Latest / Cage Match: A Roundabout Way of Meeting Nicolas Cage / National Treasure: Book of Secrets vs The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Transcript
- 0:00Oh God. Oh my God.
- 0:13Peter just made a fellatio miming motion.
- 0:17Yeah, I think the people understand what I made.
- 0:22A mess in my pants.
- 0:25Gross. This is how we podcast.
- 0:27I worked my absolute balls off to leave work kind of early
- 0:31to get over here to talk about some Nicolas Cage movies.
- 0:34Hey, we can we can get into it.
- 0:35This is this is the part I'm taking my pants off and it's fine.
- 0:38Right. Pants are off.
- 0:40Pants are off and welcome to Cage Match, a roundabout way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
- 0:45I am your host, Sean, with my co-host Nick and our producer Peter.
- 0:50Hello. And our very first ever special guest.
- 0:53Hi, I'm Adam.
- 0:55So how's it going, Adam?
- 0:56This is my first time being on a podcast.
- 0:58So well, this is our first time making a podcast.
- 1:01So welcome. You know, some some nerves and some other nerves
- 1:04around the fact that it's centered around movies that I love and an actor that I love.
- 1:09Yeah. So so talk about that a little bit like why of all the Nicolas Cage movies
- 1:15are these two relatively high on your list?
- 1:19I would start by saying that National Treasure 2 is maybe not high on my list,
- 1:24but like Nicolas Cage as Ben Gates is high on my list.
- 1:28I just feel like these two roles are great for him.
- 1:31His putting on air quotes style of acting lends itself
- 1:36really well to these two characters in different ways.
- 1:40Both of these movies are sparkly entertainment with not a ton of substance,
- 1:47which, again, I think just lends itself really well.
- 1:50So Nicolas Cage, did you not pick up on the underlying
- 1:54themes of corporate America greed?
- 1:57OK. I mean, that is a great segue into our first film
- 2:01and connecting to the last weekend conspiracy theories.
- 2:05Mm hmm. Let's talk about National Treasure 2.
- 2:08Oh, we said both movies, but I don't think we said what they both were this week.
- 2:11National Treasure Book of Secrets and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
- 2:16We have a bonus Brockheimer Bonanza this week and a double turtle top.
- 2:20Cool. What?
- 2:22Same director.
- 2:24So, yes, National Treasure 2 Book of Secrets starring Nick Cage
- 2:29as Ben Gates, Diane Krueger, daughter of Freddy Krueger as Abigail Chase.
- 2:34Cut that joke. That didn't work.
- 2:37I wrote that down for nothing.
- 2:39Justin Bartha as Riley Poole, John Voight as Patrick Gates,
- 2:44Helen Mirren, Emily Appleton and Ed Harris as Mitch Wilkinson.
- 2:48Adam, you want to tell us what this movie was about?
- 2:51First, I want to say that I think it's amazing that they got Helen Mirren
- 2:56and Ed Harris and John Voight.
- 3:00John Voight wasn't the first one leading out of the original National Treasure.
- 3:06Ben Gates is just now doing tours about what it's like to have rewritten
- 3:11American history, so to speak, by finding a giant treasure based on American history.
- 3:15Ed Harris shows up and implies that a relative like Ben Gates,
- 3:21great, great, great grandfather, great, great, great, great.
- 3:27Was part of the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln, assassinate him
- 3:31when the Gates family had always believed that he participated
- 3:36in attempting to prevent that.
- 3:38I do want to briefly talk about Mitch Wilkinson and Harris's character.
- 3:41So in terms of a villain, let's just get evil Ben Gates,
- 3:47Benjamin Franklin Gates.
- 3:49Is that his fucking name?
- 3:50That's his full name.
- 3:51Benjamin Franklin Gates.
- 3:52Oh, yeah. You didn't know that?
- 3:54His art. So, so.
- 3:56I haven't seen the movies.
- 3:57Ed Harris shows up and being like, well, I have the like remaining piece
- 4:01that proves your grandfather was a traitor to the country.
- 4:04But Mitch Wilkinson, the anti Ben Gates, who is the great, great grandson,
- 4:09somewhere in his line, he had the Senate from the spawn of
- 4:13he is the spawn.
- 4:14He is the spawn of a Confederate of the Confederate general Albert Pike.
- 4:18So you have these like warring Confederate and not union and union.
- 4:24When and it goes to this whole thing where when they find out about
- 4:29the city of gold and Patrick Gates is freaking out, like,
- 4:33what if the Confederates found the city of gold?
- 4:35Like, can you imagine like what would happen if they found it?
- 4:38If they found it as if it's a concern now?
- 4:42That's I think my like they never had to go down this road.
- 4:45Beef with this movie is like this whole thing is, well,
- 4:50what if my great, great grandfather was a Confederate sympathizer?
- 4:56Oh, boy, that's going to ruin everything for me.
- 4:59My life is fucked.
- 5:01It's like, but really, is it so he I do like so he kidnapped the president.
- 5:05Yes, that that affected him so much that he was like in a scene was like,
- 5:09I'm going to kidnap the president.
- 5:11I mean, I do like I'm accused of being a Confederate sympathizer.
- 5:14What do I do? Kidnap the union president.
- 5:19That'll set everybody straight.
- 5:21And why does he have to kidnap the president of the United States?
- 5:23Because he's he's got to find the president's book.
- 5:26The book of secret.
- 5:28There we go. We got our secrets.
- 5:29Yeah. I mean, just the logic
- 5:32in how all of this happened was absurd.
- 5:36And I really loved it.
- 5:38I will say we haven't covered the first National Treasure yet,
- 5:41but after dog eat dog, I needed a palate cleanser.
- 5:44So I watched it for funsies.
- 5:47Can say without a doubt the plot and treasure hunt
- 5:51and mystery of this movie is a lot simpler than the first one. Yes.
- 5:56This movie kind of makes sense.
- 5:58So unless the point you want is to how he proves
- 6:02the innocence of his great great grandfather, because they never do that.
- 6:06Yeah, no, it actually doesn't explicitly say how he is not guilty.
- 6:12It's just like, OK, you found gold.
- 6:16Congratulations.
- 6:18Like, oh, I found this thing.
- 6:20It's like I scored a touchdown.
- 6:22OJ Simpson was.
- 6:26Not guilty.
- 6:27It's like, I mean, loosely connected.
- 6:29Wow. Eight episodes into our first OJ reference.
- 6:32I'm surprised. Impressive, actually.
- 6:35Are these well, I'm sorry that both National Treasures are Disney, though, right?
- 6:39Yes. OK. Both Disney, both the same producer, both the same director.
- 6:45I do know that the only reason number two like number there was never any slate
- 6:49for number two, like they were just making the first one like box office made
- 6:53like four hundred and fifty eight million dollars or something.
- 6:56And they were like, let's just put together a script.
- 6:59Geez, people watch this.
- 7:01And they and we did. And we're talking about it now.
- 7:03Yeah, that's exactly right.
- 7:04This is great publicity for them.
- 7:05And hey, they got a Disney Plus show coming out that has none of the original cast.
- 7:09Oh, that's going to I can't wait.
- 7:12But page 47. I know.
- 7:14I want to know what that is.
- 7:16Nick probably knows. I can't tell you, though.
- 7:19The producers of the TV show have said if they get a second season,
- 7:23they plan to bring in characters from the movie.
- 7:26They have like explanations as to where they've all been.
- 7:30Nick Cage doesn't do TV.
- 7:32Has the cage ever done television?
- 7:34This seems like something we know in a cage podcast.
- 7:36He doesn't.
- 7:37And very specifically, when he was asked about National Treasure, the show,
- 7:40he was like, well, they decided to make a show.
- 7:43So I guess that's it for me.
- 7:45I mean, good on him.
- 7:47He doesn't need to do TV.
- 7:49He doesn't feel like a guy who goes to work every day.
- 7:52Not for less than five million dollars.
- 7:54And that'll only get you like 10 days tops.
- 7:59Anyway, so he has to kidnap the president.
- 8:02Yes. I think that's where we left off.
- 8:04Yeah. So he's planning to kidnap the president.
- 8:07We've missed a lot of points here.
- 8:08Well, this is what we do. Quick summary. Quick summary.
- 8:12We had one episode where we talked too much about the movies and it was dumb.
- 8:16Yeah. And I yelled at I did this movie or this guy.
- 8:19This isn't about actually talking about the movies.
- 8:21It's just how dumb we are.
- 8:22Yeah. So he he he swims across a river
- 8:26to Mount Vernon with an original map of Mount Vernon
- 8:30and finds the president and was like,
- 8:33Oh, Mr. President, I know you're a fan of history.
- 8:37Look at this thing that I have.
- 8:38And he was like, that looks like an original map of Mount Vernon
- 8:41drawn by George Washington.
- 8:42He's like, you know, that's very funny, sir.
- 8:44It is. Let us go look at these underground tunnels.
- 8:48Kidnaps the president briefly, briefly.
- 8:51It's not really a hijacking of human
- 8:55and the president more like sequestered patriotism.
- 8:58The president did walk into it, by the way, during the kidnapping.
- 9:02The president admits that there is the Book of Secrets
- 9:06and they go to the Library of Congress
- 9:10where he has all the information on where to find this book.
- 9:14Obviously, the entirety of North American law enforcement showed up
- 9:19and they get away because, of course, in a car chase scene.
- 9:24Let's see. After that, they go to Mount Rushmore.
- 9:26They go to Mount Rushmore, Mount Nickmore.
- 9:28So it turns out that Mount Rushmore was a cover up for the city of the gold.
- 9:33Yeah. Yeah. They erased all the landmarks.
- 9:37So that way you wouldn't be able to see it.
- 9:38We are making it a place that everyone goes to.
- 9:42Ed Harris shows up, tries tries to hold people at gunpoint.
- 9:45I'm not Rushmore. Nick Cage talks him down.
- 9:47They all go into the depths of Mount Rushmore together.
- 9:50At which point he holds them at knife point. Right.
- 9:54So many points.
- 9:55They find the city of gold and that proves his ancestors' innocence
- 10:00and the president asks him for another treasure hunt.
- 10:04That will change everything.
- 10:06That will change. That will change everything.
- 10:09I think it's going to disprove the Kardashians.
- 10:11I think that's what page 47 is all about.
- 10:14It's like they're not even real.
- 10:15They're the real lizard people.
- 10:17This movie starts off with some amazing work in exposition.
- 10:22Like it cuts to five days after the Civil War ends
- 10:27and Ben Gates's great great grandfather is hanging out
- 10:32partying with his son at a bar because he's a good dad.
- 10:36And I am thoroughly bummed that they didn't go the cheap way out
- 10:42and just give Nicolas Cage mutton chops and play his own great great grandfather.
- 10:46I don't know. I'm upset that they covered up the real way
- 10:50President Lincoln was killed. Which is?
- 10:52He was hammered in the ass until he died.
- 10:55Yeah, it was a literal hammer and they hammered him in the butt.
- 10:59Speaking of historical fallacies in that scene.
- 11:03Fouls.
- 11:05I know what I'm saying.
- 11:06When they're shooting that scene when John Luke Sputnik is going to shoot
- 11:09Lincoln in the head, which I'm shocked that they actually kind of showed that
- 11:13for this PG 13 romp.
- 11:16There's a electrical light bulb that you can see.
- 11:19Well, I was going to say nobody was trying to learn anything from this movie.
- 11:23I could be wrong about that.
- 11:24Nobody should have been trying to learn anything.
- 11:27This correct.
- 11:28This is I want to turn off for two hours because I'm tired
- 11:32and work won't leave me alone.
- 11:35If your mind's on something and you can't go to sleep,
- 11:37this is a really, really good way to distract you from the thing that you should be thinking about.
- 11:41I want to ask, does anyone find it in poor taste at this point that
- 11:46John Voight co-stars in a film about American conspiracies that didn't age well?
- 11:52Also, it's some of his worst acting.
- 11:55I mean, that's everyone's worst acting.
- 11:59It might be Justin Bartho's best acting, though.
- 12:02Correct.
- 12:03So Riley Poole, the helpful, quirky sidekick and co-star of the first film,
- 12:10got majorly bumped down in terms of usefulness in this film.
- 12:14Well, yeah, there were no electronic locks or anything outside of breaking into
- 12:19the Buckingham Palace.
- 12:20Well, I was going to.
- 12:21Oh, well, yeah, there's that.
- 12:22I was going to say breaking into Cage's ex-wife.
- 12:26It's also Cage's house.
- 12:28Well, yeah, but they're separate.
- 12:30And he said he's moved out.
- 12:31He's living with his dad.
- 12:33But I do love that it starts off with Riley on a book tour, selling a book about
- 12:39the adventures of the first movie.
- 12:41And my favorite line of this film is this blonde chick walks up to the signing
- 12:47at a Borders Books that'll date this movie, walks up, picks up a copy of a book
- 12:53called The Templar's Treasure and says, The Templar's Treasure, turns the book
- 12:57to the camera and then goes, Is this a book about the Templar's Treasure?
- 13:01There's two romantic plots sort of in this, like between different characters.
- 13:07And he didn't get one.
- 13:09And that was sort of no, the Ferrari.
- 13:11The. Yeah.
- 13:12And also learning to love himself.
- 13:15Yeah, he was he was the real dude.
- 13:18And off camera, he was the real Sean of this movie.
- 13:21He certainly was demoted as a character.
- 13:24And all he had was his Ferrari that got impounded his Ferrari and his book that
- 13:29nobody would read.
- 13:30I like that he had to carry the cardboard cut out of himself down the street
- 13:35afterwards.
- 13:36I probably would have abandoned that thing.
- 13:38I mean, he's got other borders to go to, though.
- 13:41Yeah, I'm sure.
- 13:42I like how none of the people, none of his his best friends, none of them have read
- 13:47his book. Oh, yeah.
- 13:48Even later in the film, when they need to use his book for plot purposes, they have
- 13:52to like open the envelope that it's in because nobody cares.
- 13:56Yeah, they used it as a reference tool.
- 13:58That was like that was like the only reason his character existed in this entire
- 14:02movie. Yeah, it fucking bugged the shit out of me.
- 14:05How many times there was something that had to be like talked about or explained
- 14:10or, you know, narratively given to the audience.
- 14:14And they're like, oh, here's a book.
- 14:16And so Nicholas Cage is reading a book, but he's flipping the pages pretty quickly.
- 14:20So he's not reading the book.
- 14:22It's like, you know, this story just fucking tell us.
- 14:25Yeah. Riley with this thing is like, I've got to show you.
- 14:29I can't tell you. I have to show you.
- 14:31And then Nicholas Cage opens the book.
- 14:33But Riley just tells us anyways, it's like you fucking telling us right now.
- 14:36You didn't need your book. You didn't.
- 14:38You're just being a prick about it.
- 14:40It's like your book sucks.
- 14:41Nobody wants to read about something.
- 14:43Jay did Chapter 13, I believe is what he said.
- 14:46I mean, he was trying to sell more books, even if it was just to his friends who
- 14:49already had copies that they didn't want.
- 14:52Yes. This is why I will never write a book, because none of you people will read it.
- 14:56And I'll be upset.
- 14:58We already know. We already have Chuck Tangle, man.
- 15:02There is the sequel trope of taking the romantic leads from the first film and breaking them up.
- 15:08They definitely started out the movie kind of being like, oh, we don't like each other.
- 15:12Like she changed the code to get into the house.
- 15:15But I mean, the next thing they have together, she's trying to help them.
- 15:19Yeah. Well, like when they actually team up in.
- 15:23So they eventually get to Buckingham Palace and when they team up there and he's about to do his Mission Impossible style, break into the Queen's office
- 15:32and she shows up and he has to like make a big fuck all see probably the best scene in the movie because it's the most Nick Cage scene where he's just like high kicking his way down the stairs.
- 15:43Yeah, it's like, oh, oh, but they do introduce a second red herring love interest to kind of make Nick Cage mad played by Ty Burrell, Hollywood's best cut, because Ty Burrell always shows up in these roles where he's the boyfriend of the main characters like ex-wife.
- 16:03I'm specifically thinking of Edward Norton's Hulk.
- 16:06He was Doc Sampson.
- 16:08His name was Doc Sampson.
- 16:10Dr. Doc Sampson is an incredible Hulk character.
- 16:13Well, he played it so well.
- 16:14He's such a nice guy.
- 16:16Honestly, honestly, honestly, though, he did.
- 16:20His performance was some of the best acting in this movie.
- 16:23He was just Ty Burrell.
- 16:24I mean, can you call that acting?
- 16:26Can you call anything else in that?
- 16:29I've we've won.
- 16:30I won't. I won't speak ill against Helen Mirren.
- 16:32Helen Mirren does show up.
- 16:34She is the ex-wife of Patrick Gates and Papa Gates.
- 16:39Yeah, I'm like, hey, it's Helen Mirren.
- 16:41And then there was no accent.
- 16:43And that threw me off.
- 16:44I'm like, that isn't Helen Mirren.
- 16:46Also, like they could have just why did she need an American accent?
- 16:49They could have just had her be Helen Mirren and it would have been fine.
- 16:52Yeah. The historian in America couldn't have been from fucking anywhere.
- 16:57Like, there's no reason that she needed to have an American accent.
- 16:59I mean, it's not called international treasure.
- 17:02Idiots.
- 17:03It would be kind of weird, I think, if their specialist in like extinct
- 17:11Native American languages was not American.
- 17:14It's like I don't specialize in extinct African electrical installations.
- 17:21Helen Mirren's cleavage really is an international treasure.
- 17:24You know, I'm not going to cut that.
- 17:27I know. And I don't care.
- 17:28I want her to know I will.
- 17:30I will marry this woman.
- 17:31Jerry had a roundabout way of meeting Helen Mirren.
- 17:38That is that is really what this is.
- 17:40So they Ben Gates had figured out that there might be a clue on one of the three statues of liberty.
- 17:48Because there's three because there's three.
- 17:50We actually learned something.
- 17:52I didn't know that. I didn't know that either.
- 17:54I actually they said these are like, OK, New York, Las Vegas.
- 17:59So they go they they go to Paris and they're Riley Poole is rocking a drone.
- 18:08And then they get pulled over by the cops and the cops translate the clue of the photo they taken off of this statue of liberty.
- 18:17Then Ben Ben Gates does the because the clue was these twins stand resolute.
- 18:23And he's like twins resolute resolute twins.
- 18:29There's a ship, the resolute in the 1800s.
- 18:34Oh, you're going to like this.
- 18:36And then just like goes on this stupid like Jeff Goldblum style.
- 18:40I fucking hated this.
- 18:42It was so bad.
- 18:44And they're like, we have to go to Buckingham Palace and get into the Queen's study.
- 18:48The resolute desk.
- 18:50Because they're so they break into the Queen's study and the Oval Office eventually.
- 18:54But going back to what you were talking about, Sean, where they're in Buckingham Palace and Abigail Chase.
- 19:01So she just randomly shows up.
- 19:03What's weird about that is before he knows that she's there, he's just like splashing whiskey all over himself because he's already prepared to make a scene.
- 19:12Yeah. Then just kind of rolls with that.
- 19:15Is he still going to end it up in the drunk tank?
- 19:17I mean, that was over the balcony.
- 19:19I think that we've I think that we've really missed talking about the resolute desks and how they broke into Buckingham Palace and the Oval Office and figured out the puzzle of the desks and then like distracted.
- 19:35It was. Yeah, but they distracted enough.
- 19:38Like they distracted enough people in the White House to break into the president's desk.
- 19:44Well, I mean, Ty Burrell got, you know, a makeout scene.
- 19:48He did. And he and again, that scene was some of the best acting in this movie just on his part.
- 19:54Again, did you not hear Helen Mirren's not British accent?
- 19:59I'm giving Helen Mirren a pass on this.
- 20:01She obviously was going to be the best actress in this movie.
- 20:04I do want to talk about the Mount Rushmore Dungeon, though, because dear God, I want to run that in D&D.
- 20:10Oh, yeah. I mean, the puzzles and the like traps and things like that.
- 20:16Clever and fun. I liked the pendulum.
- 20:18The pendulum like it's there.
- 20:20They have to stand on four corners of this thing that's on like a point, otherwise they'll all die.
- 20:25And like, I want to run that.
- 20:28I guess it's more of a fulcrum table.
- 20:30Yeah. Any any of my D&D players stop listening to this podcast right now.
- 20:34No, but I agree. Like the Indiana Jones kind of fun of that zone was interesting.
- 20:40Yeah, I liked even though it's like a dumb, you know, oh, my arm goof. Like he did shove his hand in the stone hole.
- 20:48Oh, it was so bad.
- 20:50The hole fisting or what?
- 20:52Just like so. OK, so they're being they're being held at gunpoint by Ed Harris at Mount Rushmore.
- 20:58And then Nick Cage is like, no guns.
- 21:00We can go together and we can discover this together, but no guns.
- 21:04And Harris is like, OK, buddy.
- 21:06And they go up somehow, they get on top of Mount Rushmore, which I'm pretty sure you don't just do.
- 21:11And they have some some clue about the cloudless rain cloudless rain.
- 21:18This scene and and Nick Cage is like pulling out bottles of water and he's like pouring it on the top of Mount Rushmore.
- 21:25Water change the color of the water changes.
- 21:27Use the water and everybody's pouring water out until an eagle forms and Abigail Chase is like, I found it.
- 21:34I really enjoy it. It's just a random hole.
- 21:37Just Patrick Gates trying to tell Helen Mirren, use the water.
- 21:42And she's just holding a water bottle.
- 21:44She's like, what do you think I'm doing?
- 21:46It's like, I've got water.
- 21:48So I do want to talk about as we get deeper into Mount Rushmore and get like right before right when we find discovered the city of gold at Harris's Wilkinson is he apologizes like, sorry, I ruined your great great grandfather's name.
- 22:01I just wanted to make up for my family's history and like have my name go down in the history books all about, you know, saving my family's name.
- 22:09Like, why didn't you just ask, buddy?
- 22:11What is your end goal? Your end goal is you discover the city of gold.
- 22:15Your city, your family's name goes down in history as having discovered the city of gold and murdered a family and their bumbling sidekick.
- 22:25Also, well, you don't tell anybody that you brought a family.
- 22:28You can tell them, but you don't tell them that you brought a family underneath.
- 22:32But he's going to bring them to the city of gold eventually.
- 22:35And then there's Gates, the Gates family and and pool.
- 22:39It was also it was also never.
- 22:41Also, they'd been shooting out them the entire film was it was it ever made clear, by the way, or was it simply just suggested in that scene that like your great great granddaddy definitely didn't do the thing I've accused him of.
- 22:57But it was the only way for me to get you to find this treasure for me.
- 23:02Or was it like he did.
- 23:04But I also had to bring that up so you'd find this treasure for me again.
- 23:07Why didn't you just ask? Well, also Gates would have totally looked for this.
- 23:11Also, why did Ed Harris use a southern accent in some scenes, but not in all of them?
- 23:17Because they couldn't afford it throughout the movie.
- 23:19They made it pretty clear, I think, in the beginning that the Gates relative wasn't actually involved in conspiring against.
- 23:28Well, I think they made it clear because you're supposed to root for Ben Gates and family.
- 23:33But like they can't they can't just say like, I mean, as a plot point here, like the writers can't speak.
- 23:39Oh, that's not true.
- 23:40Like Ben Gates has got to prove it by finding a bunch of gold in Mount Rushmore.
- 23:45Sure. OK.
- 23:46So the burden of proof is still on future person, even though the audience is very clearly aware that it was never.
- 23:54But did we ever get that full confession from from Wilkinson?
- 23:58Well, and even if we did, he died.
- 24:00I don't think Wilkinson ever even knew.
- 24:02Like, what does that sheet of paper say? It had names.
- 24:06Yes, all the other names were involved in the plot.
- 24:10But it's like it doesn't say these people like explicitly.
- 24:14I saw a thing when I was looking up information for this movie.
- 24:18The next word on that page, like before it was burned, is master like puzzle solver.
- 24:26But that still doesn't prove in the present that his great great grandfather was a dork.
- 24:33Yeah. No, but with amazing money shops, he loves Sudoku.
- 24:36Puzzle solving is genetic in the cinematic world.
- 24:39I mean, except except it skips a generation because John Voight is terrible at it.
- 24:44It's never established. But what do we think the the like real life timeline of this plot is a week or two?
- 24:53Well, you think that. But when we would think that when they go to the White House Easter egg roll to break into the Oval Office,
- 25:02there's a shitty kid who's just like Ben Gates, your grandfather or your great great grandfather assassinated Lincoln's like, no, it was John Wilkes Booth.
- 25:08It's like, well, you're great. And there's this whole thing.
- 25:11Then they get into a legit debate. Yeah. But he's like in Wilkinson's book.
- 25:14I'm like, this has been a week and Wilkinson's published a book.
- 25:18How do you how do you account for the fact that every bridge leading out of D.C. was closed, but the one that he needed.
- 25:24All right, child, go away. We're done.
- 25:26I want to go back to, again, the timeline of this, because it feels like it just happened over a couple of weeks or three weeks or whatever.
- 25:35And Patrick Gates and and Helen Mirren, who is Ben Gates' mom.
- 25:40And I don't recall. I don't even know if they ever said her.
- 25:43Yeah, it's Emily. But it doesn't matter. No. Yeah.
- 25:47So she and and John Voight just hate each other.
- 25:50They haven't spoken in 30 years. And by the end of a couple hours together, they're just like making out on Mount Rushmore.
- 25:57To be fair, they almost just died. Right. And also made out for less.
- 26:01Also, that fulcrum scene, they weren't part of they weren't on the big fulcrum table and they didn't have to go diving for the ladder.
- 26:08They did a geriatric Indiana Jones. I understand that.
- 26:11But nobody had to go onto the fulcrum who designed this booby trapped city of gold that you could just like bypass the fulcrum.
- 26:19You could just go the other way. Yeah.
- 26:21They did have to swing across the gully. Yes.
- 26:24And they didn't know they didn't know the fulcrum was there. It's not like they jumped on it.
- 26:27The floor fell out from under.
- 26:29That's fine. But why are there how many how many more routes are there to get to the city?
- 26:34I mean, yeah, I mean, like you really do have to just kind of shrug and say, yeah, whatever.
- 26:38I don't care. I mean, that's kind of how I watch most Nick Cage movies.
- 26:42I mean, I get invested at the so at the end, they're all I watch now at the end.
- 26:47Ed Harris and Nick Cage have to like open a slew for people to get out, but it can't stay open.
- 26:54Otherwise, they'll all drown and it has to stay behind because only one of them can live.
- 26:59So say I helped discover it. Like I want my name to go down his tray.
- 27:03Fine. Nick Cage and family are going to go tell people and get help.
- 27:08You can at least try and swim back up.
- 27:10They weren't that far underground where you couldn't have just like it's like when your car if your car's on water.
- 27:16We've all watched Mythbusters.
- 27:17Once the water level gets to a point where it's equalized, swim up, just wait for help.
- 27:24Yeah. Or at least try. I don't know. He could have survived.
- 27:27You're right. You're right. This movie is unbelievable now that I'm thinking about it.
- 27:32All right. How about some quotes? Yeah.
- 27:34I think we're done with this. Adam, you've heard our podcast before.
- 27:37Did you have a favorite Nick Cage quote for this movie?
- 27:39I did only because it was it was so ridiculous. It's the scene where he's being held hostage.
- 27:47Ed Harris is not going to let anybody go until he's gone first.
- 27:51So either everybody drowns or he gets out first. And then for no reason whatsoever, everything just changes.
- 28:00And now Ed Harris has got to hold it open so that nobody can drown.
- 28:04But before all that happens, Ben Gates, he's got to he's got to hold this this thing that keeps the wall up.
- 28:11So water keeps flowing and doesn't fill up this room.
- 28:14And his parents are freaking out. And he grabs Abigail Chase and he goes, you make my parents leave.
- 28:21You make my parents leave. And it was just awful.
- 28:26I love that because it's just like I wish there was somebody I could keep around my parents' house
- 28:34when I was living with them, obviously, as a teenager.
- 28:38But just be like, your job is just to make my parents leave.
- 28:43Just make my parents leave. I really feel like they did that now.
- 28:48Sometimes I really feel like they did their best to give Riley Poole kind of just like the goofball quotes.
- 28:54And they didn't. It's it. They're all Nick Cage. All of them.
- 28:58Now, well, that shoe horns into mine.
- 29:00There's a scene in Buckingham Palace where they've just come up the dumbwaiter.
- 29:04OK, it's not mine because they've gotten out. It's Nick Cage and Abigail.
- 29:09And they run into like a florist and he's holding like a jug of flowers and he oh, the flowers have stamens.
- 29:20But he does he does it in Nick Cage, British accent. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
- 29:25My favorites after the Oval Office scene.
- 29:29So like to distract Ty Burrell's character, Abigail Chase is like, oh, they do this like lost earring thing.
- 29:38And so they're looking around for it.
- 29:39And in the end, once Nick Cage has solved the puzzle box of the table and everything and they've had their makeout scene
- 29:48and Abigail's like, oh, you know, you found my earring and this and that.
- 29:53And Nick Cage just in the fakest fucking excitement ever goes, Connor rocks.
- 30:01But he's just like rolling his eyes and like hating that he has to say, oh, man, Connor rocks. Yeah.
- 30:08Also, Connor's just a bad like a nerd.
- 30:12He's just the fucking like what art curator for the White House or some shit like that.
- 30:18My favorite, Connor rocks.
- 30:20My favorite quote is when Abigail and Ben are having their fight in Buckingham Palace and Ben gets on the banister
- 30:28and like rides down the stairs and gets like gets accosted by security in his talk.
- 30:34It's like, have you been drinking, sir?
- 30:36It's like went down and just in the most offensive way, it happens like went down the pop for a pint.
- 30:42And when they're like starting to rough him up and like really like get off the banister, he just goes,
- 30:46I'm going to detain a bloke for enjoying his whiskey.
- 30:50Just that up at the end really killed me.
- 30:53Yeah. Bangers and mash.
- 30:56Bangers and mash starts reciting everything kind of British he's ever heard.
- 31:02I have only one fun fact for this film while filming out Mount Rushmore,
- 31:07a local high school would always have their prominent Mount Rushmore.
- 31:10And because Disney was shooting, they couldn't.
- 31:12So Disney paid for a new venue, paid for door prizes and gave scholarships to the valedictorians of that year.
- 31:21That's a fun, nice Disney story when you normally hear about how they're just kind of copyright Nazis.
- 31:27So speaking of Disney movies.
- 31:30Oh, what have you got for us?
- 31:32I do want to say one more thing about this film.
- 31:34Turtle Tob directed this, who also directed Cool Runnings, Three Ninjas, The Meg and Las Vegas.
- 31:41So let's talk about another Disney movie, The Sorcerer's Apprentice,
- 31:44directed by John Turtletob, who directed Cool Runnings, Three Ninjas, The Meg and Las Vegas.
- 31:49And Phenomenon.
- 31:51I don't I saw that. I don't know what that movie is.
- 31:53Oh, it's actually kind of good. It's very charming. Yeah.
- 31:56Who's in that? John Travolta.
- 31:58As you're going to say, John Turtletob, kind of.
- 32:00Who also directed Cool Runnings, Three Ninjas, The Meg and Las Vegas.
- 32:05And also and also the actress that was in the movie Michael with John Travolta.
- 32:09So The Sorcerer's Apprentice starring Nicholas Cage as Balthazar Blake.
- 32:14Great name. Alfred Molina as Horvath.
- 32:17Also a great name. Great cast.
- 32:19Jay Baruchel. How do you pronounce that?
- 32:23Bacchanel.
- 32:24I think it's French Canadian as Dave.
- 32:28Dave. David.
- 32:30Teresa Palmer as Becky and Toby Kell as Drake Stone.
- 32:35Fuck yeah.
- 32:37I don't know, Nick, do you want to do you want to give us a quick run through of The Sorcerer's Apprentice?
- 32:40Sure. So way back in the day, a long, long time ago.
- 32:45Yep. Long, long time ago, there were three Sorcerer's Apprentices, Apprentices.
- 32:52Apprentice Apprentice. Merlinians.
- 32:54I mean, one of them is more Lennian. No, I mean, Morganians are another.
- 32:58There's two or one that goes to Morganian nature.
- 33:02God damn it. Do you even watch the movies?
- 33:05I do. OK. So there's.
- 33:08Twice three apprentices to Merlin called Merlinians.
- 33:13Apprentice. You know, as somebody who's been an apprentice, I'm going to say it's apprentices.
- 33:19As someone who pretends to know things, I'm going to say apprentice.
- 33:23Proceed. So these three. No, let's keep doing this. This is bugging Peter.
- 33:27Three apprentices, they have like a falling out.
- 33:33One of them is like, oh, you know what? I want to be evil.
- 33:37And so he goes ahead and joins the Morganians.
- 33:41Even better name. So what you're saying is I was technically right.
- 33:46No, and that's not what I said at all.
- 33:50So then there's a fight over supremacy.
- 33:54Balthazar and his lady love fighting Morgana to some magic while battling with another evil wizard lady who I don't think she had a name in the movie.
- 34:08Definitely wasn't Morgana Le Fay.
- 34:10They trap her in a Russian nesting doll and then that gets put away.
- 34:16Merlin dies. His beard was terrible.
- 34:19I mean, it was literally the worst beard I've ever seen.
- 34:22So Merlin's dying and he's like, oh, fucking Balthazar, take my damn ring.
- 34:27And someday you'll meet a kid who's really going to be good at magic and the ring will identify them.
- 34:33And they'll be the prime Merlinian, which is even better than Morganians.
- 34:38Like, we're just nailing it on names now.
- 34:40He dies, takes a shitty beard with him, and Balthazar goes on a montage quest of meeting kids that doesn't turn out poorly.
- 34:50I just want to point out it's a montage quest where he wears very reasonable clothing for the time.
- 34:55Yeah, and when we get to modern day, he doesn't.
- 34:57Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 34:58And he goes around, meets a bunch of kids, shows them a dragon toy.
- 35:02Nothing happens.
- 35:03And he fucks off.
- 35:04Then eventually, like in the year 2000, we meet this kid who was sleeping in a bed and there was a dog and they go on a school trip and a Buzz Lightyear.
- 35:16Oh, yeah.
- 35:17So we know it's Disney.
- 35:18Yeah, I'm sorry.
- 35:19I didn't mean to miss that part.
- 35:21Can I just add that the scene that Nick is talking about where the kid wakes up a dog and they're going on a school trip and it's that's kind of like the real intro to the movie.
- 35:32Oh, yeah. This movie.
- 35:33It's super punctuated by Jimmy World.
- 35:36So he finally gets up.
- 35:38He goes on his school trip.
- 35:39Oh, man, he's on the bus and he's drawn on windows like a shithead.
- 35:43Dron King Kong.
- 35:44How did he get it to line up so perfectly?
- 35:48Jay Berrishel did 9-11.
- 35:52There we go.
- 35:53We got the joke.
- 35:54We're done.
- 35:55Don't sue us, Jay Berrishel.
- 35:56So he goes on this field trip, young David passes this note to this girl that's like, hey, I think you're pretty cool.
- 36:03Do you think I'm cool?
- 36:04And do you think I'm cool like a boyfriend or a boy?
- 36:07And she's like, they're 10, by the way, they're 10 slightly writes a note or marks on the note and just leaves it on a lamp post for him to come back down and get.
- 36:20So he goes to get it and blows away and there's a chase scene where he's like, it's on a bicycle, it's on a dog's foot, it blows into the mail slot of a door and he goes in and it's the Arkana cabana.
- 36:34Best name ever.
- 36:35Also, shitty kid alert.
- 36:36I mean, I don't think Dave was the shittiest kid.
- 36:39Also, how bad is that teacher?
- 36:40Because she doesn't yell at him to stop.
- 36:43He just runs away and 20 minutes later she finds him.
- 36:46Oh, yeah.
- 36:47Nobody noticed or cared that he left and he ran away like yelling.
- 36:51Yeah, like, oh, my no.
- 36:53And nobody gave a shit.
- 36:55How am I supposed to know if this other 10 year old likes me?
- 36:57I'm going to fret about this for 10 years.
- 36:59Hasn't even hit puberty yet.
- 37:01What a waste.
- 37:02Also, somehow my voice is going to get higher when I get older.
- 37:06I identify with that statement.
- 37:09So fuck you, Sean.
- 37:10Are you the J Bear, Sean, of this podcast?
- 37:12You mean successful?
- 37:17Oh, do you think we could could get J Bear, Sean, this podcast?
- 37:20No.
- 37:21Do you think we could just get the cast of The Sorcerer's Apprentice on this guest?
- 37:24Possibly.
- 37:25Because I would love to meet Alfred Melina.
- 37:28You know what? If we have enough money, he would do it.
- 37:30We might be able to get the guy who played Drake Stone.
- 37:33OK, cool.
- 37:34No, we cannot get Toby Kebbell gets work.
- 37:36He was the primary evil monkey in Evil Chimp in the second plan to the apes.
- 37:42Well, I saw also he played fucking Dr. Doom.
- 37:45Yeah. In Fan Force, that is a weird casting.
- 37:49Toby Kebbell pulls.
- 37:51Huh. So this note goes into the Arkana Cabana where David runs in and, you know, he's looking around and eventually he breaks a bunch of shit.
- 38:01Well, yeah, we're not there yet.
- 38:03Well, he was rubbing up on a lamp and Nicholas Cage pops down.
- 38:07He's like, hey, have you seen my note?
- 38:09And Nicholas Cage was like, we don't do notes here.
- 38:12And then he was like, I blew in here by coincidence.
- 38:17And then it's just like this moment where Nicholas Cage is like a coincidence.
- 38:22How coincidental.
- 38:25So Nicholas Cage is like, I got to go upstairs and get something.
- 38:29You just chill.
- 38:30Chill. And so he busts down with this ring and he's like, check it.
- 38:35Then David's looking at it and it becomes a dragon and it wraps around his finger.
- 38:39Real weird. And they give you a weird close up of it, just like the tail part getting around his finger.
- 38:44I've been hanging out with you for two hours.
- 38:46Are you this high? I'm not even high.
- 38:48I know. I've been hanging out with you for two hours.
- 38:50No, no, no. He's he's right.
- 38:52Like, you don't remember this scene. This is what I do.
- 38:55This is when I'm rambling. Not smoking.
- 38:57This is as as the only person sitting at this table that pretty legitimately likes this movie.
- 39:03I'm mad at all of you right now. I love this movie.
- 39:06I mean, yeah, spoilers like I kind of thought both of these movies are pretty good.
- 39:10I really enjoyed this movie. Skip to the end, Nick.
- 39:14You can't skip to the end. Morgana Lafay dies.
- 39:18Good. You did it.
- 39:20OK, so I you know, I may have told you the ending, but stick with me because I've got some more good stuff.
- 39:26Good. The ring puts itself on David's finger and then Balthazar is like, fuck.
- 39:31So hold on. I've got more things to get you.
- 39:34So he goes away and he's like, don't touch anything. And David's like, OK, so he's not touching anything.
- 39:38He's fucking with his hand with the ring and like there's a thumping sound.
- 39:42It's like, oh, fuck, what's that? He keeps walking around and then the fucking Russian nesting doll
- 39:48bursts out of this hidden compartment in the wall.
- 39:51And it's like, well, that sucks. And he's like looking at it and then it like splits open and all these roaches come out.
- 39:59Wait, I have a note for this. My note says, does your note say interrupt the summary of the movie?
- 40:04Yes. My note says, right.
- 40:06Right. A pun for Alfred Molina made made out of roaches.
- 40:10Fuck you. You didn't do it, though.
- 40:13No. Fuck you.
- 40:16Alfred Molina shows up. He's like, oh, where's Balthazar?
- 40:23Nicolas Cage comes back down. There's a scuffle.
- 40:27It ends up with things being on fire. Wizard fights, people getting thrown around.
- 40:32Nicolas Cage and Alfred Molina getting sucked into this urn, which will hold them for 10 years.
- 40:37It's magic. Then David runs away.
- 40:40He gets outside and he's freaking his classmates are all there in the whole hullabaloo.
- 40:45Jar fell on him and it looked like he peed his pants and everybody made fun of him for being a pee pants. Awesome.
- 40:52End of movie. Yeah. So this they they tease him and whatnot.
- 40:58So hard he has to move. This is just good. This is good stuff.
- 41:03It's good content. Bullying children. He throws the nest and down into the gutter.
- 41:08Yeah. Gets rid of the doll and cries like a wiener.
- 41:12Ten years later, he wakes up. Same dog, different bed. He is a physics student.
- 41:18He's going to do things. So he like helps out this English class, meets this chick who happened to be the chick that he wrote the note for, which he never got to see the answer to.
- 41:28Big Blue Balls moment for him. It doesn't seem likely, but she lets him tutor her on some stuff, which kind of just turns into dating.
- 41:37And that's pretty unbelievable because I mean, she was pretty attractive in the cast of like if I had to say who was the most attractive person in the cast of this movie for Melina and a close second is Becky Barnes.
- 41:51Did you guys see any of the other things that she was in?
- 41:54She was in a movie with Topher Grace and Dan Fogler and Anna Faris called Take Me Home Tonight. That's a good movie.
- 42:03I do want to point out, like when she's introduced, we have 10 year old Dave, then it cuts to him being 20 and his roommate is a horn dog and she's like, you got to meet chicks.
- 42:13No way, man. Bennett fucking rules. I loved his roommate. His speech about the gray wolves.
- 42:20Gray wolves. Yeah.
- 42:21They're pack animal. They do these things and they do it because they have to mate. He did it by rhyming the whole time.
- 42:29Then the next scene is like Dave setting up his notes to give this lecture. His notes get blown away when the door opens and there's a uncomfortable.
- 42:39He's picking up his notes and looking up a girl skirt scene. Yeah. And it just happens to be a girlie at a crush on a 10 that he's never not had a crush on, which is weird.
- 42:50Have you not heard of incels?
- 42:53So he teaches Becky like some physics stuff by Tesla coils. And that's cool. Builds this relationship while also training with Balthazar.
- 43:06Oh, wait, I didn't even talk about how like he re he becomes a sorcerer's apprentice. Yeah. Since it's been 10 years.
- 43:13Oh, that 10 years of the the urn that I mentioned, Alfa Malina pops out of the urn. There's a really great moment where he's like, was I first?
- 43:23And then this lady faints and he's like, I was. So he just picks up the urn and like walks to a fucking window and just pitches it out.
- 43:31And it's like, that's brilliant. If I was the first person out of an urn and I was like, well, Sean's next. I'd pitch it out the fucking window.
- 43:40You're a dick. We're friends. Yeah, but it looked really cool when Alfred Malina did it.
- 43:45Give me the minute recap and then I want to hear what Adam thinks about this movie in general.
- 43:49Agreed. This is the Nick minute. Ready? So Nicholas Cage reunites with David. They start training.
- 43:57David's trying to balance this whole like work love life situation that he's got going on, but it's not going super well.
- 44:04There's a whole scene where he's trying to get ready, like in his lab, and it's a mess because the dog pees on electrical cords.
- 44:11Dick ass dog. So he does the whole Sorcerer's Apprentice thing from Fantasia, cleans it up.
- 44:16They're like, OK, well, we got to get ready for this fight. David's like, I'm a terrible sorcerer.
- 44:21They go out and they fight all these other like shitty sorcerers. David loses the ring.
- 44:25Nicholas Cage goes to fight Morgana. Kind of sucks at it.
- 44:29David shows up with Tesla coils strapped to a car, shocks everybody and sexes the world.
- 44:35I didn't say it was going to be a good recap. I had a scene I wanted to ask Adam about.
- 44:40So this movie practical sick ass magic fights. What do you think?
- 44:43Like visually, what do you think of this movie? I really like this movie. I think it's really fun.
- 44:48I don't think it's really asking a lot of its viewership other than to just be entertained.
- 44:54I thought they did a I thought they did a good job of you're talking about the the China, the effects and the visuals.
- 45:02I thought it was I thought it was pretty good.
- 45:05There were some characters and scenes that maybe were questionably racist, but glossing over that, they paid homage to.
- 45:13That's what this podcast about. What was questionably racist about it? Paid homage to like, can we excuse it?
- 45:18They paid homage to like a history of wizard stories and magic.
- 45:22They did at certain times a bad job of it. I don't know if anybody remembers,
- 45:25but like in the opening scene when Alfred Molina is killing Merlin, Balthazar shows up to defend him, but he shows up with a sword.
- 45:33And it's kind of like that's that's a weird choice of weapon for a wizard in that opening scene.
- 45:37I thought the big homage to magic stories was how much Alfred Molina looked like a fat budget professor snake.
- 45:47You're not wrong. Shitty greasy hair.
- 45:51I super think that this is a great role for Nick Cage's acting style because he can sort of talk in monotone the whole time and not try that hard.
- 46:01And he is a prominent character, but not the hero.
- 46:05I'm a huge fan of the author Christopher Moore.
- 46:07One of the things that I love about his books, the protagonist is always a beta male who like just kind of wants to sit in the background.
- 46:13I'm kind of shy and I'm awkward and I have anxiety. So like I identify with that a lot.
- 46:18But those characters always have to be the hero. And in this Dave has to be the hero, even though he doesn't want to be.
- 46:23So Balthazar knows that he can't be the hero. So he just gets to be like, Dave, Dave, we're going to learn magic.
- 46:30You should write now, Dave. Dave, we've got a lot of work to do.
- 46:34Dave, put on your shoes. And it's a great character for Nicolas Cage.
- 46:41I just thought this whole movie was cast so well. Writing fine. It was fun.
- 46:46Visually, I thought it was really fun because certain things they never give explanation where it's like a sorcerer's best weapon.
- 46:53The plasma bolt. It's a Hadouken. And we all played Street Fighter.
- 46:57What a subtle forward punch. He puts on his ring and he's just like putting his hands together, being like, I can't do it.
- 47:04And he's like, plasma bolt, Dave. Who is this movie for?
- 47:08Adam. Correct. This movie did not do well. This movie starts off as a 10 year old might learn magic. And that would have been a fine kids movie.
- 47:17But it skips ahead 10 years. He's a 20 year old. He's got a horny roommate.
- 47:23And it's all about him having never gotten over that crush from year two in school.
- 47:29Yeah, they aged themselves out of their audience like immediately. It's weird.
- 47:34But keep in mind 2010, we were probably on like movie five or six of the Harry Potter series.
- 47:41There were those like Percy Jackson movies like we we go through these cycles of like there's a specific genre that can be really hot right now.
- 47:50And I think they're step siblings. OK. Like that's a genre of movie. Oh, I know.
- 47:57You know, documentaries I watch, I think, I think in that decade, there were just kind of a lot of like let's make wizard movies.
- 48:05So it might have just been a generic, hey, this genre is really hot right now.
- 48:09Let's make a movie about this. I mean, we've already got this kind of from right.
- 48:14Asia, right. Well, like, let's expand on that entire film on a vignette from Fantasia.
- 48:20Disney does. I'm thoroughly convinced that at one point in the scriptwriting process, this was a Harry Dresden movie.
- 48:26Slowly, because Nick Cage spends the entire opening scene where he's going through the centuries of trying to find the primer Linnean, where he fought countless amounts of wizards and trapped them in the dark hold.
- 48:39But he's always wearing period accurate clothing until he opens Arkana Kibana and he's wearing a century old duster and a magical old hat.
- 48:49And if anyone here has ever read a Harry Dresden book and looked at the cover, you know exactly what I'm talking about, including the uncomfortably described high fitting tight denim pants.
- 49:03Keep it tight, baby. The rest of his outfit was just as good, though.
- 49:08Button up shirt under a vest. And then he's got arm warmers like wool arm warmers on.
- 49:13There was definitely a look they were going for to make him look like a wizard. I think that is undercut by him just looking like a normal dude.
- 49:21The costumers just kind of got the word eccentric. And that was their like whole direction for this.
- 49:27So that's that's something I really did enjoy about this movie.
- 49:30It was like the script was fine costume like they focused hard on costumes and I really liked how they focused on the use of mirrors as magic and like how mirrors can kind of fuck you up.
- 49:43I will give you if you get thrown inside of a mirror like you're going to die. We better get out of this mirror.
- 49:48So I actually thought there was a lot of intentionality behind the type of magic that they were trying to imagine for the viewer.
- 49:54And I really appreciated that. I thought that side of it was not that lazy.
- 49:59Oh, no, the magic fights were awesome. Yeah. Well, yeah. And there were a lot of practical effects, too.
- 50:03I mean, they did a really good job of doing that versus just CGI. And part of his costuming was because of that, because Cage really wanted to do a bunch of hand gestures for magic where they wanted him to have like magic bracelets or some shit.
- 50:16Instead, they decided that like, oh, yeah, he's going to do these gestures like whoever was the visual designer on the film loved their job.
- 50:23And I'm low key jealous that I can't do that. Yeah.
- 50:27Nick, who was your favorite best boy and grip?
- 50:30Sean is always my favorite best boy and grip. Thanks. That award always goes to me to tie this back in the cage much real quick.
- 50:39There is a mustache cop saying, yeah, it was a good one, too. It was great.
- 50:44I'm going to put this in bad cop. I'm going to put this in the bad cop camp just because he is actively racist as part of his caricature of being in New York cop.
- 50:53Yeah, some of them had a little too much saki. Yeah. He's like, well, saki is actually Japanese there, chief.
- 50:59It's like I was in character. Mike, your character was racist and it didn't matter.
- 51:04I do like that he turned it around and was like, I was in character.
- 51:09I do love Balthazar Blake. Speaking of just sorcerers in this, let's talk about Toby Kells Drake Stone.
- 51:17This man freaked my mind. Chris Angel. So this was Chris Angel.
- 51:22So first time through that movie, the intro to that character was kind of off putting.
- 51:26But when you sort of get the backstory, the character makes a lot of sense. What is the backstory?
- 51:31Well, and also promote magic, the gathering. Yes. When the backstory was introduced after more of a found him and was like bringing him on to like, you're going to help me with this.
- 51:41And he's like, kind of look at the state of you. What the fuck's wrong with you?
- 51:44He was like, my master left me at 15. I was alone. What was I supposed to do? Basically saying like I knew the magic that I knew. I knew the magic that I was taught.
- 51:53I had nowhere else to go. So he turned himself into a quote unquote medium magician.
- 51:58That man had to play Wonderwall. But it also it also made it super believable that he was easily manipulated for any purpose.
- 52:06Sure. Yeah. He was absent of father figures.
- 52:08Presumably he wanted to get back into training as a real source or not just as like a master of cheap tricks on stage. Yeah. He's got things to prove.
- 52:16I do love when he menaces Dave in the college bathroom and does the bully.
- 52:22I'm going to pick you up by your shirt collar and then just walks away and Dave is still up there just hanging by your shirt collar, even though he's not being held.
- 52:29He's like, and Dave's like, what is this high school? Yeah. You're a dickhead and I'm here for it.
- 52:35Sometimes little things in these movies kind of get away from me because I'm not sober because you're high.
- 52:42So I'm not always at my best when I watch these the first time.
- 52:46One of my frustrations with this movie is that they do this.
- 52:49They do this really wonderful buildup and good backstory of character and and character building and everything.
- 52:55And then once we're about starts recruiting, they just kind of like move it forward at rapid pace.
- 53:01Releases sorcerers from releases, but we don't get to feel a lot of like those relationships.
- 53:07And then we just move on to this giant fight scene, which is dope.
- 53:12Except that's suddenly when the romantic relationship starts to come to fruition at a moment when it absolutely shouldn't.
- 53:21Yeah. The timing wasn't great. And and also like now she believed like Dave has been just kind of a weird shithead to her the entire movie because he's like,
- 53:30I can't tell you that I'm a sorcerer in training.
- 53:33So this is not a good time for you to come into my weird basement of Tesla coils and mops and why are there so many mops down there?
- 53:41So it's like 80. OK, here's a concern with this, too.
- 53:45And I'm going to get to it before Sean this time.
- 53:48It's an abandoned subway terminal or something.
- 53:51And there would be some kind of janitor closet.
- 53:55Disney explanation. There's mops there in a janitor's closet, a perfectly reasonable place to find a mop.
- 54:02A mop. Yes, a mop.
- 54:05I was a little or I have been a little annoyed by the way it just felt like the writers were like, oh, we better wrap this up.
- 54:11Let's have a big fight scene and also let's make the romantic relationships work.
- 54:15So let's just tie this in real quick.
- 54:17I'm literally doing that to you guys right now.
- 54:21When Morgana is released and she's using for the listeners at home, these sorcerers use like vibrations and electricity to create their magic.
- 54:31So she's using like the antenna towers across all the skyscrapers in New York to create this, like, I don't know, giant vortex of magic.
- 54:39It's science. And Dave tells Becky, like, you got to get to the top of that building.
- 54:45He's like, or else we're all going to die.
- 54:47And I'm a sorcerer. I'll try and save us. But I understand if you don't want to.
- 54:51And she's like, but if I don't, we're all going to die.
- 54:53And then there's just like, you just trust him on this?
- 54:56To be fair, she was just kidnapped by a sorcerer and saw a bunch of magic.
- 54:59Well, that's because we don't have time to go back.
- 55:02Because Peter's trying to make us wrap this up.
- 55:04And because I did not come here to not talk about the final boss, I demand that we talk about the final boss.
- 55:11So they meet in some park in New York.
- 55:13Morgana has been released and she comes out of and I do not remember the character's name, but she's in Nick Cage's girlfriend's.
- 55:20Like Veronica.
- 55:21Veronica. Yeah. She's in Veronica's body.
- 55:24And Nick Cage is there and he like throws a weird pool spell where he can dip in and out of manufactured pools.
- 55:31It's kind of kind of cool magic.
- 55:33So he's kind of like hiding and he's seen and he does.
- 55:37He touches four heads like nine times and then he sucks Morgana into his own body to release Veronica from that.
- 55:44Then Dave shows up and now he's got to fight Balthazar, who's got a Morgana host and for no reason at all,
- 55:51because like Dave does not want to start firing plasma bolts on Balthazar.
- 55:55Well, he also doesn't have his ring, so he can't.
- 55:58He doesn't have magic.
- 55:59For no reason at all.
- 56:01Morgana just leaves Balthazar's body to fight Dave on his own.
- 56:06When being like occupying Balthazar, that would have made her harder to defeat.
- 56:12And so because Dave is the prime Merlinian, he's able to cast.
- 56:18Hadoukens.
- 56:19He's cast magic that no one's ever seen without his ring and he defeats her.
- 56:24And it's pretty great.
- 56:26Before Balthazar takes Morgana out of Veronica, when Veronica is raising the dead of every Merlinian ever,
- 56:33that magic is horny, like she is in the circle, like just fucking twerking to like summon the dead.
- 56:42The horniest use of magic is actually David when he takes down Morgana,
- 56:48because there's all the lightning from the Tesla coils shocking her.
- 56:53And then he's just up there like fucking rapid fire, just fucking busting all over like plasma bolts.
- 57:02And she's just like taking it. She's like, ah.
- 57:05Oh, and then I forgot he matrixed Balthazar back to life because he can start hearts.
- 57:11I have some real fucking problems with that.
- 57:13Enough first aid classes and I've been trained on how to use like the little shocky paddles.
- 57:20It's OK. We're not a first aid podcast.
- 57:23No, we're a conspiracy podcast.
- 57:25And sorcerers are real.
- 57:27Yeah. And just the fucking government's been hiding them from us. It's page 47.
- 57:33He just fucking goes to town on Balthazar's chest like just fucking plasma bolt, plasma bolt.
- 57:41Don't fucking die. Plasma, plasma, plasma bolt.
- 57:44I'm going to fucking save you. Plasma bolt.
- 57:46And he doesn't check like his pulse ever.
- 57:50Well, he was already dead. We know that because Veronica is like he's dead.
- 57:53If you're trying to revive somebody like the little shocky paddles,
- 58:00you're going to check between shocks, because if you continue to shock somebody who's alive with all of that,
- 58:07it fucks them up and probably would have killed them. So he's terrible at first aid.
- 58:13What do you got? You don't have plasma bolts that could fix everything. You don't know.
- 58:18You're right. What's a plasma bolt do to a body?
- 58:21Randomly unleashed plasma bolts into the fucking circulatory system.
- 58:27It should be said that it was moments before was used to kill the most powerful sorcerers on the moon.
- 58:34I just want to point out. Blasted them away.
- 58:37How about quotes, fellas? Quotes.
- 58:40Adam, what's your quote? I got two. I got two.
- 58:43The first and I don't know if this was meant to be like any kind of self-awareness or whatever.
- 58:49But when he's he brings Becky down into his weird dungeon and shows her his Tesla coils and he said,
- 58:57and I just thought it was funny because of this podcast.
- 59:00I think you better step into my cage. Nick cage. Oh.
- 59:06And then he I don't remember which character he was talking to, but he had said, Becky show.
- 59:11It's like it's like her thing. And it's very early on in the movie.
- 59:15And I just liked that because it makes me believe that this is really all the if you have.
- 59:23All right. So I've got one for this one. Nick cage talking to Dave.
- 59:27He's warning him about Maxim Horvath. He says, I don't know, unless you want him to turn you into a pig that just loves physics.
- 59:37The first one is so Balthazar is trying to like train Dave to be like, you can't fall in love.
- 59:42It's it's bad because they're going to use it against you.
- 59:45So when Becky shows up to the underground Tesla lab and Dave's just like, hey, let's I'll meet you upstairs.
- 59:53It'll be cool. And this weird sorcerer shows up and he's trying to like like, I'm your uncle Balthazar.
- 59:59We're supposed to hang out today. And when Balthazar finally gives up the gun, like fine, go hang out with your girlfriend.
- 1:00:05He's just like, I just remembered I have to go into town and pick up your anti itch cream.
- 1:00:09But my other favorite one is when he shocks Balthazar back to life, Balthazar wakes up because Dave's just like, you idiot.
- 1:00:15You can't die. And Balthazar, like when he wakes up, he's like, I had a dream.
- 1:00:21You were insulting me, Dave. Repeatedly.
- 1:00:26And Dave goes, me? Pretty weird, huh? And Balthazar just goes, no, kind of makes sense.
- 1:00:34I mean, it's not like a rip and good quote, but I think it was something that I really enjoyed.
- 1:00:39And it was nice because I felt like it tied a lot of the jokes up until this point in the movie together in that there's the scene where in the bathroom,
- 1:00:49Balthazar traps Horvath in the Hungarian mirror trap and Horvath in the fight is like, oh, blah, blah, blah.
- 1:00:59So they're old fashioned, like pretty, pretty antiquated little trick you got going here.
- 1:01:05So then later in a chase scene, so they do the Hungarian like mirror trick again at another time.
- 1:01:11But like when they're breaking into Drake's room or his apartment, Nicholas Cage gets all like mesmerized by, you know, stuff like plans and stuff out on Drake's desk.
- 1:01:23And he goes walking in and then he like gets kind of stuck in this rug that's turning into like quicksand and he's like falling in and he's just he just says the Peruvian or Persian like sinking rug.
- 1:01:38I think it's the Persian quick rug. Yeah.
- 1:01:40He's just like Persian quick rug. And he calls me old fashioned.
- 1:01:46I liked it just because it was like, you know, you got to have a callback.
- 1:01:49So at this point, you know, Adam, you're a guest. What would you pick between these two movies?
- 1:01:53On all accounts, I'd pick Sorcerer's Apprentice. I think it's I think it's the I think it's a more fun movie.
- 1:01:59It's more fun to watch. It's a better it's a better movie. And I think it's a better Nicholas Cage role.
- 1:02:03So hands down for me, that's the one that should move forward. I know that that carries zero weight, but it should move forward.
- 1:02:10I think National Traitor 2 is the better Nick Cage role because he caged out so much more.
- 1:02:16It's down to you, Nick. No, I'm all Sorcerer's Apprentice.
- 1:02:20And there is also still a cage moment if you go back to when Dave is making fun of the wizard shoes and he's all like,
- 1:02:30I want to wear your old man's shoes. And then it just cuts to Nicholas Cage.
- 1:02:34He was just like taking him back and gives you like this wild eyed like what? Yeah, it was good.
- 1:02:41I think it was a great role. No, I think it was a great Nicholas Cage role.
- 1:02:45I would like to say face here and say I love both of these films.
- 1:02:49I just enjoyed the more unhinged nature of National Traitor 2 a bit more because nobody cared for this for that movie.
- 1:02:56I think Sorcerer's Apprentice is just the more complete, better movie.
- 1:03:01I will agree with that only because it didn't get a sequel. Well, the script is also just better.
- 1:03:08Prime Merlin Ian. OK, they chose shitty words, but it's a tighter script.
- 1:03:15I agree. Like I love both of these films so much.
- 1:03:18I watched both of them multiple times and I will continue to because they're hilarious.
- 1:03:23There was more. Oh, oh, oh.
- 1:03:26And yeah, the secrets that came across more as a lack of quality script, which I mean,
- 1:03:33we're not here to talk about quality scripts because if we were, I mean,
- 1:03:36we talk about the quality of the script every episode doesn't necessarily determine what's better.
- 1:03:42Our army of one has gone forward as opposed to adaptation.
- 1:03:46So if we're talking about a quality movie, if our argument is quality of script, it is a quality of script.
- 1:03:53I love this. Yeah, we've always been Sorcerer's Apprentice.
- 1:03:57It's Sorcerer's Apprentice. This might be the only part of this that isn't cut of mine, but thanks for having me on everyone.
- 1:04:04Thank you for it. Thank you for coming, Adam. This is a lot of fun.
- 1:04:07We really enjoyed it, Adam.
- 1:04:09So next episode, we've got Red Rock West and Dying of the Light.
- 1:04:14Does Red Rock West star Barbara Walters?
- 1:04:18Wabawawatles.
- 1:04:20Red Rock West.
- 1:04:21Wabawatles.
- 1:04:22Is she alive?
- 1:04:24My brain went to Barbra Streisand and you kept going, what?
- 1:04:27I'm like, what's he talking about? It's a weird Barbra Streisand.
- 1:04:32It's a weird feature about the nose. She can't pronounce ours.
- 1:04:38All right. Well, OK, is Barbara Walters alive and well is the first thing that can move on Google.
- 1:04:43Is the answer no?
- 1:04:45One day ago. You're good at Google. This is bad Googling, Sean.
- 1:04:49I should have just said Barbara Walters. It's not bad Googling, it's bad podcasting.
- 1:04:53Ninety-three years old, she's alive.
- 1:04:55OK, great. So Barbara Walters, when you listen to this episode, please rate, review, subscribe.
- 1:05:02We need it. Thank you.
- 1:05:04Toss some dirt down in the comments.
- 1:05:10You know, it only took like five weeks, but finally somebody won that bet as to who takes their clothes off first.
- 1:05:16Hey, it was you. It was always me.
- 1:05:20Everyone shut up for a second. I have to open a sparkle, buddy.
- 1:05:25There's your outro, Stingfeder.