spouse who died in a plane crash was cheating on her with his spouse who also died

like bounce right basically it's the same premise as the film bounce yes pretty much another film that audiences were like no tickets

yeah they walked up to this ticket they were like i want to make it clear i won't be buying any tickets to bounce

can i buy a ticket just to refund it um i but the pollock thing is so fascinating because i feel like his but it's like right two cucks fall for each other sorry sorry to be uh you know to be crass but the the cuckhold did fall for each other well i wouldn't you don't watch in the mood for love Love and go, like, look at these two cucks.

Fucking cucks.

I wouldn't wear it as a cuck thing.

I just think it's more that like the individual.

They're united by the premise, the idea that both of their partners cheated on each other.

I just remember seeing the trailer at some movie my dad took me to and him going, that's going to be a big hit.

Max's face when I said two cucks.

He looked disgusting.

I wish people could have seen it.

Yeah.

My dad was like, that's going to be a big hit.

Right.

And I was like, why?

And he went, because Harrison Ford's in it and people will see whatever Harrison Ford is.

Which was largely true.

But that one, bomb.

I will.

And it's it's in the midst of his tough late night

with Sabrina and Devil's Own and Six Days Seven.

The premise of that movie was so unappetizing to be like, here are two sad people in mourning because their spouses died.

And then they realize that also their spouses were cheating on them.

Right.

So there are like kind of two stages of grief.

It's 133 minutes long.

There's a lot of other stuff going on, though, because I did watch it recently for the first time.

And I was like, there's a whole procedural element.

Are they trying to solve, like, the crash?

Yeah,

there's some funky stuff.

And Kristen's character is a politician, and there's some stuff going on there.

Yeah, it's not as straightforward as Bounce.

which I keep bringing up for some reason.

Now, Bounce is the one with African Paltrow.

And it's a Don Roos movie.

It's a Don Roos movie.

I love Don Roos.

That's like quintessential 90s Mirror Max.

Mirror Max.

Right, exactly.

And it's not based on anything.

Roos wrote it himself, but it's also kind of downbeat.

It's like a sort of a sad romance.

Yeah, it's a bit melancholic.

It has a fantastic onset making of documentary.

And the bounce DVD?

That's

a kind of unhinged shit that people don't know about Max.

You didn't realize how much of a door he was.

Who's a successful professional in this business we called show, and yet will reveal things like, I watched the bounce DVD special features and have an opinion on it.

I was trying to watch watch Look Who's Talking To on iTunes and iTunes started bugging out on me.

And I was like, is this a Wi-Fi problem?

And then I was like, no, no, no.

Truly, I put on other movies and everything else was working that wouldn't.

So I broke out my fucking Look Who's Talking To full screen DVD, the only way you can watch the movie on physical media.

And I was like, I wonder what the special features are like on this.

And they had two

bonus trailers,

baby geniuses,

and one other movie I'm forget.

But then the other special feature, which was something we were talking about in our news and deals group text the other day, David, talent files.

Oh, yes.

There's just like a screen slideshow.

You can go through the key figures on the movie and it just lists fun facts and credits.

It's like an Amazon x-ray.

Basically.

Right.

Yeah.

Talent files.

Just John Travolta standing like this with his arms out.

And it just lists his birthday and where he was born.

With his arms out like an action figure.

Truly, yeah.

Like, show me on that on the John Travolta where he was.

Did you finish the box office game?

We did.

We did all 10.

I'm sorry.

If you want me to repeat them, it was Home Alone.

Look Who's Talking Too Edward Scissor Hands, Daisy says, Dance with the Wolves, Misery, Mermaids, Rookie, Three Men and a Little Lady, Havana, and Predator 2.

Wow.

Number 11 is Child's Play 2.

If that lights your fire,

the best of the child play.

Did you guys see Better Man?

Yes.

Yes, Max.

I mean, it's quite.

Max, again, you and I are the same age.

We are.

Spent a lot of time in England.

Yes, ma'am.

Was Robbie important to you as a sort of 11-year-old, or were you too cool for Robbie?

I wasn't too cool for Robbie.

As you know, knowing me, I'm not cool at all.

No, I definitely wasn't too cool for Robbie.

I would say that watching Better Men, I didn't realize some of the cultural stuff that he was connected to.

I completely forgotten his relationship with Nicole Appleton.

I think a lot of people did.

No, so Nicole Appleton, Griffin, if you were a teenage boy in London.

All Saints was important to you.

Oh, I went to an All Saints concert, but also the Appleton Sisters.

Appleton sisters were definitely on the bedroom wall.

Yes.

Probably in lieu of Kirsty Alley's headshot.

All Saints was an incredible British girl group.

Familiar with All Saints.

I don't understand that had two Appleton sisters firsthand how culturally impactful they were.

Neither Appleton sisters seemed to make much artistic contribution to All Saints.

Like, it was almost all Shaznae Lewis, I think, was the songwriting, the singing.

The Appletons were just kind of there too, but boy, were they base?

They were babes.

When I was trying to make the argument for why that film was great and worth seeing to American people who were just like, I've never even fucking heard of Robbie Williams.

I don't give a shit.

I'm like, this movie's better actually the less you know.

Because shit like the fucking Gallagher

twist at the end is mind-boggling if it's not something you grew up reading in the tabloids.

Betterman Great.

I really like that film.

If you haven't seen it, check it out.

It's an accomplishment.

And

it's so indicative, I think, of the time that we're living in that a movie with that much work put into it and is that accomplished

has zero cultural impact beyond being a sort of instant cult hit.

Exactly.

And there are certain other movies that are doing well at the box office right now, which will be left unnamed, which lack, I would say, some of the same

artists.

There's piglins.

Chicken jockeys.

We have chicken jockeys.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I just think better man.

Or what about a king of kings?

I showed you the clip of Pierce Pause.

He's like, why not a film about Jesus?

We haven't talked about Shadow League, but I 100% did not know that movie exists.

Are we allowed to talk about Shadow League?

I think probably the first rule of Shadow League is nobody can't talk about Shadow Shadow League.

But it's fun to mention it.

Yeah.

No, Ben, you can keep the reference in.

It's just people can tear their hair out wondering what it means.

To build on what you said, Max, what I found dispiriting was not just that Better Man was kind of ignored, but it was immediately turned into a headline of why would they ever make this movie?

That there was this sort of celebrating about how hard it bombed of, like, this is so stupid they spent this much money on a guy we've never heard of.

And I just want to keep yelling, like, guys, the movie is good.

Right, right.

Don't worry about 30 million.

Yes, like, even if you want to go learn about him, that's fine.

Just enjoy the movie.

But people were treating the release of that movie like it was the fire festival collapsing.

No, I agree with you.

People were so like dancing on the grave.

This is what's so nightmarish to me about a lot of industry reporting now with Sinners, which looks like it's going to open well, which is good news.

Yes.

But these pieces being written before its release where it's like, what were they thinking giving acclaimed director Ryan Koogler and like well-known actor Michael B.

Jordan a budget for a film that people love?

These fools, like Mike DeLuca, it's like they're acting like he's like at the casino throwing money around where I'm like, it's a fairly reasonable package.

This is insane back and forth between like writing constantly about how much David Zazlov sucks.

Right.

Correct.

Sure.

And then being angry every time

an artistically interesting film is greenlit under his watch and being like, these fucking idiots, this shit's going to buy me.

Brian Thugela may be the most books off this proof as filmmaker.

Who think we have to stop young Spielberg?

He's like, hey, can I have $90 million to make a vampire movie?

With my like closest vibrator, my established movie star.

And everyone's like, wow, Warner Brothers is really writing some checks they can't cash.

And I'm just like, can nothing happen?

Is nothing allowed?

We're also like recording this.

I'm sorry that I'm so mad about this when it seems like Sinners will do justifying.

I'm recording this the day that Sinners is coming out and deadlines like Thursday previews were good, but we all know the break-even point for this movie.

And I'm like, let's shut the fuck up.

It's like, it only got 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Will that be enough?

What do they want?

What do they want?

It's now maybe over-indexing to a $50 million weekend, but will it have to be a lot of fun?

People schoolers will be arrested watching this movie, so it seems like a bomb to me.

Shut the fuck up!

Our world is collapsing.

Let good movies exist.

This is a victory if they sneak through the system.

Also, what was the other highest-grossing original movie recently?

It was Nope, wasn't it?

Yes.

Yes, they're copying it to Nope.

They're copying it to Nope, which did great.

Which did great too.

And it's like nobody draws any conclusions from any of this.

No.

Right.

And Nope is, it's like, it costs the same amount of money, open to probably the same amount of money, made probably, you know what I mean?

And everyone was like, yeah, that's a one-off, though.

that'll never fucking happen again and i'm like well not if you don't let it every trade is like look we all know the one conclusive lesson from the box office in 2025 is that any movie with chicken jockey will be a hit

we should all be making chicken jockeys like lee's chicken jockey is approaching i wonder what's going on i have been wondering about the minecraft 2 negotiations oh yeah they must be insane because they got them over the fucking they do

i mean that is you could just ask for like seriously Mojang only green MMs right well Mojang should be like so it's gonna be a courthouse musical We're thinking Lady Gaga like they should just bake Falyadoo again Minecraft Falyadu here's who I would love to be right now Jack Black yeah

sitting back going hey Warner Brothers I'd love to hear you argue why I'm not important to the success of the second Minecraft movie right right which by the way they tried to do that shit with goosebumps and we're like we don't need to fucking pay you we'll make goosebumps too for half as much money They test screened it.

Kids first note.

Where the fuck is Jack Volt?

Where is President of America Jack Volt?

I think they paid him $2 million to come in and do reshoots for two seasons.

We have all been collectively naive about the prowess of this actor.

I've always loved Jack Voltaire.

I will confess, I didn't really put it all together until this movie.

It was like, oh, wait, they always open.

Here's what's wild.

You step back and you were like, he not only has conclusively been the biggest family star, like family movie star for 25 straight years, kind of uncontested without dips, like his bombs are not family movies.

Right.

His bombs.

Even growing like Clock in the Walls does fine.

Does 80 million domestic or whatever.

Right.

Beyond that.

That was with Blanchette because kids go nuts.

Yeah.

Kate the Great.

Right.

And that was obviously Roth, the Roth fans were showing up for that.

But you were like, kind of no one has had a run that big.

No, he's unbeatable.

I mean, the Jumanji movies made just unspeakable amounts of money.

Two Jumanjis, four Kung Fu Pandas.

Oh, fuck, you're right.

Two Goosebumps, one house with a clock in its wall.

Just the one so far.

Shark Tail.

School of Rock.

Minecraft.

School of Rock.

Nacho Libre was also a hit.

Nacho Libre did well, considering it's Nacho Libre.

His only real flop is Gulliver's Travels, which still like

made money in Moldova or whatever.

So Emily Blunt had to pull out of Iron Man 2, right?

For that one?

That's sort of the legacy of God.

To be clear, this is what talking with Max is usually like.

He was pretty locked in for the look who's talking to discussion.

Mostly it's kind of right bouncing from Hollywood ephemera, you know, and box office data.

I have ADHD.

Could you tell?

Was that obvious from doing a podcast with him?

This whole podcast has ADHD.

But this is how we became

you basically reaching out to us and being like, my brain sadly works the same way.

Yes.

Has all of these things rattling around.

Look, there is something about, as I brought this up, at the top of the podcast.

I mean, David and I are basically the same age, grew up in the same school system

at the same time.

Probably saw all of these movies in the same theaters.

Probably a theater.

Were you?

Well, I mean, like Finchley Road, 02, Barcelona Hill Odeon.

I went to the Muswell Hill Odeon.

I was more of a Holloway Odeon boy.

You lived in Muswell Hill.

I also loved.

No, I was a hamster boy, but I also loved.

I love that Odeon too.

Yeah, I mean, these are.

I mean, I go to the Camden Odeon a lot.

Holloway Odeon was my main.

Camden Odian was a bit grossy, but it was very grotty.

Yes.

But we have a, we have a lot of shared history.

And then Griffin, I feel like we have an insane amount of shared history because your father, filmmaker,

mother, not born here, but sort of intellectual, slightly eccentric.

And I think that thing of like us independently becoming film nerds and then having a parent who could be like, if you're interested in this, I can explain this shit to you.

Right.

And I can kind of, I I can tell you some things, right?

I can kind of provide context.

Yeah.

So I feel deeply connected to this podcast on a spiritual level.

And as you know, I'm very grateful for its existence.

Would you go to the HMV that was in like the top by the Hampstead station?

Yeah, I spent like half my life there.

Yeah.

Just because that would be the thing where you go in and be like, I've got.

10 pounds.

I'm walking out of here with one to two CDs.

Like, so

not to sound like John Travolta sneaking his children into total recoil, but there was a great trick you could do with HMV, which is if you opened your CDs from the left side and not the right side, you could keep the tags on,

copy the CD, take it back,

get it returned.

You could burn the CD.

So yeah.

I went there many times and I don't think I ever spent a dollar.

Wow.

Or a pound.

Or a pound, yes.

Come on.

Bet you.

Use the UK.

Or a Euro.

What else were your haunts, David, as a young and well, Poundland?

Do you go to Poundland?

Yeah, we pounded out.

No, I only went to Poundland at university when I had no money.

And a good place like Poundland is a very good place to be able to get away from Cockfosters.

I have been to Cockfoster.

Have you ever been to Cockfoster?

I've never been, but it makes me laugh.

Every time.

It's always funny.

If you get out there, there's a big woods you can go into.

I went there once.

And the next station is Cockfosters.

This is a train to Cockfosters.

They do it.

They really hit itfully.

They really hit it.

Cockfosters.

What were my haunts?

Oh, you know, the internet cafe on

Regent Street.

No, I don't know.

I mean, what was my life back then?

I went to Rowan's.

Do you ever go to Rowan's?

I didn't.

The bowling alley in Finchley, at Finchbury Park?

No, I don't think there's anything there.

I went there all the fucking time.

It was a bowling alley.

You could pay 50 pence to enter.

You'd had to give them some money to get in there.

There was a bowling alley.

There was a big bar where you could get food.

And you're 13 years old.

Like, it's perfect.

And there was a giant arcade.

Like, you know, arcade cavernous stuff.

Well, at the bowling alley, do you ever go to the Acton Warner Brothers Theatre?

No way.

I mean, when would I have ever been in Acton?

Because I would go to that, also, had like a bowling alley and a arcade.

That sounds awesome.

Sure.

Saw lots of important movies there.

Daylight.

Great movie.

I saw it on a plane, but great movie.

Really good fucking movie.

And the Fifth Element I saw twice at that theater.

Sure, sure.

I do remember.

Were you in Acton because like the BBC was over there?

Like BBC?

Babc2?

I don't know.

I think I just went because it was a place you could see daylight um

i do i think griffin you're like this as well i don't remember anything in my life i can't remember what i did yesterday i remember exactly where i saw everything

me too that is unfortunately a sickness of mine as well i would go to notting hill and get

uh go to the computer exchange which is right outside the station and spend hours there like remember when before the internet you just had to go to a store And just like, it's like, I'm just going to be in the fucking record store all day because I can buy one record.

I spent half of high school at the

main square version megastore.

That was my version of BHM.

And I look, when I came to America, I would go to a mega store.

Bunch of mega stores.

I just want to, I'm not looking for a medal, but I just want to call out how I'm not even doing the bit of being annoyed that I can't do the bit.

I just let you guys.

I was pretty proud of you, Griffin.

I was going to eat that we could.

I wasn't scratching myself.

I wasn't biting my tongue.

I just let you guys talk about local UK haunts.

Now, you're not an Arsenal fan, right?

No, I'm not.

We really should have.

No, we can't talk about it.

We should avoid football as a subject.

But you can't across sport going to football games.

I did.

No, and I'm a die-hard football fan.

But

if I get into explaining who I support

now, and we've gotten into it on the screen.

Yeah, let's not talk about it.

I'm just trying to think of other things I did in England

besides go to school.

Just mostly.

Where did you go to school?

CLS.

Oh, right.

City of London.

I am working with a filmmaker right now, I think, went to City of London, Mickey Downe.

Huh.

Must have been younger than me.

Who's one of the creators of industry?

I'm pretty sure he was a city boy as well.

Hey, probably your age.

He might have been there at a similar time.

It was a classic.

He's a couple years younger than me, maybe.

It's a classic.

My parents were like, fuck, you got in.

Like, you know what I mean?

Where it was like.

And I later I asked.

Well, what do you mean?

It was a test school and

I got a scholarship.

like i got money

and like

my parents were like basically they were kind of like i mean take the test you know but they they basically weren't like oh we'll you know they were quite surprised and i remember later i asked my teacher god bless him mr phillipson i believe he's now retired like because he interviewed me he was my interview i remember i was like oh you know do you remember your interview he was like yep your math score was

right on the line.

And it was one of those like, ah, if he could, if we like him in the interview, well, you know, then we'll think about it.

So he did tell me that I just,

did you have an American accent?

I did.

Was that tough for you?

Yes.

Yeah.

I can imagine that was hard.

Especially if you remember in the early 2000s, America's rep in the UK was a little dodgy.

Did the schoolboys do the reverse version of the bit to you?

Did they do like, oh, really?

Did you grow up in New York?

No.

They didn't really do that.

No, I just got a lot of shit.

Doesn't sound like they were very funny.

No, they weren't that creative.

I mean, George W.

Bush was president, and then we went into Iraq, and Britain had, you know, went into Iraq too.

You know what I mean?

Like, America was just very unpopular.

How did it turn out?

Let me check my notes here quickly.

A plus, I'm seeing here that George Bush is standing behind a sign that's his mission accomplished.

So, I assume it went crazy.

Close the book on that one.

Uh, no, I got some shit.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

It was fine.

It was like my life.

My life was that I was the weirdo.

But you, you seem to have a positive,

I'm a pretty positive fella.

Yeah, memory of it, right?

When you talk about

when you have to talk about your time

in every episode, because it's forced upon you.

Sure.

Given that I went to a uniform school that was all boys that was like this kind of posh school not as posh as some you know like your western school pointing at me both i don't know where you went to school this by the way just feels like we're just having a catch-up conversation this is usually us going to like get lucky i gotta go yeah yeah you but where did you go to school you went to st anthony's i know that i did and then i went to ucs oh sure oh

that's always seemed cool ucs um the school of Alex Garland.

Yeah, there you go.

Did they have the pinstripes?

We had horrific

maroon and black stripes.

It was one of those things which just like mug me, just this like glaring

symbol.

Because I remember I wore black, and I was kind of like, oh, our uniform is boring.

And my mom was like, no, no, no.

Like, that's good.

You don't want to be like advertising.

It was a hideous uniform.

Yeah.

CLS.

Yeah, it was a good school.

I had good teachers.

I have a lot of love for some of my teachers.

This is really interesting, I think, to a lot of

your listeners who've tuned in to his movie.

This is either going to be people's favorite thing, or this is the moment where everyone unsubscribes.

And I fell in love with the movies more than anywhere else in London.

And we all go into the Halloween Odeon and to the screen on the hill and

to the fucking Notting Hill Gate and the, you know, every man and the Phoenix and Finchley.

Did you ever go to the Phoenix?

That's a great theater.

Yep.

And I believe that's still going strong.

Good.

I hope so.

Go check it out.

Max, is there anything you want to plug?

London.

Nothing I really want to plug.

I want to plug this podcast.

I'm so thrilled to be on it.

It's

glad we did it finally.

I will return with Jamie Bell, my much more charismatic cohort, and either we'll revise or figure out something else.

Yes, absolutely.

You're in The Hymaid's Tale.

That's in its final season just ending.

It's,

I think, airing now.

Yeah, it's airing now.

I think, I think, right.

This is the last season, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll confess I don't know what your character is up to anymore, but I assume it's all good things.

You and me both, my love.

I couldn't tell you what he's up to, but I shot it.

You're filming industry right now.

I'm filming.

Right, you're in C3?

Industry 4?

Season 4 of Industry.

Check out Shell, which will be out later this year at some point.

It will be.

Excited to see.

Who's got Shell?

Who picked up Shell?

I don't know if I can say that.

But it'll...

Now, is Kit Harrington still in industry?

He is.

And yes, yes.

Is he a good lad?

Is he a fun hanging?

One of the nicest people I've ever met.

He's very small.

Very little.

He's.

I'm not a massively tall.

No, I know, sure.

No, it's an amazing group of people.

It's been

a lot of fun.

I love that show.

I think it's great.

Ooh, Kiernan Shipka's in this season.

I'm seeing here.

And Cal Penn.

Wow.

Claire Forlani.

I have so many questions.

I got to work with Claire Forlani the other day.

I will just finish with this.

And had no idea that she was in the show or going to be on set.

And that's a big fucking deal.

Yeah, Meat Joe Black.

I mean, i lost my mind and um i tried to explain to her that meat joe black is like a really important film i think to basically

men who were 14 at the time that meat joe black was released uh-huh it is a movie that has an insane relevance to teen people who are just teenage boys when that film came

what are you talking about i thought that movie just didn't do well like she's just a lot of people i don't think she's conscious of the fact that it is um

so meaningful to a lot of people.

It's a good movie.

We were very positive about it.

We liked this show.

I will, you know, because I'm also a Dieho Succession fan.

Sure.

It is quite strange how much overlap there is between those two projects.

Industry and Succession?

No, Succession and Meeto Black and Succession.

I feel like Micho Black has a lot of succession.

Interesting.

Like supporting.

Well, oh, yes.

Yeah, because it's got...

You're right.

I mean, it's sort of the

guy giving away the business.

Right, right, right.

When I first saw Succession, the pilot, I remember being like, is this?

Is is it the same universe as me joe black how great would it be if joe black showed up in the final episode of succession i'm buying another network and then finally brad pitch shows up he's like who the fuck are you everything's gonna be irie

okay i think that's the end of the episode matt thank you for being here thank you all for listening i nailed one successful call back

Tune in next week.

Not for Look Who's Talking Now, that will be happening over on our Patreon.

That's right.

With our good friend Rebecca Alter.

In fact, next week, Griffin,

we shall be having a final reckoning.

A final reckoning.

With Mission Impossible.

One assumes the final film in the franchise.

We'll find out.

You never know.

We wait with bated breath.

You seem unconvinced.

No, so this doesn't come out till

May.

Oh my God.

It's April now.

It's not that crazy.

Yeah.

But yes.

Mission Impossible, the final reckoning approacheth.

And then we'll return

after that, Clueless with Heidi Gardner.

That's right.

We can tell you that Heidi Gardner is the guest on this episode because we recorded it.

Your favorite movie.

She's showing up.

And it's my favorite movie.

And she was such a good guest.

Yes.

Yeah.

It'd be funny if I was like, and she stank.

She shits the bed.

But the movie's good.

It's a great episode.

So thank you all for listening.

Look forward to that.

And as always, just remember that Mr.

Toilet Man eats your poo-poo and your pee-pee.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims.

Our Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley.

Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by A.J.

McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J.

Birch.

Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Our production assistant is Minnick.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

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This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.