KC: The Cloverfield Trilogy

Chris has kindly shared a couple of Kulturecast episodes I guested on in 2022 that relate to a new episode we just recorded. First up is our discussion about the "Cloverfield Trilogy" such as it is.

Episode Transcript

(00:29):
Speaking of good things to drink,mister Begley, have you ever had a
slushow? No, have you everhad a fucking slushow? Because everybody a
J j Abrams God Damn universe apparentlyhas Apparently everybody in jj Abrams bad Robot
Shit loves their slushow. Baby Queengod Lord man. You know, I

(00:51):
have a very long relationship with cloverField and the fact that we're taught.
I feel like I've talked about cloverField once a year since these movies came
out. I don't know why,with you mean, on your show or
just like in general in life,It's like Cloverfield's always there. Clover There
is a there is a true sequelcoming now. But on this episode of

(01:15):
the Culture Cast my Friends, Iam joined by my good friend he Is.
He's one of my He's one ofmy all time favorite people to work
with. He's a true mench hewakes up heavy every day. Your friend
and mine, mister Mark Begley,Oh wait, a great episode which she
is a great, big fat alien. I thought you were going to drop
any number of the misheard lines fromthe original clover Field trailer. It's a

(01:40):
lion, But do you remember allof that. No, I don't remember
any of it. I was thattune. Man. Oh the release of
this film, the first film,So that's so, that's kind of the
weird thing. So on this episode, Mark, I am dragging you to
watch the three clover Field movies becausethis was my idea. Yeah, and
and I'll tell you right now,I didn't mean, didn't mean. I

(02:02):
didn't mean I didn't mind being dragged. Actually on one of these movies,
I already know. I really reallylike a lot. The other two I
don't actively dislike in any way,shape or form. I was more curious
as to how this viewing would goon the first and the third films because

(02:24):
I've only watched those one time throughcompletely prior to this. So Cloverfield I've
caught bits and pieces of multiple timesover the years. Had no interest in
it when it came out. Imissed all of that Internet hype, you
know, like with blair Witch project. I didn't catch any of that well
when blair Witch came out. Whenblair Witch came out, I didn't even

(02:46):
have a computer, a personal computerthat actually had the Internet on it.
So when Cloverfield came out, whatwas that two thousand o one eighteen o
eight. That day is seared inmy memory. I saw the preview for
Cloverfield attached to the first showing ofthe day of Transformers, and I went

(03:08):
and saw Transfer the original Transformers.I went and saw that with a couple
of friends. And this was thiswas before the trailer. Anybody knew about
it, like I Like, Isaid, I have to mention I saw
the first showing of the day abecause it was the cheapest, be because
it was the cheapest. See itwas the cheapest, and I wasn't gonna
pay fifteen dollars see no Transformer movie. And I'm glad I didn't Searle's going

(03:35):
on? What is this? Karrossay something doing before he leaves. Also,
Rob have one in Japan? Youwill be eleven dollars. How you

(03:55):
gonna survive without Rob? He's likeyour main dudes? Hey, how am
I gonna survive without you? Idon't know, Like your main dude?
What was that? NOI think anyphone calls are pouring into the New York
one News Road as a thunderous roaringsound. Can you see something the roof?

(04:19):
What an animal size? Like that? Like shaking everywhere? And it's
like Climbers looks like you should haveleft town a little bit earlier. What

(04:46):
is I thought, it's a line. It's you anyway, It's gonna be

(05:11):
the best night ever. It's avery weird inflection point. I kind of
remember before and after clover Field asa movie goer, because Cloverfield is one
of those movies that, like,if you were my age seventeen eighteen when
this movie came out, there's probablypart of you, if you were into
movies, that got wrapped up inthe arg and then it was like a

(05:33):
summer of ARGs. It was this, it was Dark Night, The Dark
Knight had a whole thing. Andthen I want to say the Dark Knight
Rises did it. I want tosay Prometheus did it as well. Like
this started a lot of stuff thatwe kind of almost take for granted now
with I'm not filmmakers, but marketingcompanies really working with filmmakers to crap something

(05:57):
a little bit more exciting than just, you know, a trailer or a
traiser or a fucking panel at comicCon. But right like you know that,
That's why I just kind of wantto mention because we're going to talk
about the ergy but I didn't knowwhat level of exposure you had, because
again, you were not I wasseventeen when this trailer, when I saw
the teaser, and I'm sure yourewatched the teaser, the teaser for this

(06:19):
movie. The og Cloverfield is reallysuccessful. No, I didn't rewatch it
or watch it. It's so it'samazing, like it's it's I read about
it. I didn't watch it.I remember watching it and just going,
whatever this movie is, I don'teven care how what the quality of the
movie is. Like they've hooked meand then you know the movie that's a

(06:41):
successful campaign then yeah, so yeah, So let's let's start with two thousand
and eight's clover Field. So it'sdirected by Matt Reeves, who you know,
friend of Richard had him Weird howthe universe does that when you know
people who worked with this guy.You know. When our first product,
Chick under Siege two written by DrewGoddard, produced by J. J.

(07:02):
Abrams, who is a friend ofMatt Reeves from I believe either high school
or college because Richard Richard Well Richardtells a story on the under Siege two
episode where J. J. Abramscame over and congratulated them the day that
they sold the under Siege two script, which is like mind boggling and mind
blowing to me to even think about. But this is the this is the

(07:24):
there's a bad robot movie. Sojj Abrams is involved, and its stars
a whole bunch of actors who lookkind of familiar because some of them went
on to do a lot more.Some of them went on to make terroristic
threats, and some of them wenton to do Get the Confused for Aubrey
Plaza. I kind of uh so, yeah, talking about I don't feel

(07:46):
like probably was uh t J.Miller and adebt Yostman, Mike Vogel,
Michael Stall, David you got abunch of people. You got some character
actors in there who were seen veryquickly. But Begley, I'm gonna kick
it to you since this is nota movie that you have a kind of
history with like I do's what isyour history with Cloverfield. I don't remember

(08:07):
when I first watched it. Itwould have been some time in the last
since twenty thirteen. Probably. Iknow. I always say horror comedies are
not my jam, and then Inegate that by listing all the horror comedies
that I actually do like. FoundFootage, though, is even lower on
my subgenre list, and it's justbecause of I just don't they have those

(08:31):
certain things where okay, insert reasonwhy we're still filming here insert you know,
these these built in explanations for whywe're doing this kind of thing that
get well, there are some successfulones, and I'm trying to think of
my favorite right now, and ofcourse I should have written it down,
but I don't remember what it is. They're not something I explore, like

(08:54):
some people really love Found Footage andcan't wait for the next thing. So
anyway, I don't even know ifI realized it was Found footage until I
started watching it completely through the firsttime. But having said that, watching
it this time, aside from thefact of the explanation as to why we're
still filming when our lives are inabsolute peril, I actually think this is

(09:18):
one of the more successful ones,and it worked for me because the whole
time they were supposedly in the streetsof New York, I was trying to
figure out how in the hell didthey do this, because that's one of
the things that Found Footage can missis reliant on CGI, and if you
don't nail CGI and what's supposed tobe real footage, you've lost half the

(09:43):
battle already. Now, the creaturein this doesn't look all that great sometimes,
But I couldn't figure out how theydid the destruction of New York City.
I was like, is this allcomputer generated? Kind of like how
they do the Mandalorian Show and allthose. I mean, I know it's
not the same technique, but Ibought into them being in New York City

(10:05):
on those streets with buildings falling downand things crashing around them. So I
bought into the location and the localeand the destruction very easily right. And
so of kudos to that aspect ofthe production for sure. And enjoy I
kind of cared about the characters otherthan our narrator, and I think I

(10:30):
came away other than our near Icame away really enjoying this a lot more
than previous viewings, I think.And again I watched it with my daughter,
and that's always so yeah, youknow what, just so yeah,
you know. I listened to ourScience of Lamb's episode and she, you
know, her intro is very funnybecause she calls you her weird dad,
which you are weird, but soam I. We're all weird. I
mean you gotta be weird to sitand talk about you gotta be weird to

(10:54):
sit and talk about a movie fromfourteen years ago. Like you know,
there's there's there's just a level oflike strange of obsessivity with these kinds of
things where it's like, why wouldit? Why are people watching clover Field
in twenty and twenty two? Iskind of what I'm driving at right.
So what did she think as someonewho like was it even a lie?
She enjoyed? She enjoyed it andwas when they first started showing bits and

(11:18):
pieces of the creature, she waslike, oh, did you tell her
what this was before you started showingit to No, I'm sure she had
some idea that it had to dowith an alien invasion. I think that
may have been part of her Isthat what this is? I don't know.
Well, we'll talk about one ofthe guesses that was thrown out.
So when they show the creature andit's enormous as opposed to like a xenomor

(11:41):
for something that's more human size,I mean even the Queen Alien and aliens
isn't as tall as a skyscraper.So I think the scale of it caught
her off. Guarden got her attention, gotcha, and it's just a pretty
The tension is ratcheted up very well. You still get a lot of the

(12:01):
why are you out? And wejust kept saying getting the subway, getting
the subway? Why aren't you goinginto the subway? That she kept saying,
you know, they go into aconvenience store, they do this,
they do that, so it's like, go to the subway. It's underground,
go to the subway, I mean, and they tackle that issue in
the movie very well. So therewas a lot of that oh yeah,

(12:22):
oh no. And I think becausethe destruction looked so real, that also
kept us on edge, especially hersince she hadn't seen it before and I
vaguely knew that the vaguely remembered mostof the twists and turns of the film,
but was still surprised by some ofthe things they have to do,
like rescuing the main the leads Xoh yeah, oh yeah, that building's

(12:45):
toppled over, and so it wasfun to see how they did all that
stuff. It's all of its superrealistic. No, but you know,
again, we're talking about a hugealien or sea creature or what. Wichever
way it is, it will die. Who knows. By the next movie
it might be something else completely again. Yeah, look, yeah, you

(13:07):
know. I hope my friend Yashar, who you have met now, is
listening, and I wish he couldhave joined us for this episode, because
this was a movie of mass contentionbetween the two of us, and I
feel like my opinion I remember reallydisliking this movie. Remember, this is
one of the first movies that Iremember having an opinion about that I feel

(13:28):
like was formed based on things thatI draw from now, if that makes
sense. I feel like at somepoint we as film you know, film
watchers, and it's and you know, film I don't want to say film
critics, but you know we talkabout film. We are film but I
know a film critic, whatever thehell you want to call what we do,
movie podcaster. I feel like atsome point there comes along a moment

(13:48):
where you kind of realize the wayyou think about movies is starting to change,
and it's starting to take on kindof a more I'm not going to
say nuanced, but you start noticingthings and making connections, and that's what's
important. With analysis of art,is making connections seeing how this draws from
this and what this is trying todo. So this is one of the
movies where I remember him and Ijust getting into these long drawn out conversations

(14:13):
because when I watched this movie forthe first time, I didn't like it,
and I'm not sure I like itnow, but I respect the movie
for being probably the best found footagemovie ever made. And it's definitely definitely
the best for what the budget isbecause it looks like it's three times the
budget of this movie. Yeah,it's like it's shocking. Like I when

(14:35):
I rewatched this movie, all Ikept thinking to myself was, holy shit,
this looks like a two hundred milliondollar movie and it's like a quarter
of that budget, which is insanebecause again, like a movie like this
may not I mean now, it'skind of, you know, up in
the air, like a big budgetrelease like Cloverfield ten. Cloverfield Lane got
released in theaters, but Cloverfield Paradoxdidn't Cloverfield too. I don't know where

(15:00):
that ends up. But like,this kind of movie is very interesting to
me because it's such a weird studiomovie to exist. It feels completely outside
of the studio system. In alot of ways, I feel it honestly
feels like a precursor of things tocome in the industry because now you do
have JJ Abrams and Bad Robot asa big production house. They're not just

(15:22):
the creators of Lost, because that'sthe other thing. I mean, at
this point we're talking about JJ Abramsthe creator of Lost. Now it's JJ
Abrams director of Star Wars produce.I mean him being the producer of Cloverfield
almost is unimportant now. I meaneven with Matt Reeves. You know,
Matt Reeves would go on to doPlanet of the Apes The Badman. So
again, this is a starting pointfor a lot of people who fourteen years

(15:46):
later are the movers and shakers inthe movie, you know, in the
in the contemporary movie industry. Butfor me, I think my biggest issue
with this movie is, man,we're like a month away from nine to
eleven, and this is just like, it's a lot. It's a lot
of nine to eleven stuff in away that I wasn't expecting because it's you

(16:08):
know, as someone who was elevenwhen nine to eleven happened, and you
were probably what in your mid twenties, early thirties. Yeah, I remember
it differently than you remember it.But I have in the last fourteen years
seen or however many years it's been, I have seen twenty one years seeing
all the footage as a lot ofus have, and a lot of us

(16:29):
who are younger unpacked that. Andthere's a shot in this movie that is
a one one to one replication ofa one of the more famous pieces of
footage from nine to eleven, youknow what I'm talking about, where the
smoke comes down the street street.Yeah, And I was just thinking to
myself, like, this is youknow, this is pretty ghoulish, and
I don't like this. But atthe same time, that's the point I

(16:51):
feel like, I don't I don'tknow if I needed it in my found
footage movie, But if you're gonnadraw from something, I guess I think
it's pretty pretty clear point of referencefor a lot of people at the time.
A lot majority of Western film goingaudiences are going to know what the
fuck you're referencing, even if they'venever seen that footage nine to eleven.
That's the thing about this movie that, like, as an adult now,

(17:12):
I really wasn't anticipating was like thismovie is It's as close to nine to
eleven in a movie as I thinkyou can get. Like, I don't
know what else to describe it as, Like it's just it feels like,
I don't think like an allegory fornine to eleven, but like here is
the closest you'll ever get to beingin someone's shoes who was there, but
it's a monster instead. It's nota surprise that the buildings that they go

(17:34):
into are tilted on one another.I mean, it's just like some weird
things that I feel like we're justthinking about them now. It's oddly specific.
Yeah, that's interesting because I didn'teven that never even entered my mind.
I caught that obvious reference with whenthe building collapses and the smoke and
debris is going. It's like,oh and yeah, it's it looks exactly

(18:00):
like some of that footage. Ithink even one of the characters, I
think Rob even says like there arestill people out there, Like I think
that is what is said in thatclip too, because it's like a very
famous clip. Yeah, yeah,shot from I think like a like a
yogurt stand or like a sub likea sub shop. Like right near ground
zero. It's haunting stuff. AndI mean they do a good job of

(18:21):
replicating. It's just like I don'tknow if I needed it, Like I'm
not sure I need it now andfourteen years ago, I'm really not sure
I needed it. So then dowe take it as a we were right
for starting that war? Or arewe just using something to manipulate viewers into
feeling a certain way. That's whatI don't I think it's the latter.
I think it's just like again,you know, I feel like my issues

(18:45):
with this movie and you your bigissue, probably it's probably my same big
issue, uh TJ Miller Right,like him being kind of a clown.
Aside, the way his character iswritten in this movie is so unlike likable.
It's shocking that nobody else was like, are we are we really given
the whole movie to this guy,because like, the way the characters written

(19:07):
is so unlikable. It's just mindblock. It's mind bogging. Frankly,
I think if that were done today, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't be
as what I don't want to saypredatory. But there's there's that thing between
him and the Lizzie Kaplan character whereit's just like constant, and that drove

(19:30):
me nuts. It drove me nutsas well as just the fact that I'm
not the biggest fan of his.He's been funny in a few movies I've
seen, but the stick gets oldafter a while. The only plus to
having him holding the camera being thecamera person for this film basically is that,
yes, you hear his voice constantly, but you don't have to look

(19:52):
at his fucking face the whole time. His face is barely in the movie,
so you get his const stint.He's the least, is the least
of all the characters in the movie. He's the only one you see like
once, Yeah, he looks inthe you know, turns it around once
or twice and that's it. Butdid you see him dead the month?
But it's NonStop talk, like nonstop talk, Oh oh good? Who?

(20:17):
What do we do? What isthat thing? That's the other thing
that kind of drives you crazy aboutfound footage, and this is a prime
example of that. That constantly likeI can see what's happening, you don't
need to react to it. Whatis that thing? Did you see that?
What are those oo? So thetropes have found footage. You're not
a fandom, is that what you'resaying? I mean, that's just over
you. I'm like, can youimagine writing the script or found footage be

(20:40):
like character says, oh no,character says like runaway. Like, I'm
trying to think of one that II probably have a list somewhere of one
that I think does it very successfullythat avoids those tropes. And I wish
I could think of what that particularmovie is, but I'm more of a
fan of like documentary style stuff.Yeah, mocumentary style stuff works better.

(21:03):
Do that kind of found footage eLike you could lean into those tropes without
going like, I understand why.Giving me a very believable reason why you
have the camera on almost feels likefor me, that's the big need in
any found footage right. Anytime anybodyposts on Twitter, what's your favorite found
footage movie? I always use thisanswer every single time because I actually believe

(21:26):
it the Gray Gardens spoof of ondocumentary now And I can never remember what
the title of that particular one iscalled. So it's Bill Hayter and Fred
Armison, Yeah, as those twokooks you know in that famous documentary Gray
Gardens the cookie ladies, you know, mom and daughter. I think that

(21:47):
live in the old abandoned house outin Long Island or Martha's vineyard or whatever,
and they're crazy and cat ladies andblah blah blah, and it fucking
turns into a horror movie the lastten minutes. And I'm like, that's
how you do it. When Iwatched that, you start to feel the
creepy things coming on with those twoand then it goes full blown horror,
and I'm like, that's how youdo a found footage horror movie. Don't

(22:08):
tell me it's a found footage horrormovie until the last, until it's unavoidable
and then and that thanks totally suckedme in, and I thought it was
just amazing. So any that's that'smy answer for best found footage horror at
least is I didn't know it wasa horror movie or a horror show or
whatever. I love that. Ineed to watch that again actually, because

(22:30):
it's it's done so perfectly interesting.You know, I think for me,
for something like horror and found footage, I mean they kind of bread and
butter, peanut butter and jelly,like they go together so easily because again,
like when it's done really poorly andcheaply. That's why they're doing it
that way. It's because it iseasy to do and it is cheap,
and that's and that is the benefitto found footage because really it's like you

(22:53):
could call it cinema verity or youcould just call it found footage. I
mean, it's those there is amost an interchangeability to it in a lot
of ways. It depends on howit's being framed, I guess is probably
the right way of putting it.Depending on how it's framed, it could
be cinema veritator found footage. SoI mean, I've seen people argue that
this movie is cinema verite. Ithink there are moments of it where they're

(23:15):
kind of in the hospital, butthey're feel like not the hospital, but
when they're with the military, andlike that feels very cinema verite. That
feels kind of like verging on likePaul green Grass, like that very naturalistic
style of filmmaking, because Paul greenGrass is kind of like he's in the
car with you type thing, likethere's no camera there, Like I like
that, and they kind of approachit here. But most of the time,

(23:37):
it definitely feels like it's just mountedand it's you know, moving,
Yeah, TJ. Miller's head andyou know what, and it's found and
it's found later. That's to mefor the deal with the Blair you know,
starting with the Blair Witch, oreven starting with Cannibal Holocaust where footage
was actually found right after it wasshot and right you know. So that's
where you get into the whole passeffect of this being re recorded over an

(24:03):
older tape with the lead and hisgirlfriend and their tricks to Coney Island,
I think could have been used betterto bring I mean, if they use
it to break up the action orthe suspense, the heighten the suspense kind
of artificial twist at the end aswell, you know, or not really
a twist now, but the explanationat the end when they're in when they're
when they're actually at Coney Island andin the water. Yeah, yeah,

(24:29):
I don't know what. Again,Like the whole thing with the arg was
they quote unquote explained what was goingon in the movie with the oil or
not the oil company, the tagRuatto company that made Slush Show and they
were drilling at the bottom of theseabed for the stuff that they put in
Slush Show, and the monster wasat the bottom of the seabed eating that

(24:52):
stuff. And by eating the stuffthat they put in Slush Show, the
creature grew larger, and so bydrilling they awoke it. It came to
New York and destroyed New York.That is what the ARG claims. And
then we have two movies later acompletely different explanation essentially being given or something
to that effect. But the ARGthing, like, I mean, I
mentioned that he did it with this, but he, you know, JJ

(25:15):
Abrams also did it with Lost alot. I think he's kind of obviously
he got his start doing the ARGwith Loss. But that was the thing
that I remember in the lead upto this movie was the ARG and like
how excited you know, people werefor seeing like, you know, there's
all this like kind of like Facebookor I guess that would have been MySpace
profiles for the characters in the movieand all it's, you know, and

(25:37):
that I think the issue with Cloverfieldeven now, because again I went and
looked at some of the ARG stuffand I was watching, you know,
stuff on YouTube and reading about it, because again there's a ton of stuff.
They really did such a good jobat laying the groundwork, and the
movie doesn't take advantage of it.And I don't think it's the direction.
I actually think it's the script.And I actually it is the script,

(25:59):
it's not the direction. Reads Hisdirection is fine, actually right elevates it
way further than it needed to be. And we know he's a competent director.
I mean he was then, heis now, So it's not like
I question his abilities as a director. But I really dislike in this script
that all like the monster just seemsto be following them. It's very lazy,

(26:19):
and it's like this what this moviewas trying to be was like on
the ground. You see all thesepeople all the time running from Godzilla,
and you see it in all theGodzilla movies, you see people running,
and so like, yeah, oneof those now people would have cameras and
you'd be seeing TikTok's and youtubes andblah blah blah blah. So this is
movie's obviously little oppression because we're littlebit kind of on the cusp of you

(26:42):
know, the iPhone coming out andwide adoption of smartphones with everybody has a
camera. But I don't like thatthe creature is seemingly following them, because
that makes it feel less like they'rejust people who are in the city trying
to get away. It's more likethe monsters following them and chasing after them,

(27:02):
and it's just there's no nuance tothe story. It's like they go
from what's one set piece to another, and that's fine, but it feels
by the end of the movie,you're just like, yeah, I guess
that makes perfect sense that the monsterjust followed them to Central Park. Yeah,
the end. That's where I thinkboth my daughter and I were kind
of like, well, huh,But I took it. When I'm watching

(27:26):
it, I just feel like thescale of the monster is so big that
there really is no They could travelhundreds of blocks in New York and that's
really like a step for the monster. So I never quite caught onto.
Yes, it seems like he's everor she is everywhere they end up,
but I just took the scale disparityas like, Okay, they're traveling I

(27:48):
don't know how many square blocks ofNew York first to get to save the
leads girlfriend, I can't. Idon't know any of the character's names sorry,
Rob, Rob and Beth. Ohthat is it? Annabelle Odette or
whatever her last name is. Shewas in what house? She from houses?

(28:08):
She was in house. She's beenon a few. She's in that
Tale of Two Sisters remake that Ican never remember the title of. But
anyway, you know, they gothere from the party they were at.
Where they go when they get tothe military triage unit, that kind of
stuff. I'm thinking, yeah,that's that's a lot of blocks covering New

(28:30):
York, but that that monster justhas to take one step and he's covered
the whole city. So but likeyou say at the end, when they
get smacked down by it, it'slike, okay, well why them.
It could be traveling across country bynow. Yeah, well and there and

(28:51):
there's that shot and again it's it'sit's there for the movie and not for
reality, which is again it's likeI'm having a heart. This is a
roller coaster ride. This is adark ride in movie form, because the
characters do not act logically. Theyact like dummies. And because they act
like dummies, they are involved inyou know, one of them exploding,

(29:12):
them getting bitten in half and eatenby the monster. Because the script necessitates
they be beyond morons and go andget involved when they say they're the kind
of characters when they say don't gothat way, not only do they go
that way, they run at doublespeed added and that's and ultimately it's like,
well, that's fine and all.I get that you want to make

(29:33):
that kind of movie. The problemis the characters are so goddamn stupid that
I have a hard time, likeyou said, remembering their names, feeling
sympathy for them. I end upjust getting wrapped up in the footage and
see it like just being impressed technicallyby the movie more than anything else really,
and like that I think maybe iskind of the way I walked away

(29:55):
from it this time is going.Yeah, if I think about the movie,
I think about how visually arresting ina lot of ways that it is,
and how evocative it is. Itis an evocative film. I mean
again, it's evoking terror I mean, you take the monster out and it's
terrorists. I mean, you know, put the monster back in all of
a sudden, it's a monster.So's it's that it's like, you know,
you're you have really succinctly replicated somethingthat we don't have, which is

(30:18):
a lot of life. I mean, there's not a lot of footage from
nine to eleven inside of the buildingsbecause people didn't have camera phones. And
that's kind of what this feels like. It feels like in a way they're
making that, and yeah, itis that part of it is scary and
upsetting because again, you think moreabout the real life ramifications of what we're
talking about here, less a fuckingbig gass monster with balloons on the side

(30:42):
of its head. I did feelbad though, when Lizzie Kaplan blew up,
I will say that, Yeah,I mean, that's the problem with
this movie is the one character youdo kind of care about dies immediately.
I would actually go as far asto say the two characters that they give
more time to than our lead arekilled very quickly. Lizzie Kaplan and Mike

(31:03):
Vogel, who plays are the leadsbrother who's much more, much more entertaining
than Michael Stalls David is. Butthat's not Michael Salt, dynamic guy.
Yeah, yeah, I forgot.I kind of forgot that he gets it
on the bridge. Yeah, boydoesn't he It's just and it's it's sudden
too, But again, it's likeit's somebody has to go earlier. And

(31:23):
it's those moments that are so scarywhere you see it just one of the
characters that you've spent eighteen minutes with, because I was watching first eighteen minutes
of this movie is solely nothing todo with the monster, right, And
then you and then you have aboutlike the rest of the movie is just
like a complete nightmare. But youhave this moment where you see his brother
on this light pole and you're like, Okay, what's going on here?

(31:45):
And then he just gets smashed andthat's it. Yeah, and it's like
that's horrifying again, Like and Ithink the movie does a good enough job
of making it horrifying without lingering onhow horrifying it is. Mom, they
have to keep moving. I mean, you've got it. You don't know,
you don't have time to to reallymourn your your fallen soldiers here.

(32:06):
You got to get to safety.And there are some respites, of course,
like when they do first go inthe subway, we get a little
break. And I just kept saying, man, I hope they break into
all the hot dog places and allthat stuff and get some food. And
that's what I would be doing downthere. And I mean again, you
know the you have the character ofRob has to go get his girlfriend at

(32:29):
her building and she's pinned to theground by rebar Like in that situation,
I think you or I would dothe same thing, and we would be
called stupid for doing so, right, But like again, it's that's the
hard thing about this movie is likethe characters are acting stupidly, but like
in that situation, I guess theconceit might be that we would all act

(32:51):
stupidly. That's the thing. Likethat the whole rescuing of the girlfriend thing
is oddly not like heartwarming, butit feels very realistic. Like that feels
like I understand that, And thereare some like stakes with that because then
you know, we end up knowingwhat happens at the end of the movie,
so there are some real steaks.Yeah, I agree that either of
us would do that, for likeI would try to se of course,

(33:15):
save my wife and or daughter ifthey're in that situation. So that that's
one of those instances of where they'resaying, don't go that direction, and
they go that direction. I getthat. It's some of the other stuff,
like we're talking about how dumb peoplehave to be, and that is
a common I mean, that's justa horror trope in general, like going
on the goddamn bridge, Like that'sright, right, And my daughter even

(33:38):
said that, like why are theygoing on a bridge right without from the
water? Yeah, even regardless ofthat it's over water, you're stuck.
Yeah, Like that's move forward,move forward, you can't go back.
So yeah, I like it whenmovies avoid those tropes. And I wish

(34:00):
I could think of a found footageexample, but one example I can think
of is for Home Invasion films,where you get a lot of those same
kind of tropes of people doing stupidthings. And the one that's very successful
at avoiding that is your Next Andbecause from what I've understand and what I've

(34:22):
read, the guys that made thatmovie don't like Home Invasion films because of
the tropes that are inherent in it. So let's work our script so that
we're avoiding those traps where you arepushing yourself as the writer to instead of
solving a problem by having somebody actstupid, you just have to be a

(34:45):
more clever writer. So the leaddoes something smart. What is there to
foil that and then they have toreact to that. So I think the
second movie in this franchise quote unquotedoes that well, avoids those tropes well
by having our lead be a smartcharacter. That's my so. I mean

(35:09):
this works, and that's not afound footage film. It's not a home
invasion film. But you don't haveto have a dumb character simply to move
the plot along and get your stuffin, get the fun stuff that you
want to get in. You justhave to be a smarter writer. How
do you feel about some of theother things that Drew Goddard's worked on,
Because he's worked on a couple ofhigh profile things, Cabin in the Woods,

(35:30):
World war Z, The Martian.He directed Bad Times at the Al
Royale, which I did not see. I like that movie. Not a
horror movie though, No, it'snot a horror movie, not a found
footage movie either. Cabin in theWoods is pretty fun. When I think
of that kind of movie where they'replaying with horror movie tropes, I go

(35:50):
with Tucker and Dale versus Evil overKevin in the Woods. Agreed. I
think Cabin in the Woods is massivelyoverrated, But looking at his I mean
he's written a lot of stuff atis typically pretty smart. We watched Alias
my wife and I I think shecontinued with it after I sort of lost
interest. The Martian is fine.We watched that. I think in World

(36:14):
War Z. I mean, lookingat his filmography, I've liked a lot
of what he's worked on, eitheras a producer or a writer. Lost
Alias in Cloverfield Lane, I likeBad Times at the l Royale or Battle
Royale, or It's Culled. Ijust I think, I just think that
writing a found footage film is hard. I think it's not something that should

(36:37):
be approached lightly. I think itis approached lightly because it is so cheap
to make, and because because it'scheap to make, that means, you
know, anybody and their mother feelslike they can throw together a script and
go out and have somebody wear fangsand pretend to be a vampire. I
mean, it's right, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I have no problem with the democratizationof filmmaking any more than you do.

(36:58):
That's what makes found footage so good, is you know, the original the
og found footage movie. I mean, yeah, you could say Cannibal Holocaust,
but we're talking about success with thekind of success that drew the industry
to it Blair, which I meanthat is just two dudes going into the
woods with their friends to make amovie. You know, that's not there's
nothing to it. I mean,that's just some friends going, let's make
a movie. And that movie hasone one hundredth of the visual effects budget

(37:22):
that this movie one one thousand.But yet they draw on that same well
of tropes and you know, againto levels of success that are varied between
both projects. I think Cloverfield iskind of outside of Blair Witch. It
is the definitive found footage movie,even if it is kind of a big
budget Hollywood movie, Like they don'tmake Move, They're never gonna make another

(37:45):
found They're never gonna make another twentyfive million dollar found footage movie. That's
just like, right, that's notgonna happen. That doesn't sound like a
realistic thing, right, I don't. Yeah, I just that's a lot.
I think nowadays a people approach somethinglike that at probably morphs at some
point to just a straight out narrative, right, which I mean is the

(38:07):
funny part because we have because Iguess that's what the ultimate question at the
end of the movie, is wheredid the creature come from? Like you've
mentioned, they mentioned in the aargthat the creature comes from the water.
Maybe there's a falling satellite at theend of the movie. That seemed to
be what they were going with atone point was kind of had to do
with the monster, and then theychanged it. Yeah, And that's always

(38:28):
confused me because I just assume,oh, it landed right. But you
know, in the end of theend of the movie, you have the
two leads who go underneath a whatis it like a little tunnel in Central
Park and the tunnel do they getdo they black? I guess they died.
I guess who knows? Doesn't sayanything about the people who doesn't say
if they found two corpses with thatcam corder? So who knows? So

(38:51):
I have no idea. There wassomething on the internet on YouTube, the
clover Field Files. It was afan made film and apparently they got Michael
staald Avid to be in it,reprising his role as Rob. They don't
think that that's official. I mean, look, there's another movie coming out,
so maybe they'll address it. Ican't imagine. Fourteen fifteen years later,
anybody cares that was involved in theoriginal movie, but who knows.

(39:13):
I mean maybe Michael Stault David wasinvolved in something as recently as twenty nineteen,
so or I think even more recentlythan that with the Cloverfield Files.
So hey, people still care aboutthis movie though, and people like this
movie a lot, and I stillthink that there are a lot of people
that really want to know more aboutCloverfield. So that brings us to tick
ten Cloverfield Lane Yay. So yeah, this movie not directed by Matt Reeves.

(39:38):
It's directed by Dan Tracktonburg, whojust had his own big franchise movie
come out with Prey, which it'sfucking good too. Man, haven't seen
it yet. I am excited towatch it. Watched it with the kid
and we both really really liked it. I will have to watch it then.
Because this movie is not written byDan Tractonberg, that movie is praise

(40:00):
right, I believe. So yeah. This movie is written by Josh Campbell,
Matt Stuken, and Damian Chiselle YouHad Damian Giselle of Whiplash and La
La La, based on a storyby Josh Campbell and Matt Stuken. It
is produced once again by our goodfriend mister J. J. Abrams and
the stars Mary, Elizabeth Winstead,John Goodman, and John Gallagher Junior.

(40:21):
And if that sounds like a veryshort list of people to have in your
movie, that's because it's say threeit is a stage play. It is
a three person story. Yeah,it's a stage play in a lot of
ways. So, mister Begley,tell me a little bit about your exposure
with the first clover Field sequel Cloverclover verse. That's a stupid sorry,
folks. Yeah, I just rememberit. This was the first entstence of

(40:45):
that very obvious We took an existingip or property and squeeze it into this
ip. That stuff has been donefor We've we've talked about this before a
lot of this, a little bitmore about hill Raiser, a lot of
the hell Raiser movies, a lotof the Saw movies, a lot of
the Diehard movies. These franchise exactly. Yeah, it's literally started as an

(41:09):
X Files script. I believe theystart as something else. They get bought
by a company that has an existingproperty that's done fairly well or reasonably well,
and they shoehorned in make some changes. So this I remember hearing the
little bits and pieces of this didn'tstart as a clover Field movie. It

(41:30):
was called this. It was aboutthis. You know, these things get
tacked on at the end. Butbeing a I don't even know if I
had seen Cloverfield at that point whenthis movie came out, honestly, but
I like John Goodman, I likethe other guy that John gall Gerd Junior
fairly well. But I really likeMary Elizabeth Winstead. So I was interested

(41:52):
in seeing the movie because of that. And when I read the description or
maybe even saw the trailer where it'sa woman in peril film, for the
most part, I was like,oh, I like that. I like
that idea, And then I watchedit and thought, oh, yeah,
this is great. Up until theend of the film, I think,

(42:13):
and I'm just going to put thisout there right at the beginning, and
I understand why they didn't do itthis way, but I think if you
had left that clover Field name offof this film, it would have been
more successful to have that be anabsolute surprise at the end that they honestly
are aliens. You mean, yeah, that there it's not that it's an

(42:34):
alien attack, and it's though andit's those aliens or what you know.
We know that whatever they shoehorned thisinto the clover Field universe, that's fine.
I don't think aliens in any way, shape or form were a part
of it. Maybe they were originally, However, regardless of any of that,
I think they wanted people to gobecause the clover Field name is in

(42:55):
there. But I honestly think thatif you had just released this as ten
mocking Bird Lane and people are inthe theater and they're seeing slush Show,
they're seeing Kelvin, they're seeing thingsthat are in the jj Abrams universe,
and they're starting to go and thenat the end, when she finally sees

(43:16):
an alien, either the ship orwhatever, she sees evidence that this is
not a man made catastrophe or thetragedy or war or something like that,
she sees, oh no, thisis actually aliens. Then people would have
gone, oh shit, this ispart of clover Field, and that I

(43:37):
think would have created the buzz postrelease. I mean that would have come
out. This came out what year, so people were very much Internet savvy,
were very much this. I thinkthat the buzz that they wanted originally
would have been created that very firstday that it was released, and people

(43:59):
got out of the theater or evenin the theater with their phones and we're
going, it's a clover Field movie. It's a clover Field movie. Oh
my god. Then and word ofmouth and it would have exploded, I
think as much by attaching the cloverField name to it. That's just my
opinion, my uneducated opinion on that. I'm not sure how educated they were,

(44:20):
because what's the point of calling thisclover Field Well that it ruins You're
expecting a monster to show up atsome point. You're expecting one monster to
show up, the monster from cloverField, right, which is again like
that I think for me is like, you know, this movie is really
good, but at the same time, this movie is also not good at
all because I can't I have ahard time at balancing the issues that this

(44:45):
movie had coming into it once JJAbrams and crew bought it and the movie
that we get because I cannot takeaway the last ten minutes of this movie.
I mean, I'm not going tolet it soil my entire viewing experience,
but that, coupled with the henCloverfield Lane name, really does this
movie no service. Because this movieis really good. The script about the

(45:08):
bunker stuff is really good. It'sreally well thought out, it's kind of
quirky. It's menacing without having tobe overtly menacing. John Goodman turns in
a fantastic performance that I still contendshould have been Oscar nominated for Supporting Actor
and it wasn't. John Gallagher Juniordoesn't show up in a lot of movies.
He's more of a stage actor.He's in I think the third season

(45:30):
a West World. And yeah,I mean, Mary Elizabeth Winn said,
My god, I mean, I'mnot even a fan of Scott Pilgrim and
I like Mary Elizabeth winnsaid, Andshe makes that thing prequel halfway watchable.
She kind of does. But youknow what, this movie should never have
been called Cloverfield anything. I hear. That's that's what I was getting out.

(45:51):
What are they wait? Yeah,I agree, And I think it
spoils any surprise at the end.You're not surprised when she gets out and
it's alien. You're expecting that.And have some faith in viewers, have
some faith in turning this into amarketing campaign just by virtue of it being

(46:12):
part of that universe without the nameattacked. Like I said, ten whatever,
come up with the street you knowthat you lived on tin whatever?
Because for one thing, that's misleadingbecause it's not ten Cloverfield Lane. Nobody's
gonna have nobody's gonna live on astreet that has the name of the first
movie in a you know, itdoesn't make any sense to call it that.

(46:36):
It should have been a surprise foreverybody in those first screenings of the
film, like they did with thetrailer for the first movie, right or
if you went and saw Transformers atmidnight or the next morning, you got
to see this trailer that you didnot know about the movie. And you
know what, they even have areveal moment that they live at ten Cloverfiled

(46:57):
Lane, Like, why do youeven have this revealed moment in the movie?
We know that doesn't have any bearingon literally anything, but okay,
yeah, what's okay? So what'syou know, we haven't talked about what
this movie's about. So Mary ElizabethWinstead is captured by John Goodman, who
is a scientist I guess or workedwith scientists, and he knows that the
aliens are invading and so he's rushinghome. He hits her car, puts

(47:22):
her in the bunker with John GallagherJr. Who I guess he knew he
knew him before, the whole thingwith the bunker, and then the rest
of the movie is her trying tofigure out whether or not there actually is
some sort of catastrophic event going onoutside and John Goodman trying to prevent her
from leaving the bunker. It's agreat setup and then it just shits the
fucking bed so hard. Like,the last ten minutes of this movie are

(47:45):
awful. They shoot it in darkevening light for a reason because it's it
looks cheap, because it's not good. Because when you light things really low
lit, it's because you're trying tohide the fact that they're not well made.
Yeah, I forgive. I thinkI'm a little more forgiving of the
last ten minutes because I enjoy thefirst. However, many minutes come prior

(48:07):
because like you mentioned, John Goodman'sperformance for one thing, and then,
like I mentioned earlier, I thinkthat she has written as a very smart
character and it does pretty much everythingright completely. I've never seen a character
tie their thing to their leg andcrawl through things like that. That's like

(48:28):
it's like, that's so like thisbeyond well thought out character moment. She
from the instant she wakes up inthere, So she's leaving a bad relationship.
At the beginning of the film's dictedmentioned that to Cleo when I don't
know if she knows who he is, sure she does with Rockety Raccoon.

(48:49):
Same, Yes, that's right,that's right, that's right. She's distracted,
she's distraught, she's a little biton guard. She has a fucking
moment at that gas station where shesees the truck behind her. It's the
middle of the night. She's awoman alone, so she's on edge as
well, gets hit, gets wakesup in the bunker with her leg in

(49:09):
a brace and she is handcuffed toa bed. So she's obviously her mind
goes to the first place I thinkmost of us go to in that situation,
that she has been caught by arapist or you know, worse right,
and so's she has that mindset fora while, for a good while,

(49:31):
and so she is trying to escape, even though John Goodman and John
Gallagher's character both telling her, no, you don't want to go outside,
And I'm always kind of relieved whenwe get to the point where the woman
is outside and Mary Elizabeth Winstead realizes, oh, this part of the story

(49:51):
is actually true. Something has happened. There has been some wide scale event
that has poisoned the air, becauseyou get it's hard up to that point.
I think maybe knowing okay, yessomething is actually happening to say,
Okay, relax your this isn't theproblem. Escaping him isn't the problem just

(50:13):
yet. It's it's this, what'sgonna how are you guys going to survive?
What is going on outside? Thatbecomes the problem, and it's a
little bit more interesting of a problembecause they all have to figure out a
way to work together to solve it. I mean there it's solved for them
a little bit because they're safe inthe bunker. So you you almost expect
more of those issues like the fangoing out that they have to solve,

(50:37):
and she has to go up inthe you know, that gives her that
experience of going into the vents tofix that, and so it's I just
think it's pretty smart at every turnwhere the problems are solved by someone who's
not acting like a dummy like theymight do in the first film, Like
I was gonna say, Rob fromthe first film would not cut it two

(51:00):
seconds down in the ten I wouldcontend that the ten Cloverfield Lane Bunker is
more dangerous than the monster in Cloverfieldis. And you know, the poster
says monsters come in many forms,and you know it's fine. But I
think my biggest problem with this movieis because there is that last ten minutes

(51:20):
of abject stupidity. The finale ofthe film feels truncated with John Goodman like
oh yeah, like completely, likethey give these stupid alien story screen time
over John Goodman is what it feelslike, and the alien story is only
in the last ten minutes of themovie that they introduced the aliens for the
first time in the last ten minutesof the movie, as opposed to hanging

(51:43):
it on the John Goodman character havingthe finale, which is the important character
for her to have a meaningful interaction. Yeah, I forgot. It's been
a while since I've watched this one, but I have watched this multiple times
before watched I watched it on myown. I think I had my my
wife watch it with me one time, and I forget. I'm like oh
shit, we're already to that point. We're already to the acid bath point

(52:07):
and thinking that that went like you'resaying that their interactions were a little longer,
because it seems like we go fromdiscovering that the girl Megan that he
keeps mentioning wasn't his daughter too prettysoon after that, John Gallagher's character is
taken out, and then very shortlyafter that, John Coodman's character is taken

(52:30):
out. So yeah, I forgetthat that happens so rapidly because prior to
that, we're kind of moving alonga little more slowly. The pace is
a little more stretched out, andthen it's like bam bam bam out to
the aliens, because that's the importantthing. I don't know if how I
feel about the twist of it.Turns out Howard was keeping a girl down
there anyways, So he's just afucking serial killer or a murderer or no

(52:55):
different than like the Toy Box Killersor Gary Hydnick, Like I guess is
that what? Yeah, it's like, that's kind of that's a twist for
a different movie. It's they don'tbreathe twist kind of, you know.
Yeah, I like it, though, I think it. It just doesn't
serve this movie, not the narrativethat this movie is going. Well,
I think what we what we accomplishwith that is, Okay, she does

(53:17):
really need to get out of here, because at some point she's lulled into
okay, yeah, well and they'reso she's initially trying to get out because
she doesn't believe him, thinks thathe's is actually what he ends up being.
So we got to stop that.So we have the lady outside who
ends up dying and because of thepoison air, So okay, who he

(53:40):
is telling the truthful? Maybe he'snot a creep, Maybe he's just not
a very well social you know,he doesn't have good social skills. And
then oh no, yes he isa real creep, even worse than I
thought, or pretty much exactly whatI thought. He has kidnapped a girl
and she apparently died, and mostlikely he killed her because she tried to

(54:02):
leave. And so I think thatgets us back to, oh shit,
I gotta get the fuck out ofhere right now. If they had done
that with the aliens earlier, Iwonder how that would play, But I
think their their point is here.Oh I've gotten out, I'm safe.
I've crafted myself this wonderful little hazmatsuit and so now I'm now I'm safe.

(54:25):
And then oh shit again, onceagain we have another twist that's like,
no, you're not safe because hewas right and it is this and
there are aliens. I guess thereare aliens, and you're screwed, actual
aliens who may or may not justbe giant spaceship with mal I was that
an aliens was the spaceship? Thealien is it? Is it like the

(54:49):
creature from the first movie where thelittle things they like shake him off and
the big thing is just like acreature that looks like a spaceship. That's
kind of what it seems like.Yeah, I am confused by that as
well. I'm not sure because yousee a couple different things flying around.
But then when she's getting sucked up, it's like she's going up into the
butthole of the spaceship. But it'sit's like a mouth, like a beat.
It's I don't I you know.It could be that that's just their

(55:13):
armor and they look like a spaceship. Yeah, I don't know. I
was not a fan of pretty muchanything from when she gets out of the
Bunk group. But everything else beforethat is so good, and I really
wonder if that's where the script changedhands, like, you know, Yeah,
I'm curious to as to what It'salways been my understanding or I've always

(55:35):
assumed it was pretty much a straightwoman in peril, right. The seller
was the name of the movie,and when she gets out, that's it.
So I don't know if there wassomething else after she gets out in
the original, But yeah, Imean, if you're going to do that,
like I say, make it ustotal surprise. Yeah, not give

(55:57):
the audience a really big hint thatat some point there was going to be
an alien in this because it's gotthe clover Field name on it. So
let me ask you, when youwatch this movie for the first time,
did you assume because there was cloverField the name, there was going to
be some bullshit at the end.That was my assumption. Yeah, I
think it's a fair assumption. Atsome point you go, well, maybe
it's not. When she gets outand then she takes the helmet off and

(56:21):
it can breathe the airror and it'slike, okay, I'm fine, you
know, but he was crazy.I don't know what happened to that gal,
But everything's cool now, and thenyou start to hear the rattling and
the ship and it's like, oh, okay, that is where we're going.
I mean, why why else wouldthey call it this If that's not
where we're going. You wouldn't callit that and have it be you know,
like inbred zombie people or something thathe had been creating. I don't

(56:45):
know, I don't know where elseyou go, but well, and that's
and that is. I think that'sthe thing for me about this movie that
I always think about is with theaddition of the clover Field name, you've
now set the expectation that it's goingto be one thing. Yeah, and
if it's not that, then peopleare going to be equally as upset because
it isn't if there were no aliensat the end, I think people would

(57:05):
be there would be a different groupof people who'd be disappointed because it has
ten clover Field in the name andit's not something akin to the original.
I mean, that's the thing.If you like the original movie, you
might not like this movie. It'scompletely different. This is a really different
This movie is a Honestly, thisfilm is a film that would probably up
until the last ten minutes feel moreat place in the seventies. This could

(57:27):
you know, this is akin tolike a Polanski film in a lot of
ways. That yeah, and that'swhy I really still like it. And
excuse the last ten minutes because Ithink that first part is the first two
thirds of the film are great.When that's I like those kind of movies
when we say it's literally a differentmovie, it's because it literally is,
right, I would be curious.I would be satisfied with her getting out

(57:53):
and that pretty much being it,and realizing he was lying, was I
think everything that comes before it isgreat and she doesn't have to encounter any
any other because that's what that's whata lot of those kind of films do,
where you escape the one bad thingand there is another bad thing outside,
like his cohort or something, orthe guy that's like, oh,

(58:15):
I'll take care of you, andthen you end up right back in the
bunker, right. You know,that's a lot of times how those movies
play out. But knowing that mostlikely it had nothing to do with aliens
at all, it's just it's kindof a head scratcher. I don't know,
what. I don't know what drewthem to that script to think,

(58:36):
oh, we should attack on tenminutes of alien stuff at the end of
this film, just to have somethingwith the clover Field name on it.
You know. JJ Abrams has goneon record saying that he didn't want to
do clover Field too because of filmslike Godzilla and Pacific Rim which I think
the original clover Field I think isbetter than those two movies. I think
clover Field is probably still the bestAmerican made Godzilla film too. In a

(58:58):
lot of ways, it's better thaneither one of those three Godzilla movies.
Now, never mind any one ofthose three fucking Godzilla movies. But my
god, Like, what in theholy hell they were thinking with this script,
being like it's it doesn't make anysense why this is a clover Field
movie. I think that's the bigtakeaway every time I watch this movie is

(59:19):
like, what does this have todo with clovers Yeah, nothing, nothing,
And they do, like, youknow, people want to complain about
and we'll talk about it when wetalk about Paradox. I think Paradox actually
makes sense why it's a clover Fieldmovie. This movie like again, like
that's why I said like this movieis at times immensely successful and then at
other times a complete fucking failure becauseyou can't reconcile the two. The last

(59:40):
ten minutes are a different movie.I'm sorry if people don't like me saying
that, and I'm sorry that myopinion is I liked this movie up until
that point, and then I wouldcontend that the people who made this movie
should have somebody should have put theirfucking foot down and been like, this
is this doesn't make any sense becauseit doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
I agree, I agree. Itlooks cheap. Man. Save that money

(01:00:02):
for something else, save it forthe marketing campaign. I don't know,
Like what JJ Abrams couldn't make amovie that's not a clover Field movie.
Yet, you can't just produce agood script. I don't get it,
Like, you can't just produce agood script. I guess the point is,
in a way, we can't reallydo the New York setting again,
the New York City, Manhattan settingfound footage. You know, let's have

(01:00:27):
it a little ways out from thereto people that don't know what's going on.
But again, why a woman inperil trapped in a bunker? What?
What about that script. Maybe itcould have just been a family almost
like Color out of Space in away where something weird starts happening on there
far right, and maybe they haveto deal with the small cloverfield like maybe

(01:00:52):
maybe maybe this movie is set outin the middle of nowhere and they just
have to deal with a bunch ofthose little parasites because those fucking things are
scary. They make you explode ifthey bite you. Yeah, I don't
know, like a Kelly Hopkinsville Goblinsituation where it's like a family under attack
like straw Dogs, but with alienstraw doggs with aliens, right, which

(01:01:12):
is movie could have been? Yeah, you know, why not that,
Mike, Fuck, let's write thatmovie me and use straw doggs with aliens.
Does that exist yet? That's theKelly Hopkinsville story pretty much a family
under attack by aliens. That's whatthey should have been. And you know
what, then you do have acloverfield tie in because at the end of
the movie, you oh, thepower finally came back and you see the

(01:01:34):
oh we're we're reporting from New York. You know, the clover and whatever
is dead, you know, butthe you know, these people were in
upstate New York. So the creatureshave already made their way up there.
I don't know. We're doing theirjob for him. Fuck man, And
there's your Cloverfield connection, and youdon't And it doesn't have to be set
in Louisiana, which is farther fromNew York than anything else, frankly could
have been. And that may havebeen the thought process, and they go,

(01:01:55):
well, you know, we actuallyhave this script that's sort of similar
to that just sitting here, sowe'll just use this. Maybe who the
fuck knows. That's the problem.It's not very clear where what got excised
and what got grafted on, becausethat's what this feels like. What dialogue
is there in the bunker that theyreally added, right, right? I

(01:02:17):
mean right, because it's all speculationas to what's happening outside. Right He
mentions aliens, But that very wellcould have been an original part of the
script because it didn't. He's leadanything. He's being pretending to be her
savior. He also just happens tobe. It didn't have to lead anywhere.
When she got outside, there didn'tactually have to be a danger outside.

(01:02:39):
Yeah, she could have been gotshe could have gotten out and then
like the cops were waiting for hertype thing, you know. Yeah,
I mean in a different you knowwhat, the other version of this movie
there may have been like people lookingfor her and they find her at the
end, you know, something likethat. You know, I don't know.
I mean that's the Earth three twelvetimeline. I think that you're talking

(01:03:00):
about. Oh for that movie gotreleased. God, yeah, it's And
that's the problem with this movie.It's a really good movie. It just
man suffers, suffers so hard frombeing a clover Field movie. Yeah.
I don't think it does any Itdoes not do the film any service to
have at the least that aim yeahon it. Yeah. No. And

(01:03:22):
then and it doesn't help the lastone much either, right, yeah,
because I was about to say,and then we come to the last one
where the last one actually is kindof a clover Field and it has and
it has its own problematic release thatpissed everybody off. I mean, please,
I mean again, if you're ofa certain age with the original Cloverfield,
you remember the arg but we're allof a certain age to remember what

(01:03:45):
they did with Cloverfield Paradox, whichwas novel. Yeah, this one,
I remember hearing about like, oh, we're going to do this again.
Take We're gonna take an existing script, we're gonna jam in clover Field.
And I actually in this one cantell where they jammed stuff in. I
mean you can tell them in Tinclover Phil Lane. It's just really the

(01:04:06):
ending. But here around in cloverten Cloverfield Lane, you're here, it's
very obvious as to what's been shoehornedin to make it a clover Field movie.
And so you hear about this,you hear, you start hearing about,
oh we're doing another one of these, and oh it's gonna be released
some crazy way. And then oh, I'm sitting at my parents watching the

(01:04:29):
super Bowl and a commercial comes onthat tells me I can watch it right
after on the Netflix. So Ibelieve we did actually go home and watch
it. I were like, whatin the hell is this the same thing?
I know that I watched it.As soon as the super Bowl was
over. I was at my buddy'shouse and waiting for my wife to get
off of work, and him andI sat down and we watched it.

(01:04:51):
Yeah, and uh, I canI can I speak for the both of
us and saying the first time weboth watched it. We probably both didn't
like it very much. I wasjust absolutely flemixed by it. Right.
It's like there was like why doesthis exist? There were some interesting visuals,

(01:05:12):
and I liked some of the ideas, but what made me laugh was
the whole the whole Donald logue scenewhere they're watching that news thing. And
I didn't make the connection. Probablyread about it or saw it online the
next day. We had the samelast name as John Goodman's character. Oh,
and they're not supposed to be thesame character. But the lady,
the newscast lady is the woman thatwas outside the bunker in the in tin

(01:05:38):
Cloverfield Lane. I wouldn't have madethat connection, and I think it's sort
of irrelevant except as an Easter egg. But it's very obvious that that whole
thing was slipped into the film toexplain how this is a part of the
Cloverfield paradox. Yeah, let uswatch the television shot from behind the characters,
so you don't have to see whatthey're Gumbatha raws like on her phone

(01:06:00):
recording dialogue. Yeah, we wantto watch the screen now. Yeah,
that's what it feels like, likethis is from another movie again. Yeah,
it's very obviously not a part,not a part of the original story.
So what did you think watching itthis time? I actually enjoyed it.

(01:06:20):
I still like a lot of thevisuals. I like the idea well
for one thing. I like thiscast as well. I like just about
everybody in it. I'm trying tothink of if there's anybody I'm not super
familiar with the blonde gal that popsup in the you know, with all

(01:06:41):
the wires. Oh, Elizabeth DEBICKI, yeah, I know I've seen her
in some stuff, but everybody elseon there has been in shows or movies
that I've watched and really enjoyed.Googo is it? Imbatha raw Imbatha ra
yep. She was on a showwith keif for Sutherland that my wife and
I watched, didn't laugh. Idon't think it lasts more than a season,
but she's in a lot of interestingstuff. I like Chris Doubt,

(01:07:04):
I like pretty much everybody in it, so that part's fun. And what's
his name from? And Glorious Bastard'sthe German actor. I really like all
of them. So I like theactors. I like a lot of the
funky body horror stuff. That's goingon, and it grows to my daughter

(01:07:24):
out So that was fun. Theworms she's she has an aversion to on
screen vomit, and so so whenthat scene happens with the Russian guy up
there, she was like, ohGod, and then it's all you know,
it's just like all over him andstuff. She was not digging that.
I again, I kind of likeif they had just left it alone,

(01:07:45):
I probably would have liked this evenbetter than having that funky tact on
ending and the insert of that newsbroadcast. So the movie is directed by
Julius Ona. It's screenplayed by Orionutzil Uzel or an Ouzel or a Newzel.
It's produced once again by our goodfriend mister J. J. Abrams
And like you mentioned, Googo both, Elizabeth Debickie, Daniel Brule, Chris

(01:08:08):
o'dowll, David ol whioh Jesus Christ, how many more good actors. And
yeah, it takes place on aspace station, the Cloverfield Station, where
they're trying to solve the energy crisisby doing particle acceleration. As for me,
yeah, so you mentioned kind ofthe weird marketing thing. After the
super Bowl movie comes out, everybodywatches it. I fucking hated it first

(01:08:31):
time I watched it, and againit's just like what like it? I
remember thinking, okay, so whatdoes this have to do with Cloverfield?
And then it felt like in tenCloverfield Lane it was tacked on on this
it was like nailed on, Likeit was like it was like hung on
as it's running out the door,like Jesus Christ, they didn't even They

(01:08:51):
was like, it's like the Lacroixof Cloverfield. You know, they whifted
the Lacroix the Cloverfield name over it, like there, you know, it
has the monster at the end.And then you know, I've gone and
read things and listen to people postulateabout how does this connect to Cloverfield And
if you play this movie with Cloverfieldthe original movie, the moment they turn

(01:09:13):
the particle accelerator on is the momentthe creature shows up. Yeah, I've
heard that, which is fine,but they've already explained where the creature came
from. And ten Cloverfield Lane hadnothing to do with Cloverfield. This one
does, question mark. It givesthem multiple universes exist here. Yes,
yeah, it gives them the opportunityto explain like, well, that's Donald

(01:09:39):
Loge's whole speech. You can havethese multiple un you know, it will
even disrupt the time space continuum whereyou have multiple universes and where they will
interact. So you can kind ofexplain the different timelines of the first two
movies and this one, this onedoesn't have to happen before the events of

(01:10:00):
Cloverfield or of Tin Cloverfield Lane.That can be happening simultaneously because we have
alternate universes, right, So they'rethey're it's I mean, it's just it's
like comics. It's like the comicsmultiverse, like Doctor Straight It's it's before
it's like those like though, butwhen I was a kid, because they
started creating that stuff, because youknow, back in the day, back

(01:10:25):
in like the Silver and the Bronzeage, when people were writing different stories.
So let's say Iron Man shows upin a Spider Man comic and does
something, and that's now one timeline, right, you gotta keep track of
that too, instead of just youknow, it's just it's a one off.
It's just it's just a comic book. It's a one off. He
doesn't have to adhere to what hedoes in the normal Iron Man, but

(01:10:49):
it creates now this thing where oh, well we have to connect everything,
and the only way that we canactually really do that is to say,
oh, they're separate timeline, andit becomes cheap. And that's the thing
about the MCU and other properties thatdo this that ends up making me tune
out because I can't keep track ofall that ship in my little pea brain.

(01:11:13):
Well, and the stakes disappear towhen you're like, well, Iron
Man's dead in our universe, butand every other one it's alive, and
it's like, well, what doesit matter that? Right? And for
this movie, I was like,oh no, I'm not going to be
able to keep track of what's It'spretty it's pretty simple. The movie doesn't
even explain it. All. Theexplanation is really done after the fact.
Outside of the movie. It givesyou some kind of gives you some kind

(01:11:36):
of way, It gives you someideas as to what it wants you to
think, and you kind of haveto extrapolate the rest on your own.
Yeah. But as far as asfar as the I'm thinking more of the
two space stations that exist in thisfilm because because of the Elizabeth Debecky character

(01:11:56):
showing up in side a wall,It's like, oh, she was part
of the crew. She's basically TAM'scharacter in this universe, and so I
thought, oh crap, they're goingto start dealing with multiverse and I'm not
going to be able to fall along. But it's really just those two separate
space stations where the crew is alittle bit different. Google about the RAS
character is not on the ship,and the one timeline that they're currently in

(01:12:20):
now after they mess with the particleaccelerator, she stayed home. That gives
us that drama with her as towhat her decision is going to be based
on the fact that she in theprevious timeline she had lost her kids because
of this bad decision that she hadmade. Blah blah blah blah blah.

(01:12:42):
So I was able to follow it, but that stuff can really throw me
off. And I understand why it'sused. It's used to make these things
able to exist at the same time, which is lazy in a way but
can lead to creative things. Iguess I just don't think that they really
it really works in this well.And that's you know, that's the thing

(01:13:05):
I guess. And this is goingto be my interpretation of what's going on
through reading all this stuff, andyou know, my own kind of interpretation
of the facts and things that werepresented through these three films. So the
Cloverfield Station is the essential progenitor ofall the bad things that happen both in

(01:13:25):
the original film and in ten CloverfieldLane. When they turn the thing on
somehow, some way, no explanationis given. Frankly, no explanation is
needed. It's very event horizony ina lot of ways. They turn it
on, and by doing that,it's actual a doom. I mean Event
Horizon ripped Doom off because essentially theplot of Event Horizon is almost the plot

(01:13:47):
of Doom. You're accessing the otherside with a portal. They do the
same thing here by smashing the atomstogether. They have created a tear in
spacetime. Happens in Spider Man withthe Spider Man Show up. It's used
its magic there, but it's essentiallythe same idea. It's the weakened,
weakened spots and then you rip itopen with a particle accelerator, and I

(01:14:09):
guess in doing that creatures from otherplaces, like in the like in the
Mouth of Madness, you're accessing somewhereelse unbeknownst to us. I keep having
to reference other things that don't explainanything either, because this movie's trafficking in
Then I think that pisted a lotof people off. And I also,
I'm a fan, but not afan. I guess when they turned it

(01:14:29):
on, they smashed these universes together, these four technically two different Cloverfield paradox
ones, and then a clover Fieldand a ten Cloverfield Lane. They had
various kinds of creatures come through inten Cloverfield Lane, the ones that we
see in that movie to again notdiscounting there may be the clover Field Monster.

(01:14:50):
It's just running around in New York. Who knows, We don't we
don't know. They say seaboards,so you're led to believe there must be
a lot of But she's only undergroundfor like three days, so they've lost
pretty quickly, which is kind offunny. And then in this movie you
see the clover Field creature from thefirst one, so at least right at

(01:15:13):
least in these three you know this, the two clover Field Station universes and
the og clover Field universe, they'rehaving to deal with this this creature.
Maybe now here's a thing that I'vebeen thinking. Maybe that creature exists in
our universe, it attacks New York. Whatever. The clover Field name has

(01:15:33):
some importance somehow, Clearly, Idon't think it's it's not. You know,
they keep saying, well, theseare all clover Field movies. Maybe
because the station's called Cloverfield, itmakes other things like I don't know,
I'm trying to figure out a way. Yeah, but clover Field the name
is somehow important because all the eventsassociated with Cloverfield Station have the name Cloverfield

(01:15:54):
in them somehow whatever. But Iguess maybe my interpretation is the clover Field
months in the original movie exists onEarth. It comes from the bottom of
the ocean, and somehow when theysmashed the universes together, that creature ended
or a version of it ended upsomewhere else and it grew there because they

(01:16:15):
say in OG Cloverfield, it's ababy, right, And that's the other
thing they do, you know.JJ Abrams has said that in the OG
Cloverfield movie, the clover Field monstersdead. They killed it with the hammer
Down protocol where they nuked Manhattan.I guess, so it's dead, which
means it can die. But theversion in Cloverfield Paradox is an adult,
so maybe I don't know. Iwould like to believe that the Cloverfield Monster

(01:16:40):
in the original movie did come fromthe bottom of the ocean. Just by
smashing our universes together, it endedup in New York, or it ended
up in wherever this universe. Idon't know. That's the problem with this
movie. The tact on nature raisesmore questions than need to be raised,
and I don't think those questions haveany exciting or interesting answer because I don't

(01:17:00):
think they were intending to ask them. I think they're just a byproduct of
a disjointed quote universe unquote. Yeah, they're working backwards toward making the connections
instead of having something planned out fromthe beginning, which is how a lot
of people felt as they watched theshow Lost Unfold. Despite them saying,

(01:17:21):
oh, no, we had aplan along, it's like, really did
you? Because this last season don'tfeel like it anyway. But I think
for me, like you know,to answer the question of what do I
think about this movie, I don'tmind this movie. Actually, I even
with the Cloverfield connection, Like youknow, the stuff with her husband on

(01:17:41):
Earth feels as tacked on as itis because it's clearly it is clearly what
is the addition to this that makesit cloverfield? Along with like you mentioned
the kind of the news the newsreport with Donald Loge's character essentially just saying
exposition here, I am let meexplain to you what you're about to see.
Every thing I say, just likeeverything is relative. John Goodman says,

(01:18:04):
you know comes to fruition, right. People always like to talk about
this thing where it's like, wella character in the movie said, like
if a character in the movie issaying that's what they think, this is,
now stranger things aside, because theydecided not to do that, even
though they did it in the mostrecent season. They kind of said one
thing and then it was something else. Nine times out of ten. That

(01:18:25):
is the writer telling you what itis right to ten times out of ten.
Frankly, like they don't sometimes theydon't feel obligated to give you backstory.
They just have a character say that'swhat they think it is, and
that serves as the backstory. Anyways, you see it all the time and
all kinds of things I mean,Jesus Christ in Silence of Lambs, they

(01:18:45):
traffic in that hardcore. It's HannibalElector talking about what he thinks is never
confirmed in the movie. That's actuallywhat's going on, but you can be
led to believe that Hannibal Lecter isprobably right, and if the screenwriters telling
you that, then that's what theybelieve. It is the internal logic that
they're operating under. So, Imean, and that's a problem for a
lot of people. And I don'tblame them for not wanting to have a

(01:19:06):
movie like this one really expecting youto work for it. It's like,
it's not the narrative on its owndoes not need that. It's it's a
fucking space station movie. It's likeEvent Horizon Light. Yeah, And that's
what I kept thinking of when Iwas watching it, because I am more
familiar with that movie now than probablythe first time I watched this, seen

(01:19:29):
a two or three times since then, and thinking, oh, yeah,
this is just that, but notso much with horror elements added or you
know, satan like literal satan added. But I yeah, I enjoyed it
too much more than the first time. I don't think I hated it.
The first time. I just remember, like I said, being kind of

(01:19:49):
flummixed by again, what is thepoint of shoehorning these things into what probably
could have been a fairly interesting,just drop on Netflix movie on its own,
just a sci fi and they couldhave made and they could have done
what you talked about this time,and it even made more sense, which

(01:20:11):
was do the thing that they didn'tsplit and leave it for the audience to
find at the end. Leave theCloverfield monster out until the end of the
movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like don't even know. I'm saying,
like, don't even call it cloverright, right, just again?
Right? Like they I don't thinkthey can let themselves rely on word of
mouth. They don't trust the audience. Is what this is because every I

(01:20:32):
mean just think about it, eitherof those two movies, everybody would have
been not necessarily spoiling it, butat least spoiling that surprise of it within
the clover Field for hey, you'llnever guess it's another club. So have
you seen Overlord? So that's whatI wanted to ask you about, because

(01:20:53):
so I haven't seen Overlord, butyou've seen a quiet place, right,
Yeah, I've seen a quiet placeyou know that was the other one.
Oh, that was the other thatwas the right So yeah, so there
are two and that that that kindof came to light a little bit more
recently. I think that. Yeah, I think it was they were like

(01:21:14):
it was being a quiet place wasdeveloped as the fourth clover Field movie,
and they were like, Okay,maybe like it'll work as its own thing,
which is really funny because man,knowing that those monsters in ten Cloverfield
Lane looked just like the monsters ina Quiet Place, that same like the
same like mouth thing where it's likean asshole mouth and it like opens.

(01:21:36):
Yeah, it's strange. That's interestingthat that might have actually worked. And
that one Yeah again, okay becausethat's sort of what we're talking about,
that farm farmhouse. Uh, smalldogs straw dogs with aliens. Yeah,
and just lose the just lose thegimmick. I mean, there's the gime.

(01:21:56):
That movie lives on its gimmick,which is why I was not a
huge fan of that movie. Iwas I'm not a gimmickmahan myself. So
it's just kind of funny that theyhave made the decision like maybe this isn't
the brightest idea and Overlord was goingto be connected as well to this clover
Field universe like this is. Ithink that the original talk was, you

(01:22:19):
know, somebody at some point mentionedwhen the next one's going to take place
in Nazi Germany. And because youcan have this happen anywhere, right,
you can. Once they set thatparticle accelerator off and ripped to the time
space continuum, the creatures can popout at any point in history. So

(01:22:39):
she's a cool fucking idea. It'sa series. Huh, Like what are
they Yeah, it's what they justdid with Prey, because you can do
that too, because they're aliens whohave are obviously way more advanced, uh
technical technically than us techno wise.And so why not have it set in

(01:23:02):
the seventeen hundreds, Why not haveit set two hundred years prior to that?
Why not have it set eighteen hundredsninety? Why not that? And
that doesn't have to include any kindof alternate universes. That's just Hey,
this is an advanced species that cantravel to other worlds already, even three

(01:23:28):
hundred years in our past. Soyeah, that I like the idea of
having these things, and they doit with alien. The alien franchise in
a way as well. Why Underwaterremember that movie? Yeah, they talked
about that one being a clover Fieldmovie too, And it makes sense TJ.
Miller and John Gallagher Junior in it. You know, I mean again,

(01:23:53):
you fuck it. You know what'sfucked up? You could make any
movie a Cloverfield movie if you reallywent far enough, Like okay, I
mean, you know, the conceitis that the Cloverfield station created a monster
invasion of some kind. Okay,so what there's let's just go down the
list of movies. You know,Battle for Los Angeles could be a clover

(01:24:15):
Field movie realistically, you know whatI mean, It's like where do you
stop? And that's the question thatthey have to ask themselves here because the
next Cloverfield movie probably isn't gonna Imean, they've said it's not going to
be found footage, but who knows, they may change their minds. I
mean again, I don't know ifI care about a clover Field movie that's
not found footage? Would that beweird? Like do you want to see
a clover Field clover Field too,not a found footage because that's what they've

(01:24:41):
kind of said. But again,you know, under advisement until it actually
comes down. Yeah, I don'tthink, like, what does it just
Godzillavin right, that's true. Imean I think it could work as one
if they sort of stick to whatworks so well on the first one.
Because I would actually not be beinga huge fan of found footage, I
probably watch it out of curiosity.Same. I mean again, the first

(01:25:04):
one is a successful found footage movie. Everything else is kind of up in
the air. For a found footagemovie. It's probably the best made found
footage movie you'll find. Technically,it's a technically impressive film. Like it's
technically impressive. Matt Reeves does alot more. Okay, everything else,
everything else, even fucking Matt Reevesmade a found footage movie. I mean

(01:25:27):
that Planet of the Apes movie,the one with Woody Harrelson, was my
favorite movie the year it came out. Everybody has raved on and on about
the Batman. Matt Reeves knows whathe's doing. He's never gonna make another
found footage movie. I can wagethat, and from what I have heard,
he probably didn't want to make thefirst one anyways. Yeah, I
would director with the capitol D.Let's put it that way. An I'm

(01:25:48):
a fan of let me end Somatt Reeves is a great director, great
screenwriter as well. I like mattReeves a lot. Like I said,
that Planet of the Apes movie withWoody Harrelson, it's a great movie.
Yeah, he's done again. Lookingthrough his filmography, I've liked a lot
of what he's done. I haven'tseen The Batman. I don't really have
much interest in DC movies, buta lot of the stuff that he's worked

(01:26:10):
on has. We should do anepisode on it, because I'm not going
to watch it unless I'm really goodto talk about it. That's all right.
It's three hours long, man,It's hey. You know what,
though, it does draw on somepeople that you and I both do like
apparently there's a lot of finchure inthere with the whole Riddler is very much
like the Zodiac Killer. Interesting.Yeah, that was why I wanted to

(01:26:32):
watch it, because everybody was tellingme that, like, Riddler was very
Zodiac esque, and there is that. There is that leading scene online that's
pretty much just them doing the wholeBuffalo Bill or the Hannibal, the whole
Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, Jodie Fosterthing with Batman, the Joker, which
I thought was really clever, butalso they did a parent silence of the

(01:26:54):
dam but to put it in Batman'sclever. I would watch it, but
I'm not running out to us.Yeah, I don't know. It's big.
It's a big it's a big ask. It's three hours, it's two
movies. And I like Robert Pattinsonjust fine. So it's nothing against town.
Yeah, No, Robert Pattinson isa great actor. No, I'm
interested to see what we get withCloverfield Too. If it does end up

(01:27:17):
being a non found footage movie,I think that could be interesting. I
would For me, I would doit something akin to like h like World
War Z but the book where it'slike telling the story after the fact of
what happened with the like how theworld reacted to the Cloverfield incident and then
the fallout from that. Like Ithink that could be interesting. But again

(01:27:40):
it begs the question what version whatis clover What is Cloverfield Too? Is
Cloverfield to a movie that takes placein the original clover Field universe? Is
it a movie about other universes wherethe clover Field that paradox, Because again,
Cloverfield paradox is a real movie thatexists that has now opened up a

(01:28:00):
box of when they turned the switchon, all these bad things happened.
So what is Cloverfield too, nowthat we know that, Now that we
know Cloverfield wasn't just a monster fromthe bottom of the ocean, or maybe
it was, but there was morestuff going on. Yeah, well they've
opened it up to any number ofpossibilities. But will they go back to
the aftermath of that original because themovie opens with Rob picking the camera up

(01:28:27):
like that would blow my mind.I would be like, that is not
what I was thinking this was goingto be at all. I mean TJ.
Miller might not even be dead,you know, I mean, I'm
bitten in half? Didn't he?Oh that's true, that's true. He
did. Yeah, I forget that. That that is he just lay in
there for a minute. That isjust that. That that scene of all
the like, of all the thingsin this entire franchise that has rubbed me

(01:28:48):
the wrong way, and there havebeen plenty of things, that scene,
I think is the thing that's rubbedme the wrong way the most out of
anything, The scene where the monsteris like staring at the camera like that
was where I'm just like, thisis this stopped being a random person with
a camera a long time ago andyou just put a pin in it.
Yeah, because like everything else israndom, and Marlina Lizzie Kaplan dying is

(01:29:11):
random. Like there's all and thenall of a sudden it's like, nope,
the monsters following them around, comeon, Well they might feel the
same way about that guy that wedid. So but I don't. I
don't know. I hope maybe cloverField too will be something completely just bonkers
off the wall. I mean,that's my hope is if they've they've kind
of gone all over the place asit is, like they've had plenty of

(01:29:33):
time to figure out something smart.So not that that's what will happen,
but they've had plenty of time toconsider it. And Joe Barton, he's
worked on a BBC show called GearyHoji that sounds pretty interesting. It's a
Tokyo detectives who work in London.That sounds definitely like something interesting and worth

(01:29:54):
checking out. So it's not likethey're getting I mean, that's the thing.
Drew Goddard is not unsecre accessible asa screenwriter either. Maybe you know
what, Maybe it's a good thingit's not going to be found footage because
that means people who know how totell narratives don't need to feel hamstrung by
telling it in a admittedly strange narrativeformat. Yeah. Yeah, I genuinely

(01:30:15):
think Cloverfield will be the biggest budgetfound footage movie we ever see. Like,
I don't know how could anything everexceed it? Right, it's its
own thing, maybe, you knowwhat. It kind of was successful in
a way when you say Cloverfield,like ultimately as this franchise, it has
legs. It's going on fourteen yearsnow. Yeah. Well, and if

(01:30:36):
you say clover Field, most peopleare gonna probably think of the first film.
I would think of a certain age, right, I think some people
will think of the people my agewill probably think of the original movie.
I think some people I don't knowwho would think of ten Cloverfield Lane.
But I think you would get alot of people also going, oh,
the movie from the Super Bowl.Yeah, I was like everybody in their

(01:30:59):
mothers saw the trailer for it.I'm not sure how many people actually watched
it, even out of curiosity.If you say clover Field to me,
though, I will I'm one ofthe people that will think of ten Cloverfield
Lane first, right, which Itotally get. I mean, I totally
totally get that it's the one outof those three at least that I will
return to. I know I enjoyedactually watching all three of them watched.

(01:31:24):
I think when I started watching CloverfieldParadox, Cleio wasn't really paying attention,
but it sort of sucked her in. I think she had just woken up.
I was like, this was onMonday. We were supposed to record
on Tuesday, so I was gettingit in and she hadn't quite woken up
yet, but she came out andthen I was like, oh, this
is the final clover Field movie.And she was playing her game or something

(01:31:45):
at some point stopped and kind ofgot herself hooked into it. So I
didn't even mention like I actually likedCloverfield Paradox a lot, like I think
I may have liked it more thanten Cloverfield Lane. I liked it.
I liked it a lot this time. Again, the body horror stuff,
you know, I think should havebeen there, muld have been more of
it, like his eye going sidewaysreally creeped both me and Cleo out.

(01:32:10):
I was like, oh yeah,I forgot about that part, and then
you think, oh no, what'sgoing to come out of his eye?
Come out of his eye? Butstuff does come out. That idea of
not only the shared universe but thestuff in their space station ending up in
the wrong place is fun for me. Christaud losing his arm. I enjoyed

(01:32:31):
that part, and for the mostpart, I think that the effects are
done very well in that. Butyeah, I actually enjoyed it. I
enjoyed it a lot more than Iremember enjoying it the first time. I
just think I was kind of like, oh, this was silly. But
Netflix has had a lot of sillymovies over the last few years that are
kind of fun. That woman inthe Window thing with Amy Adams is just

(01:32:53):
bonkers. But my wife and Ireally enjoyed watch. Never watched. It's
insane. It's insane. It's likeit's everybody forgot how to act like a
human being in that movie. It'sso amazing, and they're all in they're
all in different movies. It's basedon a book, right, I think
so. Yeah, and Amy Adams, Jennifer Justly carry Oldman Wyatt Rustle all

(01:33:16):
these great people in it, it'sjust weird. And then the one with
Amanda Seyfrid too, that's I thinksort of a similar story that they talk
about shitting the bed at the end. Both of those movies do that,
and this just feels like one ofthose weird Netflix films that they kind of
just go all out on and makesomething weird. So I give them credit

(01:33:40):
for that. And Elizabeth Debickie isgood as the villain, like, and
her motivation actually makes perfect sense.It's not even really the villain right way,
Like she's just like, no,no, you don't understand. I'll
kill all of y'all if that meansI save our earth right, And you
know for a fact that these twoother assholes would have done the same thing.

(01:34:01):
I mean, yeah, the DanielBrule and Googana are good, but
they're I mean again, their charactersare just like they It's like they can't
understand why she's doing it. It'slike, no, no, you guys
like you would do the same thing. Yes, they that, And I
was going, wait a minute,she's right, they're being selfish, right,
like what is what really? Whatis she going to do? Going

(01:34:24):
back a version of her already exists. Just be just get solace from the
notion that your children are alive withyour husband and you in this universe that
we're now sharing. You know thatwe're now in. But why can't you
find solace in that? What areyou gonna do? Go kill the other

(01:34:45):
version of your doctor Strange wonder womanor a doctor Strange and Wanda thing from
multiverse, right, go scare theshit out of your kids. Well,
and you'd have to kill the otherversion of yourself. Right. I wish
they had done more Body Horror.Yeah, I remembered more acts, right
me too. I was like,I thought there was more here, because
there's the Chris O'Dowd arm thing.There's the guy who's vomiting the worms,

(01:35:08):
and that's it. And I guessthe way Chris O'Dowd dies well on her
in the wall. Yeah, youknow, she's kind of connected to the
interior of that space. Yeah.I was like, wait a minute,
Okay, that was the last instance. Okay, I'm just remembering this,
and his arm is never explained,not really was his arm auto writing and

(01:35:29):
knowing how to autowrite and knows thatthe guy has the thing inside it and
knows things that he doesn't know,right, It's like his arm went to
a different universe or is in adifferent universe. Yeah, like it's attached
to his other self on the othership. I guess maybe is how that's
supposed to work. Yeah, soit knows what that version of him knows.

(01:35:50):
Maybe, I guess probably what theywere getting at. Yeah, or
did the other version of him losehis arm as well, and in doing
so, that's his arm in hisarms in the other universe? Sure?
Why not? Who cares? Right, I don't know. That was like,
that's the only kind of like,that was the only kind of thing
where I was like, I don'tknow. That's an unanswered question, but
it doesn't need to be answered,doesn't add anything to the plot. But

(01:36:11):
Yeah, I liked this movie ahell of a lot more this time than
I did last time. Yeah,me too, And has been kind to
this movie and so that I wouldwatch it again for sure. Yeah,
And Julius ownA making a name forhimself. He's directing the upcoming Captain America
movie. So this movie being kindof a dud because I think overwhelmingly the

(01:36:32):
opinion is this movie is not good. Didn't have a negative effect on his
career, which is good, andit didn't really on anyone else. I
mean, Google Batharaw, Elizabeth Debicki. They would all go on to work
with Marvel and other people and orhave great careers of there, I mean
Chris O'Dowd, Jesus Christ, DavidOlder all, Yeah, they're all still
Yeah, she's one up and allkinds of stuff. This movie was pretty

(01:36:56):
heavily lambastad when it came out.I remember there was very very few,
if any positive opinions about this moviebeing thrown around. Yeah, which is
a shame because, like you said, the cast really is so strong.
Yeah, everybody in it is.I'm kept thinking, oh, oh he's
an Oh yeah, she's an ohboy, good cast. Yeah. I

(01:37:17):
really wish they had gone further withthe Body Horror. I mean, there's
a point where Elizabeth Debicki is askedfirst being sucked out of a window,
and I wish they had done Ialways remember the last time I watched it,
I was like, there's got tobe like an alien resurrection style thing
where she's getting sucked guts first outof the thing, and they didn't do
that, and it feels like amissed opportunity. You know that that for
me is the thing. It's likethey could have gone further, and it

(01:37:40):
feels like, because there's a qualterfie old movie, they couldn't. Yeah.
I remember when she flew into thatglass. I was like, oh,
clue, she's getting sucked out byher butt. Yeah, like that
should have been a moment where it'slike she's getting her guts ripped out and
you know, just like an alienresurrection and they don't do it here,
and it's it's a shame. It'sit's completely and totally a missed opportun and
that kind of just feels like thismovie in a nutshell and they have a

(01:38:02):
great cast and there are some funmoments, and yeah, it is a
clover Field movie. I guess.Yeah, I would like to live in
the original universe that this Particle Acceleratordidn't create, where I could see the
versions of Tin Cloverfield, Lane andthe God Particle, Yeah what those would

(01:38:25):
have ended up being, Because again, I think they're interesting concepts on their
own. I like the idea ofa woman in peril film, and I
like the idea of a experiment inspace gone wrong. Deal where even if
it was shared universe, which I'msure was a part of the initial story.
Then you you've got all kinds ofstuff you can do just with having

(01:38:45):
two space stations in alternate timelines,trying to get home or trying to solve
different problems. One's trying to repairitself, one's trying to get home or
want you know, you know,at some point in that in paradox,
they are shown news footage that showsthat they've crashed. Right, So you
have that interesting concept. You've got, Yes, her struggle with knowing that

(01:39:13):
her family is whole and safe inthis timeline. What is the compunction then
to mess that up? That couldwithout a big, huge creature popping out
at the end over the clouds.You don't need any of that to have
a compelling story. There's enough inthose stories to make an interesting film,
I think, which is why thenthey stopped and let a quiet place be
a quiet place, and let Overlordbe Overlord, Like these are fine stories

(01:39:36):
on their own. Yeah, andwith this one, with the addition of
the clover Field name, they hadto contend with adding the footage of what
was going on on earth with herhusband, which nobody cares about. Yeah,
I forgot how tact on that felttoo. Yeah, and let's tip
him. He's got to do somestuff, so let's give him an orphan.

(01:39:56):
Yeah. Yeah, And what's strange? I you know, as I
was watching these two movies, Iwas trying to kind of figure out which
one I felt was more tacked on, because ultimately, to talk about the
clover Field movies, you know,we always talk about three movies. At
least that's what it feels like.You know, we're talking about what feels
like one movie and then two othertonally different movies. Oh yeah, absolutely,

(01:40:17):
And it's it's like, what doesit mean to talk about the Cloverfield
movies? And it's like, well, you're talking about a really well made
found footage movie, and then you'retalking about a really interesting kind of hitchcock
in cernoid thriller. Yeah, andthen you know, a midnight, mid

(01:40:39):
to late nineties space station thriller,which is a thing. I mean,
event a fucking event horizon. Mygod, I mean that's what this hughes
closest to event horizon. What's theother one? Supernova? Yeah, supernova?
There's one other? What am Ithinking of? But anyway, but
you know that's those are genre subgenre, niche genre in their own sci fi

(01:41:01):
genre, and so that's fun thatthat's like, oh, we're gonna do
this with these movies, and we'regonna it's kind of loosely attached. But
if you're going to do that,be more adept at connecting them, because
that is the real failing here isthe way these movies are connected. If
you're okay, we can't do anythingabout the fact they're connected, right,

(01:41:21):
You keep saying you want to livein the universe where you could see them
without the connection. I agree withyou, but let's take into account they
have to be connected. How couldthey have fixed this is the question,
and that is really doing a betterjob at integrating the clover Field, finding
a better way to juxtapose the originalclover Field and what happened in that movie

(01:41:43):
with what you're going to be doingin these movies and how you connect them,
because yeah, those original script,at least for the Seller, is
clearly a really well done script.I can't speak to the God Particle because
again it seems like that may havebeen but maybe not. I mean,
the God Particle movie is good onits own. I mean, the non
clover Field parts is good so yeah, those are probably good scripts on their
own. So the question is whynot do a better job of integrating the

(01:42:04):
Cloverfield parts as opposed to just tackingthem on the end both time. Yeah,
and I think it's mainly that again, they're working backward, and they're
about as backward as you can get, the buying pre made scripts right,
stuff that they just had sitting there, like we talked about earlier. That's
where these other franchises have pulled alot of their sequels scripts that they already

(01:42:27):
had probably had no intention of doinganything with them, but you've paid for
them, and you have a successfulI p so make a diehard movie out
of this otherwise banal action movie You'venobody is going to go and see,
probably because you just haven't. Ijust rename, Yeah, you just rename
a couple of characters. It's reallyyou know, it's as simple as that,

(01:42:48):
and some of those films, andso I think I think the whole
point for me is just start withan original idea, because now you've you've
made it to where there has tobe alternate universes instead of things taking place.
I mean, the world is abig place, Chris, I don't
know, if you realize this,it is and not everybody lives in New

(01:43:09):
York City, So you can havethe straw dogs versus aliens in some other
state. You can have the cloverField paradox because it's taking place in space
with an international kah. They canall be taking place at the same time.
Yeah, or even like kind ofafter one another, even like the

(01:43:30):
Cloverfield paradox created the event that broughteverything through, and those things being brought
through, like you said, arebeing brought in at the same time,
and then all these other stories aremaybe not that specific day, but the
fallout of that, right, andit can continue on because we don't know
how many monsters there are around theworld. But then they have to go
and do multiverses instead to cover upthe plot holes, the connecting holes between

(01:43:57):
them, Like, well, ifthat happened, then how does garre washing
down the water already or not?Well that and that's the thing like you
were mentioning with the satellite landing atthe end of Cloverfield, because it's like,
well that, well that's something andlike but it's not anything now,
so I don't I don't know.I have kind of a love hate relationship
with Cloverfield. I'm excited that they'remaking another one. It's kind to be

(01:44:17):
weird as a like a grown assadult to go see a Cloverfield movie possibly
in theaters again for the first timesince oh eight. But depending on what
it is, it could be prettygood. It could be a lot of
fun, it could be something.It could be something that we can't even
comprehend, like some sort of reallystrange idea again, like ten Cloverfield Pay

(01:44:39):
and that's kind of weird. Cloverfieldparadox is kind of weird. Maybe this
will be kind of weird. Ihope it is. It's one of the
weirdest franchises that I can think offor sure, that that has like a
major name attached to it that peopleactually take seriously. Yeah, even though
we've given all these examples of wherewe know this happens, and it happens,

(01:45:00):
it's not a modern concept. Thishas happened over the ages with people,
you know, studios, buying scriptsor having even in the old studio
system where you had somebody and thenthey change it, they change it to
fit something that's already successful, right, And it's not a modern concept,
but it's and Also, one ofthe things I hate about it is that

(01:45:25):
it's a very cynical way of makingmovies to kind of try and fool the
audience in a way when it's veryapparent that these things didn't start out as
part of this universe. We're capitalizingon a on a name, on a
successful because from what I understand,the first clover Field was rather successful.

(01:45:48):
Well that's the thing. It's like, you know, blood the water right
right, and yeah, exactly,but movie was twenty five million, made
one hundred and seventy five Who it'sjust a weird who goes My big takeaway
from any of it is like,who approaches films this way? Like like,

(01:46:08):
like we've said multiple times, justcome up with something that actually makes
sense. You want the answer cynicalindustry types? Yeah, I mean,
and you would think that, Idon't know, someone who apparently loves movies
as much as J. J.Abrams would maybe lean more in the direction
we're leaning in, Like why arewe doing this and not just coming up

(01:46:28):
well, because the script's already thereand it's already bought. Okay, Well,
this idea was Kaiju Movies. Hewas like he essentially has said you
know I went. I was inJapan with my son. I saw all
these monster toys and I was like, why don't we have ours? And
that's a good question, Like whyis there not a Western I mean King
Kong, but I guess King Kong'snot good enough for you, so you

(01:46:51):
got to make your own thing,which is fine, but you know what,
and we didn't really even talk aboutit, And I think this is
the best way to close this episode. Overfield Monster, Well, you don't
ever really get the greatest look atit across three movies, and in two
it's like a completely different creature.Yeah, but like not a grade design.

(01:47:12):
Yeah, it's what a memorable design. It kind of looks like the
creature from Super eight. That movie. I didn't even mention that that movie
that totally was apparently just clover Field. I don't know what that was.
I still don't understand what Super eightto actually tack that on, because again
it's a different timeline, but thetimeline doesn't matter. It could be the

(01:47:33):
same. Honestly, I feel likeI dreamed Super eight existed, right.
It's weird, you, I meanreally, I didn't even think about that
film, but it fits in,don't they have slush shows. I mean
it's a j. It's a j. It's directed and produced by him.
There's gotta be Kelvin and slush showand everything else and that. So that's

(01:47:56):
a bit I'm calling it. It'sa clover Field movie. Well, I
mean again, and is the alienand that altruistic? Is it a misunderstood
alien? Yes, yes it is. So it's essentially just his et.
I mean, isn't super eight justlike his love letter to Spielberg movies.
It's just you know what the problemis, and then maybe it's not a
problem. Jj Abrams may never beable to get out from underneath Cloverfield,

(01:48:19):
is what it feels like, orlost or lost for that matter. He
created that monster, so he sleepwith it. That's my point. I
mean, it for me has alwaysbeen, you know, JJ Abrams has
always been the mister mystery box man. And Cloverfield's mystery Box was so good
that it was like fucking HAROLDO.Rivera. Outside of that, al Capone's

(01:48:42):
safe. I mean, Cloverfield's good, but it's ultimately empty popcorn entertainment.
And it's like, okay, likethat was great, but you know what,
the arg was so good and everythingelse was so good, and then
you get to the movie and themovie is it's okay. Nobody nobody forced
him to create this mess. Nope. That's when it feels like almost like
a mess, Like it feels likesomeone gave jj Abrams a trowel and he

(01:49:04):
started digging a hole. Then atsome point he's like, give me a
shovel. I want to keep makingthis whole bigger. And then at some
point you look down from your fuckinghole you've dug yourself, and go,
what can I do now? Howdo I get out of this? Make
Cloverfield to a Godzilla movie with afucking genuinely vanilla structure and narrative, and

(01:49:25):
just make it the Godzilla movie thatyou were talking about making. I don't
know, maybe as good of optionas any I know. It's a stop
motion animation film. It's like,what if it was what if it was
the character that Jennifer Garner plays fromAlias and Chris Pine from Star Trek as
James Kirk and Ethan Hawk from thatone mission Impossible that jj Abrams directed Fighting

(01:49:50):
the Cloverfield Monster and Bradley Cooper's gotto be in it, right, He
was on Alias too, oh right, yeah, right, that's where he
got his start, and that's yeah, yeah yeah. Clover Field feels it
feels like this weird, just likewhat are you doing? Man? Yeah,
it's a it's a bizarre concept.There's nothing else like it. If
he was trying to make something,I mean, he was trying to make

(01:50:10):
a Kaiju movie and instead he madesomething unclassifiably strange. So is Colossal apart?
Can we include Colossal and the andHathaway movie? Yeah? I mean
again, prop that's my point,like it, like with anything, like,
you could take clover Field and reallyapply it to anything where something happens
that seems completely without reason or explanation. Celd Yeah, then involves a giant

(01:50:36):
monster Godzilla nineteen ninety nine. Sure, why not King Kong versus Godzilla?
Why not? That's what we need. Godzilla versus King Kong versus Clover Clover,
Clover, Clover. That doesn't soundso bad. Look at Clover and
opens its fucking mouth. It lookslike goes bad. It looks like a

(01:50:57):
bat is what it looks like.Really, so, mister Beckley. Final
thoughts on Final thoughts on Cloverfield,the Cloverfield Trilogy as it stands today,
it's bizarre. But I think individually, each of these films is fun to
watch. And I'm still a verybig fan of Tin Cloverfield Lane. I
think it's very smart, and thelead character is very smart and doesn't do

(01:51:19):
stupid thing. She does a couplestupid things, but you can understand those
stupid things based on what she thinksis going on. They're all pretty fun,
and I enjoyed watching all three ofthem this time around, So get
out there and watch them. Yeah, I think for me, you know,
my opinion on the first one iskind of definitely cooled off in the
last fourteen years. It's a weirdmovie. I mean, this whole thing

(01:51:42):
is weird. Again, There's there'sno other way to quantify it. It's
just whatever is happening over at BadRobot with Cloverfield is they? I hope
they know, because I couldn't beginto have a fucking inkling of an idea
what the hell is going on?First one is short, though, let's
give it that at least. Ohit's eight minutes. Yeah, what a
bud breezy, you know, Andyeah, Culoverfield Lane is fun up until

(01:52:05):
the ending in Cloverfield Paradox. Ihad a lot more fun with it this
time around, and I would,honestly my biggest takeaway from this episode is
I would genuinely tell anyone who feelsa certain way about that Cloverfield Paradox movie,
go check it out again. It'snot that bad, I think,
removed from that whole weird hype thingand the super Bowl deal and that marketing

(01:52:26):
push for that movie. I agree. I enjoyed it way more than I
expected. I was halfway through andI was like, wait a minute,
I don't dislike this in any way, shape or form. It's not bad.
Yeah. I just remember watching itthe person and being like, my
god, like this is off.So yeah, you know that. You
know, that's the thing about cloverField, like I kind of mentioned in
the opening, you know, Cloverfieldhas become kind of this weird inflection point

(01:52:49):
for the movie industry because this isthis weird thing that still exists and it's
been involved in like big marketing events. The arg for it. I would
give a lot of the credit towhy this movie made so much money as
it's arg and then you have theCloverfield Paradox, which was its own big
marketing event so you know, Cloverfieldhas some cache in the industry, and

(01:53:13):
if you've worked on it, obviouslyit's going to be something that people feel
a certain way about. And yeah, I don't know where it goes from
here. I'm excited. I can'tbelieve I'm saying I'm excited to see another
Cloverfield movie. But at this pointeverything else has been so fucking strange,
and all the things that were rumoredto be part of this but weren't are
also super strange, like a quietplace like Overlord. So whatever they come

(01:53:36):
up with to be the true successorto Cloverfield the original film, should,
I hope be fucking weird. Yeah, even if it's not good, it's
going to be weird. That's myhope. I agree. I be out
there. Yeah, as out thereas you can. Now. Guess what,
you don't have to make a fuckingtenuous connection to Cloverfield anymore. This
is Cloverfield too. You don't haveto shoehorn anything in like you And you

(01:54:00):
can have J. J. Abramscome out at the beginning of the movie
and say hello, everyone, rememberCloverfield, and have him just lay out
everything that's going on, and youknow what that would be just as believable
a movie as anything else, becauseagain, it seems that anything can happen
in this universe. But my pointbeing like at this point, like JJ
Abrams can do whatever he wants withthis, and clearly he's going to,
and I hope that they do.I hope that Cloverfield too is strange and

(01:54:21):
weird and unlike the last two moviesor the last three movies Email and that's
that's I don't know. I canagree both we both signed ourselves up to
do the next clover Field episode.Whatever the movie come. I mean,
hey, I whatever it is,I hope to god it's entertaining. Right,
So until then, mister Begley,where can people find you? You
can find me over at wake UpHeavy dot com and the show where Are

(01:54:43):
We listen to podcasts and you cango listen to mister Chris stashuw himself and
mister Mike White from the Projection Boothon our four year anniversary episode on the
Silence of the Lambs, which I'mhappy to say this is a very good
epis so so you should check itout. I would agree it is a
good episode, and who doesn't liketo talk about signs of lamps. I

(01:55:04):
don't know should we brought it upon this episode. It's ever present.
Yeah. As for me ce stashdot com. That's my link tree.
Go there for all the things thatI work on, which are a vast
and varied. As for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com,
slash culturecast, all the places youcan go to do those things.
But like in rate review on iTunes, that's all you really need to do.

(01:55:27):
And go listen to Mark Show becauseI've done a fair amount of episodes
on Mark Show and Mark Show ispretty good. Amityville. I mean that
was the one prior to Silence.You and Andy were on that one.
Got culture Geist, Hall Raiser,Kills, Hall and Kills is a shared
believe Hell Razors is yours it.Fun Share, Yeah, I've shared four

(01:55:51):
recently done as You Hear Me andYou fun House man It, Crimes of
the Future, Crimes of the Futureare all kinds of good stuff. The
award for who I've worked with themost this year may end up going to
use sir, because we're put weput in the time last month. Good
Lord. Yeah, that well though, those four that came out and one

(01:56:11):
fell swoop who yeah, so yeah. And as for this show, make
sure to check out the next episode