March 10, 2025 • 49 mins
This week, we are comparing Raising Arizona (1987) and Nobody's Baby (2001), two films about low-level criminals trying to raise a baby that doesn't belong to them.
-----
The Movies:
Directed by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Written by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
iMDb Rating: 7.3
Directed by David Seltzer
Written by David Seltzer
iMDB Rating: 6.2
-----
Find us on:
Discord - https://discord.gg/dxgmcfj552
Tumblr - @ItTakesTwoPod
Instagram - @ItTakesTwo_pod
Facebook - @ItTakesTwoPod
Youtube - @ittakestwonz
Bluesky - @ittakestwo
Our website - ItTakesTwo.co.nz
-----
Content Warning:
Mentions of death, violence, domestic violence, kidnapping, child endangerment
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music
(00:18):
Hi everyone, I'm Lisa. And I'm Nick.
And you're listening to It Takes Two, the podcast where two people take two movies with the same plot or premise and watch and discuss them.
And in this episode we are covering off Grand Theft Infant with 1987's Raising Arizona and 2001's Nobody's Baby.
(00:40):
That should be the name of the episode, Grand Theft Infant.
Yeah, I thought of it yesterday.
Yeah, so this one I planned as a fun episode, but I think these are just like very similar.
They are...
Stupidly similar.
Obviously they're not twin films because there's a huge gap between the production of these, but they're the same, well, not quite the same.
(01:04):
Yeah, they're not quite the same. I don't think you could by any means claim that Nobody's Baby is a remake of Raising Arizona.
But the plots are a lot closer than I feel like I remember them being.
I have seen Nobody's Baby more often than I've seen Raising Arizona, which is probably the opposite to most people who probably never even heard of Nobody's Baby.
(01:29):
Yeah, it's a very interesting fact you told me while we were watching it that you used to break into people's homes and tie them up.
I didn't say that. I said I had it on DVD and I watched it a lot and I used to just sometimes go to people's houses.
I meant like I was going there as a friend and I would bring my copy of Nobody's Baby and be like, hey, do you want to watch Nobody's Baby while I'm here?
(01:50):
See, what you told me in person before there was a recording device.
I just had to go to people's homes and watch Nobody's Baby.
And my response was, did you know these people? And you're like, no.
I did know these people. I did know these people. I just thought that was a funny question.
Yeah, I used to watch it a lot. I still really enjoy it. I think it's a very enjoyable movie. It's got 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
(02:15):
Wow.
Which is undeserved because it's way better than a lot of stuff than other stuff I've seen that's got a higher rating than 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
So once you've done signing up to a mailing list on our website, ittakesto.co.nz,
Go rate.
Joining our Discord.
Oh, OK.
(02:35):
And then go rate this movie up higher because it deserves more than 0%. No, it was very enjoyable.
Yeah, I think it's at 6.2 or 6 point something on IMDB, which feels more correct to me.
I mean, if it was at like 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, I'd understand. 0% feels very low.
(02:58):
Apparently, the director of Sundance, because it's premiered at Sundance, but then didn't get any actual theatrical release.
But apparently, the director of Sundance loved it, thought it was a delight from start to finish, thought it was a great movie.
And then critics absolutely hated it. They were just like, this is terrible.
Both movies, as we get into the movies and rather than our back and forth here, are about convicts basically stealing slash rescuing babies.
(03:30):
Yeah.
Skeet Ulrich playing Billy Ray Dean.
Billy Ray Dean is some white trash name.
Being that my middle name is also William.
The yeah, it's very interesting because it's there's a real love like father son, but not really father son relationship between him and Gary Oldman's character.
(03:56):
Yeah, Buford.
And the other way around sort of with with raising Arizona, where the actual theft of a baby comes involved.
It's sort of out of desperation where Billy is actually doing the right thing and stealing the baby.
(04:17):
Yeah, and it's interesting because in Nobody's Baby, he tries multiple times to get the baby to its real family and no one wants it.
It's like a whole thing that the baby is like part of an adoption scam.
(04:38):
And it's a weird like the family that the baby was with who were in a car accident, he rescued the baby.
Don't have any record of having a baby.
And he was like, okay, that's weird.
And then he tried to reach out to their family and they were like, no, no, no, we don't want anything to do with the baby.
And then, you know, he found out about this adoption scam and he tried to talk to the guy who would try to adopt the baby and he didn't want the baby.
(05:05):
Do you know the thing that I took away from watching both these movies is the person whose baby it is, are both Scheister salesmen.
Yeah.
We've got I don't remember his actual name.
Ed O'Neill.
Ed O'Neill, that's the one.
That's the actor's name.
Yeah. Ed O'Neill is a...
Pinkney, I think is the character name.
(05:26):
He's a used car salesman and he preys on people who are in gambling debt and buys their cars off them for half what they're worth and then sells them for double, basically making his money back and more.
Two idiots because they're all like the kind of cars that people who are compulsive gamblers would own.
(05:47):
Also, it is set in Nevada, so it is, you know, there are a lot of gambling addicts.
And Raising Arizona is about a man who sells unpainted furniture, who has been feeding his wife like, I was going to say fertilization, but that's not the right word.
(06:10):
What is the word?
Fertility.
Fertility drugs, yeah.
To the point where she had five children.
Yeah.
And they like decide that we're going to steal one because why can't they have a child when these people have five?
Yeah.
And it's almost an argument about classism at that point.
Yeah.
Because they are very like, Nicholas Cage is an ex-con, I cannot remember the name of the actor who played the police officer.
(06:41):
Oh, Holly Hunter?
Holly Hunter is unfortunately for them baron, so they can't have children.
And it's basically because of this, because of this thing they were trying to do, which is have a child together.
They're basically spiraling back into their old habits.
(07:01):
She was alone.
She was like, she was very funny introduction because she's taking his mug shot.
Yeah, both movies start with kind of a montage of mug shots.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, introducing the characters of being in and out of prison.
Yeah.
Well, after Nobody's Baby starts with, I guess Billy's dad being shot in the head through a window.
(07:24):
Yeah.
Is the opening scene.
So trigger warning if you're going to watch Nobody's Baby.
Yeah, yeah.
But then it proceeds to like him and Buford in the orphanage and then they get into all these, you know, shenanigans together.
And it's mainly in both cases, really.
Robbing convenience stores?
Well, yeah, but I was going to say in both cases, it's that they're kind of, it is a comment on classism to begin with, that these people don't have, you know, they've grown up in a situation where they don't have parental figures,
(07:54):
because they do mention that HI's parents in Arizona also are dead.
Yeah.
You know, they don't have parents, they don't have any kind of formal education, they don't have any income.
You know, they are trying to get by and also are, you know, on the lower side IQ wise and but fundamentally trying to be good and don't know how to do that.
(08:23):
Yeah.
And keep getting into these situations where they have to like commit a crime to to keep going, but they're committing dumb crimes.
The other thing that was like identical in both these movies is like dictating letters.
Yes.
Which I was like, in the first one, like Skeet Ulrich's characters doing it as this like, you know, eventually when I find a piece of paper or write this down in the meantime, I'm memorizing this letter I'm going to read like write to you.
(08:51):
Yeah.
And I've done this 1000 times and I've forgotten all of them, but this one I'll remember.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was just a very weird like thing to be similar. Like there was there's a lot of similarities between these movies.
There's definitely I mean, there must be to some extent, I couldn't find anything to say that it was based on what the most like because The Raising Arizona is such a well known film.
(09:14):
Yeah.
It must have been at least some of nobody maybe must have been deliberate homages to it or references to it.
No, there was definitely they're both see normally when we come to these episodes is one movie that's like just easily dislikable by both of us and we can really rip into it.
(09:36):
And I'm really struggling because both of these movies are really fun.
Yeah, I don't I do think I'd say Raising Arizona is a better movie.
I don't argue that but I think they're both really enjoyable.
Because it was the first time I'd seen Nobody's Baby.
Yeah, I would love to hear what your thoughts on Nobody's Baby are as somebody who had never seen it before.
(09:58):
I think the acting was fantastic.
The sort of the the incidents that happen, the framing of certain incidents is all very well done.
For those who haven't seen it, the moment where Billy is given because this this whole lead up, he's escaped.
(10:25):
He's by himself. It's probably the first time in his life he's been by himself because even when him and Gary Oldman end up going to prison, they go to prison together.
And that's why they end up reoffending. And that's why the judge is like, no, you should be separated.
He's carrying like a son umbrella down the motorway and a family pull up.
(10:48):
And they're like, hey, look, you know, tit for tat, you fix our tire, we'll give you a ride.
He's like, is there any room in your car? And then they're like, don't worry about it. Just fix our tire.
And then it's like the weirdest transactional, like if you drop anything out of our car, I'll deduct 10 miles off your like hitchhiking distance.
(11:08):
And then he ends up replacing the tire and then they just drive off.
The next scene is like in the back of a truck with a like thing open and he's going on about these dreams that he's having.
And then he ends up bumping into the same family again. And because of his like he moans them, the dad's very angry in the car.
(11:33):
And then they end up having a collision within a tunnel with the truck that he's in and the car.
And he is given this opportunity to like he sees the baby crying in the car.
Everybody else is dead because like the mom in the car is like folded backwards and sticking outside the windscreen.
And the truck driver is freaking out and trying to drive away.
(11:55):
He's got no insurance. He's got no insurance.
And it is this very moment of him looking at the car, hearing the baby, wanting to rescue the baby,
looking at his way out of the situation as the driver is trying to get away.
And in the flashback and forth is like literally like here's your two paths.
There's no railroading in this situation. He made his decision, saves the baby.
(12:21):
The truck ends up causing sparks as it grinds across the side of the tunnel, lighting a fire,
which blows up the car with everybody inside. Well, because the mom on the way out realizes that she's just unconscious.
You know, I think the framing of that is like absolutely perfectly done.
(12:43):
And it's interesting because there's also the turn.
It happens in both the movies is when the criminal element is reintroduced to both their lives.
And in Razing Arizona is when his buddies who's been in prison with who are in the same therapy,
ones played by John Goodman and his little brother both escape from prison and like are holding it.
(13:09):
First off, how they know where they lived, but they end up holding out their property.
And it's very much the same with Gary Oldman comes back into the picture because he is borderline deranged.
In a very sweet way. He doesn't understand, like as you said, that's very much a thing on classism.
(13:33):
The people that he's associating with are also not great people.
They're sort of living in this weird little not trailer park trailer park.
The reason he's allowed to stay is because one of the people who live at the trailer park
gave up their child for adoption, but it's still short enough ago that she's still producing milk.
(13:56):
Another one of the girls is like line dancer at some sleazy place.
And then the girl who first sort of rescues him and brings him to this community is like a
she's well what do we call a diner diner waitress who did you did you when you sorry
(14:17):
pause on that then trying to thought when you saw pitch black i think when we watched pitch black
i was like this person's familiar to me but i don't think i you didn't put the pieces together
yeah or maybe i looked it up a time at okay but i have forgotten it since um whereas yeah i don't
think i ever looked up why skyler white was familiar to me we tried to watch breaking bad
(14:38):
and then when we were watching this i was like oh that's where i know her from it's fry and skyler
and mary steinberg yeah and yeah you just get this sort of like weird sort of amalgamation of
what would be happening in the trailer park you know the the physical abuse the um the only thing
(15:02):
that i found very weird was like the the native american man yeah who wants to build a tp out of
bottle caps um and the rich guy who like does charter boats and that whole scene where he just
like loses his shit and for from the audience point of view throws the baby into the water
(15:24):
because none of them can swim properly yeah and then they're like okay with it and still like
interact with him and i was just like no no no like i'd get back on that boat and kill that guy
like even though it's a fake and he switches it with the different people he's like okay
dog also animal cruelty like really really messed up situation it is borderline sub-reality like
(15:48):
this is not a realistic sort of um snapshot of whatever year it's supposed to be sitting
it doesn't feel like 2001 it feels earlier um but you could say the same about raising arizona
yeah that it very much like is kind of hyper real to some extent and i think a lot of cone brothers
(16:08):
movies are yeah um that there's you know the the running gag of the guys leaving the baby on top
of the car and then having to go back and get him um you know also the bounty hunter yeah the
bounty hunter who nick cage dreams about first and then when he sees in real life and and ed
(16:30):
can see him too and he's like you can see that guy um that whole sequence is very funny um this
is a little tidbit about nicolas cage that you might not know um there was a very interesting
person who came along uh throughout in the past his name was dog the bounty hunter right uh he
(16:51):
was a bounty hunter operating off the i think he was in hawaii um him and nicolas cage were friends
oh really ended up ending up bailing nicolas cage out at some point when he was like trapped somewhere
um and it's like downturn era before he came back again yeah um which i thought was just very funny
(17:12):
because i was just like the guys just dog the bounty hunter like turned to 11 you know the dual
shotguns throwing grenades at bunny rabbits in the desert shooting like shooting lizards yeah
sitting on rocks in the desert like if you take in terminator from terminator toe um the good
terminator from terminator toe turned it up to 11 made him like the most redneck like drifter cowboy
(17:39):
and then turned him into some sort of demon yeah and there was a lot of flashes towards like mandy
uh ghost rider that came to my mind yeah yeah um occasionally being in movies with bikers from
hell yeah but like yeah like i said going back to nobody's baby um it is definitely like a little
(18:00):
bit more sub-reality than reality definitely feels older than when it's like filmed um the comedy
most of the time it hits pretty hard uh there were some moments where where it was just like
oh i don't know about that joke now um also i like i don't think it's supposed to be set in a different
(18:23):
time period i think it's just highlighting how far removed small rural communities in
southwest of america are from what we think of as like big modern cities in america yeah yeah
but yeah no it was um definitely an enjoyable movie yeah um it's a fun one i think like again like um
(18:49):
because you were saying this is like this was this was filmed in the down point down port down part
of uh gary oldman's career yeah so gary oldman had okay i know way too much about gary oldman
yes so for a fun fact never play uh six degrees with separation with lisa um if that person you're
(19:11):
picking or the other person you're picking uh was in any movie with gary oldman i've seen most of
them yeah because you're doomed i do have a collection back in arland of like dvds of obscure
movies gary oldman of them including nobody's um but he have you got tiptoes on dvd i don't have
(19:32):
tiptoes any meaning i have sin which is the absolutely terrible movie he did with bang
rames and no one should ever watch that movie i have track 29 which also no one should ever
watch but i did get the um i met the uh what's this the dp steward's director of photography
is that right or cinema maybe cinematographer anyway i met the person who did the you know
(19:57):
i think cinematography on that film um because he also did um i think the hurt locker i think he
did a hurt locker and i was and i met him and when i was in college and i gave i asked him to sign my
track 29 dvd and he was like i literally didn't know they made this on dvd and i was like yep
(20:19):
yep they do they sure do it's a weird movie where it's very heavily implied that like okay
i'm not getting into that movie actually anyway weird movie um i'm now intrigued so this point
in um gary oldman's career he had made a movie called the contender um where he played i believe
(20:42):
a republican senator or maybe congressman um and gary oldman for those who don't know i don't know
his politics nowadays um so i don't want to like make people assume things about him that i don't
know about who he's voted for recently but certainly in the early 2000s gary oldman was
a card-carrying republican in the united states of america um and they when the film was edited
(21:10):
they removed any redeeming qualities of the character that he was playing and made him into
like cartoon villain and as a card-carrying republican who thought that he was in a movie
that was displaying displaying both sides of the coin he got very upset about it um and then uh
(21:31):
got blacklisted by hollywood because of his reaction to that um he also supported mel gibson
and some shit he said um so it wasn't a great time um and then essentially so no like class
so like steven spielberg etc all had a vendetta against gary oldman at that point so no one would
(21:53):
cast him in movies um until younger directors came around like um i think alphonse au courant
and um obviously priscilla nolan who cast him in the batman series um so between 2000 with the
contender came out in 2005 when he was in um prisoner of azkaban and um batman begins gary
(22:14):
oldman was in almost entirely absolute garbage movies um yeah because it's so funny i'm just i've
just pulled it up just for are you looking at what he was in in that time so like true roommates 93
leon the professional 94 yeah fifth element 97 air force 197 the contender 2000 and then it's just
like harry potter and then dark knight yeah but what are the movies in between the contender and
(22:41):
harry potter and batman begins god i have no idea wait just well this movie for an exact yeah oh
sorry i thought you were looking at a list no no i was just going through and as they say like this
it's ridiculous like you you will either have not heard of them or be like oh my god that's a
terrible film um i have seen i think all of them that were released in that time period
and i can tell you this is the only one that's like remotely a good movie um i can have a look
(23:06):
so we had the contender 2000 then he did nobody's baby oh he wasn't hannibal in 2001 so that well
that was probably filmed earlier interstate 60 where he plays a leprechaun um beat the devil oh
that's a short film um that he was in tiptoes for anyone who doesn't know what tiptoes is it's gary
omen plays the dwarf brother of matthew mcconaghy um and then he was in sin which is absolutely
(23:33):
terrible absolutely terrible movie and then he and uh then he was in prison of ascoma and batman
begins um so that whole slew of films are awful uh this is the best one of a lot of them though
tiptoes is fun to watch in in that like it's an absolute train wreck and the the only thing good
(23:54):
about tiptoes is peter dinklage is in it and he's really good and then you're like why am i not
watching a movie about this character or why do they not cast peter dinklage as the main
dwarf in the movie instead of gary olin anyway um yeah so this is this is the best of a bad bunch
of movies and it is um as we discovered looking into it you know or watching it it's produced by
(24:16):
gary oldman and doug urbanski who's gary oldman's manager slash agent um so i assume while he was
struggling to get any other roles because you can see it let's also you know you were listing that
he's in multiple big name films in a year you know each year in the 90s um the fact that he's
only in a handful of films in that time period as well um is pretty telling so he obviously was
(24:41):
struggling to get any roles so i guess one of the ways to do that is to go yeah we'll we'll put the
money behind this let's produce it um i think all the actors are really good in it yeah i genuinely
think um the performances are really good um i don't you know there's very much like um i i think
(25:04):
i think it's been more famous with game of thrones um where actors playing characters get hate mail
addressed to the character they're playing oh yeah yeah and um it was very very very interesting
with uh with with game of thrones because like uh zelena lena hielsen lena headley headley or
(25:29):
heady i think yeah um was basically like shunned by people not wanting a signature when she was
at comic con right because they don't like cersei donna yeah yeah um and it feels very much the same
way with the actor who played skyler in in oh breaking bad breaking bad she also got a lot of
like angry fan mail yeah um yeah it's very funny watching her play because i don't think off the
(25:58):
top of my head i could name something else she's been in no um and it was just very funny just be
like oh no she's just like this can can dancer thing who sleeping with an old indian man who
wants to build a tp out of bottle caps yeah while skeetal ricks got the stolen baby while
he's basically everyone's emotionally blackmailed a lady who gave away their baby into breastfeeding
(26:22):
and and him trying to get back with gary oldman it was just like that whole the whole turn of events
when he gets the baby is just so it's not speed up but it is just such a moment of like so many
pieces falling into place that it's almost like teeth on a gear rather than like you know like
stepping stones yeah i do think um i feel like because raising arizona it's like you said the
(26:50):
the the kind of central you know driving point is that they want a baby and she's infertile yeah um
but other than that like they're getting by okay then it's only when you know that things start
to spiral because a she decides she wants to steal the baby even though she was an officer to law
and b his friends who are criminals show up but in nobody's baby um the kind of central driving
(27:17):
point of it is that he he has he's got this baby and he needs to find a way to provide for it
um because that's his main goal and it's very i felt like um you know there's moments in that
when he after he first rescues the baby where you where i think it really and i think poignant to
(27:41):
poignant to nevada because it has a huge homeless problem um because of you know gambling availability
and and how how the cities you know or major cities in nevada are set up um it really kind of
highlighted you know how difficult it is to have to try and look after your family in poverty yeah
(28:04):
um because you know he's got nothing he's got nothing but but the clothes on his back and you
know he's just in because he accidentally you know he tries to put out the fire and sets fire to his
his jeans or whatever so he's just him in a t-shirt and his underwear and a naked baby or baby with
the diaper and the baby you know goes potty pretty nastily and he ends up using his shirt as a new
(28:28):
diaper so it's literally just this guy he doesn't even have the clothes gives a shirt off his back
yeah so he doesn't even have the clothes on his back he doesn't have any money he doesn't have
any way to contact anyone he has no support network um you know he's in the middle of nowhere
essentially um you know and they you know he steals some clothes but again that's still having to
(28:52):
to steal in order to provide and uh and he gets this waitress to give him some milk for the baby
and and it's only that she out of the gut of her heart says okay come on i know someone
who can help um you know and she very much is is being cautious and saying you know i don't i
normally don't let anyone in my car unless i know them but that's why you know that you were only
(29:14):
getting in here because i care about that looking after that baby um but he could just have easily
have come across someone who had no interest in helping you know and then it's how do you
how do you raise how do you even feed a baby when you're just out on the street by yourself
with nothing the other the other movie that came to mind um was shoot them up which i haven't seen
(29:38):
yeah um which again is about a homeless man getting a baby i was in yeah and i was like watching this
and like knowing i was like you know if we did three movies for a podcast for an episode you know
massive delay caused to like you know then i've got shoot them up on dvd so it wouldn't have been
a very we wouldn't have to go to the library or anything to to find a copy but um it's it's yeah
(30:03):
i was just thinking like oh yeah you know very much along the lines of men with no future
getting a hold of a baby you know shenanigans ensure finds woman who can breastfeed the baby
you know yeah i have no idea where the pot i should have one of us that's insane i didn't know
it was the same are we gonna have to do nobody's baby again with you
(30:25):
sometimes maybe funny put it on yeah for 2030 to yeah um what we're gonna hit yeah yeah yeah um
it'd be the last episode we've produced no um no it's like everything everything about the both
these movies watching them back to back like i said earlier like it's normally i try and find
(30:46):
i find the movie that's worse and just be like here's how everything was done worse here's
everything was done better here's what i would have done but like genuinely in these two movies
that were both like sit down enjoyable like if you get an opportunity to watch either of these
and you've never seen them please do it yeah um i'm not saying like pause the podcast and go watch
them now like i've said on other episodes or like don't listen to it unless you've seen these
(31:11):
yeah i will say i'm glad because obviously like i said i used to watch nobody's baby all the time
but it's been a while so i am glad that it did hold up and we didn't watch you were going
why did you watch this movie that that because that happens sometimes with things you know
you have a very like that is a very deranged thing to do to what we just watch it all the time
no just like you know you know bring the dvd with me yeah i mean you know or it wasn't not
(31:38):
just like annual people that i watched movies with right i would show up like oh hey i've got
this movie we could watch um you know and i wasn't just showing up to like you know go over to borrow
some sugar and if you like and do you want to watch this you know it's going going invited
going to someone's home to spend some time with them group sleep over knowing that often we do
(32:01):
watch movies together to be like oh well i brought this you know i'd sometimes bring like a handful
over be like oh here's my suggestion to some movies do you want to watch any of these um and i think
and i think nobody's baby did make it to a few people's houses i did like i distinctly remember
watching it with with you know particularly people i was friends with at the time um so it was a movie
(32:22):
that i would bring over be like hey you want to watch this one um because i really enjoyed it it
seemed like like and it was a movie that i had fun watching so i had no problem watching it multiple
times you know um so it would be like some movies are good and you're like oh i should i could
recommend this to someone but i don't necessarily want to go watch it with them whereas this it's
(32:44):
like hey this one's fun and stupid and we can put it on and talk and you know whatever um i do think
you know on in terms of you know who did what better i do think obviously the writing of the
cohen brothers is a lot cleaner a lot tidier yeah that's because that's you know you're punching
(33:04):
what they're like yeah they're incredible writers you know that's that's what they do
um i do know you know from looking into it that they really clashed with nick cage which is probably
why you know um the cohen brothers who are famous for casting the same people in multiple movies
have never worked with nick cage again i don't think um i don't they have said like they loved
(33:27):
working with nick cage but also their styles just didn't really match because he's very much a guy
who likes to improvise and has a lot of ideas and suggestions and they're coming in with a complete
like script storyboard it must go shot for shot like this um so they didn't you know that doesn't
really work very well but i know uh one i think ethan cohen said you know as much as their styles
(33:52):
didn't really work together he would much rather work with someone like nick cage who's got like
this vast imagination over someone who really takes a lot of pushing to get them you know to
to see the vision um but yeah so they obviously do rock up to their films with like here's the
(34:13):
script here's the storyboard here's you know the quick witty dialogue here's you know the
application this character should have here you know because i think they wrote the um all of all
of the like dialogue and speech patterns of the characters in raising arizona are based on like
classic southern american novels and things like that and then also like passages from the bible
(34:38):
but then also just like how people in those areas generally speak mixed in with that yeah um so they
do you know they wanted to look and sound in a very particular way um which i imagine was not
as much of a concern for no i was gonna say for nobody's baby yeah i think nick lest cage is fully
(34:59):
fully on board with that kind of stuff but he also just likes to improvise and come up with his own
ideas um yeah whereas i feel yeah so nobody's baby obviously loses a little bit in that it doesn't
have that you know amazing writing team behind it who have got like this very clear vision of exactly
how it should go um but i think i don't think the writing was bad though um i think it's just not as
(35:27):
as witty and and clean and you know yeah i definitely think it's the performance of gary
oldman that really elevates it to something better than it would have been without him
because his critics disagree yeah well his mannerisms as well i disagree with 99% critics
yes um because that was one of the things the critics said were like what the hell is gary
(35:50):
oldman doing yeah but that's that's the whole point right like yeah yeah his character is unhinged i
i do love the idea of like gary oldman in a period of time where he's not getting hired for roles
been like i'm just gonna play the most fun bat shit character um it's the moment where they go to ed
(36:10):
and they're trying to like blackmail him and this is like you know i've got security cameras
i've got your face i've got your idiot friend who's like over there and he's just like the
camera pans over where where gary oldman's character is and he's like waist out of like waist out of
(36:31):
the van staring at them across the street like could you be any more obvious of what you're doing
can i can i talk about so in both movies there is a moment where they were you know the father
character is influenced to go back to crime to pull a heist in order to be able to provide for
the baby um because you've got you know gary oldman's or not gary oh my god you got nick cage's
(36:56):
friends you know jon gorman and uh and the other guy so they're really gail gail and everall
evill gail and evill i think um who are you know convincing him to do this bank heist so that they
so that he can get the money to look after the kid um and in nobody's baby um
(37:19):
oh what's her name stormy i think is her name so the yeah stormy the the dancer um says she knows
a guy who works in a pawn shop who's willing to let someone rob the pawn shop for a thousand
dollar deposit and half i think half of what they make out of it yeah um they rock up to check out
(37:43):
the pawn shop and the guy's coming out and he's like hey we're thinking of robbing this
toy you're the guy we're going to talk to you it's like what's wrong with you it's no wonder you've
been arrested so many times it's also the moment where they're like no no like this is not how we
do it like you do the cash handover to me like in a public place where no one will notice it
(38:03):
so they do it in a church by folding the money into a bible and handing it to him over another
pew yeah and it's very like it's like yeah it's very like sneaky you're underhanded very like
well done and then they walk out yeah and he just walked straight up to him he's just like hey can
we hash over the details he's like what are you doing like now you have to wear masks oh that's
(38:24):
so funny yeah he's i think he's fantastic in it um it's the it's the dancing just playing like
ridiculous characters the dancing being so focused about the the guitar to the point where it like
kills him slash saves his life it's from the near the beginning there's a bit in the beginning
where they're in um because the whole thing happens because they've been separated because
(38:46):
they have escaped from uh or they're escaping they're being like detained and brought somewhere
after being in a courthouse and they managed to um you know get the keys from the guard and get
their handcuffs off but they get separated but right before that they're in the courthouse and
the george as you mentioned earlier is telling them you know obviously it's not working with
(39:10):
you guys going to the same detention centers same prisons whatever um so you're going to be detained
separately um and he says to them you know it's clear that you'll never amount to anything or
whatever like that and and billy says no you're wrong i will amount to something and carry on
this character bufer just goes like oh you you're right about me though i nothing so he know like
(39:36):
he fully knows that this is just the life for him this is like what he you know he's he doesn't have
um the intelligence level certainly he doesn't have any any any kind of actual upbringing he
doesn't have any you know education he doesn't have any money or sort of source of income he
doesn't have any prospects except to continue to do what he's what he's doing because it's the only
(40:00):
thing he knows to do um but he genuinely cares for billy as like a younger brother or like you
said he's almost like a fatherly figure to me but i think it's supposed to be not too much of an
age gap um because they were in an orphanage together um and you know he does want the best
for him but he also has no idea how to provide that he's absolutely no idea and he doesn't know
(40:25):
how to help with the baby and he doesn't you know he doesn't quite understand that billy genuinely
wants to care for the baby and look after it and treat it as his own um yeah it's a
jumping forward to the end uh the main difference between these two movies are the ending yeah and
(40:45):
it's funny because they do almost start to have the same ending a little bit so in nobody's baby
nobody wants the baby or who actually like is associated with it yeah but the
lady who gave up so mary steinberg's character um estelle i think who gave up her baby for adoption
the baby daddy comes back and decides he wants the baby and him and his fiance are gonna look
(41:09):
after it and she has to tell me they don't have it anymore and billy in both cases so in raising
arizona and in nobody's baby you have the parents you know the kind of stolen yeah stolen parents
um realizing that they can't provide for the baby what the baby needs and giving it giving it up and
(41:32):
so in raising arizona they give the baby they sneak the baby back into the house and give it back to
his real family and in nobody's baby he decides he's going to go to letahoe and give
the baby to to this guy and his fiance and um but there was a little bit of a check off scone
earlier in the movie where you know the dad the baby daddy had arrived back just after 60 days
(41:57):
had passed and in the state of nevada you have up to 60 days to reconsider giving your baby up for
adoption um and the joke is that billy took 60 seconds he left and started to walk away and then
turned around i was like nope no actually i'm keeping the baby um yeah i mean you know they've
(42:17):
built a little community it's a weird oddball community but um you know he definitely cares
for the baby and uh we do get to see a a little bit of a flash forward where she's
i think seven or eight she's supposed to be yeah and um does seem quite happy versus uh
(42:40):
raising arizona where they end up returning the baby um back to the sleazy furniture salesman
yep um and it's sort of like non-legitimate godparents from like the rest of the kids life
by sending them yeah it's not really clear because it's definitely it's um hi mcdonough hi mcdonough
(43:04):
is um talking about his dreams for the baby so he's like dreaming of a future it doesn't so it
doesn't necessarily cause that is what happens though when his previous dream did come true with
the weird bike guy but anyway um and his vision for the future is that you know they send the baby
gifts um try to influence anonymous you know anonymous gifts or whatever and um that they
(43:29):
keep an eye on his life over the years because obviously the quintuplets are you know in the news
and things and the the father owns the furniture store um you know and he's envisioning that like
the the kid will grow up and become like an american football star and he'll get to go watch
him play games and things like that yeah do you want to jump into some trivia i don't have a lot
(43:52):
um we've kind of covered off most of the bits i did have to be honest um the yeah the only thing
i had for nobody baby was and what we said was that gary oldman spelled to spend a lot of time
with the twin girls playing the baby while they were filming um and i think that's the only thing
while they were filming um and he you know he was feeling very homesick for his old children which
(44:14):
probably is part of why you know by the time he got around to doing like prisoner of aspen and
the batman movies and stuff he had would only be he would put it into his contracts that his shift
times would have to allow for him to be finished in time to pick up his kids from school and spend
time with them yeah um yeah so he would he would spend all the time with the with the babies on
(44:35):
set because he missed his own kids um for raising arizona also a baby related fact so there were 15
babies playing the quintuplets wow um obviously i just meant there was two like i said a twin
girls playing the the girl in them which baby says 15 babies playing the quintuplets and one of the
babies got fired during production because he learned how to walk they couldn't have the baby
(44:58):
standing walking and the mother the mother of the baby wanted the baby to stay in the production
she was even like putting his shoes on backwards to try and stop him from getting up and walking
they were like not this baby walks we can't do it um and then the only other bit i had a trivia i
had was was a filmmaking thing which is the obviously there's a there's a shot in it where
(45:19):
the baby is in a car seat in the middle of the road and they drive the car off at speed and then
stop abruptly right before hitting the baby yeah um so that is done practically but they filmed in
reverse right so they had the baby there and then with the car and then they reversed at speed away
from it um though i mean like i would still be worried that you're gonna you know accidentally
(45:41):
you know put it in the wrong direction um but obviously it worked um there's not really any
point doing budget and box office because as i mentioned nobody maybe didn't get a theatrical
release in the end um we can talk about raising your own if you want but that's probably not
did it did it make a profit uh yeah definitely a profit it had a budget of six million dollars um
(46:03):
which was i think five million on the production and one million in marketing and it made 29
million so pretty good um yeah that's about it wonderful um there are six reviews six reviews
on rotten tomatoes of nobody's baby yeah so we could actually fix it so like i said earlier
(46:26):
get in there um i yeah send us a screenshot just watch it just find a way to watch this movie and
watch it i mean it does exist on dvd but it's probably hard not too easy to find i probably
have one of the only copies um but also i don't think there's anyone who will be making movie off
(46:47):
this dvd that's gonna you know be significantly impacted by the like handful of people who decide
to watch a base in this movie find other means of watching it um it's very enjoyable i think it's
very enjoyable if you like raising arizona if you like shoot em up if you like skeet ulrich or gary
(47:09):
omen if you want to see gary omen do a silly role where he's just like a weird guy um i i love skeet
ulrich in this actually as well um because i think i think the only thing i'd seen him in before this
was scream yeah where he's obviously not a very nice guy yeah and him as billy is actually oh
sorry i think his name is billy and screen as well right so it was billy and nobody's baby is
(47:34):
actually just like a really nice character um yeah that's fun movie thank you for joining us
we've really enjoyed watching doing this episode i think because you know as we said fun episodes
uh usually are comparing something very serious with something silly and funny but i think this
is almost lined up to the point where i don't think i wouldn't officially call this a fun episode
(47:58):
yeah it's i mean we're gonna still publish it in the at the front episode slot but um yeah it
definitely was more similar than i remember them being um the next few episodes are all disney
remakes we're back we've i think i can't remember i've said it before but we've kind of lined up
february march to be the kind of time that we do um i think the goal was between my birthday and
(48:25):
nick's birthday yeah is when we do our disney remakes each year so there are a few of those
coming and then uh what should be a very fun fun episode i think our next one episode or because
it's episode 100 will be our next one episode and nick picked which ones we were doing for that i
don't even remember it's gonna be an interesting duo it is a movie that nick has wanted me to watch
(48:47):
for a while and a movie that i love um oh i know what it is
anyway um thanks for joining us and like nick said please join our discord um
i can't remember what the other thing you said was and join our discord mailing list on our website
(49:10):
our mailing list it takes two dot co dot nz and uh leave a review on rotten tomatoes for nobody
maybe if you uh if you watch it thank you again for listening
Music
(00:18):
Hi everyone, I'm Lisa. And I'm Nick.
And you're listening to It Takes Two, the podcast where two people take two movies with the same plot or premise and watch and discuss them.
And in this episode we are covering off Grand Theft Infant with 1987's Raising Arizona and 2001's Nobody's Baby.
(00:40):
That should be the name of the episode, Grand Theft Infant.
Yeah, I thought of it yesterday.
Yeah, so this one I planned as a fun episode, but I think these are just like very similar.
They are...
Stupidly similar.
Obviously they're not twin films because there's a huge gap between the production of these, but they're the same, well, not quite the same.
(01:04):
Yeah, they're not quite the same. I don't think you could by any means claim that Nobody's Baby is a remake of Raising Arizona.
But the plots are a lot closer than I feel like I remember them being.
I have seen Nobody's Baby more often than I've seen Raising Arizona, which is probably the opposite to most people who probably never even heard of Nobody's Baby.
(01:29):
Yeah, it's a very interesting fact you told me while we were watching it that you used to break into people's homes and tie them up.
I didn't say that. I said I had it on DVD and I watched it a lot and I used to just sometimes go to people's houses.
I meant like I was going there as a friend and I would bring my copy of Nobody's Baby and be like, hey, do you want to watch Nobody's Baby while I'm here?
(01:50):
See, what you told me in person before there was a recording device.
I just had to go to people's homes and watch Nobody's Baby.
And my response was, did you know these people? And you're like, no.
I did know these people. I did know these people. I just thought that was a funny question.
Yeah, I used to watch it a lot. I still really enjoy it. I think it's a very enjoyable movie. It's got 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
(02:15):
Wow.
Which is undeserved because it's way better than a lot of stuff than other stuff I've seen that's got a higher rating than 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
So once you've done signing up to a mailing list on our website, ittakesto.co.nz,
Go rate.
Joining our Discord.
Oh, OK.
(02:35):
And then go rate this movie up higher because it deserves more than 0%. No, it was very enjoyable.
Yeah, I think it's at 6.2 or 6 point something on IMDB, which feels more correct to me.
I mean, if it was at like 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, I'd understand. 0% feels very low.
(02:58):
Apparently, the director of Sundance, because it's premiered at Sundance, but then didn't get any actual theatrical release.
But apparently, the director of Sundance loved it, thought it was a delight from start to finish, thought it was a great movie.
And then critics absolutely hated it. They were just like, this is terrible.
Both movies, as we get into the movies and rather than our back and forth here, are about convicts basically stealing slash rescuing babies.
(03:30):
Yeah.
Skeet Ulrich playing Billy Ray Dean.
Billy Ray Dean is some white trash name.
Being that my middle name is also William.
The yeah, it's very interesting because it's there's a real love like father son, but not really father son relationship between him and Gary Oldman's character.
(03:56):
Yeah, Buford.
And the other way around sort of with with raising Arizona, where the actual theft of a baby comes involved.
It's sort of out of desperation where Billy is actually doing the right thing and stealing the baby.
(04:17):
Yeah, and it's interesting because in Nobody's Baby, he tries multiple times to get the baby to its real family and no one wants it.
It's like a whole thing that the baby is like part of an adoption scam.
(04:38):
And it's a weird like the family that the baby was with who were in a car accident, he rescued the baby.
Don't have any record of having a baby.
And he was like, okay, that's weird.
And then he tried to reach out to their family and they were like, no, no, no, we don't want anything to do with the baby.
And then, you know, he found out about this adoption scam and he tried to talk to the guy who would try to adopt the baby and he didn't want the baby.
(05:05):
Do you know the thing that I took away from watching both these movies is the person whose baby it is, are both Scheister salesmen.
Yeah.
We've got I don't remember his actual name.
Ed O'Neill.
Ed O'Neill, that's the one.
That's the actor's name.
Yeah. Ed O'Neill is a...
Pinkney, I think is the character name.
(05:26):
He's a used car salesman and he preys on people who are in gambling debt and buys their cars off them for half what they're worth and then sells them for double, basically making his money back and more.
Two idiots because they're all like the kind of cars that people who are compulsive gamblers would own.
(05:47):
Also, it is set in Nevada, so it is, you know, there are a lot of gambling addicts.
And Raising Arizona is about a man who sells unpainted furniture, who has been feeding his wife like, I was going to say fertilization, but that's not the right word.
(06:10):
What is the word?
Fertility.
Fertility drugs, yeah.
To the point where she had five children.
Yeah.
And they like decide that we're going to steal one because why can't they have a child when these people have five?
Yeah.
And it's almost an argument about classism at that point.
Yeah.
Because they are very like, Nicholas Cage is an ex-con, I cannot remember the name of the actor who played the police officer.
(06:41):
Oh, Holly Hunter?
Holly Hunter is unfortunately for them baron, so they can't have children.
And it's basically because of this, because of this thing they were trying to do, which is have a child together.
They're basically spiraling back into their old habits.
(07:01):
She was alone.
She was like, she was very funny introduction because she's taking his mug shot.
Yeah, both movies start with kind of a montage of mug shots.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, introducing the characters of being in and out of prison.
Yeah.
Well, after Nobody's Baby starts with, I guess Billy's dad being shot in the head through a window.
(07:24):
Yeah.
Is the opening scene.
So trigger warning if you're going to watch Nobody's Baby.
Yeah, yeah.
But then it proceeds to like him and Buford in the orphanage and then they get into all these, you know, shenanigans together.
And it's mainly in both cases, really.
Robbing convenience stores?
Well, yeah, but I was going to say in both cases, it's that they're kind of, it is a comment on classism to begin with, that these people don't have, you know, they've grown up in a situation where they don't have parental figures,
(07:54):
because they do mention that HI's parents in Arizona also are dead.
Yeah.
You know, they don't have parents, they don't have any kind of formal education, they don't have any income.
You know, they are trying to get by and also are, you know, on the lower side IQ wise and but fundamentally trying to be good and don't know how to do that.
(08:23):
Yeah.
And keep getting into these situations where they have to like commit a crime to to keep going, but they're committing dumb crimes.
The other thing that was like identical in both these movies is like dictating letters.
Yes.
Which I was like, in the first one, like Skeet Ulrich's characters doing it as this like, you know, eventually when I find a piece of paper or write this down in the meantime, I'm memorizing this letter I'm going to read like write to you.
(08:51):
Yeah.
And I've done this 1000 times and I've forgotten all of them, but this one I'll remember.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was just a very weird like thing to be similar. Like there was there's a lot of similarities between these movies.
There's definitely I mean, there must be to some extent, I couldn't find anything to say that it was based on what the most like because The Raising Arizona is such a well known film.
(09:14):
Yeah.
It must have been at least some of nobody maybe must have been deliberate homages to it or references to it.
No, there was definitely they're both see normally when we come to these episodes is one movie that's like just easily dislikable by both of us and we can really rip into it.
(09:36):
And I'm really struggling because both of these movies are really fun.
Yeah, I don't I do think I'd say Raising Arizona is a better movie.
I don't argue that but I think they're both really enjoyable.
Because it was the first time I'd seen Nobody's Baby.
Yeah, I would love to hear what your thoughts on Nobody's Baby are as somebody who had never seen it before.
(09:58):
I think the acting was fantastic.
The sort of the the incidents that happen, the framing of certain incidents is all very well done.
For those who haven't seen it, the moment where Billy is given because this this whole lead up, he's escaped.
(10:25):
He's by himself. It's probably the first time in his life he's been by himself because even when him and Gary Oldman end up going to prison, they go to prison together.
And that's why they end up reoffending. And that's why the judge is like, no, you should be separated.
He's carrying like a son umbrella down the motorway and a family pull up.
(10:48):
And they're like, hey, look, you know, tit for tat, you fix our tire, we'll give you a ride.
He's like, is there any room in your car? And then they're like, don't worry about it. Just fix our tire.
And then it's like the weirdest transactional, like if you drop anything out of our car, I'll deduct 10 miles off your like hitchhiking distance.
(11:08):
And then he ends up replacing the tire and then they just drive off.
The next scene is like in the back of a truck with a like thing open and he's going on about these dreams that he's having.
And then he ends up bumping into the same family again. And because of his like he moans them, the dad's very angry in the car.
(11:33):
And then they end up having a collision within a tunnel with the truck that he's in and the car.
And he is given this opportunity to like he sees the baby crying in the car.
Everybody else is dead because like the mom in the car is like folded backwards and sticking outside the windscreen.
And the truck driver is freaking out and trying to drive away.
(11:55):
He's got no insurance. He's got no insurance.
And it is this very moment of him looking at the car, hearing the baby, wanting to rescue the baby,
looking at his way out of the situation as the driver is trying to get away.
And in the flashback and forth is like literally like here's your two paths.
There's no railroading in this situation. He made his decision, saves the baby.
(12:21):
The truck ends up causing sparks as it grinds across the side of the tunnel, lighting a fire,
which blows up the car with everybody inside. Well, because the mom on the way out realizes that she's just unconscious.
You know, I think the framing of that is like absolutely perfectly done.
(12:43):
And it's interesting because there's also the turn.
It happens in both the movies is when the criminal element is reintroduced to both their lives.
And in Razing Arizona is when his buddies who's been in prison with who are in the same therapy,
ones played by John Goodman and his little brother both escape from prison and like are holding it.
(13:09):
First off, how they know where they lived, but they end up holding out their property.
And it's very much the same with Gary Oldman comes back into the picture because he is borderline deranged.
In a very sweet way. He doesn't understand, like as you said, that's very much a thing on classism.
(13:33):
The people that he's associating with are also not great people.
They're sort of living in this weird little not trailer park trailer park.
The reason he's allowed to stay is because one of the people who live at the trailer park
gave up their child for adoption, but it's still short enough ago that she's still producing milk.
(13:56):
Another one of the girls is like line dancer at some sleazy place.
And then the girl who first sort of rescues him and brings him to this community is like a
she's well what do we call a diner diner waitress who did you did you when you sorry
(14:17):
pause on that then trying to thought when you saw pitch black i think when we watched pitch black
i was like this person's familiar to me but i don't think i you didn't put the pieces together
yeah or maybe i looked it up a time at okay but i have forgotten it since um whereas yeah i don't
think i ever looked up why skyler white was familiar to me we tried to watch breaking bad
(14:38):
and then when we were watching this i was like oh that's where i know her from it's fry and skyler
and mary steinberg yeah and yeah you just get this sort of like weird sort of amalgamation of
what would be happening in the trailer park you know the the physical abuse the um the only thing
(15:02):
that i found very weird was like the the native american man yeah who wants to build a tp out of
bottle caps um and the rich guy who like does charter boats and that whole scene where he just
like loses his shit and for from the audience point of view throws the baby into the water
(15:24):
because none of them can swim properly yeah and then they're like okay with it and still like
interact with him and i was just like no no no like i'd get back on that boat and kill that guy
like even though it's a fake and he switches it with the different people he's like okay
dog also animal cruelty like really really messed up situation it is borderline sub-reality like
(15:48):
this is not a realistic sort of um snapshot of whatever year it's supposed to be sitting
it doesn't feel like 2001 it feels earlier um but you could say the same about raising arizona
yeah that it very much like is kind of hyper real to some extent and i think a lot of cone brothers
(16:08):
movies are yeah um that there's you know the the running gag of the guys leaving the baby on top
of the car and then having to go back and get him um you know also the bounty hunter yeah the
bounty hunter who nick cage dreams about first and then when he sees in real life and and ed
(16:30):
can see him too and he's like you can see that guy um that whole sequence is very funny um this
is a little tidbit about nicolas cage that you might not know um there was a very interesting
person who came along uh throughout in the past his name was dog the bounty hunter right uh he
(16:51):
was a bounty hunter operating off the i think he was in hawaii um him and nicolas cage were friends
oh really ended up ending up bailing nicolas cage out at some point when he was like trapped somewhere
um and it's like downturn era before he came back again yeah um which i thought was just very funny
(17:12):
because i was just like the guys just dog the bounty hunter like turned to 11 you know the dual
shotguns throwing grenades at bunny rabbits in the desert shooting like shooting lizards yeah
sitting on rocks in the desert like if you take in terminator from terminator toe um the good
terminator from terminator toe turned it up to 11 made him like the most redneck like drifter cowboy
(17:39):
and then turned him into some sort of demon yeah and there was a lot of flashes towards like mandy
uh ghost rider that came to my mind yeah yeah um occasionally being in movies with bikers from
hell yeah but like yeah like i said going back to nobody's baby um it is definitely like a little
(18:00):
bit more sub-reality than reality definitely feels older than when it's like filmed um the comedy
most of the time it hits pretty hard uh there were some moments where where it was just like
oh i don't know about that joke now um also i like i don't think it's supposed to be set in a different
(18:23):
time period i think it's just highlighting how far removed small rural communities in
southwest of america are from what we think of as like big modern cities in america yeah yeah
but yeah no it was um definitely an enjoyable movie yeah um it's a fun one i think like again like um
(18:49):
because you were saying this is like this was this was filmed in the down point down port down part
of uh gary oldman's career yeah so gary oldman had okay i know way too much about gary oldman
yes so for a fun fact never play uh six degrees with separation with lisa um if that person you're
(19:11):
picking or the other person you're picking uh was in any movie with gary oldman i've seen most of
them yeah because you're doomed i do have a collection back in arland of like dvds of obscure
movies gary oldman of them including nobody's um but he have you got tiptoes on dvd i don't have
(19:32):
tiptoes any meaning i have sin which is the absolutely terrible movie he did with bang
rames and no one should ever watch that movie i have track 29 which also no one should ever
watch but i did get the um i met the uh what's this the dp steward's director of photography
is that right or cinema maybe cinematographer anyway i met the person who did the you know
(19:57):
i think cinematography on that film um because he also did um i think the hurt locker i think he
did a hurt locker and i was and i met him and when i was in college and i gave i asked him to sign my
track 29 dvd and he was like i literally didn't know they made this on dvd and i was like yep
(20:19):
yep they do they sure do it's a weird movie where it's very heavily implied that like okay
i'm not getting into that movie actually anyway weird movie um i'm now intrigued so this point
in um gary oldman's career he had made a movie called the contender um where he played i believe
(20:42):
a republican senator or maybe congressman um and gary oldman for those who don't know i don't know
his politics nowadays um so i don't want to like make people assume things about him that i don't
know about who he's voted for recently but certainly in the early 2000s gary oldman was
a card-carrying republican in the united states of america um and they when the film was edited
(21:10):
they removed any redeeming qualities of the character that he was playing and made him into
like cartoon villain and as a card-carrying republican who thought that he was in a movie
that was displaying displaying both sides of the coin he got very upset about it um and then uh
(21:31):
got blacklisted by hollywood because of his reaction to that um he also supported mel gibson
and some shit he said um so it wasn't a great time um and then essentially so no like class
so like steven spielberg etc all had a vendetta against gary oldman at that point so no one would
(21:53):
cast him in movies um until younger directors came around like um i think alphonse au courant
and um obviously priscilla nolan who cast him in the batman series um so between 2000 with the
contender came out in 2005 when he was in um prisoner of azkaban and um batman begins gary
(22:14):
oldman was in almost entirely absolute garbage movies um yeah because it's so funny i'm just i've
just pulled it up just for are you looking at what he was in in that time so like true roommates 93
leon the professional 94 yeah fifth element 97 air force 197 the contender 2000 and then it's just
like harry potter and then dark knight yeah but what are the movies in between the contender and
(22:41):
harry potter and batman begins god i have no idea wait just well this movie for an exact yeah oh
sorry i thought you were looking at a list no no i was just going through and as they say like this
it's ridiculous like you you will either have not heard of them or be like oh my god that's a
terrible film um i have seen i think all of them that were released in that time period
and i can tell you this is the only one that's like remotely a good movie um i can have a look
(23:06):
so we had the contender 2000 then he did nobody's baby oh he wasn't hannibal in 2001 so that well
that was probably filmed earlier interstate 60 where he plays a leprechaun um beat the devil oh
that's a short film um that he was in tiptoes for anyone who doesn't know what tiptoes is it's gary
omen plays the dwarf brother of matthew mcconaghy um and then he was in sin which is absolutely
(23:33):
terrible absolutely terrible movie and then he and uh then he was in prison of ascoma and batman
begins um so that whole slew of films are awful uh this is the best one of a lot of them though
tiptoes is fun to watch in in that like it's an absolute train wreck and the the only thing good
(23:54):
about tiptoes is peter dinklage is in it and he's really good and then you're like why am i not
watching a movie about this character or why do they not cast peter dinklage as the main
dwarf in the movie instead of gary olin anyway um yeah so this is this is the best of a bad bunch
of movies and it is um as we discovered looking into it you know or watching it it's produced by
(24:16):
gary oldman and doug urbanski who's gary oldman's manager slash agent um so i assume while he was
struggling to get any other roles because you can see it let's also you know you were listing that
he's in multiple big name films in a year you know each year in the 90s um the fact that he's
only in a handful of films in that time period as well um is pretty telling so he obviously was
(24:41):
struggling to get any roles so i guess one of the ways to do that is to go yeah we'll we'll put the
money behind this let's produce it um i think all the actors are really good in it yeah i genuinely
think um the performances are really good um i don't you know there's very much like um i i think
(25:04):
i think it's been more famous with game of thrones um where actors playing characters get hate mail
addressed to the character they're playing oh yeah yeah and um it was very very very interesting
with uh with with game of thrones because like uh zelena lena hielsen lena headley headley or
(25:29):
heady i think yeah um was basically like shunned by people not wanting a signature when she was
at comic con right because they don't like cersei donna yeah yeah um and it feels very much the same
way with the actor who played skyler in in oh breaking bad breaking bad she also got a lot of
like angry fan mail yeah um yeah it's very funny watching her play because i don't think off the
(25:58):
top of my head i could name something else she's been in no um and it was just very funny just be
like oh no she's just like this can can dancer thing who sleeping with an old indian man who
wants to build a tp out of bottle caps yeah while skeetal ricks got the stolen baby while
he's basically everyone's emotionally blackmailed a lady who gave away their baby into breastfeeding
(26:22):
and and him trying to get back with gary oldman it was just like that whole the whole turn of events
when he gets the baby is just so it's not speed up but it is just such a moment of like so many
pieces falling into place that it's almost like teeth on a gear rather than like you know like
stepping stones yeah i do think um i feel like because raising arizona it's like you said the
(26:50):
the the kind of central you know driving point is that they want a baby and she's infertile yeah um
but other than that like they're getting by okay then it's only when you know that things start
to spiral because a she decides she wants to steal the baby even though she was an officer to law
and b his friends who are criminals show up but in nobody's baby um the kind of central driving
(27:17):
point of it is that he he has he's got this baby and he needs to find a way to provide for it
um because that's his main goal and it's very i felt like um you know there's moments in that
when he after he first rescues the baby where you where i think it really and i think poignant to
(27:41):
poignant to nevada because it has a huge homeless problem um because of you know gambling availability
and and how how the cities you know or major cities in nevada are set up um it really kind of
highlighted you know how difficult it is to have to try and look after your family in poverty yeah
(28:04):
um because you know he's got nothing he's got nothing but but the clothes on his back and you
know he's just in because he accidentally you know he tries to put out the fire and sets fire to his
his jeans or whatever so he's just him in a t-shirt and his underwear and a naked baby or baby with
the diaper and the baby you know goes potty pretty nastily and he ends up using his shirt as a new
(28:28):
diaper so it's literally just this guy he doesn't even have the clothes gives a shirt off his back
yeah so he doesn't even have the clothes on his back he doesn't have any money he doesn't have
any way to contact anyone he has no support network um you know he's in the middle of nowhere
essentially um you know and they you know he steals some clothes but again that's still having to
(28:52):
to steal in order to provide and uh and he gets this waitress to give him some milk for the baby
and and it's only that she out of the gut of her heart says okay come on i know someone
who can help um you know and she very much is is being cautious and saying you know i don't i
normally don't let anyone in my car unless i know them but that's why you know that you were only
(29:14):
getting in here because i care about that looking after that baby um but he could just have easily
have come across someone who had no interest in helping you know and then it's how do you
how do you raise how do you even feed a baby when you're just out on the street by yourself
with nothing the other the other movie that came to mind um was shoot them up which i haven't seen
(29:38):
yeah um which again is about a homeless man getting a baby i was in yeah and i was like watching this
and like knowing i was like you know if we did three movies for a podcast for an episode you know
massive delay caused to like you know then i've got shoot them up on dvd so it wouldn't have been
a very we wouldn't have to go to the library or anything to to find a copy but um it's it's yeah
(30:03):
i was just thinking like oh yeah you know very much along the lines of men with no future
getting a hold of a baby you know shenanigans ensure finds woman who can breastfeed the baby
you know yeah i have no idea where the pot i should have one of us that's insane i didn't know
it was the same are we gonna have to do nobody's baby again with you
(30:25):
sometimes maybe funny put it on yeah for 2030 to yeah um what we're gonna hit yeah yeah yeah um
it'd be the last episode we've produced no um no it's like everything everything about the both
these movies watching them back to back like i said earlier like it's normally i try and find
(30:46):
i find the movie that's worse and just be like here's how everything was done worse here's
everything was done better here's what i would have done but like genuinely in these two movies
that were both like sit down enjoyable like if you get an opportunity to watch either of these
and you've never seen them please do it yeah um i'm not saying like pause the podcast and go watch
them now like i've said on other episodes or like don't listen to it unless you've seen these
(31:11):
yeah i will say i'm glad because obviously like i said i used to watch nobody's baby all the time
but it's been a while so i am glad that it did hold up and we didn't watch you were going
why did you watch this movie that that because that happens sometimes with things you know
you have a very like that is a very deranged thing to do to what we just watch it all the time
no just like you know you know bring the dvd with me yeah i mean you know or it wasn't not
(31:38):
just like annual people that i watched movies with right i would show up like oh hey i've got
this movie we could watch um you know and i wasn't just showing up to like you know go over to borrow
some sugar and if you like and do you want to watch this you know it's going going invited
going to someone's home to spend some time with them group sleep over knowing that often we do
(32:01):
watch movies together to be like oh well i brought this you know i'd sometimes bring like a handful
over be like oh here's my suggestion to some movies do you want to watch any of these um and i think
and i think nobody's baby did make it to a few people's houses i did like i distinctly remember
watching it with with you know particularly people i was friends with at the time um so it was a movie
(32:22):
that i would bring over be like hey you want to watch this one um because i really enjoyed it it
seemed like like and it was a movie that i had fun watching so i had no problem watching it multiple
times you know um so it would be like some movies are good and you're like oh i should i could
recommend this to someone but i don't necessarily want to go watch it with them whereas this it's
(32:44):
like hey this one's fun and stupid and we can put it on and talk and you know whatever um i do think
you know on in terms of you know who did what better i do think obviously the writing of the
cohen brothers is a lot cleaner a lot tidier yeah that's because that's you know you're punching
(33:04):
what they're like yeah they're incredible writers you know that's that's what they do
um i do know you know from looking into it that they really clashed with nick cage which is probably
why you know um the cohen brothers who are famous for casting the same people in multiple movies
have never worked with nick cage again i don't think um i don't they have said like they loved
(33:27):
working with nick cage but also their styles just didn't really match because he's very much a guy
who likes to improvise and has a lot of ideas and suggestions and they're coming in with a complete
like script storyboard it must go shot for shot like this um so they didn't you know that doesn't
really work very well but i know uh one i think ethan cohen said you know as much as their styles
(33:52):
didn't really work together he would much rather work with someone like nick cage who's got like
this vast imagination over someone who really takes a lot of pushing to get them you know to
to see the vision um but yeah so they obviously do rock up to their films with like here's the
(34:13):
script here's the storyboard here's you know the quick witty dialogue here's you know the
application this character should have here you know because i think they wrote the um all of all
of the like dialogue and speech patterns of the characters in raising arizona are based on like
classic southern american novels and things like that and then also like passages from the bible
(34:38):
but then also just like how people in those areas generally speak mixed in with that yeah um so they
do you know they wanted to look and sound in a very particular way um which i imagine was not
as much of a concern for no i was gonna say for nobody's baby yeah i think nick lest cage is fully
(34:59):
fully on board with that kind of stuff but he also just likes to improvise and come up with his own
ideas um yeah whereas i feel yeah so nobody's baby obviously loses a little bit in that it doesn't
have that you know amazing writing team behind it who have got like this very clear vision of exactly
how it should go um but i think i don't think the writing was bad though um i think it's just not as
(35:27):
as witty and and clean and you know yeah i definitely think it's the performance of gary
oldman that really elevates it to something better than it would have been without him
because his critics disagree yeah well his mannerisms as well i disagree with 99% critics
yes um because that was one of the things the critics said were like what the hell is gary
(35:50):
oldman doing yeah but that's that's the whole point right like yeah yeah his character is unhinged i
i do love the idea of like gary oldman in a period of time where he's not getting hired for roles
been like i'm just gonna play the most fun bat shit character um it's the moment where they go to ed
(36:10):
and they're trying to like blackmail him and this is like you know i've got security cameras
i've got your face i've got your idiot friend who's like over there and he's just like the
camera pans over where where gary oldman's character is and he's like waist out of like waist out of
(36:31):
the van staring at them across the street like could you be any more obvious of what you're doing
can i can i talk about so in both movies there is a moment where they were you know the father
character is influenced to go back to crime to pull a heist in order to be able to provide for
the baby um because you've got you know gary oldman's or not gary oh my god you got nick cage's
(36:56):
friends you know jon gorman and uh and the other guy so they're really gail gail and everall
evill gail and evill i think um who are you know convincing him to do this bank heist so that they
so that he can get the money to look after the kid um and in nobody's baby um
(37:19):
oh what's her name stormy i think is her name so the yeah stormy the the dancer um says she knows
a guy who works in a pawn shop who's willing to let someone rob the pawn shop for a thousand
dollar deposit and half i think half of what they make out of it yeah um they rock up to check out
(37:43):
the pawn shop and the guy's coming out and he's like hey we're thinking of robbing this
toy you're the guy we're going to talk to you it's like what's wrong with you it's no wonder you've
been arrested so many times it's also the moment where they're like no no like this is not how we
do it like you do the cash handover to me like in a public place where no one will notice it
(38:03):
so they do it in a church by folding the money into a bible and handing it to him over another
pew yeah and it's very like it's like yeah it's very like sneaky you're underhanded very like
well done and then they walk out yeah and he just walked straight up to him he's just like hey can
we hash over the details he's like what are you doing like now you have to wear masks oh that's
(38:24):
so funny yeah he's i think he's fantastic in it um it's the it's the dancing just playing like
ridiculous characters the dancing being so focused about the the guitar to the point where it like
kills him slash saves his life it's from the near the beginning there's a bit in the beginning
where they're in um because the whole thing happens because they've been separated because
(38:46):
they have escaped from uh or they're escaping they're being like detained and brought somewhere
after being in a courthouse and they managed to um you know get the keys from the guard and get
their handcuffs off but they get separated but right before that they're in the courthouse and
the george as you mentioned earlier is telling them you know obviously it's not working with
(39:10):
you guys going to the same detention centers same prisons whatever um so you're going to be detained
separately um and he says to them you know it's clear that you'll never amount to anything or
whatever like that and and billy says no you're wrong i will amount to something and carry on
this character bufer just goes like oh you you're right about me though i nothing so he know like
(39:36):
he fully knows that this is just the life for him this is like what he you know he's he doesn't have
um the intelligence level certainly he doesn't have any any any kind of actual upbringing he
doesn't have any you know education he doesn't have any money or sort of source of income he
doesn't have any prospects except to continue to do what he's what he's doing because it's the only
(40:00):
thing he knows to do um but he genuinely cares for billy as like a younger brother or like you
said he's almost like a fatherly figure to me but i think it's supposed to be not too much of an
age gap um because they were in an orphanage together um and you know he does want the best
for him but he also has no idea how to provide that he's absolutely no idea and he doesn't know
(40:25):
how to help with the baby and he doesn't you know he doesn't quite understand that billy genuinely
wants to care for the baby and look after it and treat it as his own um yeah it's a
jumping forward to the end uh the main difference between these two movies are the ending yeah and
(40:45):
it's funny because they do almost start to have the same ending a little bit so in nobody's baby
nobody wants the baby or who actually like is associated with it yeah but the
lady who gave up so mary steinberg's character um estelle i think who gave up her baby for adoption
the baby daddy comes back and decides he wants the baby and him and his fiance are gonna look
(41:09):
after it and she has to tell me they don't have it anymore and billy in both cases so in raising
arizona and in nobody's baby you have the parents you know the kind of stolen yeah stolen parents
um realizing that they can't provide for the baby what the baby needs and giving it giving it up and
(41:32):
so in raising arizona they give the baby they sneak the baby back into the house and give it back to
his real family and in nobody's baby he decides he's going to go to letahoe and give
the baby to to this guy and his fiance and um but there was a little bit of a check off scone
earlier in the movie where you know the dad the baby daddy had arrived back just after 60 days
(41:57):
had passed and in the state of nevada you have up to 60 days to reconsider giving your baby up for
adoption um and the joke is that billy took 60 seconds he left and started to walk away and then
turned around i was like nope no actually i'm keeping the baby um yeah i mean you know they've
(42:17):
built a little community it's a weird oddball community but um you know he definitely cares
for the baby and uh we do get to see a a little bit of a flash forward where she's
i think seven or eight she's supposed to be yeah and um does seem quite happy versus uh
(42:40):
raising arizona where they end up returning the baby um back to the sleazy furniture salesman
yep um and it's sort of like non-legitimate godparents from like the rest of the kids life
by sending them yeah it's not really clear because it's definitely it's um hi mcdonough hi mcdonough
(43:04):
is um talking about his dreams for the baby so he's like dreaming of a future it doesn't so it
doesn't necessarily cause that is what happens though when his previous dream did come true with
the weird bike guy but anyway um and his vision for the future is that you know they send the baby
gifts um try to influence anonymous you know anonymous gifts or whatever and um that they
(43:29):
keep an eye on his life over the years because obviously the quintuplets are you know in the news
and things and the the father owns the furniture store um you know and he's envisioning that like
the the kid will grow up and become like an american football star and he'll get to go watch
him play games and things like that yeah do you want to jump into some trivia i don't have a lot
(43:52):
um we've kind of covered off most of the bits i did have to be honest um the yeah the only thing
i had for nobody baby was and what we said was that gary oldman spelled to spend a lot of time
with the twin girls playing the baby while they were filming um and i think that's the only thing
while they were filming um and he you know he was feeling very homesick for his old children which
(44:14):
probably is part of why you know by the time he got around to doing like prisoner of aspen and
the batman movies and stuff he had would only be he would put it into his contracts that his shift
times would have to allow for him to be finished in time to pick up his kids from school and spend
time with them yeah um yeah so he would he would spend all the time with the with the babies on
(44:35):
set because he missed his own kids um for raising arizona also a baby related fact so there were 15
babies playing the quintuplets wow um obviously i just meant there was two like i said a twin
girls playing the the girl in them which baby says 15 babies playing the quintuplets and one of the
babies got fired during production because he learned how to walk they couldn't have the baby
(44:58):
standing walking and the mother the mother of the baby wanted the baby to stay in the production
she was even like putting his shoes on backwards to try and stop him from getting up and walking
they were like not this baby walks we can't do it um and then the only other bit i had a trivia i
had was was a filmmaking thing which is the obviously there's a there's a shot in it where
(45:19):
the baby is in a car seat in the middle of the road and they drive the car off at speed and then
stop abruptly right before hitting the baby yeah um so that is done practically but they filmed in
reverse right so they had the baby there and then with the car and then they reversed at speed away
from it um though i mean like i would still be worried that you're gonna you know accidentally
(45:41):
you know put it in the wrong direction um but obviously it worked um there's not really any
point doing budget and box office because as i mentioned nobody maybe didn't get a theatrical
release in the end um we can talk about raising your own if you want but that's probably not
did it did it make a profit uh yeah definitely a profit it had a budget of six million dollars um
(46:03):
which was i think five million on the production and one million in marketing and it made 29
million so pretty good um yeah that's about it wonderful um there are six reviews six reviews
on rotten tomatoes of nobody's baby yeah so we could actually fix it so like i said earlier
(46:26):
get in there um i yeah send us a screenshot just watch it just find a way to watch this movie and
watch it i mean it does exist on dvd but it's probably hard not too easy to find i probably
have one of the only copies um but also i don't think there's anyone who will be making movie off
(46:47):
this dvd that's gonna you know be significantly impacted by the like handful of people who decide
to watch a base in this movie find other means of watching it um it's very enjoyable i think it's
very enjoyable if you like raising arizona if you like shoot em up if you like skeet ulrich or gary
(47:09):
omen if you want to see gary omen do a silly role where he's just like a weird guy um i i love skeet
ulrich in this actually as well um because i think i think the only thing i'd seen him in before this
was scream yeah where he's obviously not a very nice guy yeah and him as billy is actually oh
sorry i think his name is billy and screen as well right so it was billy and nobody's baby is
(47:34):
actually just like a really nice character um yeah that's fun movie thank you for joining us
we've really enjoyed watching doing this episode i think because you know as we said fun episodes
uh usually are comparing something very serious with something silly and funny but i think this
is almost lined up to the point where i don't think i wouldn't officially call this a fun episode
(47:58):
yeah it's i mean we're gonna still publish it in the at the front episode slot but um yeah it
definitely was more similar than i remember them being um the next few episodes are all disney
remakes we're back we've i think i can't remember i've said it before but we've kind of lined up
february march to be the kind of time that we do um i think the goal was between my birthday and
(48:25):
nick's birthday yeah is when we do our disney remakes each year so there are a few of those
coming and then uh what should be a very fun fun episode i think our next one episode or because
it's episode 100 will be our next one episode and nick picked which ones we were doing for that i
don't even remember it's gonna be an interesting duo it is a movie that nick has wanted me to watch
(48:47):
for a while and a movie that i love um oh i know what it is
anyway um thanks for joining us and like nick said please join our discord um
i can't remember what the other thing you said was and join our discord mailing list on our website
(49:10):
our mailing list it takes two dot co dot nz and uh leave a review on rotten tomatoes for nobody
maybe if you uh if you watch it thank you again for listening
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.