Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Movie Ever podcast.
My name is Ben Grohls.
My name is Rob Macfarlane.
Welcome to the show, a movie podcast slash mental health check in for two broken brain
best friends talking around their problems, but not about their problems.
Yeah.
Whilst, you know, laughing at movies.
So before we get into what we're doing, Ben, let's ask the more important question.
Yeah.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good, man.
Right?
I did something last night that I haven't done in months and it felt amazing.
What was this?
It was sleep.
Amazing.
About 10 to 8, I sat down and was like, I'm just going to have 10 minutes.
And then I woke up at 8 o'clock this morning and was like, ah, I'm in the future.
You woke up like Ash at the end of Evil Ted.
I literally woke up like ass at the end of Evil Dead.
Ash.
That's what I said.
Oh, okay.
How are you, buddy?
I've got to say last episode, we said we were swear jarring, but we weren't.
We weren't.
Now I censor the swearing.
We need to watch that because it adds significant amount of time to the amount of time it takes
to edit.
I'm like, oh, there's another one.
I'll just grab a ukulele sample and pop that on and play.
And oh, there's another one.
I'll just grab a ukulele.
Oh, that's not quite right.
Okay.
So we're back on the swear jar then.
Yeah.
Let's just limit ourselves to not be what we were last weekend, which was a child's
first ukulele practice.
Fuck.
Oh, yeah.
Like that.
Yeah.
Now, Ben, not everyone likes everything.
Sardines.
Franz Ferdinand.
Choking.
Okay.
Yeah.
Not everyone.
Pineapple on pizza.
That's right.
So, dear listener, hear us cry pineapple.
It's just a short bit of the chat that might not be to everyone's taste.
And you know, it's less about the film than a brand new listener might need.
But not to worry.
The fully spicy Hawaiian version of every episode is available over on Patreon days
beforehand with all the pineapples you could ever want for just one pound a month.
It's literally just a quid a month and you get like extra peek behind the curtain.
Yeah.
What are they talking about?
What's that pineapple for?
Right.
So, our potty mouths are going to be censored in this version of the episode, but you can
hear all the bad words you like over on Patreon.
Like cunt.
Now, Ben, what are we doing?
I just hear edits now every time.
Yeah, buddy.
What are we doing?
What are we doing this week, Ben?
Let's get to it.
This week, buddy, we are back on the Fincher train, baby.
As we look back at every David Fincher movie ever, we land on the movie all about David
Fincher looking back.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Now we've got a lot to get into this episode.
We're going to get into the long, long road that this film took from page to screen.
It's possibly the longest we've ever covered.
Why this is the best romance movie I've ever seen in my entire life.
How Fincher's camera forces you to relate to his characters.
My wild theory as to how Fincher got into making this film.
It is not true, but it is very fun.
And why this is the worst romance I've ever seen.
That's unbelievable that you've just said that sentence out loud.
It's what, Ben?
Sorry?
It's what?
I said that is fluffing unbelievable that you've just said that sentence out loud.
Thank you for saving me the edit.
Welcome.
Look, this might be Fincher's biggest ugly duckling.
I think even more so than the game.
Even people that love the game hate this.
Because they have poor taste in movies.
I think it's the least David Fincher, David Fincher film.
I think it's because it's the least David Fincher of all of the David Fincher films.
I'll agree.
And I think that might be part of why he did it.
Okay.
I like that.
I like that theory.
I like to think of it as like, you know how Panic Room was like his perfect date movie?
Yeah.
And it was just flexing his muscles being like, yeah, I can do this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think he did that again, but this time was just sort of like, yeah, but what about if
it's early 1900s and also an incredible romance story?
Yeah, same.
I hate that stuff.
I'm not into that.
Do I look like the sort of guy that likes early 1900s romance stories?
You could be, Ben.
You just limit yourself.
You limit yourself to say that you're not because you think that somehow that's a smart
person's thing and you're not a smart person.
You're very smart.
If you're poorly educated, there's a big difference.
Thanks, mate.
You didn't have to say that.
Well, it's true.
And I hate this.
Like, oh, I don't read books because I'm stupid.
You're not stupid.
I do read books.
I don't read books without pictures in because I'm stupid.
Thank you.
That's better.
And I don't like it.
You're as smart as I am.
It's just, you know, I had the benefit of an education.
And money and a family.
It's fine.
Money, no.
I'm joking.
It's just your accent that's posh.
Yes, for reasons.
Yeah.
Which you've never asked about.
So I ask about it all the time.
You just give me stupid answers.
Drama.
Yeah, baby.
Before we dive in, where's, where's Fincher?
Where's Fincher?
What that man do?
Where that man been?
Well, this man tried to make a remake of the popular adult animated film, Heavy Metal.
You what?
He tried to get a Heavy Metal remake off the ground.
I would pay so much money to see a Heavy Metal remake by Fincher.
Right.
That's actually ridiculous.
He was asked about it.
And do you want to hear his answer?
Yeah.
David Fincher.
You know, when you tell people you want to make an R-rated animation for teenage boys,
oddly enough, they don't flock to put up cash for it.
But it is what it is.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
That makes total sense.
He was trying to make a movie called Torso, which was about the Cleveland torso murderer
and went unsolved.
All about Elliot Ness, who was part of the whole Untouchables, played by Kevin Costner.
So he was on to crack a second cold case, essentially, right?
Yeah, essentially.
And then that never came to be.
And then briefly floated the idea of a Fight Club Broadway musical.
Oh my God, I'd pay so much money to see that.
Right.
And that didn't happen either.
Who would do the music?
The Pixies?
But it would be, it would be 2008 Pixies, which is not good Pixies.
Ah, I see.
Yeah.
This is post Kim Gordon Pixies, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's probably for the best.
That's probably why it didn't get made.
You know what I mean?
They were like, yeah.
Right.
And I've heard, where is my mind now?
What time are we in?
All right.
Come on.
Buddy, let me, I have no idea what time we're in.
Let me take you back.
Let me paint a word picture for you.
You ready?
Right.
The year is 2008.
And a tiny little streaming service called Spotify promises to end piracy and finally
get the music industry, the money it needs to pay those working and at fair rates again.
I believed that and I went into the music industry.
I didn't.
And I went to Japan.
Wall Street is totally fine.
And those subprime mortgage bundles have been doing absolute bits for the economy.
There's no way you're going to see lads with boxes full of their stuff pouring out of bank
offices.
Yeah.
It's 2008, buddy.
And Barack Obama is elected to be the first African-American president of the United States.
Yes.
You know what this means?
This is going to permanently end America's sad history of racial division and hatred.
It will never be seen again, Rob.
It is a, it is a racial utopia from 2008 onwards.
It's 2008, my dear boy.
Yeah.
And David Fincher is given $167 million to make the curious case of Benjamin Button.
Can I just very quickly say that I'm getting, it's getting more and more infuriating the
more specific these budgets are getting.
Gladiator was 103 and it made me feel like I had ants under my skin.
167 is the, it's somehow worse.
I don't know why.
Right.
It's an odd number, but it's a big odd number.
Just round it up.
I feel like 103, right?
It's that we were aiming for a hundred and then when we did the accounting, we realized
we'd overspent a bit.
Sure.
So it's 103.
What are you going to do?
Not pay people.
Yeah, I guess.
I guess.
Also ants under my skin.
It's infuriating.
Round it up.
Oh, we've overspent by 2 million.
Brilliant.
Throw in another three.
You know what I mean?
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Yeah, exactly.
Screw it.
And that's why you don't work at a film studio.
This is why I failed.
This is why I got fired as an accountant.
You know what I mean?
Right.
I'm assuming you're a big fan of early 1900s romance movies as we've already established.
You saw this when it came out.
I did.
And?
Oh, you did see it when it came out.
I saw it when it came out.
I was not a fan.
Why?
So I was 20.
Right.
And I was in that part of my life where I'm sort of like, I'm going to educate myself.
You know what I mean?
Mm hmm.
Fincher comes out with a new film.
I'm like, I'm going to go see it.
Didn't go well.
Yeah.
It didn't land.
It didn't stick.
The books of VHS drew me back bit by bit.
Right.
Yeah, I was 20.
I was young, dumb and full of enthusiasm.
My whole life was in front of me.
You know what I mean?
Everything was in front of me.
One life.
No ragrats.
Now, my dear boy, now my dear Rob, I'm closer to 40 than I am to 30.
And it's a whole different ball game now.
I make involuntary noises when I stand up.
My one knee is somehow more sensitive than my other knee.
So slapped.
And I don't know why it's just happened at some point where I'm like, it's because you
keep slapping it when you want to make, when you want to say your goodbyes.
I do, to be fair.
It's always my right.
I need to stop that.
It's a very dangerous game.
You slap it and you go, well.
Yeah.
Right.
I do that all the time.
I'm a head out.
Yeah.
So watching this film again for this, the meaning of it has changed dramatically over
the last 16 years.
Saw it when it came out and I thought, what a load of tosh.
Who cares?
I was a little old man growing up, but also growing down.
Why is everyone crying?
Who cares?
Watch it this time around.
And I was like, Oh my dear God, my heart is in a thousand pieces.
Fincher has just ended my current arc.
How about you?
Okay.
That's going to make what I have to say really offensive.
I'm sorry, because I don't mean this about you.
Okay.
Adele, as a musical artist.
Sure.
Is really popular because millions of people think she's fine.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll agree with that.
Right.
Her music is bought by the sort of people that buy two albums a year.
Yes.
The other one was Sam Smith.
Yeah.
And they were both bought from Starbucks on an impulse buy whilst getting a frappuccino.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I got you.
It's people who go to the supermarket and they'll go, I'll buy that new Taylor Swift
album because I hear it's good.
Yeah.
And then they listen to it and they go, I love music.
And you go, what are you into?
And they go, David Essex, Taylor Swift, Kylie and Adele.
Yeah.
I mean, don't bad mouth Kylie.
She dropped a couple of bangers recently.
Let's not deny that.
Yeah.
Okay.
She did.
Yeah.
Right.
She's a lovely woman.
She's a lovely woman who I happen to work with.
Oh, sorry, mate.
Did you just drop that?
You dropped that.
I've already added the sound effect in the edit.
All right.
Yeah.
Nice on.
Nice.
Yeah.
But for me, this is David Fincher at his most Adele.
Oh, that's painful.
Right.
And I feel like it's the sort of romance movie that people that don't watch cinema, they'll
go see it and rather than seeing like sleepless and Seattle, they'll see this and they'll go,
wow, it was really artsy and cinema.
Okay.
I'll agree with that.
This is so Adele listeners can feel like they've had a real cinema thing.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
It's about as weak as a David Fincher film can get for me.
Okay.
And I've actually written in the notes and I'm going to have to say it because I've written
it.
So this is just making time for me later in the edit.
Hit the ukuleles.
I despise this piece of movie.
Wow.
But why I despise it is interesting.
That's what I'd like to talk about.
Okay.
That's fine.
So it's not going to be just me going, I think it's rubbish.
There's a reason why I think it's rubbish.
Okay.
I think it's an informative reason.
Before we get into that, I would just want to say for those of you who haven't seen the
film in ages and want a quick refresher on what this film is about, so you know what
hell we're talking about later in the episode, or for those of you who are just here because
you enjoy hanging out with us, we enjoy hanging out with you.
You might not necessarily want to rewatch this film or watch it ever.
I recommend not.
I recommend you do.
I really do.
But we're going to just go through the plot now real quick.
So we're all on the same page.
Ben, I'm going to play the jingle.
Benjamin Button is born in 1918 New Orleans as a wrinkled ball sack baby.
His father shocked and distraught, abandons him on the steps of a nursing home, where
a slightly too stereotypically sassy caretaker named Queenie, that's mean, she's fantastic,
takes him in and raises him as a...
But come on, she's written by a white guy.
Oh, a thousand percent.
There's too many ooh-chiles in there.
It's New Orleans in 1918.
You weren't there.
No?
Right.
Okay.
She's one step away from asking for Thomas to come in and help take care of the mouse.
Kinda.
Right?
Okay.
Almost.
Okay.
We're all on the same page.
All right.
I'll give you that one.
Queenie takes him in and raises him as her own.
Though Benjamin begins life with the physical limitations of an elderly gentleman, he ages
backwards, gradually growing younger over time.
While his body becomes stronger, he experiences the world through the eyes of someone who
appears elderly, but is discovering life for the first time.
As Benjamin ages in reverse, he meets and befriends Daisy, a young girl visiting her
grandmother in the nursing home.
Despite their age difference, well, perceived age difference, they share a deep bond that
will endure through the years, despite being incredibly non-C in presentation.
Benjamin's life takes him beyond the nursing home as he works on the tugboat and travels
around the world.
He fights in World War II, experiencing loss and adventure that shape his view of life.
After the war, he returns to New Orleans, reconnecting with Queenie and eventually meeting
his estranged father, who on his deathbed confesses his identity and leaves Benjamin
his family fortunes.
That's inexplicable.
We're having words after this.
That's inexcusable.
In time!
In time, Benjamin and Daisy reconnect as adults, now closer in physical age.
They fall in love and eventually try to build a life together.
It's still on the fence.
It's fine.
They face the unique challenge of Benjamin's reverse aging, which casts a shadow over their
happiness.
They have a daughter, but as Benjamin grows younger, he realizes that his condition will
soon make it impossible for him to be a proper father.
To spare Daisy and their daughter from the pain and burden of his condition, he chooses
to leave, distancing himself to let them live a more stable life.
Years later, as Benjamin continues to age backwards into adolescence and then childhood
– stop looking at me like that – Daisy re-enters his life to take care for him, putting
the noncy shoe on the other foot.
She watches over him as he regresses to infancy, bringing his unusual life full circle.
Ultimately, Benjamin dies in Daisy's care, his story ending with the same sense of mystery
and wonder with which it began.
I'd also say ending with the same sense of vague, unpleasant sexual dynamic with which
it began.
Yeah, right.
This film is kind of book-ended and noncery.
For our US listeners, nonce is a child sex predator.
It's a nice fun word that we've invented to water down the gravity of the horror.
So when we say nonce, we mean pedophile.
Yeah, this film is kind of book-ended and noncery.
A noncery rhyme, if you will.
It's hard to swallow at places.
That's a clap clap clap noncery rhyme.
Don't bury that lead.
Thank you.
Well, it's not, it's an anti-pedo movie because its central message is even if you, as a problematic
person, think that physical age is just a number, the film is a demonstration of life
experience being far more important.
It literally doesn't matter what this person looks like or what age their body is, what
have they been through.
He is a 70 year old child with the experiences of a child and it doesn't make it okay.
It's about life experience.
The physical look of it though.
That's the uncomfortable bit.
It's being a very elderly woman in love with a newborn infant child, right?
Yes.
The film doesn't present it as sexual love, but they had a romantic relationship and she's
taking care of this child who was once her romantic sexual partner.
It's odd.
I feel like we've focused on it for too long though.
I feel like we've got the bookends.
It's a small part of the film.
It just happens to be the start and the end.
Now there's one thing that's longer.
Now there's one thing that's older than Benjamin Button in this film.
Go on.
It's the making of.
How long did this take to make though?
I can obviously see in the film, you can see that a lot's gone into it.
I imagine it took a couple of years to get it going and whatnot.
Let's go back, back, back because this goes back, back, back.
There is a short story collection by F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote The Great Gatsby and
one of the great American authors that they like to pretend are as good as European ones.
And this was one of the short stories in there.
You've just infuriated the nine authors that listen to this show.
They're just sort of like, they're sitting there, they're writing and they're like...
America doesn't have nine authors of no-fit.
Oh my God.
All right, yeah, fine.
Don't you think they've been through enough recently?
Can we not cut them a bit of slack?
Jesus.
They need to get writing is what they need to do.
Oh, there's nothing to write about.
Atwood did all right.
Now her stories have come true.
So deal with it.
The rights to the story were first bought by Ray Stark.
Tony's long lost brother.
Yes.
Back in the late seventies.
Wow.
Okay.
With Jack Nicholson set to star as Benjamin Button.
Incredible.
The film rights were bought by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy.
Amazing.
And Amblin.
Awesome.
Then Kennedy and Marshall left to start their own production company, bringing the rights
along with them and started developing this movie in 1994 with Tom Cruise as the lead
and Steven Spielberg in the 1990s.
Oh my God.
This would have been amazing.
David Fincher.
Yeah.
Quote here.
David Fincher.
Actually, I read the first first draft of this script, which was in 1992.
Yeah.
Steven Spielberg was making it at the time with Tom Cruise.
Amazing.
And it was mostly like a writing sample.
Someone gave me it as this is one of the great unmade screenplays.
Either it was they were trying to get it off the ground or it was being shuttered and it
sat on the shelf for at least 10 years.
Well probably nine years because 2001 is when I read the latest incarnation of it.
In 1998 they had Ron Howard set to direct with John Travolta as the lead.
Oh, okay.
It just went back and forth and back and forth.
And then Eric Roth got involved and rewrote it.
Incredible.
And that's when David Fincher got involved.
Right.
And that was a very, very long route to make this film.
And when you think about it, this is 2008, which is the sort of birth of semi decent
CGI.
Yeah.
Even David Fincher himself says about the CGI in this.
He's like in some of the scenes here, you can't tell that we've done CGI.
Yes.
And in others, it just gets you from A to B. We all know what's going on.
We can see it.
That's it.
It's incredible.
Other parts is Alien 3.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, literally.
Even he knew at the time he was like, look, we don't win 100%.
20% of the time it works 100% of the time.
I love this man so much.
So much.
But before 2008, you couldn't have done this film.
You'd have to have done a series of actors who all looked very similar.
Or you'd have to do very clunky scenes of some completely new character, actor walks
in that you've never seen.
And someone goes, oh, Benjamin Button.
Hello, Benjamin Button.
And you'd go, oh, okay, this is where we are now.
It would have been a nightmare to make before digital technology.
Don't get me wrong.
I would have loved to send that film.
I truly would have.
I would have loved to send any of the incantations that you've just spoken about.
Incantations.
Incarnations.
Sim sim maledictim.
There you go.
I got it.
That's all right.
I'm going to send it.
Let me cook.
All right.
Let me cook.
It's going to take me a minute to get there, but you know, we there.
The film that we did get might be the best romantic film that I've ever seen in my entire
life.
Oh, okay.
That's interesting.
Because what that tells me is that you've never seen any.
No, I've seen a lot.
See, that's my issue.
I've seen a lot.
Like secretly, deep down, I'm like, are you a romantic?
I'm a little bit of like, not a romantic, but I'm a little bit of like a romcom type
person.
It's like a guilty pleasure.
Romcoms don't count.
Romcoms count.
I like romantic stories.
I like romantic books.
I'm good with this stuff, but also we'll never ever talk about it.
Right, because when I did, you mercilessly mocked me.
Oh yeah.
A thousand percent.
But that's why I'll never mention it, because that will happen to me and I couldn't live
with myself.
It's the social equivalent of walking up to an automatic door, it not opening, but I know
the shops open.
I can never go back to that door again.
Like I just move.
You know what I mean?
Just pulling the push door until the hinges snap.
Legitimately.
I would never be able to, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
I'd have to move house.
I'd have to move town.
But this might be the most romantic, the best romantic film that I've ever seen.
And I think it hit me at a moment, okay, that I needed it more than anything.
It's pure, it's pure life lessons and it's absolute tragedy.
There is a gorgeous story, smack bang in the middle, right?
Gorgeous.
And it is, it's book, we've made a joke saying it's bookended and nonsery, but it starts
off very sad and sort of full of abandonment and struggles and figuring out what's going
on and getting used to the world around you, right?
But you're also confronted with this one person that is living life wildly different to everyone
else and you get a unique viewpoint of the world.
And the unique viewpoint of the world still has the same struggles that we all go through,
right?
Aging backwards, all of this stuff.
It's all fine.
In the end of the film, everyone dies.
Everyone is forced apart.
They're all kept apart in this sort of like heartache, heartbreak.
No, no, no, it can never work because obviously it can never work, right?
Right.
Of course not.
Yeah.
But they're kept apart mainly for a big chunk of the story through poor choices, bad decisions,
and they all come round to teach the person who made those bad choices a lesson.
And looking at it, you're like, oh, these are lovely upstanding citizens with nothing
but the best intentions and they still veer off the road dramatically into every oncoming
car imaginable, right?
Literally in the case of Daisy outside the dance studio.
This is what I mean.
Dancing into oncoming traffic.
This is what I mean.
It's like there is not a bad will in this film, but there are so many bad things that
happen just off like chance scenarios and all this stuff.
It's incredible.
The thing that really got me is the commentary of success and the commentary of worth.
How do you mean?
You've got Benjamin Button's father.
Hugely wealthy, hugely successful.
Successful businessman, yeah.
Massively successful businessman, right?
All the money in the world, massive button business, huge factory, an empire, you know,
everyone's jealous of.
Yeah.
But then you've got people like Queenie.
House manager of a senior dementia care home.
Exactly.
Lives in a basement.
Existing on charity.
Lives in a bed.
Yeah.
Has a bed and a chest of drawers to her name.
Presented as a more successful character.
That's yeah.
But this is the thing though, and the way that they do it is great because you get all the
normal stuff of being so like, oh, it must be lonely being this big businessman and all
this stuff.
And what's made it hit me the hardest is when Benjamin's father passes away, it cuts to
his funeral and there is, you know, six or seven people sparsely stood around and no
one's crying.
No one's really asked.
They're like, man, you know, he's a good man, but what did he do?
Buttons?
Yeah, great.
I've got some mate, you know what I mean?
Not missed.
Yeah.
And then when Queenie dies, you've got a room full of people heartbroken and you've got
just an enormous crowd of people of every single, every single one of them was touched
in some way by Queenie and it was all in a positive way.
And it's this huge gathering of-
Not in Michael Jackson way.
No, no, no, no, no.
Right.
Yeah.
And it's just, it just, I think when you're hit, when you're approaching 40, you start
looking at stuff.
I've started taking care of my lung issues now.
My chest issues are getting sorted.
You finally went to the doctor.
Well done.
I did.
Yeah.
So obviously with all this going on, now I'm convinced it's like, you know, death is coming.
Yeah.
Knock, knock motherfucker.
And then it's like, well, what do I want?
What do I want my success to be defined by?
Do I want it to be defined by a room full of people that were like, he made a positive
impact in my life.
Or is it six people that were like, yeah, he was minted though.
Minted at buttons.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
He had loads of buttons though, mate.
He's buried in buttons.
That's what I mean.
And it's that, it's that sort of like reframing of what success is and what, what is good.
It is lovely.
I'm glad you enjoyed the film and you're right to have enjoyed the film.
I hated it and I'm going to get into why.
Because we've started with why you love it.
I'll save why I hated it to the end.
Do it.
Because I don't think we're too different in our read on the film.
Okay.
That's good.
I think something I noticed, I noticed on Zodiac and it, it's less evident in this one,
but I know it's coming down the pipe.
Right.
And so I feel like I have to mention it now.
Okay.
This is kind of the second film now that David Fincher shot fully digital.
Okay.
There's no, there's very little in the way of film.
Yeah.
There's a scene at the end where Benjamin's going around India.
Yes.
And that's filmed by a director called Tarsem Singh, who was going around India anyway with
Brad Pitt.
Okay.
Tarsem Singh did The Cell with Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughan.
You've mentioned this film loads over the last two years.
I love it.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's a, it's like a visually, and he did a film called The Fall, which is also visually
just stunning.
He does like really psychedelic, visually stunning statement shots.
Okay.
But he just ties them all together and you just end up, it's like eye candy.
Incredible.
And it's, it's fantastical and all this kind of stuff.
I need to watch some of his stuff.
Right.
So that the bit at India at the end was shot by Tarsem Singh.
And that's the only bit of film in the movie.
The rest is all done on digital.
David Fincher said, I love film.
I think it looks beautiful.
And in the right hands to me, there are maybe 10 guys in the world that make a difference
with it.
Okay.
And that horrible gnawing 24 hour period between having shot something and seeing it.
Oh yeah.
What the fuck?
You don't have one take that's in sharp focus.
Yeah.
I will trade four or five stops of high end shoulder exposure for the ability to have
a 23 inch HD monitor that allows me to go see this thing here.
It's out of focus.
Yeah, that's fair.
That's fair.
Because of his work method, the multiple takes, the exploring every avenue.
On digital, it's a lot easier to go, I've got that.
We can move on.
It's a lot harder with film.
And I think his bad reputation for taking so many takes makes more sense when you realize
he's not going to see any of this until tomorrow.
Oh yeah.
That adds a whole different thing to this scenario.
By which point the set will be collapsed and the actors will all be in different locations.
Ah, yeah.
Okay.
This makes more sense now.
The other thing that digital allows him to do, which he starts to do a lot more now,
and by the time we get into Gone Girl and the social network, he is a master of it.
He forces you to empathize with his characters by doing something really clever.
Whenever you look at a David Fincher shot, wherever the actor is in the frame, his camera
operator or his motion control or whichever one he ends up using on that shot will keep
that character in that exact same part of the frame for the length of the shot.
If Jake Gyllenhaal walks across the screen, he doesn't walk across the frame.
His face stays exactly where the XY coordinates of his face on that screen stay the same.
The camera copies every movement.
If he ducks a little bit as he walks, the camera ducks a little bit as he walks.
So you as the viewer, the way that you're viewing the scene is entirely tied to the
movement of the person that you're watching.
So if they're skittish, the camera is skittish.
If they move deliberately with purpose, the camera moves deliberately with purpose.
But it's almost like the camera copies the actor's performance so accurately that your
brain sort of subconsciously clicks into their experience of the world.
You'll notice it in Gone Girl, you'll notice it in this.
If Brad Pitt shifts in his chair a little bit, the camera moves with him.
I'm going to have to go back and watch every Fencher film and just try and track this.
As we go forward from here, it gets stronger and it forces an empathy with the characters
and he's gone from composing the sets like he did with Panic Room.
And then again you go, well that would take loads of shots.
Because if your camera operator doesn't quite keep up and Jake Gyllenhaal at one point starts
on the left hand side of the frame and ends up on the right a bit and then ends up on
the left again, doesn't work.
That's not what I'm trying to do anymore.
Okay, so this makes so much sense.
There's a 30 minute documentary on the curious case of Benjamin Button and it's called The
Curious Birth of Benjamin Button.
It's like a behind the scenes thing that goes into everything, like down to the layout of
the house, why they used New Orleans, why they chose this exact location.
There are parts of the set that we never see but are built fully fleshed out, fully operational
like outhouses, kitchens, all this stuff.
There is a whole house at the back of the house, the servants quarters, you don't really
see, but it's there.
But it's fully fleshed out and it's down to the minute detail.
They're all sort of like, they are so precise it's unreal.
This whole documentary goes into it but there is one moment in the documentary where they're
trying to get a tracking shot of Queenie as Brad Pitt comes back to the house when he's
younger and Daisy has moved back from New York.
It's when they first fully get back together, they have the big embrace and hug.
I remember it.
It's maybe a five second shot of Queenie walking across the porch.
There's about a 10 minute segment of this documentary that focuses on nothing but that
shot right?
Right.
And it's Fincher stood there and he's like, action!
And it shows Queenie walking across and he goes, no, no, you're about one tenth of a
percent too quick on that one.
If you could slow it down, just one tenth of one percent.
And I was like, what do you mean?
0.1 percent?
If you think of what Fincher's trying to do, he's trying to keep his angles, he's trying
to keep his focus and he's going, right, I want that banister rail that she's walking
along to stay parallel with the camera.
This is what he says in the documentary though.
But what he does is he goes, right, no, no, no, you are doing it perfectly, but come and
look at this.
And he shows Queenie in the shot and he's like, you see how you and Brad are here when
you start.
And then as he's walking over, you are slightly dragging.
So we need you to be as he is, he hits this pile of leaves.
You need to be at this spot precisely.
And then it cuts to the actual shot in the film and it's bang on.
But in the film, it's less than less than five seconds.
But it's impossible to do when you've got real people behind the camera and in front
of the camera.
But it's gorgeous.
And you're like, no, it needs to be choreographed, right?
It's incredible.
The whole, the whole feel of this film is insane.
Now that you've pointed that out, this brings a whole new light to the film and it's kind
of, it's twisting my, it's twisting my head a little bit.
I love this film in the way that it's framed and in the way that the story is framed, right?
So the story is framed from Daisy's perspective when she's on a deathbed.
She has her daughter reading Benjamin Button's diary out loud to her as she's passing away.
Not only is that happening, Hurricane Katrina is raging outside the hospital.
Everyone's panicking.
The world is turning upside down and all Daisy wants to focus on is, can you just read me
this diary?
I like the sound of your voice.
I love the sound of your voice.
Just read this, just read this diary.
It is awful situation after awful situation after awful situation after awful situation.
It is horrid when you sit and look at it.
Yeah.
But it is the sweetest moment that exists and it's like only Fincher can get me in a
position where I'm like, Oh my God, this is so nice.
And I'm like, no, Hurricane Katrina, get out, move, go somewhere.
I'm going to quickly slide a little tip bit of information in here as well.
Okay.
Go for it.
Why hurricanes?
I'm not sure.
They spin anti-clockwise.
Oh, you can shut your filthy mouth because that is tickling my pickle in a way I didn't
imagine.
There's also a motif of hummingbirds in the moon.
There is.
She sees a hummingbird.
They're the only bird that can fly backwards.
Okay.
This is, this is all information.
This is all information to me.
I'd know where to put it, but it was, I've got to tell him.
Okay.
This is great.
I've completely derailed exactly what I'm thinking.
No transition.
I'm just going to get back to it because that's blown my tits clean off.
All right.
The framing of the film from Daisy's perspective where she's, she's letting her daughter find
out that she is Benjamin Button's daughter through reading his diary is a horrible way
to tell your child that your father who's raised you is not your father.
Right?
The worst way.
Also, the worst timing to do that is when you're on your death bed.
The worst time to be on your death bed, letting your child read her true biological father's
diary in the middle of a hurricane.
A hundred percent.
David Fincher said in this little documentary that I watched, he was like, the only way
that I could deal with all the soppy shit in the middle of this film is the, is the
awful tragedy that encompasses all of it.
I was like, I love this man.
And I think that quote right there might make Rob come in his pants.
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.
Right?
A hundred percent does.
I do, I do hate this film and I do hate it because it's too schmaltzing.
I know you do.
It is too schmaltzing.
And I started going like, why, why would David Fincher?
Because it's, it's an allegorical fairy tale.
It is.
Set in a whimsical world.
And I'm like, if I have that script, who am I calling?
I'm calling Tim Burton.
You are.
I'm calling Wes Anderson.
You are.
Do you know who I'm not calling?
David Fincher.
Autistic, unfeeling CCTV camera in the corner of the room going, look at the death.
Okay.
Right.
But I,
But then, so I was like, I was like, why, why did he make this?
Why did he make this?
And then I did my research and then I felt really bad because his resolve to make the
film came after the death of his father in 2002.
And the fact that he's aging backwards.
David Fincher is only 27 years old.
No he, he, he says here, when I read the Robin Swycord draft, which was the first draft,
he said, I thought that this was a love story.
But when I read the Eric Roth draft, which is the draft we see in the film, he said,
I thought this is a love story, but it's really about death and the total frailty of humanity.
He's a character whose entire childhood is defined by the people that die around him
and by how comfortable he gets with that.
After my dad died, I had other things, other movies that I wanted to make.
It's not a special effects movie.
That's for sure.
It ain't spaceships.
It's not explosions.
It's about people.
Hopefully.
Oh man.
As a man who's been recently, he was very, very close with his father.
He describes his father as his North star.
He was the man that he was trying to impress with all of his prior films.
Oh God, don't because some of his past films with the father figures, it brings, it brings
up a whole thing and I'm going to cry.
Right.
Yeah.
So he's there going like the, he was my first audience member.
Like that was the guy when I was making creative decisions, who I was making the film for and
he's gone now.
So who do I make films for?
Jesus Christ.
And then he gets this script, which is very much about the sort of time we have.
Yeah.
Realistically, the time we don't have.
Yeah.
Damn man.
It makes more sense to me is that, but it also makes me angrier, but I'll get back to
why it makes me angry because I'm saving it to the end.
Okay.
Right.
Well this makes me seem like an asshole now because my original theory of why I thought
David Fincher might have made this film.
This is pure conjecture corner.
It was just a little fun thought experiment that I thought would bring a little bit of
lightness to the show.
Evidently not though, Rob.
Just taking all the wind out of my sail.
My original theory or my fun little thought experiment was that Fincher sat down at some
point and watched The Notebook, which is, you know, regarded as one of the greatest
romantic films of all time.
One of the best love stories, all of this.
Do you know what?
I wouldn't know because you haven't seen it.
Cause I'm not a beta cut soy boy like you.
I tell you what.
Watches those romance films.
Yeah, I did watch it.
I saw it in the cinema.
Yeah.
I got up at four AM.
Start a business.
By six AM.
I founded my first business.
Yeah.
Do 25 minutes of yoga in six minutes.
Yeah.
By nine AM on Monday, I'm on Thursday.
Right.
So The Notebook comes out and it's, it's, it's heralded as one of the greatest romance films
of all time.
If you really sit and look at The Notebook, it's two incredibly toxic people who barely
like each other.
They go off and live their own lives.
They get married.
They, they, you know, have their romantic lives and stuff.
And then they end up getting back together.
Right?
Right.
And the whole film is framed from the husband's point of view.
And it's essentially this old man reminding his dementia ridden wife, how much of a whore
she was until they die.
It's just sort of like, it's, it might be the most romantic film that exists, but it
also might just be the biggest fuck you from a still bitter old man.
And that made me, that made me chuckle.
Cause then I started thinking, okay, so maybe Fincher saw that and was like, yeah, but hold
my beer one minute.
All right.
What about if it starts off a bit Nancy, it goes incredibly well and then everyone dies
at the end and it's all tragic and horrible.
Cause in the documentary Fincher says the only way that he could put up with the stuff
in the middle of this film was if they all die at the end, which is a great way to make
a film.
I'll jump in here and I'll say, there's one thing.
I hate more than anything in filmmaking or music making or anything.
I think it's because it's something I used to be guilty of and I see the error of it
now.
Having fun.
I hear you.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
The opposite, the opposite.
Doing something that you think you're better than.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I don't want to make a love story like that because I think love stories are too schmaltzy,
too twee, too this, that or the other.
Jesus Christ.
So I'm going to make a real one.
I'm going to bust out my 1900s dictionary real quick.
What the does twee mean?
Twee like, um, like the Shire in the Hobbit is twee.
Like it's like, you know, it's like cutesy and like old timey and looks back, you know,
the Shire is the tweeest part of Lord of the Rings.
The worst thing is right, that's the nerdyest way to explain it.
But I know exactly what you mean.
It makes perfect sense, right?
Exactly what you mean. If anyone, if anyone from anywhere on the map of Lord of the Rings
went to the Shire, they'd be there about five minutes and they go, God, this is so twee.
Please forever give me vocabulary lessons in the form of Lord of the Rings geography
because that was by all means, by all means.
The Shire is the tweeest part.
But here's the thing, if you don't like romance movies, David, don't make one.
Because you're, you're engaging in something that you think you're better than.
And what you're then trying to do is you're trying to introduce a whole lot of elements
to make it what you think it would be better as.
It would be like me trying to make pop punk.
I don't like pop punk.
I don't respect pop punk.
Oh, that's just not true though.
We drove out of London listening to Kerrang from 2005.
Yeah, but all the pop punk ones I sat with my teeth gritted, remember?
No, we were screaming it out the windows on the M25.
I saw you. I saw you. I seen you.
You were twee.
Because I was hitting in my nostalgia nerves and I know maybe three lines of the good Charlotte
choruses, right?
So it's like, well, I'm here now.
I'm at that.
I was in the car, Ben.
We were on the motorway.
The only thing I could really do was come to a place of peace with what was happening.
Escape it now, buddy.
This is the anthem.
Throw all your hands up.
See, this is what happens when I do busted references.
But I think that element of not respecting your audience or what the audience have come
there to see and going, I know better than them.
I don't respect the thing that they enjoy.
Again, it comes back to, and I hate how often this comes up, you can't ironically fuck a
donkey.
David, you're making a romance movie.
If you don't like it, why are you making a romance movie?
Stop adding a bunch of stuff.
Okay.
I make it cool or dark or, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can see where you're coming from and I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I think it's, I do think it's very, it's very twee.
You know what I mean?
It's very twee.
And look, I think it's, I think I can wrap this film up in two words.
Go for it.
Forest cunt.
Wow.
That's almost, that's upsettingly close to exactly what it is.
It's fantastic.
Because it's, it's, it's a grim dark chin strokey version of forest gump.
Forest gump is very twee.
Okay.
It is very homespun.
Yeah.
It's a, it's an apple pie.
It's homestead peas and carrots, apple pie.
Yeah.
But do you know what you get halfway through and you go, okay, this is what we're doing.
And then you get swept up in it.
Yeah, you do.
You don't have is along the way.
Someone pushing up their glasses and going, no, we're better than that.
No, that one dies.
Yeah.
But that's the thing though.
That's, this is it.
Like forest gump does the same thing that this film does.
Forest gump is just a HIV ridden cocaine addict, mentally abusing a disabled man for three
decades.
It's the good grace to go, if we're doing this, we're going to do it with a smile on
our face.
Oh yeah.
1000%.
They're super happy about bullying the mentally disabled.
Do you know what I mean?
They're like, no, this is fine.
Whereas this film is just moaning the whole way.
Oh, now you're successful.
It's just complaining about itself.
Now you're successful.
Yeah.
Now I can, now you can meet your son.
You're a legitimate child.
I've kept away from you for years.
Right, right, right.
But the reason I hate this film in particular is because the subtext of the film is incredible
and speaks so incredibly to me.
I've got two quotes.
I've got two quotes that I'm furious we haven't written about the show.
The first one is short and tell me, dear listener, how relevant this might be to every show we've
ever done and what Ben and I have been trying to say.
You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went.
You can swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.
That's a...
And then the longer one.
For what it's worth, it's never too late or in my case too early to be whoever you want
to be.
There's no time limit.
Start whenever you want.
You can change or stay the same.
There are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best or the worst of it.
I hope you make the best of it.
I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you've never felt before.
I hope you meet people who have a different point of view.
I hope you live a life you're proud of.
And if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
Jesus Christ.
Now Ben, that paragraph there is what we're trying to do with this show, right?
We're trying to start all over again with disagreeing about things and surprising ourselves
and practicing our feelings and all this kind of stuff, right?
Incredible subtext.
If you gave me two hours and 45 minutes of blank film and told me to get that subtext
across, do you know how I wouldn't do it?
Benjamin Button.
You're having a fucking man-age backwards in a Nazi relationship, going in a boat, fighting
in a war, meeting a human zoo guy, and then coming back and getting nonced by Cate Blanchett.
In a love story where the two leads have less chemistry than salt and dogs.
I guess.
That's a very...
It's a waste.
It's such a squand...
It takes something beautiful, takes something beautiful, and it just jizzes it up the wall.
Oh, mate.
Look, I know exactly where you're coming from and the reason that you hate this film is
the exact reason why I love this film.
Like, oh God, that quote's got me, man.
But it's true.
The quote is true.
And the quote is beautiful.
It broke me in the film and it broke me just now.
But honestly, right, so the reason that you hate this film, I wholeheartedly agree with
you, it is nonsense, right?
But from a man that cherishes nonsense more than anything else in this world, this film
hits me in a whole different way because I feel like it speaks to me on a level that
not other films do.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, B-movies hit me on this level, rarely do B-movies have this amount of subtext that
make me reassess my entire life, right?
Right.
Everything you've just said.
I mean, I will say 163 million.
Yeah, 163 million.
Loved every penny spent.
Do you know what I mean?
It's amazing.
Okay, okay.
So from life happens, no matter how you live it or what you choose to do, it is happening.
Whether you choose to participate or not, it's happening, right?
Youth isn't just for the young.
It's not.
That is the scariest thing for me at the moment.
Youth is not just for the young.
I have people coming into my work saying, hi, I was born in 2005.
I was like, brilliant.
I started college then.
Mint.
Your legal drinking age.
Mint.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter how you start life or how you end life.
It is all about the middle.
It's about what you choose to do when you have the ability to make those choices.
And if that isn't the most harrowing, upsetting way to look at how we've chosen to live our
lives and you're like, oh my God, oh my God.
And then the film carries on and is just sort of like, no, no, no, I know what you're feeling,
but listen buddy, you're all right.
There's a second, third and a fourth and a fifth go.
There's fourth.
You can, you're in no rush.
I'm sorry.
You're not happy right now.
Restart it, mate.
You are golden.
We've all got your back, babe.
You just do you.
Right.
And it just broke me into a million pieces because I was like, there is so many chances
that I've missed.
There's so many opportunities that I've looked at, missed opportunities, poor choices, terrible
life decisions, paths that I know I shouldn't have been going down, but I went down anyway
because it was easier to stay masked than it was to confront what was actually going
on in my brain and heart.
It's a psychos fallacy, right?
If I just keep doing, if I change what I'm doing, I have to recognise that the last five
years of doing this has been a stupid idea.
Exactly.
And that's a really painful thing to do.
So I'll just do this for another week.
And then that week turns into three years.
And before you know it, you're a cocaine addict, you're an alcoholic and you've got a bedside
cabinet full of shots.
You're even more stuck because there's, there's more years in the bank.
Exactly.
You don't have to walk away from.
That was time wasted.
Exactly.
And this film, like I say, the subtext is beautiful.
It's incredible.
I wouldn't tell it with an 80 year old Brad Pitt raising a wrinkly hand up into his mother's
bed and going, mama, dude, it hits me so hard.
I don't know why it just gets me.
He's on his own.
He's the only person doing this.
He's completely different to the entire human race and still is that positive.
And it's like, Jesus Christ, you know what I mean?
In all things considered, I'm all right.
I'm doing all right.
You know what I mean?
It's such a good life affirming movie that is the weirdest life affirming movie that
exists.
It's odd and it's gorgeous.
It's beautiful.
And the look of the film, stunning.
I'm glad you got that out of it.
I will buy you an Adele album and you'll love it.
For about a week, probably.
If there's something in there for me, sure.
If not, it's fine.
Yeah.
If it's not from a Starbucks, I don't want it.
What's fascinating is you're right.
I'm wrong and you're right.
No, no, no, you're not wrong.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Ben, Ben, I've got proof I'm wrong.
I've been proven wrong 335.8 million times.
Is that how much this made?
This is his second highest grossing film of his entire career.
Understandable.
This is the only thing more successful than this.
Jesus.
Was Gone Girl made more money than this.
Understandable.
And Seven was just behind it.
Okay.
Fair.
I will say, however, it is his second lowest rated film.
It's 71% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Okay.
Yeah.
But if your second lowest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes is in its seventies, you ain't doing
it bad.
Shut up.
He's not.
He's still a genius.
But like the critics were not as fond of this.
You say that, but also the 13 Oscar nominations and three Oscar wins.
Do you know what I mean?
You see what I mean?
So you're right.
I get that you're right.
I know a lot of people watched it and they went great.
I just got an hour in and I was like, it's been a long week.
You were like, what?
Sorry.
I just got an hour in and I was like, God damn, it's been a long week.
Thank you.
That's what I thought you said.
Thank you.
Okay.
Great.
Yeah.
Still got to edit it though.
Cause of your reaction.
Oh God.
I loved this film so much.
I didn't expect to.
I went into it with such low expectations being like, this is going to be some chin stroking
nonsense.
I got the life lesson that I needed at the exact right moment.
And now just everything, everything seems a little bit better.
I can't put my finger on it.
So we're going to, we're going to play a game now where I punish you for your wrong.
Fantastic.
Looking forward to this one.
What you, what you rating the curious case of Benjamin Button, Ben, easy in all of it's
nearly three hour glory.
Easy.
Don't, don't do this to me.
Nine and a half.
Okay.
You can't, you don't feel like I come, I'm getting in the way.
It's a nine and a half.
What's the half point that loses?
Uh, the book ended in noncery.
It's still, it's odd.
Yeah.
It's real odd.
Like as, as beautiful as the film is and as gorgeous as the subtext is, it's odd.
It's odd.
Yeah.
It's like a kid's brain in a 75 year old man's body.
She's still a child.
I get that technically you are too.
You're also a child.
Yeah.
Technically it's just visually upsetting to see.
Exactly.
See, that's it.
It's the, it's the, it's the, it's the unsettling sort of visuals that accompany it.
I think that's why Fincher loves it.
This is the cinema fan.
This is the sort of Scorsese chin strokey version of she's actually a 7,000 year old
dragon trapped in the body of a 10 year old girl.
The only anima synopsis ever.
Right.
Exactly.
Um, actually it's not Lolly because she's 7,000 years old.
Lolly.
Shut up.
Shut up, David.
Never say that again.
Jesus Christ.
It made my entire spine shiver.
Never say that again.
What are you rated it?
Zero.
F*** off.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna justify this.
How?
You have to measure something by its potential.
Yeah.
You have to measure what they set out to do and the resources they had.
Right.
I'm not going to watch a small indie film made for a mil.
Right.
And start critiquing the CGI.
Sure.
Or start critiquing the, you know, the acting performances.
All factually inaccurate.
We've both done this.
Well, I know, but I feel like a shib.
With all of those films, when we did the Christmas tapes and I said, look, for my personal enjoyment,
it's this, but for the achievement that they've managed to get for this budget, it's this.
Right.
That's the mature way to do it.
This is the inverse.
He had $160 million.
He had four Oscar winners in his cast.
He had a script that had that subtext and what was presented was both sickly sweet,
homespun wisdom, dross that manages to also be boring and over long and Nancy.
And I'm like, you've made Fight Club.
You've made seven.
You've made Zodiac.
And you've decided to go outside of your wheelhouse and see if you can do warm romance.
Yeah.
Spoiler, you can't.
You can.
There's not a single romantic scene between these two.
Absolute nonsense.
There's maybe one.
Absolute nonsense.
And that is devastatingly attractive in this film.
When they've both caught up to each other and he's like, let me just stand and remember
this moment just for a minute.
They stare in the mirror and they both realize that this isn't going to work for the exact
same reason, the exact same moment, but they both choose to ignore it is hauntingly beautiful.
Hauntingly beautiful.
That's the hands.
It's one of my favorite scenes in any film so far.
I've got two bits of two by four.
I can stick in front of a mirror and film on my phone and you'll get much the same experience.
You don't get it.
Maybe I don't.
That's the thing for 163 million quid with David Fincher directing.
I hope everyone could get it.
Yeah, I guess.
No, you are right.
It's the squandering of the material.
It's the squandering of that beautiful subtext that speaks so deeply.
If you wanted to custom write a bit of subtext to sum up what we're trying to do on this
show, you couldn't do better than that.
For me to get halfway through and be like, oh my God, please will it end?
Please.
For me to be in the bargaining stage an hour in.
I see where you're coming from.
I find it difficult to agree because obviously I think it's rose tinted glasses on this one.
This film cut me up into a hundred pieces.
I'll balance it.
Half a point.
Okay, there you go.
There's subtext.
This is the biggest disparity that we've ever had on a film, by the way.
Painful points and you giving it a pity half point is the biggest disparity we've ever
had and it's over a Fincher movie.
It's so that we can marry.
It's so we can marry our scores because you're half a point off perfect and I'm half a point
off the worst.
That's so cute.
There is lots in this film that's worth points, but it doesn't get them because it's squandered.
Okay, I agree.
It's all very well bringing me a nice plate of dinner and then just dashing it on the
floor in front of me and going, oops.
Yeah, but it's fun though, right?
I've also got a request of the listeners.
We are going to be posting a little less to social media in the coming weeks.
We're trying a thing.
It might not work.
It's a new schedule.
Let us cook.
Comments are really, really helpful for the algorithm.
So those of you that see our stuff and like it, thank you so much.
Any comment of any kind is worth like 10 likes.
It really is.
If you see one and you can try something, we'll chat to you there.
We love chatting to you.
We really do love chatting to you.
And also join the Patreon.
Do it.
It's super cheap and it's incredibly fun.
We've got some stuff up there already for you.
We've got some bonus stuff.
We've got our Spicy Hawaiian episodes.
This episode, the Spicy Hawaiian version of this episode is up there right now.
It was out already days ago.
We filmed a bunch of stuff when we were up in Telford.
Yeah.
And all that's up there too.
We've got some stuff up.
Well, we don't know yet.
Yeah, we've got some stuff cooking.
But merch is on its way.
That's in the final stages now.
It's on its way.
Yes, it is.
It's on its way because I had a breakthrough.
I have.
I'll take you through after this.
I thought I told you about this.
Sorry, man.
Okay.
Surprise.
Yay.
I'm so excited.
So it's going to be fun.
Join us on Patreon.
We'd love to see you there.
And if we don't, hey, we love to see you here.
It's all good.
There's no pressure.
There's all the time in the world.
We hope you live in a life you're proud of.
Give us your money.
By giving us money.
Guys, unfortunately, that is all the time we have for this week.
We love and appreciate each and every one of you.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
It's been a pleasure.
Honestly, I feel a thousand times better.
And it's all down to you and you, Rob.
Thank you, babe.
Love you lots.
Aw, thanks, buddy.
Love you too.
Ben is now going to thank you for spending an hour of your week with us, especially at
the start of the week.
We know a lot of you listen on a Monday by wrapping up the thoughts, themes and feelings
of this movie into a little Monday motivational pep talk.
Whereas I just tell you to do what society always tells you to do and consume.
Look, poor decisions, bad choices, paths taken that shouldn't have been taken.
It sucks.
I get it.
It sucks.
It seems like it's impossible to come back from.
Good thing is you never have to come back from it.
You can just end it and then you just jump onto a new path and you start again, buddy.
That's it.
Um, I mean, maybe miss out the Nancy bits, because that's odd.