Chapter 30 - Wholesome Group of Criminals

Jay and Mark are joined by Aubrey and Emily of the National Treasure Hunt podcast (@NTHuntPodcast on Twitter) to discuss the chapter in which a criminal named Viking inquires about a rock. In this episode, they also talk about a Nicolas Cage theme park, refrigerated lemons, and instructive tattoos.

Make sure to listen to the National Treasure Hunt podcast and buy a copy of National Treasure Hunt: One Step Short of Crazy - https://www.tuckerdspress.com/product-page/national-treasure-hunt-one-step-short-of-crazy

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Bunny Down, Bunny Down the box. Welcome to con Air the Podcast.

(00:26):
I am Mark, That's a rockHalfmeyer, and I am Jay that's also
a rock clue mantra. Welcome toyour board. Cant of the podcast.
Chapter thirty. On this show,Mark and I and some wonderful guests fly
away through ninety seven action classic firescene by scene, and this is chapter
thirty. What happens in chapter thirtyConnell Well, having recently walked away from
a big explosions, Cyrus and therest of the cons raid the Joel Birds

(00:47):
weapon stash, wherein Cyrus finds BillyBedlam's corpse. The guns are distributed and
Cyrus lays out the plans to thecons, who heads to their positions.
Garland Green and the girl I KnowIt to be seen with a broken teacup
and empty fruit peel all it remainsof their pool party. As a police
backup arrives at Learner, weapons areloaded, propane tanks apposition and opened as
the cons await the arrival of thecops. Meanwhile, finds a paramedic firetruck
and breaks in, finding a medikitincluding a syringe for Baby's incident. So

(01:11):
we have Nick Cage on a treasurehunt for some insil in or a syringe
STIs it makes sense to have yes, very appropriate for that. So joining
us from the National Treasure Hunt podcastis Paris and Emily Black, Emiy Audrey,
Welcome to the show. Oh mygosh, have we ever had a
better introduction though, I don't thinkso. That was amazing And it's just
j only by chance that this isthe chapter you're on. It's just this

(01:33):
is when the schedules worked out thatyou're on the episode where Nick Cage is
on a treasure hunt. So it'sfate, it's destiny. Oh my gosh,
thank you so much for having us. We're really stoked to be here.
We're thrilled to have you. We'rejust happy to talk about Nicolas Cage
with people who like Nicolas Cage.So it's always a pleasure to have guests
on who do that. And Ihave a big question for y'all really right

(01:53):
off the bat, So in anotherdimension, the National Treasure is made,
but Nicolas Cage isn't in it,and it's stars one of the cast members
from Khan Air. Which kan Aircast member? Would you pick? Other
of them? Yeah? Other thanhe was a cage with a mullet.
Wow, what a question. Okay, so fun fact. A while back,

(02:14):
it might have been season one ortwo of our podcast, we did
a whole episode where we tried recastingNational Treasure and it was very hard and
the one the one character we hadthe hardest time with was Ben Gates,
probably unsurprisingly and I gosh, puttingeven the added constraint of the actors in

(02:37):
this film. I don't know theactor I was most compelled by in the
movie. I don't think he wouldmake a good Ben Gates, but I
found most compelling was the cyrus Iwas gonna say, but I was like,
it might be a very dark darklike that. To be fair,
I've seen John Malkovich and other things, so I know he is like good

(03:04):
at like humor as well, Butjust in the context of conn Air,
I was like, whoa National Treasuremight be a little dark. Yeah.
My first thought was mc daney aswamp thing, just as like a sight
gag, you know, one hundredmillion dollars Disney movie was with emc dainey's
swamp thing in there, and likehe's the lead, and then you know,

(03:27):
I thought maybe like then I thought, you know, what I want.
Danny trey Hoo starting on a NationalTreasure movie, I can see that
that's not bad. That's bad.Let him Cusack is like the obvious choice,
I think, just as a leadingman who can fit into a different
kind of roles. But that's youknow, that's too easy. I think
I've listened to the episode the recasting, and I think he picked Johnny depp
and and Danny Jr. We gottwo picks for replacing. Okay, yeah,

(03:52):
National Treasure. How would they workin Connec? Do you think either
of them could? Oh? Ithink Johnny Depth could play Cameron Poe.
Okay, the physical I guess youcould pull off the physicality of it because
of the Pirates movies. Yeah,I mean it would definitely. I think

(04:12):
it would change some elements. Right, you're not going to see him jacked
in the same way Nicholas Cage whichjacket. By the way, that was
a surprise to me. Right,He's he's just nothing but muscle. He's
a muscle ball in this movie.Credibly impressive. I okay, spoiler alert.
This was the first time I watchedConnair and Renumber when I loved it

(04:36):
genuinely. I'm not just saying thatI do know it's one of those like
Pinnacle Nicholas Cage films that people havevery strong opinions about, and the whole
like put the Bunny Back in theBox is like a thing. Um,
I not one ounce of me waslike this should be panned for any reason,

(04:58):
Like I loved it. I don'tknow what Emily thought. Well,
I thought I would be the Iwould kind of play the typical Emily role
that I play on our podcast here. So I did not get a chance
to watch the full movie, butI will I did watch the scene.

(05:19):
I've read a lot about it inpreparation. I will say, upon reading
the description, like the synopsis,I was very much like, this seems
like a movie that I would reallylike, Like I am very excited to
see this, And then I watchedthe scene. It sounds like it's gonna
be bad. It's not. Iwatched the specific scene that we're gonna be

(05:42):
talking about today, and I wasjust like, oh, this is violent,
which for me is is not alwaysa helpful a helpful thing. I
think this would be a daytime moviewatch for me, But I am still
super were intrigued by like everything thatthat happens as I have spoiled the movie

(06:05):
for myself by reading the plots andnapsis um, but yeah, I was.
I was very um. It's there'sa there's a lot going on with
the violence and the action and whatnot. And Garland Green and a Garland Green
with the little girl and that's agnarly Oh my god. I always found

(06:26):
that so like, I don't know, I found myself like panicking watching that.
It was so dark. Yeah,and then you see him walk away
with the doll, and you're leftto assume what happened. But then you
find out, you know, likeI don't know, it was like was
he did he change? Is?Are we supposed to believe that he's like
a changed man? I think so. I think we kind of have a

(06:49):
theory. Maybe it was all aghost projection in his head and then someone
people think it's real. Some peoplethink it's just a Jay has a theory
that he's like going back to hisfirst kill and he's envisioning this girl and
a fool. Now he's now redeemedbecause he didn't kill it this time,
so he's changed in his head,He's he's now because but at the end

(07:11):
he is free, he's not sorry. That makes it okay because he's not
a killer anymore. Yeah, Imean I could. Yeah, that's so
interesting and determined to be a happyending. I approve of that. I'm
all about happy ending, So Ilike that interpretation. Yeah, it's nice.
And also I want a deleted scenewhere Cyrus the Virus sets up the

(07:33):
model of the bone Yard and findsall the matching coke cans and just meticulously
builds this in about five minutes becauseit's a it's an excellent sort of layout
to to kind of explain to histeam of cons. But I want to
watch somebody set that up, Likethat's that's what I want in a movie,
is watching them build that. SoI don't know what you thought about

(07:54):
that scene and watching Cyrus build thatthing, and I was I was like,
I was questioning whether I should feelbad about myself for enjoying Cyrus and
just his maschinations as much as Idid throughout the whole movie, to be
honest, Like I found him superinteresting, really liked him as a villain,

(08:16):
and also he had great one liners. So yeah, I just liked
seeing him like clearly have this planthat had hiccups in it that he was
able to so seamlessly deal with theuntil the very end, of course,
but like you know what I mean, I that was just my overall impression.
It's like the bad guys. There'sa lot of bad guys in this
film, the like, so it'sokay, Like, yeah, I about

(08:39):
twenty minutes in I did ask myself, like, who are you supposed to
like in this movie? And thatit's okay to like Cyrus because there are
the Johnny twenty threes or the worldwho Fall falls right? Yeah, and
just you know in ninety seven too, Like I keep saying this, but

(09:00):
I watched this movie and I wasfifteen and seeing Nicholas k Oscar winner Nicholas
Cage get incredibly beefed up, seeingJohn Malkovitch, who was a character actor
Steve BUSHEMI was a character actor JohnCusack. Say anything's John Cusack in this
bombastic, gnarly Bruckheimer action film.It really kind of blew my mind a
little bit because I wasn't used tohaving such a sort of you know,

(09:22):
I feel like they could be onthe stage and West End and then they
go to con Air, so Idon't know, if you felt that at
all, like having such a deepbench of character actors in this movie.
Yeah, so, I'll be honest, I personally, I'm not super familiar
with these actors and other roles.I don't know. I like to think

(09:43):
of myself as pop culture savvy.And then I watched things and I'm like,
I know I've seen that person before, but like I don't know why,
Like why are you famous? I'mnot sure. So this was my
first real get to know you momentwith a lot of these actors. I
mean I bought them in these roles. I don't know if they're typically known
for more positive roles or anything likethat, but like that seems like depth

(10:03):
to me, Emily, I seeyou shaking your head. Yeah, I
mean I think a lot of themare are known for more positive roles.
I mean I think, yeah,in general. Yes, So, I
I was familiar with a lot ofthese actors, and like I've seen them
do very kind of like you weresaying, Jay, like various things,

(10:24):
and like some of them are definitelymore known for like the not not great
people roles, and then some ofthem, like John Hughes for example,
is like this really you know,good guy in general, So I think
it. Yeah, it really surprisedme. I would kind of I feel
like I'd love to know what goteveryone on board with this, given that

(10:52):
they all have such very backgrounds oflike the other movies that they had done,
even up to this point when whenConnor was made. Um, I
think would be interesting. I thinkit's it's the the Bruckheimer's like his his
run of films, like he worked, he work with Michael Bay. It's
it's same way that Michael Bay getsall of the access from the current Brother

(11:13):
films in all of this films,just because it's a completely different way of
making a film. This like hugebudget. He like months out on set,
like going on location in the desert. This a completely different way of
working compared to the more dramatic theatricalaspects equal the actual sounds from out a

(11:33):
film, the more like theater typeacting of thought that you might get in
a drama. I think it's justthat like being out in the sun and
sweating with other people kind of filmmaking. Yeah, and Bruckheimer he did a
National Treasure too, and he landedJohn Voight and Helen Mirren and Ed Harris
and John Jordan Nicholas, true,like gigantic casts in those movies and also

(11:54):
too y'all spent so much time withNational Treasure, and like can you just
so earnest in that movie? Likewhen he finds that pipe in the first
one, You're like, that's thecool like me watching, like that's the
coolest thing I've ever seen in mylife because he's so like infectious. How
did you feel about Sassy Cage inthis movie, like he's he's a sasser
or like Emily, I know youdidn't get this watch too much of it,

(12:15):
or at least seeing like a tanktop wearing his like he's wearing a
tank top because his shoulders would explodeout of his shirt. Yeah, exactly,
Like they're like, we just giveup, just give him a tank
top because he's bursting all his shirts, Like what what? What? It
was the kind of the experience ofseeing such an earnest performance then go to
a kind of sassy Cameron Poe beatingpeople up. Um you want to start?
Yeah, I mean I really likedit. I feel like I you

(12:41):
know, because we do something thathas to do with Nick Cage. We
we know right that he has avery wide range of roles that he has
done over time, so I itwasn't that jarring to me. I feel
like to see him in this rolebecause I kind of knew like he was

(13:03):
capable of doing it, And Ithink it runs into this weird thing that
Aubrey and I talk about sometimes whereit's like when you stop seeing Nick Cage
and you start seeing like the character. So I think for me, because
I didn't spend quite as much timewith the film as some obviously as the

(13:24):
two of you, but also asAubrey did, for me, it was
a lot of like, oh,this is just Nick Cage, Like he's
just being Nick Cage, and like, because National Treasure was the first movie
I saw him in, like hisgo to performance for me will always be
as Ben Gates, which I thinkis a really kind of weird way to

(13:46):
come at especially Nick Cage films,because I feel like most people that's not
their introduction to Nick Cage film.Well, I think there is a similarity.
I've been thinking about my Cage's filmsa lot recently for some reason,
and he's really good at making aludicrous situation seem plausible, I think,

(14:07):
which is so National Treasure is thesame thing, like, just if somebody
told you we'll have the Natural Treasureas an anecdote, you think they're lying
and they're they're going insane because it'slike that's not yes plausible, And the
same with Conneir face off. Themost of Nick Cage's films don't make any
sense in the real world, buthe's somehow the insanity of Nick Cage grounds

(14:30):
them. I don't I don't quitemakes sense of how, but he seems
he just takes it so seriously,it plays it so straight, but he
makes sense of it. He commandsbuy in from the audience. One of
our favorite things to say are onour podcast, specifically with relation to National
Treasure, is that the way hischaracter behaves and the way his character was

(14:54):
written makes the impossible seem as possibleas possible. Yes, I feel like
that applies here as well. Imean, you ask yourself, how could
this camera and Poe character accomplish allof these physical and an also mentally manipulative
like all of these tasks, Andhe's given just enough background in depth as

(15:18):
a character that justifies his ability todo so right, Like he has this
military background, so he has someof this training that would prepare him physically
and mentally for these sorts of tasks. We see a really strong family motivation,
so he's not going to let hisfriend die. We see him the
really quick montage of him working outlike crazy when he's in prison, So

(15:41):
the physicality is there, you knowwhat I mean, Like you're given just
and maybe this is the characteristic ofit being Jerry Bruckheimer as well. Maybe
it's about giving just enough backstory becauseyou don't know a lot about his character,
but you know just enough to buyin to what's happened. And to
answer your initial question, Mark,I actually start looking at most Nicholas Cage

(16:07):
characters and comparing them to Bend Gatesalmost immediately, and so I actually found
more similarities between the two characters thanyou might expect. I mean, first
of all, I think the cameraand Poe character is extremely noble. He
has to take really aggressive action,but it's to survive in this given situation.
You get the impression that he's notgoing to go around, you know,

(16:29):
shoving people through like I don't know, harpoons or whatever's like sticking out
of a wall to like kill themlike he does in the bowels of the
plane. It's by necessity only.That's the only reason he landed in jail,
like he killed someone by necessity only. There's a really strong nobility and
all he wants is to be backwith his family. There's also the really
strong family motivation. All of thatis conserved in National Treasure. And I

(16:55):
think that Nicolas Cage plays a rolelike that really well. And I like
what he said about this movie hismanipulation, because he does manipulate Cyrus the
virus quite slyly. And that scenewhere you know, the famous gift for
Jeff when he winks at ving Rames'scharacter, he's doing that to kind of
be a jerk and be like,listen, I got one over on you,
Like I manipulated this situation. Sothere's like the braun and the intelligence

(17:18):
of this two. Yeah, Andthen one question though you said that you
sometimes there are some movies where youstop looking at Nicholas Cages Nicolas Cage and
start looking at him as the character. What are some What are some of
those movies? I'm kind of interestedbecause sometimes it's hard to draw the line.
But sometimes, like in movies likeMandy, he's read like he's not
Nicholas Cage in that movie. It'slike, do you have any of those
that where he's the character not Cage? Yeah? I was gonna say,

(17:42):
that's that's my main one. OhGod, I think, Um, I'm
like a walking encyclopedia movies, andsometimes I forget that other people aren't because
I spend like my life researching you'vewatched this year? Yeah, I've watched.
I've watched him all this, seeif he wears a tank top shirt
and all in any of them.And then I figured out that movies that
feature I'm wearing a tank top havethe highest critical scores and make the most

(18:03):
money, all of them, allof them. Uh, it's crazy.
Yeah, wasn't he in a moviewith I might be? You could feel
free to cut this if this iscompletely wrong. Wasn't he in a movie
with like Sure or something? Yeah? And that one he's a one handed

(18:25):
baker, And for some reason thatfelt like a more earnest performance to me,
where I could see him more asI forget what his character's name was
because I watched a long time agowith my grandmother, but I do remember
seeing that and not seeing like NickCage, but seeing like the character itself.
So I think it's like the roleswhere he inevitably is a bit more

(18:49):
earnest. I guess, yeah,let's talk more recent what about like Pig.
Yeah, oh yeah, I forgotabout Pig. Yes, definitely Pig.
I did not see him as NickCage. That melted my brain watching
that, like and it made me. It brought me back to like days
of adaptation. And he said thatright, you guys know at the research
I'm not trying to repeat this toyou, but like he said, he
wanted to prove to people that Ican still be subtle. And it's just

(19:14):
so good good. I thought itwas a great film. But yes,
that's one where I did not seeNick Cage at all. I just saw
the guy who wanted us a pigback that lunch scene. I want to
I want to open up up now. Yeah, oh my gosh. I'm
part of the Georgia Film Critics Associationand we gave him Best Actor. That's
like one of my favorite crowning achievements. Yeah, so cool. I pushed

(19:38):
hard. See I don't know I'mgonna get off on a tangent here,
but you said about like that lunchscene and whatnot. We just think there's
so there's such a cult fandom aroundNicholas Cage that there are such ways that
the companies that own these movies couldtotally make even more money off of these
movies. It's the reason we wrotea book about now National Treasure, because

(20:00):
we were so annoyed that no oneever wrote Riley's book from National Treasure too.
I think with the Pig example,why is no one making that restaurant?
Ah, yeah, pigs Pub,Truffle Pub. Like, there's there's
just so people someone needs to hireme to like do marketing on behalf of

(20:21):
movies because there's like so many misopportunitieshere, and this is just for Nick
Cage movies, jeez, you know. And that's interesting because I think Neon
released Pig and they do a lotof interesting marketing for their movies. They
could have done pop up bars,they could have done truffle hunts. Wait,
by the way, have y'all watcheda documentary Truffle Hunters. It's an
Italian documentary about like old school trufflehunters and it's wonderful and it's about the

(20:44):
truffle market and how like how insaneit is. So if you're ever board
and you want to watch a verywell filmed and charming Italian documentary, you
watch Truffle Hunters. Just letting y'allknow that we like an Nick Cage theme
punk something with the pig, likethe pig hop in it as part of
it, and something like Connair Ride. Okay, that's the actual treasure museum

(21:08):
maybe full of Nicholas Cages props likeNational Treasures. Y'all? Home from what
is the what's what's the movie calledthat he was in most recently the unbearable
way of like take his like littlehome space where he has all that,

(21:33):
yeah, yea of himself and likeexpand upon that. You can have the
arcade from what he's Wonderland can bein there, You can have the bakery
from Moonstrup. You can play thisthing with everything was been in his scape
rooms for like National Treasure, Treasurehunts around the park, cash around the
park. Yeah, this is honestlybrilliant. Where do we go into business

(21:57):
on that? Yeah, let's getit, like we is what like thirty
million, forty million? We canfind that between us? We do it
in Vegas? Oh yeah, yeah, Vegas guy, and how many drunk
people on the strip would totally goto this or like go on like a

(22:19):
bachelor or a bachelor at party.We'd be rich. The pig eating experience
like ax Sterling from Mandy. Youcan just base everything around it. Yes,
he's a go cart coach in thatthat'd be perfect. And then like

(22:41):
the Rock, you could have escaperooms like you don't have to like we
don't have to reinvent the wheel.We can just take stock things in cageify
them. Yeah we're not We're notputting in a face off machine. That's
not gonna happen. We can't doeverything digitally. Yeah, that would yeah,
like a VL kind of thing.That's like the ride you put the

(23:02):
helmet on. I on a cagepark now yeah, cage Land, cage
landel. Yeah, so Nick Cage'sreps. If you hear this, get
in touch. We have some ideas. Yepra you could invest into probably hunt

(23:23):
and maybe yeah, it could beNick Nick Cage's cage Land like he keep
brand Like how like we had LeroySalmon's restaurant, like a football player start
a restaurant or dam Marios tavern.We have Nick Cage's cage Land in Vegas.
Yeah, yeah, I think it'sbrilliant, Oh my gosh, beautiful.

(23:44):
But with it you have to stealthe national the Declaration of Independence like
paintball, Like you have to runover and grab the flag. Oh man,
you guys, Now, I'm gonnabe sad the rest of it.
This is exist. Yeah, it'sslow motion walking kind of kicking cans and
like just sort of bummed out walkingaround. And you know, because you

(24:08):
know, real fans would come there, but a lot of people would come
for the irony of it as well. Yeah. But that's why I'm so
glad he did pig because people realizethat he's not the kind of meme machine
that everyone thinks, and that thedude can work. The guy can put
in performances. Did you guys read, um? Did you read The Age
of Cage by Keith Fip? Ihaven't finished it yet, Okay, yeah,

(24:33):
i I'm literally looking at it overon my bookshelf. Um. It's
a It came out last year,I think, and it's an overview of
like his whole career. It's likean unauthorized like he was not involved,
he was not interviewed for it.Um. It was. It was good
if you're looking for like an overviewof everything that he's done and sort of

(24:53):
how how changes in Hollywood itself affectedhis career and the path that it took.
Um. I personally have a littlebeef with it because they reduced his
National Treasure um the National Treasure portionof his career to like a paragraph,
and I'm like, how are yougoing to do that? To like his
highest grossing you know, American liveaction films. So the sequel pulled in

(25:17):
Marvel money. Like the sequel fourhundred and fifty seven million worldwide. That's
It's like ant Man in a quantumMania money that was in the US.
That was his highest grossing live action. I think only his animated went higher
than that. Wow O wait,I have a very important question to ask
y'all. The lemons the National Treasurein the fridge? So I actually analyzed

(25:41):
John Voight's house and he does havesome kind of booze around. So maybe
he likes a Gin and Tonic,like maybe he keeps lemons around for I
don't know, but you know,I was thinking like Gin and Tonics or
maybe he's making some pie. Wehave an answer to this question, Oh,
okay, okay, straight from thedirector John Turtle toutafely. So we

(26:02):
and we first chatted with him onthe red Carpet for a National Treasure Edge
of History, and we asked himwhat was up with the lemons, specifically
asked him, we asked him whatwe ask all guests on our show,
which is how many lemons is theappropriate number of lemons to keep in your
refrigerator. We've gotten wild answers tothat question currently, see that seems reasonable.

(26:26):
Two, I agree with that,Jay, Sorry I interrupted, No,
that's okay. And when we askedJohn Turtle Tub he said he's spent
a lot of time thinking about thisbecause he gets asked some iteration of this
question quite a lot. Um andhe explained without hesitation that people frequently forget
that Patrick Um Patrick Gates. Heis and has spent quite a bit of

(26:48):
time in the South, and heloves and Arnold Palmer. So if you're
going to, you know, makeyour lemonade, you're going to need a
substantial number of lemons in your refrigerator. Oh he's Arnold Palmer guy. Yeah,
I mean, that's that's a goodone. I mean, and we're
I mean, we feel like weneed to take that as cannon since it
is coming from Turtle Tob himself.Um, but we have gotten quite a

(27:12):
range of answers. Um. Ithink um Charles Seegers. Was he the
one that told us it was alsohaving to do with like and some sort
of alcoholic beverage. Yeah, I'mforgetting what the exact one was. It
wasn't a hot Toddy, but itwas something like kind of random, Yeah,
something that like you don't really likego to a bar and just like

(27:33):
order up. Yeah, there yougo. I like that very he's just
bruining it at the house. Yeah. So that's that's the answer. Our
most recent guest on the podcast atthe time of at least this recording,
UM was Brita Wool She's an actressthat was in Edge of History as well,
and she was just like, you'retalking about you don't keep lemons in

(27:56):
the refrigerator and we were like fair, also fair, And I think Dustin
Ingram said the same, m yep, here, Devon's in my fridge right
now, sir, I need togo and take it. My O parent
that. So the four things Iwas able to guess was that like a
whiskey hot time I wrote whiskey hotToddy. When did I write this?

(28:18):
I wrote this in twenty seventeen,so I guess that it was. I
guess that it was like he hada loaded bar. Either it's for like
a whiskey hot Toddy or he doesdrop some caffeinated iced tea down like on
the like for them, so maybelemons for that. And then I put
maybe like lemon shandy and lemonade.But those were my guests. And also
they live near Philly, right,Like people love their wah wah there,

(28:40):
so like there's a lot of nicetea. He so Patrick lives near DC.
Oh DC. Okay, yeah,but you are right that they go
to Philly and we do love awah wah. So I often make a
lemon meringe boy that needs like sixlemons for it. So okay, that's
so wholesome. I mean I alsolike, I don't drink lemon based I'll

(29:03):
go, I have other homaed I'llgo is delicious. It makes no apologies
for us, do not. Yeah, hey, we have the answer now
though I feel I think a weightlifted off my shoulder. So thank you
you two. I've been really wonderingabout this since it's coming the last six
years. I've been thinking about it. So we are doing the Lord's work

(29:25):
over here on National Treasure Hunts.So it is our pleasure asking the director
actual treasure about the lemons and therefrigerator. I don't think we're supposed to
be the ones to say we're doingthe Lord's work for other people to say
of us, we agree with thisthing. Y'all are doing the Lord's work
with your podcast. Thank you.Yeah, it does. Admit it.

(29:48):
Y'a are doing great, that's all. The book that looks cool, like
I can't wait to check that outand pre ordered it and we'll make sure
to promote it on the pod andeverything like that. Oh my god,
thank you. We're super super excitedabout it. It's um, I I
will let Emily say this, butor or I'll let her say I am
wrong if I am wrong, let'sput it that way. UM. We

(30:10):
have through this podcast gotten to dosome wild things and and it just continues
to surprise us. The book wasone of those surprises, so we'll take
it. And I know this iscompletely off topic, but I just noticed
Vikings tattoo in this scene. Haveyou noticed, you know, the big
guy who says the thing about therock. Have you seen his tattoo in

(30:30):
this movie? I do not detail. I's on his neck and it says
cut here. There's a thing acrosshis neck. There's dots across his neck,
and there's a razorblade above it,and it says the drip of blood
yea. And so it's very likehomemade, probably done in prison. Yeah,

(30:52):
I did not notice. How doI not notice that was on his
neck? That's like daring people.I think it's like a note for you
know, if you go into surgeryhave surgurnal leg, some people like write
on it, so like this legnot this likely. That's like if he's
been killed. I don't understand whyyou'd have this tast He doesn't want to
be a zombie. Oh maybe yeah, the spinal cord from the thing.

(31:18):
I don't want to be a zombie. He wants to be ahead of a
job. You know. He wasin the first commercial with Jordan and the
animated characters that became Space Jam.He was one of the basketball players.
Is the first human actor to interactwith Bugs Bunney on screen. That's wild.

(31:40):
Conrad Good. He's in as aNike sports commercial where he has to
like pick up Bugs, Bunny outof a Hole. Can I just say
the most unexpected part of this moviefor me was really the fact that you
have all of these like very hardenedcriminals who are in prison for by and
large, really awful things, andthey're all working together fairly harmoniously, given

(32:07):
the fact that you would expect themall to be double crossing each other constantly
and immediately, And I felt likeevery every second I was waiting for the
other shooter drop, like when isone person going to really turn on the
rest? Everyone was sort of believingin Cyrus as their leader, and I
just found that so interesting and unexpected. Yeah. I will say I've watched
a lot of superhero things and thereare a lot of like super villain team

(32:31):
ups that occur, and there isalways like a ton of backs, like
it doesn't work. Magneto has neverNo every X Men film, Magneto double
Princess every time they keep trusting himhappen. Yeah, I mean we had
we had sent Dino in the previouschapter kind of he's the only one who

(32:54):
has gone against the group and Ididn't end well. So yeah, I
approve of this wholesome group ofminals startedto kill people working together as the things,
and we have the character of Sallycan't dance here who I think this
is almost a wholesome representation for atrans character in nineteen ninety seven. What

(33:15):
are these convicts are? Like theyreferred to her by her chosen pronouns that
there's no like throwing insults or anythinganything you might have expected from a group
of criminals in the mid nineties,And literally made a note of that in
my notes. I was I wasactually really impressed by that, Like he
she was treated just like anyone elseon the team there was and you know,

(33:38):
like comes out in the dress aftershe finally has a chance to change
and she's like handed a gun andlike go do your thing with everyone else.
I was like, wow, unexpected. Do you think that was improvised
on set? When Malkovich slipped theclip or the like, um, yeah,
I guess it's the clip into Sally'sdress because the actor Renoli Santiago kind

(34:01):
of looks down like not expecting itat all. So I wonder if that
was a John Nlkovich on the daything, because the way that Sally reacted
was like what's going on, likekind of didn't even see it coming.
So that would have been an amazingsort of on the moment thing if if
John Nlkovitch just did that. AndI love his interaction to like go to
the bone yard and then call theireyes out and then all right, cool,

(34:22):
yeah, yeah, scratch your eyesout. But I love that little
at touch where you just slipped theclip in there. Yeah yeah, and
you're right like glowing up. Inthe nineties, you don't really see that
much. So that was that wasa cool scene. Yeah. Yeah.
I have to say when I likeread in the synopsis that there there was
going to be like that Sally wasgoing to be a character, I was

(34:43):
like, oh, dear Lord,like we because because we talk about like
issues with just general like feminism andstuff on our podcast, but I was
just like, I cannot imagine thatthis is going to be handled well and
we didn't have that program because thewomen in this film. Oh my god,

(35:06):
no, I was. I wasvery pleasantly surprised, especially for the
time period. And I also like, there's a there's a scene in here
where Billy Bedlam, he kills BillyBedlam, but they kind of tucks him
into the boxes. I thought thatwas a very gentle move by Cameron Poe
to do that if you notice that. So I don't know if you saw
it, Emily, but he CameronPoe kills that guy that's covered with a

(35:29):
blanket. But they have a crouchfight in the bottom of the plane,
not a standing fight, like they'reboth crouching and and Cameron Poe actually does
like a down dog like yoga poseand lifts the guy up in the air
and hits him against the roof ofthe cargo hold plane. It's like a
very impressive yoga fight maneuver that I'venever seen before in my life. And
so that's why you see that serialkiller Billy Bedlam cover with a blanket down

(35:49):
there. If you already knew that, my apologies, but no, no,
I know. I figured that somebodyhad killed him, and then it
wasn't one of the people that were, you know, carr out like setting
up for the big plan, becausethey seemed surprised. But I feel like
if I had seen that scene,that might have broke me to see like

(36:10):
Nick Cage do like a superhero basicallymove to kill this man like I don't
know, I just it feels likea lot. It's amazing Aubrey. Did
you did you like it the CrouchFight? Yeah? I did. I
was actually really I was concerned whenit became very clear that, um,

(36:31):
sorry, what is the bad guy'sname that gets killed in the Billy Be
Okay, sorry, I'm not goingwith character name. Um, when he
goes down into the hole, itbecomes very clear what's gonna happen, Like
he's gonna find the box and youknow, he's gonna try to you know,
screw over Poe. And it happenedearly enough in the movie that I

(36:52):
was like, this is gonna bea problem, Like, how are they
gonna you know, work this wholereviewel of Cameron Poe being a good guy
in this early and so the factthat he went I was not expecting him
to go down and kill him,you know, but I thought it was
very you know, beautifully and poeticallydone in a way that was very unexpected.

(37:15):
Um And I think the fact thatthey were in this really crunched space
made it also As a viewer,I was like, there's no way for
him to kill him. You know, you cannot get leverage, you cannot
you know, create the torque canyou know, you cannot get the full
body extension. Um, so yeah, it was. It was all all
very impressive. I find I findNicholas Gage very impressive in this movie.

(37:39):
Those shoulders, shoulders, all aboutthe shoulders a little more. Honestly,
that did it for me. Ilove how he how he how he enters
this scene where he appears here inlike a plane fuselage in this big circular
hole. The last time you sawhim, he was being giving directions from
an old guy at the under atruck from where he could find medikit in

(38:00):
a firetruck. And he's still thebest route to get there is somehow going
through this Plaine fuselage. I don'tunderstand that, well why, But I
like just that shot of him framedin the circle. It's a nice just
a nice moment for him. Hereally wanted to prove that he could do
the impossible. He made it likea parcore experience for him. Absolutely.

(38:22):
I want that deleted scene now,him just parking through. That'd be amazing.
And I keep talking about the shouldersbecause like the first movies I saw
him and were like trapped in paradiseand guarding tests and it's sort of romantic
comedy. So I grew up withsort of PG thirteen Chill Cage and then
leaving Las Vegas. I watched whenI was too young, and so I

(38:42):
was always used to sort of justself destructive or like really nice Cage.
So then when he became the world'sbiggest action star with the rock Face Off
and con Air and back to backto back, it was it was an
interesting thing to watch for me whenI was like fourteen fifteen, because I'm
like, this dude's from guarding testsand now he's like the world's biggest action

(39:04):
star. So it's always just kindof stuck in my memory about his his
like this was big in those years, Like we were like a Nick Cage
action film was a thing for awhile. And that's why I kind of
talk about the shoulders. Sorry,can I ask both of you a question?
Um, since you know this filmso so well, I'm assuming you've

(39:25):
done some recon on what the actorshave said about the movie itself. What
has been What is Nick Cage's reactionto this movie, Like, is this
one of the ones that he feelsgood about because he's he's been pretty open
about his feelings about different works thathe's been in in the past, So
what was his reaction to this one, Like the negative press gets most of
it. So you know, Cusacreally didn't like being in his role,

(39:46):
like so many won't talk about it. And Cusach specifically was like, I'm
wearing birkenstocks in this movie. IfI'm going to be in an action film,
I'm wearing sandals. So whenever youwatch him in this film, he's
always wearing sandals, which kind ofis an odd choice. But Kate likes
this movie. I mean he gotlike like he defends his accent. I
know, he worked really hard onit, and he generally looks at this

(40:08):
thing is like a big success,like he digs it. Like he doesn't
want to do a sequel, likeyou know, like when Primal was coming
around, Cage was talking about wantingto do a sequel for National Treasure.
There are movies he wants to revisit. When he talks about his favorite movies,
he brings up like Once Bitten,Mandy, those kind of films.
But he doesn't really talk about thisone too much. But everything I've read
about him, he enjoyed the experience, Like he liked working with John Malkovitch,

(40:30):
he liked you know, he's reteamwith Bruckheimer, so there's a great
relationship. I think this is justone of those movies where like it's just
plain old, fun, popcorn entertainmentthat didn't you know, he didn't get
nominated for anything. I don't thinkit made a lot of money. But
it didn't make a lot of money. So it's just a fun movie that
he looks back on and kind oflike but I heard on his training though,

(40:52):
he was just working out all thathe had his own gym, but
then the rest of the cast kindof took it over, and then he
was kind of weird about people beingin his gym. But other than that,
like, yeah, I mean thisis a big hit. I mean
critics didn't really like it, butI don't know, critics were down on
a lot of good Yeah, andI have this thing I've also I don't
know, this is going to beoff topic, so I apologize. But

(41:14):
Mark and Jay Aubrey, I knowyou have not have either of you seen
the New ant Man movies. Yeah, okay, So I went with like
the critic reviews of like this isnot good basically, so I had very
low expectations and I saw it andI really liked it. I don't know
how you did you guys enjoy it? Yeah, romp and so it just

(41:39):
it blows my mind because I understandand Aubrey and I talk about this all
the time. Like action movies,superhero movies tend to get like somewhat bad
reviews, like on the surface,but I feel like the people that are
reviewing them aren't like they're watching themfor like a deeper meaning that like it's

(42:04):
not supposed to be there, likethe point of the film is to have
fun, or in the case ofNational Treasure, they're completely missing all of
the stuff that makes it like historicallyaccurate, which is one of the big
things that critics, you know,come down on. So we we have
our feelings on critics. Every thoughtI did you want to say something,

(42:25):
We have our beef with critics.That's just said exactly what you said,
Emily. I think the bottom lineis they're not watching or writing with the
general audience in mind, and unfortunately, to a lot of stock is still
placed in critic reviews, even thoughit is not reflective of the world in
which we live. So there reallyis a bubble of movie reviewers. So

(42:46):
I've been working with Rotten Tomatoes sincetwenty seventeen and as a freelancer, but
I've had to deal with I hadto look at thousands of reviews, thousands,
like scour all that stuff, andI think a lot of critics don't
look at things in context, likewhat am I watching? I am watching
National Treasure, a Disney property witha large budget that's PG rated, Like

(43:07):
you can't you can't just be like, oh, it's not Indiana Jones,
Like no, Like what is IndianaJones? Like you can't, like you
can't compare it to the classics becauseI think there's so few of them,
and so I think there is avery lazy shorthand with a lot of critics
that and also when the ball getsrolling on certain things, I think I've
watched patterns emerge with Nick Cage,with horror movies, with monster movies,

(43:30):
and I think that once that patternhits, it's really hard to sort of
shake critics out of that, andthey do forget that they're not part of
the general populace and um like whenI that's why I was able to write
that piece about National Treasure for FrontTomatoes, because it's rotten. So I
was like, guys, this isnot a rotten movie. This is a
four quadrant movie that adults, youknow, like you could take a gramp
out of this movie, Like youcould take anybody to this film and they

(43:52):
would love it. And so onceyou look at these that's my main things.
I really think people have forgotten howto look at things in context and
like what I watching and so butthat's what I've gotten after you know,
I have thousands of reviews I've hadto sort through, and it's just seeing
that's what it is. There's patternsand like just what are you watching,
Like if you're watching Primal with NickCage, you got to watch it for

(44:14):
like this is a direct to streamingNick Cage movie, Like this isn't con
error, so you kind of haveto think of it in that context.
So that's my main thought about whatI wants get wrong. And I think
it's I think it's so interesting becauseNap, sorry, you're going to be
able to tell this is what wedo on our podcast is like go like
really in depth with stuff. ButI think what's really interesting is that like

(44:37):
the big push nowadays in like generalsociety is kind of for people to like
try to be more open with theway that they're viewing others experiences and stuff
like that, like to give morecontext for themselves into like, oh,

(44:58):
maybe this person is acting this waybecause they have X, Y and Z
going on. And it's really interestingthat. I feel like that's a very
large societal push, but it's notsomething that critics have really taken into account,
like they're just like, there doesn'tneed to be context every film.
Oh my gosh, cat, soI've you said, just been distructed by

(45:21):
a cat, And it's just likeevery film I'm gonna watch is gonna be
it like should be an Oscar nominatedfilm that like maybe you know, fifteen
people are in a theater at atime seeing and that's just not reality.
And I feel like Conair got hitwith that. I feel it's just it's

(45:43):
very frustrating. We also, ifwe're talking if I don't know, this
is the first time we ever talkingto someone who has like a relationship with
the critics, space Mark. Sothis is very interesting. I love your
take on our hot takes. Butbasically, if if film critics have an
element even or just an ounce ofself preservation in them in a way,
they should be doing more to pushthe big blockbuster movies so that the whole

(46:08):
movie and entertainment industry doesn't die theway it is currently dying. And movie
theaters are constantly closing because they can'tafford to operate because of the streamer era,
and like you know what I mean, Like there's even the strategy element
there's is missing, but maybe Idon't know. I can talk about this
forever. A lot of them stoploving movies, so I have to.
I sit in on a lot ofpress screenings and then I hear the comments

(46:30):
afterwards, and you're just they Ifeel like they immediately want to tackle the
negative. I've really learned that aboutthem. Like Quantum Mania, they're like,
oh, it looks like mud andthe action scenes don't live up to
this, but I'm sorry, LikeI love Marvel MCU movies. I've worked
on a few of them, LikeI know the world of all of them.
The action scenes aren't that great,Like it's I don't think the action
and Marvel movies are amazing. Solike if you're complaining about the action in

(46:52):
an ant man in the Quantum Mania, like that's not Like I know it's
a weird thing, but I thinkthey immediately yeah, but you're right though,
that's not a proactive way to kindof be like, oh, we
need to support movie theaters, likewe need to get like we shouldn't just
be bombing on this film. Thatcould help theaters out. But I think
with Marvel, right, like Ithink the door got kicked in a little

(47:15):
bit, like it was it wasthe hottest thing on the planet, and
like thor two is not that good, but like people weren't complaining about it.
But I think, you know,like when Captain Marvel came out and
then and then Endgame ended, andnow you have like all the kind of
supposed oversaturation. People are just downon it without even thinking in context of
like I'm just watching a fun comicbook movie. So it it does get

(47:36):
annoying, it really does. Andthere's a movie I love this year.
I was genuinely surprised. There's amovie called Plane that came out with Dard
Butler and Mike Culter. It's wonderfuland critics actually liked it. Critics were
like, hey, this is good, and it was very surprised, Like
I was like, oh my gosh, Like people liked this because it's just
a simple action film. But Ifeel like it's kind of action film that
would normally get sort of hated on, but for some reason it was positive.

(47:57):
So I wonder if people are outthere actually thinking about more of like
what is this movie? And yeah, that's kind of Do you think it
has to do with anyone with thepeople that are like in the film,
I guess trying to like, ohyeah, bring us back to the Nick
Cage of it all. Like Ifeel like his films in general, right,

(48:19):
like are gonna get a bad abad rap, but like Playing for
example, I mean, like MikeHolder isn't like super super well known,
I guess for like movie stuff,but like I mean I know him from
like stuff and I like him alot. But like do you think it
was because like if Nick Cage hadbeen in that film, like, do

(48:40):
you think the critics would have likebombed it? Because Nick Cage now has
this thing? And I have toadmit, I don't know where kind of
the trajectory of his career was atthe point where con error was made.
But had there already been like ahandful of like negative Nick Cage related things,

(49:02):
and then that might have influenced Connairor am I just like way overthinking.
This was in the middle of hiswe call it the beige Volvo trategy.
Yeah, like the Rock Connair faceoff. They will have a beige
Vova when it's somewhere. So thiswas like he had done his he'd won
the Oscar Leave in Las Vegas inninety five, and his like reaction to

(49:22):
that was doing these big action films. So he was on a good run
of being in great films. It'sonly been it's kind of like the late
nineties, early two thousands he startedto kind of dip and that you have
some peaks like the Natural Treasure filmsin there, of course, but it's
like the late two thousands when youget into like the ghost Rider. I
think ghost rides kind of a tipwhere I haven't seen ghost Rider, but

(49:45):
I know it hasn't got a goodreputation for being a good film. And
then in the twenty tens he's justdone anything pretty much. It looks like
he'll just be in any film atall, straight to streaming, never get
released, that kind of thing.And as any recently he's been like kind
of like Pig when he's Wonderland waybest talent. He will do like good

(50:07):
stuff again, it seems. Yeah, But I like the Plane question because
it's really hard to separate Knick Cagefrom the movie. Like it's like,
this is a Knick Cage movie.I guess Plane was good. It has
Jerry Butler in it and so,like he's done a lot of action pictures.
But yeah, I guess you cankind of look at them as characters
in the movie, not like aKnick Cage experience. I don't want to

(50:28):
see Nick Cage in plane though.I think it would be kind of weird.
But no, you know, itwould be like left behind, but
then the plane crashes and he hasto fight people. As soon as you
put Nick Cage in a plane again, it's gonna get compared to Konnair.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like,well, it's not con Air. Like
you know, when Drastic World thesequel came out, I'm sorry, Durassic

(50:51):
Park the Lost World, a lotof people are like, what's not as
good as Durrassic Park. It's like, yeah, but what is that's the
best film of a mate exactly?Sorry, Yeah, I don't know,
like, what what is as goodas that? It's like it's kind of
an odd thing, but yeah,that's Nick Cage and Plane Watch Plane everybody

(51:12):
you kind of signed me with kindWould it be as popular? No?
I don't think it would be aspopular. If Cage was in it,
would more people have gone to seeit? Because I feel like people go
to Knick Cage films equally because theylike Nick Cage and equally because they hate
Nick Cage and want to see himlike fail in something. Oh wow,

(51:32):
Um, I think they're will waita massive talent, didn't make much money?
She was so good? Yeah,so good? Yeah, and it
in Pedro, Oh my gosh,I love the loafer switching scene, the
shoes. My my wife went andgot me fans because I love that movie
so much. She went and boughtme the vans. So yeah, I

(51:52):
was like, oh yeah, Igot Nick Cage vans. But yeah,
you know, that movie didn't dotoo well, So I wonder how much
withdrawal he is anymore. I feelpeople the people that were stoked about that
movie were like they were, theywere out there, they were talking about
yeah, exactly day, like wewere those people. We went, we
went opening day like the whole thing. Um. It starts with the watching

(52:15):
ConA like how could I let's putit this way, and I'm not saying
this because of our bias. MaybeI am. Let's put it this way.
I think a really good litmus testfor the popularity of Nick Cage today
would be putting out National Treasure threein theaters. Everyone wants it, like
there's not a single person who Ihave ever heard say, yeah, I'd

(52:37):
be cool without that movie ever comingout, you know when you ask them
about it. So if you putout National Treasure three, whatever that does
is going to be reflective of Ithink peak what Nick Cage can draw right
now and again, contexts, let'stalk real world context is super important because
a lot of people, a lotof people will go out and see that

(52:58):
in theaters, but it's not goingto come anywhere close I don't think too.
You know what, we are usedto seeing a National Treasure pull in
theaters. Why because everyone's waiting forit to come out on a streaming service
so that they can watch it athome. And they're willing to wait because
they know what's going to come.They don't necessarily care about seeing it when
it immediately comes out. We're notin the days of everyone lining up outside
of a theater for a Harry Potterrelease anymore, right, so, and

(53:22):
granted Emily and I would be atthe theater at midnight, but everyone's content
to wait to see it in thecomfort of their own home and not have
to pay anything beyond their ten dollarsa month subscription to whatever service it's on,
you know. And the budget wouldhave to be one hundred and fifty
mill because Turtle Toob, like theMeg was like two hundred million around that,

(53:45):
so I think it would need agiant budget for sure, and especially
because the whole and again this isobservational, but also from conversations with the
creators of the franchise, one ofthe draws and something they feel very strongly
about, is not just building everythingon a set. Actually going to location
to be able to feature these historicplaces is at the heart of the franchise,

(54:07):
and so the travel budgets a hugecomponent. You can guarantee. I
think that there would be an internationalcomponent to a National Treasure three after National
Treasure two did that, and soyeah, it's going to be necessarily massive,
not to mention that each one hasa big car chase that's bigger than
the previous one and being able tofacilitate that there's just there's a lot that

(54:30):
goes into it. You do needa big budget, and then add in
marketing what that's like another fifty twentyfive so you have to like two twenty
five miles then the split costs withthe theaters. I think it could pull
in three hundred probably worldwide because thereis a market for it, but not
four fifty seven. But I mean, I mean, we don't even have
DVD anymore. I mean, Iknow Nicola National Treasure was a big DVD

(54:52):
seller and probably the sequel was aswell, so we don't really have that
world anymore. I mean, Iguess you could pop it up on Disney
Plus, but yeah, it's notgonna it's not gonna go sell DVDs like
it wasn't. Oh four, Well, this is the thing. This is
the other reason. I know Ibrought it up in just earlier, but
I really don't think they do asgood a job of marketing things and taking
advantage, like Disney being a goodexample of this. They could do so

(55:14):
much more with products and merchandise andthen things like that that are tied to
their franchises more than like a Tshirt or like a Declaration of independence replica,
like they could do so much more, but they're not that. I
think to replace the sales that youwould get from the traditional like DVD,
etc. You need to kind offill in the blank there, Yeah,

(55:38):
exactly. There could be a NationalTreasure ride or experience at a Disney Park.
There could be something keeping it aliveAmerica, the America section in Magic
Kingdom. Like yeah, but Imean, what if they release one that's
just as good as National Treasure,Because I'm sure you've analyzed the box office

(55:58):
that one had legs like that moviekept making money through the weekends. So
if they take care into sort ofI think two gets a little bit I
love too, but it gets alittle big if three can kind of go
back to some of the Like Ithink people love the Riley dynamic, they
love the Cage dynamic. They lovethat we actually I love that. I
hate speaking for other people. Ilove the Riley and Diane Krueger like I

(56:21):
love their dynamic. And so ifyou can find that again and just make
it so watchable, it's going tobring in a lot of people. Keep
it like, we'll get Tob Gonverick. Like, I'm not gonna say it's
going to be that, but youtake care with the script, you keep
it simple, you focus on whatpeople like. Yeah, so too.
To draw back on our conversation,our first conversation with John Turtletub, he

(56:43):
was very very forthcoming about we aretrying to make the second best movie in
this franchise. We know that weknow that no one is going to look
at whatever we generate and say thatit was better than the first one.
Like, we're realistic about this,but we think we can do better than
the second one. I think apart of that was we did. We
have also learned that part of thereason the second movie is maybe unnecessarily complicated,

(57:10):
I will say, let's let's usethat terminology, is because they had
such a short time frame of puttingit together. It was greenlit before they
ever even had pages or ideas forscript, and they were generating the script
like Tomorrow's pages that we're recording,we're filming, we're generating in the night

(57:30):
before. And add that to thefact that this is a complex treasure hunt
where everything needs to fit together.Yet we're also not filming in order because
of all these different locations, andthen we cut out a variety of scenes
were actually have an episode coming up. It'll be out by the time you're
this episode airs for you guys.There's actually a like a novelization of National

(57:55):
Treasure too, that is effectively preserved, a version of the script that's just
prior to the final filming script,and so it's wildly different, wildly different,
and so you get a lot ofsins. It made a lot more
sense. It answers all the questionsthat people typically have because they and they
just end up having to chop piecesout so that it would fit within a

(58:19):
reasonable you know, airing screening window. So you can to kind of come
back to my main point, youcan make another National Treasure one if you
have the time, and god,they've had enough time. Yeah, And
that's a great point because you lookat maybe the first season of a TV
show that's probably been just dating foryears and they do like six episodes and

(58:42):
it's a hit, and then thepeople are like, we need twelve episodes
next year, Like that's not goingto be as much quality because you have
to rush it. You can't,it can't come about organically, and you
need more. So yeah, Ithink that does that. It makes sense,
right, like because you know Iyeah, so that's a good point
what he said they were, sothey were actually writing the day of on

(59:02):
a mystery or like finding Treasure.Well yeah, yeah for the second one
though, Oh that's still great.Yeah, to be honest, doing all
of the research that we did foryou know, for the podcast, but
also for our book made me havea much greater appreciation for the second movie
because we were able to fill inso many blanks that had been plaguing us

(59:25):
for a long time. I justI love the scene on the tilting platform.
I think it's just a I thinkabout last scene a lot. I
don't know when it's just like Ihadn't seen the film in ages until until
last night, but I still thinkabout that scene regularly and like it's it
plays my dream. It is themost stressful scene for me and any any

(59:47):
National Treasure film, which probably givesyou kind of like a window into how
me watching the entirety of Connair,which once I do, I will definitely
be contacting you to let you knowabout about it, but like what that
experience will be like for me becausethe tilt platform, Oh my goodness,
it is so stressful to me,and like, I know everyone's going to

(01:00:10):
be okay, but it doesn't matter. It's oh my gosh, no gigantic
set builds onto the sets and thatare big, Like, that's some big
builds and I guess they had alot of money. The Sibela the whole,
like Sibela Cavern, was at thetime the largest set built and it

(01:00:30):
had to be a fully functional set. It was built on the set that
is currently used for the voice Wow. Yeah, we learned that recently from
the Wibberly's, who are the screenwritersfor the films, And it had to
be fully functional because of the water. The actors had to be able to
interact with the water and they hadto be able to climb pieces. Now,

(01:00:52):
granted, only a few of thefull Sibela buildings were actually built.
The rest were CGI. But forthe ones that were built fully like interactive
set pieces, ah, I wishthere was the time laps of that,
Like the Pirates of the Caribbean movieswere great with time laps of their set
builds. Well, I'd love tosee that, like see them build that

(01:01:13):
thing, because that was big.There's some footage that you can find online.
It's not what you're looking for,but it is interesting because there are
components. They're the components that theyhave to like stand on and run around,
and then there's the parts that arestill close enough that they had to
build them, but you know,they couldn't segi them, but they're like
styrofoam and then turn them into somethingthat looks like gold. There's an awesome

(01:01:35):
clip of justin Bartha. There's thelittle throwaway moment where he's like trying to
take a giant brick, golden brickand put it into his backpack. We
actually did the math on that oflike whether that would even be possible if
that was a giant gold brick,not even close. But he that was
fully cgied. He was holding nothing. Oh gosh, like the gleaming brick

(01:01:58):
was fully cgied because they'd use theCGI primarily for was to make everything look
shinier. So yeah, you're thesame thing in Connor after all the sweaty
convicts. Yeah, look at WestEverything. I want to know for those
movies, do they just walk aroundand like were they just spraying people with
water? Nick the Semlin from Empirewho's talked to the Rock on the first

(01:02:22):
films and he has a sweet sweat. I think it's called he has an
liquid sprayed on him for a sceneto make him look sweatier. Yeah,
and Evyon spray is good too.I've had Evyon spray actors before during their
takes, like on stage, youjust douse them with some Evyon spray before
they go on set. But theywere filming in the Utah soup flats here.

(01:02:44):
That's probably a lot of real sweat. Yeah, so j we do
this every episode. Jay who getsthe Sweatbucket Award. This was the sweatiest
person in this chapter. I actuallyhaven't thought about for this one. I
don't any candidates from you two fromWillbury, any any candidates for the Sweatbucket
Award here. Not focusing on thesweat probably why I would not have been

(01:03:07):
able to get through the movie ifI was. I'm just kind of scanning
through now, like no one's particularlygiven this is quite an active scene.
No one's that sweaty. I wasgonna say, I didn't notice like severe
sweat on anyone. I think thinkI'm going to give it to I think
Viking has got some some got sweatyface when he's like, is that that's

(01:03:30):
a rock? I think he's gotfaces are are like the best in terms
of demonstrating. I feel like,like if I see, if I see
liquid dripping off your face, that'snot blood, Like I know, it's
hot. I'm sorry, he's addingto he has the it's hot sweat.
Also he's got the embarrassment sweat oflike, I just what is that thing?

(01:03:50):
That's a rock? I'm a shavedso he's a double sweater. I
think that that's a rock. Ithink is your favorite line in the film?
Is that right? Book? Oh? Yeah? Because they like for
me, I love little moments,cheeky moments in movies. I focus on
character bits, and like the factthat they took time to include a gag
about a rock. And this iskind of why I love it, Like

(01:04:12):
this movie has so many it's arock type lines that yeah, so this
is this is probably my favorite.This is my favorite line the movie because
it's just so it's just so random, it's beautiful and it struck me though,
because like not to give like murdererconvict, you know, people in
this film too too much credit,but like I did feel bad for the

(01:04:33):
way that he was kind of dismissedfor asking about the rock because everything else
in that little setup, as wewere talking about earlier, was so important
for like demonstrating everything. Even thething that looked like the plane, Like
it looked like a plane. Isaw that and was like, Oh,

(01:04:53):
that's the plane. So like ifthere was a rock there, I would
have been like, oh, maybethere's some you know, I love junk
that we need to get around.I feel like that was probably a valid
question. It's a big Indiana Jonesbolt. Are they going to use to
Yeah, that's the boulder, We'regonna drop on them. Okay, cool,

(01:05:14):
No, Yeah, you're right.That's a great question because I mean
it's there. Yeah, get outof the way. But he also insulted
him when he started this. He'slike, looking at my audience, I'm
gonna dumb this down for you all. I did like that, Oddly enough.
I was like, I've been watchinga lot of the Big Bank very
recently, so I'm kind of usedto those insults right now, but I
that that insult. I was justlike, I see the dynamic here and

(01:05:41):
it is wonderful, and none ofthem really argue about it either. They're
like that right, also talk aboutOkay, going back to my point about
no one double crossing anyone for themost part here, like the reception of
the one guy. Do you reallywant to poke the bear of all of
these convicts by insulting them constantly,like when they're like the key to your

(01:06:03):
success in this endeavor? I don'tknow, bold move Cyrus. Yeah,
he must have a rep beyond repsoutside of everyone must know about him.
He must have been on like everyyou know, deadline entertainment tonight, Like
they must know him as like somecrazy person to really get him doing this.
But yeah, I mean, noone even looks annoyed at that comment.

(01:06:25):
No, maybe they're all just reallyfocused. Well they want to get
out of there, I guess.Yeah, they're just not paying attention and
they get a chance to blow somepeople up. So I mean, this
is the worst. This is theworst of the worst. Ye. Also,
I'm sorry who thought it? I'msure you talked about this eighteen thousand

(01:06:45):
times? Who thought it was agood idea to put all these people on
a plane us? What kind ofwhat? Oh my god? Like as
soon as like in the first tenminutes, there's some acknowledgement by the a
good guy, you know, thecop figures that like, oh, well,
hopefully this doesn't go awry because allthese people are here, like all
the worst people. It's like,not only is it about it, they

(01:07:09):
had no contingency plans for it goingwrong, like you got you got a
transport one at a time. Iknow it's more costly. I know it's
gonna take longer and more resources,but like in the end, I feel
like this was worse. Have itlike one guard per prisoner or something rather

(01:07:30):
than just five. Yeah, Imean a big death toll in this movie.
Oh yeah, it's understatement of thecentury. Yeah, Emily, if
the till platforms dressed you out,wait till you see the last scene.
But we're currently up. We're upto eighteen eighteen deaths so far in the
film. I'm keeping a little tally. You're keeping a tally, oh Ja.

(01:07:55):
Jay's talis are beautiful. We didwe cover deep blue cy one,
two and three, and every chapterJay figured out how deep and how blue
each chapter was that we covered.Yeah, and he had to do a
lot of work. Like it's alot of work on it, and we
still do. Did we see adjacentfilms? And I still work an average
film and I need to stop doingit. It takes a lot of time.

(01:08:15):
We need the chart. I willsay I understand the podcasting like desire
to really go in depth to thatlevel. I think early on Aubrey and
I were doing an episode about thescience in National Treasure one, and one
of the ones that I was assignedwas figuring out you know, you know

(01:08:39):
Ben Gates is jumping off the ussand trepid and um we have Ian say
to him later like I jumped likethat could kill a man. And my
job was to figure out, likecould that jump kill someone? And I
had the screen like paused during thejump scene, and it turned out that
there was no good angle for meto actually get it because everything was like

(01:09:01):
on an angle. But I hadlike a ruler out and I was like
measuring things and then trying to findthe height of the boat so that I
could like put everything to scale andget the real like it's intense when you
be into it, it's wonderful.You There's some external shots of a quaskarantiquacy
and they never aready say how deepthey are at same point. So I've

(01:09:24):
done I've been measuring my story.I've done the exact same thing this there's
like three different levels and so it'snot to sink at this point to where
they now and it's yeah, Simmons, I've ever been given was I had
to figure out how tall Tom cruisesand all of his movies, and so
I just do so much research andI had the ruler out in so many

(01:09:44):
movies standing up next to my TV. So I had to figure out his
height and all of his films.If you like bizarre film stats, the
need to check out mark slight movies, films and flicks where he's done.
I got a whole weeks at dumbdata, whole dumb data range of how
far did The Monster of It Followstravel? How many times did Michael stop
for gas? Which maybe I maybeI'm like a weirdo here, but that's

(01:10:06):
the information I want. So that'swhy we do it on our show,
right, It's because like that's whatI wish someone had prepared for me.
You know, That's where I've mademy career out of, Like like Rotten
Tomatoes hired me to figure out howfar Tom Coach runs and all of the
movies, Like that's what that's likewhat I've gotten my work from. So
how many calories each one screen?Yeah, that was a good one.

(01:10:29):
Oh man, Okay, we needto start taking a mark lens to National
Treasure, which I feel like we'dgo even deeper, and we need to
think about this. Yeah, likehow many times do they like go to
the bathroom? None? How manydo they eat almost none? How much
money did they spend on the clothesthey bought because at that shop, that
can't be cheap. All the clothesthat they were purchasing and putting on in

(01:10:51):
that dressing room. I always wantto know the total cost of those out
the bill. Yeah, they hada couple hundred in the common Sense book.
Yeah, um no, this isthis is fantastic. Also, can
I just say on on one othercomparison, No, I have a sample
size of two here of Connair andand the National Treasure movies. But Jerry

(01:11:15):
Bruckheimer very much clearly has a thingfor like the law enforcement guys. They're
trying to do the right thing,but they are just like ten steps behind
and like not good at their jobsby and large, or the person that
is good at their job is beingignored. Yeah, yeah, that's that's
correct. Like the rock Yeah,the cops are all behind. Yeah,
that's that seems like a gone atsixty seconds, they're all behind, Oh

(01:11:40):
Mageddon. They have to bring inlike regular people to do it because of
the authorities can't handle it, andthey don't even spot it until it's like
a day away from there, theearth behind. I could write a whole
thesis about how bad at his jobat Agent Sadeski is a national treasure.
It is delightful. Listen to howmuch you pay him. That's just the

(01:12:02):
troupe. I'm gonna look more intothat. I like that. If I
find anything, I'll shoot y'all messageplease do um yes cool? Did you
all have any final thoughts about thischapter before we get out of here?
Or do you want to promote yourTwitter page or book or jay? Do
you got anything checking my note?I just asked three people questions. Three
people like four different questions. I'mI will let everyone else talk and then

(01:12:27):
I'll do my bit. I pinballall over the place. So yeah,
yeah, I think we covered allmy notes for this one. I mean,
we didn't read talk much about Cagebreaking the door to the fire truck,
but it's fine. It's yeah,he does, he gets in and
he finds the syringes done. That'snot much more to say about it.
Oh, yeah, his treasure huntis successful. Yeah, I mean like

(01:12:47):
he's like three three at this point. I like the this is kind of
the calm before the next scene isjust action. This there's a lot of
kind of ramping up of this orin this one, which is quite nice.
A lot of the score here isa lot of hitting random things with
with other random things, which Ienjoy. Yes, this this gave me

(01:13:09):
um what we call like heist planningmontage vibes from National Treasure, like explaining
how the next scene is going towork out because everything's happening so fast and
you're seeing so many moving parts thatif you don't get this explanation, um,
you're going to be lost as aviewer. So like, put it
this way, if you if youmiss this chapter, you like, I
don't know, stepped away for ahot second and came back, and now

(01:13:30):
that just the next scene is happening, you're probably gonna be pretty confused.
Ye say that, look at thescript, the whole planning scene. Not
in the script, there's no likethat that We're gonna a tight cage flow
lots of dead people, isn't Isn'tthat there's this is all written on the
day. I think maybe you're likejust before they filmed it. So that's

(01:13:51):
impressive. Yeah, I wish Iwas the person who came up with the
rock idea. I would retire onthat, Like I would just quit the
industry if I wrote that your lovefor that rock. I hyper focus on
very small moments in movies, likeI just love when things that personality.

(01:14:12):
So yeah, just it's a rock. No, it's just a rock.
And I love when they're unexpected connectionsin the macro universe of like, you
know, a an actor's acting profile. So this rock line and then the
fact that Nick Cages in a moviecalled the Rock something like that or in
this movie, not specifically regarding thischapter, but I definitely noticed the this

(01:14:36):
is no way to treat a NationalTreasure line when they're describing I think Garlands.
Yeah, And so then I wasdoing the math and I was like,
Okay, this came out in nineteenninety seven. We know that they
started working on National Treasure in nineteenninety three ish, but I don't think

(01:14:57):
they actually sold the movie until aroundnineteen ninety eight. So this is just
a beautiful coincidence. Um that Ireally appreciate also the fact that Cameron Poe
calls his wife his hummingbird yep,yep, yep. That was not lost
on me because that is very nationaltreasure too. Um So, yeah,

(01:15:17):
there's a lot of page connections betweenthese films. I mean, Nextras two
note the only film but he receiveshe finds out who killed Kennedy. That's
in a different film as well.That's that's the very end of the Rock.
He finds that that in a differentplace, a different location, and
like you know, Face Off,the Rock in con Airy, he he's

(01:15:38):
all in prison, like you go. He goes into a prison and the
Rock gets locked up. Conery's lockedup, and then in Face Off he
goes to a metal prison as well, so like he has some fun similarities.
And also it passes twenty tens thoughJoe Colorado, Space Pig and Mandy.
When he's in the woods, hismovies are really good. It's like
twenty ten movie and above. Ifhe's in the woods, you know his

(01:15:58):
flick is going to be good.I love Mandy. Have you all seen
Mandy? It's nuts, So Ijust want to let y'all know, but
I love Mandy. Okay, haveyou seen it, nout, It'll put
your soul in a headlock though,like it's very violent. I don't think
it's an Emily film. I feellike I might need to pass on that
one, Like watch whatever you seethat, watch whatever you want, Like

(01:16:23):
I hate telling people what to watchand whatnot, but if you watch it,
you might like curse me out likeafter doing it, because it's a
sensory blasting like yeah, yeah,it's nuts. Yeah, I guess I
watch it. Thank Thank thank youboys for joining us. Do you have
anything you want to plug? Yeah? Absolutely, Well, first and foremost,

(01:16:46):
thank you for having us. Thiswas really fun. Um, and
thank you you. You all aredoing the lord's work being breaking down this
lovely masterpiece scene by scene. Um. We do something similar over on National
Treasure Hunt. We don't break themovie down into scenes, but we break
the movie down into every other possibleway you can think about it. Emily

(01:17:08):
alluded to the science in National TreasureWe talk history, we talk ethics,
we talk character development. We're comparingthe films to the new National Treasure Edge
of History series on Disney Plus,and so much more. If you find
us on National Treasure Hunt, whereveryou get your pods. But I think
we're most excited about at the momentthe fact that our first book, National

(01:17:30):
Treasure Hunt, One Step Short ofCrazy, is being published. The official
release date is April fourth, soby the time you listen to this episode,
you can go order it from ourpublisher's website, that's Tucker dspress dot
com and Emily. You want totell them where they can find us on
social I'm so afraid you were goingto take it away from me usually were

(01:17:55):
doing such a good job. Youcan find us on Twitter and Instagram at
NTI Hunt Podcast and we'll make sureto share that on all of our accounts,
Deep Bluesy, National Treasure Movie sonsof Flicks. I'll I'll share it
everywhere I can share it on socials. So thank you so much. Yeah,
we're we're excited about lots of coolstuff to come. So thanks for
the opportunity, guys, Thank youvery much. This is wonderful and thanks

(01:18:16):
for giving your weekend some of yourtime up so we appreciate it. Thank
time. Any books, Yeah,I just move soons of flicks, the
podcast, movie songs in Flix.Like I keep saying this, it was
awesome. We're just I was justnumber one in India for film history,
so that's pretty cool. Congrats.Yeah, it's like it's doing good.
The show's doing good. There's numberone in Belgium, two like number two

(01:18:40):
in Portugal, so it's getting there. It's it's gonna be. I think
I'm predicting number one in the UnitedStates film History Apple Podcasts in twenty twenty
three. I'm predicting put that energyinto the universe. That's right, riding
high on deep We can see thepodcast being number one in Uzbekistan. Yeah,
that's our first number one, Ithink, which I'm happy with.

(01:19:01):
Yeah, deeply see the podcast.You can hear me and Mark talk about
a deep blue sea adjacent films recentepisodes on the Lighthouse and so that the
the deep blue scenes in the DraassicWorld energy see the Moses Saw Adventures.
Okay on there and you can hearme once a month posting movie trivia Lampardy
over the lamp Cast and a personalsited life vests, film dot Com and

(01:19:23):
find us on Twitter, Act onAir pod. So thank you once again
to our guests Aubrey Paris and EmilyBlack. It's from National Fresture Hunt for
Connor Chapter thirty. I've been JakeClewin and Mark half Myer. Come back
next week or the bunny gets it. Sigh Anara