Please excuse the grammatical errors, any other errors you come across, and the general sloppiness of this transcription of Much Abu About Nothing's podcast episode on A Bug's Life! Our episodes are transcribed by a robot and roughly edited by Misha (which takes a long time).
Tyler 00:00
Content warning. Though this is a podcast about kids movies, this podcast isn't for kids and contains content some people may find offensive.
Misha 00:26
Welcome to Much Abu About Nothing, a podcast where we discuss and rate animated Disney films going in alphabetical order following a rigorous and scientific scoring system based on absolutely nothing. I'm one of your hosts Misha,
Tyler 00:42
and I'm another one of your hosts, Tyler, and welcome to the podcast. And hey, we're here.
Misha 00:50
Hey, Tyler.
Tyler 00:50
We're here. And we're ready to trounce. And the first up... do people still say trounce I can say trounce right. That's not, no. Is that a grandpa thing to say?
Misha 01:04
I... not... well, I... not my grandpa.
Tyler 01:07
My team trounced your team?
Misha 01:10
Are we trouncing Disney?
Tyler 01:12
Well, maybe a little bit? We'll see. I mean, we'll see what comes up. We might be doing some dunks.
Misha 01:18
Or Disney trouncing themselves?
Tyler 01:21
Possibly. Yeah. So we are here to watch a bunch of animated Disney movies and talk about them and give them some scores based on some very rigorous scientific categories. We came up with originality, story, animation, music and sound, protagonist, sidekick if there is one, some movies probably won't have a sidekick, villain, henchmen and strong female lead, bipoc representation slash portrayal and fun factor. And then we also have like minus points for if something like is icky or doesn't sit right. And bonus points for effervescence, which is kind of like that special Disney magic like the Tinkerbell dust that comes out of her wand. Unless Unless those are drugs, and then that's not what we're doing here.
Misha 02:14
Oh,
Tyler 02:16
well, who knows? I mean, old Disney was buck wild. So. Yeah.
Misha 02:21
It happened.
Tyler 02:22
Yeah, what?
Misha 02:24
No, nothing.
Tyler 02:27
And we are starting off with a bang with A Bug's Life from 1998. Disney Pixar starts us off. Yeah. So
Misha 02:38
Yeah!
Tyler 02:39
Let's get into it.
Misha 02:40
So I actually, I loved it when I was a kid. Before watching this. I have memories of watching it and loving it. And I got this hopper toy that was...
Tyler 02:53
Oh yeah.
Misha 02:54
...huge and scary is like 18 inches tall. And it had like movable arms. And it looked just like Hopper. And it scared the bejesus out of me. And then I loved it. And I actually traveled with it to my aunt's house, when I was staying at her house overnight. And I loved it. And then when we were doing this, I realized oh, 1998... I was a little bit too old to...
Tyler 03:20
... be traveling with a toy.
Misha 03:22
Yeah, I was a late social bloomer. And so, you know, I still played with toys. That's okay.
Tyler 03:31
Look - there - you're never too old to play with toys, I think.
Misha 03:36
That's true. My dad has lots of creepy dolls that he... I don't know if he... I hope he doesn't play with them. But he certainly has creepy dolls that haunt his house.
Tyler 03:49
Yeah.
Misha 03:50
If that's the same.
Tyler 03:52
You can't play with haunted dolls for sure. I mean, and behind me. I have like Dungeons and Dragons miniatures, which I definitely play with them. Yeah.
Misha 04:00
And you travel with them.
Tyler 04:01
And I have traveled with them. Not so much these days during the pandemic. But yeah, definitely carted them around the city of Istanbul where I live, sweating profusely, bringing them to entertain and delight other adults. So yeah.
Misha 04:15
To play with other adults.
Tyler 04:17
To play with - entertain. No, I just, I just I just play with my toys in front of people and entertain them and scream and cry, "art to entertain!" Yeah.
Misha 04:31
All right.
Tyler 04:32
Speaking of Hopper who is Hopper for those. For those that haven't seen the movie in a while or haven't seen it? Perhaps we should jump into what will inevitably become the fabled Misha's plot summary. Who's Hopper what went on in this movie?
Misha 04:46
All right. So hopper is the villain and the story is about an ant colony who are oppressed ants, and they're oppressed by grasshoppers. So every season they have to grow or harvest food and give it as an offering to the grasshoppers so the grasshoppers don't kill them. So it's slavery. Because they're the farm - they're the farmers and harvesters and have- are forced to give a good portion of their food to the oppressors.
Tyler 05:27
It's a protection racket.
Misha 05:28
And it's like it's - no - it's not even a protection racket because they don't promise that they'll protect them from anyone else. It's just.
Tyler 05:38
They do the in one line they do when in the well we can get to that in a second. Oh, no, I'll just say it now. When Flick screws up, Flick the main character, Hopper the main bad guy says something along the lines of "You know, if you don't collect this food, we can't protect you from the other bugs that are out there. And you wouldn't want that to happen now would you."
Misha 06:01
Yeah, right. So anyway, Flick who is a kooky inventor.
Tyler 06:08
Yep.
Misha 06:09
Messes up all the food that is for the - in the offering falls off this pillar or like, you know, altar for the grasshoppers and the grasshoppers come, there's no food, they say "you have this much time to collect more food from for us. We'll be back." Then flick decides, "well, instead of feeding them, why don't we fight them?" And the rest of the answer like "That's stupid." So they let him go on this journey to go find warriors. Or as Juli- Julia Louis-Dreyfus, likes to say wa- "wah-yers" "wah-yers" ,
Tyler 06:48
"Wah-yers."
Misha 06:50
"Wah-yers". He goes to find warriors, he finds a circus troupe
Tyler 06:57
Mm hmm.
Misha 06:58
Circus performers but he gets confused thinking that they're actually warriors. And he invites them back to help and they think that he's a scouting agent like a talent scout for performance. So they are like yeah, we want to have we want to take this job so they go back with him to the ant colony. Everybody's confused but they don't know it then Flick discovers they're actually circus performers, but they decided to keep it a secret and lie to the rest of the ants. Then the... oh boy. Then they are found out
Tyler 07:38
Yeah. Because their floss house comes in out some basically.
Misha 07:43
Yes. Right. So they get outed by their former circus boss
Tyler 07:48
PT Flea
Misha 07:49
They leave, the grasshoppers come, but then Flick stands up to them, they still use their fake bird to scare the grasshoppers, it kind of works, but then PT messes up but then it works. What happened... what...
Tyler 08:14
So...
Misha 08:17
...but oh then the rain comes.
Tyler 08:19
The rain comes Yeah. So so first it's the you know, Flick is leaving with the circus performance because he's got kicked out because he lied.
Misha 08:29
You got X-. Yeah, no, what is it?
Tyler 08:32
Exiled.
Misha 08:33
Exiled.
Tyler 08:34
But then the grasshoppers come and they're gonna kill the queen so Dot, and Dot is the smaller Princess, goes to get him, they bring them back. And while the circus performers are distracting Hopper with a circus performance, they get the bird ready. So it's like bird - the sequence is bird almost works, PT fleet burns, it screws up, Hopper beats the cr- Hopper and Thumper the...
Misha 08:59
Right yeah, so Hopper then threatens Dot and Atta and the Queen and Flick stands up to him. That's what it is.
Tyler 09:09
And then he gets the crap beat out of him but then he stands up even more saying there are a lot of us and you know that and then the rain comes. Well the grasshoppers get beaten away but then the rain comes in Hopper's able to like one final chance that revenge against Flick. But then he gets eaten by the "boyd"
Misha 09:26
The real bird.
Tyler 09:28
Yeah. And and the bird's babies - chicks, I suppose.
Misha 09:33
Yeah, those weird little things.
Tyler 09:33
Although the chicks looked like chicken babies, not like sparrow babies which was weird. Maybe it's maybe it's an adopted mother.
Misha 09:40
It didn't look like a sparrow that looked more like a Finch.
Tyler 09:44
Thank you.
Misha 09:44
It didn't. It didn't. They also didn't look like Finch babies.
Tyler 09:50
Yeah, they looked like the little yellow cute like...
Misha 09:52
Honestly they didn't look like birds had all their heads were really round and weird. We'll get into that.
Tyler 09:58
We'll get into weird round birds. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a pretty good summary.
Misha 10:04
Who I always... that ending. I just feel so jumbly at the end.
Tyler 10:08
It's a bit chaotic yet they have. They've beaten the grasshoppers, they put Thumper in the the cannon, then the rain comes and it comes very quickly. And yeah, it's all it all a big blur.
Misha 10:19
The rain seemed unnecessary. Because nothing really it doesn't do anything.
Tyler 10:26
Well, it throws a wrench in the works, they're about to win, but then they don't because of the rain and the rain has been foreshadowed the whole-
Misha 10:33
Right.
Tyler 10:34
...the whole movie. So it's like, it was like Chekhov's gun, and it has to show up. But you're right that it kind of it kind of also looked a little bit wonky, but maybe we'll get into that with animation. Yeah, but first...
Misha 10:45
So there's the synopsis. Everybody totally understands what happened in this movie.
Tyler 10:50
Yeah, I'm sure anybody who hasn't seen it is with us a hundred percent now. So that's all that matters. And those that don't that have seen it and remember it, maybe they're a little bit more lost. But hey, what can you do? Win some you lose some. So first category is originality. Now it's yes.
Misha 11:13
I don't know. Is it? It's like about it's no Antz, that stole-
Tyler 11:19
That stole the idea. Yeah,
Misha 11:21
Yeah, of Antz.
Tyler 11:23
So yes. So with this with the pod- with this podcast, we're not going to go into like deep dives into development and stuff, usually. Just because like, I don't know, that's not what we're about. But it is interesting to think of it sometimes what happens behind the scenes and yeah- Katzenberg was like, "Oh, what do you guys working on?" before he left, and they told them about A Bug's Life. And then he runs off, starts his own company and comes out with the dumpster fire Antz. Yeah. But as far as originality, so it's more original than Antz. And it's pretty original. Like, it's an original story, the only thing that really stood out to me, and it was with that, like first music sting was that it was very similar to some older films that I'd seen. And that might have been intentional, I don't know, probably was intentional, because these are smart people. But it was really similar to like, the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, like Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, like these stories of like, a group of misfits or a group of like heroes save a town from bandits, basically. So it was very- and the music was very Westerny. So it reminded me of
Misha 12:29
Okay.
Tyler 12:30
those types of movies.
Misha 12:31
That actually makes more sense, because I, and we'll get into this with music. Yeah, it's, it didn't feel westerny, but the music definitely sounded that way. So that makes more sense. Because...
Tyler 12:48
Yeah, it was like a, like a rousing score, basically. Yeah, like the beat that first time.
Misha 12:53
Kind of, yeah.
Tyler 12:54
Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person. I'm sure someone else has made that connection before for sure. But that stood out to me. And I didn't notice that when I was a kid. Although when I was a kid, I don't know if I'd seen Seven Samurai. I can't remember when I first watched that. But anyway. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's like a super low originality score. But...
Misha 13:14
No, I thought it I think it's-
Tyler 13:16
Pretty original.
Misha 13:16
Pretty original. Yeah.
Tyler 13:18
And I like the circusy element and the confused identities. Again, those are not like original ideas, but-
Misha 13:23
The writing, or the confusion. I love. I actually really love that. Because it sometimes in movies, it's like, seems kind of forced why people would get confused,
Tyler 13:33
Right.
Misha 13:33
But this just worked really well with why they would misinterpret each other or misunderstand each other. So I like that part.
Tyler 13:42
Yeah. And when it's like revealed to, and we'll get into this later, but like when it's revealed to the circus bugs, what they're actually there for. That's a really good scene. Yeah. So I don't know, what do you think about like, I don't know, like a five? Like, I mean, it's not super original, but it's like, not horribly unearned.
Misha 14:00
I think you should get a little higher. Because-
Tyler 14:02
Ya think?
Misha 14:03
-to me, it seemed it seems pretty original.
Tyler 14:06
Okay. Um, yeah, I mean,
Misha 14:09
I don't know.
Tyler 14:10
I don't know. It's like, I mean, I don't think I would go above a 6. But oh, by the way, should we explain the scoring? I don't think we've mentioned - one out of 10
Misha 14:21
Scale of one to 10. Yep. That's it. That's the only explanation.
Tyler 14:26
So and that's out of a possible 110 points. Why isn't it 100? You might ask? Well, because we have 11 categories.
Misha 14:34
Um, I think it should get a little bit higher because to me, it seems pretty original. Right? A whole movie about insects.
Tyler 14:42
Yeah. And I think it should get something about like, I don't know what the right like artistic word for this is maybe... pastiche is the right word? Like, you know, you make something-
Misha 14:50
Sounds like a yummy Italian pastry. What's pastiche?
Tyler 14:57
Pastiche, I think I could be fuckin wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure pastiche is when you take different things and make something new out of them.
Misha 15:07
Like a pastry.
Tyler 15:08
Think of like, Girl Talk with sampling other music and turning it into like something new.
Misha 15:14
Don't know that.
Tyler 15:15
Or any like hip hop song that uses samples and kind of make something new out of it.
Misha 15:19
Okay. that I, um, it's not that. I don't know, I think we should go with a six.
Tyler 15:26
Okay, I'm fine with it.
Misha 15:27
Okay,
Tyler 15:28
Yeah, I just looked up pastcihe by the way, it's just an imitation apparently. So maybe maybe pastiche is more negative than I meant it to me. I meant like,
Misha 15:36
Yeah.
Tyler 15:37
...imitation in innovation through imitation kind of thing. But anyway. Yeah, back to what you're saying six is fine with me. I just, I think like seven. I dunno. Because like the
Tyler 15:46
7 is like, super original, like...
Tyler 15:50
...and then we're getting to the high.
Misha 15:51
Yeah, seven is like, too high. Right.
Tyler 15:55
And we got to remain unbiased and try to be scientific.
Misha 16:00
Well, I didn't know it was based on anything or even... I don't think I...
Tyler 16:04
Well that's the thing. Right? So maybe yeah, maybe five is a bit- because yeah, it's not. It's not like clearly based on something like,
Misha 16:12
Right.
Tyler 16:12
For example. Like a lot like Cinderella Sleeping Beauty Aladdin-
Misha 16:18
Right.
Tyler 16:18
Little Mermaid. Those are all like based on tales that have already been told.
Misha 16:21
Right.
Tyler 16:22
This one, it's more like an homage basically, so- god throwing a bunch of pretentious words. Apologies everybody.
Misha 16:29
No homage isn't as bad as pastiche and you used that incorrectly.
Tyler 16:33
It's a type of pastiche or homage to Akira Kurosawa.
Misha 16:38
Let's stop saying pastiche because it's really making me want like a yummy treat from local bakery.
Tyler 16:44
It's been a long time since I had like a nice Italian... Just mmm...
Misha 16:49
I should go after this.
Tyler 16:51
Okay, so we got six for originality. That works for me.
Misha 16:54
Okay...
Tyler 16:54
Story?
Misha 16:55
Story. Um, I think it's a cute story.
Tyler 17:00
It's yeah, it's cute. It's got like, a strong, you know, beginning, conflict, call to adventure, like middle slash climax. And it's yeah, it's like hits all these like, nice story beats. It's exciting.
Misha 17:15
And I-. Mm hmm. And I like that. It's the idea. It's like, you know, a metaphor for oppressed people overcoming- overthrowing their oppressors and fighting up against that, and I really like that.
Tyler 17:29
Yeah.
Misha 17:31
So, you know, um...
Tyler 17:35
I mean, I think this Yeah, I think this like, deserves like a strong seven or something. Maybe...
Misha 17:40
I agree. I was gonna say a seven. It's a good story.
Tyler 17:44
I'm trying to think also, like, you know, looking ahead to like what we're going to be looking at later and trying to like think, Okay, this is a seven. What's coming later, but, you know, but yeah, I think like, you know, in the moment, we should give this give it what we think it deserves. And I think yeah, seven.
Misha 18:00
I think it's a good I think it's a good story.
Tyler 18:03
Yeah. We're gonna get into some issues we had with a story later, but that's kind of kind of be covered with- by other categories.
Misha 18:11
Other cat- Yeah. Alright.
Tyler 18:15
Yeah, Animation.
Misha 18:15
Animation.
Tyler 18:16
Let's talk about Animation.
Misha 18:17
You know, uh, this is, is this the second Pixar movie?
Tyler 18:23
I believe. So. Yeah.
Misha 18:24
-they made after Toy Story. I think the animation for the most part holds up.
Tyler 18:29
Yeah.
Misha 18:30
There were some really beautiful parts, like the first leaf that you see, as soon as it opens. There's this leaf that sort of floats down and that's beautiful. A lot of- actually, you know, I didn't like the ants that much. They were like...
Tyler 18:45
What didn't you like about them?
Misha 18:48
They were kind of like, too bubbly looking. I don't know, maybe I didn't like that they were blue. They just there was so many parts to this that were really beautiful. And really hold up and then it just they felt so cartoony like out of place. Like the grasshoppers were so detailed.
Tyler 19:11
Yeah.
Misha 19:11
And they're so like their exoskeletons, every part of them just seemed a little bit more detailed and nuanced. Like there was more to them, each little bit and the background and the scenery, but the ants themselves just seemed like, too childish almost.
Tyler 19:32
Yeah. And I wonder if that was a part of me wants to think that that was a deliberate choice to make them more sympathetic and because for example, they didn't have enough limbs to be ants.
Misha 19:42
*GASP* Right.
Tyler 19:45
And like,
Misha 19:48
I hate that!
Tyler 19:49
It was yeah, it was weird. I think. I think they made them goofier-
Misha 19:52
The grasshoppers had enough...
Tyler 19:53
The grasshoppers had enough.
Misha 19:54
...to make them villainous. Okay, that's a problem because... that actually upsets me because I want kids to not be afraid or dislike insects because it's a huge problem. Insects are super important...
Tyler 20:09
Yeah.
Misha 20:10
For our own survival as humans as animals on this planet and we need you know kids to like grasshoppers and ants and everything in between and...
Tyler 20:25
I mean but yeah but if you're gonna choose between ants and grasshoppers I mean answer just cooler. Isn't- this might be controversial this might be a controversional opinion.
Misha 20:34
No- Ants are very cool.
Tyler 20:36
Look you don't come to this podcast to not court controversy alright so...
Misha 20:41
First the first time I visited you, we wherever you were living... in the French district, right is that what it's called?
Tyler 20:48
French street in- French street.
Misha 20:50
French Street.
Tyler 20:50
Yeah.
Misha 20:52
And we slept in our sleeping bags and woke up with like hundreds of little tiny ants in our sleeping bags each morning.
Tyler 21:01
Look...
Misha 21:01
Great.
Tyler 21:03
It was a it was a bohemian... No, that's not even- it was a horrible apartment. Lovely location which is...
Misha 21:11
It was a beautiful apartment is just filled with little ants that liked to get cozy while we slept.
Tyler 21:19
I was just reading this. This is tangential I was just reading an article like about ticks in I think it was a climbing like either rock and ice or climbing magazine. I can't remember, but the guy that's like doofus when he was like when he was like a young teenage climbing bum was sleeping outside in Wyoming and notice that he was just covered in little, what he called cute little spiders.
Misha 21:41
Oh shit.
Tyler 21:42
He was riddled with ticks and got like horribly sick. Yeah.
Misha 21:46
Yeah. Lyme disease is no joke. Yeah, that'll fuck you up.
Tyler 21:50
I just because picture the- him- what a doofus "oh, look at these cute little spiders" not knowing... I mean, to be fair, he was from like some other states.
Misha 21:57
They don't have the same number of legs. Do they?
Tyler 21:59
They do. Ticks are arachnids? So they have eight legs?
Misha 22:01
They are?
Tyler 22:02
Yeah.
Misha 22:02
Oh, God. Look at me being an idiot.
Tyler 22:05
Ticks are gross. Ticks are the worst.
Misha 22:08
Yeah, are the worst.
Tyler 22:10
Look, I'm going to give you- gang I'm going to give you my honest opinion: ticks fucking suck. So if you don't like that, you know, that's your opinion. I can't think of anyone who would love ticks, though. But where were we... animation?
Misha 22:23
Other ticks?
Tyler 22:26
Not- hashtag not all ticks. But yes, all ticks. All ticks are bastards. I think also another-
Misha 22:33
I don't mind the ones that don't give you Lyme, just-
Tyler 22:37
Oh, I do.
Misha 22:38
It's just, I don't it's just the ones that transmit disease. So don't blame the ticks.
Tyler 22:43
No, I just I hate their whole style. I hate their whole style. They're slow and lazy. And they like- they're also... what's the right word? They're?
Misha 22:56
I don't know. It's pretty cute.
Tyler 22:59
Greedy? It's it's cute that they're just filled with your blood and they can't move 'cuase they're so bloated.
Misha 23:05
No. Okay, that's distgust- gross. The grape ones are so gross.
Tyler 23:09
And I think I think that females only eat- they only feed like three times in their whole life, I think. I was- I saw that on YouTube...
Misha 23:15
I was just thinking about them. So you know, they'll climb up a stalk of grass, a blade of grass, and just sway and wait like this. Hold on with their black legs, let their arms sway back and forth waiting for something to walk by. That is a little- that's a little cute. Thinking of them just...
Tyler 23:32
Yeah, but then the rest of their life is like-
Misha 23:34
But then the rest of it is disgusting.
Tyler 23:36
A person sitting on a couch eating like Twinkies until they can't move.
Misha 23:40
Until they die.
Tyler 23:41
Yeah.
Misha 23:41
Yeah. So they gorge themselves to death. Anyway...
Tyler 23:46
Anyway, animation. I think what I think another part another thing that looks a little bit weird about the answer is I think a limitation of the anim- like the times- like the animation because they look a little bit like, like you said bubbly and kind of odd.
Misha 24:02
Yeah.
Tyler 24:03
But most of it's beautiful. And I think it holds up despite the fact that-
Misha 24:06
I didn't like the bird.
Tyler 24:07
The bird is weird too. Yeah.
Misha 24:09
The bird just seemed like it was airbrushed instead of- if individual feathers that move and you didn't see any of that and the chicks proportions were all off why were their heads like so much bigger than their bodies like little round balls on top of little thing? I don't know. It just looked off.
Tyler 24:30
And I wonder if that I think that might be like- because now when you watch an like a digital, like a Pixar movie, they get those fine details of feathers and like individual hairs. I bet that was like a technical limitation.
Misha 24:44
But it's weird because there were so many other parts that were really well done in the movie.
Tyler 24:49
Yeah.
Misha 24:49
But not feathers.
Tyler 24:51
And.. I... Yeah, and I thought it was weird that they- the bird was made to look more lifelike and that made it stand out more to me.
Misha 24:58
Yeah. Or like not enough like they should have just gone one way or another.
Tyler 25:04
Yeah. But there's a lot of beautiful touches like the bar where they where Flick finds a circus people like all the drinks that are the little bubbles of liquid. That's all really good like the the water-
Misha 25:15
Where do you think they got that bubble of blood from?
Tyler 25:18
That's a good question.
Misha 25:20
Well this is I was wondering right like-
Tyler 25:21
The city is right near... Yeah, I guess it's weird because they they order is whatever type of blood they want. So they must have like different types of blood in there. I was gonna say like, there's that trailer if you remember, like there's a trailer there's some human or humans living nearby this.
Misha 25:37
Yes. I was confused about what that city was. It was just uh, it was just trash, right? Like yeah, I guess I got a little confused because I was expecting it to be like an actual city but it's just like one trailer and trash nearby. Right? Okay.
Tyler 25:54
Yeah. Must be a massive pile of trash. Oh, because that place was populated. And but and then there's like the word big.
Misha 26:01
That's where I got confused.
Tyler 26:02
Yeah, there was like a millipede or a centipede that was like the bus driver saying like, "Next stop: dead rat." And then like, "next stop: bean can" so it's like, clearly like just big like trash pile. Yeah, but but but yeah, back to the the like blood bubbles and like water bubbles like, and the the bubble of water that's used for the telescope was really cool. But then like the rain looked really weird. Like when there's too much of something then they can't really handle it. Maybe again, because right hardware? I don't know. But yeah.
Misha 26:32
Um, and then when they're outside the cantina where the grasshoppers are all hanging out. Two of them are like a coupl-. Not I don't know who it is. But they're floating in a puddle, like a muddy puddle. And there's a rainbow oil slick.
Tyler 26:46
Yeah.
Misha 26:47
That looked so good.
Tyler 26:48
Yep.
Misha 26:49
So there were like some really cool touches in the light coming- It was like a straw hat, I guess that they were in, under as the bar. And just the light coming through is really good. So there were some really good parts and like during the celebrations and the feasts that they had, they had these leaves around as decoration where they had little cut out um, like they ate like leaf cutter ants. Like little designs.
Tyler 27:14
Yeah, yeah.
Misha 27:15
Like cut out of leaves. That was really cool and clever.
Tyler 27:17
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of wonderful little touches and yeah, like like all the little mannerisms of all the bugs like Rosie the Black Widow like dangles from the back of the trailer. Manny the Mantis has like the Mantis hands. All the little looks between Tuck and Roll, we'll get to all these sidekicks, like in a second, but yeah-
Misha 27:39
Tuck and Roll are the rolly pollies, right?
Tyler 27:41
Yeah.
Misha 27:42
They were so creepy. And I love it. Like they because they have like those dark circles around their eyes that look like they belong in a Tim Burtonmovie.
Tyler 27:55
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Misha 27:56
I love them.
Tyler 27:57
They look like they've definitely murdered somebody before.
Misha 28:01
Who, who'd they slap at some point, right? Didn't they-
Tyler 28:04
They slap each other all the time. They slap- Oh, yeah, they slap Flick, too.
Misha 28:09
Wait one gets on top of the other and they just with multiple hands, just- see they have multiple hands. I mean arms. Limbs.
Tyler 28:17
Yep.
Misha 28:19
And it's hilarious because he takes to at least two and slaps Flick, like across the face.
Tyler 28:26
I read somewhere that like a little easter egg is that they're actually... it's it sounds like sort of Eastern European gibberish to me when they're talking. But yeah, apparently according to someone on the internet, I couldn't hear it when I was listening but accord- like apparently apparently like some of it's actually curse words. But I couldn't-
Misha 28:44
Fun!
Tyler 28:45
I couldn't hear but that's cool if it's true.
Misha 28:47
Like Eastern Europe some Eastern European language curse words? Or like English but in a funny accent?
Tyler 28:54
That's unclear just said you know that some of the words are saying or curse words. It was like some like list of easter eggs in the movie so it could be totally apocryphal. At another time they yell a name they yelled the name Rubin Kincaid. Did you hear that?
Misha 29:10
Who's that? No.
Tyler 29:11
Hear it- cuz I've watched this movie now a couple times since we started this idea and I had to look it up. Rubin Kincaid is some actor or sorry a character from The Partridge Family. So I have no idea.
Misha 29:24
Why would they do that?!
Tyler 29:27
I don't know if it was like the the actor the voice actor Michael McShane - shout out to him and Brotherly Love.
Misha 29:34
Did you hear it? Or you read that they-
Tyler 29:38
I heard it and I saw it in the subtitles.
Misha 29:41
Oh, what did the subtitle say?
Tyler 29:44
Cuz I turned it just said like, "in... unintelligible gibberish" or something like that.
Misha 29:49
Okay, okay.
Tyler 29:50
Yeah.
Misha 29:51
So that would it said-
Tyler 29:52
It said "Rubin Kincaid!" Yeah. Just so ridiculous. Yeah, but Yeah, anyway, we'll get to these these chuckle fucks in a second with with the sidekicks.
Misha 30:06
So let's talk about animation. Give it a score. I thought it was fine. It held up.
Tyler 30:12
Yeah, I think for the most part, it's strong. But when it's when it went when it doesn't hold up, it's glaring. Yeah.
Misha 30:18
Right.
Tyler 30:20
So what do you think I'm like a, like a six or...
Misha 30:23
Six. Yeah, a six. And especially because it's like, I don't know, the ants bothered me. Their animation, like looking at them, because everyone else seems so much more- Everything else...
Tyler 30:38
Yeah.
Misha 30:38
A lot more detailed.
Tyler 30:40
Exactly. Yeah.
Misha 30:41
And they were just like, look, ants are cute. And it's like, well...
Tyler 30:44
And you mentioned the grasshoppers' exoskeleton. But yeah, their carapace. Like, there was texture to that, like, you can feel texture.
Misha 30:51
Where the the texture of the ants was just too smooth.
Tyler 30:56
Yeah.
Misha 30:56
I know, answer shiny in real life, too. So I don't know.
Tyler 31:00
But they're also like, covered in little tiny hairs too. But I guess-
Misha 31:05
There wasn't enough of that.
Tyler 31:06
Yeah, there's not enough her suit ants in this-
Misha 31:09
Six.
Tyler 31:10
Six, let's go with six. That seems right.
Misha 31:12
Okay. All right.
Tyler 31:14
Next up music and sound.
Misha 31:16
I did not like the music to this movie. I'd never noticed it before. Like when I was a kid, but now having to pay attention to it was like Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee and I'm like, Okay, this feels out of place. And that's why I said earlier when you said it was based on maybe an homage to Western movies. That makes me think, okay, it makes the music makes more sense. But without knowing that it just seemed really out of place. And there were parts of like, where there was some tension, but the music didn't feel that way.
Tyler 31:51
Mm hmm.
Misha 31:52
And I was like,
Tyler 31:53
Yeah.
Misha 31:54
They were trying to make it like silly sometimes. But I was like, but that's not what's what's happening.
Tyler 32:00
Yeah, the one that stood out to me was the music for when the bird shows up the first time. That part the music seemed off to me. The second time I watched it, like recently because not counting the many times I watched it when I was younger. The music didn't stand out as bad to me as the first like the first time I would I'm totally with you. But when I watched it again today, I was like, Okay, some of this makes sense. If I, like if it may- it was fine. Like it wasn't amazing, but it was fine. It didn't bother me but I there were some jarring moments. I was like this music seems a bit off.
Misha 32:34
Yeah. I didn't like it.
Tyler 32:36
I didn't really like it was a jaunty rousing western theme. I didn't really get moved by it.
Misha 32:41
Neither did I. I didn't like it.
Tyler 32:43
I did kind of like like when he goes to the big city. There's like sort of that jazzy number. I kind of liked that. That was fine. Like the Big Apple sort of jazzy.
Misha 32:51
Yeah.
Tyler 32:52
And when they're in the bar, there's some... and the circus music the- at the circus music was fine. But when the circus music comes back up as a motif, like whenever PT Flea shows up, I get it. There's like sort of a late motif or whatever, but didn't quite work for me.
Misha 33:08
It didn't fit with, like how you're supposed to feel throughout the movie.
Tyler 33:13
Yeah. And this might be a bit controversial, with some people. So shout at us at our email, which we'll provide later but I'm not a big fan of Randy Newman. And I found the song at the end to be really...
Misha 33:28
Yeah, I did not. Yeah, I did not like that at all. I didn't like, yeah, none of this...
Tyler 33:36
Like the "You Got a Friend in Me" in Toy Story - that one works, I think, but I haven't seen him in a while. So maybe I have a different opinion. But that seemed to work. Because that movie. I don't know. But now it seems like they're just trying to recapture that.
Misha 33:50
Stakes in that movie are different than the stakes in this movie.
Tyler 33:53
Yeah.
Misha 33:54
This movie is about ants who are going to be murdered.
Tyler 33:58
Yeah. So let's not be so whimsical. Yeah.
Misha 34:02
Like the DEE DEE DEE DEE DEE. It's like, okay.
Tyler 34:07
I think Randy Newman did the whole score, by the way, not just the last song. But yeah, I mean, I guess it's on one hand, you can't have it be too scary. But on the other hand, I kind of wanted like a little bit of...
Misha 34:18
It's scary, though.
Tyler 34:19
Yeah, there are some scary moments. Yeah.
Misha 34:21
And you don't feel like the background music, shouldn't it... And some points it was like, almost non existent. Where I felt like there should have been...
Tyler 34:30
Yeah.
Misha 34:31
...something like, come on Disney. We know you can do it. So do it.
Tyler 34:39
Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty of I mean, we'll get to them all, but there are plenty of wonderful moments where the music enhances the menace or enhances the-
Misha 34:47
Right.
Tyler 34:48
the like, you know, scariness while keeping it like kid appropriate type thing and..
Misha 34:53
Yeah.
Tyler 34:53
...misses the mark. A bit in this movie, but um, yeah, so what are we thinking about score wise?
Misha 35:00
Thr-- three?
Tyler 35:02
Yeah. Okay.
Misha 35:03
Is that too low?
Tyler 35:04
I think that's fine.
Misha 35:05
I like and I didn't like any of it.
Tyler 35:07
Yeah.
Misha 35:07
I think it was fine or bad. It was fine or bad.
Tyler 35:11
I think three is okay. Because I'm thinking it's fine and you're thinking it's bad. So it's kind of like a middle ground
Misha 35:17
And the credit song at the end counts.
Tyler 35:20
And it's a stinker.
Misha 35:22
Yeah.
Tyler 35:24
It's a it's a big fat stink. And this movie it like the sound effects outside of the music were good, but they weren't good enough to really push that score up.
Misha 35:34
Yeah, I agree. All right. What did we say? Three?
Tyler 35:38
Three.
Misha 35:39
Okay.
Tyler 35:41
Three out of 10 Next up, protagonist. Now we both have pretty strong feelings about this. We've figured out right before we started recording, which I... I'm glad we don't have to fight about this too much. But um...
Misha 35:54
Yeah.
Tyler 35:54
But it was really surprising remembering what I remembered about the movie when I was a kid and watching it again. Do you want to say it or do want me to say it?
Misha 36:04
Yeah, flick is annoying.
Tyler 36:07
Yeah. flicks pretty annoying. Yeah.
Misha 36:10
I don't remember this as a kid. I thought he was not what- I like- I was turned off.
Tyler 36:19
Yeah.
Misha 36:20
Not. Yeah. Just like, oh, I don't want to sit through watching flick.
Tyler 36:25
Yeah, it's like they tried to give him... now he does have a character arc and he does have growth and he becomes like a brave person who stands up at the end.
Misha 36:34
Yes. At the end, I love that at the end. I thought he was great. His voice even changed.
Tyler 36:40
Yeah.
Misha 36:40
Which was great.
Tyler 36:41
And Dave Foley did a good job.
Tyler 36:44
I love Dave Foley. That's the other thing. I love Dave Foley. I love "Kids in the Hall." I mean, I haven't watched in a while, but I watched it a lot as a high schooler. Okay, so I... I was watching "Kids in the Hall" at the same time that this came out.
Tyler 37:03
And you had a big Hopper.
Misha 37:08
So I was old enough... I did. So as enough to watch "Kids in the Hall", but still bought a toy for this movie.
Tyler 37:17
That's fine. I was- what was...
Misha 37:18
People are complicated and complex. Okay.
Tyler 37:19
Yeah. 98 I was 15... I mean, I 15 I was regularly playing with Lego but not but because I had little brothers but I was still thoroughly enjoying...
Misha 37:26
We have friends who still play with Lego who our age. Hi, Garth, if you're listening.
Tyler 37:32
Garth, love you. Yeah. Was the- by the way was the Hopper, I can't remember if you said this, or was it a plush like a stuffed animal? Or was it like...
Misha 37:43
No, it was hard. It had a fucking exoskeleton.
Tyler 37:45
That's more. It's more edgy and adult then, like if it could hurt you like if you drop it...
Misha 37:49
It was big. We had all the parts, all the limbs, his wings moved. It was hard like... that he was scary. I bet it's still at my dad's house. I should find it.
Tyler 38:00
You should find it and post a picture.
Misha 38:03
I'll try to find it. If I can't find the actual one which I'll never find in his hoardery house, I'll just try to find a picture of the toy on like eBay or something.
Tyler 38:12
On eBay or something. Yeah, so Flick is he means well, he's an adventurer, he he means well, but he ruins everything. And then he like, lies about it. And then he doesn't really...? I don't know. Just his parts of it just bothered me. Like he didn't listen to other people. He took the microphone or the megaphone away from the princess, when she was talking. It was got really self congratulatory.
Misha 38:40
The fucking patriarchy.
Tyler 38:41
Yeah, that was before he knew that it was a lie. But still he... a bit too smug. I don't know. He just really rubbed me the wrong way. Like you said, like he's just... And here's the thing, like, I think, yeah, he just wasn't a good protagonist, despite the fact that he did learn and grow.
Misha 38:59
Right. And it's like, he like if he was an inventor who didn't? I mean, I know the movie would have happened, but like, he just fucked up.
Tyler 39:10
Yeah, so what do you think? Like maybe like, I mean, I think like something like...
Misha 39:15
And then when he was like going to the city, and he was like, okay, blend in blend in. And I'm like, You're fucking wearing the dumbest outfit. Like, look at you. You're wearing a fucking leaf visor. You're the only insect who's wearing anything.
Tyler 39:34
Yeah. Look, this is a this is a raw dog city, where the insects hang hoes and you're not supposed to be wearing clothes and a backpack?
Misha 39:43
Nobody's wearing clothes.
Tyler 39:45
Yeah. What and idiot.
Misha 39:47
Wait, what did he have in that backpack?
Tyler 39:50
I don't know. Probably seeds to munch on on his journey. Who knows?
Misha 39:54
Why would you need a backpack that large. You're a fucking insect.
Tyler 40:00
Well, I think it's probably showing off because he's an ant and they can carry a fuckload. So he probably just put a bunch of rocks in there just to prove that he...
Misha 40:07
I mean, ants are really strong.
Tyler 40:09
Yeah, even Flick.
Misha 40:10
Humans suck as far as like physical abilities go. Like talk about grasshoppers and jumping insects. These things can jump like 20 times their body length... more than that! I don't really know, you know, depends on the insect and the animal and what can we do? It's like, look at me, I can jump like a foot in the air.
Tyler 40:30
Yeah.
Misha 40:32
We can't even jump our own body lengths. Like oh, you can?
Tyler 40:36
Some of some of us can. Yeah, you're in the Olympics.
Misha 40:39
That's the thing...
Tyler 40:40
Fleas can jump forever. Cockroaches: fastest living being on the planet, I think according to like their size. Anyway...
Misha 40:50
What can we do?
Tyler 40:51
Yeah.
Misha 40:54
Get arthritis from using computers too much.
Tyler 40:57
Even the chunky caterpillar gets to turn into a beautiful goddamn butterfly.
Misha 41:01
God, I love Heimlich.
Tyler 41:03
Heimlich's great.
Misha 41:05
But he can't fly at the end.
Tyler 41:07
He can't fly. But it's funny. I don't know...
Misha 41:12
Where we were?
Tyler 41:14
Protagonist. I think something like two or three is a bit... Although I do want to really dunk on Flick, I think it's a bit low because...
Misha 41:23
So I do like that he... okay, there's two things I like about him. Other than how annoying he is.
Tyler 41:30
We don't ...
Misha 41:30
I love that he...
Tyler 41:31
You don't like that about him? That doesn't make sense. There are two things I like about it. Other than.
Misha 41:34
Okay, sorry. Calm down. Okay.
Tyler 41:36
Grammar matter.
Misha 41:38
Okay, shut up. In spite of finding him incredibly annoying.
Tyler 41:45
There we go.
Misha 41:45
There are two things I like about him. One that he does have this adventurous spirit and is willing to leave the island.
Tyler 41:53
Yeah.
Misha 41:53
That was really important. I actually wanted more of that. Why didn't I want I thought we were gonna see more of him not... that felt really fast. Like the whole scene where he leaves and is going through the city like he found the... all of the circus friends really quickly and I wanted to see more of like city scenery.
Tyler 42:18
So what you're saying you wanted you wanted more.
Misha 42:23
Okay...
Tyler 42:23
Wait wait...
Misha 42:24
Not him talking. Okay...
Tyler 42:25
Just a montage.
Misha 42:27
Sure. Okay, yes, I want more of a montage - not him talking because it's too annoying, but just seeing him in different like city scenes. Like to show how long and harrowing this journey is for him because they all made such a fuss about him leaving the island how dangerous it is. So let's see like clips of him going about this dangerous world right?
Tyler 42:54
But what if...
Misha 42:55
Seeing new types of insects. Seeing like... seeing a fight break out in a bar but not the circus friends? What else happens in a city? I don't know. Seeing some art that he's never seen. Okay, maybe not a museum but like, you know, some cool graffiti like insect graffiti, or hear like, seeing street performers doing things? Uh, you know, trying new foods that he's never eaten and never heard of like, I want to see more of his city adventure. Okay, yeah.
Tyler 43:33
Okay.
Misha 43:34
In a montage with no talking.
Tyler 43:35
Yeah, on the one hand...
Misha 43:37
And I like...
Tyler 43:38
Yeah, well, yeah, sorry. No, go ahead. Cuz you have you had your other thing. Yeah.
Misha 43:41
And then the second thing is that he does come around at the end and stand up to Hopper and that was...
Tyler 43:50
That was a powerful moment. Yeah.
Misha 43:51
Yeah.
Tyler 43:54
Back to your like, more adventure montage; on the one hand, I agree. That would be nice. But on the other hand, that made me just think of something. What if this city is really not that far away at all? Like what if it's just like the fear of leaving the island that makes them think that it's so dangerous out there and also the grasshoppers continually telling them we're protecting you from what the nasty things out there and that bird happens to be right there so that bird's a visual reminder, but maybe it's not that scary, and it's not that far to the city. It's just like, it seems like this terrible, like horrible, scary....
Misha 44:30
That's a good point. It would have been fun though to see...
Tyler 44:34
It would have been fun. Yeah. But but we did get a lot of those beats we got like the street performer that weird centipede mime, we got the busyness of the city. We got the fights in the bar... we got a low I think they jam- Yeah, I mean I on the one hand I agree with you, but they they jammed a lot of stuff in.
Misha 44:51
Yeah, I wanted to see more of that.
Tyler 44:53
Alright. I think that's fair. Yeah.
Misha 44:56
What they should have done is when like, Ooh, it's so scary leaving the island and like an aerial shot of like... you okay that is he didn't actually go that far because they're little tiny ants. That would have been really cool.
Tyler 45:07
That would have been cool too.
Misha 45:08
Wait. Why did he have... okay I have two things, two questions about ants. Can only the females fly?
Tyler 45:16
I think so. Yeah.
Misha 45:19
Right... didn't I didn't okay.
Tyler 45:21
Oh in the movie? Yes yes, I was I was...
Misha 45:23
The females can fly.
Tyler 45:25
Yeah, females can fly.
Tyler 45:26
In the movie.
Tyler 45:27
In the movie. In real life I think that might also be the case but...
Misha 45:30
It depends on the species.
Tyler 45:31
It depends on the species?
Misha 45:32
They're like Hymenoptera so like they're flying... yeah, there's some ants that fly. I don't know if all ants can fly.
Tyler 45:39
Well all and can...
Misha 45:41
Part of the same...
Tyler 45:42
Those species of ants that can fly I was wondering if those were only female ants that could fly but... I... maybe not. Anyway yeah in the movie Princess Atta Princess Dot are the only two that are seen flying. Even the Queen isn't seen flying maybe because she's just a bit old.
Misha 46:00
Right.
Tyler 46:02
And we don't see any other... the only other female that we know for sure as a female is the doctor.
Misha 46:07
Dot.
Tyler 46:08
Well Dot, yeah, we see Dot fly later. We- the doctor we don't see fly. Well, maybe she's not a... Maybe she's not a...
Misha 46:14
Who's this doctor you're talking about?
Tyler 46:15
The one who's voiced by the secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Misha 46:20
She's a doctor?
Tyler 46:22
Now they call her a doctor.
Misha 46:24
And the doctor is the mother! No, I don't remember that.
Tyler 46:29
But I shouldn't I shouldn't like assume just based on voice what her... what she is. So maybe she's not but I think her character name is Dr. Maura maybe. Anyway.
Misha 46:40
Okay.
Tyler 46:41
She doesn't fly but Atta the princess does.
Misha 46:44
Regardless of flying. My second question is, can't ants just climb up...
Tyler 46:49
Everything?
Misha 46:50
This is... why did he fly across the valley instead of walking...
Tyler 46:58
Because it...
Misha 46:58
..and climbing?
Tyler 46:59
Because he would had to climb down and then climb across the dry riverbed and then climb back up and taking the little dandelion was like so much cooler.
Misha 47:07
It's cooler, but it seemed way more dangerous. Like if you're going on this dangerous mission to supposedly help your colony, why would you fly?
Tyler 47:19
Because it's...
Misha 47:19
To prove because...
Tyler 47:21
Why...
Misha 47:22
...Prove that he's something?
Tyler 47:24
Well...
Misha 47:24
I don't know.
Tyler 47:25
I mean, wouldn't you like to fly if you could like just for a brief brief second? Why climb Everest... because its there. Why fly? Because there's a dandelion to grab.
Tyler 47:38
But he's trying to just go on a mission. If he dies...
Tyler 47:42
Look, he's also Flick and he's like, full of unearned confidence. So...
Tyler 47:48
Right.
Tyler 47:48
So. Edie McClurg is the... is her name, Flora. The ant colony's doctor.
Misha 47:54
Okay, let's give Flick his score and move on.
Tyler 47:59
Okay, so I think like a two or three is a bit low. I think like something like a, like a five or...
Misha 48:05
At the end he gets... I don't want to give him a five because I really...
Tyler 48:11
He is really annoying.
Misha 48:12
So annoying.
Tyler 48:14
Yeah.
Misha 48:14
Um, and I but I do. I would probably give him a low score. But I do like the end, a lower score, but I do like the end where he stands up to Hopper and he sounds... he changes and I like that.
Tyler 48:28
Yeah. Okay, so let's say yeah, like not too low- maybe like a... yeah, like a five is too high for you. But we'll say four. That's like in the middle. Yeah. Another thing...
Misha 48:38
Four.
Tyler 48:38
...that I just thought of is like, and we'll get to this a little bit later, I suppose, but it just popped in my head is like, I feel like there was way too much Flick and he was annoying. And there was way too little of like the princess and she was there and she was strong. But then Princess Atta not Princess Dot. And then she became kind of like a side almost romantic character, so I feel like...
Misha 49:02
I hate it.
Tyler 49:03
They could have just made her the protagonist, like make her the focus. She could have been the inventor. She was already sort of like, people weren't really sure about her because she was like, not a tested leader. But just make..
Misha 49:17
I like that alternate... um... like, no Flick and just Atta.
Tyler 49:23
Just Atta. Like she's the one screw things up.
Misha 49:25
Yeah, I like that.
Tyler 49:25
Her mom is really depending on her. The colony's depending on her and she's like, Yeah, like just all the good things about Flick put it into her and also Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Chef kiss, amazing, that the Dave Foley isn't but...
Misha 49:39
Right.
Tyler 49:40
Yeah, that would have been so much better. So that's probably- that probably is going to be a low strong female lead score too, but we'll get there. Yeah, so protagonist, low. For sidekicks. Now here...
Misha 49:54
This is where it shines.
Tyler 49:55
This is where it shines hard.
Misha 49:57
Although Madeline Kahn did not have enough speaking lines, which is bullshit because she's awesome.
Tyler 50:06
Yeah.
Misha 50:06
One of the greatest actors of our... of time. Not our time...
Tyler 50:13
Of time
Misha 50:14
I've just of time.
Tyler 50:15
Of all the timelines. She's one of them. Yeah, she's great. She's for those who don't know where she's in Clue.
Misha 50:22
For those of you who don't know her, get your head out of your own dumb butt, like...
Tyler 50:28
Get your head out of your butt and then suck a butt and watch Clue.
Misha 50:32
Ewww... Okay, only if the butt owner consents to you sucking their butt.
Tyler 50:37
Fair. Yeah, I mean, this is like, speaking of her like this is a stacked voice casting.
Misha 50:46
Yeah. David Hyde Pierce.
Tyler 50:48
Yeah. Julia Louis-Dreyfus already mentioned. Dave Foley. Denis Leary.
Misha 50:52
It sounds like you're saying Jewy, Louis-Dreyfus.
Tyler 50:55
Julia. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Is it Louis or Louie? It's Louie right?
Misha 51:01
I said it was Louise.
Misha 51:02
Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Tyler 51:03
Louise-Dreyfus?
Tyler 51:05
Anyway, we all... from Seinfeld.
Misha 51:07
I hope you're listening, Julia.
Tyler 51:09
Yeah, we hope you are.
Misha 51:09
'Cause then you can...
Tyler 51:10
We love you.
Misha 51:11
...send... send us...
Tyler 51:11
Send us hate mail.
Misha 51:12
Contact us however, no! Not hate mail. We're saying how great she is.
Tyler 51:17
Well, I love her and I think she's great. But if she wants to say like, "You fucked up my name." I'll take that email.
Misha 51:22
Okay, I'll take that too. And then yeah...
Tyler 51:27
And Michael McShane, who I personally love who's in like a bunch of bit, small parts and things but he's-
Misha 51:32
Who's Michael MC Shane?
Tyler 51:34
Michael McShane played Tuck and Roll. So he played the Jibberish.
Misha 51:37
He's so good!
Tyler 51:41
He's in this Disney show that starred the- like Joey Lawrence and his brothers, which was
Misha 51:46
Whoa!
Tyler 51:47
...Brotherly Love.
Misha 51:48
Um, okay.
Tyler 51:50
It wasn't a great show, but like, I remembered very fondly watching with my younger brothers when they were young and like Michael McShane plays this goofy janitor and he's a hoot. He's also in Office Space.
Misha 52:04
Ooooohhh.....
Tyler 52:04
He plays the hypnotist in Office Space. Yeah, he's in a bunch of small things. He's-
Misha 52:09
He's a shapeshifter.
Tyler 52:12
A shapeshifter?
Misha 52:14
Yeah, he looks very- in all his pictures, he looks very different from himself.
Tyler 52:19
Hmm. And we also have Phyllis Diller as the Queen.
Misha 52:24
Wait, I want to go back. I don't know if you know this. But my first boyfriend...
Tyler 52:32
Mm hmm.
Misha 52:33
...was Joey Lawrence's first cousin.
Tyler 52:36
Oh, really.
Misha 52:37
I mean, I say boyfriend in quotes because we were little kids...
Tyler 52:40
Right.
Misha 52:40
We didn't actually do anything or touch each other. But at summer camp, he was at my gymnastics camp. And then we had like swim a-. We went to like a pool afterwards and had swim camp afterwards. And all the- He was very handsome because he was his cousin.
Tyler 52:56
Right.
Misha 52:57
Um...
Tyler 52:58
Good genes.
Misha 52:58
And oh, his- two two brothers were part of the camp. So there's a little one and older one. And the little one was cute, but he was too young for me. And the little girls liked him. But the older one, everybody had a crush on him. And we all knew who he was. And this was like, peak Joey Lawrence Blossom. Like, whoa. And so he- and I played it cool. All the girls were like, "Oh, my God!", like would surround him and bother him because, you know, a celebrity like a handsome celebrity's handsome cousin.
Tyler 53:27
Yeah.
Misha 53:28
But I played it cool. And was just like, You know what? I'm not- I can't- I'm not like other girls. I understand that he's very cute, but I'm gonna play it cool. And he liked it.
Misha 53:40
'Cause every other girl was into him and outwardly. And so he one day at swim camp swam up to me and we started talking. And then our moms called picked us up and we were talking and called us out and they're like, "Oh, are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?" and then I never talked to him again.
Misha 53:40
Right.
Tyler 53:58
Yeah, he liked it. You'd show disinterest. Yeah, we what's um, there's some movie, which is all about that. Like we, we chased that which retreats from us.
Misha 54:09
Oh, yeah.
Tyler 54:09
I think it was the Tao of Steve.
Misha 54:11
You gotta play cool. You gotta just calm down. Okay. That's how you get it.
Tyler 54:16
That's how you get a Lawrence. But yeah, anyway, like,
Misha 54:19
Oh, not this. He wasn't a Lawrence.
Tyler 54:21
He was Lawrence cousin.
Misha 54:23
Yeah, cuz their mom's were sisters. Were /are sisters. I don't really know. I've never talked to him again after that.
Tyler 54:29
So yeah, we've got all of those. We've got Phil Stiller. We've got we've got we've got John Ratzenberger. We've got Edie McClurg, who I mentioned before from from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Roddy McDowell and I believe his last movie ever. We've got a guy named Roger Bumpass as a mos- playing a mosquito.
Misha 54:50
Stop.
Tyler 54:51
I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, but...
Misha 54:54
Is it spelled the way you would?
Tyler 54:56
Yeah.
Misha 54:58
Oh my god!
Tyler 54:59
He plays Squidward in SpongeBob. Wow.
Misha 55:03
Know who he looks like? Jacques Toray Torres? You know Jacques Torres the chocolatier. He's in "Nailed It" now, but he's been a famous chocolate baker. Okay, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Roger Roger Bumpass.
Tyler 55:21
I've never really watched SpongeBob so but I guess he's a character in SpongeBob. But yeah, there's so many even like, I mean, like a lot of these are like heavy hitters from 90s sitcoms that a lot of people maybe listening now don't like... when we say David Hyde Pierce, you might be wondering "who the hell's that?" But these are big names. John Ratzenberger, huge. Brad Garrett, even though he does nothing in this movie, huge from the 90s. Yeah, anyway. Stacked voice cast. And anyway, we're talking...
Misha 55:49
Oh, and Kevin Spacey. Hello, everybody, knows who he is...
Tyler 55:53
I didn't bring him up for a while- because we're talking about the sidekicks. And also because of well, we'll get to it in a second with villain but-
Misha 55:59
I know but we're also just saying like, I just figured, you know, we're talking about who's in the movie.
Tyler 56:04
Yeah.
Misha 56:04
Um... Bonnie Hunt.
Tyler 56:07
Bonnie Hunt. Yeah. From Jumanji.
Misha 56:11
Denis Leary.
Tyler 56:12
I mentioned Dennis Leary. But yeah, Dennis Leary.
Misha 56:14
Did not listen.
Tyler 56:16
I did. And Dennis-
Misha 56:18
I'm saying....
Tyler 56:19
You weren't listening because you were waiting to tell your Joey Lawrence cousin story. Story my life. I'm trying to list a bunch of people's names and you just want to tell me something.
Misha 56:35
My story was way better.
Tyler 56:36
Your story was way better than me just listing a bunch of voice cast names...
Misha 56:40
Right.
Tyler 56:40
Yeah.
Misha 56:40
People can just go to Google and read it -the list. Nobody can go to Google and hear my story.
Tyler 56:46
And hear your story about how you played hard to get as a like six year old.
Misha 56:50
Yeah. And it worked. Okay. Was it that I think it was like 12.
Tyler 56:54
Okay.
Misha 56:55
Six is too young to know to play hard to get 12 Yeah, I think it was maybe 12/13. Yeah.
Tyler 57:05
So yeah, this sidekicks are great. The circus performers are great. And also princess Dot is a sidekick. She's really awesome. She's like, fearless, and so brave.
Misha 57:15
So cute.
Tyler 57:15
Super cute.
Misha 57:16
She's so cute.
Tyler 57:17
I mean, I think-
Misha 57:18
Heimlich when he turns into a butterfly, and his teeny tiny wings can't lift his body.
Tyler 57:24
And-
Misha 57:25
He's funny.
Tyler 57:26
Yeah, and like, as we said, tuck and roll are funny. Like Slim. This walking stick is a little less interesting, but he's okay.
Misha 57:33
But those slap stick. No pun intended. Pun intended.
Tyler 57:37
Pun intended.
Misha 57:39
Pun definitely intended. This slapstick jokes with Stick.
Tyler 57:43
Slim.
Misha 57:44
Stick is his name? I'm the worst with this. The slapstick jokes with him were so funny. Like, who is carrying him? They're like flying and carry-. Somebody's carrying him
Tyler 57:59
Francis.
Misha 57:59
And then and who's Francis?
Tyler 58:02
The ladybug.
Misha 58:03
Oh, okay. So Francis is carrying him. And he gets swap, they ol' swap-aroo with another stick and he doesn't notice. I cracked up at that. And then when it was a nighttime scene, and somebody was looking for him - was looking for slim. And he's like, where are you can't see you? He's like, I'm the only stick with eyeballs. There's all these branches and sticks around him- just can't see him. I laughed a lot.
Tyler 58:28
Yeah, he's Yeah, he's great. I would say like he and-
Misha 58:33
Well, I think it's funny that he's very serious but like he's like, oh, like at one point there was like some stupid humor and he was like, "Oh, yes. Like you love this stupid like..." he said something like yeah, so mature or whatever. But his jokes are the dumbest.
Tyler 58:49
Yeah, yeah, that is funny.
Misha 58:51
I really like that.
Tyler 58:52
That's good. Yeah. I mean, even like the ones that don't have a lot to do like yeah Madeline Kahn severely underused as Gypsy and Manny the...
Misha 59:01
Yeah.
Tyler 59:02
...the praying mantis is is interesting but doesn't have much to do. Dim the rhinoce- rhinoceros beetle is a little... he's cute but he doesn't do much. I mean-
Misha 59:11
He's scared which is funny because he's the biggest.
Tyler 59:14
He's the biggest one but it's they're all so great.
Misha 59:17
The other day, we're sitting outside in our "yarden" because that's why I like to call it because it's part yard part garden. And...
Tyler 59:26
Lovely.
Misha 59:27
There are these all these beetles flying around. One whizzed past my hair so close it like wooshed my hair and I was like, Okay, it's a little too close for comfort and like half an hour later, it flew and it was huge and just smacked me in the face and then caught got caught in my hair and of course I screamed and like ran around like an idiot but it would it hurt it like went let's say 30 miles an hour into my face. No not that fast, but probably like six miles an- I don't know, I have no way to know but it was really fast smacked me right in the face. Hoo boy.
Tyler 1:00:07
And they they've got that carapace, they're like hard. So yeah.
Misha 1:00:11
Yes. And it was big. It was like if my whole cheek smacked by a beetle.
Tyler 1:00:17
Yeah, I was walking the other day with with a mask on and I suddenly noticed something like the periphery like where you would see the tip of your nose and it looks like a massive bug. So I took my mask off really quick. Don't- no one was around. And it was just a tiny cute little... I don't know what it was, but it looked like a ladybug, but it was yellow with dots instead of red. But it was super tiny. It just was looked massive because it was right next to my eyeball, but it was so...
Misha 1:00:42
Perspective.
Tyler 1:00:43
Perspective. But he was like...
Misha 1:00:45
Wait, was it was it big or ju-. Wait, what is it from the... that? I what- Insane Clown Posse song. Is it big? Or just? Or is it small or just far away?
Tyler 1:00:58
Is that the song with the magnets? How do they work? Is it that one.
Misha 1:01:02
Yeah, yeah.
Tyler 1:01:03
Rainbows. It'd be so cute. So cute. He was like to hitching a ride on my mask. So I let him stay there for a little bit. But then it just started to bother me because like, I felt like he was gonna climb in my eye. Anyway...
Misha 1:01:15
Okay. Francis....
Tyler 1:01:16
Francis. Let's talk about Francis.
Misha 1:01:18
Yeah. So sweet that like, I like, "Oh, I'm this like, tough, masculine bug", but then with the kids like finds his femininity. And it was- that was a really nice transformation for Francis...
Misha 1:01:34
...to like, find his soft side and realize that it's okay, like gender is fluid.
Tyler 1:01:34
Yeah.
Tyler 1:01:39
Gender's fluid.
Misha 1:01:40
You don't have to -right.
Tyler 1:01:42
Yeah.
Misha 1:01:42
Gender is fluid. You don't have to just believe society's... like, you know, norms, stereotypical roles that you're supposed to play. And that was great. That was great.
Tyler 1:01:54
I thought it was really really great.
Misha 1:01:58
And he's funny.
Tyler 1:01:59
And he's funny. He's definitely funny. Shoo fly don't bother me. So I think sidekicks should get like something strong like a 7 or 8.
Misha 1:02:08
Really high.. 8.
Tyler 1:02:09
Yeah.
Misha 1:02:10
When were the Heimlich called the flies poopoo heads.
Tyler 1:02:16
Poopoo heads.
Misha 1:02:16
I laughed a lot at that. I love to sidekicks they make the movie.
Tyler 1:02:21
They're all so good. Yeah.
Misha 1:02:23
I think they should get an eight.
Tyler 1:02:25
And they stay strong like in some movies I you know like repeated watching. Like things just get tired and old and with the sidekicks in this movie. They don't I really love them.
Misha 1:02:36
Yeah, they they're great. Except I do wish there was more of Madeline Kahn because that like really bothers me that you would have this legend be part of your cast and give her like one or two lines.
Tyler 1:02:49
That is a crime. So should we dock them points for that? Like go from like an eight to a seven or... because that's pretty criminal.
Misha 1:02:56
Eight's pretty high. And that is pretty criminal. But-
Tyler 1:03:01
All right. I say seven then.
Misha 1:03:03
I think we... really?
Tyler 1:03:06
Well. How strongly do we feel about this crime they committed against...?
Misha 1:03:09
Crime- Big. Seven.
Tyler 1:03:11
Dear Madeline Kahn. Yeah.
Misha 1:03:12
Seven. Yeah. That's, that's like the dumbest shit ever. It would have been such a stronger movie. Okay. Yeah.
Tyler 1:03:19
Like they gave more screentime to no offense to Heimlich because he was great. But like Heimlich was voiced by, I think just one of the employees who did a funny German accent. So they're like, oh, let's put that in the movie. Yeah. And then they bring it they bring in Madeline Kahn who's...
Misha 1:03:34
I'm mean Heimlich's really cute.
Tyler 1:03:36
He's cute, but like Madeline Kahn is legit one of the funniest comedic actors of-
Misha 1:03:40
Yes. Of all time. Yeah, yes. Yeah. That's a fucking crime- seven. Thank you. Yeah.
Tyler 1:03:47
Yeah, we got to... Yeah, we got to keep each other. Yeah. Did you hear Julian.
Misha 1:03:51
Who's that?
Tyler 1:03:51
Jules.
Tyler 1:03:54
Ah, he's so cute.
Tyler 1:03:55
Julian is my- one of my cats for those who don't know why I'm just saying Jules. Yeah, he's deaf. So he's a bit loud. But he's so cute. He's big. And he's a bit old and grouchy. Villain. Now here's the- Yeah, we should have a little bit of a talk. Yeah. So Kevin Spacey for those who haven't read the news well, let's not get-
Misha 1:04:20
Cancelled!
Tyler 1:04:21
But he's been cancelled because he's a creep.
Misha 1:04:22
A big old perve.
Tyler 1:04:25
And then tried to like apologize and come out as gay to like sort of absolve himself and it didn't did not work for sure.
Misha 1:04:31
Wait, I don't remember that last part.
Tyler 1:04:33
Yeah. So he apologized, but in his apology, said I,
Tyler 1:04:36
Is he gay?
Tyler 1:04:37
He came out as gay in his apology, like like that was gonna-
Misha 1:04:40
I didn't know that.
Tyler 1:04:42
Yeah. He may have backtracked after that. But in that apology where he apologized for molesting younger actors or I don't know if molest is the right word- I don't remember actually all the details-
Misha 1:04:55
I don't remember the details either.
Tyler 1:04:57
Using his position of power in the-
Misha 1:04:59
Cancel culture.
Tyler 1:05:00
Yeah- using his position of power at the Old Vic or whatever it's called to like get with younger male actors and and abuse them in whatever way is the right way to say that, I'm not an expert on these things but yeah he anyway-
Misha 1:05:13
The power dynamic -right- of taking advantage of people because you're in a position of power. He's a creep.
Tyler 1:05:18
Yeah.
Misha 1:05:19
Cancelled.
Tyler 1:05:19
Anyway...
Misha 1:05:19
I don't want to include this...
Tyler 1:05:23
It's yeah, this is the thing that this is a testy subject and of course get in touch with us if you feel differently, but I feel like-
Misha 1:05:31
I rolled my eyes.
Tyler 1:05:32
His performance as Hopper is great-
Misha 1:05:36
Excellent.
Tyler 1:05:36
And Hopper's a really good villain and I know it's tough because like you know, it's really hard to separate like the movie Annie Hall from like allegations against Woody Allen or it's like-
Misha 1:05:48
Oh God.
Tyler 1:05:48
...really hard to like...
Misha 1:05:49
Woody Allen.
Tyler 1:05:50
It's really hard to separate uh die hard from Bruce Willis's music career. It's like really hard to like separate.
Misha 1:05:59
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, what are you talking about?
Tyler 1:06:06
Diehard's a great movie. Diehard's a great movie-
Misha 1:06:08
I know that part. What's the Bruce Willie music career?
Tyler 1:06:12
Bruce Willie? Awesome. It's a silent "s". It's French. Bruce Willis has music from...
Misha 1:06:18
I did steal that from Key and Peele.
Tyler 1:06:22
Bruce Willie had music in the 80s. He has like a blues band or something like that. And it's really bad.
Misha 1:06:30
I can totally see that.
Tyler 1:06:32
Not As bad as Steven Seagal's band, which I have seen live in Istanbul with a bunch of my friends.
Misha 1:06:36
Holy shit. That's amazing.
Misha 1:06:38
Absolute garbage. It's like blues mixed like sort of want to be sort of like...
Misha 1:06:43
You were in the same room with Steven Seagal. That is incredible.
Tyler 1:06:47
It was an open air auditorium. But it was...
Misha 1:06:49
Oh, yeah. Wait, outside or inside? Outside. That's what open air means.
Tyler 1:06:53
Yeah. Yeah. I could we could do a whole podcast on my feelings about Steven Seagal.
Misha 1:06:57
Never mind you we're not in the same room.
Tyler 1:06:59
Yeah, but anyway, he. Yeah. Anyway, like, yeah, it's always hard to separate the- this is like a very big topic that we're definitely like, not gonna have time for but like, it's hard to separate the art from the artist. And yeah, but Hopper is a great villain.
Misha 1:07:18
I mean, so Kevin Spacey is a villain.
Tyler 1:07:21
Yeah, sure.
Misha 1:07:23
And Hopper is a villain.
Tyler 1:07:25
And I just think they...
Misha 1:07:27
He was really scary. He was really good. Just like his delivery was great. Hopper is a sca- and I had the toy.
Tyler 1:07:37
Yeah.
Misha 1:07:37
I'm a weirdo.
Tyler 1:07:39
That scene, the soliloquy in the sort of Mexican Cantina where he says like, one ant's nothing- another but then like they outnumber us 100 to one,
Tyler 1:07:49
So scary and good.
Tyler 1:07:49
Very good. And is the one at the end too when he's like beating the crap out of Flick and telling the ants again to stay in line, "You're beneath the dirt," was great. I mean, I think he should get a really high score. He's like, perfect for this- like Hopper the character is perfect in this movie. Just the right amount of menace. But also like has a weakness that can be exploited. And yeah, I think he's a great villain. I would say something high.
Misha 1:08:16
I think he's really good.
Tyler 1:08:18
I mean, I want to say something like an eight to be honest.
Misha 1:08:21
Me t- me too. I think-
Tyler 1:08:22
Is that weird?
Misha 1:08:23
He's not iconic. No, I agree. He's not iconic. Like some of the future ones we'll get to, like, Ursula who's the fucking best.
Tyler 1:08:32
She's the best.
Misha 1:08:33
Actually. I don't know if she's the best. Maleficent I think is my favorite, she Maleficent is fucking amazing. But yeah, I think he should get an eight because he's just tough and scary and he controls... not- he's not just like a dick to the ants but he's like really good at being the leader of his grasshoppers and I think that's really important and his-
Tyler 1:08:59
Yeah.
Misha 1:08:59
-the delivery was really good. The acting was really good. I really like it. And creepy as fuck because-
Tyler 1:09:04
Yeah.
Misha 1:09:05
You know all the limbs.
Tyler 1:09:06
Yeah
Misha 1:09:07
Yeah, let's go with an eight.
Tyler 1:09:08
Okay. Yeah, I agree.
Misha 1:09:09
I'm glad you agree because I like yeah...
Tyler 1:09:11
And along with that, like all the limbs in the creepy like spiny look of all of them. We're now talking about henchmen. I think the henchmen were pretty cool. I think you liked them more than I did. But I thought they were pretty good.
Misha 1:09:25
I love the henchmen. Richard Kind is... he's was one of my favorites. He's so funny.
Tyler 1:09:33
So he plays Hopper's brother Molt who's constantly losing dead skin kind of like eczema.
Misha 1:09:40
When he get scared and runs away, and then his whole-
Tyler 1:09:44
Yeah.
Misha 1:09:44
-he like sheds all of it at once. I love that and he is great. I love henchmen who are just sort of, like, going along with it. And not... he's like, I'm not bad. I'm just like dumb.
Tyler 1:09:59
Yeah.
Misha 1:10:00
And my brother's a bad one. So I'll just go along with it. I like that.
Tyler 1:10:03
And he joins the circus at the end and like Thumper, the crazy one, although....
Misha 1:10:08
Who's Thumper? Oh. Right, right.
Tyler 1:10:11
It is weird, I think he's on a leash.
Misha 1:10:13
I love Thumper.
Tyler 1:10:14
Isn't it kind of weird that he's on a leash, though? Or is that just me?
Misha 1:10:17
Um, yeah, but he's like, okay. Yeah, he's like....
Tyler 1:10:24
Careful. Careful.
Misha 1:10:27
Crazy.... Like, oh shit what am I about to say? Okay, he's crazy, right? Like, that's like he's so scary... Okay. Okay, I'm not equating this to people, but like he's scary because he's unpredictable. He'll fucking eat everybody. There's no- the only way to- for him to hold back is to have them physically hold him back. He's scary and bluish white. I don't know why- right. He's like.
Tyler 1:11:02
He's got a weird color to him. Yeah.
Misha 1:11:04
He can't speak. He's just like this total maniac. I think he's really scary. I think he's a- excellent. I love the henchmen.
Tyler 1:11:14
Yeah, I also...
Misha 1:11:15
so different-
Tyler 1:11:16
Yeah.
Misha 1:11:16
from each other, the two henchmen are so different from each other. I love them.
Tyler 1:11:21
Yeah. And also, like the other ones are great too, like the dopey ones are like, well, that surfer bro one.
Misha 1:11:26
Oh, actually, you know, I didn't like that surfer one when they were looking... When they were in the ant colony and the kids were hiding in their hideout and he was like, one of the surfer ones was like, "I love my job." And I was like, hey, this feels like really forced. Like, they were like, "What do- what would kids like to hear?"
Tyler 1:11:47
Yeah, what would they say? Yeah, like, oh, "this will keep you safe from the sun bro. Yeah," cuz they find the blueberry.
Misha 1:11:55
It just feels like college students that were forcing a hacky sack identity.
Tyler 1:12:01
Yeah. But I mean, yeah. Those are the types of people that would make up- well, no offense to hacky hackers but they would make up Hopper's army.
Misha 1:12:13
I beg to differ. Offense to hacky sackers.
Tyler 1:12:17
Alright. So I don't know what are you thinking? Like, like a six for henchmen or...?
Misha 1:12:22
No. higher. I think it should be an eight.
Tyler 1:12:27
Eight?! That's a bit okay. I think that's a bit too strong.
Misha 1:12:32
Why??
Tyler 1:12:32
Well, because, okay. I'm just trying to think of like down the line, iconic henchmen.
Misha 1:12:39
Who are iconic henchmen?
Tyler 1:12:46
The flotsam and jetsam is what they're called... Ursula's eels. Iago you could argue as a...
Misha 1:12:53
Iago right.
Tyler 1:12:54
Pretty iconic. You've got the goons I think they're the official name - Maleficent's goons. I mean, they're they don't really do much except cackle but they're pretty... They're pretty iconic. The hyenas in Lion King.
Misha 1:13:12
Oh, right. Okay, aside from looking in the future because...
Tyler 1:13:18
Yeah, I'm not trying to base it on that because we like we said before this kind of have to like look at it, just this...
Misha 1:13:23
Just...
Tyler 1:13:23
Like, but I think eight is just a bit too. I don't know like, Molt is really good. Molt is good. I just, I guess part of me is like, weirded out by some burn. Like, are they- have they kept have him like out of the sun? Which is why he looks so weird. And now they've got him on a leash. It seemed very Deliverance to me. Like they've got him on a leash.
Misha 1:13:47
Oh god.
Tyler 1:13:47
Or like the messed up kid and Midsommar. Like that's the seer of the village.
Misha 1:13:52
Oh, okay. Midsommar is the most nauseating movie I've ever seen.
Tyler 1:13:58
But it's so good.
Misha 1:14:00
No, it's so scary. Okay I'm going to say-
Misha 1:14:02
it's so good. White people tend to really like it. I have not talked to any brown people about this or not white people. But it scares the shit out of me and not because of the like horror movie parts but because it's like they're going to this all white village where all the brown people end up dead.
Tyler 1:14:02
It is scary.
Tyler 1:14:23
Yeah. Plus a lot of white people too. Yeah.
Misha 1:14:26
Right. But like, I don't know. Anyway....
Tyler 1:14:29
I think that big- as one of my friends said the big villain of that movie is not the village but anthropology. Because the anthropologists fuck everything up. Yeah.
Misha 1:14:44
Okay, fine. I'll go down to a seven.
Tyler 1:14:46
All right. That's a good compromise.
Misha 1:14:47
I really do like the two... I would give it a higher score, but I'll give it a seven. I can see why Thumper is so...
Tyler 1:14:56
Problematic.
Misha 1:14:57
If you start to question it. Hey, him.
Tyler 1:15:00
Let's...
Misha 1:15:02
Maybe... Wait, what if Thumper's a lady?
Tyler 1:15:07
Still problematic.
Misha 1:15:08
I know. All right, a seven. I love Thumper.
Tyler 1:15:11
I like- I like the Easter egg, the Easter egg like not Easter Egg, but the the reference to an older- I like that it's name it's his / her name is Thumper. You know from Bambi. Nice little callback.
Misha 1:15:29
I don't think that's why they did that.
Tyler 1:15:30
I don't know. But it is the same name. So...
Misha 1:15:33
It is yeah.
Tyler 1:15:34
Let's talk about... we kind of brought this up this the next category is strong female lead. We talked about this with- there's Princess Atta and there's princess Dot. Princess Dot is brave. And there's the Queen Phyllis Diller love her.
Misha 1:15:48
Right. Like while flick is the main protagonist, I think they should we should give points that there are...
Tyler 1:15:55
Yeah. Women in positions of power. Yeah.
Misha 1:15:58
Right. The females are the leaders of the colony. And I think that counts for something even though Atta is just like...
Tyler 1:16:05
Yeah.
Misha 1:16:06
Not great.
Tyler 1:16:07
They didn't do her justice. Yeah. And Dot really like Dot....
Misha 1:16:10
Dot is awesome.
Tyler 1:16:11
Without-
Misha 1:16:12
Dot's like, yeah, yeah. Dot's like, "fuck this- All my little troop kids. We're going. We're gonna do this ourselves." Dot gets points and the Queen.
Tyler 1:16:23
Dot gets points. And the Queen is great with her aphid.
Misha 1:16:26
I love that aphid. So cute. So cute.
Tyler 1:16:30
And yeah, and like Atta is fine. She's just not like, she's done- she's done wrong by the script, basically. Yeah, and I think it's just it's a glaring... I mean to us now, in hindsight, it's glaringly obvious that Atta should be the protagonist. So, I mean, what do you think about like....
Misha 1:16:51
How cool would have been if she was like a funky?
Tyler 1:16:54
It would have been so good...
Misha 1:16:55
Inventor.
Tyler 1:16:56
Like, imagine that women in STEM or women in science? Crazy!
Misha 1:17:01
Right?
Tyler 1:17:01
They would have been great.
Misha 1:17:02
Instead, they were just like, yeah, that was a....
Tyler 1:17:06
1998 was a different time. But we can't we have to. We have to still dunk on him.
Misha 1:17:11
Not that long ago, just a few years ago. I don't wanna talk about what year it is now. So I think it should get a low score.
Misha 1:17:18
Yeah.
Misha 1:17:18
Are few points for Dot because she and because she's a princess. Yeah, Atta is the leader. And there's a queen.
Tyler 1:17:25
Yeah.
Misha 1:17:25
Right.
Tyler 1:17:25
I think like...
Misha 1:17:25
Like female lead colony.
Tyler 1:17:27
I think. Yeah, like, I don't know. Like a...
Misha 1:17:30
A couple points...
Tyler 1:17:31
...like a four?
Misha 1:17:31
Three? Whoa.
Tyler 1:17:33
I think. three's. I mean, I'm trying to be positive here. There is...
Misha 1:17:38
Flick is the lead though.
Tyler 1:17:40
Yeah, I think that's like, like, that's a shitload of points off. That could have been like a perfect 10 potentially, right?
Misha 1:17:47
Yeah I don't know if it was perfect 10 even.
Tyler 1:17:50
Yeah, maybe not. But like, you know what I mean, like with with Atta as the protagonist or Dot as the protagonist, it would have been...
Misha 1:17:57
The bird.
Tyler 1:17:59
The bird? What about the bird?
Misha 1:18:03
She's a lady.
Tyler 1:18:04
Yeah, that's true. We shouldn't- I mean, a lead, though. Not really a lead?
Misha 1:18:08
No. Just like...
Tyler 1:18:11
Rosie, Rosie the spider is a really strong, great character. But she's not a lead. And...
Misha 1:18:15
She's not a lead. I would just say a three because they're not the protagonist of the movie.
Tyler 1:18:20
That's true.
Misha 1:18:21
None of them are yes, they helped move it along. But... I guess the leaders of the colony...
Tyler 1:18:28
So we should clarify this because when we say strong female lead, we we're because all- most of these movies are not going to have a female protagonist, we're opening it up to do they have a strong-
Misha 1:18:40
A leadership role?
Tyler 1:18:41
Yeah, is a lead in some way. Right. Okay.
Misha 1:18:43
Right.
Tyler 1:18:44
So in that case, I would say four instead of like three because Dot's really... Dot is crucial to the plot. And she's really cool and the queen is like a leader...
Misha 1:18:53
Atta's not. Okay, fou- I would do that.
Tyler 1:18:56
And Atta... is a- like Atta is growing into a leader, as well. She's just like, she becomes like a love interest. And that's lame, but, but she for a lot of it she's like learning to be the new queen and people are, you know, she's filled with....
Misha 1:19:08
That's true.
Tyler 1:19:08
She's interesting. Like, she's filled with doubts and insecurities and she's trying to get over them and become a good leader.
Misha 1:19:14
Alright.
Tyler 1:19:15
I think like four. I think four is better than three.
Misha 1:19:17
Oops, right.
Tyler 1:19:19
Now, yeah, the next topic, it's the first you know, time we're talking about this, so we should talk about it, but it's not gonna be... there's not much to talk about unforunately. BIPOC representation or portrayal. Like many of these movies we're going to see coming up, looking forward into the future, there's not going to be... not gonna be a lot of high scores in this one, unfortunately.
Misha 1:19:43
No, ah...
Tyler 1:19:46
The voice cast...
Misha 1:19:47
Pretty much all white.
Tyler 1:19:49
The voice cast is great, but not diverse. And it's about we can't really dunk it for being- it's like insects and arachnids...
Misha 1:19:57
Insects, right.
Tyler 1:19:59
But Um, but yeah, it really? I mean, do you think it should get a one? Like, I mean...
Tyler 1:20:06
Yeah.
Misha 1:20:06
Yes!
Tyler 1:20:06
Yeah,
Misha 1:20:06
There's nobody. There's nobody. It's a one. Sorry. You can't fucking hire any actors of color.
Misha 1:20:07
This is insane. It's 1998.
Tyler 1:20:13
Is there anybody? I mean, if there is it's like, it's like a bit...
Misha 1:20:17
Way down the list.
Tyler 1:20:18
Yeah.
Misha 1:20:18
Yeah. So that doesn't count. It needs to be main bill? Main cast.
Tyler 1:20:23
Yeah.
Misha 1:20:25
It's uh-
Tyler 1:20:26
So yeah, in, in the future, like, well, hopefully, there will eventually be some movies that that hit it, a movie with, you know, portraying people of color.
Misha 1:20:37
So when you...
Tyler 1:20:38
But also-
Misha 1:20:39
...A Bug's Life, and you get to the cast? Three, four, I'm in four rows of actors. Yeah, all white, the first top rows, then there's an- person who I'm assuming is not white, but there's not even a character listed. So it's just like, a background-
Tyler 1:21:04
Like a mosquito or grasshopper in the background.
Misha 1:21:07
And then back to all white.
Tyler 1:21:10
Okay.
Misha 1:21:11
It's all white? Yeah. All white cast. One.
Tyler 1:21:16
Yeah. One.
Misha 1:21:17
Fucking do better, Disney.
Tyler 1:21:18
Do better. Yeah, and I don't know... Yeah.
Misha 1:21:23
So like, so this is an American movie. It's a Disney movie. I have news. Non-white people existed in 1998. And there were non-white actors and voice actors.
Tyler 1:21:37
Yeah.
Misha 1:21:38
Probably in 1988. So-
Tyler 1:21:40
Yeah.
Misha 1:21:41
One.
Tyler 1:21:42
And I don't know a lot about the industry, but and maybe we'll get to this and other movies later. But like, in the 90s the Yeah, the voice acting community was not any more diverse than like Hollywood was so like, yeah, a lot of people weren't getting parts that they probably should have. So yeah.
Misha 1:22:00
They were racist.
Tyler 1:22:01
Yeah. Or the system.
Misha 1:22:03
Alright.
Tyler 1:22:04
So that's it for category. Oh, sorry. No. Fun Factor. I almost skipped fun factor.
Misha 1:22:10
Yeah. It's a fun movie.
Tyler 1:22:13
It is a fun movie. Yeah.
Misha 1:22:15
Yeah, I like this movie. It's super fun. I love the circus scenes.
Tyler 1:22:25
Yeah, super fun.
Misha 1:22:26
Doing their circus bits. I think the grasshopper scene in the cantina was super fun. I like all of the wor- like the world building is kind of fun. Although I wish there was more. I love world building.
Tyler 1:22:42
Mm hmm.
Misha 1:22:42
It's fun.
Tyler 1:22:44
Yep. There's there's great suspense there's you know, there's humor. There's excitement. There's a good like so climax pay off. The the identities being mixed up as fun. Yeah, I think this should get something strong. Like. I mean, my first inkling was or my first thought was like, a seven, but...
Misha 1:23:05
I think as you get higher because it's really funny. Like, I laughed a lot. And the sidekicks are what make the movie, obviously. And I think it's really fun. The cir- the whole circus thing. I don't even like circuses.
Tyler 1:23:27
Yeah, me either usually because it involves like animal torture.
Misha 1:23:30
But right but this is like animals consenting to torture.
Tyler 1:23:36
I liked that- I liked that part when Dim is accidentally whipped when they first introduced them and then like, he gets really-
Misha 1:23:42
and he's like, ow! Yeah...
Tyler 1:23:44
He gets really sad. So okay, not sev- Like an eight?
Misha 1:23:48
It's like-
Tyler 1:23:48
You think? Or- sorry. What were you going to say?
Misha 1:23:50
I think an eight is good. It's a fun movie.
Tyler 1:23:52
Yeah, it's fun. It's solid fun.
Misha 1:23:54
I was going to say, I think. Yeah...
Tyler 1:23:55
I think- I don't quite... I'm hesitant to give it anything higher. It's fun. It's solid, good fun. Eight gives it like yeah, eight is a good score...
Misha 1:24:04
The rolly pollies add a point. Heimlich adds a point. Stick even though his...
Tyler 1:24:10
Slim.
Misha 1:24:11
...Character is kind of like... David Hyde- is that what I said? What'd I say?
Tyler 1:24:16
Stick.
Misha 1:24:17
Stick - do I keep calling him stick?
Tyler 1:24:19
Yep.
Misha 1:24:22
Slim. All those... I'm sorry. I don't know. I think all of this silly jokes are really funny. And like I said the poopoo heads... I still really like it. I have to find my Hopper toy.
Tyler 1:24:42
Yeah. Okay, well then that's it for the categories and then we just have possible negative points for like things that don't sit right. This would be something like for the audience's maybe like "What do you mean by doesn't sit right?" like maybe you know, like, I mean, those old Disney movies that have like, like, clearly racist characters. Like that, that you know, that sort of thing that really doesn't sit right or
Misha 1:25:04
Right. Something else....
Tyler 1:25:05
Something that's off. Like, do we think that? I mean... Do we think that Kevin Spacey doing a voice?
Misha 1:25:15
I don't think it should lose points for that, because at the time, and while you're watching it, nothing is happening.
Tyler 1:25:23
It's not the movie that's doing that. It's yeah, it's not the movie, but it's making it uncomfortable. It's like, Yeah, we're gonna get to some movies where there's like cringe worthy stuff that happens. So yeah, I...
Misha 1:25:35
That don't fit into a category. Yeah.
Tyler 1:25:38
Okay, so ze-
Misha 1:25:39
I think a zero, like doesn't lose any points.
Tyler 1:25:42
So no, doesn't lose any points. And for effervescence, that sort of something more magical more than just the sum of its parts, these categories. Something that's more Disney magic. I mean, I don't think it's very Disney magical.
Misha 1:25:56
I don't know this. Neither do I. I don't think it's very...
Tyler 1:26:00
And we've give it
Misha 1:26:00
Doesn't have that...
Tyler 1:26:01
Like, should it get anything like a one or two or or nah?
Misha 1:26:06
I don't think so. I think anyone could have like, it doesn't scream Disney to me.
Misha 1:26:12
That's true. It could have been...
Misha 1:26:14
Know what I mean?
Tyler 1:26:14
Yeah, yeah. Uh, huh. Yeah, for example, like, yeah, so we might get like shouts of like, "Hey, you're biased because of like, the old classics." Well, I would say like, like, some movies that are not Disney would have this like effervescence that like this magic to them. Like, like...
Misha 1:26:34
I think there could be new ones that have Disney magic.
Tyler 1:26:38
Yeah, some new ones. I was gonna say like, Don Don Bluth movies or something like that, but...
Misha 1:26:43
I was gonna say like, Coco right? That's a new movie. Have you seen Coco?
Tyler 1:26:48
I have not seen Coco.
Misha 1:26:50
OoooOOO.... I can't wait till we get to it. To me that has some Disney magic and it's new. And like, it just it's like a combination of music and the way the light is... I don't know. There's just something that like makes you feel a certain way.
Tyler 1:27:08
Yeah.
Misha 1:27:08
I think this is fun, but doesn't have that.
Tyler 1:27:11
Yeah, we did give it a high Fun Factor score. Okay, so let's keep this a goose egg then...
Misha 1:27:16
Alright.
Tyler 1:27:16
...and tally up the total.
Misha 1:27:18
All right, hold on a sec.
Tyler 1:27:20
Drum roll.
Misha 1:27:25
Out of a possible 110 points, it got a 61.
Tyler 1:27:33
Okay, that's-
Misha 1:27:34
Not bad.
Tyler 1:27:35
That's not bad. That's respectable. Well, I'm not sure if that's high or low to be honest, because we haven't done any other ones. But it seems.
Misha 1:27:41
It's lower than I expected...
Tyler 1:27:43
It seems a bit low.
Misha 1:27:44
Cause I like this movie.
Tyler 1:27:45
Yeah, I was expecting something like something near 70 but low BIPOC representation, low strong female lead.
Misha 1:27:52
Yeah.
Tyler 1:27:53
Low protagonist.
Misha 1:27:54
Music wasn't good.
Tyler 1:27:55
You're gonna get you're gonna your gonna come up a stinker. I suppose. That's interesting. I wonder what's gonna happen with some of like the, the very strong classic favorites that will also just looking ahead really suck it up and like strong female lead and BIPOC categories.
Misha 1:28:10
Right.
Tyler 1:28:11
Interesting. Cool. Well, well, this has been a pleasure and a hoot, Mish?
Misha 1:28:19
Yeah, Tyler. I'm so glad we're doing this. And hope...
Tyler 1:28:21
Yeah, this is fun.
Misha 1:28:22
...everybody enjoys listening. And yeah...
Tyler 1:28:24
Yep.
Misha 1:28:25
Just a fun silly time.
Tyler 1:28:26
Thank you all for listening and tell a friend and check us out when we come out with our next episode. And yeah, we'll probably have like Instagram and Twitter and email coming soon. Like so you can get in touch with us and tell us how you how you feel about everything.
Misha 1:28:41
How you really feel.
Tyler 1:28:42
How you really feel about our love of our love of montages or Misha's love of montages. And yeah.
Misha 1:28:53
And next up, we've got a Christmas Carol.
Tyler 1:28:57
Which is the 2000-something version, the 2009 digital version with Jim Carrey.
Misha 1:29:08
Na- I don't know anything about that.
Tyler 1:29:11
Yeah, I've not seen it. It's looking to me like a sort of Uncanny Valley - Polar Express hot mess. So this should be... this should be harrowing. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It might be even more fun, like totally shitting on something, so we'll see.
Misha 1:29:33
Yeah
Tyler 1:29:34
Well, anyway, thanks, everyone for listening, and...
Misha 1:29:36
Yeah.
Tyler 1:29:37
Talk to you later. Bye
Misha 1:29:38
See you next time. Bye.