Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi, friends. Welcome to Charlie and Steve watch stuff where today we are watching big fish.

My name is Steve Selnick and joining me as always. He's my little teller of tall tales. It's my good friend, Charlie peppers. Charlie, how are you doing today, my friend?

Good, good, I got to see Danny DeVito's ass. Today is gonna be a good day.

We did get to see Danny DeVito's ass almost as good as seeing his ass in the penguin makeup. But alas, our dreams can wait for just another day or two. And Charlie, I'm just at this point of recording. I'm a day off of actually sitting next to you on that couch that you're sitting on right now. What a lovely time that was getting to sit next to that face for a 24 hour span.

And we got to watch this movie together next to each other. You got to experience me having an emotional fit, just mere feet from you. So what a special time that was. This is also a special time because we're welcoming one of my other besties, if you will, [00:01:00] Charlie, my OG bestie onto the podcast.

My partner, Aaron describes one of her friends as her lifelong friend. And so I have the honor of introducing my lifelong friend, Justin Ivy onto the podcast. Justin, please say hello to all. All of the viewers of Charlie and Steve watch stuff. All five

Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. Yeah. I wore the blazer. Cause I knew you guys were a tight crowd here. You guys run a great podcast. I've enjoyed listening and I'm, I'm happy to

be here to talk about a little bit about me, you and Charlie, and I'm happy to meet you, but a little bit about one of my favorite movies, big fish

with Dan to be his ass.

Yes.

Them pasty cheeks. What them pasty cheeks do.

what do they do? I bet they

clap.

they collect checks is what They

do. they collect checks, and occasionally they

films for sure.

Yeah, and they fight the Batman.

before we get into the fighter points of the timber, and I'm not going to call it a classic, but the timber and film big [00:02:00] fish. Let's start with you, Justin. Let's start with you, man. you and I met in seventh grade. Which, at this point, is uh, certifiably a long fucking time ago.

And, I mean, for lack of a better term, we truly grew up together, man.

I mean, like, when I joke that you're my OG bestie, it's not really that much of a joke. I mean, we've, we became friends very quickly and, and remained besties. Best friends ever since we've, we've been sort of at the others major life points thus far. And I, I don't see that changing anywhere down the road.

So I feel like it only makes sense that our next major life milestone is on the podcast, but I, I feel like I'm going to beat Charlie to it. Justin, I would love for you to Tell one embarrassing story about a time that you and I had together without, I'm just going to get it. I'm going to

you know, Facebook memories makes this really easy. Cause the other day it was like a 14 year anniversary of something. we used to compete a lot. Steve, you didn't have any other siblings growing up. You were an [00:03:00] only child and you were very athletically gifted. So. And nobody really challenged you in your household.

We were competitive, whether it was volleyball, whether it was jumping down the stairways of the hallway at the middle school, it didn't

matter what we were competing at. We were competing as we started getting older and competing for the eyes of certain women at parties. I once tackled you into a pool. You were furious. You were

fully clothed, but I made sure that. You know, the girl you had a crush on came up and grabbed your cell phone from you before and nothing was ruined, but you, we used to give each other a beating, throw each other into the snow. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. Also I'd like to mention, I'd like to put it on record. You grew up to have an amazing career with singing, but you were my understudy in middle school. I got

the role of Prince Charming and Romeo and you were my understudy for those two years. So,

this is true.

Yeah, I hold onto that forever. But yeah, no, I, I've loved growing up with you [00:04:00] and we're on two opposite sides of the country now.

I'm still back home in Connecticut. You're over there in California. I love staying connected with you and getting the opportunity to do things like this.

Me too, man. I appreciate that. And I was going to, right when you said that, I was going to ask if this was the

Yeah, you were

pissed, man.

there's, a photo, Charlie, there's a photo of Justin hopping out of the pool with this. Huge shit eating grin and me just, you can tell that I'm screaming at him from inside of, from the water.

I was so mad at him when he did that to me. Anyway, and it didn't even work, I didn't even get to date the girl.

Nope.

But yeah, man, we've had, we've had many a good time. Some people talk on the phone, some people FaceTime, some people, I don't know, they played, I mean, I have friends that play a regular Dungeons and Dragons stuff with other people, the other sides of the country, Charlie, Justin, and I have.

Yeah. An incredible shared Minecraft world that we try and jump into as much as possible. And we go dungeon diving and I, I don't, I'm not going to say that I build stuff, Justin build stuff in there in his [00:05:00] spare time, but that's our, like, we'll hop on the phone and we'll chat for an hour or two and we'll just be kind of playing Minecraft at the same time.

So that's sort of our way of finding time to spend time with each other these days. And so I guess it sort of tracks that. We would be into a fantastical sort of movie like big fish and that my friend is what we call a transition That's why i'm the professional here. I'm not a professional whatsoever let's get into the movie of the hour. I texted Justin, or maybe I was talking on the phone with you during one of our Minecraft sessions. And I'm, I'm getting into the point in this podcast where I'm just going to my friends and being like, Hey, if there's one movie that you would really want to talk about.

and dig into and you have opinions about what would it be and you didn't even hesitate. You were like, let's watch big fish. And I was like, I've never seen it. Charlie's never seen it. Why not? We have a big connection to it, but I've never actually threaded through all the way to the movie. So we're going to go ahead and And watch this thing.

And then I was with Charlie this [00:06:00] weekend. I was at a wedding in Los Angeles. I stayed with Charlie. We got to wake up the next day, have our coffee, eat some McDonald's breakfast and watch some big fish. It was fantastic. All of the above. And so big fish, the movie that was released on December 10th, 2003. Based on the novel, big fish, a novel of mythic proportions, which Justin pointed out was written in 1998. And then got picked up and turned into a movie by 2003. That's a really fast turnaround from novelization to script.

I'm just going to keep going. The screenplay was written by John August. It was directed by Tim Burton, ever heard of him? Starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, and a few other pretty good cameos that we will get into down the line. And the plot of the movie is Big Fish tells the story of a frustrated son.

And that is Big Fish. Putting it lately, who tries to distinguish fact from fiction in the life of his father, a teller of tall [00:07:00] tales. I think I, I bemoaned this to Charlie almost immediately. I was like, Oh no, this is going to be a eulogy. Okay, here we go. We got to do this now. But we open. at William Bloom's wedding, where his father, Edward, is recalling the day that Will was born, claiming that he caught an enormous catfish, because the catfish was rumored to be the dead soul of an old thief, and the only thing it wanted was gold.

And that using that gold wedding ring as bait, he was able to catch it. And Will is Fed up with his father's lies. He's he's storms out of his own wedding. His wife's like, no, no, no, it'll be, I promise. It's about you. And, and he goes outside and they, they have a fight and they have a falling out. And essentially they, they stop.

talking and that's that's sort of the opening in the movie as they're as they're setting in the scene and then three years later we find out that his father Edward is diagnosed with cancer prompting Will and his pregnant wife Josephine to go home to [00:08:00] Alabama where they grew up and to spend time with his ailing father.

I do find it very interesting in the in my Very half assed internet research that I do for these things that this movie was created by Tim very recently after he had lost his own father so I I think that a lot of you can probably feel a lot of the Clear emotionality that is happening here. And I I think it the movie sets you up very clearly For for what you're in for Right away.

It definitely starts with the first theme of the movie, the relationship between father and son. And it does, it sets the basis for the father set by Albert Finney. The father is telling a tall tale. He's not serious. I connected it a lot with my own father. Yours a little less, Steve grew up with your dad being a little more serious, but having his funny side, my father told tall tales often he was a storyteller and in his aspects.

So I saw a lot of him in Albert Finney, especially at the beginning. Come on, you can't skip over the first cameo here [00:09:00] that relates to Batman, something you guys talk about often. Marianne, I can't say her last name, Kuda Laird. She

played, yeah, the wife.

She played, Josephine?

was played by the same actor in the Batman movie, right, played

Knight Rises,

2012, Talia Agul.

Oh

wow, that's why she looks familiar.

it right over. That is

I guess that's not technically Tim Burton,

No, but

still main antagonist of a Batman movie.

There you go. All right. Her villain power was fucking Batman.

Yes.

I was very impressed that this was a Tim Burton movie because his movies are usually so. Here's how I feel about Tim Burton as a director. I'm either really into it or not in the mood. Because he tends to just make things so weird. So weird, and it's his classic Tim Burton sauce.

He did it in Beetlejuice. He did it in Edward Scissorhands. He did it Batman, Batman Returns, and [00:10:00] I would say that that was kind of his renaissance in the late 80s, early 90s. I think that that's where he did a lot of his greatest work, A Nightmare Before Christmas. That's when he did a lot of things that gave him his signature, his like Tim Burton ness. This movie coming into big fish to really see him Restrain himself. I don't know if that's the right word for it really and I hate this word, I hate this word so much, but I'm gonna say it, just be normal, and really just tell a story about a character who is alienated from his own son because he is very weird.

It very much is. If it were today, That this movie got made, the son would definitely accuse his dad of having a personality disorder, or of just being an attention whore of some kind, but I was really sucked into just how warm the color palette was, how the scoring [00:11:00] came together, the aesthetic. That it's a grounded, smaller story, cause Tim Burton doesn't really do smaller stories.

So, I would say my first impression of the movie is that I was very charmed and intrigued to see where things would go.

it definitely tips into that, Southern Gothic sort of theming and feeling every now and again, but He does do a really good job of keeping himself generally reined into a more grounded fantastical story if you ever could have one, and so we start getting into the fantastical of it all as Edwards life is starting to become chronicled via flashbacks beginning with his boyhood encounter with a witch.

played by Helena Bonham Carter. Not the first time Helena appears in this movie as a character or another. And the theory about this, which is that in her bad eye, if you look directly into it, it'll show you how you [00:12:00] die. And so he shows up with two boys, one of which will show up later in a big way. All three of them see how they're going to die in the witch's eyes.

The two boys see how they're going to go first, and they run away, terrified. And Edward's still there, and he goes, I'm not scared, I want to see. The witch pulls up her eyepatch. He goes, oh, so that's how I go. That was the first time I was like, ah, so Charlie, I'm going to do this now. There's a band called yellow card.

Might've heard of them ocean Avenue. And I can find it now like the, the, the, the whitest mayonnaise of white bread kind of music. But anyway, I'm sure you, it was forced into your ears at one point or another in the album lights and sounds there second or third studio album. There's a beautiful song at the end of it called how I go.

And Justin and I used to perform it together. We both learned how to play it on our acoustic guitar. Justin definitely still knows how to play it because he says that he plays it all the time. And one of our many ways of attempting to woo the high school girls was definitely trying [00:13:00] to play the song as often as possible.

But the, the words were like the song was written for the movie. I was actually surprised it never came on in the credits or at any point. Throughout the movie, but the song is out there. It's called how I go by yellow card We'll probably link it somewhere it goes I could tell you the wildest of tales my friend the giant and traveling sales Tell you all the times that I failed the years all behind me.

The story is exhaled And I'm drying out, I'm crying out, this isn't how I go. And you'll see many times throughout the movie, there are moments where, whether it's Ewan McGregor or Albert Finney, they're saying at different points, this isn't how I go, because theoretically they saw how they died in this moment.

Of looking into the witch's eyes. So a friend of mine showed up into like an hour and a half of us watching this movie. And as I was explaining the plot of it to him, I essentially went. The main character thinks he knows how he dies. So he lives his entire life. Like he has plot armor

It's true. He

believes he's on a mission. He's [00:14:00] dedicated. You see the story of Edward Bloom through the flashbacks moving forward to him passing away with his son, Will, by his side, but you see him go through and you're right. All these tall tales that he tells to prove the hardships of his life and convey what he's had to go through. He just walks right through it.

We're moving on to sort of the early life of Edward as he grows up into a young strapping somehow 18 year old Ewan McGregor. The, the age set of these people was wildly all over the place. What was it? There was, there was a guy playing basketball who was just covered in arm hair. Or something like that.

It was a, it was a 40 year old man masquerading as a high schooler. I guess it was like the fifties or whatever. But anyway, Edward is essentially, Charlie, wasn't it you that said this feels like Forrest Gump at some point where he is essentially just kind of going head first through everything. He immediately became the big fish in the little pond.

He was quickly outgrowing the town.

Yeah, [00:15:00] yeah, it definitely had the Forrest Gump one character talking to a person on a bench quality to it, which is fitting.

All of a sudden This giant starts terrorizing their town and stealing all of their sheep and eat allegedly eating all their food And so who else to go and take care of this giant? But the one person that can be trusted to do anything at the town, which is Edward and so Edward Goes out to him and pretends like he's going to be a human sacrifice but essentially just smooches the giant to a point where he convinces him to Leave to a city because you know, you can't stay in a small place when you're such a big man.

This is, it's what I want to, I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm too big for this place. We could get out of here together. What do you say? Let's hit the road together. And the giant's like, no, you're just trying to get me out of here. And, and Ewan's like, trust me, I'm trying to get out of here. Listen to this Southern accent.

It's totally genuine. I'm not British at all. You can't even tell you can trust me. We can, we can hit the road together and, and the giant agrees. And so now Edward [00:16:00] has a giant named Carl as

his walking companion.

at

the time that guy had the world's largest feet.

Really?

Rumor has it, I think it was in an interview, but I'm not sure. So I'll say rumor has it that the costume department made shoes for him out of luggage, old briefcases, they cut it up and he was very thankful because he didn't find shoes that fit anywhere.

Right. 2003, different world with sneakers, even now

Wait, wait, wait, wait. How big, how big were his feet?

I. Huge, huge, massive. I mean, he was tall himself, right? Carl the giant was over seven feet tall

playing in the movie. Massive

I'm Googling this

briefcase sized.

didn't they clean them up at some point? And it looks like his pants were. Or his pants or shoes were made out of

Luggage. Yeah.

his shoes, you can clearly see in the film, but like they made those for him and he was very thankful. It's such a weird go to though, right? He's the star of the baseball team, the town smiles at him [00:17:00] everywhere he goes, and then suddenly there's just a giant. It was very quick moving at this point.

They, they were trying to get the fantasy

Yeah, 15 minutes

they, yeah, they had to establish that he was meant for bigger things. I suppose we had to, we had to get to the end of his life. So I suppose we had to get through the beginning of it sort of fast.

the shoe size was 29 and a half,

Wow.

29 and a half. And

his height he was seven foot six.

To put that in context, Shaq's shoe size is only a 20. That's huge.

That's massive. It's

that's absolutely massive. Well, that's, that's certified giant. That's for sure. Edward and his new giant companion start to head off down the road and. Edward immediately leaves it. It's just like, look at this path. I'm going to take this one.

They say it's haunted, but I don't care. I've got plot armor. Let's go. And the giant's like, I'm good. I'm not gonna, you're actually, I feel like you're just trying to leave me again. Lots of insecurity problems for the giant, which is fair. I'm sure his [00:18:00] entire life people have tried

to run

eating sheep in a cave, like,

That's fair. I mean, he looks like he looked terrible until he met Edward. So now he's got this beautiful shaven face. He's ready to rock. So Edwards goes, take my backpack. I need this. It's so I'm going to, this is collateral. I'm going to come back for this. This is my promise. And he heads off into the road less traveled and sometimes taking the road less traveled does make all the difference but not in a good way because this road less traveled is terrible it's a swap and it's covered in spiders and scary noises and it was off i the going headfirst through the spider webs was one of the biggest nopes for me that i've ever noped him just like you Pulling them off of his body and throwing them down like it's clearly CGI spiders, but I still did.

I did not like that. Even if I felt like I had metaphysical plot armor, I, I'm not sure I want spiders crawling all over me, but apparently it was worth it because he ends up [00:19:00] in the hidden town of Spectre or Spectre. I just, I had to get my, my Southern accent in there once,

where he

good as Ewan's.

far town of Spector.

Uh, I just, I gotta, gotta get that, that Southern drip in there a little bit, where he befriends the poet Norther Winslow, aka Steve Buscemi. Who, who was a, A man who went missing going down this road, and apparently he just ended up in this town and was like, Specter's fucking dope. I'm just gonna stay here and not worry about my life that was in the other place.

And he befriends the mayor and the mayor's daughter, Jenny, and he's living this idyllic life. They steal his shoes and toss it up on a power line with all everyone else's shoes. And so they're all barefoot and happy and

The shoes are there because the roads are made of grass,

That's

right? And Tim Burton gets to

flex, right? He flexes his muscles a little bit at this part with his scenes. He's got the haunted woods, very [00:20:00] Tim Burton y.

And then it goes to this town and the way the camera angle rises on it, it makes it look like it's just coming out of the heavens. Grass roads, everybody's happy, smiling. consistent. It's a really strange feeling.

I think Edward agreed with you. Because at a certain point, he goes, Hold on a second. This is nice. I love it. You're all very lovely people. But I have stuff to do. I'm not gonna immediately leave to go and just settle down here. I'm not ready

He's promised a wife. He's promised a house. He's promised all these things at this point in life where he just went through a really hard time through the haunted woods, right? So he gets through that rough time and he finds solace surrounded by people who went through the same hardships he did, but he didn't meet his personal goals.

and without his shoes, So a little less comfortable than he was before, he runs back off. Steve

Buscemi though, poems need some work. It's [00:21:00] a

little comedic relief

great.

Yeah.

You know what?

This is why, this is why you don't show unfinished work. To an audience. I

completely agreed with them. I was like, you should have, I would have snatched that poem right back.

Edward leaves the town of Spectre, but does promise little Jenny, the mayor's daughter, that he will return some We smash back into present day where Josephine, very pregnant with their future son, is taking care of the bedridden Edward, and he asks Edward to tell her the story of how he met his wife Sandra, aka Jessica Lange.

So in more flashbacks, we get Edward and Carl visiting the Calloway circus where they take in all of the amazing acts.

We get a cat jumping off of a huge high perch. We have all of the general things that you see at a circus. And then all of a sudden we have the moment with The present, [00:22:00] the presentation of the giant. And of course, at this moment, also, we get Danny DeVito as the ringleader of, of the circus. Amos Calloway Edwards like, you think that's a giant?

I got it. I got me a giant and Carl walks in and everyone sort of shits their pants on the spot. And here's, here's one of the first tough moments of the movie. And I think Charlie might agree with me on this. Danny DeVito just goes to his little lackey, who has been, his little lackey has been in a lot of stuff.

He's one of those that guys that I just feel like has been, you could point him out in a lot of

American, well, American Horror Story with Jessica Ling. He had a role on those in one of those seasons

Oh, was he?

Jessica Ling as well, Deep Roy. Yeah, a lot of the

circus characters actually carry over to some of the American Horror Story.

and as you may or may not know, audience, Justin is a huge American horror story, Stan.

Loved, loved American Horror

Story. For a while. Great show.

Justin, what's your favorite scary movie?

to steer away from, you

[00:23:00] immediately looked up at the camera.

The killer themes and things like that. I mean, the fly was great. I tend to go old school kind of plot based. weird stuff. I mean, is it fair for me to say Young Frankenstein? I go a little more towards comedy, but that's still technically a horror movie, right?

Charlie, what's your take on

It, so Stephen King. So I've read almost, I've read almost every Stephen King novel up until about five or six years ago, and watched

all of the film iterations of his The Langoliers.

oooooo

is, is okay. It's a very good adaptation of the book, but it was very tough to represent everything that the book was trying to get through with meaning. It's also like a, what, three and a half hour, four hour film. It's a weird one, but those tall tales that Stephen King wrote tend to be more of my favorite horror films, but they're kind of books. It's kind of cheating.

I mean, media [00:24:00] is media. Books are media, technically,

The original pet

cemetery, the original Carrie, those are all great, great movies. They have a

little bit of jump scare and a little bit of plot as well.

we know, we know that Charlie loves a Carrie. Well, at this point of recording, we're about halfway through our, our Our spooky season postings. The next one's going live tomorrow. So I, we have to reach back into that for a second, but we'll, we'll bring it back into present day where Well, I guess to finish this first thread, Danny DeVito goes, Hey, giant. You ever heard of indentured solitude and

That. This part was funny. This part was.

funny as

Okay. I'm glad you thought it was funny because it can also be incredibly problematic. So he basically gets the giant to sign his life away. He's now part of the circus.

I guess he's going to be famous, but now Carl has found some belonging and some purpose. So I think it has actually like a really nice moment for Carl to go from reclusive giant who felt like he needed to hide from the world that was scared of him to, you know, star of this circus [00:25:00] that's going to now be out in the public and, and beloved by everyone who's coming to watch him every single day.

And if you're

watching the movie just for face value, at this point you start to see a little bit of them sprinkling in endings to full stories. Carl the Giant has been introduced, had a problem, it was helped by the protagonist, right, Edward Bloom, walking down the street, and there's a story of how he helped him, and it was told as a tall tale. Carl the Giant took the long, easy road. And carried Edward Bloom's baggage with him, his story. While Edward took the supposedly short, hard road, but got stuck in Spectre for a little bit. Reaches the circus, and Carl the Giant is now, that part, that tall tale that Edward is telling is closed. Carl the Giant is no more, and Now it's time to move on to the next tall tale.

and if I may continue to quote the song, I could tell you of a man not so tall. He said life's a circus and so we are [00:26:00] small. Tell you of a girl that I saw. I froze in the moment and she changed it all. And so in this moment, we See Sandra across the circus. And we do have that moment of time freezing and you and McGregor walking through all of the frozen circus members and the popcorn falling as he pushes it aside and they aren't quite able to connect enough, but for some reason, Edward thinks that Amos is the connecting thread between him and finding out who this girl is.

And he volunteers to work for him for free to only get one fact per month about her. Not even who she is, just about

Happily agrees.

Yeah, Charlie

She went to college.

Yeah, she, she's going to college.

Oh, even worse, because she's not gonna be around.

The

facts, the facts were not helpful at all.

the facts are not helpful [00:27:00] at all. And, but Edward's eating them up. She's like, oh, she, she likes daffodils. She's,

Shoveling elephant

to get an

She loves daffodils.

Yeah,

let's Daffodils just just just so in love that nothing else matters. But I think, that is a very to to pull a thread between the experience.

I think we've all probably been so in love with somebody that the mere thought and prospect of them distracts us from whatever quite maybe literally shitty thing is happening right in front of us. So I, I, I'd like to see Edwards. So love stricken indeed. And then three whole years

36 facts later. 36 months.

facts later.

Edward is finally fed up, you know? I think 36 packs is still no closer to knowing even this girl's name. Tonight's the night, I'm finding out. So, he approaches the trailer, the lackeys don't do anything, although they apparently know what's going on in there, but the trailer's going nuts, it's bouncing from side to side.

I'm over here thinking that the [00:28:00] penguin's getting busy. I don't know what you were thinking, Charlie. But all of a sudden, a werewolf pops out of the trailer, and they start fighting, he gets a couple of good scratches on him, right as the main clown is like, super sad and pulling a silver bullet out, and he's, he's gonna

They were prepared for it, You're right. They knew what was going

shedding tears, he was ready for this day, but I think Edward jumps in front of it, I, it's not, I think Edward jumps in front of it, takes the, the bullet, and then With the same arm that he got shot with, proceeds to play fetch with the werewolf.

Because the werewolf just needed a friend. And he just wanted somebody to play fetch with him with a stick.

Hey, everybody's had that boss.

If you had just walked up to them and talked to them, they're fine. They're just peep They're just a naked Danny DeVito as well.

That's right, we got, we got that naked Danny DeVito, but he was concerned that he didn't hurt anybody, which I think is a very sweet moment. And in gratitude, he reveals [00:29:00] that the woman's name is Sandra Templeton, and she is attending Auburn University. Edward gets right up out of there, heads to Auburn, confesses to his love to Sandra, who is really, really into it right before she says that she's engaged.

I have never seen an engaged woman more into being approached and, you know, Absolutely stalked by some, like, borderline stalked by somebody. Because Edward is like, I'm, I'm not giving up. I'm gonna marry you.

You're the love of my

that within the first five sentences,

opening

the second time we've met and the first time we've spoken words to each other.

But I know I love you. Which, I know that there are a lot of tall tales. I don't think, I don't think

he's lying here. I think he's 100 percent telling the

It's possible. But you also know

that inward determination you have when you are that in love with somebody. You're constantly telling yourself, I'm gonna do that. And

he's telling the story.

That's a good point.

Yeah, yeah, maybe his approach was a little bit more calibrated [00:30:00] in real life because I, I, I don't see that even in old times really, but then again, notebook had a similar approach and people eat that movie up question for both of you because I know how I would feel even if it were the most. gorgeous man in the world, even if it was, even if it was fucking Michael B.

Jordan who suddenly came up and said, Yo, you're the most amazing person I've ever met. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I'd be suspicious, you know, just because I think that that's a lot. So the most gorgeous person for Either of you comes up to you. It's like I want to be with you forever.

I haven't even heard you speak I I just just going off of your vibe. I think i'm in love with you How would either of you feel about that like the most attractive person in the world to you?

I mean, 10 years ago, Steve has a very different answer to that than current days, because I think 24 year old Steve would [00:31:00] be like, all right, what's up, let's talk now. I'd be like, please get away from me. okay. Grandma, let's get you home.

I think it's situational. If I was engaged like she was, You know, I was kind of like already knew somebody and what I was going towards. Yeah. I I'd, I'd call the Auburn campus security, which was not around while he

laid thousands of daffodils out on the lawn and this tall tale how, how nobody sees that happening is beyond me.

But if I was, I don't know. Single wondering if I need a direction in life, I might, I might feel a little differently. If it was Michael B Jordan or somebody I knew that well, I'd probably be very suspicious, but if it was somebody random, I'd, I'd entertain the idea. I'd have to say I'd be as a positive skeptic in that sense there.

We don't have a very good sense of danger,

No, no.

it's, it's, all good. It's all good.

I do think that there is a certain. of the olden days of [00:32:00] This story of, Oh, he wore me down. I was with somebody then and he, he wouldn't take no for an answer. He wore it like that. That term of he wore me down used to be so glorified. And I think now in more modern thinking and

It

more empowerment to women and stuff like that.

Yeah. It's, it's way too toxic

both ends. A

woman doing it to a man, a man doing it to a woman, to

women, to men, to non binary people, what have you. It's just,

it's just fucking gross.

Also, If you're trying to wear somebody down who has no interest in you, get some self esteem. Just get some fucking self esteem. Like, you really are into someone who isn't even naturally drawn to you, romantically, let alone friend wise, who doesn't even like your vibe and just is uh about you.

I think it's just so, like, fucking grow up.

you know, during the [00:33:00] present time when they show her, she still is acting very swept off her feet by him like that's

something that has lasted in their relationship. She likes the tall tales. She's heard him just as many times as Will. Will doesn't see them so friendly, right?

But Jessica Lange's character is all about it. You know, we'll talk about the tub scene later.

shows she sees his magic for sure. And

Well, and the boyfriend, right? So who, who she is engaged to at that point. Was

another person from the

hometown Edward left. He was the jerk in the town.

Don Price,

Yeah.

aka Roy from the office

Roy from the office. So he

baddies in multiple universes,

can't keep an engagement going in any movie or TV show he's in. Weird little connection there.

He was breaking relationships back in 2003 because he just wasn't right.

Both times it's because he couldn't keep his shit together too, to be fair. Because Edward does the whole daffodil flower field, and Sandra's [00:34:00] like, Okay, I, this is happening. Okay, you, you, you did it. I get it. as she's trying to call it off with Don, Don starts beating the crap out of Edward. And this is what really puts the nail in the coffin of their relationship because she doesn't want to be with someone who's so angry about something.

And she wants to be with someone who has all of the joy in the world and all the energy in the world for her. And doesn't see her, well, I mean, he kind of does see her as a thing. But regardless. The engagement to Don is called off. He gets to try again and fail again with Pam in a few years. And shortly after the marriage of the two, we get into what is objectively the worst part of the movie.

They're going through a bunch of paperwork and we find. His draft notices and, and we get the moment where Edward is conscripted into the RB and goes off to fight in the Korean war, Charlie.

It was the Korean war. We couldn't get what war it was through all of this.

even when they were showing the Korean

Is

that what I see? I just, but, [00:35:00] but when did they, am I supposed to know history like that? Am I supposed to know

that that stars the North Korean red star? I guess

Our. education was supposed to teach us that history.

supposed to teach us that they didn't do it. He's explaining that his notion that he wasn't ever going to die until the moment that he thought he was going to die, made him want to take the most dangerous missions.

So he could get the shortest amount of time in Korea. Yeah. to get back as soon as he could to Sandra and his love and his life. And so on this secret mission, we get this like incredibly problematic theater scene with Conjoined twins doing a performance in English to the North Korean Republic Army, and they're called Ping and Jing, and you in parachutes in does hand to hand combat with these soldiers.

It's all like, it's terrible, honestly. It's

Indiana Jones hand to hand combat.

it's yeah.

the whole Indiana

Jones scene, pull

the gun [00:36:00] on the whip guys. Yep.

yeah, and Temple of Doom level racism, and essentially, like, he's hiding in this back room, stealing these plans, and Ping and Jing find him, he gets them to agree to help him. escape in exchange to help them become celebrities in America, which is he's going to sell them off to the circus ringleader, which is not going to make them celebrities.

in this journey of him trying to get home, the army loses track of him. So they think he's dead. Sandra receives the letter that Edward died in combat and we have that whole heartbreaking scene and then the whole other scene of him coming home through the sheets and being the, the ghost of Korean War past and he's actually okay.

And he made it home and was able to get Ping and Jing home and got them over to Amos and got them into the circus. upon her returning home, Edward becomes a traveling salesman and you, you see the, the hand with all of the different tools on it that he becomes the salesman [00:37:00] for and will starting to see some parallels between the truth and the tall tales decides to take some matters into his own hands.

And he travels to the town of specter to try and investigate. The truth between some of his father's tales, and he meets a woman, Helena Bonham Carter again, somehow, maybe Benjamin buttoning, I maybe they're different characters, whatever. And this is an older Jenny, who is still living in the house who's still in the town, who still doesn't have any shoes on.

And she explains that Edward in his time as a traveling salesman came back upon specter and it was an absolute disrepair. It was bankrupt from top to bottom, and he helped to save this town from bankruptcy, and allegedly with the help of some of his friends he had made in the past, fixed up the town, bought the town, and helped it [00:38:00] completely Turned itself around, but Jenny was holding out.

She didn't want to sell the house to Edward. She didn't believe that he could actually help her. So he ended up fixing up her house as well. Totally fixed it from being this leaned over decrepit thing to a gorgeous white picket fence house. And at the end of his time there, Jenny Tries to come on to Edward, but Edward reminds her that he loves his wife and remains faithful or her confirming that Edward was never unfaithful to his mother.

And that was only the person that he saw in his romantic life, but he always saw everybody else and wanted to help as many people as he could, especially the people of Spectre who treated him so well in his early part of

his

that's been a concern of Will, is, is Will's relationship with his father Edward. He doesn't like the tall tales. He wants the cold, hard facts of how his parents met, how he was brought up, and he's not getting anywhere with them. And this is the first time in the movie [00:39:00] you kind of see these things connecting, like there is some truth behind this, and The aha moment for Will happens right soon after when he goes and looks for the town and finds physical evidence of that connection that, wow, not everything in these tall tales was fake. Some of it has, has real meaning to him.

100%. And as we kind of careen into the, the end of the film here, as, as Will's returning back to the house, Edward has had a stroke and Will goes and, and visits him at the hospital. Edward is adamant that this is not how he goes, but he needs Will to tell him the story. And, And, right before this, I think this is really important and you'll have to remind me who said this to him, but Will says something to the extent of.

Well, why was he always like this? Why couldn't he just tell the truth? Why does it always have to be So fabricated, so fantastical. And someone goes, [00:40:00] well, isn't it more fun that way? Isn't it more special that way?

I think his mom says that.

I think that is his mom. Yeah. Because she loves it so much. And it was part of what she found so special about him.

And then

the, the, yeah, the old Edward Bloom, Albert Finney says something along the lines of I've been who I am always. And if you don't like That's your problem. That he's held his consistency his entire life, that this really is his story, that he is telling his son, you're just interpreting it differently. Find the fact, go, go look

for

do like that. I do like that. He stood on that too. And, and did not ever apologize for who he was at any one point. And in this moment of understanding. Will takes all of the knowledge that he's gained from all of these stories that he's heard over and over and is able to narrate how his life ends where the two of them have this daring escape from the hospital where Josephine and Sandra help distract the [00:41:00] doctors as they get away and Carl flips a car over to clear the traffic to get to the lake and somehow everybody is there once they make the lake and you see everybody in the story all saying goodbye.

And as he lowers his father into the water, he turns into that giant catfish that he was describing in the beginning of the movie. And he swims away off and into his next life

It's the

first opportunity for a tearjerker is, is

right there. Well, you know, Will's,

I've, my tears were

jerking for sure.

taken the story over that his father has

been trying to force him for so long that he fought against and, and that final moment of reconciliation, Will off the cuff makes up the ending to his father's story with all of the tall tales that you've seen throughout this film, this retelling. Just there, just by the riverbed. They throw his shoes up on the

[00:42:00] power line. He can finally settle down. He's reached his personal goals. You know, it's these underlying messages that, that they all come to a conclusion right here. And the father didn't write the ending, the son did. Kind of a little handover moment between generations.

I love that handover moment. I also love the thought of part of the father living inside of the son. And stories are powerful because they live inside your imagination. And the dad gave his son so much. Material to work with for the dad to live inside his imagination so that in and of itself is a gift.

and you think that's it, right?

You're like,

that's the ending, I cried, Justin warned me it was a little emotional at the end. That's awesome, but

Oh, trust me from the opening beat I knew I was gonna be squirting some at some point during this

movie don't

calm overtone, that that wonderful voice of, of the narration is just so perfectly monotonous that it's just very happy feeling, but right, it's not the end of the [00:43:00] movie,

It's not. And so Edward, very satisfied with the story that will tell us about his end. He goes, yes, that's it. And he peacefully passes away. we have the funeral where will and Josephine are shocked truly to see all of the people throughout Edward stories. Slightly different than how he explained them.

Slightly less fantastical.

Problematically, Ping and Jing are two different fucking people. I was so bad. I was

so bad

the tall tale, I get your anger and I think

this movie gives

just, I just, wish that Tall Tale was like a hundred percent less

racist. That's all I wanted. That's all

story right there, right? They can join

twins performing in

Those are white women though. They can be white women.

That's fair.

be racist ass

that's fair, but you look back on the tall tale when you see they're separate and you're like, wow,

okay, so he rescued twins that were performing.

great. I have notes for Tim about how to explain that one. later on as they're at. a pool in their backyard and will is grilling in in the backyard. His son [00:44:00] yells to him to tell him a story and you see the catfish swimming through the pool. And I'm actually going to close with another line from that yellow card song, how I go, son, I leave you now, but you have so much more to do.

And every story I have told. And so Charlie, I think that connects a little bit towards what you said with that pass off. And that was big fish fucking making me watch emotional shit. Justin, I never would have expected it from

you, asked me what one of those go back to movies was, and this one's a really easy one for me to put on again and again, because you notice little things, subtle differences as the movie ages and you grow up with it. I mean, for example, Miley Cyrus's first movie acting credit. Is in Big Fish.

Wait, who's Miley Cyrus in this?

She's the little girl in Spectre.

She's Jenny.

That's Miley Cyrus.

the fuck?

you have an

all star cast here.

That's incredible.

First

movie [00:45:00] acting

up. Big

Sure, she plays Ruthie. Not Jenny, Ruthie.

but she's in it. That's insane. Wow. Miley. Party in the USA, I

Right, you look at where this was in Tim Burton's career, too. Two years after Planet of the Apes. And two years before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp. It is because his father had recently passed and he saw so many outlets for him in this film. There's so much about the relationship between father and son. Spielberg actually was the starting director on this. And you could see this be

I can tell this, the warmth of it and Spielberg loves to play in the themes of childhood,

was written with Spielberg in mind and he started, but he left for Catch Me If You Can, which

I think we're all happy

I don't blame him. I don't blame him

Yeah,

that's

a

Tim Burton, he did. He played with the color palette a little bit, right? It would have been a little [00:46:00] bit of a softer movie with Spielberg directing, I think. But we got big yellow pops.

We had big red pops. You had a lot of color. And that's how Tim Burton put his stamp on this and his camera angles. He definitely did different angles and Spielberg would have done making that town of Spectre feel like it was floating above everything else in the movie. It was amazing.

Oh, Spielberg would have had way more push ins too. That's so interesting. I was thinking that this felt very Spielbergian.

the story, the screenplay was definitely, I think, written with Spielberg in mind as the director. And I think he did start the project eventually going to Tim Burton. And it does. Things, things happen in people's lives for a reason. You say this

is a Tim Burton film that stands out from other Tim Burton films.

It doesn't have the same feel as Corpse's Bride, which was what, four years later? He does

all these weird different things.

I think this movie stands out because I think Tim Burton is one of those directors. He has such [00:47:00] a distinctive visual style that he is one who I think plagiarizes himself a lot. It just seems like, oh, you're just Tim Burton doing Tim Burton. Where's somebody like Spielberg? You can tell it's Spielberg. But he will do something completely different. I said this to my boyfriend, Cody, yesterday, the biggest difference between Spielberg and Burton is that I could hear that Burton did the color purple and just be like, Oh no. But then I hear that Spielberg did the color purple.

I'm like, yeah,

Interested.

I can see it.

you know, because Spielberg Spielberg's interest in humanity is so much broader. He just has a curiosity about people. And I think Burton

has a curiosity about just. absurdity and darkness and weird figures and like vampires. I think that [00:48:00] Burton's curiosity is limited. Whereas Spielberg's curiosity is just very like, look at all the movie Schindler's list, like the color purple, like just, yeah, I can go

That was gonna be my joke that, you know, you wouldn't be down to see Bert and Schindler's Lists.

Absolutely

on your

Absolutely

not.

a no from me, doc.

And E. T. would fancy me.

Yes.

that could be fun. That

could be

Timber and E. T.

That's a good thought project. I like that. That's a fun thought

I thought that, and I didn't even know it was Tim Burton when I watched this movie for the first time, right, it was 14

years old, going to the theaters, I had no idea, really, directorial styles or anything like that, so, in my head, since I was young, Tim Burton's always had this in his arsenal, which I think makes my argument for Tim Burton a little different, I've seen him do color, I've seen him do

The story with real this has so many messages across it, which is why it's so easy to come back to.

You can focus on the [00:49:00] circus. You can focus on Carl. You can kind of pop in and out of the movie at different times and get many stories within this whole

big thing. You're right. It's, it's outside of his box of usual. directorial hits. I think he found a something that works and makes money for a lot of people and he continues to do it.

This project definitely meant something to him

Mm hmm.

it and how he took it from Spielberg and it's still a bright movie. It's nice.

I agree. Well, I love that. We got to watch it, man. So thanks for thanks for prompting us on it. It was, it was fun to have you on and, and to chat about it. So we're going to go into our final ratings for this one. We always do out of five and we typically do batterings when we cover Batman. Although at this point I feel like we need to stop saying that cause we haven't covered a Batman thing in like almost half a year at this point.

We're gonna do fish.

that's perfect.

Justin, out of five big fish, what would you rate big

What do I rate big fish currently? I give it a, I give it a five. [00:50:00] This, this is

one of my go back to movies. I got to put it at that, that higher level.

I love it. Charlie, what about you, man?

I think that this is a very solid movie, and I'm gonna be generous with my rating because I think when I rewatch it, I'll find more stuff that I didn't find the first time because I know where it's all headed. I love how warm it is. I love the Spielbergian, Spielbergian, Spielberg, whatever. I love the Spielberg touches in it.

I think it really, sets Burton's touch apart from his other stuff in his filmography because this definitely challenged him. I like that it came during a specific part in his life. I think all the performances are solid. I don't know if there's any actor who was misplaced or didn't know what movie they were in.

So I think that that's a testament to the notes that Burton gave. One of my biggest caveats with this movie is that there were times when I was really into the present day [00:51:00] storyline, and like the sun, I got annoyed. When a tall tale happened, I'm like, the fuck, like, can we just sit with the present day timeline for a second?

So maybe that's because I, again, pre production for a film. So I have a lot of stuff going on in my head, but that kind of pulled me out of the film a couple of times and kept me from enjoying it as much as I think I will the second time. I can see my future self putting this at a four, but right now I'm gonna put this at a three and a half. Fish.

I am also out of three and a half fish almost entirely because of that Korea scene. I hated it. I hated it so much. I just, there's better ways to do that. And I think that there's better ways in today's world to explain that you rescued a couple of twins in trouble from a war situation. So beyond that, I loved it.

It made, made me emotional. I immediately walked out. I think I left your apartment like right after we finished to go off. And I was like, I have to call my dad. I have to call him right now. And yeah, I [00:52:00] mean, if you walk away from something feeling like. You maybe learned a little bit about life or how you want to feel about life.

Then I think it's probably a good experience. And I also, I didn't acknowledge this as you were talking about it, but I give a shout out to your dad, Justin pops Ivy, because I. Absolutely see the parallels in how Edward axed acted in this movie and how your dad carries himself. So shout out to Bob pops.

You're the

best. And shout out to you, man. Thanks for coming on to our, our little podcast. Charlie, do you think Justin

passed

you guys having me.

With flying colors.

with flying colors?

a serious, serious

with flying beige blazer colors.

Yeah, let's maybe I know you're already suggesting more serious movies to do, but let's, let's,

Well,

the other ones have a, lot of controversial scenes, if you bring

we'll take a, we'll take a, maybe a lighter break with you before we jump back into the serious shit. Justin, before we go, I know that you're not like a terribly online person, but if anyone [00:53:00] wanted to find you on the interwebs, is there a presence that you have somewhere other than like your Nintendo switch online ID?

Thank you. Thank you for that.

We got to make our Minecraft world public.

you know, we'll, we'll do, we'll do a little plug here. My,

don't you plug the work that you're doing? Because I actually think it's really

yeah, my, my nine to five and sometimes after hours. I work for the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance. I'm an education manager in the aquatics industry. For almost a decade, I was a manager of a small business in my, my state of Connecticut servicing pools.

And I really fell in love with the education. So I don't have much of a social media presence because I'm online all day teaching people, moderating classes, doing a lot of things. And I like to keep my feelings inside and on the Charlie and Steve watch stuff podcast. Really?

That's the only place my feelings are.

That's why I'm hoping that I get to, you know, come back and talk more, share more about me. You can find me on Facebook. I connect with a lot of my students and a lot of the people in my industry. I serve on the local Connecticut Spa and Pool Association board here. I really love [00:54:00] the industry and giving back to it.

It gave me a home. Really, that's the only place That's it. I got Facebook.

Yeah, catch you on the disc golf

Yes, disc golf all day.

all day. All day. I had a great round on Friday. I'm ready for you to come back

I'm excited, man. I gotta, I

It's starting to be almost too cold to play here, so I gotta get out

I know. Please do. Well, Charlie, is there anything else you want to add before we say our salutations and get out of here?

No, glad that we were able to watch this movie. So pleased and so charmed meeting you, Justin.

Thanks so much, Charlie. It's been great.

what a joy it was to have two of my, my closest and best on a, on a virtual screen with me doing this podcasting thing. So we're going to get on out of here. A big thanks again to Justin for joining us and a big thanks to all of you for hanging out and listening to us or watching us.

If you're on YouTube, don't forget to smash that sub button, baby. We're trying to get those YouTube. Numbers up. And if you haven't given the podcast a review yet, we would love it. If you could jump on [00:55:00] to Spotify, Apple, Amazon, whatever you're using to listen to your podcasts and just toss us that five star review, it only takes you a couple of seconds and it makes a huge difference for us.

So thank you so much for joining. And for myself, Steve Selnick, my good friend, Charlie Pevers, and my other good friend, Justin Ivy, we will look forward to seeing you on the next one. Goodbye friends.

I'd give you guys five fish.