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Finally, we get to NEXT
We’ve alluded to our love of this movie for a long time… We do a lot of episodes for them. This one is for us.
Nicolas Cage stars as Shy, Socially Awkward Nicolas Cage. Usually that would work, for some reason it doesn’t here. Director Lee Tamahori, who has proven himself as an incredibly talented director, also seems to be having an off day. Jessica Biel and Julianne Moore are there to raise the bar, but can’t save this movie from itself.
It’s a real mystery why this movie doesn’t work and yet is one of the most enjoyable films in history. Greg and Joe can’t stop watching and talking about it…. So where is the magic that makes this amazing? They find that one of their favorite editors, Christian Wagner, brought much of the magic. Cinematographer David Tattersall does some arresting work. Production designer William Sandell brings his A-Game. Writer Gary Goldman wrestled with tough source material, and brought some contemporary ideas to the script. Great people, above and below the line, make this a sneakily great movie, one that we will rewatch forever.
Nicolas Cage’s perfect boyfriend face:
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week. Nicolas Cage has a stage name where he took two of his. He took two of his favorite things and put them together. In his case, it was Frankenstein and Cadillacs. So his stage name was Frank Cadillac. My question for you this week is if you were to take two things that you like to create your stage name, what would it be?
Joe: One would be the movie next. Because I love this movie.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: And probably doing this podcast where we talk about next. So it would be the most like on point next podcast or something like that or podcast colon. Next. That’s what it would be.
Greg: So I like it I like it. Okay. And what are you doing on stage?
Joe: I am a performance artist. Okay. Reenacting this movie line for line.
Greg: I love it.
Joe: What about you? What are your two things?
Greg: I think my name would be coffee.
Joe: Pantaloons attracts.
Greg: And I would exclusively play the kid near the Grand Canyon at super annoyed at Nicolas Cage’s magic and is not afraid to hide it. Yeah. Awesome. All right, let’s get the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: Tell me what just happened. What did you see?
Clip: If I do what you want, I’ll keep me in this chair for. Chris Jackson has the ability to see things before they happen.
Clip: I believe that the urgency of the situation compels the use of any and all resources to obtain. Chris Johnson.
Clip: Millions of lives are at risk, and you can prevent a major catastrophe. I don’t want you to die.
Clip: It happened. It just hasn’t happened yet. Oh, you may think you know what the future holds.
Clip: Who the hell are you people? But nothing can prepare you for tough times. You already have.
Clip: But what happens next?
Greg: The year is 2007. And one of the greatest movies ever to be made in history is put together mostly by Nicolas Cage’s production company. But Lee tamari, the director of Die Another Day and Triple X state of the Union, signs on to be the director of a movie called next. We have alluded to this movie so many times on this podcast we are finally getting to it.
Greg: We are talking about Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel. Who could forget Tory Kittles as Kavanaugh? And I’ll also say, Thomas Kretschmann as Mr. Smith. Not a name that I was aware of that he had in this movie. Cho sky Tucker. It has finally all come down to this. What makes next a great bad movie?
Joe: Sometimes we do movies because of other movies we’ve seen, or there’s stuff coming out, you know, or we have January or have Die Hard around Christmas.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then there are movies that we do that are just because we love them, you and I. Yeah. And probably that’s the end of the list.
Greg: We do a lot for them. This one’s for us.
Joe: This one is for us. This movie. I love it so.
Greg: Much, I shouldn’t.
Joe: Every time I watch it, I come away. I have a list of about 15. Just kind of rhetorical questions of things that happen throughout the movie. It’s like, that’s totally normal.
Greg: It makes you think about life.
Joe: This movie is so perfectly Nicolas Cage 2007.
Greg: Being.
Joe: So weird. So off putting. Yeah, but I when Jessica Biel, who is kind of on the rise and her stardom, why she did this movie, I have no idea why Julianne Moore did this movie. I have no idea.
Greg: Seriously?
Joe: Yeah, but it is a bonkers movie. That makes no sense. Leans too heavily on CGI. The plot is just a disaster, and I would watch it every second of every day. If I had the opportunity to. If you said you want to watch next, I’d be like, yes. What are you doing for the next hour and 35 minutes?
Joe: Because we’re watching next, Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel have less than no chemistry. There are so many bad CGI moments, and it is one of the most glorious experiences I’ve ever had watching a movie. I just love this movie. I don’t have a good explanation as to why I have such a soft spot for this movie. Other than as soon as it opens, I’m just riveted.
Greg: Just sparking joy all over the place. It is?
Joe: Yes, it is just a glorious, ridiculous, farcical, bonkers movie and everyone should watch it. Like if you haven’t watched it, I feel like you need to stop this podcast. Watch it and then come back to this moment because you will not be disappointed. It is so good.
Greg: Now, are you worried that something’s going to be spoiled, or are you just very excited for them to see that the movie?
Joe: I’m excited for them to see this movie.
Greg: Yeah, you can hear this entire podcast and still enjoy this movie the way we think you should. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Exactly.
Joe: It’s more that your life will be better.
Greg: After you watch this movie. Cut to the chase and get to next immediately. Do you remember how we discovered this movie?
Joe: I don’t remember, it was a it was a few years ago when we were like, kind of doing our practice runs of the podcast, and I hadn’t seen it.
Greg: Right.
Joe: But we are both massive Nicolas Cage fans.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah.
Joe: And I think it was we just decided we wanted to do Nicolas Cage movie and we watched it and we’re just so happy.
Greg: I don’t know how else to describe it. Like jingle bells went off all over our bodies. Yeah.
Joe: It’s like they’re making movies just for Greg and me. As what I.
Greg: Thought for set at our present.
Joe: And not in, like, the fast five. Like one of the greatest great bad movies ever.
Greg:
Joe: This movie is not in that category. No. Great bad movie. This is like the greatest bad movie is a spoiler alert for when we rank this movie to me. You’re never going to get a movie that is more, more celebrated by me than this one.
Greg: I think.
Joe: For no good reason other than it’s perfect. It’s a perfect movie. Start to finish.
Greg: Yeah. I cannot stop screaming from the rooftops that our podcast is about great movies and, you know, every movie has some things that you kind of have to, like, shrug off our leaps of logic that you kind of need to, you know, just accept that there are very few perfect movies. So, I mean, we could probably squeeze any movie into a great bad movie, except, of course, for them ones that we’ve deemed great, great movies.
Greg: Yeah, like Edge of Tomorrow, obviously. Obviously unstoppable because it train Without Breaks is a train without breaks. Yeah. Last episode we had a great, great movie. I said that these are the top three movies, apparently to us that we’ve watched tracks. This movie is just such a joy to watch because it tells you so early on. You really don’t need to worry about anything making sense or being good.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: The characters are forgettable.
Greg: The plot is kind of confused. The end is like borderline offensive and how it makes you regret most of the time you spent. Yeah. Watching it.
Joe: But regret and air quotes.
Greg: The right air quotes obviously. Yeah. But we’re leaning on the bad this week I think. Yeah. But we adore this movie. This really is kind of like a rare exception where it’s like we have some questions for Nicolas Cage, I think is probably the primary person we need to ask some questions to.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I don’t blame Jessica Biel. No, although she was kind of early on. I’d love to give her another chance at this one. Julianne Moore is making some money. Yeah. And Lee Thomas has had a bizarre couple of years really before this with Die Another Day. And like state of the Union, he had some early enormous wins and then it kind of dipped a little bit.
Greg: He was arrested while filming this movie. And then I think he went back to New Zealand. And his the quality of his movies kind of went uphill again. And, I’m so sad to say that he died last week. We lost Lee Thomas last week, so we’re in a bit of his fallow period. I think he was not entirely available while they were making this movie, but he didn’t do any press for this movie.
Greg: I could not find one word that Lee Thomas has said in public about this movie.
Greg: And maybe my googling skills are just rough, but, I think he was a little bit preoccupied. Around the time one of my very favorite things in movies is it stems from Rocky four and that is Rocky has an emotional conversation with Adrian because he wants to fight Dolph Lundgren and she doesn’t want him to. This scene as in every Rocky movie.
Greg: And then he goes for emotional drive in like his Lamborghini or something. And they flashback to two minutes ago when he was talking to Adrian. He’s like thinking about his whole life. But they, they flashback to the previous scene in the movie, which is one of my very favorite things that happens in movies when they decide to do this.
Greg: Like, oh my gosh, remember 90s ago now this whole movie is structured on going back two minutes, you know, over and over and over and over again. And so when I realized that was happening in this movie, I am just entirely in entirely in this movie starts so well for you and me. And as it’s going down, I refuse to let go.
Joe: No, I won’t either. Oh, we’re hitting the ground on this one. You know, basically Nicolas Cage, his character Frank Cadillac or Chris, whatever his real name is, can see two minutes into the future.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: And two, mostly great effect that is played up. And there’s, like, a fun scene where he escapes the casino because they think he’s counting cards, and then someone is going to rob the casino, and he can see it happen and he stops it. But then they think it was him. And so, you know, confusion and hijinx and capers, you know, galore happen.
Greg: Car chase. Yeah.
Joe: A car chase on gloriously, inexplicably wet streets in Vegas. In Vegas.
Greg: You.
Joe: And so like you want as soon as that like that is played up. And he’s the world’s worst magician in Vegas. Yep. But then when he goes to whatever casino, he was playing blackjack in there, like, oh, yeah, Frank Cadillac, he’s a magician over at the so-and-so. Like. That everyone would just know some two bit magician. That’s the premise.
Joe: There’s also a nuclear bomb. We’re not quite.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: Who the bad guys are, why they want to blow up.
Greg: Things.
Joe: In LA.
Greg:
Joe: And Julianne Moore is with the FBI.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And she thinks that he has this magical power.
Greg: Right.
Joe: One of my favorite moments in this movie is there’s the FBI are all together talking about the bomb that they know is here, and they’re trying to stop it.
Greg:
Joe: And she wants to go recruit Frank Cadillac Nicolas Cage to help them.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And instead of being fired on the spot which is probably.
Greg: What should happen.
Joe: Her boss says take five days right to run down this lead.
Greg: We know a nuclear bomb is loose in LA. She’s like, well, I’ve got this guy who can see the future. He goes, you’ve got five days off.
Joe: That was the second moment was like this movie hitting every every high point that it could for me.
Greg: Just not even trying to hide it. Yeah. Incredible. In one of my very favorite moments in movie history, I think. Yeah, I.
Joe: Would agree.
Greg: With you. You’ve got the five days.
Joe: He’s also trying to find Jennifer Biel or Jessica Biel.
Greg: Jessica Biel? Yeah.
Joe: She’s like the girl of his dreams. Or they’re fated to be together or something like that. I’m not quite sure what the how they explain it, other than he just has visions of her. And it’s in this diner.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And every morning he goes in at the exact same time and has a martini at a diner, as you do.
Greg: Oh, wait. Yeah. Was that the morning? But he has a martini. Yeah. Okay. We’ve all been there.
Joe: At a diner as you do.
Greg: Yeah. So he has this vision and it’s further in the future than he’s ever seen before. He’s only ever seen two minutes in the future his whole life. But for some reason with her, he can see further into the future. She seems to be like breaking that rule for him. And so every day at that time, he goes to the diner, has a martini, and if she doesn’t walk in, he leaves.
Greg: And he just does this every day until she shows up. We don’t know why she can break his two minute thing. It’s never really explained.
Joe: Nope. Not even attempted to explain why.
Greg: They are meant to be together. Right. This last week when I watch this, probably the fourth or fifth time I watched this movie, I noticed some things I didn’t remember that didn’t really add up to anything. And I thought, I wonder if there’s like a subtext or like a a third rail to this movie where if you watch it, you can actually they’re like Easter eggs that would reward repeated viewing.
Greg: Yeah. Because as you’re watching this movie, you are thinking there’s no such thing as a reward for watching this more than half of the time. Yeah.
Joe: I mean, that’s how it gets you.
Greg: Is it just that we haven’t done the work? Yeah, I think there might be some sort of deep reading of this movie that, Yeah. Yeah, I should have watched it five times this week. It’s what I’m learning.
Joe: I think it’s also generous to think that there are Easter eggs with any sort of intent.
Greg: Put into this movie at all. Well, should we get into it?
Joe: Yes, absolutely.
Greg: Okay, so he makes a bunch of money gambling. The cops chase him out of the casino. He’s able to see ahead so he can, like, tie his shoe in there looking a certain way, and they can’t see him. This movie follows the rule that if the camera can’t see him, neither can the police. Like, he just like ducks under the camera.
Greg: Still in plain sight. But nobody can see him, obviously. Yeah, but that was kind of a well made scene where he’s walking out of the casino and. Yeah, and then he drives home. The cops are chasing him. He gets hit by a train, and then it loops back to two minutes before when he’s able to outrun the train, gets back to his shop.
Greg: Peter Falk is there, Columbo himself in, like, one of his very last roles. And, Nicolas Cage walks up to him and says, I got you. I got you two sandwiches.
Clip: I got you two sandwiches. Oh, shame on you. Oh, that’s fine, you read my ticket. I love it.
Greg: Oh, geez. How can I repay you? How many sandwiches is Nicolas Cage bringing to Peter Falk? What’s the whole story there? We never find out, as far as I know.
Joe: Yeah. Nope.
Greg: So that’s number one. What’s the deal with the sandwiches? Yeah. What are he and Peter Falk up to?
Joe: Right.
Greg: And then there’s another one where Jessica Biel is about to leave the hotel room they’re in, and he says, what time is it? And she says, it’s 910. He says, change your watch to 917. Right. Why? Why 917?
Joe: I have no idea. And again the relationship between him and Peter Falk is never explained. Nope. That his father.
Greg: We never see him again.
Joe: I remember the first time I watched that scene with him, Peter Falk. Because the FBI show up.
Greg:
Joe: And then he has a conversation with the FBI.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then he goes back and escapes right before they get there because then he knows what they want. Right. And like if you had the proper editor they would have edited that scene to two minutes. Sure. It’s like two minutes and 47 seconds if I remember.
Greg: As it’s.
Joe: Really hoping at that moment that that was the caliber of direction we were dealing with.
Greg: And it isn’t. Yeah.
Joe: No, this is Lee Tom Hardy kind of phoning this one in, give him other stuff going on in his life. Well, let it slide because I think the last of those things are paid attention to in this movie. The better this movie becomes for me.
Greg: Yeah, totally. I’ve spent my week trying to diagnose what happened here. Why does it not seem to fire on all cylinders? First, I thought it might be the editor, but I think the editor did as much as he could with the performances. Some of the performances are a little rough. Some of the writing is a little strange, but I’m basically going to blame it on, first and foremost, Nicolas Cage as the guy with the production company that kind of put this together.
Greg: He’s doing what he wants to do.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Also, I think I just think Lee Tomory maybe just didn’t have it in him this time. You know, he made some great movies.
Joe: Yeah. He’s a good director. Or was may he rest in peace?
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: This is not him. Yeah. Hitting the mark, which is to the benefit of this movie in my mind. But also, if you’re trying to watch a movie that is tightly written with plot points that are described in the first act, that then come back in the third act, you can just put that on hold. That is not this movie.
Joe: And it’s it’s fine. Honestly.
Greg: God bless it. Yeah. It just kind of gets.
Joe: Weirder and weirder and weirder.
Greg: All.
Joe: The way through.
Greg: The challenge that they had here was it was a short story by Phillip Caidic, and it was about a feral, non-human mute mutant who had special powers to see two hours ahead. And so that’s what this short story is about. And it’s a very, anti authoritarianism short story. And the authorities in the book capture this mutant. And, they try to use the mutant for their, you know, what they need.
Greg: When this was written as a script on spec by the guy who wrote Total Recall. Also based on Phillip Caidic. He changed the government stuff into, Homeland Security.
Joe: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Greg: So it’s homeland security potentially, like doing extralegal things to Nicolas Cage in the script for the sake of trying to keep us safe. Right. So it’s like the Patriot Act or whatever it was, you know, kind of like, how can we go over the line to keep us safe? That was the conversation back then. And then eventually it was kind of toned down to the FBI, where Julianne Moore works.
Greg: Also, the feral mutant in the book is unable to fall in love and, like, procreate with anybody. And then he meets a female mutant that is also, like, unable to procreate for some reason, but she can with him. And so there’s like some special connection between them. The book is basically like the mutants are better than the humans, but the humans are doing everything they can to keep the mutants down.
Greg: Right. So how do you turn that into a Nicolas Cage movie?
Joe: Well, you create next, and you probably fail at all of those sorts of themes that are being this, that you describe, because there is no explanation as to why Jessica Biel’s character would at all fall for Nicolas Cage.
Greg: Well, yes, I completely agree. And I think it’s time for us to hear a scene from this movie. Yes, there are so many things in this movie really like this just would never happen. They meet. He is able to go through all the different scenarios of what he should say to her, so that she will be endeared to him.
Greg: And so he they kind of do this comedic thing where he keeps like failing, failing, failing, and then he eventually figures out how to win her over. He needs to get to Flagstaff. I don’t know that he actually needed to go to Flagstaff, but he knew she was going there, I guess.
Joe: I think so, she.
Greg: Said, well, I’m headed that way. Why don’t you hop in my car? They stop and go to a hotel room, and then he’s like, I don’t know, he’s doing. He’s like reading the paper or something. And she takes a shower, and then she walks out of the bathroom in a bath and like a towel. And he like is like dumbfounded.
Greg: And she’s like what. It’s like of course you just walked out of the bathroom and a towel. And this is what he says to her to completely winter over. What.
Clip:
Clip:
Clip: There’s an Italian painter named Carlotta, and, he defined beauty. He said it was a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing needed to be added, taken away or altered. That’s you.
Greg: There’s a magic trick.
Greg: Wow.
Greg: And she just says, wow, I’m totally one or over right there.
Joe: Right there.
Greg: Nothing feels right when they’re in a scene together.
Joe: No, nothing at all. There’s a one of my favorite scenes. So, of course, on the way to Flagstaff, after he has tried everything to get her, they have to stop at the, at some Indian reservation for the birthday of Jake. And my favorite scene is like, she’s with the kids. Perfectly lit. Yeah. And one of the girls asks if he’s her boyfriend, and she’s like, no, why would you say that?
Joe: And and it’s like, because he looks at you like so and so looks at, you know, one of the other kids. Yeah. And then they have this reaction shot of Nicholas Cage with, like, his leg up on, like a tree or on a stump with the creepiest, weirdest smile on his face as if that was like the alluring look.
Joe: And it would be like if anyone looked at me that way or at a friend of mine who would be like, you need to run away. Yeah, that’s.
Greg: Nicolas Cage is looking at her. And I think we should just say the weirdest way you could look at somebody. Yeah. He’s, like, poking out his top teeth. I could not take my eyes off his hair in this movie. There’s something happening with the hair. Yeah. It’s almost like he’s trying to look like a beaver. Is that what animal he is right now?
Greg: I think listeners go to the web page for this episode of Great Bad movies.com. We will put this picture and you might fall in love with Nicolas Cage. Yeah.
Joe: It’s hard not to wear this.
Greg: Picture when he just stares right at you with those teeth through you. Through you. Yeah. It’s unbelievable. That’s maybe one of her best scenes, actually, is when she’s talking to the kids. Yeah, she’s kind of reacting off what they’re doing. It’s the one scene I think that does Jessica Biel right. You know, otherwise it feels so off when she’s talking to him.
Greg: And when Julianne Moore is like, when she, like, pulls her aside and tries to get her to work with the FBI. It’s almost like Jessica Biel is questioning what on earth she’s doing. Yeah. In this movie, there’s a lot of moments where she has to, like, stop and think about something, and all you can hear is just someone saying, acting.
Greg: She’s acting right now. Yeah. Look at me act. Yeah. I don’t think this is entirely her fault.
Joe: No, I don’t necessarily blame anyone for getting a paycheck. Julianne Moore, keep getting them. Check out one of our greatest living actors out there.
Greg: Right.
Joe: Some of the lines that she is asked to pull off with a straight face.
Greg: Are just.
Joe: So crazy, and she does it like she just it’s a credit to her in lesser hands.
Greg: And her character just like.
Joe: Falls into, like a farcical. I don’t even know how to describe what she’s asked to carry throughout this movie. There’s a great scene in the helicopter where she’s on her cell phone with the door open, talking on it. I always that’s that’s to me the classic.
Greg: Can we listen to it? I feel like it’s important for the listener to hear what it’s like when you speak to your colleagues inside the helicopter that’s flying over the Grand Canyon, right?
Joe: No headphones on.
Greg: No headphones on. And the door is wide open. Okay. The door to this helicopter is entirely wide open. And here’s what it sounds like. You.
Greg: Right here. This is a good stand up position. An open view of the front of them until we can run. Multiple going and aerial surveillance from this road here that turn out to get a team with a parabolic set right here.
Clip: That’s fine. But I also want mobile surveillance and give me 2 or 3 roamers be rabbits on us. I want to be flexible there. There’s.
Clip: All the local police in Flagstaff. Tell them to hold the outside perimeter. I want that area locked down. Body turned up at an apartment with a line of sight to my office.
Greg: Somebody is trying to follow us to Johnson. Chris Johnson, that’s his name. Now, did Julianne Moore sound like she wanted to be in this movie?
Joe: She sound like she is counting the words that she has to say before she gets to go back to her trailer.
Greg: I really felt for her at what moment in this movie did everyone involved go, oh, oh, if. It’s not happening the way we wanted it to. My guess is when you’re making a movie, it feels like it’s going to fall apart at any moment and you really just don’t know. And Lee Tomahawk had made some really, really good movies at this point, you know, so maybe there’s like, I don’t know, maybe it’s maybe we’re good.
Greg: Like he started, I think in 1994, he made a movie called Once We’re Warriors. You heard that movie? Yeah. I really need to see that movie. Apparently it’s an incredible story and action movie. Made a movie called Mulholland Falls after that. And then I heard about him because he made a movie called The Edge with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, and that movie was amazing.
Greg: I think they filmed it up in Banff, but it was supposed to be Alaska, and there’s a bear. That’s the whole thing. And it was a great movie. I guess Nicolas Cage was a huge fan of it. Then he filmed the Sopranos episode and then he makes a lung. Came a spider, one of those like sort of post seven movies with.
Greg: Right. Morgan Freeman I think Monica Potter. Is that her name.
Joe: I think so it was like 3 or 4 that were just like the same exact movie.
Greg: Totally. With, Ashley Judd or Angelina Jolie. And then he did the 25th anniversary of James Bond, the 20th bond movie Die Another Day. The fourth Pierce Brosnan movie. How did you feel about that movie, Joe?
Joe: I’m trying to remember which one this is.
Greg: It’s the one where he’s driving in in his invisible car through the ice palace.
Greg: Who’s.
Joe: Who else is in this one?
Greg: Haileybury.
Joe: Halley. Okay, this is the Halley Berry one. That one’s a little rough. Yeah, really? After GoldenEye. And there might be one other Pierce Brosnan that’s sure. You know, I did like the one with Jonathan Pryce of the bad guy and kind of, you know, media being. Yeah, no manufacturer in the news. And then they kind of fall off a cliff.
Joe: And we need Daniel Craig to rescue everybody.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So yeah, some hits and misses for for lead time on this one.
Greg: So tomorrow never dies. GoldenEye. Tomorrow never dies. You’re on board with I hear record screeches during Tomorrow Never Dies with like, oh, I think we’re in trouble here. And then the world is not enough. Is so rough. And then die another day. I remember just being kind of soul crushing. Yeah. And honestly, what was so crushing about it is sort of present in this movie.
Greg: Two kind of weightless special effects, being leaned on way too much. We could have made this more tense with a foot chase down hallways, like the way Paul Walker was introduced in Fast and Furious. Yeah. Same editor for Fast and Furious 4 or 5, six, seven and eight as this movie.
Joe: Okay, so I can’t blame the editor. No.
Greg: He’s amazing. So good. Saving us. Okay, so I want to go a little bit deep on what the people who made this movie have, have made. Okay. Because there’s greatness all around. Lead time of horror here. Let’s talk about the editor, Christian Wagner. I’m just going to give you kind of like the movies that caught my eye and his filmography.
Greg: Okay. Bad boys. All right, well edited. First Michael Mann movie. Yeah. Face off.
Joe: One of our favorites.
Greg: And I definitely got some face off editing vibes in this movie. Lee Tomahawk. He is definitely doing some John. Well, the negotiator, remember the negotiator? Yeah. Mission impossible two.
Joe: John Woo again.
Greg: He’s worked with a guy named Tony Scott on Spy Game, Man on Fire, True Romance, the Fan in Domino.
Joe: All right.
Greg: Yeah we’re going to be getting back to Christian Wagner for sure. Yeah. And then die another day. Fast and furious four through eight. All right. And then he did the Total Recall in 2012 with Len Wiseman, which is a better movie than this one. That movie is it should be incredible. I don’t know why that movie didn’t do as well as it should have.
Joe: I feel like it’s because it’s being compared to the original. Yeah.
Greg: Which yeah.
Joe: It’s probably a not as great as people remember, but there’s a nostalgia factor, like if they name that movie anything else. Yeah, I think it’s a better movie and better received.
Greg: Totally. It’s I mean Len Wiseman up against Paul Verhoeven, that’s a rough. Yeah. And Paul Verhoeven was able to like sneakily get some pretty good themes into his movies while also making it a big, dumb action movie. Yeah. Anyways, Christian Wagner killed it on this movie. I would do anything to be able to like talk to this guy about what it’s like to edit with John Will, Michael Bay, Tony Scott, Lee Tomahawk and Len Wiseman and you know, he’s all over Justin Lin.
Greg: At that point.
Joe: I’d be very curious to know what he was working with on the rough cuts of this movie, too. Yeah. Like how did he piece it together? Because, you know, editors and editing can make, make or break movies. Yep, yep. And a lot of ways. And so it struck me that they just didn’t have a lot to go on because it’s like so many different kinds of movie stuff together.
Greg: There’s yeah, yeah, there’s.
Joe: Noir pieces of like a lot of those shots were they’re like an embrace and having a conversation, which is very much a reference to old Hollywood, you know, detective movies.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: There are two, at least two references to Stanley Kubrick in this movie.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: There’s actually a scene from Doctor Strangelove. And then there’s the scene where he’s kind of being tortured, and they have, like, the devices on his eyes, which is Clockwork Orange.
Greg: Which I think was in the short story as well.
Joe: But nothing is carried through. It’s just like, oh, that scene when they’re in the hotel room, all of a sudden it’s a noir film and they’re Humphrey Bogart. And I’m blanking on his wife.
Greg: Ellen DeGeneres.
Joe: Yes. That one. DeGeneres and Humphrey Bogart. And the man from uncle.
Greg: So that’s right. Right. Recast by Guy Ritchie. Yeah.
Joe: So effectively.
Greg: We should write a sketch called Two Guys Talk About Movies, but don’t Google anything. Yeah.
Greg: Which is,
Joe: Could be another name for this show on.
Greg: That. Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree. And so I think that here’s what I think happened. I think lead time injury was like, no, this scene is are blank. And so we really need to sell this emotion. And I bet Christian Wagner was like, I don’t think we’ve earned that emotion yet. And Nicolas Cage just creeped her out and her response was wow.
Greg: So I think, Christian Wagner is turning all the knobs that he needs to to put these types of scenes together. And I think in the end it doesn’t quite now stitch together the way I’m assuming the type of horror he wanted it to. But here’s what I think that he was thinking as he edited this.
Greg: Yet another beautiful scene, like the lighting in the cinematography in this movie is pretty striking. Yeah, maybe it’s a little bit over colorized. I’m not sure.
Joe: Oh, I mean, now that I know he’s worked with Tony Scott and on The Fast and the furious, it’s definitely got shades of Man on Fire.
Greg: It’s a beautiful movie. And so I want to talk about the cinematographer for a second, because I think he did a great job.
Joe: All right.
Greg: Beautiful David Tattersall made Conair okay. He made the Green Mile.
Joe: I can totally see his fingerprints on this movie and those as well. From the lighting vertical limit.
Greg: We’ll get the vertical limit. Are you kidding me? I’m sure he did die another day. He did. Tomb Raider two triple like state of the Union. I kind of think we should do an episode on trip. Like state of the Union. That is such a good movie.
Joe: It’s another one that I feel like if it wasn’t a triple X movie. Yeah. Would have been better received, right? I couldn’t even get through the third triple acts and the first one was just missed the mark. But yeah, I agree, state of the Union is a much better film and both of those.
Greg: But Ice Cube in a James Bond movie is basically what it was. And I thought it was so welcome. I loved it, yeah, it had a huge budget. You know, they just kind of don’t make movies like that. They don’t make movies like this really any more. Back to the cinematographer, David Paterson, Speed Racer, which is a pretty beautiful movie, and it mixes a lot of crazy special effects.
Greg: That’s the Markowski is making that. And so as far as the cinematographer speaking into even the digital aspects of the movie, he probably had more of a hand in that, but also maybe a better director, better directors when it came to digital effects, he did The Day the Earth Stood Still, also a very, very digital effect movie. He worked with our guy Martin Campbell on The Foreigner and the Protege.
Greg: Okay, so there’s some great bad movies right there. And then he did Star Wars episodes one two, and three.
Joe: Well, we’ll have to pause as I ponder my childhood and what they’ve done to it with the Star Wars movies. But that’s okay. That’s all right. That’s I’m working through it in therapy. It’ll be it’ll be fine.
Greg: What an interesting credit to have in your life. I did the prequels, how the prequels looked and were shot. That’s my name on those.
Joe: Yeah. I’m trying to remember that the prequels were really the first movies that I remember where they were just almost shot exclusively on green screen, and the rest of it was digital effects that they put in post-production, to varying degrees of effectiveness. I think when you do that, my feeling is you kind of have a good story and good interesting characters or.
Joe: Yeah, it just it falls flat for me. Yeah. And that’s really what the prequels did.
Greg: So there’s a lot of like production design going on in this movie. That’s not digital effects. There’s definitely digital effects, but the sets look pretty good, the cinematography look pretty good. So we’ve never done this before. But I want to talk about the production designer of this movie.
Joe: Okay, sweet.
Greg: Because I did think the sets, like there are so many aspects of this movie. I was like, this is really incredible. Like, this is the A-Team right here. William Sandell did the production design on this movie. I thought he did a great job. And so let’s talk about some of his movies. The remake of Poseidon. Okay. Paycheck.
Greg: John. Well, okay. Yeah. The movie I thought I had not seen. And then while I was watching it, I realized it was the third time I had seen it. That’s how forgettable that movie was. Yeah, but I’m just, you know, I’m just. Between viewing three and four, we’ll get the paycheck. Are you kidding me? Oh, yeah. Obviously it’s classic Affleck.
Greg: He did master and commander.
Joe: Okay, I’ve not seen that. I’ve heard. That’s good.
Greg: I think was Ridley Scott.
Joe: Yeah, I think so.
Greg: He did a perfect storm okay. Deep blue sea Renny Harlin classic Renny Harlin.
Joe: I mean that’s a movie that we need to do soon just because it’s you know and our super smart animal. Yeah. Category.
Greg: If I’m reading this right there were super smart sharks in that movie.
Joe: I think so, yeah. Yeah.
Greg: That’s right. And you might have to watch it again to find out. Yeah. He did Air Force One, the same director as, perfect storm. Newsies. So he’s got singing and dancing and period pieces then.
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: And then he’s working with Verhoeven, doing production design for RoboCop, Total Recall and Glimmer Man. Wow.
Joe: All right.
Greg: But interesting. These people all have movies like next in their wheelhouse, you know? Yeah, like they called All the Right People for this movie. Yeah. I have to add that the most delightful thing I saw on IMDb while I was researching this production designer William Sandell also worked on airplane two. Awesome, which brought back so many childhood memories.
Greg: Yeah. So anyways, amazing people working on this movie.
Joe: How much worse would it have been if they didn’t have a lot of people holding things together? Yeah, because I do have. Yeah, but the bona fide people that have done this kind of work before.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It is an interesting idea, the premise of someone who can see into the future. How do you stop, you know, an atomic bomb and you can only see two minutes into the future. But with Jessica Biel, he can see further. And so the exploration of their relationship and connection and in relation to, you know, trying to stop an atomic bomb is fertile ground to explore, none of which we get to explore, really, other than the question why she would never drive him anywhere beyond.
Joe: Yeah, where his car had broken down on the side of the road to a gas station or something like that. But also the more I watch it and the less chemistry there is between them, the more I can’t look away.
Greg: I think about this is like.
Joe: Wow, they really are not even connected at all. And that I’m watching every second of it’s so enjoyable.
Greg: Let’s hear some of their chemistry while they’re walking around the Grand Canyon.
Clip: So you’re a magician?
Clip: Well, I have a small magic backpack in Vegas. The friend Cadillac.
Clip: I thought your name was Chris.
Clip: It is Frank. Cadillac is my stage name.
Clip: Should you come up with that? Oh.
Clip: I picked two things I really liked, and I put them together. Frankenstein Cadillacs.
Clip: You are odd, charming, but odd trimmings.
Greg: Oh, and then we cut to Julianne Moore at the shooting range. Yeah, which I don’t think I knew was a favorite piece of great bad movies in my mind. Yeah. You got to get to the moment where she doesn’t even look, and she can shoot all the way down at the end of the range. Perfect. And do perfect shots.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s kind of a paint by numbers for great bad movies. And anyway.
Joe: Absolutely. We should add that to the tropes for sure.
Greg: So if someone hasn’t seen this movie, let’s just say that there are a couple of major plot points that all kind of converge in this movie. There’s Nicolas Cage can see two minutes in the future, he can see Jessica Biel further in the future, and he is very drawn to her. And for some reason they create a relationship.
Greg: Yeah. Then there is the FBI, who has been they’ve been looking at Nicolas Cage for a long time, and Julianne Moore is convinced that he can help with lots of stuff, but especially the fact that they now know that there is a nuclear bomb in LA. So that leads us to the last major pillar of this movie, which is there’s this set of bad guys who are overly focused on Nicolas Cage.
Greg: We don’t understand why they allude to their boss says that he’s the only one that can stop them. We never find out who that boss is, right? Save it for the sequel. I guess, and they are the ones trying to set off the nuclear bomb.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: And there is no reason for any of these worlds to be colliding at all. No. And it seems like a stretch every time they start to collide.
Joe: Yeah, okay. And I would say up until the point where he meets Jessica Biel. Yeah, everything feels pretty tight.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: For this movie.
Greg: Yeah. Pretty good.
Joe: You know, there’s the fun scene in the when he escapes in the, casino, the car chase. Peter Falk is there. There’s a kind of a fun conversation between Julianne Moore and Nicolas Cage. Yeah. So kind of setting the scene we get the bad guy is kind of coming in. We don’t. They don’t explain a lot about them.
Joe: So there’s a lot of questions that are like set up on that. And I guess you would call the first act of this movie.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And then the rest of the movie proceeds to pretend that the first act of this movie almost didn’t happen.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: That’s kind of what happened.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And I and I started just writing down, just, like, almost rhetorical questions. The first one, can we just have a moratorium on the Elvis song a little bit? Whatever that song is, that’s like a the Vegas song. I’ve seen too many moments in Las Vegas where that Elvis song comes on like.
Greg: It’s the Ocean’s 11 song. Yeah, everything else is dumb.
Joe: Yeah, I’m not a big Elvis fan to begin with, but also that song has been done to death. Then he has a martini at a diner.
Greg:
Joe: I thought, I have never once had. Oh, I’m at a diner in the morning. I want a martini. So I was like, why is he having a martini again. Not a big deal. Why did Julianne Moore do this movie.
Greg: Sure. Okay okay.
Joe: Why would Jessica Biel give him a ride? That was just always the question. Right from right from the beginning. Right? When they kind of start and, like, they’re trying to build a romance or a connection between them, that’s really where this movie’s at its best and worst simultaneously.
Greg: Greatest and baddest.
Joe: Yeah, there are a couple just bit characters. So there’s the waitress in the diner, and then there’s on their drive, there’s a rainstorm, and they can’t go any further, and they have to go back to the motel. And when the FBI interview them, they remember such specific facts about the exact time. Oh, yeah, he came in. He comes in every day at 908 or whatever it is.
Greg: Right? Right.
Joe: And then the guy remembers that he directed them back and exactly what he said. So those are awesome moments. Nobody remembers that much detail. They throw that in there. There’s a bad guy eating an apple where he has just taken an apple and stuck it onto his knife and then is eating it, not cutting it with the knife.
Greg: He’s just eating it. It’s so specific. It’s like a henchman specificity. Yeah, the bad guy that eats apple is weird.
Joe: Yeah, it’s like he created this backstory in his head.
Greg: Around all of this.
Joe: And he was like, what do you think? If I just try it in an apple like this? Because it’s he’s. I don’t even know if he has a line in that. No, I don’t.
Greg: See that in.
Joe: The in the background. Yeah. And that scene, I just watched him the entire time. It’s the most ridiculous thing.
Greg: Can I interrupt you and play that scene where we’re meeting those bad guys?
Joe: Yes, absolutely.
Greg: There’s very, like, James Bond ish. You know, we’re at a bad guy layer and they’re getting bomb parts and they’re putting them together kind of stuff going on. And then they’re in just kind of the office. And this is the bad guys talking.
Clip: The head of casino security. What did you learn from him? It’s for a mature guy. He screams like a girl. But he was questioned by federal agents looking for Chris Johnson. Yes.
Clip: He said they haven’t found him yet.
Greg: Do you believe this man? You could see things.
Clip: Before they happen. It makes no difference what I believe. Look, we spent two years setting this up and that man up there is worried all this will be compromised by Johnson. We’re wasting our time looking for some magician.
Clip: We’re being paid to secure the operation. Jones. Need to hunt down some carnival barker.
Clip: Really? Then why are the same authorities that are looking for us so interested in him?
Clip: Get rid of him. Let’s do it now.
Greg: It’s so confounding. It’s so written.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Amazing.
Joe: And then, like the generic European accents on all the bad guys.
Greg: Oh, yeah. There’s, like German. There’s,
Joe: French maybe, or something.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Their motivations are never explained on what they’re trying to do other than just detonate the bomb.
Greg: Right.
Joe: One of my other favorite scenes with them is when they all are converging on the hotel. And then the bad guys are camping.
Greg: By the.
Joe: FBI. If we remember, Julianne Moore has, like, there are somewhere between, you know, 10 to 20 different agents all around, right? And they’re camping, literally camping with, like, a campfire and, and a sniper rifle.
Greg: And I’m cooking. Right? It’s just not.
Joe: Not trying to be subtle at all. My favorite question that I came up with was, there’s a scene where and just to everyone, I was Jessica Biel is okay, her character doesn’t die, but Nicolas Cage sees her on the news as she’s been kidnaped, and she’s in a strapped to a wheelchair with a bomb on her, and she explodes.
Joe: The best performance in the whole movie is is the newscaster who is watching this.
Greg: Like, agreed. And kind of has a little bit like, needs him in it. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. I was like, where did this person come from? Why didn’t we give her a bigger part?
Greg: Maybe she would have had better chemistry with Nicole skate 500%, 100%.
Joe: And then there’s a moment where they are trying to trick Nicolas Cage. And so they basically wait more than two minutes to then, like, make their move when the FBI is trying to capture him. Right. And it raises the question, is there a time when it starts and stops, or does he just always know two minutes ahead, it’s never answered, but it seemed like faulty logic to me.
Joe: But in a movie with lots of faulty logic, I let it go because it’s like, I don’t I don’t get it.
Greg: I think he has to look forward, okay? And it has to be in his life.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: The thing that the screenwriter who wrote this really hung his hat on was what if the way you reminisce about the past, you could also reminisce about the future. It should be the exact same feeling right. Like that was the only thing from the short story that really stayed. Even though there’s a lot of like, debris from the short story that sort of ends up in there.
Greg: I’m sure, like a lot of people had a lot of different favorite things from the book.
Joe: Yeah, I’m to try.
Greg: To then try to get them all in there.
Joe: Yeah, there’s a few lines, but when Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel first kiss, there’s a lot of referencing the future and he’s like, that was amazing. And she goes, what? And then he kisses her and he goes, this or something like that.
Greg: And so that’s so ridiculous. It was amazing. It just hasn’t happened yet. Yeah, yeah. He does that so many times in this movie.
Joe: Yeah. It is so good. It feels like a movie where there’s after that first act, it’s even hard to call it an act when things kind of kind of, oh, this is what the kind of movie it is. And then it just kind of goes sideways. Yeah. She said something to him of like, the first time I get weirdo vibes from you.
Joe: Yeah, you’re out of the car or whatever the word she uses. And then he proceeds to be just the weirdest person in the entire world the entire time. Yeah, like he would have lasted, like 30s. It’s just like, all right, get out of my car.
Greg: So that was the initial idea of the character. They change it from a mute mutant with future seeing powers to a meek social outcast. That’s kind of what they transition that into. And then Nicolas Cage says, I think he should be amused. A magician, obviously. And then he just kind of goes full on not I mean, he is not the character he is in every movie.
Greg: Yeah. He is being a meek, social outcast in this movie and is very off putting. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.
Joe: No. And this isn’t full Nicolas Cage like there are other movies where he’s like bonkers. Nicolas Cage, this isn’t that, this is restrained. I guess.
Greg: Meek Nicolas Cage, he’s trying something. Yeah.
Joe: But that lands.
Greg: It’s not working. Yeah, as far as I can tell. Which is weird, because he is. It’s such a roller coaster with his career. But yeah, he is incredible.
Joe: And the way I liken him is like, he really hasn’t changed. He just like, hits the zeitgeist at different moments.
Greg:
Joe: And it’s it is a roller coaster. It’s just like oh now we like Nicolas Cage. Oh now we’re out on Nicolas Cage. Oh now we’re back in a Nicolas Cage. You know because and through the 90s and like probably late 80s, early 90 I mean he was on fire. I mean he really he had a pretty strong run really when I think I think is like breakout was Raising Arizona.
Joe: Yeah, probably my favorite movie of his. But then we have the Rock, we have Con Air leaving Las Vegas.
Greg: He had won the Oscar at this point for leaving Las Vegas.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage is the next.
Joe: Yeah, face off is maybe.
Greg: Peak like.
Joe: For me. He’s like the full Nicolas Cage experience in that movie and it works to me perfectly.
Greg: This is like right after ghost, the first Ghost Rider, where he went completely bonkers. But this is also two years before knowing. Did you ever see the movie knowing?
Joe: I haven’t, but isn’t it almost the exact same movie as next?
Greg: Well, it’s a movie where he knows what’s going to happen and he needs to save the world, I don’t know, does that count? I mean, they a couple years ago I had to rewatch next and knowing to in my mind be able to decipher which one was which because I could not for the life of me remember. But knowing is probably the better.
Greg: Next.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: We’ll get to knowing. Are you kidding.
Joe: Me? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Greg: From director Alex Proyas of iRobot fame.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: I mean, he’s made a lot of other movies, but I’ll just say of iRobot fame for great bad movies purposes. But Julianne Moore, this is the year after Children of Men. Wow. Probably filmed the same year. Jessica Biel this is two years before the A-Team. All right. So she’s she’s working for the A-Team.
Joe: As she should. Because that movie is near perfect.
Greg: Yes, but they’re perfect, right. Also takes place at the end of like at a container ship area. So this is like a precursor to the A-Team. Most great bad movies end in a container ship area. Amazing. Yeah. And if they don’t missed opportunity.
Joe: Yeah, 100% like a.
Greg: Cop without a mustache. Did you have any more kind of initial questions?
Joe: Those are my main ones. Okay. Around it. I had other ones that were more just at different plot points. But I do feel like we should talk through the ending of this movie because, yes.
Joe: It’s I can’t I just I can’t even believe how they end this movie.
Greg: Yeah, well, let’s hear Julianne Moore do a sit rep with her team and Nicolas Cage right before they go into the ending in this movie. Okay.
Clip: All right, listen up. Van carrying Elizabeth Cooper will exit the warehouse across from pier 18 compound in approximately five minutes.
Clip: Four minutes and 27 seconds. Do you mind.
Greg: Any more now? And can I point out that her accent entirely changed between those two lines? I want to start this over. This happens many times in the movie.
Clip: All right, listen up. Van carrying Elizabeth Cooper will exit the warehouse across from pier 18 compound, approximately five minutes.
Clip: Four minutes and 27 seconds. Do you mind? Not anymore. Gun got a wrapped in explosives wire to a cell phone. Remote trigger. Another cell phone sets it off using a one button speed dial. You’ll take this route to the entrance gate. At that point, Alpha Bravo will swarm the end. You can just be quiet and do exactly what I say.
Clip: I’ll save your life now.
Greg: How important is usually a one button speed dial?
Joe: It. Usually they’re going to make a big deal about that moment. Not in this.
Greg: Movie. No, no. Anyways, so they are looking at a map and trying to figure out how they’re going to go into like the container ship area and save Jessica Biel. And it’s like, suddenly like a whole military operation with the FBI.
Joe: That’s awesome.
Greg: Yeah, in a word, it’s awesome.
Joe: It’s so cool. And then this is where they really lean into Nicolas Cage’s ability to see two minutes into the future. Right. And he’s basically leading them around, and then he splits into many versions of himself. So you can kind of see him testing out different places that the bad guys could be, and where bombs are and where tripwires are and stuff like that.
Joe: Yeah, that’s actually pretty fun. That’s probably one of the like the casino scene. That’s a it’s one of the better action scenes in the movie.
Greg: Yeah. And that concept was in the book going a bunch of different directions at one time to be able to kind of suss out all the different, eventualities.
Joe: Yeah. So they go through a big fight scene. He, of course, saves lives. Liz is her name in the movie. Yeah, yeah, but Jessica Biel, then they atomic bomb goes off. So they didn’t find it there.
Greg: He realizes he had it wrong, and then a nuclear bomb explodes.
Joe: Yeah. Then he wakes up back in the hotel room and he goes to Julianne Moore saying, I’ll help you find the bomb.
Greg: So if you haven’t seen this movie listener, it goes back to just about the halfway point. It goes back like 45 minutes.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And so in that moment, we realized the last 45 minutes of movie we’ve just watched was all just a vision in Nicolas Cage’s head. Yeah. And not real. Yeah. And why did you make us watch it? Yes.
Joe: And they don’t show the end of the movie. Like that’s where it ends, right? You know, and with a voiceover of, you know, when you look into the future, you change the future or something like that.
Greg: Right.
Joe: Credits roll. That’s your movie, right?
Greg: Mind blown. Yeah. An animated microphone just drops from the top of the screen down to the bottom. And we are done. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. It’s, amazing.
Greg: So it is a slap in the face. I bet they were like, this is going to blow people’s mind. This is such a twist. You know, assuming that, like, we’ve already blown their mind a million times with this movie, which they have, which they have. Yeah. They feel like it’s like a Usual Suspects or Sixth Sense style ending where it’s like, you’re welcome everybody.
Greg: Yeah. Can you even believe it? But with those other movies, you want to watch it again to see if you can get the clues with this movie. You just regret the last 45 minutes. Yeah. For them. And it goes back to a certain moment where they show his eyeball, his pupil is dilated and the camera zooms from his his, you know, his eyeball out to showing him snuggling with Jessica Biel like it’s morning time and they’ve just spent the night in a hotel looking over, I guess the Grand Canyon.
Greg: And, it’s called the Cliffhanger Hotel, by the way. This is the moment in the middle of the movie that they put their flag in in the sand here. This is them waking up in the morning.
Greg: Grass? Yeah.
Greg: Maybe there is such a thing as destiny.
Greg: And that’s this eyeball.
Joe: Yeah. Cinematic. Like boom.
Greg: Cinematic boom. Obviously.
Greg: And then 45 minutes later, we go back to that moment. So they’re trying to do something there.
Joe: Yeah. Something somehow, some way he can see into the future. Really far into the future. Just not quite far enough I don’t know I don’t know what we’re supposed to take away from from this other than he has been convinced to help them, even though he was already helping them. Again. I think we’re thinking too hard about this.
Joe: It’s about when you look into the future, you change the future.
Greg: It changes because you’ve looked at it and that changes everything. Exactly. Yeah, it’s exhausting and it makes me want to live one more day as well.
Joe: Maybe you want to watch the last 45 minutes of next of like, I do. In fact.
Greg: You mean the worst 45 minutes I’m in. Yeah. The first time I saw this movie, I was watching it on my computer before I had to go to work, and I was working. I think in the evening I had to leave my house like mid afternoon. And, I saw like the first 20 minutes and I was like, oh my gosh, I have discovered the brand new favorite movie of mine.
Greg: This is my favorite movie of all time. I was so bummed I had to leave and go to work. And immediately when I got home from work, you know, press play again and watch the rest of it, I was like, oh, it kind of goes downhill from that moment on. I hope they fix this with knowing in a couple of years.
Greg: That’s what I said.
Greg: And they did. Yeah. Yeah. The only last random point I want to say is every true, great bad movie has a moment where they say it’s like he doesn’t even exist or this conversation never happened, or, you know, one of my favorite things movies need to do that to pretend they’re punching above their weight. And this movie is no different.
Greg: All right, Joe, you know, it occurs to me that, like, there’s a chance, I think much like Deja Vu, which is a movie that people did not know existed, there’s a chance people don’t know that next even exists before this episode comes out. So there’s a chance we need you to kind of walk us through, because the last hour and a half was not enough.
Greg: Yeah, there’s a chance we need you to kind of give us the, the synopsis of this movie. And so let’s pretend like we’re walking through Blockbuster Video in 2007, and we’re trying to figure out what the movie we should rent is. We’re picking up DVD Blu ray boxes off the shelves, and we’re reading the back of the box to see if we should rent this movie tonight.
Greg: That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: So I just want to preface this by saying this back of the box. The no spoilers back of the box.
Greg: No.
Joe: Okay, so I didn’t want to give away the twists.
Joe: That was important to me when I was writing this fairly.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Clip: It’s the back of the box.
Joe: As the clock ticks down on a nuclear bomb attack, the only man who can save us all is a magician in Las Vegas. Frank havoc. Nick Cage is no ordinary magician, though he has a few tricks up his sleeve tricks the FBI wants to use to find the bomb as his fate becomes linked to Liz Cooper. Jessica Biel worlds collide and bombs go off in a conclusion no one saw coming.
Greg: Oh, awesome.
Joe: So I thought about going into the two minutes, but I was know if you’re true. Back of the.
Greg: Box. Wow.
Joe: You want to save that?
Greg: Yeah. As.
Joe: Yes. As the mystery.
Greg: Okay, okay, so I can’t imagine that the real back of the box is any different.
Joe: Yeah, it’s the same thing. Copy and paste.
Greg: But just in the off chance that we need to get a little bit more honest than the marketing, the back of the box. What’s the real Joe Skywalker? Back of the box.
Joe: I cannot aptly describe how much I love this movie. It is a bonkers, farcical, maddeningly odd experience to watch this movie. There are so many questions I have about this movie that said, the amount of joy experienced each time I watch it is untold. The weirder it gets, the more unrealistic, the more you have to strain your suspension of disbelief, the better this movie gets.
Joe: I may be crazy, but for next, I don’t want to be saying.
Greg: Wow, amazing. All right, Joe, you know, we try to write love letters to movies on this show and it is not hard this week. Yeah, we love this movie so much.
Joe: So much.
Greg: Yeah, it.
Joe: Probably says a lot about us that we don’t want to unpack it at this moment.
Greg: But our movie fandom contains multitudes is what I’m saying. Yeah, there’s room for all of them. Well, Joe, should we get to the box office and the critical response to the movie next?
Joe: Absolutely. Let’s do it.
Greg: Let’s talk about the box office for just a second here. What do you think the budget of this movie was?
Joe: I’ll go 50 million.
Greg: It was, 78.1 million.
Joe: Jesus Christ, that’s expensive for that time and what they.
Greg: Did with it. But it’s Nicolas Cage. It’s lead time, a hurry. It’s just the A-Team, as far as I’m concerned, of people above and below the line. So it probably made sense, but probably made a lot of sense. Yeah. But then, Sony was supposed to release this movie in I think it was September of 2006, and they didn’t put it out, and then they just shelved it in early 2007, and Paramount bought it from them and released it in April of 2007.
Joe: Interesting.
Greg: So what did Sony know when they watched this movie?
Joe: They may have just watched this movie.
Greg: So this movie made domestically $18.2 million.
Joe: Okay, that even seems high.
Greg: Internationally, almost 60 million. So the worldwide total for this movie, again, $78 million budget, $77.6 million came in.
Joe: It lost money in the in the math that you need to do to make money.
Greg: But it yeah, you got to make about twice the budget to break even. Okay. Because half the money goes to the theaters and then there’s marketing costs on top of that. All right. So, Joe, what do you think on Rotten Tomatoes? What do you think the critics score for the movie next is?
Joe: If it’s above a 25, I will be shocked. I’m going to go 20. I can’t even, like, make the joke that this is a 70 and it feels like our movie. We are probably the only people that will write this as a seven out of ten.
Greg: Can I interrupt you? Yeah, it feels like a 70, honestly. Okay. All right. Yeah. For us, people worked really hard. There’s a lot of really good aspects. Yeah.
Joe: I, I’ve changed my mind. I’m back in at this.
Greg: Time or 20. This movie has a 28% 20.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Critics score. Yeah. But Rotten Tomatoes also has an audience score like a popcorn meter is what they call it. What do you think that is for this movie?
Joe: Kind of go around to 40.
Greg: Wow, you were going so low on this one. It’s 5353.
Joe: All right. This better than I, again, I just yeah, maybe the okay, 53% of the people out there really are are people.
Greg: So that’s still quite low for the run we’ve been on lately. Yes. That’s right. Yeah. All right. So let’s get into what some of the critics said for this movie. One of our very favorite movie critics works at the Seattle time. That’s right. I’m talking about Moira MacDonald. She rated this movie back then. She gave it a one and a half stars out of four rating, and said late in the movie, Chris shouts to the bad guy, I’ve seen every possible ending here.
Greg: None of them are good for you. It’s as if he’s talking to the audience and the last is right.
Joe: Well played, Moira. Well played.
Greg: Julianne Moore spends most of her screentime in lead. Tomahawk is confused sci fi thriller next looking royally pissed off like she got tricked into making a movie on a sucker bet. You can’t blame her. This film’s audience is likely to feel that same way by the time the credits roll.
Joe: All right, that’s fair. I’m trying to poke holes in this, I just can’t.
Greg: Another favorite of ours is Wesley Morris at the time, he writes for the New York Times. Now, he was writing for the Boston Globe back then. He gave it two and a half out of four stars and called it a watchable, absurd popcorn flick.
Joe: I would agree with that. I think that’s probably where we land on on this. The absurdity of this movie.
Greg: Also would have been a great name for this podcast. Watchable absurd popcorn flicks. Yes. And he also said that the film bears almost no resemblance to the original short story The Golden Man. He described Moore’s performance as enjoyably curt and said, alongside Cage’s spontaneity, Jessica Biel seems humorless and earnestly dull.
Joe: I agree with that. Fair. I don’t know if it’s her fault or the script, but yeah.
Greg: And then he says the film is fun until it turns crass and concluded, when you’re being toyed with that cheaply, you forget how much you admired Nicolas Cage’s shamelessness and start to resent the movies. He gets away with it, but the movie doesn’t.
Joe: Yes. Yeah, somehow he does that. That’s the trick of Nicolas Cage. I totally agree with that.
Greg: Yep, 100%. Entertainment weekly said a schlocky mix of bad special effects and worse cage hairdos.
Greg: Yeah, I think my favorite review came from Lou Lemon from the New York Post that says next, which makes National Treasure look like a model of narrative logic, is almost beyond criticism. One and a half out of four stars, almost beyond criticism. A lot of good names for the podcast. Out of these reviews this week, it’s seriously all right, Joe.
Greg: Well, is it time for us to get to some drinking games for the movie?
Joe: Next it is. I am dying to hear what you have. We’ll start with our stark drinking games. And again, it doesn’t have to be alcohol. Could be duels. It could be water, juice, a smoothie, a milkshake.
Greg: Anything that marked the moment with your friends. Yeah, signing a drinking game to somebody in the room and a different drinking game to somebody else in the room.
Joe: Absolutely. And then. And fun will ensue. So silent.
Greg: Helicopter, what’s not.
Joe: A silent helicopter? But we do have well, a silent ish. But we also have a conversation on a helicopter. And then there are lots of flying helicopters in this movie. So you’re drinking quite a bit in the last half of this.
Greg: Okay. This is almost a podcast ending problem of I have so many issues with what you just said. This is absolutely a text book. Helicopter out of nowhere.
Joe: All right, I’ll allow it.
Greg: I’m going to prove it to you with the audio. I feel like this is how we we judge this, okay? And I don’t know how many helicopters do we score a helicopter out of nowhere on. We need to come up with a helicopter scale. Right now.
Joe: I feel like it’s, I think at least two out of nowhere. I’m basing this on. What was the Geena Davis movie?
Greg: Casablanca.
Joe: Yeah. Casablanca.
Greg:
Joe: Welcome to our podcast. Today I don’t have Google and haven’t seen the movie talk about movies.
Greg: Long kiss goodnight
Joe: Long kiss goodnight.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: That’s like to me that’s the silent helicopter out of nowhere. They just like oh show up at once.
Greg: It won the Olympics that year for sure. Gold medal. Yeah. I think our ratings should be, how many rotor blades is it for? Rotor blades for the perfect one. One rotor blade for kind of phoning it in.
Joe: But right.
Greg: Now it. All right. So 1 to 4 rotor blades. That’s our scale.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Okay. So a sniper at the beginning of this clip shoots Nicolas Cage.
Joe: Right okay.
Greg: Right here okay. So he has just shot Nicolas Cage and he pulls out his old school cell phone.
Greg: He can hear the phone. I’m familiar. He’s upset doing it again.
Clip: Oh, my gosh.
Greg: There was a helicopter five feet behind him.
Joe: I stand corrected, I forgot about that moment.
Greg: He can hear the cell phone. Yeah, and then there’s a helicopter that shows up five feet behind him.
Joe: Yeah, you’re 100% right. And I’m going to go live my life in shame for the rest of my life for that.
Greg: With four rotor blades.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: On the award with one sad trophy for this movie.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I wish I had a different scene when Julianne Moore is talking on the phone. Yeah, in the helicopter, which is also. You’re drinking.
Greg: So one of the best moments of my life.
Joe: Yeah. Pushing and enhance. Absolutely. There’s a lot of that, especially in the beginning scene in the, in the casino where, as you said, if there’s not on camera, he doesn’t exist as they’re literally like.
Greg: Right.
Joe: Right next to him, which is I know that that was kind of the humor they were leaning into. Yeah. When two people share a slow motion look at the middle of chaos. Absolutely. He has this before he jumps off the cliff at the Cliff Hanger Hotel motel. And I’m trying remember who he’s looking at. I think at that Julianne Moore, Julianne Moore.
Greg: And she says, don’t do it. And it’s like, don’t do what? What’s he. Yeah. What’s even happening right now?
Joe: And then we just have a CGI schlock fest. So that drinking game is a lot to this movie everywhere. I mean, start to finish, you’re drinking if you have the CGI, bad CGI.
Greg: So listener, here’s what’s going on. There’s like a train, there’s a water tower, there’s like cars that go over. He jumps off the cliff, and then Jessica Biel drives a car into the water tower and the car and the water tower and like trains and logs, all start flying down this mountain as the cops and the bad guys.
Joe: Maybe think so. Yeah, are chasing him.
Greg: And so he’s running straight down. And there are CGI close calls in the way that only 2007. Yeah, like Die Hard four level close calls happening.
Joe: It is so annoying and awesome at the same time.
Greg: This was an era in Hollywood where they were like, just because we can. That absolutely means that we should.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So, how many CGI close calls happen? Five, eight.
Joe: Ten, ten? There’s probably where I would put it, because even if you go back to his original car chase when he crashes into the train and then misses the train, that’s a total CGI close call. Yeah, there are many, many in this, so enjoy it.
Greg: Absolutely. This is a textbook CGI close call movie. Okay. Yeah.
Joe: Opening credits. Scene title lots. In place of the sound, there’s a whoosh and a bell that happens when the title pops across the screen.
Greg: And an incredibly annoying typeface. We have to say, yeah, this font was everywhere for a while, and it was so annoying.
Joe: Is this your papyrus?
Greg: Seriously? Yeah.
Joe: I mean, do we even need to really talk about this one? Does it flash back to dialog two minutes ago? It is the premise of the movie.
Greg: So that drinking game should just be should just say, is this movie perfect?
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Great bad shots. Not as many as we usually have in these because there isn’t a lot of shooting, but there’s enough to put it in there. And then inexplicably wet streets. Absolutely. In the car.
Greg: In the deserts.
Joe: Apparently in the.
Greg: Desert.
Joe: At night. It’s too dry. Some, we do not have a give us the room, a cell phone smash or Interpol. And those are our stock drinking game. So I toss it to you. Greg, sweetheart, what is your first drinking game?
Greg: Every time Nicolas Cage says something in the past tense that is about to happen in the future. So awesome.
Joe: I have it as future conversations. That was incredible.
Greg: What? This? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: So I have a this is like it’s a little bit of a shot at lead time worry. But I just want to note that his use of slo mo is not Kathryn Bigelow or Tony Scott level use of slo mo, especially in the first part of this movie. And like when Jessica Biel walks into the diner the first time and yeah, I know what they’re trying to do.
Joe: It does not land the same way. So anytime you notice the slo mo not living up to the standards that have been set on this podcast, take a drink.
Greg: Okay. Wow. I don’t know why this happens throughout the movie, but Nicolas Cage shaves quite a few times in this movie that every time he shaves, take a drink. Every time I say.
Joe: Make a drink, it makes no sense. There’s no reason for it. And then there he is shaving. I have two around his name, so any time he’s called Frank, any time he is called Frank Cadillac. Okay, okay. Separate. You know, you can separate those out or take a drink on those.
Greg: So every time Julianne Moore visibly questions her career choices visibly like you see it, you’re like, oh, that was one right there.
Joe: You might need some water.
Greg: I’m excited for that one. There was an interview with Julianne Moore in income, and it was on the set of this movie and the interviewer. Interviewer said, what’s your take on this character? Do you see yourself stretching as an actor with this? And Julianne Moore said, no. And then, the next question was, what has been the most challenging aspect of this role so far?
Greg: She says the challenging aspect has been making the dialog sound reasonably normal.
Joe: That’s so.
Greg: Unfair. I’ll put this link on. It’s an incredible interview. He also says you’ve worked with Paul Thomas Anderson. What’s the difference between working with Paul Thomas and Lee Thomas hoary Christ? And she’s like, listen, you know, Lee is doing a great job. But she makes an interesting point. She said, when you’re working with a director that’s also written the material, it’s a very different kind of engagement with the story thing.
Greg: But she says kind of the plot moves everything forward in this movie, not the characters. Right? So it makes it a very easy job for her.
Joe: I say that was a very diplomatic answer.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. So I’ll put that link on our on our web page at very bad, maybe Stockholm as well.
Joe: Awesome. I have a couple that happened like once or twice. I have anytime someone smokes in the film. Anytime I say LoJack, which is I feel like a term from this era of movies that. Yeah, disappeared from. Right. And then anytime they talk about destiny.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I’m fate take a drink and they don’t happen a lot, but those are kind of all in there.
Greg: Okay, okay. I have every time Jessica Biel needs to consider something, they really let her celebrate the space. When she’s considering things in these scenes, they give her a lot of air time when she’s clearly thinking about something.
Joe: Yeah, I have a kind of every time she looks upset and you can, like, see her, as you said, acting.
Greg: You know.
Joe: Take a drink and that’s. Well, it’s rough sometimes.
Greg: There’s a kind of Die hard three slash cliffhanger bad guy kiss moment in this movie, completely unearned. We don’t understand anything about it other than we’re just putting tropes in the movie. Yeah, so when there is a pointless bad guy kiss with his girlfriend.
Greg: Take a drink.
Joe: Perfect. Any time they say two minutes. Take a drink.
Greg: Any time Julianne Moore has a new accent. She is in and out of Texas in this movie. Yeah.
Joe: And we. You just played the scene? Yeah, but if it’s in the same scene, that’s like you finish your drink, whatever. It’s in front of you.
Greg: Wow. Okay, okay.
Joe: Every time Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel touch and you are grossed out by it, take a drink.
Greg: So it’s a two step process. Something happens in the movie and you have a reaction to it.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Okay. Nicolas Cage’s character needs to, like, wipe his face or his forehead often throughout this movie. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it represented, but this is just a mannerism that he does. So anytime Nicolas Cage wipes his face or his forehead, take a drink.
Joe: Awesome. I have every time Nicolas Cage runs, stops, looks one way and then runs another. Take a drink.
Greg: I totally debated if I should put that on my list or not. It happens so many times, especially in the.
Joe: Last scene when there’s like the multiple Nicolas.
Greg: It’s right.
Joe: Almost every time he walks into a new space, he’s like.
Greg: There is an incredible action scene in this movie where our characters are on foot, yet they’re running in the middle of the streets. And they seem to be running faster than cop, like the FBI is running faster than cop cars behind them. So any time someone is clearly holding up a faster vehicle behind them by running down the middle of the street, take a drink.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Awesome. I have any time. There’s a Stanley Kubrick reference. Take a drink, which is twice that. I know this, but there might be more earlier in the film.
Greg: Sure, sure.
Joe: Yeah, I doubt it because there’s just kind of weird things thrown in for no reason at all.
Greg: So any time Nicolas Cage’s real wife makes an appearance in the movie, take a drink. And that happens at the opening magic show.
Joe: Oh, is that the woman whose necklace falls off?
Greg: Yes. Okay. Is that the same woman that’s sitting at the table that he says, my son, your wife is very beautiful. Okay. Yeah, that’s his wife. Yeah. Okay.
Joe: Okay. Any time that there are conversations while they’re embracing each other and they’re basically doing, like, their shot, reaction shot, take a drink. Yeah. Which could be an homage to a noir movie. Or just could have been a weird thing that they just decided to do for this. Who knows?
Greg: Well, the they knew the FBI was like listening in, right? Right. So they turn up the TV. I’m out. What else do you have?
Joe: My last one is anytime a character remembers a really specific detail and then tells the FBI about it, that helps them tie the loose ends together. So solid.
Greg: All right, Joe, this movie was pretty trope laden. Should we go through Joe’s trope lightning round aka signs? You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: The issue that I’m having with it is there really aren’t a lot of our biggest tropes in this. It’s very strange. I really only have an unlikely partnership slash odd couple, and the protagonist is captured but not killed. But it’s kind of captured by the FBI and they weren’t going to kill him. The rest of them don’t fit.
Joe: It’s wild. And I would totally agree. This movie is filled with tropes, but it’s maybe not an action movie, and so I’m not sure it’s weird, but those are the only two tropes that I have that are on our list that we normally go through. So it’s an odd movie.
Greg: Interesting. Okay, well, let’s add the moment when cops are at the firing range and they show that they can, with almost not even looking, shoot a perfect shot.
Joe: Right.
Greg: All right. Well, I’m I’m actually kind of relieved that this is happening because it means we can get to the elephant in the room. Joe.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: Let’s do as a time for us to answer the important questions about 2007.
Joe: Next it is. I’m ready.
Greg: For. All right. Joe, did the movie next hold up in 2007. I don’t think it this.
Greg: So Joe, next important question doesn’t hold up now.
Joe: I think it does.
Greg: I think you might.
Joe: We are on like next island. Like we are.
Greg: Our.
Joe: President of the fan club of this movie. So that’s a hard question. There probably doesn’t, but it holds up every time I watch it.
Greg: So I go the other way with it. I think it holds up less now than it did then.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: But I loved it then. And I love it now. Yeah, yeah. That’s fair. All right. How hard do they sell the good guy in this movie?
Joe: It’s not crazy, but they do. Especially in the beginning with like, the casino and the FBI and yeah. So a little bit. Yeah. About I would say average and average amount.
Greg: They do talk about his skill more than they would in a typical movie. Yeah. Usually the good guy doesn’t have like a unique skill like this that they’re trying to figure out. So I’d say if they’re talking about how, you know, his superpower. They sell it a lot. Yeah. Or but I guess buy sell I mean do they talk about how he’s incredible.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. You know I’m bringing it down a notch here. I know. How hard do they sell the bad guy.
Joe: Not almost at all. Like I don’t even know who the bad guys are, what their motivations are, how capable they are. Yeah.
Greg: No idea who this guy is.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right Joe, why is there romance in this movie? I think that that might be.
Joe: This should be the tagline.
Greg: Next. Next.
Joe: Is there romance in this movie? I know what they’re trying to do with the romance of, like, their connection. And their connection drives his ability to see further into the future and all of that. And yet there is so little chemistry between these two actors that there shouldn’t be romance in this movie. So I don’t know. Do you have a better answer than that for me?
Joe: Because I’m struggling with why there’s romance in this movie.
Greg: No, I just wrote bug in my butt fair. Is there a movie where Nicolas Cage has believable chemistry with somebody? I mean, he was in Moonstruck with Cher. He was in Peggy Sue, got married.
Joe: Leaving Las Vegas. He was pretty good in that. There was, you know, it’s kind of a love story arc.
Greg:
Joe: So maybe but.
Greg: No that, that might be the one with Elisabeth Shue. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I can’t wait to hear what you say about this Joe. Next important question. Are we bad people for loving this movie. Wow.
Joe: Well probably.
Greg: Wow. But I.
Joe: Love this movie so.
Greg: Much that I.
Joe: Don’t want to be wrong.
Greg: That’s that’s incredible. There is no chance that we are not that people for life. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: You’re right. You’re 100% right. Like the helicopter out of nowhere. You are 100% right on this one too.
Greg: Does this movie deserve a sequel?
Joe: 100%?
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: We need to know how this thing ends.
Greg: First. Yes. Yeah. So what is the sequel? Did you think that through?
Joe: I haven’t thought it through, but. Okay. I mean, they can go any, any number of places with this to me.
Greg: Okay. Here’s how we do it. It shows him doing the second half of this movie, right? For like the first half of the next movie. So he and Julianne Moore are able to stop the nuclear bomb, right? Everybody’s happy, everything’s good. But then whatever happens in the second half of the movie of next to next year.
Joe: It’s called the next test.
Greg: He gets it wrong, and then we go back to the middle of the movie and realize the whole second half of the sequel was the vision.
Joe: That I’m in 100%, 100 out of 100 would watch that movie every time.
Greg: Okay, okay, Joe does next deserve a prequel?
Joe: Weirdly, I would watch a prequel of next year.
Greg: So in the tank for this movie, I.
Joe: Am so in the tank for this movie. It could be about when he is, you know, younger and discovering his powers and, you know, being studied and escaping from captivity. Essentially throw in a De-aged Peter Falk as an AI character and we’re good to go.
Greg: So yeah, I character in the past. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. I say 1,000%. Yes as well. Yeah. If for only to call it previous.
Joe: Okay. But anyone who’s listening that has the power to make this happen, I need this to happen.
Greg: But only only only if it’s a buddy picture with Nicolas Cage and Peter Falk.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Easy, easy. They’re just hanging out. They’re scoring sandwiches, and they are playing pool.
Joe: Perfect. That is the greatest I am in.
Greg: Okay, Joe, next important question about next. Should next have been nominated for Best picture at the Oscars? I guess it would have been in 2008.
Joe: I would be real hard to justify. But what was nominated, just in case we wanted to pull one of those off.
Greg: Good news, there’s only five movies nominated, so there’s a good okay, the same list we went over with, Live Free or Die Hard. They came out the same year. So the winner that year, No Country for Old Men.
Joe: It’s a great movie.
Greg: Greatest ending to a movie in history. Atonement.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: I’m afraid to say this to you, but. Juno.
Joe: Yeah, I would easily slide this in place of Juno.
Greg: Really?
Joe: I really hate that movie.
Greg: Okay, so it’s nominated. Probably my best picture. Michael Clayton is nominated. And there will be blood for the men. That’s up. Yeah. What a good.
Joe: Year. And next.
Greg: And next. So I would say no country for old men, Michael Clayton and there will be blood rank above next. Yeah agree in my list. But yeah. Throw it in.
Joe: I mean.
Greg: I don’t remember if we put Live Free or Die Hard in here.
Joe: I put this above. Live free or Die hard. I don’t know, I think it’s kind of free with that or not.
Greg: But yeah, this movie had no bad guy knobs. Yeah, exactly. If you haven’t listened that episode, that was a pretty good episode. Yeah. Isaac Slade from the Fray was here to talk about Live Here, and I had to go back and listen to that episode. Joe, next important question. How can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: I have no notes for this one other than I want a shot for shot remake with the exact same cast.
Greg: Interesting.
Joe: Okay, bring it all back. Bring the gang back together again and let’s see what happens.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: How do you fix this?
Greg: Okay, I think the biggest problem with this movie is Nicolas Cage. Sometimes he’s the biggest solution, right? In this case, I feel like it. It just doesn’t work out. And so I think we’ve talked about this in the past, but in case we haven’t, I have a theory that there is an actor that could play every role that Nicolas Cage has been in.
Greg: Better than Nicolas Cage and that Sam Rockwell.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed.
Greg: But I think that Nicolas Cage could not do all of the roles that Sam Rockwell has done. I think Sam Rockwell is the better actor.
Joe: Oh yeah.
Greg: So we’re remaking next Sam Rockwell as the star. So step one is to strip away everything that Nicolas Cage brought to this movie. Okay. Which included magician Frank Cadillac. He loves Elvis so much. He married Elvis his daughter. He was the one who said hey, we should go to the Grand Canyon. So all of that is out.
Greg: Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel both invited back because it wasn’t their fault. And I think Julianne Moore could probably bring some more layers to it or less layers. Honestly, I would be fine with either. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: They could either way. You want to go, Julianne? Yeah. We trust you.
Greg: Jessica Biel. At this point, I think is kind of a national treasure, I think. I think Jessica Biel, I want to give her another crack at it. Plus, I think Jessica Biel and Sam Rockwell probably would have more chemistry.
Joe: It would be hard to have less.
Greg: So everything I’ve just said has made this movie even more perfect. I think, like, I think we’re fixing it for real. I am only assuming that this will happen after extraction three director Sam Hargrave shows up to direct this film.
Joe: Oh, and now I’m interested.
Greg: And, it’s rewritten. Page one rewrite by Issa Rae. Okay.
Joe: I mean.
Greg: I feel like Issa Rae would just destroy this movie and make an incredible.
Joe: Yeah. Is it a one shot to the entire movie? Is a.
Greg: One shot? Yes. Okay. With horrible stitching. Yeah, like you can totally tell it’s not really what you want. Shot. All right, Joe, second to last. Important question. What album is this movie?
Joe: This one I spent a great deal of time. I had to talk through with my child Milo around what he thought, and I’m. So I have two albums that this could be okay. One is. And I didn’t realize this until I was doing some research today there is a heavy metal band called Nicolas Cage Fighter.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Which is from Australia, and apparently Nicolas Cage loves this band. And it is. I tried to listen to a song. It is just as loud and screamy as you imagine it would be. So to be the bones that grew from pain, that album.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: But in talking with my son Milo, having him trying to, you know, what is that? Nicolas Cage esthetic of a band. And then this references another role that Nicolas Cage just had from the movie Long Legs, where he is. It’s a horror film where he is the bad guy. It is the band T-Rex and the album slider, which is referenced in that.
Joe: But Milo and I agree with them. Kind of like the vibe of T-Rex is kind of like, a little bit of Nicolas Cage of like a little bit campy, a little bit silly, but there’s some good songs in there. So those are the two options that I have.
Greg: So my gosh, I don’t even want to see my now T-Rex. My is bringing T-Rex to the to the yeah, yeah.
Joe: This is my child and I just want to brag about him.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I did not introduce him to T-Rex. I wouldn’t even if I knew of the band and then all of a sudden he’s like playing it and and not only just playing their hits, but, like, telling me about their different albums. And Mike. So he is a music. He’s a musician and loves all kinds of music and is just constantly bringing in new music.
Joe: So T-Rex was a few months ago that he was he was on on a kick for them. Now he’s on a big Elliott Smith kick. So for we are well.
Greg: It’s a good couple months in your.
Joe: House. Yeah I mean seriously what what album is this for you.
Greg: We’re going back out here as usual for my my mind is blown by T-Rex being in the Nicolas Cage bands. That is like theatrical, theatrical, yet also worthwhile. Yeah. That’s incredible.
Joe: I know I was like, as soon as he said, I was like, yeah, that’s the band, damn it. All right.
Greg: All right. Well, I’m going to say, this movie is made by people that I have totally enjoyed and loved in the past. I think they made something that’s a little bit hit and miss, but the people involved are such international stars that I needed this to be an album by somebody very famous. So I think the album that this is, is Justin Timberlake’s 2020 experience, which is an album that has some high points.
Greg: And has some low points. It was an album that was advertised in a target commercial that was filmed by David Fincher. That’s crazy. Yeah. There’s a song on here called Suit and Tie. It’s pretty good. There’s a song called Mirrors on Here that is the biggest hit on the album, but the reason to listen to this album is the song Blue Ocean Floor.
Greg: My favorite thing about Justin Timberlake is not his pop songs. It’s when he does the mellow stuff. His mellow songs cut to my core. And on this album that I wasn’t super excited about, mirrors sort of brought it back for me. It’s basically a rehash of the other Timbaland hits that he had had, but Blue Ocean Floor is something new and and it is incredible.
Greg: Just like the last song on Future Sex Love Sounds, it’s called another song all over again. It’s the last song on that album, and most of that album is produced by Timberland. But that last song, I think is a live take in the studio produced by Rick Rubin.
Joe: Some.
Greg: And it’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. So this is where everybody has the thing that they love about Justin Timberlake, if they even like him. I think there’s a cultural conversation now asking was he ever good. And I’m gonna say yes. Yeah. You listen to Blue Ocean Floor. You listen to another song all over again. The answer is absolutely yes in my mind.
Greg: So 2020 Experience by Justin Timberlake. You kind of have to skip around to find the songs that you like on that album, like most of his later albums, actually. Yeah. But all right, Joe, I have no idea what direction this next question is going to go with time for us to rate this movie. Great bad movie, good bad movie.
Greg: Okay. Bad movie, bad bad movie or awful bad movie. How do you rate next?
Joe: This this was actually pretty easy for me. And that’s a little bit off of our rating scale. But this is one of the great this is the greatest bad movie to me. It is so ridiculously great and bad all at the same time. And it is. I feel like I can’t aptly describe why I love this movie so much, except for every time I watch it.
Joe: It just fills me with such joy. And so that is how I have rated it is just it is so good. It is so good and it’s so terrible and I shouldn’t love it. I know that, but I do. So how do you rate this movie? Greg?
Greg: I have no reason to disagree with you. Greatest bad movie it is. We’re carving it in stone. It’s the album art of this. We’ll say greatest bad movie. Beautiful. It’s in the history books. This is a movie that I don’t think we would have watched if it weren’t for this show.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed. I don’t like the phrase like, it’s so bad. It’s good because I don’t feel like that even fully describes what this is. No, this is an experience unlike anything you’ll ever, ever see again. So again.
Greg: Spoilers for next.
Joe: Season made it this far.
Greg: Absolutely, yeah. If you don’t want us to spoil the movie, we should say pause it here. Go watch the movie and then come back and listen to the rest of the episode. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah that’s fair. Yeah. Exactly. And like and subscribe find us on Spotify on Apple Podcasts, wherever wherever podcasts are as you say, this is the best way that you can ensure that we survive the the cruel podcast wars that are happening right now.
Greg: If you’ve never done this, any any list of the show, would you go into your podcast app and rate and review the show right now? That’s the best way you can help us. Tell us how many stars you think it is and maybe say if you like the show, do some sort of inside joke in the comments.
Greg: That would be hilarious. Yeah, we would very much appreciate it if you would do that.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: All right. Well, Joe, we did it. Yeah.
Joe: We had the conversation that needed to happen about next, the greatest bad movie ever made.
Greg: That was the easiest love letter we’ve ever written in the form of an episode.
Joe: For sure.
Greg: Oh my gosh, I just noticed the time. Listen, Joe, this has been great. I don’t take away from what just happened. This has been great. But, I’ve got to get to my Vegas act, which I use to hide my superpower, to see the future in plain sight.
Joe: Oh, that’s that’s interesting. That’s interesting. I’m heading to my rehearsals for my own magic show, too, so it’s probably best that you don’t see anything. I don’t want to. I don’t want to ruin any of my tricks.
Greg: Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, that makes sense. And actually, I actually just finished up my Vegas act very short. Okay. And, it’s time for me to get to a blackjack table where I stare at the cameras to creep the people out who are watching the security cameras.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. That attracts, can you just hang on for about two minutes? Sure. I’ll know what to do after that, but I just need. I just need to wait for a second, though, okay?
Greg: Okay. I need to go, tackle a guy in a casino lobby and claim he was about to shoot people with zero evidence.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: So that feels important.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, I’m. I’m running really late for my breakfast martini. I’m going to get out of the diner. It’s fine. That’s fine.
Greg: No big deal. I I’m sure you’ve heard this in the background. There’s no way our editor, Sam, has been able to get this out of the audio. I’ve been chased by the cops this entire episode. And I need to just focus and speed up a little bit faster to avoid getting hit by this upcoming train.
Joe: I’m also about to race the train while running away from the police on inexplicably wet streets. So, you know, it’s it’s a dangerous moment for me.
Greg: Okay, well, that works for me. You know what has been super boring about this episode is I have just spoken with one accent the entire time, so I’m going to go learn a very vague Texas accent to be able to sprinkle into future episodes. So I better go.
Joe: Yeah, that’s good. And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll copy a little bit and I’ll learn a vague European accent to be the bad guy for you as well. But I’m also about to go play pool with Peter Falk and give him some sandwiches, so.
Greg: Oh, that’s interesting, because Peter Falk is in the room with me right now, and he’s been mean mugging me this whole time as he show the lack of sandwiches that I’ve been bringing him. Yeah. So I’m going to go get some sandwiches for my guy, Peter Falk, as well. Possibly a totally different Peter, but totally.
Joe: Different Peter Falk.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Anyway, I’ve got to go put on my cape of white savior ism and go help some native kids learn to read or do math or something. So, you.
Greg: Know.
Joe: We’ll we’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out.
Greg: You often, like, do a magic trick and then grab them by the face in a way that visibly disturbs them on screen. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, great. Okay. Well, that works for me. So, Joe, I will see you soon. They used to.