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When the fate of the world is at hand, you don't need an army.

You just need a dude from Boston to fix things wicked fucking quick.

We saw the Great Wall, so you know what that means.

Hey, everybody,

now it is time for

our future.

Hey, everybody,

now it is

Hello, people of earth

and hello people of Boston

We are here

in Medford just a jaunt a trafficky jaunt away from Boston to talk

about a local Massachusetts legend.

That's right Matt Damon.

Matt Damon in a movie about

the Great Wall of China

and some fucking weird ass aliens, question mark, that are attacking the wall in an attempt to take over the world

because of

greed.

That's all you need to know.

It's a period piece.

I'll tell you one other fact that might answer a lot of your questions it's the most expensive movie China has ever produced

135 million dollar budget

and we'll get into how that all worked out in a little bit

ladies and gentlemen to talk about this movie I need the expertise of my two amazing co-hosts please welcome to the stage mr.

Jason Manzukis

What's up, jerks?

How we doing, Boston?

How we feeling?

Late show,

balcony.

What's up?

Ooh,

late show is rowdy.

Jason, the Great Wall of China is the location.

The movie is just simply the Great Wall.

Thoughts?

I watched this movie today on the train from New York to Boston.

The way it's meant to be watched.

Yep.

And when I saw that it was as long as it was,

I almost started crying.

For those of you who were at the earlier show, you might have heard this.

We're in the middle of a tour, and I have lost my mind.

I don't understand time, place, anything.

What I definitely didn't want was to watch two hours of this nonsense.

This was...

This, I'm going to just straight up say, we cannot do subtitled movies on this podcast anymore.

I have to be able to look away.

You can't look away when you're reading it and I was like fuck

God damn it.

Jason, would it surprise you if I told you this movie is not two hours?

How long is it?

An hour 40?

No.

Yep.

And I would say

easily nine minutes of that are credits.

So it's an hour 30 film.

It's okay.

T to be

it's no good.

It felt very long.

I blame Matt Damon.

How do you like them apples?

Question mark.

Yeah, no,

it was a movie.

I will say this.

I will say this.

There were, you know, you mentioned

how much it cost earlier.

It is huge in scale and scope.

And there is a lot of very impressive practical effects and set pieces that are like kind of cool that I enjoyed.

But the movie for me,

Space dogs eating up the Great Wall of China

in the past

it is an opportunity it is

this is what this movie is about

beards and accents

boom and they both changed everybody everybody gets both

different versions.

I would also say that this movie rings to the sense of like a parent coaching a kid on how to be precocious.

It's like, yeah, you're hitting all the right things, but it doesn't feel authentic in any way.

It feels planned.

I know it's a very hard metaphor to put together, but that's what it feels like to me.

It feels like a parent off to the side of the stage during a high school production of Oliver going, more, more, may I have more, please?

Like, you know, it's like the kid's not bringing his own instincts to it.

It's the latest.

I would love to.

And that's as clear as I'm going to get for the rest of the week of the night.

This is going to be a weird one.

I can feel it already.

I can feel it already.

If you told me right now it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, I'd be like, sure, why not?

Don't know.

Don't know.

Won't know.

I will say that.

If you told me we were no longer in Boston, but were in fact on the Great Wall of China, I would believe you.

It's over, baby.

I'm done, so

we are part of

the annual China Podcast Festival.

Mark Maron just played before us.

We are now here.

Every mile on the wall is a different podcast.

And oddly, every podcast in existence fits.

So it's a real fun thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, there was one person I truly felt bad subjecting this film to, and she is my other co-host.

Please welcome the lovely, talented June Diane Ravio.

Welcome.

Welcome, June.

Hello, Paul.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm okay.

Period.

I'm gonna take a wild stab here.

We're just doing vocalized punctuation now.

I'm gonna take a wild stab here

and say that you

kind of like this movie.

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this movie.

Number one, Matt Damon.

Number,

actually,

also number one,

Pedro Pascal.

Great.

He was great.

He was great.

He is great.

I love him in Narcos.

I think he's amazing.

Did not recognize him as Pedro Pascal until the beard came off.

I literally.

He was that good.

I was like, whoa,

Pedro Pascal.

We really, really, yeah, I did not know it.

I was so excited because I was like, all right, cool.

The Red Viper's in here.

I like that.

I'll take that.

Another movie that has a lot of Game of Thrones

imagery, a lot of Game of Thrones story elements, a lot of Game of Thrones, a Game of Thrones actor.

I don't know.

That's it.

I told you it was going to be a weird one.

Oh, this is going to be really weird.

I can feel it as well.

Willem Dafoe's in this movie?

You know.

You know it's weird when he's creeping around like

when

we first

when we first meet Willem Dafoe.

He's like.

When we first meet Willem Dafoe, it's as if he was on set and the director's like, just get a shot of him real quick.

We'll put him in the movie.

Because he was just visiting Sam?

Yeah, because he just was peeking around a corner like a coquettish cat.

He's actually right.

He also didn't look totally in costume.

Like everybody, at that time, everybody had a ton of hair except for him like he just seemed like he had walked from crafty out and just peeked in if you had told me that he was the star of a time travel movie where contemporary Willem Dafoe is transported to this time

by the way Willem Dafoe is a timeless actor because you could really plop him in here.

He didn't feel of the now.

He never feels of the now or of the past.

He just feels of the right.

We can plop him anywhere.

Plop him here, plop him there.

Plop him right there.

We did a movie that he was in recently, and someone, was it you that revealed that the director, some director said that he had a confusingly large penis?

He showed his penis in a movie, in body of evidence.

He showed his penis in a movie, and they had to use a penis double because his penis was confusingly large.

It was actually confounded the

which it like to look at it caused visual dissonance

it was actually for i believe the passion of the christ which makes it even weirder because oh you're like jesus had that big deep energy

bd e christ

um

well the other crazy thing about his character is i couldn't tell if he was a prisoner or not he seemed to walk about he was like very freely he was he was not a prisoner but i don't think he was they were not letting him leave the only reason

definition of prisoner

no

it's sort of like he wanted to be there it was more like stockholm syndrome he i feel like

he's only there

to free them at that point in the movie where Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal are seemingly for no reason brought up to the command center of the Great Wall.

Like, remember those guys that were trying to steal our whatever?

Bring them up and let them watch the fight.

Not even, like, they were like, we found these two guys outside the wall.

Right.

Should we let them talk to the most important people we got?

Yeah.

They're foreigners.

Let's let them talk to whoever they want to talk to.

And we wasted most of our arrows, oddly circling them with arrows.

There was about a hundred of us, and we all shot a tremendous amount of arrows.

I wish they had been killed instantly.

Credits.

This is how the movie starts.

I just want to read you the title.

It says, The Great Wall has stood for centuries as one of mankind's most enduring wonders.

It spans over

5,500 miles, and it took more than 1,700 years to build.

It's protected from many dangers.

Some are known.

Some are a legend.

This

is one of those legends.

It's weird because, are you telling me it's false right at the, like, don't believe this movie?

Wait, do you think this is based on truth?

If you didn't put it there, I don't know that much about Chinese history.

I bet maybe that.

Maybe that's what I'm saying.

Are you one of the people that thinks Game of Thrones takes place in the 1300s?

It does.

Before

Pangea, right?

Even when I saw those words, saw the word legend,

even after I saw Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal hold the arm of that creech,

I was still

so stunned to see the first one flying out like that in this movie.

When you see them, you're like,

because the movie is so period that you're like, what?

What the fuck?

That's what...

I did not know that this movie had that kind of an element in it.

I did.

Oh, okay.

I knew that there were space dogs in it.

Okay.

I was like, first of all, I was happy that the dogs from Ghostbusters got some work.

They haven't worked for

quite some time.

But it

jaw-dropping.

I was shocked.

Right.

When the Tao Ties

showed up,

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I couldn't believe in my mind when I saw where you say Tao Tai's again.

You said it so casually as if

like it was such a

when the Tao Ties showed up

because I thought we were about to watch a movie of like different tribal

groups fighting each other and having to fight over land or some such.

The Tao Ties were a shockeroo.

Tow ties were as shocking as the army that was trained in bungee jumping.

Okay, we got 60 years to train.

What do we got?

Okay, so they jump in this hoop, and then a bunch of guys lower, but we whip it up real quick, and we try to stab them in the head.

Hmm, we do have arrows, and we do have flaming balls, we do have like...

We have gunpowder.

Straight away, start using the the the the black powder yeah straight away just boom here we go you know what to do land mines you know they're coming at you put landmines of gunpowder out surrounding they're gonna come in kaboom blow the whole thing up cirque de sole first thing

that cirque de so and also let's put all the ladies out first

First line of defense.

I liked that women were at the forefront of protecting the wall.

They were sacrificial lambs.

No, they were kicking ass.

Commander Lee was up.

It was a choice.

She was incredible, but I was troubled by how willing they were to sacrifice all the women.

Do you think they should have been taken off the battlefield and put like in the kitchen?

No, but Jason,

do you know how many women died immediately?

I mean, you saw those bloody rings.

Like,

another one died.

It really was.

Like, you do.

You see a collection of bloody rings.

That was one of the things.

It was brutal.

That shot was brutal.

Yeah, yeah.

Highly ineffective fighting.

Again, it's when you have too much time on your hands.

Like, if you said, space dogs are coming, no one would say, let's kind of invent a bizarro version of the bungee

and then give them spears.

You'd be like, let's just fucking shoot arrows at them.

Here, they had too much time.

They're like, well, hear me out.

Bungee cords.

Go on.

Go on.

I liked, that's part of the stuff I did like.

I liked all the weird Oh, yeah, like I liked the bungee jumping thing.

I liked when they opened up the walls and scissors came out.

I love that.

I was like,

fuck yes, I want all of the innovation.

I love the marble, the flaming marbles they were shooting out like a big pinball machine.

By the way, that would be a great pinball machine.

The Great Wall pinball machine, flaming balls flying around, weird accents come out.

You go it!

You got it!

You go!

Matt Damon's accent.

Where is he from?

Well,

where is William

from?

I wanted to do this with you both because I feel like his accent changes about five times in this one scene.

So why don't we just

America does not

He doesn't have an American accent.

Because Europeans haven't colonized the land.

He's not anything.

I feel like trying to do some sort of Irish accent.

That's what I i wrote down is he irish but i thought this is what i thought he is acting like an actor who's not comfortable in his accent so he's quiet and clipped

yes

no accent like it's like it's like it's like everything he says in the beginning it's like he's trying to hide

i am doing an accent but you can't tell

like

it's very weird it has a lilt to it yeah that feels to me like that it's meant to be Irish, but almost as if, I guess maybe it's true.

He was like, I feel like he would be like, well, he was born in Ireland, but he's a mercenary, so he's been all over the world, so he's lost that accent.

I mean, look, let's go through it.

And instead is from Boston.

These are all the accents throughout the film.

We don't have to comment on them, but just sit back, relax, and listen to all the accents.

And let's just see what we find.

Remember why you're here.

You speak English.

We came looking for black powder.

In here?

Tell him there's no better weapon here.

Well, that's all well and good, but I'm not jumping.

I'm alive today, because I trust myself.

Hunt them.

Like a whale.

To fight?

Is there a chance?

We have one black powder weapon left.

Give me the spear.

I've been a fool.

I'm done with it.

So, how's life without me?

Believe me, I'm already thinking about trading him back for the powder.

Will you take the black powder?

Of course I do.

I just don't trust you to make it out of here alone.

Who taught you English?

The one that comes back a lot is this one here.

It's a little, it's almost American.

It's a little,

I mean, it's sometimes it's Matt Damon, sometimes it's John Wayne, sometimes it's Scottish, sometimes it's Irish.

Accents are fucking hard, man.

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The strange thing about Damon 2, William, is that he has a line in the beginning.

I think when he's being surrounded, where he says, I can take out the guards and the perimeter with my bow.

And that's not possible.

He doesn't have his bow and he's tied up.

He's tied up and also there's a hundred people around him.

He's basically like, I can take those seven, you can take those guys.

And then what about the 3,000 other people?

He also seemingly understands Mandarin because everyone around him is speaking Mandarin, and then when he's finally free, he's like, Okay, get him in the eyes.

How does he know?

He's never even seen these creatures, and yet he is running tactical plays.

Like, the only way he would have known that is if he also spoke Mandarin, and then he's doing these fucking hawkeye, like

sliding on his straight back Legolas in this.

He cannot miss.

Cannot miss.

He arrives and he can, they,

the, what are they called?

The guards of the.

The Nameless Order.

The Nameless Order.

Thank you.

I got you.

The Nameless Order.

The Nameless Order have been here guarding this wall for centuries, I guess.

They are incredibly well trained.

They're an incredibly well-trained army.

And yet, they're like, how did you kill this?

We are

blown away.

But now, my question is, were they always under attack, or is it the first time?

Every 60 years.

Right.

But it was that the first time in 60 years when they happened to be captured?

Yeah.

So that was the...

They are relatively...

Their shit is together for the first time seeing these space dogs.

It isn't, it isn't.

And that's why, I think, I think that's why they do capture these two foreigners.

It's not just that they're,

you know, interesting to them.

It's because they have that space dog leg.

And so they know we've got to bring them up to the higher-ups here because the space dogs are here much earlier than we thought.

By the way, days.

Nine days earlier.

But that's huge.

But by the way, you're right.

Back then, nine days was like 900 years.

Yeah.

And I guess my point is, Paul, sorry to interrupt, is that

they are so

on point, ready for the Tauties,

that

nine days early

means something is a fucking miss.

It means they are getting smarter, they're evolving, something's off, they're here early.

Well, that's what the chief strategist is basically saying.

Yes.

Yeah.

Is the chief strategist?

You agree with that?

Is the chief strategist?

Is the chief strategist?

That's why you guys, you both didn't understand that that's

that's why they had to bring them up.

Something major has happened.

Yes.

The chief strategist is too busy making his hologram PowerPoint to

be too concerned about it.

I don't remember that.

You don't remember the PowerPoint?

No, what's up?

Guys.

I'm telling you, I watched this movie in what felt like an active blackout.

I felt unwell.

Okay,

this is the PowerPoint I was referring to.

Where do they come from?

About 20 centuries ago, there was an emperor whose greed brought deep suffering to all of China.

The heaven-sent a meteor that struck Goldu Mountain, turning it green and releasing the Taotia.

From that day on, the Taotia rise every 60 years to scourge the north of China.

They come to remind us of what happens when greed is unchecked.

They eat anything, alive or dead, and take food to their queen.

She depends on her soldiers to feed her.

Only with the food they provide is she able to multiply.

and its 2 million people is only 800 li away.

If the Tarte ever had that much nourishment, no corner of the world would be safe.

We can't hunt them.

Men try.

They disappear.

We never find their bones.

Whoa.

The ancient art of PowerPoint.

That's right.

If you didn't, if you're just listening to that, that was all on a screen that he pulled down that became completely animated.

Yeah, yeah.

So this movie is like

anti-capitalist, right?

Well, here's the thing:

spoiler alert, they defeat them, so

they kill them.

So greed is good, Wall Street, Wall Street 2, Money Never Sleeps, No Big Deal, all ties together.

But I mean,

if they defeat, this is a thing

in the chat.

Why do the Space Dogs symbolize cleansing the country of greed?

Because

if you

if and because the and the building.

Like that that that PowerPoint, he's basically like, you know, there was a guy and he was so greedy that the space dogs came.

And they were like, bro, we got to keep this guy in check.

Well, how do we do it?

Munch, munch, munch.

We're space dogs.

We love food.

I mean, right.

I think that what's probably happened here is the Tao Tai are always going to

come out after 60 years.

Like, that's their nature.

And I think these people have started to tell themselves a story

because of their own anxieties about capitalism and the strain it puts on

the basic goodness of humanity.

Tao Tai is like, because the difference of that story is that in the version that they're telling, it would be like, and they come to town and they look around.

Have you built any big buildings?

No, okay.

Everyone's like sharing wealth.

Okay, we'll go back to our cave.

No, they just fucking eat everything.

Like, they're not like, the town ties are not registering if people are greedy.

They're just.

They are senseless, or not senseless.

They are gaining in intelligence, I guess, killing machines.

They are, you know, they are just.

You guys, they're just animals.

They're aliens.

They're not.

They're just.

Oh, boy.

What do you mean they're not aliens?

I mean, they're not aliens.

And aliens, in that, I don't think they have thoughts or intuitions, and they are just animals.

And they're animals.

No, but they make a plan.

They make plans and

they set traps for them.

And, you know, they're not.

They're super intelligent.

They're smart animals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But they're animals.

In that they are aliens.

They are an alien race hell-bent on destroying, like the way that you would think the predator is also

an animal that is.

I don't know about that.

He's a biped.

Oh.

Well, right, okay, okay.

Okay, well, this is interesting.

It's opening up.

Listen, listen.

So the xenomorph.

Xenomes because the alien is also a biped.

Really?

I mean when they get to be the yeah, right?

Okay.

I mean they can't.

Well these are all aliens regardless.

I just don't know if they're animals.

Look, I agree with you, June, that they are.

I think that

why are they even here?

I think that they're I mean their planet or their I mean it was a spaceship that crashed.

No, it was an asteroid.

I know, but what were they doing on an asteroid?

Stone cold chilling, bro.

I mean, you don't ride an asteroid, but I would also say this,

the Tautai,

they

are...

They also, there are multiple, there are at least three different types of a Tautai.

And that's interesting.

So there are like the

foot soldier, like the...

You know, the first wave attacked us.

Then there are the ones that I love that have the fan out heads or whatever.

I love that

like protect.

And then the queen is in the middle.

I liked that there was a, I liked that it wasn't just a horde of the same thing.

I liked that there were steps involved in what they were.

See, I didn't realize they were all different.

I thought that the ones who were protecting the queen and making that little beehive around her were just using their bodies in that way.

I didn't realize they were different towns.

No, they were different creatures.

They were bigger and and had like some other element.

They had a weird head thing.

The other ones didn't have that head thing.

Listen, I'll say something about the Tao Tai.

What was interesting about them was the Tao Tai, and this is where I really related to them.

They have to.

You related to the Tao Tai?

I did.

They have to like

go back home

and they have to like keep on going, but they come out, they fight, they fight, they fight, and then they go back and they sort of collect themselves and they take a beat.

What's that?

Queen is full.

The queen is full, right?

But they seem to need a lot of respite in this film, and we never know when they're going to come back.

Right.

And I appreciated that about them, that they valued rest and relaxation.

They are basically the White Walkers and the Whites, right?

They don't watch the world.

So like Game of Thrones logic, the smaller Tautai are the whites, just the attack zombies.

And then you have like a little bit of a hierarchical structure of larger and more intelligent Tautais that are like the White Walkers or the Night King, right?

Now, all right, that's true.

I just have one more question.

And the same thing.

If you kill the queen, boom, everybody's done so.

Right.

But my question is this.

Is

are they just attacking that small section of the wall or are the Tautai up and down the wall?

Well, what we find out later is that they've been attacking that section of the wall as

a diversion while they dig that tunnel.

Why couldn't they dig?

That's the real tunnel in the middle of the night.

It seems like three or four Tautais could dig that tunnel.

Three or four?

Wow.

Do you know how much work?

Wow, you really would pile that much work on three or four Tao Tais?

Let me guess, no breaks.

They do simple 14-hour shifts.

They do a French lunch, which means they eat while they work.

If you do, I mean, listen, the Tao Tais, they work hard, but then they play hard.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, they're fun, because you know what they're doing?

You know, they take their dead, they drag them off, they toss them in the queen's mouth, and then they fucking rage, bro.

Should one of the shirts for tonight's show be like a club med for Tow Ties?

Or like a Tow Tie, like a party shirt from like a Tow Tie like frat house?

That reminds me of a ton of stuff.

It's like Tow Tie doing a keg stand.

When I went to,

sorry for this digression, but when I went to Cozumel with my family on a cruise, my mom bought us all t-shirts at like a little stand on the side of the road.

We all wore them, me and my sisters, and then realized they were all those lizards in like pornographic sexual positions

wow oh my god so it was like all the positions

great and like looking at my sister and being like wait what is that

and then looking at my own shirt how if we make that shirt all fucking each other and we need to make that with tau ties yes that's the shirt Here's what I realized.

Fight scenes are amazing.

When you see a fight in John Wick, you're like, whoa, this is.

John Wick, chapter 3, parabellum?

TikTok, Mr.

Shear.

TikTok, Mr.

Shear.

Wow, we did that joke at the same time.

Black it out!

Shows over.

And there's something so visceral about it, so exciting.

And when you watch people doing like moves around CGI creatures it's so stupid yeah it's so stupid like it's like they're not hitting anything there's no fight there's they're just on a green screen in a studio somewhere and that's what this movie made me like laugh it's like they're just fighting nothing and they're like

it's like the it's like it's just like dancing around in your bedroom like Take a picture of us.

Is that how you dance around in your bedroom?

I do.

Here, somebody take a picture of this and just CGI and Tata.

It's like, I look.

I would look amazing.

Like, you put the fucking Tau Tai in the tip of my spear and I'm done.

But that was the thing that was a little better than that, Pa.

That was the thing that was.

That was tough about it is

even when they knew that the eyes were the weak spot, they still mostly did not attack the eyes.

Well, the eyes were like on the shoulders.

Yes.

Why were the eyes on the shoulders?

You know, they say the eyes are the shoulders of the soul.

Do you think the magnets pulled the eyes away from the socket?

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it wild that magnets just scrambled their brains enough and made them deaf?

And it was a small magnet.

It was not a giant magnet.

Mustn't they be able to find more magnets?

Guess what?

Like,

put instead of putting

dynamite on all the arrows put magnets on all the arrows shoot them out there

Everybody goes to sleep come by

shoulder eye stab shoulder eye stab shoulder eye stab shoulder eye stab

We can have this thing boom wrapped up again

That's the first level idea you sit with us for 60 years all of a sudden we're gonna come up with this fucking bungee how about this if you're gonna if you're gonna bungee jump your best female warriors, cover them in magnets.

By the way, just drop a magnet down.

This is the weird thing about how they want to test these magnets.

Like, why not just put them on those ladies?

Because worse comes to worse, it doesn't work, but maybe it will.

Wait, a second ago you were saying all the death of these women.

No, I still think I have a problem with the fact that the women are on the very.

They're basically sent to die they are in such a vulnerable vulnerable position on those bungee cords but i but how do you why do you live after you can play the drums that good that's i loved all of the drumming drumming was amazing i loved all of the drumming and i love their outfits very 2001 like they were very like sleek not dusty outfits i thought they were very futuristic in a way

You you were worried they would be wearing dusty outfits?

That was a concern of yours in the movie?

I just feel like you're like, oh, if I watch another dusty outfit movie,

I would like it if everybody was clean and pressed and everything looked real good.

It just feels like we're in the middle of the desert.

No, I know what you mean.

Like, the colors were vibrant, and I appreciated that too.

Maybe it's just the Chinese army knows how to dress to a colour.

Yes, they look put together.

Did anyone have any thoughts on the big transformation of Matt Damon's hair in the movie?

Oh, you mean when there was like when the door opened and it was like hunk alert?

And they came walking in and Matt Damon had a rat tail?

I

will say I preferred the bearded hair, Matt Damon.

What?

Yeah, I just thought there was something about him.

Like, why when you have a chance to take a bath?

Would you be like, well, I'll lose my style.

Like, you know, it wasn't like he was dirty.

He just smelled a little.

Put some shampoo in there.

Put some style to it.

Get some mousse.

I also liked, I don't think that was was a real beard.

I would have liked it if he'd had a real beard, you know, and kept it.

You know, not because because here's the thing: to clean up doesn't mean you have to get rid of your beard.

Yeah,

I take showers a lot.

I took two showers today.

I didn't get rid of my beard.

Cool flex, bro.

Yeah, no big deal.

By the way, that shower scene is my favorite dialogue in the whole movie.

They cover so many bases here.

Look, this is a...

What are you doing here?

We came looking for black powder.

I bet you did.

I came with mercenaries for the same thing

25 years ago.

And did you find it?

Finding it and living with it alive are two different things.

You smell like animals.

Thank you.

Exposition drop by.

Like, that's such a crazy.

And then, and oh, and then this

clean up,

and they'll feed you

like take your time

dude.

Let's go again.

Take your time.

Take it.

Like stretch it out.

Then why is he still here?

He needs help getting out.

Right.

We play our part.

Take the powder

and go home.

I didn't sign up for this.

Which part?

Well,

all of it.

But mostly the monsters.

There's a lot of them.

We really do smell.

That was my favorite line.

There's a lot of them.

We really do smell.

It's almost like...

I think the director is supposed to call Cut when Defoe left the room.

We'll just keep on going in character.

You're in character.

We'll go in character.

We'll have fun with it.

Just reiterating, there's a lot of them.

Yeah, man that's more things than these two people have ever seen they're they only when willem defoe walks in here's all they should say what the fuck was that what the fuck just happened i need you to tell us everything about what the fuck is going on because immediately matt damon gets the cuffs off and fucking pulls out

like he's in the fight and again you're trying to find this arc of this character what's the arc we are told he's a bad guy we don't ever see him being a bad guy.

The first moment that we really see him capture, he's like, free me so I can help fight.

And he never retreats from that position.

I think

what his journey is, is just that he's been out for himself his whole life and for his own

survival.

Well, we do see him early on.

I think he's meant to be Han Solo in that sense.

I agree, but we never see him want to escape.

We never see, he always like, well, let's help him out.

Let's figure it out.

He's like, well, you have to, you know, shoot arrows into the wall and put a bowl there for dinner.

All right, let's do it.

Let's do it.

I think what he's really drawn to ultimately is the family structure of this great wall community and that they're all

together and it's a real

he just is lonely.

He's lonely.

Absolutely.

Like at the beginning of the movie, we see all of his friends get killed except for

Pedro Bestolf.

And so at that point, he's just like, he's a lonely guy, and he sees an organization that he's like, I wouldn't mind getting into this.

It's like Scientology.

It's like,

I'm here looking for Shelly Miscavitch.

Is she here at the wall?

No, she was sent on that bungee cord first.

She was the first one off the wall.

She was eaten by a space dog.

Here's the thing, though.

When given the opportunity to stay with his new family, June, he does not.

And he goes off with this guy who really fucked him over in a tremendous way.

Yeah, but now he's got a different attitude.

Yeah.

But Pedro Pascal does it.

But Pedro Pascal does and he'll screw him over again.

Yeah, but there, he's an incorrigible scamp.

All right, I'm in.

I'm in.

I was hoping it would be to a sequel.

Maybe we will get that sequel.

Oh, well, yeah, yes.

The greater wall.

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Let's talk about the end battle scene when they find out that they are building a tunnel to get to the big pagoda city with the little boy, Emperor.

And

what goes on here at the end is crazy to me because the end of this movie is essentially trying to shoot like a basketball into a hoop, right?

I mean, that's all they're like, their final move is, yes, they're trained archers, they're amazing, but they kind of just zipline down and like, woo!

Like, it's like trash can garbage.

I couldn't believe that Matt Damon's skills weren't really used for that last movie.

Well, here's what I think.

I think that this, I think,

Commander Lee, right?

Yes.

Or at this stage generally, in order for, right?

She did get upgraded, yes.

She is, she, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Generally, from the Duke's affairs.

Generally.

I think at this stage generally, like, she has to...

She has to, listen, these Duke boys are in a whole heap of trouble.

By the way, they are the Duke Boys.

I think because this is a Chinese movie, she has to win.

Like, it cannot be the, you know, outsider who saves the day.

That's why I think his skills are.

But again, shouldn't it have been more than just like,

like, I mean, it really is a nut.

It's like, it's, it's like a one-time.

It's a real hand shot.

Yeah.

It's like Damian Lillard all over again.

It's like this last shot.

It works.

It works and they save the day.

Against all odds.

Against all odds.

Yeah.

And now we will sing against all odds.

Here's one.

Okay, here's a question I have.

When Willem Defoe leaves, doesn't he say, doesn't he tell Pedro Pascal that

he's

stored supplies and food along the route?

Okay.

So

why hasn't he left before?

I think he needs their help because I think he is.

It's too dangerous, I suspect, for him to be alone out there, which he then finds out immediately to be alone.

And then everyone starts tossing around baby grenades.

It's a great scene.

It was like very funny.

Like, what the fuck is

so stupid?

They called it a grenade.

They said, hand me a grenade.

Not in that scene, in the later scene.

He's when they're in the...

I will say this.

I loved the hot air balloons.

Loved.

I loved that.

I loved that they first established the idea of the lanterns when the first general dies.

So they show them

releasing the lanterns into the sky.

Really great.

And then you see macro versions of those lanterns are hot air balloons.

And so, so many of them are failing.

So, what is the name of the group again?

The Nameless?

The Nameless Order.

The Nameless Order loses almost everybody.

They're extremely flammable, Jason.

They are.

It's like lighting a match under a sheet of paper.

They are careening out of the sky on fire.

But that is.

That is wild.

But that's where the movie, there's things about this movie I really loved, and that was one of them.

That detail of like,

some of them are going to take off, and some of them ain't.

Yeah.

Oh, no, I thought it was great.

So I loved it too when the person, they were like, well, we can use the balloons.

The chief strategist says we can use the balloons.

And somebody's like, we can.

They've failed in every test.

Literally, they've failed in every test.

Well, we got to do it.

The town ties are loose, baby.

I mean, that is the thing that this movie does get right.

The costumes, the pageantry, the set design, the like, it is fun to watch.

And that's where that money is, because a lot of this is practical.

These are, when you're looking at those shots and it's what looks like to me thousands of people, I believe there are thousands of people.

Like, this is,

I think they did a lot of this practically.

And then they could not afford a dialect coach.

No.

Or ADR.

There was just no money left over for it.

I love that the filmmakers went to China and said, hey, can we actually shoot this on the Great Wall?

And China was like, no.

Absolutely not.

This is blasphemous.

You're talking about space dogs.

And I love that the space dogs whole thing was like...

just doing the World War Z horde until they get there and then they just build on top of each other to get over?

That's very much it.

What was that zombie movie?

World War Z.

Oh, yeah.

Guys,

we are unwell.

We are not good.

We are bad.

And honestly, I want to apologize, but also it's because of all of you.

You made us do this.

Okay, we don't want this.

This is your fault.

Whoa, but look at this.

I blame you, Boston.

The guy who wrote this story is Max Brooks, the writer of World War Z.

Yeah.

So I guess he has a thing for a bunch of people climbing on top of the story.

I thought this was based on a legend.

I mean,

I heard that

a Tao Tie told his story and someone bought it and turned it into a book.

Really?

A ghostwriter in a Tao Tie wrote the book.

My father.

Hey, I heard you bought that Tao Tie story.

Oh, these Tao ties.

Oh, these Tow Ties.

I'll tell you what.

The Tow Tie move at a clip.

They really.

I found that scary.

The pace at which they moved,

I thought, listen, I was scared of the Tao Ties.

I thought they were very effectively drawn and

even with their shoulder eyes?

Yes.

They didn't look like just like kind of a grab bag of every CGI creature you've ever seen.

They look like the mutant dogs from Fallout 4.

It just

feels like the first 90 creatures we ever created in CGI were like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then now it's like

put the eyes on the shoulder, make the kneecaps bigger.

Give them short arms and and and and heads that look like balls.

Got it.

That's our our new alley.

And I love when they, and they do, it's the same, again, and I'm so sorry, Boston, to keep harping on Game of Thrones, but it's the same thing.

They're like, we got to capture one of these to send it to the emperor so they can see what's up.

And that's the same thing that happened, the same dumb idea that happens in Game of Thrones.

And they fucking get the Tao Tai and they send it to the Emperor.

And the Emperor treats it like, oh, cool.

I got a Tao Tai.

I'm going to make it my friend.

And then chaos.

And then he's like, hey, man, Tao Tais are here in the city.

They're eating like everybody, bro.

What are we doing?

Well,

I couldn't even focus on that scene because I was like, what a waste of meat.

Wasted all that meat on that Tao Tai.

Well, they needed, wow, they needed to get, though, boy.

I'm not even going to explain it.

I was like, they could have just had a real good barbecue.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have talked a lot about these Tao Tais, and now it's a chance for us to talk to you with your questions about this movie.

Ma'am, your name, and I want you to say it in your best Matt Damon accent.

So that means any which way you want to do it, and your question.

Oh my gosh.

My name is Amy.

Great.

Why did they make that one guy that like maybe saved Matt Damon from being betrayed by his friends or whatever wash dishes in his armor?

Well, Well, he was, didn't he have a moment of cowardice?

And so he was like sent back to the kitchen.

But yeah, you're right.

I guess, you know, they were like, and you know what?

You might have to fight at any moment, so keep your armor on.

But here's an apron.

I couldn't understand when that guy originally in that first moment couldn't find the keys to their prison cell,

was it.

Is it possible that the key just wasn't there?

What do you mean?

I mean,

was it really his fault?

I think so.

I just didn't know what we were supposed to read from that.

Was he trying to help them?

Was he

just fumbling over a bunch of keys?

I think they were trying to show us that he maybe is incompetent.

So that he could have like a heroic moment later.

I don't know.

I just thought maybe the key wasn't actually there.

I'll be honest, I don't remember any of the parts of this movie I have full-blown mementoed myself what you are describing I have no memory of sir your name in the best scene happen now I'm worried I made it up

and your brother did my name is Michael

so do the space dogs need to attack this city specifically because if they're so smart and their ultimate objective is to take over the world and the wall's the only thing keeping them out can't they just go the other way around the world

again I don't know much about geography but it sounds sound

the mountain they live in is green

like that's crazy

To look out on the horizon and see a glowing green mountain, you know Tao Tais live there.

You know where they are.

They're in the green mountain.

Guess what?

Go get gunpowder, blow up the green mountain.

Boom.

Or just bring a bunch of fridge magnets to it.

Yes.

Put fridge magnets on the hole outside.

They won't leave the mountain at all.

Sir.

My name is Patrick.

We still haven't talked about the moment where Pedro Pascal becomes a matador.

Yes.

Yes.

And Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon are calling out fight plays to each other like they're on a football field like deciding what to do.

The way they talk, the familiarity with which they say what to do next in life and death situations, and it's so casual.

Oh, when he says, die well, brother, it is thrown away.

And I thought beautifully so.

I'm obsessed with Pedro Pascal.

He's great.

He's so good.

He's great.

All right, sir, your name and your best accent and your question.

My name is Alex.

And in the beginning of the movie, they talk about how this is one of the legends.

I just wanted to ask you guys, what do you think the other legends were like?

I mean, my God.

Oh, my God.

What a great way to do sequels to this movie.

The same characters as different legends.

I mean, yeah.

White Walkers?

I mean, that is a really crazy idea that the Tao Ties are simply one of the legends.

Yeah.

One of the many legends is space dogs.

Well, you know why they built the wall, right?

Why?

Well, legend has it.

Space dogs.

You've, of course, heard of the Tao Tai, right?

Oh, man.

Yeah, no, I mean, here's the thing that I do think we're all gonna find soon enough when we get the Tao Tai Sexual Positions t-shirts.

We're gonna really see how you make a Tao Tai.

So the Tao Tai reproduce just by their, their queen is just

asexually producing eggs, laying eggs.

Okay, so they're just...

They're maybe giving birth.

I don't know.

I don't know if she has to have sex in order to...

I don't know if they're

mammals?

From the PowerPoint presentation, it seemed that as long as she's fed, she can produce more Tao Tai.

She's just crapping them out?

I think so.

That's what they do.

They go back to the Green Mountain and she farts out a couple thousand more Tao Tai's.

Next thing you know,

they're scampering on down.

60 years later, they're scampering on down.

Oh,

boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.

We really had some fun in the audience tonight.

I don't think anything got definitively answered

But we we went out there anyway

It's been great to talk about this movie and we certainly have an opinion about it, but there are people out there with a different opinion it is now time

for second opinions

There you go

It took my nerves and it rattled my brains.

This fucking movie's driving me insane.

Oh, baby, this shit's crazy.

Goodness gracious.

Great wall got five stars.

Randy, give it up for Randy.

It is now time

for second opinions.

When Matt Damon arrived with that accent

as varied as the flags he used to serve,

He saw the need of magnets early on.

Choice so great, got a rate on Amazon.

It's time for second opinions.

Compelled to defend this awesome plot.

And if they just believe in Matt's skill with a bow, it all makes sense.

Said maybe Willem Defoe,

He's a white savior

on his best behavior

to become a hero

and choose his friend Pedro

over black powder.

This deserves five stars,

second opinions

on Amazon.

Give it up for Fiona.

Holy cow, that was amazing.

This movie has 894 reviews, and 38%

of them are five stars.

They're all called from Amazon and I'll start off with this one

from

Konji Jin.

Actually, a good movie.

I was skeptical when my hubby and kids wanted me to see it.

What I liked about it was that there was no kissy-faced sex scenes or much profanity.

The movie spoke for itself as movies should.

Go see it.

Five stars.

I mean, I actually did like they didn't go for a romance between Matt Damon and Generalee.

I agree.

Yeah, I mean, we were sort of walking that line, or I thought we were headed there at some point, but I think they made the right choice there.

They respected themselves as warriors.

Yes.

And I guess it makes sense that that's why he did go with Pedro.

He wasn't in love with her to stay there.

Not at all.

Yeah.

I think they fucked.

What?

After that big battle sequence, when all the space, you know, because they have to also clean those space dogs out of the pagoda area.

Oh, they've got so many space dog corpses to get rid of.

Push it out into the sea.

Yeah, where do you get rid of all those?

Just burn them?

Just burn those space dog corpses?

I mean, probably eat them.

Ooh.

Right?

yeah like ronto roasters sequel sequel

everybody's everybody's roasting that toi just like a big barbecue movie it kind of becomes like a funny like it's like matrix 2 with the rave it's just a barbecue

um zitlaw miglecki writes um i promised myself never to watch matt damon movies because i can't stand his leftist politicking

But then I watched this one and I loved it.

It is a really very good movie.

It combines great Chinese movie tricks that we know from many other movies of theirs

with a riveting story and a horde of toothy alien creatures only a mother could love.

Matt Damon is disappointingly for me good.

He slashes the monsters very professionally, which is his job.

Now, other than fighting and slashing, there is not much else in the film to recommend.

But hey, this is more than enough for an hour and a half of great entertainment.

Five stars.

Wow.

What a ride that was.

Yeah.

This is from Grady Padgett and

the title is Not Your Average Monsters at War movie, dot, dot, dot, not at all.

I'm gonna just jump in midstream.

This movie, I will add this movie to my collection.

This will be a great flick to have my friends over for a night showing in the barn.

We put up a big white sheet on the wall, we use the Sony projector and pass around the popcorn.

The kids will scream.

Which kind of projector?

The Sony projector.

Did they buy that on Amazon?

Maybe.

The kids will scream and love every minute of it.

Matt makes a great hero.

Matt.

Yep.

Proof.

Very familiar.

Yeah, I know, very.

I also love that the kids will scream every minute of the film.

I

like to watch the movie that way.

Matt makes a great hero.

Long screams until they pass out.

Matt makes a.

Just a bunch of unconscious kids on the floor of a barn somewhere, covered in popcorn.

You get it.

Matt makes a great hero, proving that tigers can change their stripes.

Thank you all for a job well done.

And please,

there's just a peak of a chance for a sequel where Matt might come back for his

only to find her, the nation, deeply embroiled in another race against time, fighting a new, implacable foe that he must contend with.

Oh, yeah!

Five stars.

Wow.

People are really like going in on these really,

they are invested.

I mean can you imagine watching this movie on a white sheet?

In a white sheet?

I think it's on a white sheet.

I said on a white sheet.

Oh,

I thought you were saying it was a KKK rally

where they were what?

Where they were screaming

The Great Wall.

Is that a tow tie?

There's a tow tie.

Guys, no, I don't want to to freak any of that.

There's a tow tie.

Do not bring your tow ties to the theater.

You got to shut off your cell phones and keep your tow ties in the parking lot.

This last one is from Kitty.

It was written in July.

Kitty Dukakis?

Kitty Dukakis.

Well, when I read it, it might very well be from Kitty Dukakis.

Oh, no.

This is written in 2017.

When my husband Michael ran for president.

You'll see why in a second.

A mistake to watch, but I was incredibly drunk.

So

I thought I was watching Jason Bourne fight mutated cockroaches.

Very exciting.

Five stars.

Now,

when I read that, I said drunk because I thought

you needed to hear it that way, but the way it's written is, I was incredibly drink.

I was incredibly drink.

And the title is mistake to watch, but I was incredibly drink.

Dot dot dot.

And those are some of the reviews of The Great Wall.

Now, The Great Wall came out in 2017.

Its budget, I'm sorry, was $150 million.

And its opening weekend, it made $18 million.

Domestic.

Yes.

That's here.

But worldwide?

$350 million.

334 million.

That's 289 million foreign.

This movie is a huge hit.

It came in 59th in the United States out of all the movies made in 2017.

Star Wars, Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, and Wonder Woman were the top three.

This movie was beaten by Fate of the Furious.

This movie beat The Return of Xander Cage, Valerian, Geostorm, The Disaster Artist, and The Snowman.

What can you do, people?

Gotta be quicker on that.

So, interesting.

It's a hit.

And one little fun fact is

that Andy Lau, who is the strategist, the guy who shows the PowerPoint, and Matt Damon both played the same role of an undercover gang member working on a police force in Infernal Affairs and the Department of Engineering.

And they had it.

Yeah, so they shared a role.

Jason June, would you recommend

this movie?

It would be hard to do that.

I would say yes,

but

if you're going to do the podcast,

I would say watch it, but fast forward through sections until it looks like something, some big spectacle is happening, then watch that.

Hmm.

All right, I like that.

I would watch the set pieces.

Yeah, I mean, there is a lot of pieces of this movie that I enjoyed.

But it's hard.

It doesn't, you know, it doesn't it doesn't amount to anything, of course.

But

there was a lot that I did enjoy.

It's a very simple plot.

And

I think if you don't know their space dogs, that to me is the moment where, like, I haven't felt a shock like that.

Oh, I was stunned.

I mean, it really was, like,

like, it really got me.

I don't think I'd seen the poster or anything are there Tautais on the poster?

No, there is a Tautai poster.

It's just an eye.

It looks very much like How to Train Your Dragon a movie that Jason loves

Love it.

I love all three of them

I love all three of them.

What I will say Toothless Come on

Maybe what you should do is

bring this movie over to a friend's house like, oh, it's a beautiful historical picture.

and you set it up and then you can get to watch their natural reaction to the tow ties that's the best way to kind of watch it that's a great that's a great proposal do the great wall prank on your friends yeah we want to start like our own jimmy kimmel style video pranks tape your friends watching it to see what they react to when they see a tow tie and then like Then like throw a dead tow tie at them.

I think this is a good, like, you're cleaning your house, your apartment, vacuuming movie.

It's on in the background, you see a flaming marble, you're like, oh, cool.

You see a balloon, like, you don't have to get into it as much as we did.

It's interesting on some level.

Don't meet us here.

Don't live our lives.

Yeah, it's not a good time.

These are great

times.

Now, did anyone get the inside joke in the movie?

Come again.

Yep, this guy got it.

All right.

So when Matt Damon was asked if he'd been left behind before, he replied yes, twice before, and it didn't end well for them.

This is an homage to Interstellar and the Martian.

In both, he was left behind on other planets when an expedition went wrong.

But I would say born, too, right?

I mean, well, I guess he wasn't left behind, but he was left for dead.

Saving Private Ryan.

So he's been left.

Maybe this is a fake lesson.

Just Abandon Matt Damon.

That is the lesson here.

People are like, gotta get away from this guy.

Oh my goodness.

Boston, you have been an amazing crowd.

You did it, Boston.

You fucking did it.

Thank you so much for coming.

Happy birthday, Matthew.

How did this come in?