Jack

We wait. So Mike, I feel like when when I give you the opportunity to program these every year, which we've been doing now for fuck I don't know, it's been at least six years. At least it's got to be more than that, though more pandemic. I remember the pandemic year the most because of the kind of not the poor timing of it all, but like the hilarious timing, I guess, but the opportunity that I give you if I've now given to some other people as well, but I feel like I gave you and it was the case. I gave you the first opportunity to do this, and this, in my opinion, might be the first time where I feel like there is some ill will here, there's some ill intent here.

I mean, I'm I'm purely kidding, obviously, and you know that, and you know that because you can see the look on my face, and dear listener, I am only I'm saying this in jest, because well, on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Christashu, much to this chagrin of at least two people out there. For a fact, and I'm joined by the man who did, in fact put the Mike White in Mike White March, the host of the Projection Booth podcast. Mister Mike White, thank you Aristotle fucking Christ. So I am going to give you the opportunity to introduce the month, introduce the movies that we're going to be talking about. And because again, I don't want to bury the lead.

I mean, if you clicked on this, you know what we're going to be talking about. But if you're listening to this and you're you know, you may not. Mike, why, just why, just fucking why, because this is this is yeah, fucking why why why. I'm begging you to tell me why. I don't know.

I really don't know why I did this to myself and I did this to you. But yeah, we're watching five really bad Robin Williams films this month. I went to the books and I said, okay, Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, what are the worst ones that have a starring role for Robin Williams. I don't know, maybe I just wanted to low the lid off this whole idea that Robin Williams was just this god amongst men. I don't think I'm trying to tear down Robin Williams at any point.

But yeah, just maybe people were talking too much about how great he was and everything. But man, oh man, did he make some stinkers. And I just wanted to finally go through and watch some of those stinkers. So here we are, uh yeah, uh yeah. So but before we talk about Jack from nineteen ninety six, Mike, what are the other films that we will be talking about this month?

Let's see r V License to Wed, which I was not familiar with whatsoever. I blame myself for that one. Yeah, you really pushed for that. One, so well, well you were, well I didn't push for it as much as you were, like, what are some bad Robin Williams movies? And I was like, this is the one that comes to mind, and you were like, I've never even heard of it.

I was like, oh dear, no, what have I done. Yeah. So we've got those two, and then we also have Man of the Year, which I've also I mean, that's the thing with all of these, I've not seen any of them. And then the last one is Patch Adams. Oh god, So now that you know what we're talking about, now that the kind of ghost has been given up as to why we're talking about this on this episode of the Culture Cast.

It's Mike White March. We're kicking it off with a look at nineteen ninety six. Is coming of age film? Is what? It's?

Yeah? Sure, comedy, maybe drama? Sure, God, this is this is the thing that makes my head spin. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Jack.

He's a normal kid. I'm telling you, he's our age, but he. Looks for you. He just ages four times faster. So I'm big for my age.

And he's the biggest thing that ever hit the fifth grade. Two words, he hound four We had rid On, I have the pen. Hollywood Pictures presents Robin williams fadest character, Causton can hear his frsby as the kid in All of Us? Jack Ready. Pg.

Thirteen starts finding August ninth at the theater. So the film is directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is not written by him, but it is co produced by him and Zoetrope Films Man American Zoetrope. They're all over this and they want you to know that. The film stars Robin Williams as the titular Jack A Oh my god, A a boy who was born who ages four times as fast as normal children.

So when he is ten years old, he appears to be physically forty, but he is mentally the age of the child. So yes, essentially he could be mistaken for a giant, developmentally delayed. Man, right simple Jack, one might even say, One might say, simple Chad, what the fuck I mean that look? Not not to like again, yea, not to give it up, but like, this is the movie that Tropic Thunder is explicitly making fun of. In the film with Simple Jack, with Ben Stiller playing Tom Cruise playing a developmentally disabled man trying to win an oscar, essentially is the kind of the gag in that movie.

I I mean, that's what this movie. Film also stars Diane Lane, Jennifer Lopez, Brian Kerwin, Fran Drescher, Bill Cosby, Yes, Cosby boy. I hate that I even have to say his name. And no, I'm not kidding. And I was apparently doing drugs or someone was Michael McKeon and is in this movie as well.

What in God's name, So, Mike, I'm gonna kick it to you first, we already know why you picked this movie so first time seeing it was it? Now if it wasn't time. Oh wow, okay, so is it gonna be? Is it? Do?

I just need to assume that this is a first time for everything this month, first time for every Okay I sing any of this stuff. Okay, I'm not gonna ask that anymore. Then, So what did you think of watching Jack Well? I had had this movie described as being one of the worst things in the entire world. It's not that, but God almighty, is it so cloying.

And the metaphors are just so frickin' obvious And they just hit you over the head with these metaphors throughout the entire thing. Oh boy, And yeah, mister cople is not subtle most of the time. He is not very subtle. He really wants you to get what he's trying to say with this thing. And the director of Megalopolis is not subtle.

The director of Megalopolis, Yeah, it's not subtle. Yeah, this one. I mean, cople is just like, I don't understand why people don't like this. This is a modern day fairytale. I'm like, yeah, that real.

It's so simple. The whole movie is so simple. I mean, it just feels like what like five six men Nature set pieces kind of thing, and yeah, it's basically Jack is lonely. Jack wants to go to school. He gets made fun of at school.

He eventually doesn't get made fun of at school. The whole thing with his best friend, his new best friend's mom that thinks that Jack is a fully functional adult. I mean, if if friend dresser that I was a fully functional adult, I'd be going and buying her drinks. Oh god, yes, she's a dresser. She is a gorgeous woman.

Then now forever she likes to wwe then now forever, and uh yeah. Then he falls in love with his teacher to fall down some stairs. I mean I heard that his teacher is in fact Jenny from the Block, So what is some of the block? This is like what just around Jenny from the Block? Time?

Yeah, pree, I guess pre a little bit like but it's like, there are things in this movie that I'm like, oh, I would actually I want you to explore these things, because there's a few interesting items in here, such as the whole thing of him falling in love with his teacher. He's this young boy and an adult's body, which gives you a whole different play. You know it kind of reminds me of The Love Affair and Big as well. There's a whole thing with Diane Lane, who's his mother and really wants to protect him from everything and she is unable to, and this whole thing of like, I mean, she should be having a major and I think she is, but they just don't focus on it very well. She's having major problems with him going out into the world and she's very much against it, and I'm like, oh, well, you can actually turn that to be a little bit more I don't want to say sinister, but just like undercutting things and like really having a power play between her and her husband.

But no, that doesn't happen. And then fran Dresher, It's like, I guess they spend so much time with the men in this movie that they forget the women, and the women are the more interesting characters than Jack. Kind of like Benjamin Button, where it's like I could give a shit about Benjamin Button. It's all of the people around Benjamin Button that I actually want to know how they're reacting to this person. What did you think, Chris So, I didn't know if we were going to have an opportunity to talk about this, and I didn't want to overwhelm you with another thing to watch, because this was the thing that you would pick.

So I think this is something that we should watch eventually. And I want to mention this before we mentioned before I talk about Jack. So Jack comes out in nineteen ninety six. Thirteen years later, Amitab Bakchon and Abi Shek Bakchan play father and son role reversed in a film called Pa, where Ami tab plays a young child who's developmentally disabled and Albi Shek plays his father, and am Tab is in like I, I don't know how to explain the makeup. It is singularly astounding.

And again, if you didn't know it was Amitab Bachchan, you would never believe. But it is inspired by a child with progeria, which they talk about in this movie. And so I mention all of this to say, I saw this movie in theaters. I remember seeing in theaters for whatever reason, and I thought this movie was based on a real person. How the fuck would that even be possible.

It doesn't even make any sense because it literally doesn't make any sense. I mentioned Pa because Pau is based on a real life person with real life pageria, which is what this is why. The thing that bothers me about this movie the thing and I mentioned this Indian language film only because I almost find this film halfway offensive Because if you're gonna have a movie that's a modern day fairy tale but then have Lorenzo's oil like moments in it, what is the fucking point of it being a fairy tale? Make it a fairy tale. Make it a movie where it's like genuinely like at the end of the movie, he just Luke Skywalker's or Obi Wan c Noby's and just you know, disappears into the dust like do you know what I But do you know what I mean?

If we're talking about this being like a modern day fairy tale, don't have scenes of him with heart monitors on and him like dying. It just it's very tonally at odds with itself. And then yeah, reading you know, doing again the legwork ahead of time and reading in the interviews that Copola did you know then and now talking about this movie, I get what he was going for. It is there, It is there in the movie. I don't think the movie is completely beyond reproach, but boy, it this is a bad movie, and I'm trying to be I'm trying to be diplomatic because I as well as yourself know that I can be.

But this movie is really bad. It is like it is at times, so like you said, cloyingly emotionally manipulative, especially like and you know, the fact that we have to mention him at all makes me sick to my stomach because he's Everything that he's done now has really been like poisoned because of who he is. But most of that cloying shit comes from Bill fucking Cosby, and man, having Bill Cosby in your movie makes my skin and croll because Bill Cosby gives me the big ick, especially with this fucking goatee. So I was reading the script of this, managed to track down the script. I think it was the first Featur length script that got produced by this writing pair of let's say, just Monico and the Do Yeah, James Demonico and Gary Nadu.

Demonico would go on to eventually write the Purge movies, and that's like his almost entire filmography at this point as just Purge, Purge, Perge, Perge, Perge also. Is better than this, by the way, which is light years better than this. He also wrote Skinwalkers. He wrote the remake of Assault on Preasing thirteen, and he wrote The Negotiator, which has another ick factor. That's the one with Kevin Spacey and Samuel L.

Jackson, which I remember actually kind of liking at the time, and I'd be curious to revisit that one anyway. And then Gary Nado not a whole lot, like a TV version of Angels in the End Zone, The Jenny Project also a TV movie, and then a short called Piece of Verity. But yeah, didn't really go on to do too much after this, But I was reading the script and the version I was reading was interesting because that whole opening scene at the costume party was not there. And I just want to highlight the costume party because we've got Ah Diane Lane and the husband character, and I'm sorry, I'm just going to keep calling him that because I. Forget he's building the He's building the credits his dad at the end of the movie.

So yeah, nice. He's dressed up as a tin man, she's dressed up as Dorothy, and as they're kind of conga lining around the room, there are these two women who are dressed up as cats and they are being get this body. Yeah, they're being catty about stuff, and all they keep doing is talking about how bloated Diane Lane looks. And I think that those two characters are supposed to show us that even adults have to deal with bullies, because these two women in their cat costumes so remind me of those two little piece of shit little girls that keep basically tormenting Jack through so much of the movie. And when they grow up and you see them when they're eighteen at their graduation, there's still little assholes.

I mean pretty much all of the kids in this movie are assholes. Like when it comes to him making friends with Louis, I'm just like, Louie's an asshole. Like, I don't know why you want to be friends with this guy, none other than the Spasola kid. I wouldn't want to be friends with any of these kids. Oh my god, oh god, oh man.

Every scene with the kids just makes me want to slam my head against the table. Because Robin, like, I want you to give me some historical context here, because I was only six years old at the time. I can only do the research now and read about it. But like Robin Williams was the shit, right, Like Robin Williams was the there's nobody bigger for the longest time, right, Like he was in so many things, so beloved by people. He's working with Francis Ford Coppola on this film.

Like the reaction to Robin Williams at the time is like it like when you when you heard about this at the time, was this like what in God's name is this guy doing? Or was this like this is or this is like here's the pivot we've all been waiting for. Well, it's weird because it was technically a success at the box office. It costs what forty million and made like seventy some million, so it technically made money. But it was but poorly received broad life.

I just critically. People just be like, what the fuck is this? It was the whole idea of Robin Williams being a little boy trapped in a man's body, and people were just like, no, I don't want to see that. I don't know why, but I don't understand how this is because here's the question, and I asked the context of Robin Williams because you already kind of mentioned the thing that this this gives me the same ick of Big Big gave Me the ick, so hardcore when Tom Hanks is like fucking that woman, like whoa yeah. Because here's the thing.

There's a scene in this movie early on where Robin Williams gets in bed with his adult parents. End All I could think was, is he literally going to turn over at some point in the night and stick his dick into his mom? Because that's what is what we're watching here, because an adult man child question Mark has a adult man's penis, Like and this is unpleasant, this is upsetting, and he's like groping his mom at one point he's in between his mom and his dad any other time out like if you watched this scene out of context, with none of the context, like literally, I mean, with no context of what this movie is, it looks like a thruple. It looks like some sort of cucking situation, and it is not charming.

It's you know what, it almost feels like you know that, you know almost and this is like, this feels like our red letter media thing because I bring up the Simpsons so often. Do you remember in the Simpsons where Sideshow Bob keeps walking onto the fucking rakes and hitting it and that's what this movie feels like, you have gone and made it because I think for me just sitting here thinking about it, Big has like a couple ick moments. Overall, though, I think it captures the idea of like what it would be to be a child in an adult's body. This movie takes every moment that it like, it squanders every moment that it could have and goes for the weird ones. And it's almost it's like sideshow Bob walking onto every single rate.

It's like, why are you walking into it every time? I don't need to see this adult manchild child man? Probably child man's the better way of putting it. Being harassed by Jesse Smolette's sister, by the way of all people, that's who that African American child actor is. And then to your point, all the other child actors a are some of the like who are these kids?

In terms of child actors from the nineties, they're not even the well known ones. So the child actors in this movie aren't great to begin with, and then they're all written like little assholes like and there's never a redemptive moment for any of them, so it's like you have asshole children being assholes to a child in a man's body in a movie that doesn't endear us to him at all, and on top of it, takes every opportunity to give us gross, weird, off putting scenes like this adult man child cut with his parents, which never works. They've done they do it one time in the movie, and I think they realize probably they shouldn't have even done it the one time, because again it's really fucking gross and weird.

Well, it kind of already played this role when he was in Hook. You know, he's this well okay adult. Then when he's Peter Pan, he is the child who doesn't want to grow up, but he has grown up, you know. And it also reminded me a little bit of Kristen Densi's character in Interview with a Vampire, which also reminds you of like the character the little boy character in after. What was it?

Near Dark? Near Dark? Yeah, like these vampire kids who have lived for hundreds of years sometimes and they're trapped. It's kind of like that case to shit at Turtles movie. There's a character in there who presents as a little girl, but she's lived millennia and she's stuck doing this, and I don't know why she doesn't do this sensible thing.

It just go to high school, like Edward Cullen, because you know, if you're an immortal vampire, the thing that you want to do the most is go to high school because that's a good use of your time. You might pick up chicks that way, I suppose, but no, when it comes to Kirsten Dunts, it's like she presented when she was just a little girl. You could see the age in her eyes. It was like you could see that she had lived all this time and was just stuck in this body, was so frustrated because no one was taking her seriously. It's almost like you want to do the opposite in a movie like this where and granted there's the one scene with with Frand Rusher where she treats him like an adult, but it could be way funnier the way that he speaks and everything could be way way funnier if he's ten fucking years old and talking with this thirty plus some lady.

It's like, you know, give me some more comedy. There's just not enough jokes, Like it does air on the side of that cloying fairy tale that we're talking about rather than actually trying to be funny in any sort of way. But is it even dramatic, because like, is it a drama either, because and that's you know, again to go back to the simple jack of it all right, like the simple jack in Tropic Thunder that they're making fun of, like it is it is it leans further into what this movie is trying to avoid. And I feel, Okay, I never read this movie as Robin Williams is developmentally disabled. But that's what he strikes me out.

Can I tell you that I I have a hard time getting myself to believe that because you know what, it just seems like it just seems like Robin Williams being Robin Williams around a bunch of kids. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, he doesn't play into the youngness at all. No, And that's my problem with this movie. Is it more just seems like I don't know, I'm having a hard time like because you know, this is something you know, to give away the way the sausage is made sometimes or most of the time, when you and I record now, like we'll have the movie playing in case we want to, like you know, remind ourselves of something while we're doing this, and so I have it on and I'm watching him, and it doesn't strike me as him playing a character that And I'm just gonna again present it the way Trumpic Thunder presented it, a mentally retarded person, because that's what that is in that movie, where he's doing like the all in all of the mannerisms that like you again, you never go full retard per Robert Downey Junior's character in that movie.

It doesn't strike me as that in this movie. And I'm trying to figure out why. And I'm wondering if it's just because it's Robin Williams, and that's why. If it had been anybody else, I feel like it would have felt worse. And maybe because it's Robin Williams, it eekes by just barely.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, I think it does. Just like the charm of Robin Williams, it skates. This movie is skating on very thin eye. I think is the problem.

I almost do believe it is a child in his body, almost because I can't. I'm having a hard time believing that the movie is him's developmentally disabled that Oh yeah, yeah, I'm having a hard time with it because I think Robin Williams pulls it off just barely. But to your point from before, this movie doesn't mind any of the interesting stuff. Why like seven years Later, really really really really seven years movie, like we couldn't have gotten more of, like the struggles of him getting come on, him being a teenager would be way more interesting than him being a kid, Like can you imagine, like what would prom be like for this guy? What would homecoming be like?

What would a first date with an actual girl be? Like? We never see any of that because it's like because none of that matters, Like wait a second, why not? Like why? Yeah?

And when they ask him if he's ever had a boner, He's just like doesn't even know what it is, And I'm like, really you again, you're in a man's body, you're having nocturnal emissions? Sir? Well again, well not while I'm sleeping with this parents at night in vest Oh yeah, fucking gross. This movie's fucking like the things that this movie does are more the optics of it being gross and less the like, well he's you know again, like this is a guy pretending to be a mentally you know, disabled developmentally disabled person. I don't find it offensive in that way.

I see how someone could. I just find this to be to your point from before, like it's saccharin beyond belief. It's like a very special story about a very special man, Like all right, this is this is just not the kind of role that people do anymore either, Like what was the last time somebody did this? Eddie Redmain in that the Dutch Girl movie? Do you remember that?

God, yes, I sure do, I sure do. And Edie and yeah, Eddie Redmain as Stephen Hawking, Like, yeah, Eddie Redmain is almost the modern day Robin Williams, but you know, not nearly as funny or as endearing, like that's I guess it's there's an endearingness to Robin Williams because you said it yourself, Like, was Robin Williams this shit? I mean he was the shit enough to he was the shit enough to get away with this in the way that almost nobody else can or has or ever would, to the way that Robert Downey Junior got away with doing blackface in Tropic Thunder, like it takes a very special kind of actor that I think we collectively agree on is like an American icon that they can almost kind of get away with anything.

Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Robert Downey Junior, those are all actors who I think have done things that would be questionable if other actors did them. But yet Big is a role that there's a lot of ick to it. And there's a lot of ick to this movie too, there really is. They could have shown us him with fran Dresher and I would have actually had less problem with it than Tom Hanks in Big. Yeah, yeah, And I mean he was the shit, but at the same time, every other movie was dog shit, you know, like for every dead poete Society, there's a Cadillac Man, for every Fisher King, there's well I don't want to pick up on toys, but there's being human.

You know why you pick it on toys? Mike, What did toys do to you? Yes, I haven't seen it yet, so I can't, you know, slander that movie at all. But like for every bird Cage and Jumanji, there's a Jack you know, So it's like, yeah, like he is, his record was all over the place, but when he hit, he would hit big, and and. I guess that's you know, a movie that we're not watching this month, but it's one that I remember seeing in theaters was by Centennial And you know, like that for me is a movie that it's about a guy who wants It's about a robot who wants to be a man.

Like what is it with Robin Williams playing these like I am ex who wants to be? Why? Like why? What is like through what lens do we view Robin Williams? And through what lens was he viewing himself?

Because some of his more famous roles, missus doubtfire like that is that is a man dressing up as a woman so that he can go be with his children, Like yeah. Which is a horrific thought when I really they think about like I'm letting. This man, gentlemen, Mike, quiet, ladies and gentlemen. I'm letting this man into my house who is dressed as an old British lady, Scottish lady. And I'm okay with that, I guess.

So yeah, very strange. Yeah, And he had that thing and I don't know why it was if it was from his stand up where he would do like little baby voices things or what it was that just asked him in that light. You know, I talked a little bit last month when we were planning this month out, and I was talking about the whole Robin Williams with a beard versus Robin Williams without a beard, and that used to signal that he was being serious. But it does not hold. I mean that is it's a you know, he didn't have a beard in darp and that's one of his first serious movies that he had.

He does have a beard for a few seconds in this one. Oh yeah, I forgot about Moscow and the Hudson he has a beard. Goodwill Hunting, he has a beard. But yeah, he's got a mustache and Cadillac man. And I can't say enough bad things about that one, that one I have seen, So I didn't put that on the list.

I couldn't revisit it. You know, I was gonna ask because we kind of have I mean, like it's not that we haven't talked about him, but we've more talked about like the idea and the concept of the role that he's portraying. Where what are because I mean, again, I think it's important just for the context, especially for the listener. What is your feelings on Robin Williams broadly, and then like broadly, and then more specifically, I would say, like his comedy stylings in film versus television versus stand up, Like what's your kind of read on Robin Williams, Because it's the very three different things. And Robin Williams I think has very three different versions of himself, almost four even those three, and then himself as Robin Williams.

So kind of you, what's your thoughts on Robin Williams because you picked him for this month obviously, Like this is an entire month for Robin Williams. So even if you're not a fan of his, you must find something interesting about him as an act. I yeah, I mean I grew up watching More Commandy and absolutely loved him in that, and I watched a lot of his stand up. I was around, you know, during Comic Relief, which he and Whippy and Billy I think all co hosted, And yeah, his his stand up was hilarious and just that manic probably cocaine field. And oh yes, beautiful, oh yes, beautiful thing.

Yes. Yeah, but the impersonations of him are too easy to do because all you have to do is act like you are completely Adhd. I mean he's like Adhd to the nth degree. And just the way he will tie things together. I mean, I don't know if you remember where he re enacted all of the Wizard of Oz within like ten minutes, if not less than that.

And he's doing all the voices and the songs and all this and it's just like, holy shit. And you watch this guy's this whirling dervish up on stage. You have to be impressed with it, just the way that he is able to go from thing to thing to thing. I liked a lot of his stand up. I after a while it gets to be a little much, but that's kind of of Rob Williams to me is after a while he gets to be a little too much.

What are and then you know, so you you kind of your thoughts on him broadly, but then go movies, TV, stand up. I guess you've already spoken stand up. I mean its comedic stylings. Yeah, I think that that kind of translates through all of it. I loved his comedy.

I loved his stand up because I have that ADHD brain as well, so my I feel like my brain is ping ponging around, so not to say, like I would go do his shtick if I were a comedian, but like I get that, like the I mean, I mean I feel like you do as well. Like that's kind of what we do here. We have to Like I'm not saying Robin Williams thought critically as a comedian, but like I would say, that's kind of as close to an example of what he was doing as a comedian, Like if you're doing all of these like off the cuff ping ponging around, because I know that that a lot of that was off the cuff. A lot of it was like he was the king of that like and that's and in a lot of ways, like that's kind of what a lot of people who do stuff like this half to do.

You get to see it on display. I mean obviously in the stand up, but even in things like Aladdin, you're just like they probably just turned him loose, you know, he this was they they need to turn you know. Yeah, he got to record all of the vocals and then they had to animate to him. You know, it's not like they had the animations. He had to voice it.

I imagine that they did the same thing for things like robots, But that is like so sedate, and it was that fluctuation between the hyper Robin Williams and the super sedate Robin Williams. And you never knew exactly which one you were gonna get from time to time, because when he was serious, he could get dead looks serious and you're just like, oh, you're the same guy who's you know, like running around on stage like your pants are on fire. But okay, and then some of the stuff. I mean, I have never thought that Jonathan Winters was funny, but for whatever reason, Roberi Williams seemed to just worship Jonathan Winters and brought him on to more Commindy and I was just like, okay, that's kind of It was the opposite of bringing on the cute case.

It was the opposite of the cousin Oliver phenomenon by bringing Jonathan Winters on as their son. And I think the whole thing was that he aged backwards, so which is bizarre. And even like with Mork and Mindy, Rob Williams is playing the alien who doesn't understand how humans work, and he's always trying to make amends and trying to figure out how humans work and just trying to basically live inside of our world. Like I remember him making gifts for people at some point. It was probably a Christmas episode, and I remember for it wasn't Conrad Bain Conrad, I can't re Lorenza.

I can't remember the guy's name, but for Pam Dauber's father's character, he was a musician, and so Mork made him an entire piano made out of used bubblegum, and it's like, Okay, you kind of get it, but you kind of don't. But that was the level of the jokes throughout the whole show was this guy wants to understand how humans work but can never do it, and then does all these strange things like sitting upside down in chairs and saying little phrases like chez butt and all those kind of things. But yeah, he's always playing that. At least in a lot of his movies. He's playing an outsider character who's trying to learn how humans.

Work, a robot wanting to Batman h. Ronty to be human. I mean, I guess even in Goodwill Hunting, he's like the professor, but he's trying to figure out how this kid works. And he gets really defensive when the kid asks how he works because of the whole like my wife. Didn't his wife commit suicide or something in that I don't know, But again, super serious.

Robin Williams in that movie. Well also What Dreams May Come? Very serious, Robin Wood. Very serious, but a great movie. I don't think he would ruin that movie.

You like What Dreams May Come? Oh yeah, in the book is fantastic. Interesting. Yeah that's Richard Matheson Brot. Yes, it sure is.

I enjoy that movie. I'm not sure I could rewatch it for personal reasons. I remember, like the thing with Robin Williams and my like and in my opinion, and again I've kind of already given it up a little bit in terms of like the ADHD brain like I feel that hardcore like I you know, I'm in the process of spending time to get myself like neurologically tested, and I haven't gotten the you have ADHD diagnoses yet, but I'm waiting for it. I know it's COVID because like if you were a kid in the nineties, I feel like everybody had ADHD, Like I don't know how else to put it, Like a lot of people I know have ADHD and there are plenty of adults that have ADHD, like a lot of gen xers, like people your age, like it was going undiagnosed for a really long time.

That was probably going overdiagnosed for people my age. Robin Williams is like that on steroids, Like he I don't know something about his comedic stylings on stage, I always resonated with. But then, man, when he's doing stuff like this where it's trying to be endearing again, it's almost like he gets away with it. I but you know what, here's the thing, let's be frank here, almost getting away with it is a lot more of a reality than failing hardcore like a Sean Penn, Oh Jesus Christ like that. While Simple Jack and Tropic Thunder may be making fun of this directly via the title especially, I think the way that the actor of that Ben Stiller is playing in the movie Tug Speedman is pretending to be Is Morkin to someone like Sean Penn, oh yeah, and.

Not Robin Willis definitely went full retard in that moment. I think even calls him out. Right, yeah, Sean Penn, Yeah, exactly, Like and that's the thing, Like Rob I think Robin Williams, I would actually say, like, you know what, Robin Williams doesn't almost get away with it. I think he does. I think he actually does.

Because while I don't like this movie, and I don't like the movie, I actually think Robin Williams's performance is good because it's not offensive. Somehow. It's not offensive because it should be on the face of it, it's actually be offensive because to your point from before, it should just be like a developmentally disabled man. But I also think, and here's the other thing to go all the way back to the thing you introduced initially with your opening kind of statements about this being a fairy tale. If this were to be a fairy tale, which it's trying to be, it shouldn't be talking about the reality aspects of this.

It should just be like, this is a grown man with the mind of a child. And that's because this is a fairy tale and we don't need a medical explanation for it. It just seems to happen that way. And I think that if they gave some of that up, ignored some of that, and actually had us again talking about the things that were going on with exploring this character as opposed to having him isolate himself halfway through the movie for like twenty minutes. I think we might have actually seen a performance from Robin Williams that would seem more endearing than this, because the things and the topics that the movie gets itself kind of embroiled in are again like it goes back to the Lorenzo's oil of it all.

It's like, why are we doing a realistic thing? Like why is this need to be realistic? It needs if it's gonna be a fairy tale, make it a fairy tale, like for real Like Pigilopolis is a fairy tale. That's what Francis Ford Coppola is going for, and the reality, the lack of reality in that movie is apparent in this movie. It's trying to at times be a fairy tale because it could not explain why Robin Williams has aged four times as fast, and yet the movie feels like it needs to attempt to do so, when I would contend there's no need for that, because the things that this movie could and does succeed at minorly are not trying to explain to us why this is happening.

Just explain to us what happens when this is happening, and how it affects the people around him, because that's the more important interesting aspects of the movie to me anyway. Yeah, you know, the fairy tale andeness of it all really comes for me in two things that Copla is doing. One is the recurring image of the butterfly, and we've got the whole birth of the butterfly and then eventually the death of the butterfly. But the bridge too Far from Me is that moment when he and Cosby are up in the treehouse and the butterfly is what weighs it down enough that the entire thing comes crashing down. It's like, okay, that's a little much.

The other thing that I thought was interesting that Coppola does is he shoots a lot of things spin up, but really only it's not that noticeable, like the way that the clouds move, the way that the sun moves across his bedroom and everything. It's all sped up, but it's like it's almost like you need to call more attention to it. It was, Yeah, it was just kind of strange. He ages four times as fast, didn't you get it? Yeah?

Yeah, subtle. I gotta Francis, I got. I'm good. Yeah, subtle tea subtle ta. Maybe did you know that the being subtle is silent subtle.

That's how I say it. That's right. Maybe cut out one of the kids characters. Give those kids some more strengths, because really I only know two of them. Like I said, there's the Spas and then there's Lewis and otherwise it's a bunch of random kids that are just hanging out.

The Spaz otherwise known as child Eddie Deson. Yes exactly, And I'm like, this kid is no member of the Sandlot. Like that, the Sandlot is where you want to put your money if you're talking about like a bunch of individual kids where you can actually see some personality from each. One of them, every single kid. It God damn, The Sandlot is a good kids movie, Like The Sandlot is not just a good kids movie.

The Sandlot is a good movie that I think adults can see themselves in the kids because again, the free like the framing device of The Sandlot is such a smart thing where you have the adult recounting the child his childhood, so you have the adults being brought in, but then the moment the two minutes of the framing device are over. Any kid watching that movie can automatically start to empathize sympathize with the kids even now. I went and saw a live showing of The Sandlot last year and the theater was like sold out, like I believe it, yeah, And there were not just people my age and your age there. It was a lot of kids, like actual kids. And you know what, it's because it's a movie that resonates even now with kids.

There is there is a chance that this movie could have been that. I think that this movie is just really not interested in telling the story of I don't know, is it is it not interested in telling the story of this guy, and it's interested in telling the story of the world around him, Like I don't understand why the focus is where it is because the idea there are ideas here that are presented that are interesting, like the idea of like I can't get old, so I have nothing to look forward to, like you know, like cause they talk about like what do you want to be when you grow up? And he's like, I just the there was a moment that actually gots you, that guts me, at least in this movie where it's like, what do you want to be when you grow up?

He goes, I just want to be alive? Right, He's like, fucking hell. This one scene in the movie gets so much emotion out of Robin Williams that I really don't understand how the rest of the movie fails so spectacular at being emotionally resonant, because it's that one scene that you feel like, is almost like the Rosetta stone for this movie should have been you have a child in the a body of a man who, to your Benjamin Button example, knows that at some point all of this will be cut short prematurely, and they echo it in the scene with Bill Cosby where he's like, I just want to be normal and he's like sorry, Like essentially Bill Cosby goes sorry, which also again is like fucking heartbreaking beyond belief.

Those two scenes are the only scenes in this entire movie that get any amount of, like genuine, raw emotion out of the scene, and look, it's better than nothing at all. But I don't understand how you can give us two good scenes and then the rest of the movie can feel like such a dud because they know what they were doing. In some respects, but the fact that you can at least get me to believe for a moment that that Robin Williams is in fact a ten year old mentality in the body of a forty year old man, like I believed it for two seconds. I feel like if they tried a little bit harder and like you said, with the script, you know, the script, what's on the screen is on the page in a lot of ways, Like there's there's not a lot of difference.

There is some stuff, But I feel like if they had actually, like looked at the spots of the script that worked and mined those things further, as opposed to giving us children playing basketball for ten minutes and dancing around, which I feel like is just an infinitely bigger waste of time than actually mining this character. Robin Williams actually could have maybe gotten nominated for an Oscar. Yeah. I again, if not Robin Williams, I don't know who, but Tom Hanks did it in Big and got away with it. Robin Williams almost gets away with it here.

Yeah, there are moments that they could have explored, like the parents being alone in the house together for the first time, you know, like that's a pretty poignant moment for them as well. I said, the Diane Lane character, like she's so nervous for her son, and you know, they talk a little bit about like why didn't we ever have other children? You know, it's like, wow, what would that have changed? Like what would happen if they Yeah, well yeah exactly, So I would have liked to have seen more of that. And yeah, just so many, so many unexplored things that they really could have done to make this a better movie.

You know, Like I said, it's not terrible. I really expected it to just be awful and just robbing wing of just hamming it up and just you know, like making even more fart noises and doing other gross stuff. And it's like, okay, you know that scene goes on for a long time and I'm like, really, worms, they're making this kiddy worms. But anyway, well there say that when I said I don't like this movie, I don't like this movie because there are plenty of things in this movie that feel like waste of time, extended waste of time. Yeah, like the basketball game, like them yeah, eating whatever whatever the fuck that is, like whatever that Like, while I appreciate and understand that you are trying to show us the experiences of a child and the world of a child from the perspective of an adult like this, this is not a thing that I think is interesting in that regard or helps or helps sell that I don't.

I feel like the and again, this movie is one hundred and thirteen minutes. I actually feel like the comedy in this movie is maybe what fails it. And it's the like there's some drama here that yeah, they don't okay, go with me on this. They don't trust the drama in this movie at all. They don't trust it at all.

They're like, we have Robin. It's almost in a lot of ways, the worst thing they did was casting Robin Williams because they were like, he's a funny guy, so he's got to be funny. Like it's like that again in the Simpsons, like hey, Bart, do the line, like say the line? Like, Robin Williams is actually a pretty good dramatic actor. I'm not saying something that people don't already know.

We've already mentioned plenty of good dramatic roles, Goodwill hunting, What Dreams May Come, Like What Dreams May Come is a dramatic role that is a sad movie. I don't want to watch it because it will make me cry. This movie didn't need to be funny. This movie actually needed to be fucking sad because it is a sad fucking movie and it needed to do what Benjamin Button does, which is a movie that I had not watched until recently, but I watched it to prepare for this because again, it's like the one of the closer analogs to this. This movie doesn't explore the idea of your life being cut short and you know it and you can't do anything about it, and so what does that mean for someone who in a lot of ways is like you know?

Again, we don't get to explore the things that could make this movie more interesting, like him as an older man, and I don't get maybe they didn't want to spend money on the makeup, maybe they didn't want to spend time on the like practical effects, but like those are things that feel like let like money left on the table, because those are where a lot of the interesting things could have come from, of the interesting conversation, because again, the movie knows that there are interesting conversations to be had if you have a character saying I just want to be alive when I'm twenty eight. I mean, I like him doing the multiplication to figure out, you know, how old he would be at age twenty eight.

It's pretty remarkable. It's sad, and it's again like it doesn't require Robin Williams to do the coked out personality. It requires the movie to just sit and be quiet for a second. And I know that, yes, it is once again we're talking about Robin Williams sitting still and being quiet. Is like Robin Williams not being a hairy man, like he's a.

Jesus, how many times do they have to bring up how hairy this guy is. I'm like, it's throughout the entire beginning. Oh he's a hairy freak. Oh he's a hairy giant. And I'm like, okay, yeah.

Where he's PF of one hundred and fifty or having Robin Williams level of hairiness. Yes, yeah, exactly. I mean he didn't have to be Harry. They shaved him down for you know. But yeah, and there are so many things too where it's like the scene at the bar where it's Michael McKean, I'm just like, Okay, Michael mckin's gonna start hitting on him, right, He's not gonna understand what, like gay adults are homosexual?

It is the nineties. You could be in Out is in fact a movie that has come out in the nineties, so you could be mistaken for thinking that that's where it was going. I thought for sure that's where it was going. And then even to have Don Novello in there as the bartender. Who I know don Novella worked with Coppola a lot.

I just watched him in Tucker Man in the Stream. But Novella is fucking amazing, and he's got three lines. You know, it's like, what are you doing? Man? Why?

Why are you casting? We do Shabby Detective? Baby? Come on, we do the Shabby Detective. You know, you know sometimes you got to get your friends to work.

True, true, Yeah, I got a part that's perfect for you. You're gonna be the bartender. So we've we've now spoken I think a bit about Robin Williams, but can we talk about the supporting cast because Jennifer Lopez. Yeah, oh man, what a uh, what a thankless role she's given in this movie, Like, oh yeah, that's all I can say on screen. I don't so.

Nineteen ninety six, Jennifer Lopez. We're still having conversations about Jennifer Lopez now in twenty twenty five, she was just remarried and redivorced from Ben Affleck once again. Is it was in a movie as recently as last year the year before where she's playing like herself falling in love with a fan essentially? Is I think what the movie is like? Jennifer Lopez kind of an American cultural icon playing Robin Williams's teacher, given nothing to do, Diane Lane, given nothing to do, Fran Dresher, given nothing to do, like almost everybody in this in this movie was just a character created by chat GPT like, we need a mom character, all right, what are we gonna ever do?

Be protective of her son? Okay? Any other character trait? Nope, what's Jennifer Lopez? Uh, she's uncomfortab with being his teacher because she realizes that she may have been sending mixed signals to a forty year old adult man's body with the body of a ten year old.

What other character trait does? She have? Nothing? Nothing else? Just that, Oh, she likes red gummy bears.

Ah, majorly important. Great character written. Yeah, Yeah, it's Bill Cosby's character. He's a teacher who says that he works with children because he feels like he is a child himself, or he wants to remind himself what it's like to be a child because adults are all quote revved up unquote. What other traits does he have?

None? Like it is everybody is paper thin other than Robin Williams. And they give these characters way more time than you would expect them to give paper thin characters, given the amount of time that they should be giving to Robin Williams, because he is the one who has been giving all of the heavy lifting to do with this movie, all of it. He is the one who has to sell an adult body with a child's mind. Everybody around him fails him more than he fails the movie.

Really, like I'd be willing to go that far. As much as I don't like this movie, it's not Robin Williams's fault. The writing is what fails everybody in this movie. Like one hundred percent. I completely agree.

You know, there was one part of this movie that actually had a genuine laugh for me, and that was when he's getting bailed out of jail and all of his belongings are being returned, but he's missing his pog, he's missing his slammer. And then the cop kind of sheepishly looks down and reaches into his pocket and pulls it out. That genuinely made me laugh, But I feel like they wanted me to laugh more and wanted me to cry more. And I think that's kind of the worst offense to this movie is that it wants to manipulate your emotions. But I don't think it really knows how.

No, It's like that's you know, that's kind of I think we're both really on the same page of just like it. It doesn't do anything that it's trying to do very well and what and again, I feel like, and clearly I think you would agree, I feel like what it's trying to do is not really that hard because yes, I yes, I appreciate the The initial ask is I need you, as the audience to believe that this forty year old man has the brain of a ten year old. Okay, how do we get over that initial hum cast someone who is more or less beloved by everyone. That's why I would say he's an American culture, like on who who can we get? Well, if Tom Hanks has already done this and he's kind of in the running for that, who else could.

We look to? Well, Bob Hope's too old, I know, too old. Yet we can get John Travolta, who was originally in talks for this movie. The reason why what was that? Like, Robin Williams got this movie because Disney was apologizing to him for using his name in the had Aladdin marketing when they weren't supposed to, right, all.

Right, So now Chemical Company produced a translating to six five thousand weirder things have happened? Oh that is that is no. I read that as well, and that's fucking wild, like it is wild because it works out so well. Still, And here's the thing I would ask you, you know, multi verse a side, if we could live in the universe where John Travolta is the actor in this movie, does this movie work as well as well as this movie works when Robin Williams is on screen, which is barely works, right, I think we barely works only because he's in the role. Does this movie ever work at all?

Of John Travolta? Honestly, I would like to see it. Honestly, I think he could do it because Travolta, yes, he's been into it on a absolute garbage over the last twenty years. I mean, I'm trying to think of what the last good thing I saw him. Wash and Robin Williams were an Old Dogs together, which, by the way, I find to be rather endearing as a movie.

I like the two of them together, to be honest with you, which is wild that they were, you know, Cast one, Cast two for that. I kind of like that as well. And I would say that was kind of the last good year for Travolta was Air Spray and Wild Hogs. Now I haven't seen Bolt yet, but I have seen the taking of what Pelham one, two three, and that was shit. Oh I'm sorry he was in Wild Hogs as opposed to Old Dogs.

Oh No, John Travolta was in Old Dogs and Wild Hogs. I know, I know he was in both. Yeah, yeah, but Robin Williams was only an Old Dogs, right, But yeah, I think a. John Travolta in nineteen ninety six, he's riding high off of pulp fiction. Get Shorty, Broken Arrow.

He's about to go into Michael which I think this feels like the movie that he did instead of Michael's the movie he did and set a Jack. I think I've already prepared for this role essentially, like basically yeah, between. That and phenomenon, you know, And that was the same fucking year a year a Banner year ninety six. He was in three goddamn movies. It's crazy to me because that's I mean, when we're talking about like complimentary pieces or film that would be similar.

Michael is like that John Travolta's Jack, Like what if an angel was on earth? Like what if Robin Williams played a child? Like in a very special like the like the same thing, Like John Travolta is like, dial me up a script where I can play a fish out of water broadly in every scenario. How can I do that? Well, can't play a child because you already missed out on that role.

So uh. Like a an angel? Sure? All right, Travolta, You're you're good looking enough believable? Is that the other thing which Travolta had been too good looking?

Oh man, that would have been really off putting to have Trivolta in the bed with his parents. Oh no, every would have really been like these three are just fucking right, like, oh god, yes, horrifying nightmare film. Oh. I mean maybe if they went like the Owen Meani route and they got somebody who yeah, he was aging at a super fast rape, but maybe he didn't row or something, or maybe it's like like, like get him Rick Baranas in this one, Oh my. God, what not George Burns go further?

Is he smoking a cigar in the bed? You know, they'd be like, Jack, You're only ten years old. You shouldn't be smoking. Yeah, that's what my doctor tells me all the time. Shut up.

Actually, you know, we've talked about the things that are kind of, you know, an affront in this movie or problematic, but you know the things that do work, you've mentioned them. I would say another thing that works is shooting the film from a child's perspective, getting Robin Williams like down on at certain points the camera's very low, and so I like that Copola makes that choice. I think for me, the real affront of this mooth, genuine affront that Brian Adams song, Oh my god, bunking Brian Adams. He said shit in that song, what the fuck was that I didn't get the He's like it, like, what the fuck Brian out? He's Canadian?

Everybody does he just say what I thought you said? He's not shit? Yeah, okay, he is making a song for the movie Jack. Yeah. That was so shit.

Oh god. Yeah. And this was still like the reign of Terror of Brian Adams in the nineteen nineties. I mean, you could not escape that fucking Robin Hood soundtrack that oh you could nicey oh man. The the briy IW was gonna say, the Brian Adams of the ninety did anybody have a better time making songs for movies?

I think not? But hey, you know what, because we're recording this right after the Academy Awards, which means the Razzies happened. This film was nominated for the nineteen ninety six Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. The Stinkers, I've never heard of the Stinkers before. When I read that, I was like, come on, guys, it's the Razzies are nothing.

Well, the Stinkers only existed from seventy eight to two thousand and so that's that's too bad, and the Stinkers are no more. I mean, giving awards for movies. Being bad is so so funny, I know of I know a few funnier things really, Like, I what a funny thing to do? God was cuz speaking? That wasn't Copela nominated for like fifteen Razzies for Megalopolis?

Oh yeah, yeah, see sure was? Is is the fact that Francis word Coppola is the director of this movie really the strangest thing, because that's the thing, like, yeah, for me, for me, it feels like the weirdest thing about this movie that he directed it, Like oh not, why why I don't I don't. I don't know why he did, Like I don't get it. I mean honestly, like you said, Megalopolis is a fairy tale. I mean One from the Heart is a fairy tale.

He's into this whole idea of fairy tales. I mean you could technically talk about how like the American Dream is what ours the Godfather movies? You know? Okay, but yeah, I think like even you know, even going to like Apocalypse now, I mean Apocalypse now, Yes, it is based on Joseph Conrad, but really it's Dorothy going to visit the Wizard, you know, and all of the friends that he makes along the way and you come to something like a rumblefish, and that is in this just like one from the heart, very artificial world. The black and white really separates it out from reality.

You go to something like you know, Bromser Chris Dracula, where it's again, you know, playing with the camera and doing these kind of things, and then also it's it's a fairy tale. It's like one of the classic fairy tales of this bad man coming into their world and upsetting everything. So I can see this fitting into his filmography almost too well sometimes where it's just like, I really wish that you would make some better movies here with Francis, because you have the talent, but you're choosing a project really suck sometimes. Me you know, I guess his heart's in the right place even now with Megalopolis. Oh, I'm fascinated by Megalopolis.

Well, I've been like collecting material on that for a while since the day that I saw it, because I was just like, how the hell did this thing come to be? So I'm very curious. I want to dive into that one of these days and make an episode about it. It like this movie is a movie where the people involved believe so strongly in what they're doing that there's you know, they cannot see the forest through the trees, because you know, as much as I appreciate Bill Cosby teaching children how to sing, oh my gosh, do. You know what I'm most surprised about what this month, Chris, is that of all the movies that I chose, I didn't go for Father's Day, which is another yet another Francis Weber remake.

Yeah. But but but Father's Day I believe is probably a good Robin Williams performance. I don't know, I don't know. I mean, I I mean, Billy Crystal, both of them convaclate, you know, very greatly. And it was one of those it's got to be one of those Pierre Rochard Gerard Depardieux films that they did.

It is it? In fact? It right? Okay? Yeah, it's probably similar to like Blame It on Rio or one of those movies.

Oh. I mean, look, you know, with Robin Williams, because of my age and the things that I saw him, and like you've already mentioned Aladdin, like he will always be like for me, Tom Hanks, Woodie, Robin Williams Aladdin, like you know, the genie like those are. They made an indelible mark on my childhood as those characters, and so in my mind, like the in my mind, it's almost less I've seen Robin Williams, but I've heard his voice so much because I listened to I forget which one of those stand ups it is, but it's I want to say it's I think it's maybe it was one of the ones that came out in the mid two thousands on CD. It's one where he talks about Jesus's brother Jim Bob that you must clearly know what I'm talking about.

No, I don't, but that sounds hilarious. It's Robin Williams that is finest. I mean, I again, I loved I love him as a comedian, first, him as an actor kind of third, him as a voice talent. Second. I think that you know Coppola's filmography and getting to work with someone like Robin Williams, like you don't miss that opportunity as a again, as a quintessential American director working with what I would consider to be a quintessential American actor.

I just wish, to your point, in my point, like I wish they had done a different project together that wasn't this one, because I guess if anybody's gonna try to make it happen, Robin Williams is a pretty good bet. But they just don't seem interested in talking about the things that if you or I or so many other screenwriters, especially screenwriters in the nineties, feels like there's a lot of missed opportunities here for things to talk about in directions to go and and again, like you spend so much time with him as a ten year old that you never get to talk about the other parts of his life that we get to see, Like, don't even show us those parts of his life. Don't give us a taste of it. Don't give us like a hint of those things happening, because it's it's hard to know that that's a thing that we could see, as opposed to just the like I don't need to see it, So don't show it to us.

Just let it, just let them, you know, let the butterfly f lie into the air or whatever and he made an impact on people, or have a shot of a shooting star going across the sky or whatever. Heavy handed lack of subtlety that Copola wants to go with. But for fuck's sake, don't show us things that you know the audience is gonna find interesting and then just be like two seconds of this and it's fine. Like, no, I want to see Robin Williams in convincing old man makeup, because that old man makeup was not terrible, mind you, I would have watched him in the in between seven years actually seeing him struggling with the things that the movie hints at that the movie doesn't seem actually interested in getting involved.

And to your point before about Coppola, this is a director who's talked about the American Dream so many times, and here's another kind of weird version of it that ken you want to talk about it, let's talk about it, but don't don't give us the notion that you know what you're doing and then just stop. Yeah, yeah, it's It was disappointing because, like you said, there's good stuff hidden in here, there's good ideas that could have been mind but yeah, they just they missed the mark so often. And yeah, I think you know the other film that this reminds me of, and I can't remember which year that came out, but it actually reminds me a little bit of Forrest Gump. Yeah, whole idea of like the protective mother, the the you know, injured child, the very special man that he becomes, where he's just kind of unaffected.

Before around him. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Forrest, nothing could touch him, he was silicon or sorry, he was tough on you know, nothing could really. He just walked through the raindrops and everything turned out right for him. Whereas with this poor Sap, he's doomed from the beginning, and like you really you feel it sometimes, but you don't feel it all the time.

And I almost wish there was an overwhelming sense of dread throughout this entire film. Yeah, I mean again, like that's kind of what the movie's promising. It gets it, It gets itself into those conversations by choice, and then jumps out of by choice. There are moments here where like again, Jennifer Lopez and Robin Williams are having this conversation where he's like, I want to take you to the dance and she's like I am your teacher. It's like I beli, I don't care, and she's just like, what don't you fucking understand?

Right? And like those moments are heartbreaking, and it's again, like you said, like there are moments in here, but is it is it wild to me to say I either one of two things. I either want more of this movie or different things and less of what they gave us. But it's almost like there's another like half hour forty five minutes of this movie that it needs. Really, yeah, I completely agree.

I mean it does feel like they either needed to cut out the pieces that we're talking about that just really waste our time or just you know, lean into it and give us that extra half hour of more of the actual pathos that we kind of need with the story like this. Yeah, yeah, it Yeah, it's like it really doesn't trust Robin Williams as a dramatic actor, and that it's sad because this is not his first dramatic role. You have already mentioned several films that came long before this. There will be plenty of opportunities for Robin Williams to continue to be the funny guy that everybody knows, but there will be films like Insomnia and I mean Death to Smoochy is a funny movie, but it's also a movie that does traffics in his kind of dramatic Chops World's Greatest Dad, another movie that kind of traffics in his ability to be dramatic.

Robin Williams is a great dramatic actor when given the right script. And that's the thing in a lot of ways, you know, we talk about, you know, because it can. We could compare him to Jim Carrey, right, like another kind of frenetic, high paced comedian who seems like a really frustrated dramatic actor. But at the end of the day, comedians are doing similar things, and if comedians go into film, they become actors like anybody else. Like you could have Tom Hanks in a movie written poorly and he will not do the best of his abilities, because no matter matter what you do, sometimes you can't elevate a bad script.

Elvis is not a great script for Tom Hanks's character. He is the weakest part of that movie. And Tom Hanks is a great actor. It is not his fault that the script is poorly written. Sometimes you can't elevate a poorly written script.

This is one of those cases. Because Robin Williams tries his fucking damnedest to elevate this movie. He really does, and like that's the only really the commendable thing about this movie is that Robin Williams is giving it as all, and I think everybody is. I just don't think that the script is the script is not meeting them where they need to be, because I think they understood how problematic this movie was gonna be if taken in the wrong context, because again, to go back to the tropic thunder of it all, like that movie was able to mine this for comedy, so they know how slippery. The slope is, very slippery.

But I think this movie is not, to your point, not nearly as offensive as I thought it was going to be, not nearly as offensive as I remembered it being in a lot of ways. But again, I do think that it's Robin Williams of it all that get you get away with it. You almost you really get away with it more than you would have anybody else, because again Sean Penn really doesn't. Plenty of other actors didn't. Tom Hanks did.

But again, the character of Forrest in the in the book is his interior monologue in that book is he's a smart guy. Interior monologue. That's the problem. The movie gives you that with the narration. We don't get any narration.

Maybe some narration in this movie might have helped. I don't know, Like to your point him being a sad sack knowing that he's gonna die by age, like I are we to believe that he dies more or less like very quickly after this movie, I don't think. So. Yeah, it's it's it needs it needs more of Like you said, the looming specter of death needs to be more part of this movie, because if he is a child in an adult's body, at some point he will struggle with that. It's almost like there needed to be an end title card.

You know, Jack so and so died in this sleep two days later. I mean again, I go back to my opening statement here. I thought this was based off a real person. I thought this was a real person, and then when I watched the movie, I was like, there's no way this is a real thing. Like a fully formed ass adult with the mind of a ten year old is a film concept.

Keep it a film fairy tale concept. And don't give me heart monitors. Don't give me any of that. Just don't give me the things that are Nick Nolty struggling with his child screaming, and they need to give him a rape seed oil, like give us the whimsy less the serious, because the whimsy would have been probably more beneficial for this movie, especially with Robin Williams. I you can tell that this is a fairy tale because there are no reporters.

There's no one like all over that there are doctors, is my point? Right, it's right. And I'm just like, what, like this hasn't ever made it out into the community, and he doesn't have like, you know, oh they're doing another special on me today or something like that. I mean, the whole thing. It could have actually been shut like documentary and that it's like, oh, here's the case of Jack, this little boy, you know, And they could even have the title like Jack the little boy who was big or something like that, and there could have been a whole different thing where where we follow him around and then we get the confessionals where he tells us how he's feeling, and it would be perfect.

He would just be that kind of not well spoken ten year old trying their best to put their words into feelings, words that they don't have, and feelings that they probably don't even know that they have. I don't know, like it's it's that mother in me that wants to say, Francis, I'm not sad about this movie. I'm just disappointed. SRK pulled it off better in Zero. SRK, Like, that's the thing.

There have been so many versions of this, post this that have pulled this off better, and it's because the scripts are better. But to your point, it's just like, why any everybody who watched, who was involved with this project in a level where they could have changed the script should have done exactly what you just said. Take in a moment, pause and asked, why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve here? Because a movie like Zero, where SRK plays a again a little person, is a it's him like cgi'ed down like and you know what, pretty fucking endearing and it actually kind of works and it's not as offensive as it sounds.

And I actually think that that tends to be the case when these things are done for the right reasons, and this movie was not done for the wrong reason. I don't think Robin Williams made this movie hoping to win an Oscar. I think there was the potential and the possibility here for him to do that if the script had been better suited for him. But I think that, Yeah, to your point, there's a lot going on in this movie where I'm just like everybody involved should have asked for more and done better. At least the people could have made those decisions.

And that wasn't the actors. The actors did what they could. It was Coppola, It was the screenwriters and especially Copola getting involved, Like Copola should have a writing credit on this, even like kind of surprised he doesn't, like he didn't read the script and go, we can make some changes here, we can lean more into the fairy tale of it all. A lot of directors will rewrite scripts, but they just keep their names off because they don't want that writer and director and the fighting for credit and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, maybe maybe feels like he's that kind of a person.

Yeah. And you know, again, like you said before about the megalopolis of it all, like the fairy tale, you know, the whimsical nature of it, Like this movie needed more of that and less of the doctors being like we don't know what's going on. Yeah, no shit, clearly like duh nobody does, Like right, don't keep coming back to this, This is not important if we're like you said, if we're not gonna have people showing up and knocking down their doors being like this is the next great medical like mystery. Okay, then just saying hang a lantern on the fact it's like air bud, right, dog's playing basketball. You would think that would be a big news item.

Well, yeah, this is a forty year old, hairy ass man with the mind of a ten year old. And it's not even the mind of a ten year old. He's genetically ten years old but looks physically like a forty year old man. They have his birth certificate. They know when he was born.

There were people there that were like, I am his doctor. This is, in fact what happened. This is something that, like you said, the greater world would know about, and yet they don't, And that in and of itself is strange. So yeah, the movie just kind of all over the place. It seems so unfocused that that.

Again, while I appreciate how easy it is for something like Tropic Thunder to make fun of this movie, this movie almost kind of doesn't deserve it because it it just kind of doesn't It doesn't paint a big enough target on itself to make it worthy of making fun of other than the parts of the movie that are just inherently weird. It's more to me just kind of like, man, what have missed opportunity? Because of all the people to actually kind of pull this off. He is gone now and could never do it again. But Robin Williams something so endearing about him that I, again I kind of just I didn't bristle at him being that forty year old body, ten year old mind, Like I kind of bought into it.

It's the script that fails him, which is shocking given what this movie's core conceit is, because the core conceit is inherently really fucking. Or Yeah, I'm curious if the rest of this month is going to be like this as far as near misses. Is that what are considered more bad Robbi Wlliams films or are we going to see some real stinkers. I have a feeling that the next few films are going to be real stinkers. I imagine that something like Man of the Year and Patch Adams are just going to be oh, I know, more of that calling stuff.

You know, maybe I'm just setting myself up for, you know, like the bad version of Awakenings or something. But yeah, as far as this one, I'm just yeah, I wish it would have swung a little harder. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm surprised that that's My takeaway is that I actually wanted more of the thing that Tropic Thunder made fun of the old time like, it's actually not the problem. The problem with this movie is everything but Robin Williams shockingly like, and yeah, I to answer, not to answer your question, but to further maybe give a hint, a hint of a foreshadowing some of the movies I have seen some of them, I have not one of the ones that you mentioned possibly being one of the worst things we watched this month.

I think it will be. I think it not only will be, I think it will be one of the worst things you watch all year, because I don't remember enjoying a single moment of it, and I am dreading rewatching it. And I won't tell you which one it is, but let's put it this way. For as much as this movie benefits from having Robin Williams in the lead, I think the movie that is going to be the worst one that we watched this month actually takes Robin Williams and squanders him completely, because again it's trafficking in what I would consider to be the endearing good nature of Robin Williams, which is what this movie I think works on. So on that note, let's take a break.

We'll play a preview for the next culture Cast. We'll play some ads, and we'll wrap us up. Hi. I'm Susan and I'm Sharon, and we're the hosts of Eighties tv Ladies. Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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Please join us. Hi, this is HP from Noise Junkies and this is FA them Alone from Dark Destinations. Please join us this week m in one of the greatest sitcoms in television history, Taxi on Night Mister Walters at Taxi Podcast. Good night, mister Walters, Good evening, and welcome to Night Gallery. Thank you.

Rod and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They say it's Rod Serling's Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod tour Las Night Gallery. It's somebody else's. Oh we know, we talk about it a lot. Your curators at midnight Viewing are the Projection Boots, Mike White.

What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion? And culture casts Chris Stashio, Small Boy occasionally Crystal Ball, and I'm father Malone the. Kind of thing that usually infests nightmares join. Us monthly at midnight viewing. The Night Gallery podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.

Doesn't remotely belong to me. I have no proprietary interest in that at all. Okay, God, what what happened to that little girl? He used to go Daddy's home watch TV in separate rooms and we I am each other with Gender's ready, let's change things. On April twenty eighth, Mom.

Some idiot just parked this oar V outside our house. Oh my god, it's dad. You're in. I'm adopted. We're going to spend some quality time.

Yeah, boyfriend, Yeah, actually I'm engaged I'm likely with the family and we're making out. I got him in the rearview mirror. Boy, I don't know what the hell he's doing, Harvy. Does anybody had the Vonna bag? So on the next Culture cast, we're going to be talking about r V, a movie featuring Robin Williams, and we're going to be joined by our dear friend mister Richard had him r V lover himself until then, and Mike, you'll be joining me as well, obviously because it is Mike White March.

I'm here for the long haul, baby. Oh yeah, that's this is some trucker puns. This is some eighteen wheeled puns for you. Until then, Mike, Where can people find you? And your assorted variety of audio works?

Just about everything that I do is available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's includes a lot of shows that Chris and I do together, including the You Soon to be Departed in Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller's show, which I'm very sad. As wrapping up, I was going to say we should probably do that second season a Ring of Power at some point, maybe maybe do that our mid season replacement part of the Wheel for us. Huh, exactly, exactly. Yeah.

And then the one thing that you can't find from me at Weirdingwaymedia dot com is the show that Chris and I do together with Richard HadAM, which is called Ranking on Bond, and you can find that at Patreon dot slash Culturecast and Patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and that is at the ten dollars and up level on both of our patreons. So how about you, Chris, same deal, same place. You know where to find me, Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's the space that's the place for all the audio stuff other than Patreon, So go there. Yeah, and you know, I uh, I'm excited to further the month with you.

I hope that I hope that bad Robin Williams movies. Maybe we can find something good in this in the lot of these films. But I think, you know, we've set ourselves up in an interesting direction. But I'm glad that it's me and you this month. At least we're sharing the experience together.

So share the loads. Share the load, mister Frodo, I dropping no eves speaking of Harry Fevil Robin Williams could have been a hobbit with those hairy ass feed and that I'm sure he had so damn straight, God, damn it. All right, well, Mike, that was fun. I look forward to the next episode, and as always, we'll catch in the next episode The cree