Hook with Lin-Manuel Miranda

[00:00:21] So your- no, what the hell? I said your best Maggie Smith. I don't have a good one. So your adventures are over. Oh no, to podcast. To podcast would be an awfully big adventure. Oh sure. Why are you Scottish? I don't know. I'm not about to say that I did a good Maggie Smith. No, I did a terrible Robin Williams. Oh, to podcast. Oh, I went too gravelly too. I went a little. But you sound Scottish. To podcast.

[00:00:49] You sound like you're from the mountains. I don't know what's going on. Trying to find the- oh, oh. To podcast. No, he's tough to do. He's tough to do. In that he's inimitable. Like, you know, he has a specific thing. I'll say this. I think I can do an adequate terrible impression of Robin Williams doing comedy runs, which is kind of what everyone can do. Drama Robin is a little harder to do. Say it's not your fault. I don't know, David. Oh, it's not your fault. Yeah, see, I'm going- Huh, huh, do the monkey with me. Yeah. It nissens on you every time. It nissens.

[00:01:19] Someone has called out that I basically only have three impressions. Okay, so one of the three. And one third of them get drawn towards Nissen. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nissen. Uh-huh. And I'm trying to remember who the third one is. I don't know. They're like, there are only three that he can actually do kind of well. And everyone else, he's trying to draw them closer to one of those three pillars. Oh. Verhoeven. Oh, my Verhoeven impression is- No, I do Verhoeven. I think we both do Verhoeven. For sure, fair enough.

[00:01:44] Which means we both do Goldmember. It's just Goldmember. It's just- Excuse me, please. You know we somehow didn't talk about the entire Oscar season? The invisible man would attack people. What's that? What? The Oscar-nominated director of The Substance. Her last name is the way that Goldmember says father.

[00:02:03] Carly Farja. Farja. Farja. Farja. Okay. Yes. I didn't- Yeah, I didn't know that. Isn't it weird that we spent the whole Oscar season not talking about Goldmember? I don't think it's that weird that that never came up. I think it's weird. I think it's weird. Okay. No, but Robin- See, I'm getting too- I don't know what's happening here. You sound like a troll guarding like a gem in a mountain. Well, don't tell Jimmy Fallon he's going to put that in his SNL audition. Wait, I don't know. I don't get the reference. That's a very specific reference. Okay.

[00:02:33] Jimmy Fallon's SNL audition was him doing- Lots of impressions. The troll company auditioning new celebrity mascots, spokespeople. So that was his way to do a lot of impressions. Yes. And then I went to see when I was, I guess, 12 or 13, the Strokes play at the Roseland Ballroom. And the opening act, an incredible concert to see at such a young age. Although I saw the Strokes around that same time and they were truly like- They came out for 35 minutes and then they were like, we don't do fucking encores and just left.

[00:03:03] But carry on. This was the Is This It tour. They did a proper set. Yep. And I believe it was the Strokes, the Mooney Suzuki, and the opening, opening act was Jimmy Fallon. Wow. I think this was before maybe Bathroom Wall had even come out. But he's famous. Oh, he's very famous. Right. But he hadn't done any albums. So I want to say he didn't even do Idiot Boyfriend. And he did the Trolls routine. And I was like, where did this come from? Did people like it? Yeah, killed.

[00:03:32] Like, was that crowd into it? I'm just saying, doing comedy in front of a rock show can be- It was humongous. But then years later, I saw like in one of those SNL, like, I bet you wonder what their auditions were like. And I was like, that was his audition piece. And he's now going and doing it at fucking rock concerts. A thing that lives very large in my mind that for most people means nothing. That could be the name of this podcast. That- Read us for filth. That could be the name of this podcast. That's why I like it so much.

[00:04:01] Well, we have a lot of similar detritus. I love it. Detritus in the head is another name for this podcast. Exactly. Just floating bits of garbage. Mental spring cleaning. You know what I mean? What is the actual name of this podcast? Blank Check Griffin David. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. Yeah. I kind of- Put some respect on the articles. All right. You're right. You're right. You're right. I'm Griffin. I shouldn't rush it. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies and detritus in our heads. Mm-hmm.

[00:04:28] Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce. Baby. Yes. Do you ever think about how Robin Williams, Peter, banning Peter Pan in Hook says that- A spoiler. To live would be the great adventure. Right? Right. Uh-huh. And Hook says to Smee, like, death is the only adventure he has left. Just interesting. Peter Pan is such an interesting text. I'll get into it. Mm-hmm. Like the- Yeah. The big old- Yep.

[00:04:57] Bolly yarn that is Peter Pan. It's a miniseries on the films. The early films of Steven Spielberg. The first half of his career. It's called Podrassic Cast. That's right. What's wrong with that? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing wrong. Not a thing. And today we're talking about Hook. Mm-hmm. And our guest today returning to the show. Long overdue. Long in negotiations. Yes. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. It just took a while to get here. There were a couple things flowing around. I think this was the right place for things to land.

[00:05:27] You know him best as the man who asked us all, as a people, to consider the coconut. Something we somehow did not discuss. Well- The last time you were on the show. Something that looms so large in David Knight's mind. Wait a second. When was the last time? It was quite a while ago. Right, Lynn? All that jazz. Well, I remember that. I want to say it was 22. Yeah, that's not. I'm trying to remember that. Because did I have a kid? Yes, you had a kid. But was my kid maybe not? So now I have seen, I mean, obviously, I'm a big fan of a lot of yours. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Let's say our guest today here is Lin-Manuel Miranda. Hello.

[00:05:57] I love much of your work. But now I have seen Encanto and Moana four billion times because I have a young daughter. And I am now just so deep in the work there. Like, I just think about it all the time. And very, very densely. I'll be a late night text of, you guys don't understand how well this is structured. Yes. And we'll be like, yeah. No, we know. And he's like, no, you don't understand. I've watched the six million times. If you watch, you don't talk about Bruno. Right. Like that many times. You do. We don't talk about Bruno.

[00:06:25] You know, you have to start just like thinking about every single moment of it. Sorry, Lin. I know this is boring. But yes, anyway. I guess that didn't come up last time. When we did Musgrave and Clemens in 2020. Yeah. Which I feel like was when maybe you started messaging with us that you'd been listening to the show. I feel like. Yes, that's probably right. It was in response to a lot of those episodes. But when we had recorded him on episode, we did not. We were in no way aware you were listening to the show. Yes. I'm aware that you were not aware.

[00:06:52] But we're both so locked in to consider the coconut as a line. It's a great line. We have a lot to talk about today. One little David Foster Wallace nod. This is my question. Where did that come from? Was that where you're thinking about considering the lobster? I mean, listen, you get a lot of materials when you're learning about the world and the culture that you're writing about. And one was this document that was all of the different uses of the coconut. And so, yeah, I think I pulled.

[00:07:20] I mean, I'm a big fan of the David Foster Wallace essays. So I thought that would be a good opening line to, you know, introduce the verse where we're going to use. We're going to tell you all of the uses of the coconut. That's the thing. In song. There's also like. It's a profundity to the to the simplicity and the directness of it to just be like, I'm going to tell you the uses of the coconut and the way I'm going to open this door is just consider the coconut. Consider the coconut. And I mean, it's it's fun because it's one just really interesting how many uses one can

[00:07:49] get out of coconut. Right. Which is the point. And it's true. Also, like, man, is she going to be staring at the water and like getting out of there because it's like it's coconut. It's coconut. Litigating. Yeah. She's a really good kid. She's a good kid. But right. It's you know, the coconut is very, very crucial for the first act of Moana. Their coconuts aren't working. Right. Like they're getting back. Yeah, this is true. And then you got your whole little bad guy gang who the Kakamora. The Kakamora. Where are the coconuts? His armor, which was giving Lost Boys energy, kind of.

[00:08:19] Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean, I think it's as Fury Road inspired as it seems like it is. Right. It's very Mad Max. But I think it's like half Fury Road, half Hook specifically. Something about the build of their ship looks like the Hook Lost Boys. That's a nice segue. Right. I'll take it. Yes. The hideout. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing about that hideout is and I mean, we may go in order. We may not. But like it looks so fun in Never Never Land.

[00:08:47] It kind of it's it's the thing that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie did by accident. There you go. When you get to the Foot Clan hideout and you're like, this looks dope. It's a connection. There's video games and pool tables. Exactly. There's a half pipe. There's a half pipe. Yeah. They have. Well, they have track. Right. If I were a wayward kid, I would end up here. Our friend J.D. Amato, who, you know, directed the My Brother, My Brother and Me TV show. We there are a couple other times in the last couple of years we've reached out to you and

[00:09:15] you've gone, maybe I do this, but I don't know. This and that. You know what it is? I felt so overprepared for all that jazz because I'd been working on Fosse Verdon. Yes. You came in with a lot. You came in with the script. I had like stuff and some of the movies you guys pitched me. That's right. And so for the, you know, I just wanted to be prepped. I will say this. This is an issue we are starting to put up against.

[00:09:38] I'd say specifically with filmmakers where we will reach out to people and they'll be like, I only want to come on if it's a movie I feel like I can talk about backwards and forwards. Like I need to be this prepared. And we're like, what have we done wrong in our framing of this show to make people think they need to be prepared? Yeah. To talk bullshit with us. All I have is vibes and I rewatched the movie recently this time. I did not come with a source text.

[00:10:08] I just like every kid who was 11 in 1991. This movie. So that's my shit. You know, we're like, hey, Spielberg was really big. Is really big for you. It's humongous. Is totemic. Reached out. I think gave you like first crack of just like, we've settled on doing this. Anyone. And you write back. Hook. Right. It was just no question. It was hook. Finger pointed there. JD had thrown out that he wanted to do hook. It wasn't just he said close encounters or hook. Yeah. To be clear. He did not. He did not. Yeah.

[00:10:38] And we said, well, you know. And we were like, we're going to put you on close encounters. Lynn wants hook. And he was like, I can't believe I'm being bummed for Lynn. But the thing he immediately put his trip down on was I insist that you guys talk about and it's what I would have come prepared loaded for bear to talk about is the 90s movie micro trend of the hideout. That is a skate park. Oh, yeah. Right. It's those. It's turtles. He was linking those two immediately. Sort of three ninjas kind of has that vibe.

[00:11:08] Right. Like that early 90s. Like it would be fun to be a kid and a ninja like at the same time. And it's not quite the same thing. But I think Blank Check and Richie Rich both have this element of like, what if like a perfect kids play space that felt a little dangerous and humongous. Absolutely. All encompassing. Levels. Levels. Yeah. Right. Which does require skateboarding experts. I think of Kramer in Seinfeld when he starts adding levels to his apartment.

[00:11:37] It's a good, you know, levels is good. That's ambitious. I would say, though, what these spaces all have in common is no parents allowed. No parents allowed. All right. So your relationship to Hook. Well, maybe your relationship to Spielberg first, though. I don't know. Sure. I mean, I think I I think you're probably with me here that like for me, if you wanted to make movies as a little kid, they'd say, oh, you want to be the next Steven Spielberg. It was literally shorthand for director.

[00:12:07] Yes. And for like Vunderkind. Right. Like this sort of like, yeah, he started young. You're like he was a movie nerd and he got to, you know. But also, I think especially in the 90s, if there is like a representation of a director in any other form of media. Yeah. He was also playing himself as a lot of stuff. Like I think he was a personality. Yeah. He was in the Goonies are good enough video where Cindy Lopper goes, Mr. Spielberg, help us out. And he goes, I don't know what to do.

[00:12:34] And you're like, first of all, the fact that that video had both Nikolai Volkov, Andre the Giant and Steven Spielberg and the entire cast of the Goonies. And it was like they didn't quite know how videos worked yet. So they just do two videos that encapsulate the plot of the Goonies and play the song twice. I believe Rowdy Rowdy Piper and Captain Lopper. Like a lot of wrestlers are in there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I have seen it. The Goonies before my time. So I've always struggled. Like hook a little bit more my time. Sure. The Goonies. Down here.

[00:13:04] It's your time. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. All right. So Spielberg on. Right. The first director any kid learns about in our generation. Essentially. Oh, you want to be Steven Spielberg. Yes. Do you remember the first one you see? Right. Like are you hearing the name repeated before you're understanding who he is? Or were you already developing a relationship? In the same way that you'd hear West Side Story is synonymous with musicals. Yeah. Spielberg was synonymous with the movies. I think for me, probably the first one I saw was E.T. Which... Probably not in theaters.

[00:13:34] No. Definitely on DHS. And my grandfather owned a video store. So I remember... I don't think I knew that. Yeah. This is bad. In like upper Manhattan? No. In Puerto Rico. Oh, okay. So when I'd go for the summers, I'd go hang out at Miranda Video and I would like see the different Jaws covers. Like there was Jaws and then there were like the subsequent ones he didn't make. And then for some reason, I associate... The big thing you also need to know is my grandfather owned a video store, so I was just unsupervised watching movies all the time.

[00:14:04] And also my grandparents had cable and my parents didn't. And so what was playing on... Was this a summer thing? It was a summer thing. Okay. So like what was playing constantly on HBO that those summers when I was a kid was Jaws 4. Was like Michael Caine and the shark following him to the thing. And also Richard Jenna's standup routine about how dumb Jaws 4 is. Interesting. How the shark follows this one family too. So yeah, so I remember...

[00:14:33] I have to ask quickly, were the VHSs dubbed, subtitled or neither? A little bit of everything. Interesting. And usually they were just in English with Spanish subtitles. Yeah. And then my grandparents, I'm sure this wasn't legal, but they were always making copies like with two VHSs on the movies in the back. And that's where I saw the really inappropriate stuff because there was a porn section of the video store like any 80s video store. The old red curtain.

[00:15:01] And you would just hear those movies being dubbed in the back of the... Oh, my parents are going to be really upset when they listen to this. You should... I think you should open a video store now. You should revive Miranda Video. Miranda Video? Mm-hmm. I mean... It's kind of physical media. You know, it's getting hot again. It's sort of this cult thing. And I think you should bring back the porn section. I think that'd get a lot of positive press. Listen, I never went in... Like, it was back in the day. It was curtained off. Yeah. I...

[00:15:29] There was a Double Dragon 2 console in the video store. So I played a lot of Double Dragon 2. I watched that poor four-bit girlfriend get punched so many... That's how the game starts. Punch the girlfriend, throw it over the shoulder, then you gotta go. So that's... We've really ventured from my Spielberg experience. No, but this is good. This is good. But so, Hook 1991, you said you were 11? I was 11. So you saw this in the theater. I definitely saw this in the theater. Yeah, right. I also did. I was but five. But I still, I think, was still whatever.

[00:15:58] Like, locked in enough with the... You know, whatever. I was gonna go see Hook. The Peter Pan movie. Right? You clearly... You wouldn't have. You would've been very small. No, I'm just... Look, I'm gonna get this out of the way. He know like he Hook. I don't like Hook. Okay. I struggle strongly with Hook. It's... It's a polarizing film. It's a tough movie. It's because... Yes. The parts that are good are so good, and it takes us a while to get there. So I... I didn't see it... And you share that opinion with Spielberg. I do.

[00:16:27] Which has always been my defense. And I will say, in the history of doing this show, right, we covered the second half of Spielberg's career eight years ago. We're finally getting to this now. I've sort of like just taken strays at Hook over the years and been like... And obviously, we all know Hook sucks. And every time I would do that, our listeners would get really angry and being like, what are you talking about? And what is this assumption? This is not the like norm opinion. Which I feel like I grew up with

[00:16:55] my parents went to see Hook. I was two, three when this came out. Yeah, he would have been like three years old. My parents definitely went on a date night to see it. When I'm the one child before my brother is born. And I just remember growing up in a household where Hook was used as shorthand for like folly. And the thing I've sort of had to like work through in doing this series is realizing that I grew up in a weirdly anti-Spielberg household. Right, not just Hook.

[00:17:25] They were generally a little skeptical. But Hook is the turning point. Uh-huh, sure. It is. Like my parents just still... And even recently, like we had a family dinner and I brought up like Lin's coming on to do Hook. And they were like, God, that movie sucks. And it's like this... It's this very like raw thing for my parents. They still are like, man, we got a babysitter. We went to see that in Hook. And they've just like... Anytime they have liked a Spielberg movie since Hook, they say it almost begrudgingly. Wow. They're just like,

[00:17:55] it's weird how good Bridge of Spies is. And I'm like, it's not weird. It's not weird. He's Spielberg. But so I grew up in this house where Hook is just this like clout. I weirdly felt like I had Hook toys growing up and they'd just be like, oh, that movie sucks. Like they'd just walk by me. So it was like not something that was like presented to me. I'd see it at friends' houses. Everyone else loved Hook. Other friends would have the VHS for being on TV. Big movies for our generation's youth. Right. Certainly the film got mixed reviews when it came out. It was seen as a bit of a disappointment

[00:18:24] by grown-up critics, but not us kids. What was the movie he made just prior to this? So it's a weird point in his career because it's... The movie he makes prior to this is Always. Probably his most forgotten film. Have you even seen Always? I have not seen Always. Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Ghost... Remake of Golden Hollywood rom-com. Ghost, Fire Pilot drama. What's weird, I have this awareness of being aware that Hook was over budget even when I was 11. Right. It became so... This is another thing. Right. It became a thing of like,

[00:18:53] they're having trouble making Hook. And obviously... And I remember being a kid anticipating the movie like sequel to Peter Pan. Like, let's go. Look, I'm not reading Premiere and Movie Line magazine when I'm two. Yeah. But by the time I'm seven and I'm reading it, they're still using Hook as shorthand. Yeah, I'm definitely reading Entertainment Weekly by this point. And aware that like, they brought in... They're like having trouble. Carrie Fisher's doing rewrites. Right. I don't know if I was aware of Carrie Fisher's doing rewrites. Maybe you were. But I was aware

[00:19:22] that it was over budget and that people were worried about it. Like by many accounts, this movie, The Ultimate Budget was close to $80 million in 1991. Which is very high. And that's $80 million with a huge asterisk, which is Spielberg. Borg? The Borg. Spielberg. Spielberg. Hoffman. Hoffman and Williams all for Wint's salaries. And Roberts. No, but those three no salaries. Oh, really? Right. The deal was

[00:19:51] they get zero upfront money and they get, was it 40% of first dollar earnings? A lot of the money, the gross. JJ has it in the dossier. Break it down. It was an insane structure. So it's $80 million without paying the three biggest people. I think Roberts was paid a lot. Because she was newly hot stuff at the time. So I wanting to be this kind of like savvy, wise movie kid was just like, yeah, we all know Hook sucks. My parents taught me that Hook sucks.

[00:20:21] You use Hook as shorthand for like failed 90s blockbuster. I'm actually flinching every time you say it. Yeah, yeah. Just take it easy on our guests. Come on. He's a special guy. I've seen it piecemeal over the years many, many times. But I had never really sat down and watched the whole thing. Oh, you never saw it as a kid? No. Oh, wow. It was received wisdom. That is weird. It's weird. Yep. When I'm in my early 20s, my friend Jake makes some reference to Hook and I'm just like, Hook? And he's like, you didn't grow up with Hook? And I'm like, I actually don't think I've ever seen the whole thing all the way through. And he's like, we're watching Hook tonight.

[00:20:50] We watch Hook. I'm just like, God, I remember having time in your 20s. Absolutely. And like, you'd be like, you haven't seen this? Clear the next three hours. We're doing this now. It was also the era where Netflix was the only streaming service and it had every movie. Right. You just knew you could immediately go like this and pull Hook up. Watch It That Night was just like, this is completely missing me. Sure. I just don't get this. You don't have the kid grounding at all. And I had, I don't have the thud butt at a formative time in your life. Right.

[00:21:19] The world's biggest pin in thud butt. We'll talk thud butt. We'll talk thud butt. We better talk thud butt. Oh, he's coming. And was just like, I struggle with this thing. And then just went on making straight references. You've never liked Hook. It's never stuck to you. Three months ago, four months ago, it was playing at the Nighthawk Theater in Prospect Park. Lovely place. And I was like, we got this series coming. I was there last night. Come and do an episode. Yeah. I deserve, it deserves a proper reconsideration

[00:21:49] on a big screen. It was advertised as a 35 print. It ended up being a DCP. I went to a weekend matinee of Hook. I walk out fuming. Fuming. I go on Letterboxd. I log it as half a star. If you say, children will listen. I log it as half a star and immediately what are you doing? What point are you trying to make here? And I'm like walking down the street like harumph, harumph, harumph. Yeah, you're fuming. Yes. Now, admittedly, I had had dental surgery

[00:22:19] like 10 days earlier that had gone poorly and the recovery was bad. Oh, yeah. Ben and I are exchanging a knowing look. Yes. I saw some other movies in that period that I liked, but I do think in a certain way where if you have a headache and then someone starts making a high-pitched noise, it's going to hurt twice as hard. I was like, this movie has never worked for me, but when I'm in mouth pain, when my whole skull hurts, I was like, please make it stop. Ben and fire and dental work don't make it great. The whole thing was just really rubbing against me.

[00:22:49] So then I gave it another rewatch. Sure. To prepare for like... Correct. And I'm now just back to just like, yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm not angry about it. Let's close the book on you. Hush. Establish. Establish. Yes. All right. But that's my history. I am like most people my age. I'm a little younger than Lynn, but like I say, I saw Hook as a kid and I was like, this movie rocks. It's got sword fighting in it. It's got Rufio in it. Like, this is great. It is the only movie with Rufio in it. Unfortunately. Hoffman, like, maybe laughs. Me,

[00:23:19] maybe laugh. Right? You know what I mean? Like, I remember as I grew up learning that like Julia Roberts' performance in this was considered bad and me being like, I don't get, I don't get that at all. Isn't she great in it? Like, yeah. And then, yeah, I grew up and I, Hook's nostalgia has curdled for me slightly. There's things in it I don't like at all. I do think it's way too slow at the beginning. I think it is a fascinating. I agree. Yeah. I think it is a fascinating like Spielberg text. Like, it is a fascinating like moment in his life

[00:23:48] on screen. He, and look, you actually know Steven Spielberg a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. You've chatted with Steve. You did a Raiders screening with him. Yeah, we did a Raiders screening. I don't know if you've ever talked Hook with Steve, but I feel like he's usually fairly dismissive of it. He's kind of like, ah, that didn't work. Right? Yeah. I mean, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, I'm just going by his own doc. Like, he's just, yeah. But have you ever brought up to him? Are you like, would it break, it would break my heart to tell him I like a look and have him make a face? No, no, no. It's not my,

[00:24:18] also, it's like, I mean, if I have to list Spielberg favorites, it's not even that high up there. Of course not. The man has a resume. The early Spielberg and where it landed on my life. Again, and it's interesting to watch this as an 11-year-old in the theater and interesting to watch it as a 45-year-old father of two. But the other micro trend that this falls into besides skate parks as clubhouses is dads who just don't have time for their gosh darn kids. That's cell phone.

[00:24:48] That's cell phone. Duel. Is this the first cell phone movie too? You know, because like that became such shorthand for like, oh, he's a workaholic. It's like, this is 91. Not a lot of people have cell phones. Not a lot of people have cell phones. It is an error that I actually think will be hard to explain and contextualize to younger generations. I don't like, I couldn't even explain to my kids when I watched it with them that like, oh, their computer's not even in there. Right. It used to be crazy that you had a cell phone. Like that was rare. There is a 15-year period in family film where if a character takes out a cell phone, the movie is basically saying

[00:25:18] he deserves to be shot in the street. This motherfucker doesn't look at his kids. A tough lesson. He doesn't know his kids' middle names. And physically holding a cell phone is the same as if that liar, liar, not the girl. liar, liar is a perfect example. One of my favorite movies, One Fine Day, which the entire plot is the two workaholics switch cell phones. Basically, the entire Disney live action Tim Allen canon, which was big for me, is all predicated on this guy spends too much time on his cell phone. And then he wears suspenders,

[00:25:48] he goes to an office, he has a cell phone. He's a huge part of it. There's a baseball game and or dance recital that he is late to or doesn't even make it. They even had to struggle to justify the baseball game here. It's a Christmas series baseball game. I'm sorry, it is one of the immediate things in Hooker. I'm like, why the fuck are they playing baseball in December? The catcher is wearing a Santa Claus beard. It's a Christmas season. Because like, do they live in New York? It's very important to Charlie Korsum. Are they in New York? This movie's doing so much. We don't really know where they are in America before they go to London, but like, if they're in the Northeast,

[00:26:18] they should not be playing baseball in December. It's very cold. It's cold. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, yes, I watch it now and I'm like, it's kind of a movie that's similar to me. There's other kids movies like this where I'm like, kids do like this movie as we have discussed. Did you watch it with your daughter? No, no, I have, she would be baffled by this. She's a little too young for this. Did you watch it with your children? I watched it with my kids and they basically had they seen it before or is this the first time? No, they've seen it once. Yeah. Okay. And actually, I saw it way back

[00:26:48] when we decided we were doing this. I was like, so this was like last summer, last fall. We scheduled very far. It's taken us a long time to get here. Yes. But yeah, I watched it with them and they were so into Neverland. It takes a long time to get to Neverland. It takes a full 35, 40 minutes. It's half hour to Neverland and they're still in pirate land for the first 20 minutes and it's 52 minutes till they meet the Lost Boys. Yeah. It's, you know, and beyond that, which, you know, the first half hour of this movie where it's just Spielberg

[00:27:17] being like, I'm such a workaholic and I'm like, you're making a movie about Peter Pan for children, my friend. This movie is rated PG. Like, children are coming to see it. They don't care about your cell phone. Like, is my take. Now, again, kids like this movie. But then just like the sort of like the softness and the kind of like emotional like it feels too dad to me in a way sometimes. I'm like, we need more fun. We need more like kid energy in this and less like sad dad energy in it. But it did also kind of work on me

[00:27:46] as a bit of a sad dad. You know what I mean? Like, I'm watching it now and I'm like, he's talking about his happy place for all that. I'm like, this isn't gonna not get me, you know, come on. Yeah, see, it so doesn't get me. But I also will say that like watching it again this morning with my mouth in good condition, a balanced set of teeth, I was digging into more the weird like messiness of how much this movie is him at odds

[00:28:16] and sort of like a crossroads point in his career. I think the movie, I don't want to say the movie suffers because of that. I think the movie is basically a monument to him being in this like, I don't know. And there's a quote that JJ pulled up in the dossier that I'm like, that's the whole fucking movie for me now. And upon reading that, I'm a little more engaged with watching the film. But your question of where he's coming from, right? Just to like snapshot it. He has this insane dominant run of blockbusters. Then he has this 80s period that's very much him

[00:28:46] trying to like grow up and make serious movies. He wants to win an Oscar. Clearly. Right. And people are just like, get over it. Right? There's this like weird wave of people being like Spielberg's a little boy who makes theme park rides. And he's like, great, I'll make serious movies. And they're like, go back to making your theme park rides. Who are you kidding? And the one part of it that's weird for me, the existence of Hook, is that like Hook kind of makes sense to me as him being like, fine, I'll go back to doing

[00:29:16] what you guys want out of me. Had he not just made Last Crusade. Like that's the other part of the puzzle. Right. Which is the movie before Always. Is that like in between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, he does Color Purple, he does Empire of the Sun, he goes through the whole Twilight Zone calamity, he has his first child, he makes Always, which is like not a serious movie, but it is ostensibly trying to be a movie for grownups. Sure. Like a soft grownup movie. Right. Like drama. But he like comes back

[00:29:45] and does another Indiana Jones that is a big hit and that people like and is him kind of doing like the Spielberg rollercoaster again. So it always feels weird to me. Man, Last Crusade is such a good rollercoaster. I love Last Crusade. It's my kid's favorite Indiana Jones. And it's him being like, I'm still good at this, by the way. And everyone's like, yes, you are. I think, and I think that's why I was so excited to just going back in time. That's why I was so excited to see Hook in the theater because I had seen Last Crusade on a thousand sleepovers with my friends.

[00:30:15] The guy does action. Yes. Yes. This was probably your first theatrical. Yeah, probably. Yeah. So that's huge. Yeah. But like right after this, which has its whole like the press is having a field day over this movie. The expectations for it were basically either this is the biggest movie of all time or it's a disappointment. And you read like the immediate press and they're all sort of like, well, it's a hit, but it's not a mega hit. And he's at the sort of odd like junction point. And then two years later,

[00:30:45] he does Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year. Right. Right. Just the most dominant shit. Take that. All time. I'm like, it is a, it's a real, you know, sort of like it's over. He has nothing left to prove after that. And Hook, he still has stuff to prove. Right. And he's not quite getting there. Straight from Hook to Schindler, I'd be like, okay. So he's like, you know what? That's past. I'm, I'm not doing that kind of thing anymore. I've grown up. Here's my kind of movie. But the fact that he does Jurassic in the same year and he's like, I can still knock this out of the fucking park

[00:31:14] if I want to. You want me to build a roller coaster? I'll build a roller coaster. I mean, it's hard to, it's hard for kids to understand now. But like at that time when you found out Spielberg was directing Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park was such a hit book. Like sixth graders were carrying around Jurassic Park when I was in sixth grade and everyone was like, how are they going to do the dinosaur? Like literally like this is not possible because they'll never make them look real. And so it was like he delivered on that in the most incredible

[00:31:44] way possible. And then the movie still just fucking rips. Like he actually did the, like it was like, it's hard to overstate how much Jurassic Park felt like you were watching the impossible happen in 1992. Is that right? 93. But he has talked about the fact that Jurassic was kind of an impersonal movie for him and it's the reason he did Lost World where he's otherwise been protective about not trying to do sequels. He had the agreement with George where he had to do the Indiana Jones sequels, but otherwise he's always kind of backed off and he was just like, look,

[00:32:13] Jurassic Park was me just like having fun. Yeah, just doing a good time. Hook and Last Crusade are both very personal in our head. Let's get into Hook. Hook is about a child who became a man, you know, going to war with a man who is a child who is basically like, come be a child. I only want to, you know, I want us to be children again and fight and play and Peter Pan, you know, like it is, it is his, his id and ego like doing battle on screen. Like it is the most psychologically rich shit

[00:32:43] and yet Spielberg is kind of like, oh, the sets were too big and I should have made it a musical and like, you know, Julia Roberts was getting on my nerves. You know what I mean? He won't acknowledge this. I read about that this was almost a musical that there were these John Williams Leslie Brickus tunes that got cut. I mean, is this like I'll do anything level this was a musical got cut? I don't, well no, because I'll do anything they filmed the musicals. Have you seen the sequences, right? The musical cut of Aldoan? No. Hey, Lynn, you might get an interesting email at the end of this. Oh, yes.

[00:33:13] It's quite interesting. They were fully recorded, mixed, rehearsed, and then cut. They were never filmed. Right, right, right. I think there was recently a limited CD reissue where the third disc was the tracks, but like, as JJ dug up, one of the songs was supposed to be older Wendy and they had gotten Julie Andrews to record it and Maggie Smith was going to lip sync Julie Andrews

[00:33:42] singing John Williams musical numbers. Oh my God, we could have had it all. It got that far along. It's fascinating to consider and he basically welched like I think a month before film. That's too bad. Steven Spielberg has always loved Peter Pan. There is the sequence in E.T., right, where Peter Pan's being read to the children, right? Yes. But he's also just like the idea of Peter Pan on screen being the depiction of flight is this sort of like leveling up in the imagination.

[00:34:13] Anytime anyone flies in a movie, it's riffing on Peter Pan. E.T. flying on the bike is riffing on Peter Pan. He has always said his mother is Peter Pan to him and obviously if you've seen The Fablemans, that makes sense. She seems to have the energy of this kind of like fairy woman, right? This kind of delightful musical person who would read him Peter Pan and all that. Like a pixie haircut. Yeah. Yes. And then of course, as Spielberg becomes a famous filmmaker, everyone's like, this is Peter Pan. This is the boy who won't grow up, right? It's the easiest thing to tag him with. So in 1984,

[00:34:44] news breaks. Steven Spielberg will be making a live adaptation of Peter Pan in London. No one has ever done a Peter Pan movie at this point since like the silent era. That's like, obviously there's the Disney film, but no, it's in a live action Peter Pan. Yes. His quote was, there has never been a live action picture except a 1924 silent version. This is the first real motion picture version of Peter Pan and I'm really excited about it. You will believe a boy can fly. Right. That's basically his pitch is like the Disney one is the definitive one.

[00:35:14] If I can pull this off in live action and pull off the impossible, I make the definitive version of this story, which is insane to consider now where there's a new Peter Pan movie every 24 months. Like post Hook, it has not stopped. Hoffman is attached as Captain Hook pretty much from the beginning. Michael Jackson is heavily interested in playing Peter Pan. He really wants to do it. Michael Jackson, as people know, may have had a bit of a thing about Peter Pan. You might guys, you know, they had the Neverland Ranch and so on and so forth. Spielberg

[00:35:45] waves him off. Supposedly, Michael Jackson hired a witch doctor to cast a curse on him. That is like one of the many Michael Jackson stories that's out there that may or may not be true. Who knows? Spielberg's response in an interview was, what else is new? But, That's a really good line. In 1985, I'm sorry, it was, this is bizarre, but what else is new? Wowie. Spielberg has a son in 1985 and Spielberg says his appetite for Peter Pan goes away once this happens.

[00:36:14] I think partly because making it was going to be this giant London production, like, you know, whatever, like with sets and shit where he's like, I don't have time. I don't want to be away from my child. I want to, right, I want to be with my kid, Max, his first kid. With Amy Irving. With Amy Irving, a friend of the show. And past and future guests. We'll get her back, right? We'll get her back. And so, Peter Pan goes away. But there's the other part of it. Backburnered all the way to the back. He's like, this has ended my permanent adolescence. A child is born, I look at it, suddenly I have responsibility in the world. And he sort of talked about the Peter Banning's

[00:36:44] happy thought. Basically. Yes, yes, yes. Where he's just like, immediately I found myself becoming my parents in the way I told myself I would never be. The transformation happened. I couldn't stop it. I no longer connected to Peter Pan as a character. So, James, Jim V. Hart, who is one of the credited screenwriters on this movie, an interesting guy. Like, his career is interesting. He picks up the project as, you know, writing it and shifts it to what Hook is, which is sort of a sequel to Peter Pan, right? Like, what if

[00:37:14] Peter Pan grew up? What if Captain Hook wasn't dead? Like, what if Captain Hook, you know, was merely lurking in the crocodile and then escaped? I don't know. They don't really get into it, do they? It was, look, it's a good kid logic pitch where his little son draws a picture of Captain Hook and the crocodile and he's like, what's that? And as the son's describing it, he's like, it's Captain Hook and the crocodile but the crocodile didn't actually eat Captain Hook, Captain Hook got away and he goes like, ping,

[00:37:44] what if Captain Hook still alive? Somehow Captain Hook has returned. Nick Castle, who famously plays Michael Myers in Halloween, but is also like a, how would you describe him, Griff? Like a sort of low to mid-budget genre filmmaker at this point. I just want to call out. Makes the last starfighter, makes tap. Yes, I just want to call out Heart, it's a two-pronged thing. There's the, what if Hook survived? Yay. And he's like, but what if he did?

[00:38:14] And he's like, are you a fucking exec? I'm buying the room. Yes, truly. Right. Right. Then immediately, 500 grand, I locked up the rights. That's a good fucking hook. You're asking big questions. Yes, Nick Castle is, he comes aboard. Interesting genre figure who obviously has the roots in the Carpenter stuff but then does Last Starfighter, a film I adore, but kind of was one of these guys who was always like making movies that felt like they should have been huge hits but always stayed a little cult. We're never making,

[00:38:43] there were never bombs but he was never totally crossing over. Pictures at this point ended up at Sony TriStar and Mike Medivoy who's Spielberg's first agent comes on as a producer and Spielberg is basically brought in to displace Castle. Castle's bought out given 500 grand to leave the project because Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman want Steven Spielberg. Like they know he had sniffed this project before. They obviously want Steven Spielberg. It's kind of the beginning of the mega packaging where they were just like what if we put all

[00:39:13] our biggest clients on this? They go to Spielberg he's like I would never want to be responsible for another director getting kicked off a project. And they're like too late. Well great news I fired him a week ago it's yours. They basically set it up so that they were just like the toes have already been stepped on my man. You can't stop this. And so Spielberg's coming aboard a project that isn't his project exactly. He wanted to make Peter Pan. At this point it's now evolved into the Peter Pan sequel concept, right? And he's like that's a good idea for a movie. I'm not sure it's my idea for a movie

[00:39:42] but okay. And he brings in Malia Scotchmarva the other screenplay writer here who reshapes the character of Hook I guess. Carrie Fisher famously did a lot of rewriting I think a lot of other people did too. Hoffman had basically always been aboard. Spielberg had almost made Rain Man with him a while ago so I guess they'd sort of been circling each other. He was so close to doing Rain Man but was contractually obligated to do Indy 3.

[00:40:12] And unsurprisingly Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise had a lot of script notes and the development of that movie took a long time so it was all three of them together working on it and Spielberg had his like moment where it's like if I haven't started filming Rain Man by this date I will not be able to then finish in time to go do Indy and he left Rain Man and then watches someone else win Best Picture and Best Director. True. Which probably has to get to him a little bit. Spielberg, Hoffman, and Williams all declined salaries as you say instead they're going to split 40%

[00:40:42] of the gross from the movie which is a lot of money. But they get there's a weird structure where it's like they get 40% of the first 200 million and then it goes back to Sony and then they get everything after that. Who cares? Julia Roberts who's 24 years old. Steven Spielberg, Robert Williams doesn't know. Deadline. Yeah, deadline. Julia Roberts is only 24 years old. Pretty Woman obviously came out a year before her. A thing that is insane to consider. She had just gone through a very scandalous

[00:41:12] tabloidy breakup with Kiefer Sutherland where she supposedly left him at the altar. I think in actuality she called off the wedding a few days before. JJ has four pages of notes devoted to the fact that she actually broke off the marriage three days before the wedding not at the altar. Fair enough. Vindication. It's the most JJ has ever dug in. I think because Julia Roberts has become this very sort of gentle celebrity like people are just like yeah, Julia Roberts is chill. She's like been married for a zillion years. She kind of lives in San Francisco. It is hard for younger people to remember

[00:41:42] to know how much insane scrutiny she was under in the early 90s. Like the most insane press bullshit around her at all times. She is 24. She's already been nominated for two Academy Awards. She's the biggest female star in Hollywood. She's already had like relationship drama that's burning up the tabloids. Yeah. She was in a real Spielberg movie. Certainly. I think they had they did not enjoy working together. I think now they are like we were both just not

[00:42:11] it's too bad. You know, it's not like they still hate each other. Like they talk about it like this sort of like hey man, we were both in bad places and it just wasn't working. And of course almost all of her footage is just on a blue screen with nobody around her. Which must have been a huge bummer. Like once in a while I think Robin Williams would come to do lines with her but that's about it. I think the biggest nod to that era that you see in the movie is there's just these random cutaways of her just grinning that beautiful pretty woman smile. Yes. And it's like

[00:42:40] you almost can hear the exact be like where's the smile? Do the move. Do the move. Yeah. Because, you know, obviously she sold a lot of tickets on that dazzling and her incredible performance in Pretty Woman. But she said basically. But it feels cut in like they'll be like the Lost Boys will be playing and then they'll just cut to Julie Rogers. She doesn't have a yes, a sort of right role in this film in a weird sort of way. You know, like it's a weird Eponini like she does. She does have there. She's playing this

[00:43:09] weird unrequited love. It's she's speaking the unspoken subtext of Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, which is that Tinkerbell is jealous of Wendy. But like it's now these monologues. It's now these monologues and her gritefully sized and putting on essentially a wedding dress to talk to Peter Pan where you're sort of like we already knew this. We didn't quite need it. It also needs to be that overstated because you've hired Julia Roberts to do it. Like now you need to justify why she's the third name above the title. It's the equivalent of like, well, if she's singing in it,

[00:43:40] she's got to have a second act solo. That scene is her second act solo that they wrote because Julie Roberts is playing. The scene of her getting big for four minutes feels like her being like, can I have one scene where I stand on a set with a person in front of a person and make eye contact? Just a girl in front of a boy. Right. She basically was like Hoffman did off camera for me one time. Robin did it a couple times. I was mostly in a harness surrounded by crew guys in front of a blue screen. As Spielberg put it at the time, this is 1991,

[00:44:10] her personal life fell apart and she reported to work on the same weekend. It was a bad time for her and under those highly charged emotional conditions, she was a pro. But in 99, Roberts did complain about Spielberg calling him a turncoat, said that he basically didn't like defend her in the press. I think she was getting so much shit and she wanted a little bit more backup from him. She didn't like what you actually said. She didn't like that his line became like, it was a bad time for us to work together. Yeah. She was going through

[00:44:40] a lot of shit. So under those circumstances, she did fine. It's true. It's a bit backhanded. I don't know, man. They figured it out. Everyone's doing fine. They're all rich. They're all successful. They all have Oscars. Everyone's okay. Because even 1999, Julia Roberts is different from like 2009. You know, like she still hasn't won her Oscar yet. She's still like just sort of putting this turnaround. You know, anyway, can I call out my favorite quote that JJ found here? New York Times interview in the movie is about to come out. Spielberg says, I guess I had to get

[00:45:09] a little older to see that I wasn't done regressing. I've given up trying to be Martin Scorsese, Kurosawa, or David Lean. Maybe this film is about my finally growing up. I guess I've given up avoiding me. Everything I find textually interesting about this movie is this feeling of him being like, I guess you've got me figured out. That's interesting. Right? Like him sort of being backed in the corner and it's like, I guess you're everything I say I am. But you know what's fun? I mean, when I think about the parts I love in this movie,

[00:45:39] it's none of that. And again, like sometimes you have to wait a bit to get to these good parts, but like, man, the wonder he finds in Never Never Land when we finally get to the Lost Boys. And the other thing I just want to call out is the fact that like, it's pretty much all white people until Never Never Land. Very true. And that's very pointed, I would say. the other thing that I think is so incredible about this movie is that like when he creates joy and like fun personified,

[00:46:08] suddenly the rest of the world is allowed to be in the movie. And there's Hispanic kids and black kids and Asian kids and we have a, we have an Asian leader of the Lost Boys and Dante Bosco as Rufio. And it explodes in color in every single sense. And that is, I mean, again, like it is hard to overstate how much Rufio meant to kids. I wonder how much he knew. Like,

[00:46:38] because it does feel conscious in the movie that like a lot of the Lost Boys are kids of color. Especially when you consider when in the scene at the fundraiser when they're honoring Wendy, all these old white men stand up and are like, you raised me, Wendy, you raised me, Wendy. And then we go to the real Never Never Land and they're, you know, the United Colors of Benetton and you're like, well, when did Never Land start letting us in? And that's how I kind of felt. Dante Basco, I'll read his quote. So he was from, you know, he was from basically

[00:47:07] like Compton. He was from California. Well, he was like, I was adjacent to Compton. Sure. Okay, fine. I think, you know, but like he, he says that like, he grew up around like gangs and friends, you know, friends and gangs. Like there were things about the Lost Boys that resonated for him as a young, I mean, how old is he in this film? Like 14, something like that. He only auditioned one time and then he read on tape and then he meets with Spielberg and apparently Spielberg said out of all the kids he saw, Don Bosco is the only kid who scared him, which is a great, like,

[00:47:37] he does have like, I mean, it's the, I think it's an incredible performance and I think that he's incredible. Rufio became something of a sort of, like you're saying, like, you know, folk hero to kids our age. Rufio is 50% of this movie having any stickiness and any legacy. You watch it as an adult because as a kid, I was like, oh, Rufio is tough and scary and interesting and like, you know, then at the end he dies and you're like, you know, this is moving. As an adult, you watch it, you're like, this poor kid. It's such an emotion.

[00:48:06] We'll get into it. But just like, all the emotions of like, the dad left and his back, like the way he loves Peter and resents him. Absolutely. He plays it so well. He's a great, I mean, I love Dante Bosco. I mean, to me, that's one of the great moments in the films when he draws that line. It's me or the pan and then, you know, I mean, when I think back on this movie, if you were to sum this movie up in one sentence, it would be, there you are, Peter. Like, that's the moment and then John Williams comes in with that music and they all cross the line. I mean, like,

[00:48:36] I'm like, why the fuck am I crying? The fact that he later got to be Zuko and have this sort of like lovely second act to his career is so great. I mean, I love Avatar The Last Airbender and all that, but he's just amazing in this. The reason I call out the Compton adjacent thing is because he made this point of being like, I wasn't in gangs, but I grew up next to kids who were in gangs. Like, he had this right balance of just sort of like, I'm not a tough kid, but I understand what tough kids are, which maybe makes me

[00:49:06] the right amount of scary for a Spielberg, Peter Pan movie. And also has that vulnerability. I mean, Exactly. And also, I think, again, like, that final battle between the Lost Boys and the Pirates is also what doesn't work about this movie to me is that like, you never quite understand the rules of death and consequences in Neverland. It's like, the Lost Boys are doing Home Alone and they're doing the Barbie beach fight. They have a chicken egg And the Pirates have guns and knives. They do.

[00:49:36] By the way, like, Painted Ladies, for the record, like, I did not catch Smee being like a friend to all the Painted Ladies in town the first time I watched Smee Horny. Like, they're adults and they're killing motherfuckers and everyone else is, like, the Lost Boys are throwing eggs. And so when Rufio dies, you're like, wait, that can happen? Wait, wait, the Lost Boys can die? Is this not just like an eternal play? Look, I don't want to be like nitpicky, but this is like a core thing. I do.

[00:50:06] To be fair, Peter Pan has this oddness to it as well. the core text that is Peter Pan. But I'm pulling at this only because you presented it. It is a core issue I have with this movie, which is like, I do not understand the way that Neverland operates. I agree. No, you're saying of like, he has two giant sets, right? There's like the pirate ship in the docks. And then you're like, this is Pirate Land and this is the Lost Boys hideout. And I'm like, what's happening in between them? And what is the relationship to each other? Just, I don't need like

[00:50:36] hard brass answers. But you're thinking you're like an adult. It's a fairy story. Happy thought and fly with us. But I mean, also Peter Pan is very strictly a fairy story of like, yeah, there's the pirates, there's Tiger Lily, which this movie cleverly is just like, we're going to brush by that. Yeah, they reference it but they don't go there. Yes. There's the Lost Boys. Like, how do you get there? Second, you know, start of the right, fly on to, right? It's all just like kid logic. Yeah. The whole thing of Neverland is kid logic. But you're right. One of the things

[00:51:06] that makes the film squishy and not quite certainly work for you is that like adult logic comes into it. Right. And have grown people from our world entering. The prism of adults. Yes. Yeah. That's what makes me question it. And it's a half hour of setup from grown up land. Yes. I'm also not asking for like an explanation of the municipality of like Neverland. That's why Hook is a good character because he is a kid's impression of a grown up. He's not a real grown up. He's a cartoon character. Yes. And like,

[00:51:36] like it's, it's like one of those Star Trek episodes on the holodeck where like the holodeck comes to life where they're like, what is my, I'm Moriarty? What's my purpose? I just exist in opposition to someone like that's not a real person, right? Like Captain Hook is just, and the whole thing with Peter Pan is as Lynn knows and I'm sure you guys know classically the same actor plays Wendy's father in Hook and it's this insane Freudian shit like baked into Peter Pan. The only movie that ever did it was the PJ Hogan movie had Jason Isaacs do it

[00:52:05] which I always loved. Yeah. Like they actually obeyed that rule and I know, I assume it's partly just theatrical convention of like, well, we've got, we need this actor to do more than one thing like right? Like, you know, yeah, we don't want to cast two people but that Hook is this kind of dark side right of grown upness like that she goes to this, you know, place where her dad is suddenly the mean villain who wants to I guess stop everyone and having fun. Right, exactly. But that like

[00:52:34] the concept of Hook is so clever of like Peter Pan's gone and Captain Hook's like what do I do? I'm fucking stuck here? Like just being Captain Hook against nobody? Yeah. This blows! Like where's Peter Pan? Like I exist only to fight Peter Pan and like he just needs to like finish this hero's journey or villain's journey or whatever. But I guess that I think the other squishy thing for me in this movie and it really stuck it was weird to me when I first saw it

[00:53:03] and it's even weirder now and I did a little reading on this and I understand why they did it but apparently Jay and Barry wrote in a later story that Peter Pan ran away from home as an infant which makes Which is in this movie you see like the carriage running away yeah. Oh man but the things we could have had if they hadn't done that because it's the part that strains the most credulity like every parent goes and gets the stroller back and you get your like no child

[00:53:33] has ever run away from home from being a baby helpless in a carriage that rolls away like that just it doesn't make sense in a literal or metaphorical sense it doesn't make a static sense if Peter Pan had actually been a 10 year old kid who ran away from home to become Peter Pan yes to avoid puberty to like he knows what's next to not grow up it needs to be a choice that's the problem it needs to be a choice and the baby cannot push his own carriage away well he sure does it in this movie I get to that whole extended sequence

[00:54:02] right that basically starts with that through to like him seeing Gwyneth Paltrow for the first time as we all do at some point in our lives right we all we all remember we decide to grow up we will all be tempted by Gwyneth Paltrow he imprints upon her like a fucking twilight he's just like I'm calling dibs on that baby well I'm really gonna kiss her move over grandma yeah yeah but like that through to what you said is like the thesis of the movie of having the moment where he sees his son and he's like this is why I wanted

[00:54:32] to grow up right I'm like this should be the core of the movie and in a certain way I think this sequence has the most power and yet I think it's basically botching every part of what it's trying to say and it starts with what you said where it's just like two adults being like and then he's gonna go to business school and this and that and I'm like I'm locked your baby rolled away this is the thing I'm so locked into that idea like that is something they should just be a kid you're saying you know it's a little weird you might be surprised to hear that that is a thing I relate to very strongly of being a child and hearing adults be like

[00:55:02] and when you're a grown up you'll do this and me being like fuck you right I'm out but the second it's like I'm a baby and I remember hearing them say that so I magically willed my stroller away until Tinkerbell came and flew me over and again I think it comes out of a fidelity to a J.M. Barry text but that's the other that's the other thing that like gnaws at you while you're watching it you're like your grandmother's name was Wendy Darling and you've never questioned like

[00:55:31] and the movie starts with him watching his daughter playing Wendy Darling in a play like there's no examination of the like so where how are we here's another thing I find super fucking smushy so he's doing that right Tinkerbell flies him over he meets Wendy he goes back and visits her she becomes an old lady he falls in love with Gwyneth Paltrow he's like I gotta stay here then it basically hard cuts to he's Robin Williams

[00:56:01] with the suspenders in the delivery room looking at the baby and going here we go this is why I want to be a grown up what happens in between those two points when does he stop remembering that he's Peter Pan he says like he doesn't remember anything before he's 12 years old but you're telling me that he like jumps through the window when he's 12 sees this 12 year old is like yes please erase my memory kind of you adopt me raise me next to your granddaughter by the way I just want to restate dibs

[00:56:30] no one else can date her they date all the way through having their first child and then he's like there we go this is why I'm here yeah I also I mean I rub up against logic of like if they took him away when he was a baby how'd he grow up in Never Neverland that's right why couldn't he have just gone away at the age when he'd be Peter Pan that's always been the Peter Pan logic which as you said like maybe the J.M. Barry thing starts with him being a baby that's a good like note that other people came up with when they readapted it to be like oh it's actually better if he stays the age he ran away at

[00:56:59] that's the whole point yeah yeah yeah Steven Spielberg just to finish out the sort of context here this film was supposed to take 76 days to shoot it took 116 so way way way over production supposed to be like 40 and then it was ended up somewhere between 60 and 80 it's this era for Spielberg I think where he's too famous people come visit at the set obviously there's all like the celebrity cameos in it it kind of and he builds these crazy sets although Glenn Close is legit great as that one pirate

[00:57:28] she acts I mean like she's doing that but like I think people she's really funny people are swinging by come see this fucking crazy set you're saying you see the Lost Boys Lair and you're like I want to hang out there this movie looks like the best like theme park walkthrough attraction of all time and it does feel like he just basically half of every day was a party where he would give people tours and be like don't you want to go down the slide the boat it's the Jolly Roger cost a million and a half dollars

[00:57:58] is the most expensive thing ever built in a Steven Spielberg movie Tom Cruise Demi Moore Whoopi Goldberg Michelle Pfeiffer Warren Beatty Annette Bening Mel Gibson Prince and the Queen of Jordan among the people who visited this I'm just like no wonder he's getting distracted no wonder things are taking too long he's too kind of you know wrapped up in this madness and to touch on the musical thing as we said there is five to eight songs that Williams writes with Leslie Brickus

[00:58:27] Leslie Brickus yeah who is that I don't really know Leslie Brickus who's the lyricist yes the lyricist oh man I'm gonna forget but Leslie Brickus wrote a lot for the theater he did I'm seeing here Dr. Doolittle like Talk to the Animals stuff like that Goodbye Mr. Chips the Pure Imagination and the Candyman from Louis Vuong that's the big one so a lot of like movie musical stuff oh it's like Partners with Anthony Anthony Newley right so you know Spielberg basically chickens out he says

[00:58:56] like I you know obviously he's always wanted to make a musical he finally does it fucking 30 years later with West Side Story but my guess is he's kind of like if I'm gonna make a musical I really really want it to be like something where I'm fully invested and maybe these songs feel like more of like an add-on and he's just like I can't deal with it like I mean it's already a lot of movie without it being a musical it's only 20 minutes long which is insane but when you watch the theatrical cut of I'll Do Anything

[00:59:25] you have the thought how could songs possibly fit into this right and when you watch the cut that you may or may not receive a Google Drive link to after this episode you're like oh they fit in oddly this doesn't like hook does feel to me like a musical that the songs were cut out of like I'm like everything in its tone and its stylization and its level of performance and even just sort of like it feels weirdly stage bound even though it has

[00:59:54] these ginormous sets they are sets right and it's sort of like two big locations that you're ping-ponging back and forth through where you're watching people jump around these like jungle gyms one of my favorite scenes in the movie in terms of just like Spielberg operating on master level of visual storytelling is when Hook is being introduced where the Hook is on the pillow moving through the set and all the pirates are going like Hook Hook you know and like you know the music starts to go crazy and then like we go and he comes out you know it's

[01:00:24] you're just like right Spielberg's really good at this I like that sequence I like the abduction of the children yes obviously my favorite image in the whole movie is just the fucking Hook on the window those feel like musical sequences without a song being sung right right those are also by the way like barriers to entry for younger kids watching this movie that looks like poltergeist when those blankets come off those kids that whole part is I think I loved it the thing that freaked me out as a kid I remember is the nanny screaming the children the children like when they get home yeah it's a little like

[01:00:54] unnerving David yes today's episode brought to you by our friends at Nutrafol okay yep okay listen I love Nutrafol I use Nutrafol because look everyone's hair journey is different sure you're using it tell me about it different things work for different people I want to hear about your personal experience I'm getting older sure I'm not gaining hair I'm losing it sure you got some thinning or shedding issues yeah yeah look

[01:01:24] nothing severe nothing dramatic I don't want to overstate this you know David thinning hair is different for men and women and one size fits all approach to hair growth doesn't cut it Nutrafol has multiple formulas for men and women that are tailored to different life stages such as postpartum or menopause and lifestyle factors such as a plant-based lifestyle so you can just get what you need specifically no oh hello maybe this is someone who has a more extreme example creak awoo awoo

[01:01:53] awoo sorry who are you the Blumhouse Wolfman I'm sorry what Blumhouse Wolfman forget it even happened your Wolfman from like the Blumhouse revival it was a wide release film it came out two months ago no one even remembers it Derek Cianfranc no no it wasn't him it was just Lee Whannell Fred who you like and you don't even remember that the movie existed I didn't get to see it I'm so sorry this is the point who played you Christopher Abbott a good actor I don't like him

[01:02:23] see no one even recognizes me you know what the problem is what's that I wasn't really furry enough okay people had a lot of notes on our take on the Wolfman mythology yeah that the movie kind of ends before he hits full Wolfman transformation so he's just kind of a fleshy guy with some dog features is that really what goes on in that one I swear to god everything I'm saying to you right now is real okay well so it sounds like you sort of have hair thinning issues your own of your own I could use some hair growth

[01:02:52] I could use something to really kick it into next year I can't even finish the how okay well Griff how does Neutraful work can you tell me like you know it's the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand it's trusted by over one and a half million people you're gonna see thicker stronger faster growing hair with less shedding in three to six months with Neutraful how does it work Neutraful targets root causes it has a proactive approach you can see improved hair growth decreased shedding visible thickness while taking Neutraful it works on a

[01:03:22] human I assume it would work on a wolf man as well it's just simple I just take I take four pills a day every morning with some water okay yeah yeah that's what I didn't really know yeah the process okay well wolfman hello sorry I'm really just trying to make this work I just need you to know that you know this is physician formulated it's got 100% drug free ingredients supports healthy hair growth from within by targeting key root causes of thinning

[01:03:52] like stress hormones aging nutrition lifestyle metabolism through whole body health you purchase it online there's no prescription needed got automated deliveries free shipping keeps you on track and with a subscription you're gonna save up to 20% and a headspace meditation membership is included they save money you save time peace of mind with your transformation that would definitely help me because I think a big part of it is psychological definitely that's what my doctor's been saying recently sounds like an interesting modern take on the character

[01:04:21] now I heard that in a clinical study 72% of men saw more scalp coverage after taking Neutraful men hair growth supplement for six months and 86% of women saw improved hair growth after taking Neutraful women hair growth supplement for six months there doesn't seem to be any data on what six months of use will do to your chances of getting a theatrical sequel that seems to be the one thing they didn't test well all I can tell you is that you should start your hair growth journey with Neutraful for a limited time Neutraful is offering our

[01:04:51] listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to neutraful.com and enter the promo code blank check one word find out why over 4500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend neutraful for healthier hair neutraful.com that's spelled n-u-t-r-a-f-o-l dot com promo code blank check that's neutraful.com promo code blank check thank you so much and I'm just going to recommend that you David Ben and all of your listeners

[01:05:20] Google what I look like in the movie so maybe retroactively this is funnier I sort of assume there was a baseline kind of cultural awareness of what I was talking about sure so maybe just Google me and you'll kind of get it more okay goodbye so the first half hour of this movie like we're getting into Hook Peter Banning he's a workaholic lawyer

[01:05:50] cell phone he's got this fucking cell phone he right he can quick draw better than anybody right these are the real pirates gorgeous and charming Carolyn Goodall who's really good in this movie yes like she doesn't have much to do but when she's crying at the end she's so involved I agree like later reused in Schindler's list Mrs. Schindler is his wife they have two kids Charlie Corzmo obviously is adorable Jack Manning another MVP of this movie

[01:06:20] I however love little Amber Scott I don't really know if she ever did anything else but she's so cute Maggie the little kid when she sings the song which is also the same melody as a penny for your thoughts from waiting for government a penny for your thoughts that's why we have Mr. Miranda on the show it also look it feels like kissing cousins with somewhere out there as well coming out of the Spielberg system yes Maggie

[01:06:50] has the incredible insult you need a mother very very badly she really she really puts the mustard on that line I think I just have a kid with her energy maybe that's why I'm but he's a workaholic then I also want to speak up for Charlie Corzmo who by the way left the business he's a lawyer now yes and he is so good in this and he was also in Dick Tracy he's the kid he's the kid and he's great in Dick Tracy he's also really good in Can't Hardly Wait yes he is his last role he had like an incredible run

[01:07:19] he's just got a great face he's just got a great kid 90s kid he's what a 90s kid looks like to me he's the ultimate 90s kid but this movie was festooned with our favorite child actors I want to point out Jason Fisher Fisher who is like just one of the lost boys but he was also the kid in the witches right and he was Marty's son in Parenthood which is what I remember when he lost his retainer and like flipped out those are his three roles that guy was three and out those are his three roles but he was

[01:07:49] great in all of those he's great yeah Charlie Corzmo had what about Bob as well he was just on a heater you know I did Little League baseball did you do Little League baseball I was forced basically at hook point I just like so like I think Charlie's like little baseball obsession that's what it felt like really I was just like yeah this is me you know like I am right I don't know I identified very strongly with Little Jack Banning as a kid but Jack Banning

[01:08:19] loves his dad loves baseball but his dad no attend baseball game in Christmas time yeah but yeah he sent a cinematographer to catch all the action yeah a video that feels personal send someone to film it yeah that's that'll really resonate with that kid when he's scanning the bleachers looking for daddy very quickly after this though they get on a plane to go to London where Peter was raised as an orphan by Wendy from Peter Pan who's now

[01:08:48] Maggie Smith in old age makeup it's one of those funny things where you're like this is actually Maggie Smith younger you know what I mean like they're aging her up to McGonagall level right we know what she's gonna look like and they kind of nail it like yeah they really nail it the mind glitches watching it now because you're like how the fuck did she live another 40 years and the answer is she's like 57 in this but they just absolutely correctly predicted the exact way she would age they nailed it well done and she's

[01:09:17] she's really good and obviously I'm sure she was just cast because she has instant mega presence Maggie Smith yeah the greatest was she a dame yet she probably wasn't even a dame yet that's a great question when did she get the the dbe it does speak a little bit to the hubris of this movie though where it's just like he's Steven Spielberg for every single role you're gonna get the single greatest person you could possibly find for that moment you know I think Bob Hoskins as me is maybe the best performance in this movie she had just

[01:09:46] gotten her damehood in 1990 she's freshly damed but in a way she has two Oscars already unbalances the film a little bit I'm a Miss Jean Brody one of my mom's favorite movies an incredible movie and then the okay California Suite her other Oscar win but like when you have Bob Hoskins as me just throwing fastballs yeah see my parents forced me to play baseball I understand what a fastball is I explained this to Ben for some unclear reason yeah Ben right I'm just like a fastball is a ball that goes very fast some of the balls

[01:10:15] aren't as fast as others good to know and a curveball I'm gonna guess yeah kind of a curve well I'll tell you the fucking Jack Banning can't hit a curveball for shit yeah he cannot yeah Robin's like no not the curveball the scouting report this guy is easy like breaking balls he cannot hit them I felt it and that I sucked at baseball oh you did and I especially was bad at batting uh huh I've talked about this before but I was left handed and like two foot negative six and what my little league teams

[01:10:45] would do was they would uh put me up to bat when bases were loaded cause they'd call me the walk on kid uh huh and children could not pitch to me because you had no strike zone and you were a lefty so they would throw the ball and it would hit me and it would hurt and then everyone would cheer and give me a thumbs up and go Griffin good job and I would limp with tears over to first base and get them a run Barry Bonds over here but it speaks to my torture relationship to sports is just like

[01:11:14] if you're willing to undergo physical pain then maybe your dad will be proud for 30 seconds so what I was gonna say is that Bob Hoskins is so good throwing fastballs as Smee that when he's on screen I'm like oh right so this whole movie's about Smee right and it's like no he's Smee he's like one of the parts of this thing he's number two to Mr. Hook right but he's giving you so much that you're like well this film should be called Smee Peter Pan retold from Smee's Smee and Rufio

[01:11:43] would be a very successful spin off of this movie you know Hoskins is take what works right at the peak of like somehow this guy has become a Hollywood movie star like you know where it's like Mermaids Roger Rabbit is the year before Roger Rabbit a couple years before then Mario Brothers is coming up where it's kind of like yeah I guess this like five six Cockney guy needs to be the lead of movies that's what's crazy though it's not just that he'd become a major movie star but it was like kids love Bob Hoskins

[01:12:13] which is so funny to consider we did I would see that guy and I would be like there's my friend Bob Hoskins my best friend yes and like then only later do I realize that was like a serious actor that's like an Oscar nominated serious thespian I mean that's the Hoskins clip that I watch all the time of when he gets the Mario role and his kids are like Mario we played Mario and he's like what and they like they load it for him and he's like and I watched this little boop boop and he's like I used to play King Lear

[01:12:45] I played King Lear but he signed on not knowing it was a game he's like what a wild idea for a picture I mean I think he signed on with like you know like whatever the you know zeros on the chat quarter the script was made in a sandwich between million dollar bills yeah so alright but so Peter Banning okay so he goes to England it's this snowy sort of fakey England like this like total fantasy of England like there's not snow like that in England ever and like it just feels like they like go to a Christmas card

[01:13:14] right you know like they go to this lovely big home this big kind of attic-y room right like it's like they're going into Peter Pan world sort of already allow me to throw out a thing that already drives me crazy about the movie at this point um is it uh I do really like the plane scene where Jack's giving his dad the business not surprised you like that and uh and uh draws the uh picture of his dad dying without a parachute yep it's pretty funny yes um which is a nice nod to this movie's pitch coming out of a children's drawing um uh no it did

[01:13:44] uh Dustin Hoffman is the voice of the pilot uh giving the warning turbulence which is their subtle nod to the idea of double casting hook in some way uh yes yeah yeah yeah um and Hoskins is a street sweeper very late in the movie as well yes yeah what do you not like I think I'm saying nothing controversial here Robin Williams at his best properly applied one of the most effective actors in movie history right but there the the legacy of Robin Williams across many decades

[01:14:14] is sometimes going like Robin you shouldn't do that come on man right that's not the right thing for you to do like wrong instinct Robin Williams on paper playing Peter Pan in a Steven Spielberg movie you're like well that makes the most sense of anything get more in there in the world yeah but it's also part of the inherent tension of what I struggle with in this movie is that it's like so what what is the idea it's like Peter Pan grew up and has to remember to reconnect with his child made by two people who kind of

[01:14:43] never grew up and this opening section I feel like they do not totally know how to depict his boring normal life where I'm like I think Robin Williams has too much comedy energy in this section of the movie and then I think in the mid section where he's in Neverland and it's like oh I don't know I got a little closer that was better yeah that was better I feel like in the mid section his energy just goes down to zero when he's lost and that's what I kind of want him to be at the beginning

[01:15:13] where I'm like he's having too much fun being a shitty businessman the quick draw shit and the bits and when he does like the fundraiser dinner and he's like oh I'm nervous I'm not much of a public speaker whoa I'm getting I'm getting closer you're warming up we're circling it you're warming up good morning orphans they fucking do the bit Smee does like good morning Neverland yeah I immediately I'm like this is the wrong story choice when it cuts to him at the banquet

[01:15:42] and he's delivering he's killing his shitty jokes but he's killing it's sort of it's a bit of a Robin Williams problem like it's very tough for that guy to not be on like he's but in the mid section I think he turns off a little bit but even in Robin Williams hits there's just like the sections where they let him go full Robin and I feel like that was like the one they put him in front of an audience and I think that just happened I still wanted to a Jim Carrey where like Peter Weir later said like you had to make him take over and over so he would just stop being Jim Carrey right you would get it out of his system I just think

[01:16:11] the most effective version of this movie is you're watching the first 30 minutes and you're like oh my god where has Robin Williams gone sure feels like such an exciting cathartic thing but it should also be 10 minutes it's way too long it's just crazy how long it is and it would make more sense if they were really like firmly setting up the lore instead as you guys are pointing out the lore is pretty vague it's a little hard to parse what exactly happened here I think like Finding Nemo Problem

[01:16:41] like this movie should open with Maggie Smith narrating the explanation of how he ended up staying here and growing old and then it cuts to 10 minutes of him being a shitty dad because when it's 30 minutes he needs to have jokes in there because otherwise the audience is going to be bored to tears I want 10 minutes of him just being like oh duh duh duh duh duh like kind of trudging through life because you also need to be like he's not even really enjoying this he's on autopilot and then when he gets to Neverland he's sort of trying to find himself and then the last act is like

[01:17:10] we got full Robin he's fucking swashbuckling and doing impressions of William F. Buckley or whatever he's doing his genie bits wait a minute Jimmy Swagger in Neverland I just always feel like his performance is miscalibrated in the arc I understand yeah his children are kidnapped by Captain James Hook who leaves a note saying essentially like I took the children come get me and then Tinkerbell arrives to sort of bully Peter into

[01:17:39] getting to Neverland with her right can I just say about the note yeah what a way to leave a note hook on the door knife knife knife on the door sorry yeah yeah I've never done that before but oh you haven't that hasn't come up you know what I haven't been like you know went to get milk yeah yeah exactly back in 20 boom isn't that how you propose marriage to your fiance no will you marry me dagger no I used the ninja star um and we exit snowy London

[01:18:09] and enter Neverland which is kind of tropical like beyond the fact that it's like an island with water and shit like it has this sort of like tropical energy to it would you agree very very colorful obviously I'll tell you what it feels like to me what it feels like the like water park adjacent to a major theme park yes it does it feels like a theme park right yes but all the like Disney and Universal have their sort of like here's our fourth gate it's called like water island but it's also it's like weirdly like volcano themed

[01:18:38] and kind of half thought out and it's just got a bunch of like things that spin but it's also this like fake reality that doesn't know what to do with itself right the pirates are there they be pirates but they have nothing to you know go and uh pirate right right they're not setting sail and doing pirate stuff they're just kind of stuck I yeah I don't want hard shoe leather on this but I do want the movie to give me a little more of like what the fuck have they been doing for 20 years they I

[01:19:08] I think you're overthinking this yeah I'm gonna finally call it out you're overthinking this they don't time doesn't move for them like that exactly they don't exist in time they don't age but I think the fun thing is the idea that it's like if Hook doesn't have or that there's this feedback loop of fun that's happening right they fight the boys the boys hang out with the tiger lily tiger lily fights helps them like it's this feedback loop of endless adventure right but the great unresolved thing in Hook is that he never got to defeat Pan right that that's been driving him crazy in this like

[01:19:37] interim period which then also deflates for me a little bit when he's just like you're not Peter Pan anyway I'm gonna go back to fighting the kids all of this to me is quite fun I enjoy just like the pirates being pirates and Hook being Hook yo ho ho yes like I I close right you know like that whole sequence of like someone amongst us is not who he's that you know right like and it's

[01:20:07] Robin assumes that's so fun I gotta call out my favorite cameo in the movie the boo box uh who well yeah Phil Collins is the detective the cop who's like oh seems like part took your kids it's a bit weird given that you're fucking Peter Pan or whatever I'll see you later yeah something hooky in the air tonight yeah yeah right there's something uh when Tinkerbell drags Peter through the sky and there's like errant pixie dust falling down and you have like the very kind of

[01:20:37] Matt painting-y bridge uh in front of Big Ben uh that uh the couple's kissing and they elevate into the sky they start flying as they're kissing do you know who that is George Lucas and Carrie Fisher oh isn't that weird I love it George Lucas I love it I love it Smoochin Leia but do you think that was just because they were on set that day could that have been probably David Crosby and the Queen of Jordan I think 100% yeah yeah yeah right if they had visited that day

[01:21:07] slap a wig on the Queen of Jordan she's a it's a pirate's life for her you're kissing David Crosby who was already dressed as a pirate David Crosby obviously is that's David Crosby he looks David Crosby is 90% of the way to being a pirate in his daily life yeah God bless him he swashes God bless him he buckles is it actually insane that this is the only time David Crosby has played a literal pirate I mean do you know that it is I'm asking I'm sure he's got other uncredited pirate roles there must be he hasn't told us

[01:21:36] because otherwise what a waste yeah and he gets kicked in the nuts he gets a full on nut shot close on the nuts yeah so uh yeah what is there to say about I mean like so Peter is you know this is the this is the dismal failure of Peter they put a ticking clock on it give me three days to get him into shape but it's a tough scene by the way also another cameo Apollo Creed's uh manager is one of the pirates he's the only black pirate that I clocked uh

[01:22:06] Duke yeah Duke that's Apollo Creed's manager in the Rocky movies he's in all six of the Rocky movies Tony Burton is the actor's name I did not like Tony Burton hook let's see dang so everyone just kind of wanted to go have fun yeah yeah yeah right I mean the pirates are great the costuming is great like you know like everyone's having fun oh Jimmy Buffett is also one of the pirates yes what because he of course his best friends was best friends with Frank Marshall yeah yeah those are the homies those are the homies I know this in my professional life

[01:22:36] because Frank Marshall produced no no he produced the Jimmy Buffett musical yes yes and now Frank Marshall who obviously had a long career as a producer and also made you know Congo and arachnophobia and a lot like he made movies now just churns out music documentaries like that Bee Gees one was so good he's since done Carole King James Taylor did the Beach Boys and the Beach Boys and something about like New Orleans Jazz Fest he's just like bang bang bang bang he's just doing what he wants to do now that must be

[01:23:06] what it is that's a blank check yeah yeah like where he's just like can I just interview people like and have fun right yeah like music I like exactly but no the shaming of Peter again like to get you know like where it's like save your children go fly for them and then he's humiliated in front of them it's I think as a kid this is like quite transgressive to watch to watch a dad like get humiliated like yeah you can't save your kids right it's really kind of unsettling I think you're bumping on this

[01:23:36] again as having not seen this as a kid here's what in a world of mom and dad save the world type of movies to see an emasculated dad basically be like your dad can't do shit like Bowser doesn't try to be Princess Peach's dad like it's weird that in Hook Captain Hook with the help of Smee quickly lights on like I'll be their father like it the dynamics of it are so strange it's speaking to the original like Peter Pan mythos I do think that's the most interesting idea in the movie that Smee is like

[01:24:05] you actually want to like fucking hurt this guy it's not going to be through a sword fight right if you're fighting a kid you fight with your swords but like now right the way to get at him is to like he grew up in his emotions now so either you're gonna like outbid him right on the like merger they want to do Smee brought parental dynamics to a knife fight right that's what I'm saying yes he's and the Hook's like oh good good good like let's just get them toys Stockholm Syndrome his child right and have them do good baseball this is what I'm trying to process yeah in a childhood

[01:24:35] where my parents were saying like and most of all remember Hook sucks every morning if you remember let our legacy be right my dad was like stay in school putting your backpack on never get a tattoo Hook sucks right those were like his three things uh I do remember as a child being like that is a potent idea for a movie and I probably worded it that exact way I stroked my chin and I went that's a potent idea for a movie no but like as a child you're like fuck what if Captain Hook never got over Peter Pan and Peter Pan grew up and he forgot that he was

[01:25:04] Peter Pan and when I would catch bits of it on TV at friends houses or whatever this was the section I do remember sticking with me of being like this movie's bad that feels kind of interesting to have Hook be like what if I raise them better than you do and listen I mean two things one like as a 11 year old whose dad did work too much and did have a fucking early cell phone like that notion of I could get revenge on my dad my dad was

[01:25:33] the same way found dad yeah and uh that's very potent and powerful did your dad have a cell phone oh yeah the big brick I remember my dad had a big car phone of course love those car phones because when when should you really be talking on the phone in the car in the car that's crazy no but I I do think that's the the power at the center of the premise right more than anything is what if Captain Hook realizes the best way to get back

[01:26:03] at Peter Pan is being a good dad not just trying to go after the kids but like the scene I remember as a child catching glimpses feeling like it had a little juice was the baseball game and him watching Hook provide the actual attention and support that he wasn't giving right that it's not just that he's like I'm giving you rubies yeah right he's saying I love you boy yeah and you're gonna succeed and you're gonna be

[01:26:33] right like paid attention to I like that you know it's really all centered on Jack though Maggie they're just kind of like we'll figure her out Maggie doesn't like me we'll lock her in a closet if they had to cut her song she would disappear from this movie she's the cutie pie though she's cute so Peter is given three days to become Peter Pan he goes off to the Lost Boys with the help of Tinkerbell and he joins the Lost Boys he should have taken Duke with him because that guy's good at training people yeah

[01:27:02] he does get four mermaids a very strange moment in the movie he gets dunked into the water and a bunch of adult mermaids make out with him there's no tongue they're breathing into him that's true that's a good point you added the tongue resuscitation I didn't say anything about tongue I just said they kiss what do you call an open mouth kiss with no tongue but a lot of breathing where you're just kind of going like like oxygen delivery it is a really interesting it sort of feels like the nod to the rest of Never Never Land in this weirdly

[01:27:32] grown up that's what I think I'm more getting at not that I'm like how does this city run but that I feel like in all other depictions what's the economy here what kind of money are these people making I don't care about any of that it's a magical land I want to be a magical land I feel like every other depiction of Peter Pan has a little more of this and it's maybe part of what you lose by like removing Tiger Lily which is the right decision but the sense that like there's a bunch of other shit going on here too right I've always liked in depictions of Pan where you're like what goes on in that forest

[01:28:02] here's this tribe here's this clique here's this species whatever it is you sort of just have the 30 seconds of let me admit it's a pretty hot kissing hello fresh you get it like hello nurse from the Animaniacs oh yeah that's sort of the riff I was doing there anyway this episode sponsored by our friends at hello fresh with hello fresh you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep

[01:28:32] you skip trips to the grocery store and count on hello fresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable that's why it's America's number one meal kit you know how easy it is I can do it famously not the biggest chef I would say I'm not a master chef and yet with hello fresh's new ready-made meals you go straight from the fridge to your fork in just three minutes it's the same high quality ingredients and restaurant worthy flavor

[01:29:01] that you expect from hello fresh just with none of the work I like that love that and hey if you want a little more work than that hello fresh's prep and bake meals come together with minimal mess and only five minutes to prep so your oven does most of the work not you that sounds like an ideal arrangement you know you left out one other quotable what's that hello fresh that's mrs. doubtfire hey and green chef is now owned by hello fresh so with a wider array of meal plans to choose from there's something

[01:29:31] for everyone I personally love switching between the brands because I'm verse and now my listeners can enjoy both brands at a discount with us you can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for life at hello fresh.com slash check 10 fm that's check one zero fm one item per box with active subscription free meals applied as discount on first box new subscribers only varies by plan that's up to 10

[01:30:00] free hello fresh meals just go to hello fresh.com slash check 10 fm it's hello fresh America's number one meal kit it's about an hour into the movie or a little before Lynn when he's finally yeah it's 52 minutes when he finally gets to bangerang right so the lost boys similar to hook it's like hook has been stuck

[01:30:30] in like I'm a villain with no enemy really and the lost boys are like we're having fun but with no like whatever like organizing purpose I guess so what do we think of the lost boys how what can we say what more can we say about the lost boys we've already talked about how fun the set is how the cool the you know tracks are it's this insanely diverse crew they are all they are child star all stars that we've seen in other movies I mean and that there you are Peter scene

[01:30:59] is the scene like that's that's the moment where Spielberg like pulls like just magic out of a hat and like that music swells and and you feel stuff like that's if there's a metaphor for what Spielberg makes you feel when you're watching like his best movies it's that he pulls your face back he goes there you are there's your inner child and everyone goes holy shit it can feel like this Isaiah Robinson plays Pockets I he's maybe my favorite

[01:31:29] of the kids but I don't know how much of it is that moment I will say I am pretty allergic to Thudbutt oh man I could not disagree with you more Thudbutt is a very 90s kid he's the most 90s kid like he feels like he should be on the Mighty Ducks later right like or whatever like he's just kind of like a 90s kid Rashawn Hammond maybe it's what I like the most about the Mighty Ducks is that Thudbutt isn't on the team what do you think of Thudbutt I love Thudbutt

[01:31:58] Thudbutt is A plus all around for me he's very funny how about when he like sits on the bench it moves the gravity of the bench over and he goes don't crowd me I mean he's getting effortless laughs good luck David just solemnly nodding that's a good luck I like Thudbutt's beret plus tie like I like that they have this kind of mix of like greaser energy but like Dickensian child wardrobe like is sort of a funny way to present them I bump on Rufio's kind of punk and Rufio's

[01:32:27] completely different it also it gives you the sense that different kids have wound up here in different eras different eras different cultures in the same way ghosts can be any century right Rufio's got the triple mohawk thing he's got like the shark teeth or whatever like whatever is dangling on his jacket he's got like ripped up pants and the ripped up pants he's a little older he's like the oldest right he presents as the oldest this is why he's the leader he's got the coolest name in the world Rufio I don't know where they came this is an entirely

[01:32:56] original character right there's no naming of the lost boys apart from the ones we know like and love which is funny right I'm just yeah yeah in the original thing it's like toodles nibs slightly yeah that's the one I always remember curly and the twins are the original lost boys and you know the Disney cartoon basically hinges with that right uh yeah they're all they're all made up yeah I mean thud butt

[01:33:26] when he turns himself into a perfect sphere he does do that can we talk about this for a second can we talk about this for an hour we were texting with JD this morning and JD brought to our attention that in 2018 no no I found it oh you found it I'm sorry um so here's the prop it was auctioned off in 2018 it's a little ghastly this is thud butt in ball form so obviously thud butt has a special move all these kids sort of like pokemon like they all have like a power yeah they evolve uh and thuds butt special move

[01:33:56] is where he sort of folds his legs up to his shoulders and turns into a ball and rolls and it's a pretty obvious shift from actor to uh prop right in the movie when this happened please post please post that we will post it this prop which was auctioned off in 2018 uh price undisclosed uh you know age has not been kind to it I was gonna say it probably looked better in 91 Spielberg's a good filmmaker so he knows what angles how to light it how long to let the shot last

[01:34:25] versus a head-on bright direct light photo of a 25 year aged prop has not been kind to it he fully sonics he does fully sonics that's so true I responded with the Mattel thud butt action figure yeah which on the back has the illustration of the instructions of how to get his play feature activated which is you can turn him into thud ball mode thud butt um is certainly he's the biggest ask of all these kids the rest of the kids most acute

[01:34:55] so much you hate him so much is that what you said no I just said he is a lot he's a lot I just basically bump on everything he's doing but his scene with Robin got me to when he's like mine's my mother do you have a happy thought mine's my mother oh thud butt making he's got chubby cheeks I mean this is very much it's sort of like the Ewoks in Jedi where I right like there's yeah if you were a kid you liked it if you weren't you didn't like it which I love the Ewoks yeah well the Ewoks are you know the resistance would have failed without the Ewoks

[01:35:24] yeah they took out the power yeah you know the logs smashing the um also when thud butt realizes he can step on planks and hit people in the nuts that's how we get David Crosby getting hit in the nuts that is true now I mean like sure I have to thank him for that I do the the lot as Lynn was saying like the logic of they stab and shoot but the lost boys are a little more like we knock you over like bowling pins right like that's more what they're aiming to do but death is present

[01:35:53] but only so present it's never explained or it's never delved into yeah it's also interesting how late Rufio dies because obviously it takes 50 minutes to get to the lost boys right but you could see the more obvious structure being Rufio dies at like the end of act 2 sure and that's what motivates Peter needing to like come into his own and really start to like lead the guys versus like Rufio being a sacrifice once Peter has all Rufio died for our sins

[01:36:22] exactly when he needed he does die for our sins yeah he does and so Rufio right as I already sort of said he's kind of the juice of the movie because he's not just a problem like he could just be a script problem for Peter he's returned to the lost boys and the lost boys are like hey man you left like leadership has changed Rufio's in charge now you have to beat Rufio yeah but Rufio loves Peter Pan and misses Peter Pan just as much as more than anyone and he is Spielberg like you know missing his dad

[01:36:52] and this movie is made when Spielberg is reconciling with his father as we talked about on our Empire of the Sun episode like right when Spielberg is finally realizing that his dad didn't abandon the family exactly but sort of stepped aside from the family because the mom wanted to be with Seth Rogen whether or not that was the right decision he's trying to process these things he's trying to protect his mom a little bit right and it's like this whole movie is about like the father returning you know and like stepping into the childish role

[01:37:21] but also into the like it's and that is where like the juice is in the movie it's such a rich soup yes our friend Bill Gabbiri yeah on our Empire of the Sun episode was saying that his big theory is that there is this like bifurcation this is the dividing line in Spielberg's career that the first half of his career he's making movies from the perspective of a son the second half from the perspective of a father and it's basically just like clean like a line is crossed and at one point past the other right I always feel like Last Crusade

[01:37:50] is that pivot point movie because it's basically this guy being like my dad hates me and I hate him forced to go on adventure with him and being like fuck we are kind of the same person aren't we like I hate that I now kind of get him right and he has to begrudgingly be like I understand the value in what you do your silly Indiana Jones stuff has some power right that's really real right so then to me I'm like there is like a clear takeaway in that movie of Spielberg like processing some stuff and like finding some middle ground

[01:38:20] with his father and then this movie I find it I find the the reckoning interesting I find the fighting with itself interesting I just like do not know what the end conclusion is here and I'm not asking for like an answer narratively I'm sort of like does Spielberg is anything settled in him by making this film which is not what I ask for from a film but I also think a lot of the most interesting movies ever made are someone kind of needing to get

[01:38:50] something off their chest and realizing in that sort of James Lipton way of like oh fuck I didn't realize Close Encounters was about me trying to talk to my mom and my dad right and this I'm just like if this is a therapy session does the therapist go like I have no idea what to make of this you've thrown a lot at me but I I actually can't tie any of this together certainly all of it's being like fucked like the simplest answer is or whatever like the most pat answer is it's like

[01:39:19] hook is like you are afraid of dying and Peter Pan is like no I'm actually afraid of living but in confronting you I have realized it will be great to live as a grown up like to be a grown up like it will be fine because yes Peter Pan had already become a grown up but he's bad at it but now he's like no no no I understand that living and raising my children and you know growing old is going to be fine and like so I no longer return like you know long to return to Neverland and be an eternal child so that's you know

[01:39:49] what Spielberg I guess is realizing but I think and if you take this as the kind of dividing line of like right Jurassic Park and Schindler's List those are movies made by a dad you know what I mean like not movies of childlike wonder but those movies you know right like that's that's yeah I just think now if I say this is Spielberg he'd be like I don't know man that movie was annoying the sets were too big it was a headache Queen of Jordan was on my ass like I mean maybe that's what he would say I don't know I don't need him to be able to explain it like a lot of times you make a movie because it's something you couldn't say

[01:40:19] in words right you were expressing something greater within you I think the best artists who are in touch with something like but I feel like and it's part of the weirdness of the like Robin Williams Steven Spielberg Captain Hook Peter Pan movie that sounds perfect is like but these are two guys who kind of like defied the odds and had it both ways for most of their career right like these are two guys Robin got to be a kid forever in a sort of a way

[01:40:48] he always had the impish thing and same with Spielberg where it's like you both got to be kids forever and grow up right they both like became parents yeah like raised families does Spielberg have kid energy now like what's he like yeah I can tell you the one time I ever was on a set he was on he was filming West Side Story in Washington Heights right of course in your backyard it was one of my all time top favorite days we filmed the finale of In the Heights on 175th Street and I walked two blocks to 177th Street

[01:41:18] where he was filming Maria which is and then I walked home because it was all in my neighborhood that's the best part of the story I mean it was truly a top five day for me but I remember he was like a little and he was filming like the balcony scene but he was showing me like in the ten minutes I got with him on set where he was like waiting for something to be set up he was like look at this I did these tests with my camera and he's showing me like him trying to figure out how to film and he's like I did this test with my phone and it was like

[01:41:46] a kid making his first musical and by the way that to me answers the question of why Hook wasn't a musical it was like I wanted to do it right I wanted to do my favorite one and I waited until that was possible and I wanted to come at it like a student do you like West Side Story? I it's tough for me but well yes loaded question I love the original I think that is an incredibly made movie and I think it's even more incredible because Jerome Robbins got fired midway through Robert Wise took over

[01:42:16] and it still works like there's still incredible filmmaking in that movie and what I enjoy the most about Spielberg's West Side Story is I can tell the sequences that made him want to do it like when you watch Cool you're like got it this is why he wanted to make this movie so he could stage Cool that sequence is crazy and then there are the ones that are just like I think the first movie was more successful in doing it this is exactly where I am with that movie and I also associate it with a certain high I got for seeing

[01:42:46] a musical for the first like seeing the American number for the first time like I'm sorry even Spielberg can't meet my sugar rush or whatever that rush was in seeing like are you kidding me like this is what the best musical is about it's about like Puerto Ricans trying to figure out whether they should like what so like nothing's ever gonna match that sequence I think a lot about and Rita Moreno on a rooftop well even Spielberg may agree with you I think a lot about what you said the last time you were on the show where you were like my goal as a filmmaker

[01:43:16] is to like only make movies of musicals that are not like canonically already sort of like elevated that you want to be able to like adapt the things that in a way you're sort of introducing to people and West Side Story for me I'm like that's like an 8 out of 10 movie to me which I think our listeners often think I'm really rude towards like there's not a bad like everyone's wonderful in it but it's like and it's in the shadow that's my thing I'm like A my bar for Spielberg is so fucking high

[01:43:45] where if a movie is not a 10 out of 10 masterpiece I'm like oh it's a little disappointing which I don't really feel that way with almost anyone else and then secondly it's like him riffing on a movie that already has this like insane power to it so it like has to fight this thing that like you're not fighting with tick tick boom which is sort of like there's a lot of room to interpret here absolutely what was I going to say before you're talking about like Stephen and Robin as eternal children I just think yes

[01:44:28] in their industry and people who like move like the tenor of the entire like pop culture landscape with them and could like stretch into different types of work and do it in a way that didn't feel like a kid playing a grown up in a school play and so I think a lot of the Captain Hook Peter Pan dynamic is based on an ideological binary that these guys in a weird way kind of can't relate to because they've been able to marry the two it's connected and I feel like that's the conclusion that this movie needs to get to

[01:44:58] that they maybe couldn't quite figure out how to verbalize which is like what is the version of being a balanced person having your cake and eating it too and this movie basically goes like he reactivates being Peter Pan long enough to defeat Hook and then he goes back to being a better dad well no Peter Pan can be within him now without it being a problem he's merged you know like the he's one person now it's so I mean it's again because like I'm thinking back to like when Spielberg was just shorthand

[01:45:27] for you want to be an artist sure and that's how it was presented to me as a kid and that's how I processed it because I also as an adult I think so much about what I hold true to being an artist is keeping the channel to your younger selves open like that's what the best acting is what the best writing is it's like being connected to all the versions so that when I have to write from the perspective of a 12 year old who have to write Moana trying to get off land I have to be able to connect to who is Moana

[01:45:57] what is she doing there what does she want to do if I have to consider the coconut I have to consider the the key to being an artist is what Peter Banning does at the end of this movie is like staying connected to your younger self and like being able to like access that channel whenever you need to because you I think a lot I think a lot of the decisions we make as an adult are just like promises we're keeping to a younger version of ourselves and that's a big statement yeah I'm just

[01:46:26] thinking on that yep and and your job as an artist is to be able to access that and be like all right well if I were 16 what would blow my like what do I want to make what do I want to see like that's a lot of I think how you form your artistic impulses is like yeah what did you like as a kid what did you not like and then like that's how your tastes form like if our parents told me I hated Hook I'd be like you sitting in the corner nitpicking the economy of the greater never my cell phone trying to acquire companies

[01:46:57] does Bruno have a little hook Peter Pan to him he's an eternal child in a way Bruno in the walls I'm just thinking about scarred right yeah I guess so but he's funny Bruno's funny when he got John like was I when he does like when he puts the helmet on his head what's up talk about Bruno on this podcast we don't talk about him that much we don't do that we don't we don't talk about I'm not saying we can't I'm just saying we don't do it very often just and it's a Bruno aside since you took us there please please tell me something about Bruno I love to

[01:47:25] think that was probably the not easiest song to write but it was crazy because it's quite a complex it's a very complex song and I was I knew it was come like I I remember actually we were in lockdown at the time so I was living with my in-laws and my brother-in-law sounds fun that's a lot of the secret secret songs of what's in there the juice in there is like stuck in a house what are we allowed to talk about from your mother this is making a lot of sense

[01:47:56] no and as someone who lives with his in-laws yeah but I do remember like actually stealing away and going to another place to write Bruno and being like let me go write this somewhere else because I it's a lot to work out but the idea for it of like it's going to be a spooky Montuno and every story they tell about Bruno is actually easily explained away because we're gonna have to see it from another angle now when Dolores says that she can hear him she can hear him well she has very big ears but she doesn't know that it's like she thinks she can just like right like Dolores doesn't

[01:48:26] actually know he's in the walls right she's got the little aside where she's saying she can hear him but I think she's more thinking of it metaphorically I like to think of it that Dolores has known the whole time but she also has learned like when we don't talk about Bruno so it's just Dolores my favorite character cursed with knowledge that everyone you know that's you know Dolores the ultimate gossip because she can hear everything but that's the thing she could be the ultimate gossip but she keeps all these secrets because she hears everything in

[01:48:56] the town now see I have neither seen this movie six million times nor written all the songs for it but my interpretation maybe this holds less water I will also say I think Camilo's powers are crazy the fact that he can shapeshift he mostly uses it to like hold other people's babies there's a lot to explore with Camilo oh he was much more nefarious that makes early draft and then they were like we like this kid so then yeah well it became like we are in service of the town of course right right there there it's like a heroic duty kind of yeah

[01:49:25] but yeah he used to just he was just doing it to fuck with her a lot in the early drafts I was gonna ask because her ears are so big is there an interpretation that she can hear Bruno but she doesn't think he's that close like she's like well of course I can hear him but he might be like 40 towns away I can hear everyone I don't think so I think she echolocates him pretty easily although there are weird magical rules in that house like the fact that he's got that tower I just mean in terms of where in space he might be

[01:49:55] actually might be tough to echolocate because the rooms are bigger inside they're all Mary Poppins bags and is it true that when Stephanie had to do the family magical live you were like I don't know how you do this live by the way sorry this song was not written to be performed live I love that song I showed up to that you're talking about the Hollywood Bowl performance hey we'll do the songs live have fun I got there like as they were in mid rehearsal and I think Jamal Sims who choreographed

[01:50:25] the sequences for the animated movie staged that and I think he staged it unbelievably the one thing I would have said was like let the other people sing the chorus so that Stephanie can breathe it's overwhelming yeah I just that's the one thing where I was like we could have given her a break here and no one would have minded like the company could have swept in and be like welcome to the and she could have breathed so that she could get ready for the next session you also could make a bit out of her breathing sequence yes and like the run at the end where my sister I don't know how you do that anyway

[01:50:55] it's really hard I was I hope I hope we get like a like I get a crack at like figuring out what the theatrical version I'd love love love to see it there are more movies I have seen that are more right because it's properly suited to a location yeah yeah it feels like a very obvious conversion now will my daughter ever realize that Maribel's name is Maribel she just calls her Encanto everyone else's name she knows they were like there was like an interview like they got

[01:51:24] audio footage of Trump at the Kennedy Center and he was like and then Betty Buckley gets up and sings Cats I was like she doesn't sing Cats she sings memory he's so crazy anyway his broadway depth of knowledge is like both insanely off and you're kind of like what it's like three years it's like people who like hyper fixate on the SNL cast when they were like 18 those are the right well we all agree on Les Mis yes

[01:51:55] so we haven't discussed Hoffman I think we should discuss Hoffman it's it's not like he's not a comic performer he has given other comic performances that are very funny underrated as a comic performer especially because his reputation for being so intense was overwhelming that even when he made giant hit comedies they were like yeah but Dustin Hoffman's the most serious man alive Tootsie obviously is this like big hit comedy and he is funny in it but it's somewhat of a dramatic performance that he's

[01:52:25] giving he's playing a method actor who stumbles into a comedic situation funny in the self-parody and also then like Dorothy Michaels is a very funny performance which he plays with depth and integrity but when you think about Hoffman at this point it's like he wins the Oscar for Rayman in 88 that's his second Oscar obviously that's this like insanely big method-y performance right he follows it with family business which is basically forgotten the Connery Broderick Hoffman a movie I'm obsessed with the notion of a Sidney

[01:52:55] Lumet film in which the poster is of course these three people are related Connery temperature there's some story about that Billy Bathgate a sort of notorious flop of 1991 and then Hook

[01:53:25] is so like it's just like it feels like he is going for something completely different post Raymond right you know he's like I want to do he's having a blast he's a three time I want to have fun and by the way like his sword fights with Robin Williams are like legit good it's one reason I like the movie like you know or I forgive the movie sometimes it has fencing in it any movie with fencing in it I'm serious that's how I feel about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies I'm like if you're gonna give me fencing sequences we don't get those in movies ever

[01:53:53] I just don't really care about fencing you know like sword football but you like Star Wars I love Star Wars do you like lightsaber fighting which is just of course sci-fi fencing maybe I just need the swords to glow so you don't like your classic Errol Flynney stuff like you never got into I like Princess Bride yeah and I like Robin Hood but I've always been cooler on the Pirates movies than you I do I do love I like sword fighting yeah it's really because it's like dance I don't think I dislike

[01:54:23] sword fighting but I'm just realizing it doesn't activate me maybe in the same way I like two blades coming out at the same time like I mean that sounds cool right I think Hoffman's sword fighting this is also impressive because he's wearing that coat and stuff like and the stockings and the wig and everything he's got so much presence in this movie it is a wildly committed performance like there how about the lip twitch shot where you just see the mustache like I mean there's

[01:54:53] he's just he's acting he's really going for a living cartoon kind of similarly to mumbles right you know zoom out in this Hoffman context for a second because there's some things here Lynn is leaning back to zoom out yeah zoom all the way out his 60s and 70s are obviously huge right he pops at the end of the 60s back to this thing of like him not being thought of as a comedy performer he breaks through in The Graduate he's so funny Tootsie's like his highest grossing films ever

[01:55:22] are Tootsie and Meet the Fockers right and Kramer vs. Kramer was like a gigantic hit yes you're right you're right but I'm like Rain Man is a comedy it is that is like it's a dramedy it's a dramedy but like a lot of it is funny and he farts and so on and so forth right like one of his two Oscars is for a comedy you know like a lot of his biggest films are comedies I mean calling Rain Man a comedy is interesting because I'm sure I'm going to triple check but I'm sure it won the Golden Globe for like drama or whatever right it's very similar to Terms of Endearment in that sort of like it is a very funny movie

[01:55:52] that then gets to some very heavy places right do you like Rain Man? Rain Man is kind of an under discussed movie for our generation yeah I uncomfortable yeah I mean I mean we know so much more about that than we did then yes and it's treated as this weird curious quirk but but yeah I remember like weird I actually weirdly remember the Oscar montage where they showed Hoffman's like clip of him being scared of burning the baby

[01:56:21] like I remember that clip and then cutting back to Hoffman being like oh yeah I killed it there was a clip I'm obsessed with and I sent the group chat and I'll have Marie reposted on social media but it was 98 or 99 I want to say Golden Globes they gave Dustin Hoffman the Cecil B. DeMille award and he's sitting there with his wife and they play a clip from why am I forgetting the name now Little Big Man and he leans over to his wife

[01:56:50] and clearly mouths good makeup right and he's just kind of like sitting there and they're playing clips and he's just kind of like making little commentary on it and then they play a clip from Hook and he looks frozen in his chair and he's like grimacing and he's like ugh and I think it does sort of speak to in that moment do you think he doesn't like that it just that movie wasn't enough of a hit or do you think he's like oh I'm going too hard but it was I had a very strong memory of it in my childhood especially growing up in a household

[01:57:20] I think he's cooking in Hook yeah I think he is doing a very committed work in Hook I think there was no reason for him to be embarrassed by anything he did in Hook and I was sort of like do I have a false inflated memory of this because I remember him having a really bad reaction and I rewatched it and it was bigger than I remembered it from childhood but he has this weird 80s after winning his first Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer he does start to get in this period of like

[01:57:49] is Dustin Hoffman too difficult you know this like sentiment that people would repeat of like life's too short to work with Dustin Hoffman for everything he gives you as an actor famously ornery you're going to get stuck in like four years of notes and he's going to battle you on every single thing and he doesn't make many movies in the 80s he made four movies total in the 80s right yes it's um I can find it but uh it's basically Ishtar Tootsie Rain Man family business and Rain Man yeah that's it right and so like 90s he also did his Death of a Salesman which was then broadcast on TV which is this

[01:58:19] like insanely polarizing performance some people are like one of the best Willy Lomans ever others are like he doesn't understand that role at all like it's always being debated that performance yeah but like Tootsie was kind of like a comeback movie after he had only recently won the Oscar and then he disappears for a bunch of years comes back with the movie that is forehand for flop even though we love Ishtar or I at least love Ishtar yeah um and he's really funny and then he gets his second Oscar and it's like he's coming into the 90s like I'm here to stay

[01:58:48] right he made a lot of movies in the 90s Dick Tracy Billy Bathtick Hook Hero Outbreak Sleepers Mad City Wagon Art but this feels like such a big swing for him to be like can I do a whole movie where I'm the title character you're sort ofassering the movie around wait until Hook gets here right like that is the sell of the movie yeah he's first build and Dustin Hoffman's gonna go fucking hard as Hook he looks incredible I think I mean saying all that

[01:59:18] I think the fact that he looks like he's having so much fun is even more impressive like he's got the veneers in he's got all the stuff on doing this accent and he still looks like he's having a fucking blast I think he looks like he's having a great time yeah Ben do you like Hook? He looks awesome his costume is incredible yeah good form good form he really nails also the when Peter like humiliates him back near the end and robs him of his wig and suddenly he's like you know on the floor and he looks like an old man right

[01:59:47] and he's like oh I am please Peter my dignity like he's you know you feel for him or whatever you know like he's this odd tragic like shadow to Peter like he only exists in opposition to Peter there's the bit I'm biased but our friend David Lowry's Peter Pan and Wendy which I like a good deal has the bit that I love which is spoiler for a movie that went on Disney Plus

[02:00:17] four years ago there is a midsection where Captain Hook believes he has successfully killed Peter Pan and Jim Gaffigan is me and Hook's kind of like so what do I do now and he's like let's check the to-do list and the to-do list has one thing on it which is just kill Peter Pan and I just while watching this movie I think same gag over and over again it just makes it like textual in this but it's just like the guy's got nothing else going on other than his hatred for this kid other things I need to say the food

[02:00:47] sequence yeah the you know you have to access your inner child to see the pretend food that we eat sequence what's up with the Dayglo pastries it's that that feels very Nickelodeon it's just like green pink but it's also just like bowls of frosting I guess that's sort of the idea kids like to eat turkey legs and then a big old bowl of frosting like Thumbbutt's like clearly preparing a sandwich he's doing his object work he's layering

[02:01:17] it in and then all anyone has is just globs of color but does his object work when he turns into an object that's his ultimate object yeah you think he did that in his mad tv audition here's my impression of a ball um Peters uh kind of largely don't hit except for nearsighted gynecologist which is one of the craziest things ever said in a movie that has reigned you in the UK it kind of I'm also just like what is the insult that you're calling him

[02:01:47] a perv it is funny I guess it's sort of like someone who's sort of like well wait a second I need to get closer I don't know yeah um I think Robin Williams came up with that yes it is an example for me though of a scene the movie where I'm like he's maybe going full Robin too early well that is supposed to be when it's starting to bleed over it's starting yeah yeah is there other you know I'm just trying to make you know what is there other things Lynn in your notes are there any things

[02:02:18] Wendy's house yeah yeah and all this sort of flashback stuff that's when he really Peter Pan that's when he remembers yes that's such an important moment I know uh the emotion of you are my happy thing you know what I mean like it's one of those things where I'm like I find it treacly as a kid I think I was sort of like can we get back to the Lost Boys please now like I said you know I can't help but resonate with me a little we're cats now it's different

[02:02:49] but uh but it is part of my problem with Hook where I'm like who is this for right you know like I'm not sure right but with the caveat that yes I enjoyed it as a child you know so like I sort of defy my own logic there but as an adult I'm like this isn't for kids enough like it needs to be for kids more maybe but I don't know and maybe I'm just you know being a bit of a mud you know but can I call out a thing I do like in this movie please I like

[02:03:19] Hook's closet or I guess secondary ship full of clocks his room of clocks right his house of clocks that his way to blow off steam is to just beat the shit out of clocks yes he hates clocks clocks of course because the crocodile has a clock in him yeah that's fun the clock smashing sequence is very fun the baseball sequence is great the final sequence is interesting because it's

[02:03:49] goofy at times and it's like an episode of Nickelodeon's guts at times and they have a chicken laying eggs into an egg shooter the chicken is the clip in the gun chicken is the clip yeah it does rule and yet at the same time you're like Rufio died he will never draw breath again and it doesn't really make any sense you just kind of have to like wash your hands they brought a chicken to a gunfight like forget it Jake it's never never land like I don't

[02:04:18] really know what you're supposed to say like to all of this except that it's like this is actually just a psychodrama that Peter is resolving within himself right you know what I mean like this is all fake Peter just needed to learn to fucking be a kid and a grown up at the same time like he had to liberate his kid self and like return to never never land a whole return to England England land a whole person with his children right England England you know what I mean yeah like don't think about never never land too hard it's like a real place that children

[02:04:48] are stuck in right because then you will go insane that's correct but then again you do have toodles in like the real world being like yeah I used to live there thank you for giving me my novels I left them there who plays toodles Arthur Mallet he's in Mary Poppins oh he's the he's the right hand man to the next door neighbor to Mr. Dawes Jr yes my favorite bit it is crazy that in Mary Poppins they put up with

[02:05:17] a guy shooting a cannon every hour or is it just at sunset is it just once a day that he shoots the cannon you know where they all have to be like he's about to shoot the cannon and hold all the paintings I'm trying to remember I think it's once a day maybe it's just once a day I think it's at noon still nonetheless noon and midnight noon and midnight yes you know what else is crazy that movie introduces them before it introduces the darlings yeah of course yeah because that's a slow entry right let's learn about the road they live on first

[02:05:47] it was a thing that like really stuck with me as a child like that's a movie that is like so deeply imprinted in me and went to see it recently screen I've watched it a lot and I was just like every single part of this is like tattooed on my brain and I've spent so much time like trying to unpack I love Mr. Banks so much he's such a funny it's one of the greatest performances so funny yes but like just that little detail of just like and just before we even get to our main characters we want you to know they live next to a cannon guy right it's like

[02:06:16] and this is never gonna like pay off in a bigger way but it's gonna continue to be here just texture yeah just texture yeah just anything else we need to say about Hook I'm just asking I'm just I'm just I'm just sort of no Rufio putting up feelings Rufio important to the point where I'm on a rap song about Rufio with Dante Basco you know we said we said we would talk about this you and I so yeah tell me more about this what is the song so my friend with Budkar who's on this he's most probably most well known

[02:06:45] for the series Ghosts but was part of Freestyle Love yeah but I've known him since Freestyle and he's in Pitch Perfect he's in We've done a million things together and he's one of my best friends and he kind of just like does singles every once in a while and he was like I'm doing a song he was like do you want to be on any rap song I write and I go I don't really do that I'm not like a rap like I write hip hop music but not really for myself and he goes but it's Rufio with and Dante Basco is gonna be on it I was like okay I'll do it yeah like it was pretty much the way you guys

[02:07:15] pitched me Hook I was like okay I'm gonna do that yeah and we lied to and said that Dante Basco was gonna be here Dante's on it okay I'm in I'm in and so we just wrote this song about how much Rufio rules and not going up and Dante has this kind of spoken word section at the end about what Rufio meant to kids of just like you know he was like what we had when it comes to representation just like this absolute fucking badass I think it's so crucial who dies young and for our sins and

[02:07:46] but rules he just rules JD in texting with us do we like the cock-a-doodle-doo I really like that moment sure okay fine look this movie's not my cup of tea but JD JD was making the case in text this morning that like part of the interesting tragedy of Rufio is the idea that he has had to be the one to maintain this in Peter's absence he's had to be quasi grown up himself right that there was a sense of resentment right in the fact that he was left to manage

[02:08:15] this and then everyone's just the whole time waiting for like and when is Peter yeah he's like the kid who's been told he has to be the man of the house who has to be the only grown up in fucking never never land yes yes and that is why when Peter returns he's like I don't believe it you're not Peter because he left like and it would just be easy whatever oh Lester actor would do a worse job with it and Rufio you just really feel like this is an abandoned kid who really has a ship on his shoulder about it plays the emotion beautifully it's a wonderful performance my hat is off to the great

[02:08:45] Dante Basco we did our very long episode on ET sure a film and my favorite Steven Spielberg movie but I think part of the power of that ending for me is the idea that it's like you are seeing on Henry Thomas's face the notion the feeling that everything he has just experienced has like created a point of no return for him he has been forced to mature in a way that he probably can't even put into words or process but the intensity of the varied emotions and stakes

[02:09:15] he has felt over the last week or two that you have witnessed have like pushed him over a line in a way that I think is Spielberg expressing this feeling he felt of his parents divorcing disillusion that relationship him starting to become more of a parent figure to his younger siblings all these things as much as Spielberg got stuck in this permanent adolescence he also was someone who was pushed into a kind of maturity started his career very young was like a young whippersnapper trying to convince old fuddy-duddies that they should trust him with money that this interesting like one foot

[02:09:45] in both worlds thing right is like the core of Spielberg and I think there is a feeling of insincerity in this movie that ties back to that JJ quote that I think is probably what he bumps against in rewatching it and that it felt like I guess this is everyone telling me this is what I should be doing right now and versus Jurassic Park also being a theme park rollercoaster movie where he's like I just want to make something that's fun that knocks audiences on their ass

[02:10:15] I don't need to get serious and nuanced here and the difference between those two movies is structure like yeah Jurassic Park has an incredible structure so clean and this has like a mushy how did we get here don't think about it too much this movie has so much to explain Jurassic Park is like you've been invited to look at Jurassic Park the juice and the stuff Spielberg cares about is all still there he just does the structure doesn't support it because Jurassic Park is obviously about like a guy who has to learn to be a parent this is what I'm building up to here he's gotta be with these kids

[02:10:44] so I think Alan Grant is so unlike Spielberg as a character and yet he is finding a way to express something more clearly through Alan Grant which is like hey look I'm just serious about my career I just want to do my work I don't have time for children right and with Alan Grant you could argue this is partially subtext but Spielberg talking when he was younger about like look my parents did a number on me my childhood was weird and sad I don't want to start

[02:11:14] that cycle again somewhere else right yeah but the self seriousness of Sam Neill playing Alan Grant with full intensity doing a real little boy's dream thing of I dig up dinosaur skulls all day it's true and being like please let me do my serious grown up business I have no time for children and needing to just and the shots in that of like them seeing the dinosaurs that's like the childlike wonder like and it's us too holy shit they did it they made dinosaurs real I'm looking at dinosaurs right and he needs to understand how

[02:11:44] to like relate to children as people which is the thing that Spielberg talked about through like making ET and working with child actors starting to be like oh maybe I could be a parent I'm like understanding it now not thinking of them as like an alien species versus like Peter Pan on its face and Peter Banning even more so feels like more of a one-to-one to Spielberg and he was talking about this era he had made Amblin he had become a mogul he had 80 plates spinning at all times anytime he makes a movie it's a big production he's doing the math

[02:12:13] on how long am I going to be away from my kids do I feel guilty for owning a cell phone a great crime drag me to the Hague right but I just think and maybe is what makes this film interesting but as someone with zero like childhood connection nostalgia to it in fact was predisposed to dislike it I'm just like I don't know where he's landing here and I don't want resolution or like a cleanness but it just like

[02:12:43] confused to me Hook Ben anything you want to say obviously the Lost Boys are very Ben coded in general we've touched on most of that they have skeleton armor that hangs from spiderwebs oh that's what I wanted to say when they get bad already that's pretty they put on their stick armor that is hung by spiderweb and they just go into it yeah they were waiting for this day that's how you get dressed every morning yeah spiderweb hanging that image has really stuck with me that visual

[02:13:13] another element that really stuck out to me was giant slingshot oh sure yeah yeah that's fun yeah I love that yeah they have fun a lot of practical stuff we're in a double dare era when this movie is being named like cool stuff like this is existing it was the whole thing with guts and that shit I all love which I watched of course with the agro crag you know where it was like kids don't know how to use bungee cords and they're like well they're gonna use bungee cords on guts and some of them are gonna be good at it and others are

[02:13:42] going to spin in the air completely lost well my level of frustration there's a cast member in Hamilton Gregory Haney he was also in a show I wrote called Bring It On the Musical he won global guts as a kid he's got the agro crag statue got a piece of that radical rock as a kid I would have been like the agro crag to me was like the fucking great pyramid of geezer or whatever I'm like that is one of the most important places on earth it is it is indeed and it is the

[02:14:12] most impressive thing anyone has ever told me about themselves full stop that the agro crag and the travelator from gladiators I was just like these are like right these have existed since time immemorial I assume our friends at podcast the ride had Mo from global guts on their show whoa and I reacted when I saw that episode title dropped the way you just she was the referee right let's go to Mo with the leaderboard and she was talking they filmed that show at Universal Orlando and during the day the rest of the week she just did various jobs around the Universal

[02:14:42] Orlando theme park and they were like what do you mean she was like yeah that show paid nothing and we would do like it was 15 episodes every two years and I'm just like as a child I was like well that's the most important person on the planet one of the top five she's like the head of the UN what do they pay her five million dollars a segment she had to pick up work on the side well I was gonna say watching those shows as a child you've shattered my reality I know when you when you would watch like Legends of the Hidden Temple

[02:15:12] or Nick Arcade and you'd be like these kids are driving me crazy if I could get in there right now I could do that so well right and then you get older and you're just like wait they were like on camera in a set that doesn't make sense backwards looking at the wrong side of the thing Nick Arcade they can't see the fucking shit behind them they're like punching a blue screen between that and like being able to correctly place every country in Africa in 60 seconds on Carmen Sandiego these are impossible childhood tasks that we watched many times I was so locked into anything with maps I never saw

[02:15:41] anyone beat the last thing of Carmen Sandiego it was kind of like how the Ultra Zord never actually appeared it was like one time the Ultra Zord appeared and like there was no YouTube back then it was just the playground it was like did you watch fucking Power Rangers they actually did the Ultra Zord remember they had to like call in a third Zord from a volcano to do the Ultra Zord does anyone know what I'm talking about yeah yeah yeah I'm just I'm responding blankly because I never did see the Ultra Zord it was just I never saw it either I was so mad about it now I watch it on YouTube does that make me happy no this film came out

[02:16:11] December 13th 1991 unsurprisingly it was a big Christmas release yeah a big family movie and it opened to 17 million dollars and made 120 domestic and 300 worldwide which was plenty of money the film was profitable unsurprisingly also a massive VHS hit it just wasn't the phenomenon I'm sure Sony hoped for you read the press excerpts from the time and they were doing the kind of hand wringing that we're used to today but I think was a little

[02:16:40] more unusual at the time of being like our back of napkin math says that the film won't reach break even until it hits 500 million dollars which was not true no but there was the opening weekend okay so it's a hit but is it a big enough hit this is another interesting thing just to quickly mention is like this film is getting off the ground bless you very shortly after Sony buys Columbia TriStar like Sony has just entered the movie flag in the ground that was part of the big maneuvering of like we're getting Hoffman and Spielberg

[02:17:09] and Williams to do this movie together is like we need a giant movie and you look at the 80s and the 90s and it's just all the studios fighting over trying to get one Spielberg movie like he didn't have exclusive deals anywhere and they were just like if we could just get one fucking Spielberg hit we'd be so good it was the fourth biggest hit of 91 like you know it was a big hit so the top film in 91 is Home Alone Terminator 2 Home Alone comes out in 90 Home Alone's 90 so is and then Home Alone 2

[02:17:39] is 92 don't ask me what Home Alone 2 is yes it is you're right I think Terminator 2 is my oldest son's first R movie hell yeah it's a good first R movie it's a perfect one I was like let's do this right if you're gonna see one let's make it let's start with the really good one is number two Beauty and the Beast number three is Beauty and the Beast number two you won't get it is Robin Hood Prince of Thieves which is one of those things where you're like we forget how much of a phenomenon it was not like we've forgotten it the song all summer

[02:18:08] everything he does he does it for you and where's Sons of the Lambs Sons of the Lambs is number five right below Hook yep wow and right above JFK and then you got Naked Gun 2.5 Adam's Family Cape Fear and Hot Shots what a ten what an era number one at the box office is Hook number two at the box office new this week is the opposite of Hook talk about an R rated movie an action comedy filled with swearing and guns and boobs only some only some boobs hold on one moment but it's just like

[02:18:37] it's a lurid ass 90s action movie is it like a Shane Black yeah you got you got that right is it a last Boy Scout that's right okay there we go Tony Scott's the last Boy Scout bullet through the football Bruce Willis Damon Wayans fun a really peppy movie feels like that movie really like had some you know went to the bathroom and came out feeling really energized you know what I mean that movie took a very effective nap during its lunch break Last Boy Scout

[02:19:07] it's also new this week interesting counter programming to Hook right it's like you know anyway number three at the box office it's a sci-fi sequel it's a sci-fi sequel solid hit in December 19th we've covered it on this podcast we've covered it on this podcast it's not a Trek it is a Trek it is a Trek is it The Final Frontier nope it's The Undiscovered Country Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country do you care about Star Trek one no not a Trek you've got a lot of interest I feel like Star Trek would be like a lot for you to take on that's my one big pop culture blind spot

[02:19:37] it's like Doctor Who and Star Trek I just I miss the boat Trek had always been mine I've been trying to correct it slowly over the last couple years yeah number four at the box office it's a big family comedy big smash hit the sequel's way better the sequel's way oh it's The Addams Family The Addams Family right which is one of the best movies ever made but of course Addams Family Values is the single best film ever made I like The Addams Family it's just I do feel like Addams Family Values just sort of has everything down yeah it's incredible

[02:20:05] but I think sometimes you undersell the first one a little bit and you know what I haven't seen it in a long time it's really good it's got great stuff yeah Values is the great role the greatest of all time I mean do you agree I mean like I really feel like he is one of those guys where it's like if I had a time machine I would like to go see every like Broadway role he ever played I would want to go see him and Meryl Streep at the Delacorte Central Park Taming the Shrew or whatever Taming the Shrew it is the shame with him that you're like there is a handful of fantastic film performances

[02:20:35] but if you dig in people are like yeah but like 90% of his important work happened on the stage and you'll never be able to see he's one of the most important Puerto Rican actors to ever live absolutely right like one of the earliest Puerto Rican success stories in America like on whatever on that scale on the sort of A-list going to listen to him just singing some crazy charming shit is Two Gentlemen of Verona have you ever listened it's the same composers as Hare the musical it's like a rock it's like a rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona and it's just

[02:21:04] Raul Julia being charming as hell over like banging beats him in one from the heart that is just like bottled liquid charm he's very very charming he is and he's great and he's in that movie which is out and he's making a lot of money number five of the box office it's an animated film is it Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast it's also good do you like Beauty and the Beast I need six eggs you must like Beauty and the Beast I love Beauty and the Beast

[02:21:34] yeah Beauty and the Beast is so good yeah yeah no it's no it's an absolute Stone Cold West I mean look we talked about it on this show but it's just like when you actually zoom into it's a recurring theme in your work and the figures that you're obsessed with but the level of work that Ashman put out in such a short period of time is crazy and the impact and the lasting like echoes of it it's just insane that's the one where he comes in late right where he's busy with Aladdin

[02:22:03] and they're like can you come fucking take a look at this Beauty and the Beast that's not working like right like he like yeah they brought Ashman and Minkin I believe onto that already in progress and then they wrote this crazy opening number where by the end of it you understand everyone and everything in the town she fucking it's just ridiculous she goes in there and is like let me tell you about Jack and the Beanstalk the guy owns the library and she's trying to tell him about Jack and the Bean he knows about it it's an uneducated town he's just in it for the money for that sweet

[02:22:33] sweet library money but he writes like those three movies in like 18 months basically right yeah and basically simultaneously I recently watched Oliver and Company for the first time with my daughter I like that film quite a lot it's fun it's fun that was the only Hispanic representation in the Disney canon for many years Cheech this is torture chain me to the wall that's it that's a good cheat I've seen that movie that one I saw in the theaters for sure and of course it's very different now you also have Cheech Marin as Ramon in the Cars universe

[02:23:02] it's true it's true they brought him back I'm very happy to hear that also in the top 10 you've got My Girl oh sure another family classic of our youth you've got Kate Feard not a family classic well it is it is it's not a family it's about a movie it's about a family it's a family film you've got For the Boys the Bette Midler James Caan musical dramedy Lynn is saluting absolutely you have a little movie about a little guy called Fievel going west he's going west yeah that was one of the earliest films I saw

[02:23:32] in theaters that I definitely saw in theaters yeah and you have the adorable John Hughes comedy Curly Sue with Jim Belushi which I don't think I've ever seen and Sis Eisenberg that's Jesse Eisenberg's sister is Curly Sue is that right is it really yeah really I thought it was I thought Curly Sue was someone else Sis Eisenberg was opposite Pepsi Girl and the girl from Pauly which I swear by is she not also Curly Sue she's not Curly Sue oh my god

[02:24:00] I've conflated them all into one delightful curly haired girl because I was sort of like this is she's too old she's too young right Allison Porter is Curly Sue I've never seen Curly Sue what's it about I've never have either I'm doing this in my mind purely from the poster she's a con artist she's like a she's like a cutesy orphan yeah Allison Porter original cast member of the Broadway revival of the chorus line of the Broadway revival of the chorus line okay I don't know from the Broadway revival okay

[02:24:30] I don't have to tell you that that's what's top ten at the box office I like the different snobbery we've seen on display here we have the anti-hook household and the like a revival who cares the original cast pulled it off okay Kelly Bishop Lynn this is what keeps this show fresh after ten years it makes me so happy the dynamics are constantly switching around it's what keeps me listening well that's very nice of you to say and it's been very nice of you to join us to discuss Hook thank you I'm sorry I couldn't bring more primary sources

[02:24:59] this time I just really brought my own feelings about Rufio you brought your truth and that's all we asked for on this show thank you I was talked out of bringing a hook to the recording which I'm kind of bummed about I think we could have spent a little time just discussing hooks in general Ben I don't want to embarrass you but I just clocked something did you hide the chains because Lynn was coming no they're they're at the gallery okay yeah what chains I

[02:25:29] Ben usually has a display of chains my friend created a sculpture for the office which is it's a chain display it's various different sizes of chains sort of hung from some pipes Ben loves chains and pipes it's just an aesthetic that I've always really appreciated in cinema sticks and stones may break your bones but whips and chains excite you yes precisely wow well that's amazing what a wordsmith

[02:25:58] I wish I could take the credit that's pink but no I would have had I would have had a spotlight on it yeah okay I just want to make sure I just want to make sure I want you to be hiding your truth no yeah not at all I'm also as we're saying goodbye so I will keep it very short remembering my other connection to hook as he mentioned whether we should have brought hooks to this recording I played Captain Hook in the sixth grade play whoa I was Captain Hook and it was like it's the old timey Broadway version which has

[02:26:28] a weird hodgepodge of like Roger Hammerstein contributed some material but then they brought in ringers to write other songs it's like it's like actually a weirdly collaborative score and that was a big deal like I got to wear a wig and I had a fake hook that I then had as a prop for many years in my house did you paint on a goatee and go wait a second this looks good yeah I painted on a goatee and said I think this is gonna be my look going forward I'll wait till this grows in I'm almost surprised you didn't play

[02:26:57] Pan yeah well Evan Newman was just a much better singer than me well I mean you're not gonna beat him I'm not gonna beat Evan Newman yeah it was a lot easier to get the financing with him as Pan it's true he was a great Peter Pan he's a wonderful actor I feel like classically Peter Pan played by an adult woman right that's true yes the Allison Williams approach in Peter Pan live yes sort of notorious moment in pop culture in Peter Pan history yes Lynn I feel ridiculous asking this but anything you want to plug is there anything

[02:27:27] relative to when this is coming out that feels the only crossover I have nothing to plug I'm here because I adore you guys you're two kinds but I I did have a chance to talk with Frank Marshall because I did write a musical adaptation of a movie early in his filmography The Warriors absolutely oh yes yes so I wrote I will say the Warriors the vibe of the Warriors does feel like a you are maturing up from Rufio and the Lost Boys to the Warriors I want to make it clear

[02:27:56] the Warriors exist before Warriors also very stylized gangs but I imagine you watch this first and then discover the Warriors or were they about I wish again I will refer you to my unsupervised childhood I saw Warriors when I was four years old wild like older brothers VHS like friends older brothers VHS cassette and like that I imprinted on that as like oh that's what makes where I live is like at night and like Lynn needed to write a whole musical with my friend Issa Davis to like work it out I saw uh

[02:28:26] sitting in the that's the whiz again recently which is one of my absolute favorite movies and one of the movies I've watched the most in my life I was an Adapurl backup in the whiz in sixth grade too that's wild but I had a I had a similar thing where for the first time I think I unlocked why I'm so hyper fixated on that movie and it was I think this movie spoke to the way I felt as a child living in a city I love that feels inherently hostile yeah I think that's right yeah if I'd seen the whiz sooner I'd have imprinted on that but I saw the Warriors first and so

[02:28:56] so yeah so anyway that's an album you can get it now a lot of amazing people are on it Miss Lauren Hill Ghostface Nas it's just we got a crazy because it's an album and not a thing people have to do eight times a week we just got the all-star cast of our dreams to play different parts on it I mean it's awesome I've listened to it many times hopefully if you go to Broadway you can book Eric Newman Evan would be great Evan would go on to play I directed West Side Story my senior year

[02:29:26] in high school and he was my riff hey yeah no no Evan's the real deal he's great excited for everything coming up whatever it is be it that and other things excited for our next episode Griffin which is Jurassic Park what's that about dinosaurs with the great Sean Fennessey the great Sean Fennessey it is quite good that episode that was recorded 18 years ago it was recorded a long ass weirdly that episode is

[02:29:56] when we first met we meet on mic in that episode should we do a podcast I'm actually excited to listen to it because I have no memory of that conversation I'm glad you frozen Amber and you will that's right exactly that episode will be brought out of it is really frozen by Mr. DNA or whatever his name is yeah thank you for joining us again thank you so much for being here that's it come on take us out bang bang thank you all for listening please remember to rate and review tune in next week for Jurassic Park and as always Lynn

[02:30:25] I'm sorry to do this but one final piece of housekeeping I must ask this this is this is not I just need this is purely a question this isn't a request it's a question I need to close a loop that started on another podcast the great doughboys podcast I don't know if you're familiar our favorite podcast they review chain restaurants Nick Weiger and Mike Mitchell I recently when I was in Los Angeles went and did an episode on Chuck E. Cheese with them okay there is a song that plays in the rotation at Chuck E. Cheese now

[02:30:53] that is 100% Chuck E. Cheese doing Lin Manuel Miranda no shit I haven't been to a Chuck E. Cheese it's called The Perfect Day and the Doughboys associate producer Amelia Marino said I think they got the real Lin for this it sounds so much like him I am so sorry to burst this bottle I promised I would get an answer I have never heard of this song in my life so I just want to conclusively for the record I try to avoid taking my children to Chuck E. Cheese whenever possible I can't play it on my I lose them in the pits but we just need to settle this issue

[02:31:23] you have never written an original song for the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant I have never had the pleasure of working with Charles Entertainment yet never say never Blank Check Blank Check Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims our executive producer is me Ben Hosley our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producer

[02:31:53] is AJ McKeon this show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy research by JJ 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 Blank Check

[02:32:22] special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes follow us on social at blankcheckpod subscribe to our weekly newsletter checkbook on Substack this podcast is created and produced by blankcheck productions