Latest / Did That Age Well? / #196 – Did Being John Malkovich age well? (w/ Brandon Baker)

Transcript

#196 – Did Being John Malkovich age well? (w/ Brandon Baker) · Did That Age Well?

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, welcome to did that age well brought to you by
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  Spider Moving and storage. I have a direct quote from my
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  Thank you for your support. If you have a move coming up, go
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  to spidermovie.com and then you can figure out what you need for
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  your move. OK, everybody, today my guest is
• 0:42
  a guest who does his homework. He's a guest who is a neighbor
• 0:46
  in this neighborhood. Could have walked here, didn't,
• 0:48
  but he didn't know exactly where it was.
• 0:51
  And that is fine. Today.
• 0:53
  You know him as Johnny Tsunami. You know him from the Flip Phone
• 0:57
  Confessional podcast. You know him as wedding
• 0:59
  efficient extraordinaire. You know him as Brandon.
• 1:03
  Welcome to the show, Brandon Baker.
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  Thank you so much for having me here.
• 1:06
  Speaking of doing your homework. Great job.
• 1:08
  You know what? It was all in your Instagram
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  bio. Nice copy paste.
• 1:14
  I just said copy paste. Great job.
• 1:16
  Yeah, thank you so much. I am talking with you today
• 1:20
  about John Malkovich, but we need to get some things on the
• 1:22
  record first. I have John Tsunami.
• 1:24
  Yeah, of course. Cool.
• 1:26
  So we talked about Johnny Tsunami on the podcast, my
• 1:29
  friend Ash and yes, so good few weeks ago.
• 1:33
  And I need to we need to get something straight like true or
• 1:37
  false. There's some things that we have
• 1:40
  that we discussed on the podcast that that we need to set the
• 1:43
  record straight from the source. True or false.
• 1:45
  OK, true or false. You live in Boulder?
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  Obviously not. Used to live in Boulder.
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  Yes. Now live in Denver.
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  OK, yes. So you did at one time, correct?
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  Live there, OK, True or false? Retired from acting.
• 1:57
  Retired from acting? Yeah, definitely excellent.
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  I'm not against anything happening in the future.
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  Sure, if anyone has any offers. Correct.
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  Honestly, I mean, I guess I'm the most open to it now than I
• 2:09
  have been with in the last, I don't know, like 10 years.
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  Yeah, which is cool, which is part of the reason why I'm here
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  right now. Love that.
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  But yeah, not not pursuing it. OK, OK.
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  Excellent. True or false?
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  You're nice to people at restaurants.
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  This is so fucking good 'cause So my wife listened to the
• 2:26
  podcast, yeah, and she was I. Love, I love that she listened.
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  Shout out, thank you for listening.
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  Hi, Nina. Love you.
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  No, it was really funny that we're going through, in fact,
• 2:34
  checking as we were listening to the podcast.
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  Amazing. Which I'm so thankful that
• 2:39
  people think that I'm nice. I'd like to think that I'm a
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  nice guy. I'm like, I'm only really like
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  an asshole. Like, behind closed doors, of
• 2:45
  course, you know what I mean? But in public arenas, Yeah.
• 2:48
  Thank God. Thank God, Yeah.
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  We'll ask Nina, really, if you're exactly as people at
• 2:54
  restaurants seem think you are. OK, True or false?
• 2:57
  You think BK Sherrod is funny? BK Sherrod do Median friend of
• 3:01
  the pod. Which I did go back into my DMS
• 3:04
  and I was like oh shit, we did talk.
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  That is so several years ago. Wow.
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  Yeah, totally. Wow, he must have really made an
• 3:11
  impression for him to have remembered that years later and
• 3:14
  brought it up to me. And honestly, let's just be
• 3:16
  real, like brown dudes in Boulder, in Colorado got to
• 3:19
  support each other, you know? Absolutely.
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  Yep. Yep.
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  I love that. I love that.
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  That makes me so happy. OK.
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  And then, true or false, you play in a band.
• 3:26
  Do you play in a band? Do.
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  You play in a band, OK? Tell me about your band.
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  Our band is named The Cheeks. I play bass.
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  We are kind of a psychedelic funk rock band.
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  We're playing a show in Boulder actually on March 28th, like a
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  fundraiser for a local like music project out there called
• 3:43
  Roots Project. That's.
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  So cool. So yeah, come on down and shake
• 3:47
  your booty and say hi, right? Oh my God, I love that.
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  Yeah. Have fun.
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  Love it. Yeah.
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  OK, I think that those are the only the only like definitive
• 3:56
  claims that we made about you and your history.
• 3:59
  But but let's discuss anything that you want to confront me
• 4:02
  about or correct for the record, as you were listening to the
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  Johnny Tsunami podcast, in other words, did my episode about your
• 4:10
  movie age well? It really did.
• 4:13
  Wow, it was fantastic. Thank you so much.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gracious.
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  And I'm so glad that I can say that and mean it.
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  Yeah, and I'm so glad you can say it mean it as well.
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  Yeah, shout out to Ash. What up?
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  Thanks for being on that episode.
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  Yeah, Yeah. There was just, like, so many
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  insights. I'd never thought that deeply
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  about my movie before. Totally.
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  And I was just honored that you 2.
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  Really. Yeah.
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  Brought it back to not only. I mean, obviously who you were
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  when you were younger, right? What that means in, like,
• 4:42
  transformative periods of life, Right.
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  But you know how Johnny Tsunami was about classism?
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  You know, I was like, what the fuck?
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  Didn't think about that when you were a child, did you?
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  Yeah, no, I did. But I'm surprised that someone
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  picked up on that. You know, of course, preparing
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  for my role. I'm like, this is gonna.
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  Yeah. Totally.
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  Give this 20 years to marinate and we'll talk.
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  About it yeah, absolutely someone's gonna wake up in their
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  30s and really think about this Yeah, totally Oh my God.
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  Love it. OK, So I'm so glad that it was,
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  that it was a positive experience for you.
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  I feel like, OK, here's the thing.
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  I am not a person who was a child actor, OK?
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  And I only imagine when people bring up something that you did
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  a long time ago that you don't do anymore, it could get kind of
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  annoying. How do you not get annoyed?
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  Great question. Yeah, it's really helpful that
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  98% of the people that I meet are all really fucking cool
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  about it. So that's awesome.
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  It's like, even within that movie, right?
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  Kerry Tagawa. RIP.
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  Oh, RIP. He had an awesome role.
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  But Yuji Yakimoto, who played my dad, Yeah.
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  Kind of a shitty dad. Yeah, right.
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  Fuck dad. Yes.
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  Going back to that episode, you know what I mean?
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  But he's a great guy. And me and him were, like, so
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  close to this day. Yeah, he has, like, a awesome
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  Hawaiian restaurant out in Seattle.
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  He's doing Karate Kids still. That's awesome.
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  But people know him as the shitty dad, you know what I
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  mean? He goes around and he gets
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  people relating to him in that regard.
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  Oh my. Versus Johnny, just like a nice.
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  Nice. Good.
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  Kid you. Know what I mean?
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  Not not really a whole lot to like project onto that other
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  than like nice kid. Totally.
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  Yeah. So when, when people do meet me
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  in a, in a restaurant, yeah. In Denver, yeah.
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  There is this sense of, oh, I've seen the movie so many times
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  that I'm, like, embedded in people's, like, childhood in a
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  way. Wow.
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  Because they've, like, hung out with me so many times.
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  Yeah. Totally.
• 6:42
  Yeah, and because Johnny's like such a nice kid.
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  Totally. They're like, Oh my God, come
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  over to my house. Yeah.
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  Like, eat my things, meet you to my friends.
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  And luckily, you know. Yeah.
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  Not behind closed doors. I'm not an asshole, Absolutely.
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  You know, And yeah, but they're. Not when you're a guest guest at
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  other people's homes and restaurants.
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  You tend to be nice. Which is awesome because, like,
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  sometimes I think, like, come in if I was a dirtbag, this could,
• 7:03
  like, go wrong and weird. But luckily it hasn't.
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  I also think, yeah, I've done a pretty good job of having some
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  space between that version of myself and who I am now.
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  Colorado has really been a lot of that for me.
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  Like, when I moved out here, I was, I wasn't really toying with
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  the idea of acting still. But when I got here about 10
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  years ago now, yeah, there was like, oh, you don't even have
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  the opportunity to act, right. Yeah.
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  Which was really weird at first, for sure.
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  But then eventually was in like super fring.
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  Yeah. So it gave me that space to kind
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  of figure out who I was cool to like form an identity that like,
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  yeah, I was able to like self actualize.
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  Yeah. You know, as an adult, because
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  of that identity kind of happened when I was a kid actor.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  So having that ability to self define, yeah, going back to
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  being John Malkovich. Totally.
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  Was super helpful and now I feel like I I have been able to like
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  marry the two where it's like, oh, I still really love that
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  part of myself. I'm very appreciative of all of
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  that work and no still honestly the opportunities it affords me
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  like being here right now. Totally.
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  It's it's this weird like cherries on top thing yeah or
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  something that I did 25 years ago, but still is paying in this
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  like beautiful way. So super appreciative.
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  My God, my heart nice. Yeah, you know.
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  You're gonna. Get fucking deep on this
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  podcast. God, that makes me so happy.
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  And that leads me to a really important question, which is if
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  you could go inside the mind of a celebrity for 15 minutes and
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  remember it was $200 and that was in 1990, so that would be
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  like $400.00 now. So you gotta think like, what
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  would be worth the money in 15 minutes?
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  I know I should have. I should have let you think
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  about this beforehand. Start springing it on you well.
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  What's interesting is I looked up a few actors.
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  Yeah, who are 43. That's.
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  Amazing. And just some names that I've
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  written down. Jake Gyllenhaal.
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  Oh wow. Jason Momoa.
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  Yeah. Ryan Gosling.
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  Cool. Kieran Culkin.
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  Amazing. Just randomly.
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  Love, love those options. I think in terms of OK, who I
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  would want to be, I guess I probably want to be Jason Momoa
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  because I'd want to be just like a six foot 4.
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  Like hunky, like muscular, like brown man totally.
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  You know, like kind of who I always wished I was but just
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  never fucking happened. Who?
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  You imagine you are when you close your eyes at night. 100%.
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  Yeah, yeah, totally. But I think to recast this movie
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  now, I think it's easily Karen Culkin.
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  Yeah, 'cause he's kind of an oddball.
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  Yes, he is very successful and good at what he does, but he
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  still is. You don't know too much about
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  him. We don't know much about his
• 9:44
  life. Right.
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  Whereas like Gosling, you know a lot about, Gyllenhaal you know
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  like a lot about. But Malkovich was, yeah, very
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  good at his job, but he still kind of had this like normal
• 9:54
  everyman version to him. Right.
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  So I think to be Kieran Culkin, yeah, would be super cool, I
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  guess. Well, I didn't even realize this
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  random story. I was a guest star on ATV show
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  back in the day that I think ran for like one season starring
• 10:07
  Kieran Culkin. Really.
• 10:09
  And I played in an Indian kid named Sumir that wrestled him
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  on. That's in gym class, Yeah, so
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  shout out to Kieran. So you.
• 10:19
  Have you have really encountered Kieran in a way that not even
• 10:24
  someone who has been inside his head can?
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  So true. That's kind of like Maxine in
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  that way. I suppose in this scenario I'm
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  the. Really kind of our.
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  Kind of sexual love interests, yeah.
• 10:36
  And a onesie. Just wrestling, Totally.
• 10:38
  Yep, that's so funny. Welcome in my mind.
• 10:41
  You know what's funny? People in Australia say signet
• 10:44
  for like a tank top. When I think of a signet, of
• 10:47
  course I think wrestling. Can you do an Australian accent?
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  No. OK, NAR.
• 10:53
  NAR. NAR.
• 10:55
  Sydney NAURRR NAR OK, let's let's talk about puppets.
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  Have you ever worked with puppets before?
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  So. Like, let's talk about puppets.
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  That's for about 40. 5 minutes. Yeah, exactly.
• 11:13
  No, I've never, I've never worked with puppets before.
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  Yeah. I was thinking about Chalamet,
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  you know? Yeah.
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  And like the death of opera and the ballet and puppets and
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  puppets, you know, no one talks about puppets anymore.
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  No one's talking. No one's going to the puppet
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  show. I know exactly.
• 11:29
  I think I've been to a random puppet show in West Hollywood.
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  Ohh, yeah. It's like a like a gay puppet
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  show with a man that would contort his penis into various
• 11:40
  like, food items. Wild.
• 11:42
  So in terms of puppet show, yeah, that's probably the last
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  one I attended. Probably, yeah.
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  Yeah, probably for a lot of people.
• 11:50
  That's the last one. Do you go to puppet shows?
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  You know, never. Never been to one that I can
• 11:55
  think of. OK, yeah.
• 11:56
  I mean, I imagine I've probably seen a puppet show at like a a
• 12:00
  fair. I don't know.
• 12:01
  I don't know where I would have seen a puppet show.
• 12:03
  Not on the streets in Manhattan, but.
• 12:06
  Rising on one another. Oh my gosh, you know what I just
• 12:10
  remembered? Was that like Harry Potter
• 12:11
  puppet show? Do you remember that from the
• 12:13
  early, early days of YouTube? Oh yeah, I think I do what
• 12:17
  you're. Talking about, I think that was
• 12:18
  the last time I watched a puppet show, OK.
• 12:19
  Great. But you know what?
• 12:21
  Welcome back. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad to be
• 12:23
  back. I like that they don't make a
• 12:26
  joke out of puppeteering. Like, even though it is like a
• 12:30
  very silly draw, like it's it's a quirky thing about Craig.
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  He's actually good at it. He's not just like a shitty
• 12:39
  puppeteerer. So puppeteer Puppeteer.
• 12:45
  That's enough about puppets for now.
• 12:48
  This. Movie is quite meta though,
• 12:50
  right? Because obviously that
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  puppeteering is a metaphor for so many things.
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  Of course. For an avatar online?
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  For literally being an actor, yes.
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  For playing God, yeah. Or even for you being the
• 13:04
  puppeteer of your own body and life.
• 13:06
  Or someone else's correct? Absolutely, Yeah.
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  And also, it's what gets in the job, filing things.
• 13:13
  He's got nimble fingers. It's very true, you know.
• 13:15
  He's got it. He's got to be good at, you
• 13:19
  know, Yeah. Which, like, good for Lottie.
• 13:21
  You know, like a man with great fingers.
• 13:22
  I know love it good for I doesn't he say something to
• 13:25
  Maxine about being good with his with his hands or something?
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  I don't know, maybe I just kind of made.
• 13:30
  No. Well, there's that one secretary
• 13:32
  that's like, oh, I wish you could file me like.
• 13:34
  One of those, yeah, she says. I wish you could file me.
• 13:36
  That was funny. Yeah.
• 13:39
  OK, so we've got John Cusack as Craig, Cameron Diaz as Lottie,
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  Catherine Keener as Maxine, John Malkovich as himself, Orson Bean
• 13:50
  as Doctor Lester. I was doing a little bit of
• 13:54
  reading beforehand and. And Spike Jones was in this
• 14:00
  article with the Guardian talking about how they didn't
• 14:04
  have any backups for John Malkovich.
• 14:07
  They were like, it is him. That's who we need.
• 14:11
  A lot of it was because his name is so fun to say and it just
• 14:15
  like. Malkovich, Malkovich.
• 14:16
  Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich.
• 14:20
  And someone was like, why is it not being Tom Cruise?
• 14:24
  Like someone from the studio and like, same with the people who
• 14:27
  were, I don't know, funding it first reading the script.
• 14:31
  And he was like, no, it's John Malkovich.
• 14:34
  That's the only, only person who can do it.
• 14:37
  Didn't like had him in mind the whole time.
• 14:40
  Which is incredible. Yeah, apparently, Charlie.
• 14:42
  Rather, I should say Charlie Kaufman.
• 14:44
  OK, got it, it, got it. This.
• 14:45
  Was the. This was the Spike Jones was
• 14:48
  talking about Charlie Kaufman in the article of the Guardian.
• 14:51
  Yeah, apparently so. I did a little bit of homework
• 14:53
  as well. Oh, my gosh.
• 14:54
  Of course I know. And yeah.
• 14:57
  Charlie Kaufman, somehow it got to Malkovich's desk.
• 15:00
  Yeah. And he was like, great.
• 15:01
  I would love to produce it. And I would love to.
• 15:03
  Yeah. Have it be like, anybody else
• 15:05
  other than me because I think this is a great ride.
• 15:07
  Right. And he's like, no, thanks.
• 15:08
  It's only going to be you. There's only one option,
• 15:13
  there's. And I will and I will not make
• 15:15
  this for like, my very first, like, big break.
• 15:17
  Yeah, I'll do literally anything else because it's only going to
• 15:20
  be you. Imagine having that power.
• 15:22
  I know well or even like that, that blind confidence.
• 15:27
  Absolutely. Charlie Kaufman like was
• 15:29
  obviously a brilliant writer, but didn't really have anything
• 15:31
  to his name at that point. Right.
• 15:32
  Yeah, he just was. He he was just there for the
• 15:36
  love of the game, for the love of the Malkovich.
• 15:39
  For the I mean, nothing against Smith, Smith, Smith or Baker
• 15:43
  Baker, but Malkovich? Yeah, it is just so fucking it.
• 15:46
  Gives you something to chew on 100%.
• 15:48
  Yeah, totally. I was also reading a little bit
• 15:54
  in this article in Salon from the.
• 15:58
  I think it was like within a year or two of the movie coming
• 16:01
  out this there is this interview.
• 16:07
  Sorry, I'm getting a little bit lost in my notes, but there was
• 16:10
  this interview with Kaufman and he was like this there is no
• 16:17
  message. Like the message is that there's
• 16:19
  no message. And he really made some
• 16:24
  connections between, like, himself and Larry David, and
• 16:31
  he's basically saying like, this is a movie about nothing.
• 16:35
  Seinfeld, yeah. Yeah, like this is a movie about
• 16:37
  nothing. I don't have solutions.
• 16:40
  I don't like movies that have solutions similar to Larry
• 16:46
  David's famous line. No hugging, no learning.
• 16:49
  So. Funny.
• 16:50
  That's great. It's kind of funny.
• 16:51
  I think. Also another parallel is just
• 16:53
  like these self obsessed New Yorkers who just like.
• 16:59
  Self obsessed and self loathing. Self obsessed self loathing
• 17:03
  they've got they've got all kinds of deep seated issues and
• 17:08
  they're all trying to make it. Well, I mean, I know we're
• 17:11
  talking about Malkovich, Yeah, but have you seen Adaptation?
• 17:15
  No, I. Haven't.
• 17:16
  OK, so that is like another movie that he made where he was
• 17:18
  the writer. Nicolas Cage plays Charlie
• 17:22
  Kaufman in the film. So CC Kaufman writes himself
• 17:25
  into the film as a character, and it's he Nicolas Cage plays
• 17:32
  him and his twin brothers. So there's.
• 17:34
  It's almost like a sinner's thing.
• 17:36
  So Nicolas Cage. Yes, exactly.
• 17:38
  And he's this like, self loathing overweight, like
• 17:41
  shitty, not confident person. Yeah, like, literally on the
• 17:45
  screen. And that's clearly who Charlie
• 17:46
  Kaufman is. That's so crazy.
• 17:48
  Yeah, exactly. I can't imagine, like, when
• 17:53
  people say, like, who would you cast for yourself in a movie?
• 17:57
  You would say, I don't know, who I'd say I don't know.
• 18:00
  There's like, not that. Like physically, there's not
• 18:03
  that many girls that look like me in Hollywood.
• 18:07
  Maybe Beanie Feldstein? OK, OK, Sure, sure, sure.
• 18:10
  I I guess her character in Book Smart reminded me a lot of
• 18:17
  myself when I was in high school.
• 18:19
  Tragically, I'm like, yeah, I do my homework and you guys don't.
• 18:27
  Oh, you know what one thing that just popped up in my head that
• 18:30
  we on the true or false? Yeah, from the episode that you
• 18:34
  did, there's like, oh, there's an actor that he reminds me of.
• 18:37
  Yeah. And people, or at least that's
• 18:38
  what Ash was saying. People say I look like Benjamin
• 18:40
  Bratt. Oh.
• 18:42
  So to perhaps scratch that itch in in Ash's brain.
• 18:46
  Yeah, this is for you, Ash. Yeah, but of course I would
• 18:48
  choose Jason Momoa for myself. Obviously, duh.
• 18:52
  And any any casting director would say the same thing.
• 18:55
  Right. Oh, they're both Brown, Sure.
• 18:56
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Momoa.
• 18:58
  He's probably Filipino or something, right?
• 19:00
  Right, exactly. Yeah, I gosh, I don't know.
• 19:04
  I don't know who else I would I would think to cast as myself,
• 19:09
  but I think that's the thing. It's almost like if you're a
• 19:14
  self loathing person it's a bit of an insult to whoever you've
• 19:18
  chosen to play you to be like. Well you are a sad person
• 19:23
  probably. Or at least you can play 1.
• 19:26
  If they are a sad person, perhaps it is, yeah.
• 19:28
  But if they're not a sad person, then that is like so much fun to
• 19:31
  chew on. Of course, of course.
• 19:34
  And of course they're acting so they don't have to choose
• 19:37
  somebody who's actually sad. I don't know, but I don't think
• 19:42
  that it's something that a lot of people really have to deal
• 19:46
  with. Not a common thing to come
• 19:49
  across, but I don't know. The night is young, you know,
• 19:50
  we'll, we'll see where, yeah. The night is young and again,
• 19:54
  Brandon is available for anyone. Who's any self loathing parts?
• 20:00
  Yes, in the my way. Which is at this moment.
• 20:04
  And OK, so Kaufman also said that Being John Malkovich
• 20:07
  started out as a story about a man who falls in love with
• 20:10
  someone who's not his wife. And then it just like evolved
• 20:14
  from that. Into a fever dream.
• 20:17
  It's like when when Safdie said that Marty Supreme was a story
• 20:22
  about like, your parents having a life before you're born.
• 20:26
  I'm like that's. Got.
• 20:30
  It Oh, OK, OK. I guess ultimately that is it's
• 20:34
  not, not what it's about. Yeah.
• 20:36
  So then he just kind of like introduced these ideas that
• 20:41
  entertained him, like the seven and a half floor and then
• 20:45
  everything just kind of like started going from there.
• 20:49
  Incredible. Incredible.
• 20:51
  Which is, you know, that is part of what I love so much about
• 20:55
  this movie is just how weird it is.
• 20:57
  Of course. And you can tell he's written
• 20:58
  this in a silo. Yeah.
• 21:00
  Because if he did get feedback and listen to any feedback, so
• 21:04
  much of the weirdness would have been stripped away from it.
• 21:07
  Yeah. And it would have lost just all
• 21:09
  of like the incredible, like verve that it has.
• 21:11
  Yeah, completely. I think this is.
• 21:15
  Yeah. I'm so glad that he didn't get
• 21:19
  notes during the process. I mean maybe he did but from
• 21:23
  like trusted people who understood.
• 21:26
  But I'm guessing probably not. Probably not Probably not.
• 21:30
  I saw an interview with Malkovich and he's basically
• 21:31
  saying him and Spike Jones are two people that you just
• 21:35
  shouldn't pick fights with because it'll go bad for you and
• 21:38
  it's a waste of your time. So they were both incredibly
• 21:40
  resolute. He's pretty much brand new film
• 21:43
  film makers to that point. Spike Jones had done a bunch of
• 21:44
  music. Videos right, but because.
• 21:46
  He's like this big break. Yeah, totally.
• 21:48
  And thank God they stuck to their guns.
• 21:50
  I know completely it this could have been this could have been a
• 21:54
  movie that, like saw itself as just like I'm a little quirky.
• 21:58
  Yeah, yeah. But instead it's like this
• 22:01
  bizarre fever dream. And thank God it is.
• 22:03
  Yep, Yep. It's also, I mean, Speaking of
• 22:07
  Spike Jones, for God's sake, totally redefined like what a
• 22:12
  Spike Jones film could be like the The Range.
• 22:18
  Yeah, incredible. Well, I feel like he he like
• 22:22
  returns to this of a couple of times, especially with like her.
• 22:26
  Yeah, totally. This like relationship that you
• 22:30
  have with like self and identity and relationships that are
• 22:35
  somewhat, I don't know, through through a different lens or
• 22:39
  technology. And you're like, Oh yeah, I can
• 22:42
  see how you've arrived here from this for sure.
• 22:44
  For sure. And also I think it's so
• 22:46
  interesting to have gone from the experience of making these
• 22:52
  short form videos to creating this like long feature film.
• 22:58
  I can't imagine like how exhausting that would be.
• 23:02
  It's like going from writing like short stories to writing a
• 23:06
  novel and being like, I'm still with the same story, right?
• 23:11
  Well, this movie is like chock full of ideas.
• 23:15
  Oh yeah. So they have packed it in there
• 23:17
  with so many ideas to the point where I will, I'm sure, forget
• 23:19
  about what I'm talking about within this conversation several
• 23:22
  times. Absolutely me.
• 23:23
  Too, But they've actually organized it pretty well to
• 23:25
  where you don't get too lost in any of the minutiae.
• 23:29
  And even if you do for a second have that issue of suspending
• 23:32
  your disbelief, they move on pretty quickly and you're like,
• 23:34
  yeah, whatever, fuck it, it's a runaway like roller coaster,
• 23:37
  let's just keep with. It totally you're like, how
• 23:38
  could like how did he stay in there beyond 15 minutes?
• 23:41
  I forgot, I don't know, but whatever, I'm just accepting it.
• 23:45
  And it's like so absurd. They started started off with it
• 23:48
  with small things being absurd, like the seven and a half floor.
• 23:51
  Yeah, they're like, OK, well, I don't even think too hard about
• 23:54
  some of the reasons why we're doing some of these things,
• 23:58
  which I guess is, yeah, kind of like a a psychedelic music
• 24:01
  video. Right.
• 24:02
  Totally. Yeah, Yeah, totally.
• 24:03
  And it's like, even though the music doesn't play a strong role
• 24:10
  in this, arguably, there's still so many like, auditory things to
• 24:20
  chew on. You know, like, such as when
• 24:23
  when we first get into John Malkovich's head and you hear
• 24:27
  him like, sort of like the muffled sound of the breathing
• 24:31
  and chewing and talking. And it's like all like, and it's
• 24:37
  like, it's like those ASMR videos where people are just
• 24:42
  like, you know. Bakovich.
• 24:46
  Bakovich. Exactly that.
• 24:51
  And and like I think the like visually, like the
• 24:57
  claustrophobia in the 7th and a half floor.
• 25:03
  It's like little little like really uncomfortable sensory
• 25:11
  experiences. When they're crawling into
• 25:15
  Malkovich's portal and every, every time someone like puts
• 25:19
  their hand in that mud. Oh my God.
• 25:20
  Squish. Yeah.
• 25:22
  Exactly. Yeah, You're like, cool.
• 25:24
  I know it's icky, but it makes it so visceral, which makes us
• 25:27
  remember it OK, thinking about like first of all, 1999 as a.
• 25:37
  Great movie year. Great.
• 25:38
  Great movie year. Absolutely.
• 25:40
  OK. Have you read the book The Best
• 25:43
  Movie year Ever? I haven't.
• 25:44
  OK, you got it. It's all about 1999.
• 25:47
  Oh, OK, great. And it is really interesting how
• 25:52
  like 1999 shaped the future of films.
• 25:56
  Obviously Johnny saw me being at the top.
• 25:58
  Of that shit, I didn't even fucking put that.
• 26:00
  Together. Wait was it?
• 26:00
  Wasn't in 99. Yeah, I think it was, yeah.
• 26:03
  Well, obviously, obviously the defining film of it of the 20th
• 26:08
  century capped it all. They saved the best for last,
• 26:11
  frankly. But in 1999, there is this like
• 26:19
  there's this Gen. X nihilism where everyone's just
• 26:23
  like, what does it all mean? This like I'm just a corporate
• 26:27
  sellout. Fight Club.
• 26:29
  Exactly, I wrote in my notes parallels to movies like Fight
• 26:33
  Club. Nice.
• 26:36
  Nice. It's and it has that sort of
• 26:38
  like similar like surrealism to Fight Club, but it's like
• 26:44
  there's this very unique, like I don't deserve to be here.
• 26:50
  What is my purpose kind of thing, but also feeling like
• 26:54
  things are meaningless. And now in this like, age of
• 27:00
  live streaming and having like so much access to a curated
• 27:06
  version, but a version nonetheless of celebrity life,
• 27:11
  it's like this movie could not be made today because I don't
• 27:16
  think people would find it that interesting to be John Malkovich
• 27:19
  for 15 minutes. They could just go on social
• 27:22
  media and. Be whoever they want.
• 27:23
  Be whoever they want or they could like put on their VR
• 27:26
  headset and whatever, you know. 100% Well, I mean, yeah, I think
• 27:31
  that people wouldn't be interested in being John
• 27:33
  Malkovich. And I remember when this first
• 27:34
  came out, this was before there was a lot of that self-awareness
• 27:39
  by celebrities of like even the cameos in this where people
• 27:42
  playing themselves. That wasn't a thing that we were
• 27:45
  really doing back then. Where it's like now there's a
• 27:48
  ton of parodies and people do that all the time and have like
• 27:51
  an incredible cameo show up in a random movie.
• 27:56
  But yeah, for like that, that time frame to, to be in like
• 28:00
  what you're talking about that like, what the fuck is this all
• 28:02
  about? Yeah, even that like the the
• 28:04
  seven and a half floor. Yeah.
• 28:06
  Where they're literally bumping up their head against the
• 28:08
  corporate ceiling. Exactly.
• 28:10
  Or like, oh, I'm, I'm trapped in whatever the fuck is this
• 28:13
  bullshit. Yeah.
• 28:14
  And if I just listen to a video, then that's gonna justify why
• 28:18
  I'm in a fucking half floor. And it was just like, OK, yeah.
• 28:22
  And they just go along with it. And there was that feeling that
• 28:24
  that angst back then, which is when, you know, Woodstock 99
• 28:29
  came about of like, fuck this, whatever this is.
• 28:32
  Totally, totally. Yeah, it's, it's interesting
• 28:35
  like thinking about how right now celebrities have this sort
• 28:42
  of like they have not just who they who they are in whatever
• 28:49
  role they're playing. I guess we're talking
• 28:51
  specifically about actors. But then there's like also
• 28:55
  they're they're really like a persona and a brand and they're
• 28:58
  like quote UN quote personal life in the version of their
• 29:01
  personal life that we see. And then there's like the maybe
• 29:06
  two or three layers down, like who a person actually is in
• 29:10
  their everyday personal life. Sure, if they even are able to
• 29:13
  discern between the two. If they even, yeah.
• 29:16
  Totally. Which I'm sure most of them do,
• 29:19
  but I don't fucking know. I don't know, maybe some of them
• 29:21
  are so wrapped in. I mean, that is part of what
• 29:23
  this is talking about. There's like, I feel like
• 29:25
  there's two sides of it. There is the wanting to be
• 29:28
  someone else and wanting to have the voyeuristic experience of
• 29:31
  putting on AVR headset. Justin, my fellow podcast host,
• 29:36
  he's 90s kid for life. What of Justin?
• 29:39
  But he's started doing this thing where he constructed a
• 29:43
  bedroom in his house to be all 90s stuff.
• 29:47
  So he has like aol.com dial up and he has, he bought the bed
• 29:52
  from his childhood that you know, like the like old oak, you
• 29:56
  know, it's got and it kind of has that feeling to it.
• 29:58
  He puts on meta glasses and he goes and he just like opens up
• 30:02
  Pokémon card pack. No way.
• 30:04
  And people love it. People love it and I'm not that
• 30:08
  way, but there is a huge population that loves consuming
• 30:11
  this totally. And that's exactly what is
• 30:14
  happening in this movie where you are just getting the first
• 30:17
  time the POV to like delve into someones life.
• 30:20
  And people just love, I think, escaping from their reality for
• 30:24
  a little bit. And, and honestly, I personally,
• 30:26
  I'm much more of a voyeur than an exhibitionist.
• 30:28
  Yeah. So I totally get it.
• 30:29
  Yeah, totally. Within the celebrity part,
• 30:32
  that's what's really interesting of like how everyone has access
• 30:36
  to a certain level of celebrity. And there's so much of that.
• 30:39
  Like, let me give you part of myself to showcase and to build.
• 30:43
  Yeah. A, a brand in 99.
• 30:46
  Yeah. There was no Internet.
• 30:48
  I think Facebook is maybe 2004, Instagram's 2005.
• 30:54
  So for them to for Charlie Kaufman to know ahead of time
• 30:58
  that this was coming, it's fucking wild.
• 31:00
  Absolutely wild that like that Also somebody who is like John
• 31:08
  Malkovich, who's not like a he's not like an A list.
• 31:12
  I mean, obviously he was like an award-winning actor, but like
• 31:15
  he, This is why I think Kieran Culkin would be a perfect person
• 31:20
  to to play him today if this movie was remade because he's
• 31:27
  like, he's a handsome guy, but he's not like the Hollywood
• 31:31
  heartthrob hot guy. He's not the Jason Momoa.
• 31:34
  You might say. He's like kind of a person who
• 31:39
  we don't know a ton about and he's but he's still like well
• 31:45
  known enough that like he would be verified on Instagram or
• 31:49
  whatever, you know. So it's like even even somebody
• 31:53
  who's as you know, like mid level, really more of like an
• 31:57
  actor's actor like John Malkovich sure still has this
• 32:01
  expectation or would have this expectation today of being like,
• 32:05
  OK, well, like what's your persona?
• 32:07
  Like what's your deal? What's your brand?
• 32:08
  What's your like? Truly, I mean, this is something
• 32:13
  that I I've been thinking about myself as I've started putting
• 32:17
  myself back out there after kind of 10 years being offline in
• 32:22
  Colorado, just soaking up the Colorado sun and nature.
• 32:24
  And I'm like, OK, I think I know who I am a little bit more and I
• 32:27
  want to put myself out there. There is this thing where people
• 32:30
  are like, yeah, but what is your angle and what is your brand?
• 32:34
  And I'm like, oh, that's like, like I am such an amalgam of
• 32:37
  like so many different things. It's weird to to be thinking of
• 32:41
  like my perception, even listening to the podcast with
• 32:45
  you and Ash of like, oh, I forget.
• 32:47
  Like when I'm in a restaurant, I'm like just a guy like looking
• 32:50
  for like a chicken sandwich, right?
• 32:52
  You're like I eat. Food.
• 32:54
  Just like all of you, correct? Yeah, like, even like what?
• 32:57
  We're seeing through John Malkovich's eyes.
• 33:00
  I've seen on such a small, small, small level, nothing even
• 33:03
  compared to what he's going through.
• 33:05
  But I do have an understanding of like, oh, I'm being perceived
• 33:09
  without me being there. And that was honestly like
• 33:12
  hearing you guys talk about me being in that restaurant was
• 33:15
  illuminating in a reminder of like, oh, weird.
• 33:17
  But I think even more so, it weirded out my wife where she's
• 33:20
  like, oh, that's fucking crazy 'cause she's just like, I know
• 33:23
  you like chicken sandwiches, you know?
• 33:26
  Right. Whoa.
• 33:27
  That is. Such a trip to like when you to
• 33:32
  realize like when you're being perceived like we all have.
• 33:36
  OK, maybe some people don't, but like I assume that we all have
• 33:40
  kind of like a main character POV.
• 33:43
  It's like, sure, I certainly hope we all do I.
• 33:46
  Certainly hope we all do. But like, you know, oftentimes,
• 33:51
  like, you know, the cliche goes to like, you know, people aren't
• 33:54
  really that worried about what you're doing.
• 33:56
  Everyone's just worried about themselves, like, blah, blah,
• 34:01
  blah. Most people probably think that
• 34:03
  others are thinking about them more than they actually are.
• 34:07
  But for somebody who like who is like recognizable, who it is
• 34:15
  like actually being perceived right?
• 34:19
  Exactly. It's like.
• 34:21
  Whoa. It's really a trip to like have
• 34:23
  that, that confirmation maybe of like this innate feeling that we
• 34:28
  have in ourselves of like, Oh my God, everyone's looking at me.
• 34:30
  But like, when, when you're like, Oh my God, everyone
• 34:32
  actually is looking at me to some degree.
• 34:36
  To some degree to the yeah. The obviously the most extreme
• 34:40
  example of everyone's looking at me, it's more like, Oh my God,
• 34:42
  somebody actually does recognize me when they're serving me the
• 34:46
  chicken sandwich and I'm hearing them talk about it.
• 34:48
  'Cause when I marry some of these couples, right, they're
• 34:51
  like, oh, we want Johnny Tsunami incorporated into our wedding
• 34:53
  Yeah, the very first movie that we saw on our very first date
• 34:57
  was Johnny Tsunami. Yeah.
• 34:58
  And we have these references within our relationship that
• 35:00
  all. I'm like, cool, I get that and
• 35:02
  that's awesome and I'm I'm Privy to that to some extent, but to
• 35:06
  have someone be like, hey, what do they think about him?
• 35:09
  Like what do they say about him? That makes me think like, oh
• 35:13
  fuck, like, hey, if I'm an asshole, maybe I don't actually
• 35:16
  fucking care, right? If I'm an asshole, then who
• 35:18
  gives a shit? I'm a fucking shitty guy at a
• 35:19
  restaurant. I think some of that is is
• 35:22
  correlated to the level of fame or notoriety that you have that
• 35:27
  luckily I've. Achieved.
• 35:28
  Like, in my lifetime, some sense of success and notoriety that
• 35:33
  it's like, kind of gotten me like, free beers.
• 35:36
  Yeah. For like me and my buddies at a
• 35:37
  bar. Totally, which is kind of.
• 35:39
  Exactly where you want. To be, that is, I've always
• 35:41
  said. That that is the level of like
• 35:46
  fame that I want is like the kind where I can still like go
• 35:50
  out and like live my life, but people who know me will come up
• 35:53
  to me and say I love your work totally.
• 35:55
  And that's not. It I fucking made it.
• 35:58
  You made it, made it there. Yeah, 'cause there's been this a
• 36:01
  few times in my life where, you know, Johnny Saddam was like
• 36:04
  popping off. I was doing some other stuff and
• 36:05
  it kind of was flying a little too close to the sun.
• 36:08
  And I was like 15 or 16 at the time, and I was kind of a Dick.
• 36:11
  Yeah, of course you would. I.
• 36:13
  I would be a monster, I mean, and I wasn't a monster.
• 36:16
  But I just didn't know how to deal with it.
• 36:18
  It was just like, oh, this is like crazy.
• 36:20
  Yeah, there's there is. A sliding.
• 36:22
  Doors moment in my life that I think about where I was
• 36:25
  auditioning to be Jacob on Twilight OK it's one of my last
• 36:29
  kind of bigger auditions I did before I like really left yeah
• 36:32
  and had. I gotten that.
• 36:33
  Part which I don't think I was even close but it's like one of
• 36:36
  those things where I'm like Oh my God, had I done that then my
• 36:39
  life would be completely different.
• 36:40
  I wouldn't be in Colorado. I would have never met my wife
• 36:43
  and it would just been a whole other different side quest of
• 36:46
  life completely. Yeah.
• 36:48
  And then? Like if you had wanted to
• 36:51
  continue acting, you would forever be Jacob.
• 36:56
  Like I like I haven't seen Taylor Lautner working and other
• 37:01
  stuff but he has podcasts. With his wife name's Taylor
• 37:05
  Lautner. So I would have just married
• 37:07
  Brandon Baker. Absolutely in this other side.
• 37:10
  Quest A. Podcast because.
• 37:12
  That's what you do, duh, 'cause that's what all cool people do.
• 37:15
  The world needs more podcasts. Everyone knows and I've always
• 37:17
  said that I've. Always said that I wish more
• 37:20
  people would do this. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:23
  OK, One thing that actually did remind me a little bit of
• 37:26
  podcasting. This is so stupid and self
• 37:28
  obsessed. But at toward the end of the
• 37:30
  film, when John Malkovich, AKA Craig in John Malkovich, his
• 37:35
  body eight months later is he's a like a famous puppeteer Now
• 37:42
  I'm like, OK, here's the thing. It's so much easier to be famous
• 37:49
  for a niche thing when you're already famous for another
• 37:52
  thing. And I think about all these like
• 37:54
  celebrities with podcasts. And I'm like, of course you have
• 37:58
  a popular podcast 'cause you're already good at this other
• 38:01
  thing, which means that nobody else who's good at this thing,
• 38:06
  it can really like Breakthrough because you decided that this is
• 38:09
  also your thing. If I were a puppeteer in 1999
• 38:16
  and I saw someone. Like.
• 38:17
  Like an actor like John Malkovich become like famous
• 38:21
  puppeteer. I'd be like, well, that's
• 38:23
  certainly not fair because I've been doing this my whole life.
• 38:26
  He just started eight months ago, you know, Correct.
• 38:29
  You would feel like. Like Sean Penn, Like fuck.
• 38:34
  Exactly. I don't want to just.
• 38:36
  Jump on the. Bandwagon.
• 38:38
  Yeah. No, but I think that is part of
• 38:39
  what this what the movie is saying.
• 38:41
  Like contrary to what Kaufman is saying that there's no point to
• 38:43
  the movie right there. Of course there's a point.
• 38:46
  At the end of the movie, The. Only person who is really
• 38:49
  unfulfilled. Not even really.
• 38:50
  Like clearly unfulfilled is Craig.
• 38:53
  Yeah. Because he is taken and used.
• 38:56
  John Malkovich. Not really learn anything about
• 38:58
  himself. He's not grown at all, right?
• 39:00
  He just basically steals him. Yeah.
• 39:03
  And uses him to prop up what he wants to do in terms of
• 39:06
  puppeteering, which, to be fair, he is good at, but he just wants
• 39:10
  success and notoriety. Yeah, without earning it.
• 39:14
  And. And Malkovich has the success as
• 39:18
  an actor because he has earned it.
• 39:20
  That is so true, yeah. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it
• 39:23
  that way, that like he he's given sort of this permission to
• 39:30
  pivot his career because he's proven that he is a competent
• 39:33
  person with talent, you know? Yeah, I guess I.
• 39:37
  Guess Cusack is almost like, it's like nepotism a little bit.
• 39:41
  You know, he made it the top of puppeteering because of Papa
• 39:44
  Malkovich, of course. Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 39:47
  He's like, well, people pay attention to him enough that if
• 39:51
  he started puppeteering maybe they'd be interested.
• 39:53
  And apparently Malkovich can do like backflips.
• 39:55
  And shit yeah, totally. Which what a great scene.
• 39:57
  That's so cool, I. Do think that it is really great
• 40:02
  that this was made before, like the Internet meme age, Because
• 40:07
  imagine if an actor like John Malkovich actually like came
• 40:11
  forward and like told People magazine, hey, I'm not going to
• 40:14
  act anymore. I'm only going to be a
• 40:15
  puppeteer. Oh my God, you're right.
• 40:18
  There would be like a whole campaign like like Chalamet,
• 40:21
  Yeah, totally just to promote the.
• 40:23
  Movie, of course. Oh.
• 40:24
  My God, it would be crazy. Yeah, real quick.
• 40:27
  OK. Why?
• 40:28
  I'm sorry to cut you off. No, you go.
• 40:33
  I'm hosting this podcast. OK, so now this is Brandon.
• 40:36
  'S podcast. So you sent me a list of.
• 40:39
  Like 40 movies potentially choose from.
• 40:41
  I did and there were like. Ones on there that I.
• 40:44
  Could have gone with like 40 year old virgin, which I love of
• 40:47
  course, but just something like a little bit more, you know,
• 40:51
  empty calories ish. And I saw Being John Malkovich
• 40:55
  on there and I was like, oh, that's a weird fucking movie.
• 40:56
  And I love that movie totally. But why is why was that movie on
• 41:00
  your list? Like, what do you love about
• 41:01
  being John Malkovich? So I the reason?
• 41:04
  That this is on my list is because somebody had someone had
• 41:08
  DM Ed me and been like, hey, have you done being John
• 41:11
  Malkovich? I feel like that movie couldn't
• 41:13
  be made today. And I was like, that's so
• 41:15
  interesting thinking about like often times something will like
• 41:19
  kind of come across my, you know, symbolic desk because it's
• 41:25
  like, because it's like, oh, this would be really hard to
• 41:29
  make today. And So what made it, what made
• 41:32
  it viable then? What made it successful then
• 41:35
  that would be challenging now. And so that's why that's part of
• 41:39
  the reason was on my list. Another reason that I like it
• 41:43
  and you know, like wanted to talk about it was just that I
• 41:48
  think it is really symbolic of 1999, kind of like the cultural
• 41:55
  moment, both like, and how we perceive like celebrity, but
• 41:59
  also things about like identity and and jealousy and corporate
• 42:06
  sell out, whatever, you know, And also I just love John
• 42:12
  Cusack, so there's that too. I think he's great.
• 42:16
  And I think that he and Cameron Diaz both really prove that they
• 42:19
  are more than just pretty faces. Oh my gosh, they are.
• 42:22
  Honestly, I. Think.
• 42:23
  You know, often times on this podcast I have these gripes
• 42:27
  about like, oh man, these movies from the 90s and early 2000s,
• 42:31
  they're always taking hot people and trying to make them ugly.
• 42:33
  And that's stupid. You should just hire ugly
• 42:36
  people. But I, I, after rewatching this
• 42:41
  movie, I think actually what we should be doing is taking all of
• 42:44
  the beautiful people, making them look kind of frazzled, kind
• 42:49
  of, you know, like normal frumpy and see, can they still deliver?
• 42:55
  And guess what? Cameron Diaz and John Cusack
• 42:59
  absolutely did. 100 fucking percent.
• 43:02
  They even kind of look the same. They're both, they both have
• 43:04
  this like crazy hair, you know, they really do.
• 43:08
  They kind of like, it's sort of like when you when like people
• 43:12
  start to look like their dogs or like they start to look like
• 43:14
  their partner. It's like you just spend so much
• 43:16
  time together, you kind of become one frazzled 1 frazzled
• 43:21
  basement dwelling. Couple.
• 43:23
  Yeah. No, she's.
• 43:24
  It makes me miss Cameron Diaz. Me too, 'cause she was amazing
• 43:29
  in this and this was I think after something about Mary.
• 43:34
  So she's clearly like a hot movie star but was like Nope.
• 43:38
  I also want to just do some weird shit with some like cool,
• 43:41
  like cutting edge, like film makers, which I so like, love
• 43:44
  and appreciate about that. Absolutely.
• 43:46
  She's really like. An artist, yeah.
• 43:49
  And before. Like any like facial stuff, you
• 43:53
  know, it's like everyone looks like a human in this, like
• 43:56
  Catherine Keener's like teeth have not been touched.
• 43:58
  Incredible. I know and I love.
• 44:00
  That it made me. Think a lot about the.
• 44:02
  Tyra Banks documentary. I know.
• 44:05
  Have you seen it? OK.
• 44:06
  So there's a. New ish new ish docu series on
• 44:09
  Netflix about America's Next Top Model and the the big ultimately
• 44:15
  like the thesis statement of it is is like Tyra Banks attempts
• 44:19
  to take accountability and doesn't she sounds.
• 44:23
  Accurate A. Little Yeah.
• 44:25
  Yeah, yeah. And.
• 44:27
  So there's this, there's this contestant who is incredible.
• 44:32
  She was like one of my favorite contestants on the show 'cause I
• 44:35
  watched it when I was younger. I was like one of those people
• 44:38
  who like my fucked up ideas of the world were formed by yeah, I
• 44:42
  know, right? I did watch like the first
• 44:43
  probably couple seasons. Oh, really?
• 44:44
  I was right there with you. Yeah, totally.
• 44:45
  Totally there. There was a contestant who had
• 44:50
  this, this beautiful, like, gap in her teeth.
• 44:53
  Like I know you're talking about.
• 44:54
  You know what? Yeah, I know you're.
• 44:55
  Talking about. OK, yeah.
• 44:56
  And then they essentially. They were like, if you don't get
• 44:58
  this gap filled, you will be eliminated from the show.
• 45:03
  And she left the show, right? No, she.
• 45:04
  Ended up getting her gap filled. Oh.
• 45:05
  No, yeah 'cause the 1st. Time they were like.
• 45:08
  OK, girls, we're taking you to the dentist.
• 45:10
  And she declined to have her gap filled.
• 45:13
  And then that week at like the judging, they were like, hey, so
• 45:17
  you're gonna go back and get it done because entire does this
• 45:23
  thing where she's like people see you and they're just gonna
• 45:27
  say they see easy, breezy, beautiful cover girl does this
• 45:32
  whole like it's it's really hard to watch.
• 45:36
  That's the 90s. A few a few seasons later there
• 45:41
  is they're doing makeovers on the girls and there's a girl
• 45:43
  with like a tiny gap in her teeth and she goes and with you,
• 45:47
  we're going to widen that gap. We're going to wipe fucking way.
• 45:52
  What a Dick. I know, I know, but you learn.
• 45:55
  But you know. I I don't know that that's true.
• 46:01
  It is it is really interesting. I do recommend that you that you
• 46:06
  watch it if if you enjoy docu series.
• 46:09
  I'm down for that and I need to watch.
• 46:10
  Manosphere. Ohh yeah yeah.
• 46:12
  Which I've. Heard a lot about yeah.
• 46:14
  Interesting. Yeah, yeah, very interesting.
• 46:16
  So anyways, I kind of wonder what Tyra Banks approach would
• 46:20
  have been with with this set of teeth because I know it's like,
• 46:25
  oh, Catherine. Keener, she like, clearly smokes
• 46:27
  cigs. Yeah, love that.
• 46:29
  Love that about her. OK.
• 46:30
  Have you heard the fan theory that that she is the same person
• 46:36
  in Get Out? Yeah.
• 46:38
  Really good, one of my favorite. Things and Jordan Peele was
• 46:41
  like, yeah, sure, it's something.
• 46:44
  I like it. I like that, sure.
• 46:45
  Let's go with that. Yeah, It's the same universe.
• 46:47
  Yeah, same universe. So for those.
• 46:49
  Who haven't heard this fan theory?
• 46:50
  It's that basically Catherine Keenan's character in Being John
• 46:55
  Malkovich and in Get Out are the same person.
• 46:59
  And I actually wrote down some of the some of the specifics
• 47:05
  because sometimes I get a little bit lost.
• 47:08
  But there it's ultimately like this, you know, very similar
• 47:12
  concept of like using another person as like a vessel and
• 47:18
  using their consciousness as a vessel for immortality.
• 47:22
  And they said, hold on, I got to find the specific.
• 47:30
  OK, so the full idea is that Katherine Keenan's character is
• 47:35
  playing the same character. Maxine and Lottie from Being
• 47:38
  John Malkovich miss being a part of a relationship that involves
• 47:41
  body snatching and they cross paths with Roman Armitage, the
• 47:45
  creator of the mind transplant procedure, and get out.
• 47:48
  Lottie's mind is then put into Armitage's son, who then marries
• 47:53
  Catherine Keener. Now going by Missy, the fan
• 47:56
  theory states that the two raise their daughter Rose and continue
• 48:00
  the Armitage experience with my transplantation.
• 48:03
  And then Jordan Peele spoke with Vanity Fair about a bunch of
• 48:07
  different fan theories. He loves John Malkovich and he
• 48:12
  was like, yeah, I endorse it. As far as I'm concerned, it's
• 48:17
  true. Love that.
• 48:19
  I love. That I love that there is
• 48:23
  actually there's this fun video where Jordan Peele goes through
• 48:27
  a bunch of different fan theories and kind of like says
• 48:30
  whether like he was like whether he was in on it or not and this
• 48:35
  is 1 where he's like sure that's great I.
• 48:39
  Know, I know. I love that.
• 48:41
  I really want to believe that that is true.
• 48:45
  It made me think A. Little bit of what celebrities
• 48:49
  have possibly been hijacked by a group of centurion, You know,
• 48:56
  cause. Like a when I'm.
• 48:58
  Watching the movie, I'm like, so how does that work when they all
• 49:00
  go into Malkovich and there's like 20 people in there?
• 49:02
  Like, are they just like in a, a movie theater, you know, are
• 49:05
  they just like occupying like different stadium seats, but
• 49:09
  even. Beyond that, it made me.
• 49:10
  Think of like, like Britney Spears, Yeah.
• 49:14
  Like did Britney Spears? 44 get portaled yes by an older
• 49:22
  105 year old man that just loves dancing, yes absolutely.
• 49:27
  Entirely possible I. Think that not.
• 49:29
  Only is it entirely possible. It is definitively true.
• 49:32
  Fuck and I love you. Britney and we, it is fucking
• 49:36
  tough. Yeah.
• 49:37
  It is tough, Yeah, it is tough out here.
• 49:40
  I I think that there are many celebrities that we could say
• 49:44
  are in the sunken place, correct?
• 49:46
  Absolutely. I at the beginning of the get
• 49:52
  out like press tour, I theorized that Kanye is in the sunken
• 49:59
  place and the song flashing lights was actually like a sort
• 50:04
  of a warning, kind of private a warning.
• 50:08
  And later could be seen as a cry for help because it's like we
• 50:11
  need to flash some lights to get him out of the sunken place.
• 50:14
  Well, I think that kind of might go to.
• 50:16
  What you were talking about earlier, where, where does your
• 50:19
  public persona and your internal world either end or begin, if
• 50:24
  there is such a place? So maybe you could get so deep
• 50:27
  into your own idea of self, kind of like when Malkovich enters
• 50:31
  his own portal, that you are just lost in your own nightmare
• 50:36
  of Oh my God, yeah. Of celebrity.
• 50:38
  Yeah, God. And that scene, to me, that was
• 50:44
  when, I mean, obviously we know John Malkovich is a great actor.
• 50:47
  That scene when he is playing everybody in the world, I said.
• 50:53
  This man. Can act.
• 50:55
  This man is great. Cleavage.
• 50:57
  And I thought, crap, look. Look at that rap on John
• 51:00
  Malkovich. But truly incredible.
• 51:05
  Yeah. Incredible.
• 51:06
  Yeah. Who else do we think might be
• 51:10
  have like a whole, a whole peanut gallery going on in
• 51:12
  there? Well, it's kind of like you
• 51:14
  would. Think that someone who's
• 51:15
  abruptly made kind of a left hand turn right.
• 51:19
  So Michael Jackson being one of those they're like OK, you were
• 51:24
  this specific person at one point and then all of a sudden
• 51:28
  you wanted to be white and you started acting pretty weird.
• 51:31
  Totally. And maybe you are a 100 and.
• 51:32
  Five year old man. Maybe you are and a bunch of
• 51:35
  his. Friends, correct?
• 51:36
  Or maybe. I.
• 51:38
  Mean this is. I'm kind of torn about this one,
• 51:41
  but. Russell Brand really kind of
• 51:43
  went, oh, he took a real A. Real, right?
• 51:46
  Turn, you might say. But the signs were also kind of
• 51:49
  always there in the sense that like, he was always just sort of
• 51:54
  like, I'm a contrarian. I know.
• 51:57
  Well, it was like this. Is veiled in spirituality.
• 52:00
  Yeah. You know, Yeah.
• 52:02
  He really had. The like Wellness to alt right
• 52:07
  pipeline going strong. He really did, yeah.
• 52:10
  And I don't know where he is now.
• 52:12
  Oh, I hope, I hope. That he is not out and about.
• 52:16
  I hope he's at home, not leaving everyone alone.
• 52:20
  Yeah, I I hope he. Stays in I hope he stays in I.
• 52:24
  Hope he's sheltering in place, frankly.
• 52:28
  Ariana Grande. Some people, some people say,
• 52:31
  you know, absolutely I could. Totally.
• 52:34
  See, she's got, I mean, she's got all of the like, kind of a
• 52:41
  little bit drugged out old Hollywood stars sitting inside
• 52:46
  her going goo, goo Gaga, you know?
• 52:48
  Correct. Yeah.
• 52:49
  Or even. Like the, you know, I'm the like
• 52:53
  I am an Italian woman and but I've also made myself into this
• 52:58
  other multi ethnic other sort of thing, but I'm also this.
• 53:03
  Mysterious other thing, right? Right.
• 53:06
  Even like. The the voice like modulation.
• 53:08
  Yeah, and I know I'm talking. Shit a little bit.
• 53:11
  And like, you know, celebrity indebted, it's not easy.
• 53:15
  It's not. It's not easy.
• 53:16
  It's not easy. Never said it.
• 53:18
  Was but but it is like a bummer when.
• 53:22
  I don't know when you, when you can, when you miss someone that
• 53:24
  you see. Yes, you know, yeah.
• 53:27
  When you miss like who they who you thought that they were and
• 53:30
  who they theoretically were. Like a version that feels more
• 53:34
  authentic? Yeah, totally.
• 53:36
  Yeah. And that's that's like the yeah,
• 53:40
  I know I'm right there. You keep.
• 53:41
  Going no, it's like it's like the worst one that.
• 53:44
  Happens not only with celebrities, but just like in,
• 53:48
  in like your personal life. Like of course you want to like
• 53:51
  support people as they change and grow.
• 53:54
  But then sometimes it's like when people change too much, I'm
• 53:58
  like, well, that's not what you weren't supposed to do that
• 54:03
  correct, According to me, According.
• 54:04
  To me I. Liked this version of you and
• 54:09
  actually so if that could stay static that'd be fine.
• 54:13
  I know it's so. Self I, I do the same thing.
• 54:15
  It's so selfish of me because I want the freedom to evolve,
• 54:18
  however I wish to evolve and I'm not anything close.
• 54:21
  Well, in a lot of ways, I'm not anything close to who I was 20
• 54:24
  years ago, but also people other than at that one restaurant
• 54:28
  aren't watching me like a hawk all the time.
• 54:31
  You know about how in the manner in which I am changing.
• 54:35
  So I'm, I would imagine that's got to be pretty fucking madding
• 54:38
  that that people are. Yeah, thank God people aren't
• 54:41
  commenting on how I am or I'm not changing all the time,
• 54:44
  Right. Yeah, completely.
• 54:45
  Especially I mean, I'm really glad that no one's like
• 54:48
  constantly being like, was it Botox or was it not?
• 54:51
  Was it Botox or was it not? Was it Ozempic or was it not?
• 54:55
  How did it, how, how, how did he age or not age?
• 54:59
  Correct. No, I'm just.
• 55:00
  Asian. That's all that it is, you guys.
• 55:03
  That's all it. Is you can't, there's no secret
• 55:06
  that you can take unless you are in a body snatching movie.
• 55:10
  And we've seen how that how race based body snatching turned out
• 55:15
  and get out. Exactly.
• 55:16
  Wow, full fucking circle. That.
• 55:20
  There's no secret that he can give you.
• 55:23
  OK? I also thought it was
• 55:27
  interesting that this is completely not related at all to
• 55:31
  anything that we were saying. But a tidbit that I want you to
• 55:34
  know, if you didn't already know, is that Kaufman sent the
• 55:37
  script to to Francis Ford Coppola, who passed it on to his
• 55:43
  daughter's then boyfriend, Spike Jones.
• 55:46
  Sophia and Spike Jones. Yeah.
• 55:49
  Because when? She was making What's the film
• 55:52
  with Scarlett Johansson. It's like her big breakout role,
• 55:58
  Lost in Translation. She, Scarlett Johansson is
• 56:03
  dating a music video director who leaves.
• 56:06
  And she has this little tryst with Bill Murray.
• 56:10
  Right. And her boyfriend of the time is
• 56:12
  Bec Jones, music video director. Yeah.
• 56:15
  Pretty cool. Nepotism.
• 56:17
  Nepotism. At work getting this film made.
• 56:19
  Yeah, totally. I mean like.
• 56:21
  Yes, it is true that that Kaufman wrote this like, you
• 56:25
  know, in a silo. But nepotism did come in handy
• 56:28
  later when, you know, if someone.
• 56:31
  I mean, it would be kind of cool if you were like if you could
• 56:33
  truly, like delegate your work to your kids.
• 56:36
  It's like a different kind of child labor to be like, I don't
• 56:39
  want to produce this movie, but I'll give it to my kids
• 56:42
  boyfriend. Yeah, totally.
• 56:44
  And and I don't think. It would have been made
• 56:45
  otherwise. Yeah, What I heard is that the
• 56:48
  script arrived to Malkovich. He's like, Yep, don't want to do
• 56:51
  it if it's going to be me. Charlie Kaufman was like, cool
• 56:53
  later. Yeah.
• 56:54
  And then he took a meeting with Francis Ford Coppola.
• 56:58
  Yeah. And that's the only way that it
• 57:00
  came back to him is because Francis was like, hey, this guy
• 57:03
  Spike Jones is awesome, and you should do this movie.
• 57:05
  And he was like, OK, OK, OK, Francis.
• 57:08
  Ford Coppola. Whatever you say, but I mean,
• 57:10
  yeah. That's so cool.
• 57:13
  God, thank you, Francis Ford Coppola for putting in the good
• 57:17
  word. A couple of things that also
• 57:21
  really like placed me in the 90s in this movie, like kind of the
• 57:27
  the casual F slurs in conversation and capital.
• 57:31
  Yeah, the R slurs. Yeah, that.
• 57:34
  I mean, here's The thing is that.
• 57:35
  Like that scene I think was it was truly not made, not written
• 57:41
  with like malice, No, of course, which is what the 90s were.
• 57:45
  Right. We're just ignorant.
• 57:47
  You don't even know better. He was like, that's just what we
• 57:49
  call. Like, you know, like mentally
• 57:51
  ill or disabled people. Correct.
• 57:53
  And so he's describing the role that he played in that movie.
• 57:58
  And he was like, thank you so much.
• 58:00
  Yeah. He wasn't saying it as an
• 58:03
  insult. Obviously, it would.
• 58:05
  It's like hurtful to many people, but that would still
• 58:09
  slightly inappropriate then because.
• 58:11
  That is what the joke was exactly, is that he was.
• 58:13
  Like, oh, yeah, I was gonna ask you if anyone has, if anyone has
• 58:18
  ever told you. I thought you were all right in
• 58:20
  that one movie. Yes, this does happen.
• 58:23
  When people say, oh, you're all. Right in that yeah, or, or
• 58:25
  they'll be like, what were you? In what do I know you from?
• 58:28
  Yeah. And then I'm like, oh, this is
• 58:29
  awkward. Yeah.
• 58:30
  Like am I just gonna like, name these things off for you?
• 58:32
  Right. And then I'll go.
• 58:33
  There's been times where I'm like, Oh yeah, I was in this and
• 58:35
  they're and that they're like, Nope, that's not it.
• 58:37
  Nope. Huh.
• 58:39
  I don't know. Something else.
• 58:40
  Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is a really
• 58:42
  awkward conversation now I'm going to get going.
• 58:44
  Oh my God, it's like that. I know that this has been done
• 58:48
  in movies and TVA lot, but I just finished watching Party
• 58:52
  Down. Have you ever seen that show
• 58:54
  when everyone tries to figure out what Adam Scott's character
• 58:59
  did and then when they get in they go?
• 59:00
  Are we having fun yet? I imagine it's a little bit like
• 59:06
  that. Where, when, where you see the
• 59:08
  moment where people go, oh, yeah, I know you from something.
• 59:12
  And then they realize it on their own.
• 59:14
  They say, are we having fun yet? Yeah, yeah.
• 59:19
  Mine would be a Bono. Yeah, exactly.
• 59:22
  Yeah. Oh my God, so funny.
• 59:25
  Other things that place me in the 90s.
• 59:30
  Actually, you know what? I wanna I I'm gonna go back and
• 59:34
  scratch what I just said. This is this to me.
• 59:38
  It really was like kind of ahead of its time.
• 59:42
  The whole like gender identity part of this.
• 59:46
  Totally fascinating. Because.
• 59:48
  I think that that Lottie's character, so, OK, Lottie's
• 59:53
  character, she when being in the body of John Malkovich and like
• 59:59
  having a sexual encounter with Maxine is like, wait, this
• 1:00:04
  actually feels right and even goes so far as to say like, I'm
• 1:00:08
  going to have surgery. Like this is my life now.
• 1:00:11
  And then I think over time. Like, because we see the end of
• 1:00:16
  the movie, like she's like still living in like her body.
• 1:00:21
  Theoretically, theoretically, we don't know for sure.
• 1:00:24
  But I think that it's just that in that time, it was so wild to
• 1:00:29
  imagine that like a woman would be attracted to another woman,
• 1:00:33
  that it's like, well, she surely must be a man if she's attracted
• 1:00:36
  to a woman, Right, Right, right, right.
• 1:00:38
  And so it, I don't know it like it's interesting because the two
• 1:00:43
  of them, both Maxine and Lottie, are kind of like, it's only
• 1:00:50
  their expectations and like what they've been conditioned to know
• 1:00:54
  that make them think like, oh, well, this couldn't be what,
• 1:00:58
  what it would actually is. Like, I'm only attracted to you
• 1:01:02
  when you're in a man's body and you're only attracted to me when
• 1:01:05
  you're in a man's body. But then, of course, by the end
• 1:01:08
  of the film, they're able to, like, be together as a queer
• 1:01:12
  couple, right? Malkovich brings.
• 1:01:14
  Them together yeah it like forces them to confront their
• 1:01:18
  honest truth and through that they're able to self actualize
• 1:01:21
  an authentic real way yes to find identity and love and love
• 1:01:27
  yeah and like you. That's The thing is that, like,
• 1:01:31
  even though Maxine seems like a bad person, I'm still really
• 1:01:36
  happy for them. Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  And she? Is shitty and she is a bad
• 1:01:39
  person. Here's the thing.
• 1:01:40
  None of them are, really. That good?
• 1:01:44
  Correct. Even Lottie.
• 1:01:45
  He's. Like he's like trying to shoot
• 1:01:46
  her at the end. You're like Jesus Christ, Lottie
• 1:01:48
  is not good. Either, they're all pretty bad.
• 1:01:52
  John Malkovich is the only one who's like, good, correct?
• 1:01:56
  Yeah, yeah. He's like, they portray him as
• 1:01:59
  being kind of ovish. Yeah.
• 1:02:01
  And, and stupid, which is really funny.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah. But yeah.
• 1:02:05
  But he is the victim, clearly and clearly.
• 1:02:07
  Yeah. Totally.
• 1:02:08
  No. I love there was a quote I mean.
• 1:02:10
  A Lottie says don't stand in the way of my actualization as a
• 1:02:13
  man. Oh my God, I love Craig, which
• 1:02:15
  is so good. That was.
• 1:02:15
  Incredible. Meanwhile, Craig is like
• 1:02:17
  mansplaining. To her, her actual feelings
• 1:02:19
  about it, yeah, he gets really mad and it's.
• 1:02:21
  Like you're just, you're just living in the thrill of being
• 1:02:24
  someone else. And there was a part of me as I
• 1:02:29
  was rewatching this, I was like, is that what's happening?
• 1:02:32
  Is she confused about like the thrill of being someone else
• 1:02:36
  versus like her identity and attraction and all of this?
• 1:02:41
  And then like, it was like just as quickly as it came in my
• 1:02:44
  head, I like, I was like, no, that's stupid.
• 1:02:46
  Of course he's not right. Of course.
• 1:02:48
  Like she's discovering something about herself in this process.
• 1:02:53
  But it does make you think about.
• 1:02:54
  Identity in the sense, yeah, for someone, it might be like, oh,
• 1:02:57
  this is helping me identify my true inherent feelings of either
• 1:03:01
  desire for a woman or the feelings of really being in the
• 1:03:03
  wrong body. Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  It then also goes to think of, oh, how susceptible are we to
• 1:03:09
  the information that we're consuming through a screen To
• 1:03:13
  take that on is my identity because I'm just.
• 1:03:16
  Being fed it. And all of a sudden that becomes
• 1:03:19
  who I am. I'm now radicalized into
• 1:03:21
  believing something because I'm just having this 15 minute
• 1:03:25
  experience through my iPhone and someone's telling me how to
• 1:03:28
  think or how to believe. And then therefore, all of a
• 1:03:31
  sudden, yeah, the next 20 years happen.
• 1:03:34
  And hopefully one day you wake up in your midlife and you go,
• 1:03:36
  wait, whoa, what the fuck was all that?
• 1:03:38
  Or you're just indoctrinated and you go through the address of
• 1:03:41
  your life being a fucking shit head.
• 1:03:43
  Yeah, yeah, I. Know we got to throw our phones.
• 1:03:46
  Into the ocean. Correct, Correct.
• 1:03:49
  Oh God. But.
• 1:03:51
  Yeah, I just thought, I thought that Kaufman handled that so
• 1:03:57
  like, yeah, empathetically. I thought that it was really
• 1:04:02
  like, like it wasn't like, she's a freak because she thinks this.
• 1:04:05
  It wasn't like she's wrong or that they, like, shouldn't be
• 1:04:08
  together. I mean, they ended up together
• 1:04:11
  in the end. And it's not not because like
• 1:04:14
  this is Bo on top of a story, but like it is ultimately like
• 1:04:20
  things worked out the way that they were supposed to and or at
• 1:04:25
  least they were following their truth.
• 1:04:26
  Exactly it, didn't it? Didn't like patronize?
• 1:04:29
  Her at all, Yeah, it was like, no, she is having a a true
• 1:04:35
  existential evolution. Yeah, totally.
• 1:04:39
  And we're not like she's not the butt of the joke for that.
• 1:04:43
  No. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:44
  That's I thought that that was. Really cool, but it also wasn't
• 1:04:47
  like heavy-handed either. It wasn't trying to like, say
• 1:04:52
  anything. Yeah, well, it's still funny
• 1:04:54
  like you're. The father or the mother?
• 1:04:58
  A mother. There's also one quote at the.
• 1:05:01
  Very end when all of the old people are going into Malkovich
• 1:05:04
  and the old lady says, I've always wondered what it would be
• 1:05:06
  like to have a penis. Now I'll know, yeah, just a
• 1:05:09
  throwaway line of an old woman just being like, yeah, I'm
• 1:05:11
  excited to have a Dick. Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 1:05:13
  And that it like. It can just be what it is.
• 1:05:17
  Yeah, it can be your truth. And it can also be this kind of
• 1:05:20
  like fun thing that we get to do.
• 1:05:21
  Totally. Yeah, I think that it.
• 1:05:23
  Really. And I know that this may not
• 1:05:26
  have even been like something that Kaufman did with like a lot
• 1:05:31
  of thought or intention behind it, but it just is like, yeah,
• 1:05:35
  well, gender is just a a thing that we like can be silly with.
• 1:05:43
  This is something that like is adaptable.
• 1:05:46
  Like if we can if we can like go through an office door into a
• 1:05:52
  portal into somebody's mind. It's not that crazy to think
• 1:05:57
  that people could also correct be like interested for for like
• 1:06:03
  having a penis in for 15 minutes.
• 1:06:05
  And who knows who you? Can be if you just try on
• 1:06:09
  different lenses of self and allow yourself yourself to
• 1:06:12
  explore that. Yeah, totally.
• 1:06:14
  Yeah. So I thought that was cool,
• 1:06:17
  incredibly. Cool, it was ahead of its time.
• 1:06:20
  It didn't feel like it was making a this, like, grand
• 1:06:25
  statement, but it was just a, an interesting part of a story.
• 1:06:30
  Weird. Like, yeah.
• 1:06:31
  Like it wasn't, it was maybe tertiary plot point.
• 1:06:35
  Yeah, totally. But that was like really well
• 1:06:38
  earned. Yeah, I thought so too.
• 1:06:42
  Let's see, what else? What else do we have to discuss?
• 1:06:47
  Oh, something that really, really frustrates me about
• 1:06:52
  Craig. And is that like, he is more
• 1:06:56
  concerned about like, being a monster than about like the
• 1:07:00
  impact of monstrous things upon other people.
• 1:07:04
  Like, it is that sort of like, fuck Craig.
• 1:07:06
  Craig sucks. Craig's the worst.
• 1:07:09
  But like, it reminds me a lot of this idea of, like, perception
• 1:07:15
  and identity. Like, he's not.
• 1:07:17
  He's not concerned about how, like, his behavior impacts
• 1:07:22
  people. He's more concerned about, like,
• 1:07:24
  what does this mean for me? It's like when people are more
• 1:07:27
  concerned about, like, being accused of being a racist than
• 1:07:33
  they are about, like, the impacts of racism, you know?
• 1:07:37
  Yeah. They're like, well, don't call
• 1:07:38
  me a racist. That's worse than racism itself,
• 1:07:45
  correct? Yeah, totally.
• 1:07:47
  No. I think that is kind of the
• 1:07:48
  reason why at the end, even though Charlie Kaufman says that
• 1:07:51
  there's no point to it, right? It's like he's the one who
• 1:07:53
  doesn't learn anything. He's the one who's selfish to
• 1:07:57
  the NTH degree, to the point where he's trapped inside this
• 1:08:00
  little girl and is still trying to fucking control her for his
• 1:08:04
  own means. Yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:08:08
  Yeah. I know, which is why I like the
• 1:08:10
  hair is. Perfect it is you know that that
• 1:08:12
  like low ponytail like the way that he.
• 1:08:17
  Grows out his hair as John Malkovich was so funny.
• 1:08:22
  That was such a funny addition. I loved it.
• 1:08:26
  I loved it. The crazy hair.
• 1:08:28
  He's so stupid. I hate that guy.
• 1:08:32
  OK, Speaking of hair, Charlie Sheen's bald cap might be the
• 1:08:35
  one of the worst bald caps I've ever seen.
• 1:08:37
  That was hilarious. So, so good.
• 1:08:40
  And and that's when they're just like leaning in.
• 1:08:42
  That's what I love about this movie too, is it has some very
• 1:08:45
  serious things that it's talking about.
• 1:08:48
  Obviously identity, gender identity, the yeah, existential
• 1:08:54
  crises, MMI, me or what is the me within me.
• 1:08:58
  And it's all just like, and here is a really shitty bald cap.
• 1:09:02
  Yeah, we know how to make a good bald cap.
• 1:09:04
  Yeah, we just put a bunch of bald caps on all the Malkovich
• 1:09:06
  is in the Malkovich scene, right?
• 1:09:08
  So we know how to do it. So we get away with it.
• 1:09:10
  But we're just gonna, like, let this one go and give Charlie
• 1:09:12
  Sheen a huge fucking head. Yeah, totally, because.
• 1:09:15
  It's funny, it is. I laughed out loud when we saw
• 1:09:18
  him. That casting was really, really
• 1:09:20
  good. And it was actually.
• 1:09:22
  John Malkovich's idea to cast Charlie Sheen in lieu of Kevin
• 1:09:26
  Bacon, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:28
  I would have liked to have seen. Kevin Bacon in a very silly bald
• 1:09:31
  cap, though. I think it would have been
• 1:09:33
  funny. I think he would have been
• 1:09:34
  great. Yeah, and just.
• 1:09:35
  Added to like the Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon totally solving
• 1:09:38
  the. Rubik's Cube on his little Yeah,
• 1:09:41
  talking about. Whatever, but.
• 1:09:43
  But yeah, Charlie Sheen was a very funny casting choice, and I
• 1:09:48
  liked it. Same.
• 1:09:50
  OK, well, what? God, I know.
• 1:09:52
  Like we said, we could chew on this for hours and hours and
• 1:09:56
  hours, but what else should we discuss in our last few minutes
• 1:10:02
  that we haven't discussed yet? I guess I have a couple.
• 1:10:05
  Of things here in terms of what I feel like aged well, OK, let's
• 1:10:08
  talk about it. A lonely guy in a basement whose
• 1:10:15
  girlfriend says. I was thinking, you know, maybe
• 1:10:17
  you'd feel better if you got a job or something, correct.
• 1:10:19
  And he's like, no. No, it's not that.
• 1:10:22
  It's this wintery. Economic.
• 1:10:23
  Landscape yeah, queer women leaving sad, pathetic men behind
• 1:10:28
  yes aged and. So.
• 1:10:30
  Beautifully, yes. The fact that they instantly
• 1:10:33
  tried to monetize John Malkovich right away, did not think about
• 1:10:38
  any moral or ethical quandary. Absolutely.
• 1:10:41
  Just went to like people. Are into this they'll.
• 1:10:43
  Pay for it. They want the experience, the
• 1:10:44
  escapism, and they'll just like, give.
• 1:10:47
  Well, they'll just eat whatever we feed them.
• 1:10:48
  Totally. There's obviously infinite
• 1:10:51
  number of corollaries to like today.
• 1:10:53
  Oh, of course. Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  I love that. Lottie's.
• 1:10:56
  Clothes aged well. Lottie's clothes did age well.
• 1:10:59
  Baggy jeans. That's a shirt.
• 1:11:01
  Tucked in with a braided belt and a big scrunchie.
• 1:11:04
  Oh yeah. Totally walked down the streets
• 1:11:07
  of. 5. Points Denver.
• 1:11:09
  Correct. Exactly.
• 1:11:10
  Yeah. The fact that men will go meet a
• 1:11:14
  stranger just in the off chance that they'll get laid, Yeah,
• 1:11:17
  absolutely, Lottie calls. Him on the phone, yeah.
• 1:11:20
  She. He knows nothing other than her
• 1:11:22
  voice. He doesn't even know what she
• 1:11:23
  looks like. At all.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah, and he's there. Waiting.
• 1:11:26
  Yeah. At dinner.
• 1:11:27
  Yeah. In the off chance that she'll
• 1:11:29
  want to bang him. Yeah.
• 1:11:30
  That's aged quite well. That is aged quite well.
• 1:11:32
  I think it's. It really shows that like no
• 1:11:34
  matter how like how much power you have, like how how famous
• 1:11:39
  you get, whatever, like even John Malkovich correct just
• 1:11:43
  looking like. You know what?
• 1:11:44
  I just. Really like to get laid which I
• 1:11:47
  love that he. He took this role knowing that
• 1:11:50
  that exactly who was going to be portrayed.
• 1:11:52
  Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah. Just like on a catalog.
• 1:11:55
  On a catalog looking, yeah, you know, like looking through
• 1:11:59
  Chinese food, just looking to order a rug.
• 1:12:01
  Yeah, that's, that's just like who I am.
• 1:12:03
  What is not aged well? OK, ordering off a catalog?
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, of course. Hiring.
• 1:12:10
  Someone to file? Oh yeah, hiring.
• 1:12:13
  Someone to file yeah and me personally I.
• 1:12:15
  Would say fuck chimps. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:12:19
  We've seen too many of these documentaries to to to think
• 1:12:23
  that it's OK for them to be in your house.
• 1:12:25
  Totally. That That's that's fucking.
• 1:12:27
  Madness. OK, so this scar right here,
• 1:12:30
  Yeah, is from when I did Jungle Book.
• 1:12:33
  So kind of my big break was Jungle Book when I'm like 11-12
• 1:12:37
  and there's like live action Jungle Book.
• 1:12:39
  And so I'm training with like, tigers and, you know, like Cher
• 1:12:43
  Khan and Bagheera. And I learn with a grizzly bear
• 1:12:47
  who's blue, right? And so one week I'm walking next
• 1:12:49
  to blue through like an electric fence.
• 1:12:51
  Next, next week, they remove the electric fence and now I'm
• 1:12:55
  walking next to the grizzly bear with a trainer who like has like
• 1:12:58
  a long chain link, whatever. And then the next week, you
• 1:13:02
  know, now the trainer's next one, but he's doesn't have a
• 1:13:03
  leash on them, whatever. And then the next week I put my
• 1:13:05
  hand on, blew the bear. I'm also working with
• 1:13:09
  chimpanzees in the movie. With chimpanzees, you are
• 1:13:11
  instructed to not hold their hand.
• 1:13:14
  They hold your hand. So you're basically a prop.
• 1:13:16
  You don't want to be dominant or submissive.
• 1:13:18
  You're just, you're just there. So we do all this training,
• 1:13:23
  whatever, like a month ahead of time.
• 1:13:24
  We then start filming and one day on set, we do this scene
• 1:13:28
  with the chimpanzees where it's kind of a funny gag scene and
• 1:13:31
  the chimpanzee is supposed to put its arms around me and kiss
• 1:13:35
  me on the lips. We do that scene goes well,
• 1:13:37
  break for lunch. We come back later.
• 1:13:39
  We have to pick up a shot where I'm lying on the ground or I'm
• 1:13:41
  like sitting like with like my hands on my knees.
• 1:13:43
  Monkey's supposed to come up, grab my hand and take me off.
• 1:13:47
  They did wrong was have the monkey higher than me.
• 1:13:50
  I shouldn't have been sitting because then the monkey is
• 1:13:54
  theoretically thinking about dominant submissive and so in in
• 1:13:58
  lieu of of grabbing my hand, it puts its arms around me and how
• 1:14:03
  bites my face and bit my face. It backs up and it clearly is
• 1:14:10
  like oh shit, I've know I've done something wrong.
• 1:14:12
  Looks around and the. Trainers all.
• 1:14:15
  Run in. Grab all three of the
• 1:14:16
  chimpanzees. Yeah.
• 1:14:17
  Wrestle them to the ground because they were afraid they
• 1:14:19
  were all gonna, like, attack me. Totally.
• 1:14:21
  I grab. My face.
• 1:14:22
  Because I'm like, oh, like, it's like obviously a hard pinch.
• 1:14:25
  Oh my God, the camera's. Here where you're.
• 1:14:28
  At OK, so it sees the back of the monkey's head hug me and
• 1:14:31
  then back off. And then it sees, you know, me
• 1:14:34
  like this. So no one really sees what's
• 1:14:35
  happened. Like director is watching on a
• 1:14:38
  video. My mom is back there and I go
• 1:14:40
  back to my mom and I, you know, I'm like this and I show her my
• 1:14:43
  face and my face kind of does this.
• 1:14:45
  So she like sees the inside meat of my face.
• 1:14:47
  Oh my God. Correct.
• 1:14:50
  And I see my momma's face. Which kind of looks like your
• 1:14:52
  face. OK, They always say like when a
• 1:14:55
  kid like. When a kid like falls down or
• 1:14:57
  ever, you're like not supposed to make a big deal of it.
• 1:14:58
  You're not supposed to scare them.
• 1:14:59
  Because when I see her shitting a brick then.
• 1:15:01
  I'm shitting a brick course now I'm freaking out.
• 1:15:04
  Oh my God. Anyway.
• 1:15:05
  We like went to the. Emergency and I had to get like
• 1:15:08
  17 stitches across and I had like a fat scar we'd like delay
• 1:15:12
  filming for two weeks and we just shot with the animals for
• 1:15:16
  the third week Wow 4th week we shot just this side of my face
• 1:15:19
  and by a month later was healed enough that I could put like
• 1:15:22
  makeup on it way and I had like a pretty big.
• 1:15:25
  Scar. And like scar tissue and I would
• 1:15:27
  just sit in school for like a year just massaging the scar
• 1:15:29
  tissue. So all that to say, wow.
• 1:15:32
  Love chimps. That get.
• 1:15:33
  To be chimps, Be a chimpanzee in the jungle?
• 1:15:37
  Totally. But a chimp in my house, Let
• 1:15:40
  alone being trapped in a cage with the chimp?
• 1:15:44
  Fuck that. Fuck that.
• 1:15:46
  OK, another random thing about the chip.
• 1:15:48
  We go, we see the the memories of the chimpanzee, so funny,
• 1:15:54
  right? And we're all like on a
• 1:15:55
  camcorder. We see the POV of the chimp and
• 1:15:57
  who has the same. Name.
• 1:15:59
  That's what I fucking love. I love, I love.
• 1:16:02
  That I love that they called him Elijah and and that Lottie is
• 1:16:07
  such a good chimp parent that she has figured out that
• 1:16:11
  Elijah's name is Elijah. That that is his name, yeah.
• 1:16:14
  His one of my favorite parts of the movie.
• 1:16:16
  Yeah. She's, I mean, she's not.
• 1:16:18
  Perfect. But she's sweet.
• 1:16:19
  She's sweet. Yeah.
• 1:16:20
  Yeah. She's a great chimp parent.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah. Oh my God, The yeah, The whole
• 1:16:26
  thing with the chimp. I mean the chimp is maybe one of
• 1:16:31
  the only like innocent like characters in the movie as well.
• 1:16:38
  Sure, but. Even the chimp shows more of an
• 1:16:41
  evolution and growth than Craig. Oh, big time.
• 1:16:45
  The chimp is going to therapy. The chimp is a traumatic past
• 1:16:49
  the chimp is working through its.
• 1:16:51
  Own inner demons, right? The chimp is helping Lottie,
• 1:16:55
  correct? I mean, Craig's never done that,
• 1:16:58
  correct? He would never think too.
• 1:16:59
  Craig is only concerned about himself.
• 1:17:01
  Yeah, which is why Craig is no longer in a prison or is now in
• 1:17:06
  a prison behind bars, in a cage, if you will.
• 1:17:09
  Yes. And Elijah is set free.
• 1:17:10
  Exactly. Yep.
• 1:17:12
  And. Elijah is free psychologically
• 1:17:14
  as well. Move past this trauma, correct.
• 1:17:16
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:17:17
  I wonder. What his?
• 1:17:18
  Life and the life of all those animals looked like once there
• 1:17:21
  was a human child involved in the equation.
• 1:17:24
  You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 1:17:26
  How did things change? You know cuz.
• 1:17:27
  Like, there's always that cliche of, like, you know, the dog
• 1:17:31
  doesn't get as much attention when there's a kid around.
• 1:17:33
  I mean, they had a whole zoo in there.
• 1:17:35
  What happened? Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  Maybe Elijah was able. To self actualize for himself.
• 1:17:40
  I hope so. Find some independence out
• 1:17:41
  there. And I hope so, you know, got to
• 1:17:43
  pursue a a, a life as a podcaster or something.
• 1:17:45
  Totally. I hope that he did, yeah.
• 1:17:47
  As every and everyone should. Absolutely.
• 1:17:52
  There's no doubt about it. Everybody should have a podcast.
• 1:17:55
  And I've always said that, OK, anything else that sticks out
• 1:18:00
  that we have to discuss? Malkovich, Malkovich.
• 1:18:08
  Malkovich. Malkovich.
• 1:18:09
  Malkovich. Malkovich.
• 1:18:10
  I would listen to a podcast of Malkovich, just saying,
• 1:18:15
  Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich over and over again.
• 1:18:18
  I would. I would too.
• 1:18:19
  That would be. So funny, I could see that.
• 1:18:21
  As like an Adult Swim thing where it's just like 15 minutes
• 1:18:25
  of that and, and this is. Yeah, clearly.
• 1:18:29
  Adult Swim. Inspired.
• 1:18:30
  Oh yeah, I was thinking about Severance.
• 1:18:32
  Severance clearly inspired by this film.
• 1:18:35
  I asked a few of my friends have you seen being with John
• 1:18:37
  Malkovich? And a lot of them haven't, which
• 1:18:40
  is awesome because this is such a weird fucking movie that like,
• 1:18:44
  yeah, it couldn't be made now, but it occupied not only a
• 1:18:48
  specific time and place, but the world of the movie itself is so
• 1:18:52
  specific that I had a great time re watching it.
• 1:18:56
  And so I think if anyone wants to watch a really weird, weird,
• 1:19:00
  fucked up meta movie that's also kind of funny, that's also.
• 1:19:04
  Really fucking. Funny like a dark humor.
• 1:19:06
  Then then do it. Yeah, I think this is the one.
• 1:19:10
  And also, if we didn't make it clear enough, just rewatch
• 1:19:14
  Johnny Tsunami. Obviously it was a blast
• 1:19:18
  rewatching. It was a blast talking about it.
• 1:19:20
  It was a blast talking about it with you.
• 1:19:23
  I mean, and I was so, so touched that you were not only
• 1:19:27
  entertained by but like that it was like a thought provoking
• 1:19:31
  experience for you. Was listen to our conversation
• 1:19:36
  about this, about that movie. Yeah, it was.
• 1:19:38
  It was great. I had a great time.
• 1:19:39
  Because I, I love thinking deeply about things in general.
• 1:19:43
  But a bit about film. Totally.
• 1:19:45
  I'd never thought to do that with the movie that I was in.
• 1:19:47
  Yeah, totally. Nothing against.
• 1:19:49
  Johnny Tsunami or. Disney Channel, but I'm so happy
• 1:19:52
  that you did and that you took with me took me with you along
• 1:19:55
  for the ride. Oh my God, of course, anytime
• 1:19:57
  and. Maybe, maybe we need to go back
• 1:19:58
  and we need to sit down and talk about one of your other roles in
• 1:20:04
  maybe in Jungle Book or in something else that you've been
• 1:20:06
  in. I mean, probably not.
• 1:20:09
  OK. Nick, go ahead and cut that out.
• 1:20:11
  No, no, we could. But I think Johnny.
• 1:20:14
  Tsunami is like the clear one. Like people always ask me,
• 1:20:16
  they're like, what should I, what should I watch of yours?
• 1:20:18
  And I'm like, you should watch Johnny Tsunami.
• 1:20:20
  That's a movie that I would watch if I wasn't me.
• 1:20:22
  If I wasn't in, I would have still liked that movie.
• 1:20:24
  Yeah, totally. There's a lot of other things
• 1:20:26
  that I've. Done where I'm like.
• 1:20:28
  Had a great time doing it. Yeah, you know.
• 1:20:31
  Not everything is. A huge fan of the chimps, but
• 1:20:34
  correct. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:20:35
  Take. Me back to the trauma what the
• 1:20:37
  fuck yeah I know I know and we're.
• 1:20:39
  Gonna unpack that for a while after this.
• 1:20:41
  So that's behind the paywall. Everybody, thank you so much for
• 1:20:45
  being here. Thank you Brandon for being
• 1:20:47
  here. Thank you for having me.
• 1:20:48
  This was such a pleasure. And I now know that Brandon and
• 1:20:51
  I are basically I'm, I wouldn't so go so far as to say
• 1:20:55
  neighbors, but I live like a mile from here and you live like
• 1:20:58
  a mile from here as well. So yeah, we're neighbors.
• 1:21:00
  We're basically neighbors. And how cool is that?
• 1:21:03
  Super cool. Anything else that you want to
• 1:21:05
  leave the listeners with? Anything you want to point them
• 1:21:08
  toward or should people listen to your podcast?
• 1:21:11
  I mean, listen to Yeah, flip phone.
• 1:21:13
  Confessional if you want to hear us, kind of have fun and just
• 1:21:17
  kind of explore nineties 2000 stuff.
• 1:21:19
  Cool if you want me at your wedding, I definitely still
• 1:21:22
  marry people. Cool If you like music, come to
• 1:21:25
  Meadow Creek Music Festival, Nice August, September, King
• 1:21:29
  Gizzard and Pretty Lights. I help produce a music festival
• 1:21:32
  out here in Colorado, so I would love to see there too.
• 1:21:35
  Cool, that's awesome. Did you think like getting
• 1:21:37
  married is so cool that I wanna do this all the time?
• 1:21:40
  Like did you get married and think this is cool?
• 1:21:42
  I started doing it. Before I got married.
• 1:21:44
  Really. Yeah.
• 1:21:45
  That's cool. So luckily.
• 1:21:46
  I did eventually. Get married because I was like,
• 1:21:48
  here's a sufficient who's not married?
• 1:21:50
  He's doing this. What does he?
• 1:21:51
  Know yeah, those who can't teach, kind of.
• 1:21:53
  Thing, you know, but no, it was my sister who is who got
• 1:21:58
  married. I don't know how it was a few
• 1:22:00
  years ago. Yeah.
• 1:22:00
  And she asked me to be the officiant and I was like, oh,
• 1:22:02
  this is awesome. I get to be in these beautiful
• 1:22:04
  places, these people in love. Yeah.
• 1:22:08
  Where? Yeah, there's a bit of a
• 1:22:09
  performance aspect to it. So of course my previous career
• 1:22:12
  helps with that. Yeah.
• 1:22:13
  But I get to be me and I'm only saying things that I believe in.
• 1:22:16
  And yeah, it's awesome and people are super appreciative
• 1:22:19
  and I don't know, just a bunch of love.
• 1:22:20
  Leaving work every day makes me so happy.
• 1:22:23
  Well, if you're. You know what, if you're
• 1:22:25
  thinking about getting married, do it.
• 1:22:27
  Do it and then hire Brandon. Well, thank you so much to you.
• 1:22:32
  Thank you everybody for watching and listening.
• 1:22:34
  You know what to do. Follow and subscribe and blah,
• 1:22:37
  blah, blah. We'll see you next time.
• 1:22:39
  Bye.