Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Well, al right, over the weekend,
Speaker 1: I was doing a little reading up on Peter Segal,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think you know this about me,
Speaker 1: but that's what I do every Saturday night. I don't
Speaker 1: know how people have spend their Saturday nights. But one
Speaker 1: of the facts that I saw this week, and I
Speaker 1: had actually not seen this before, was that he wrote
Speaker 1: a screenplay. Did you know this? I had no idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's called Cuba Mine, and it's based on a real
Speaker 1: story about a fifteen year old American who moves to Cuba.
Speaker 1: And this is right before the revolution. So he writes
Speaker 1: this serious script and it's in the nineteen nineties when
Speaker 1: he's writing this, and it's got executions in it and
Speaker 1: real politics, but it's also kind of a romance too.
Speaker 1: So he writes it and it just sits on the
Speaker 1: shelf for over a decade, like so many scripts do.
Speaker 1: But two thousand four somebody finds it dusted off and
Speaker 1: finally the movie gets made. Now, the movie's title Dirty
Speaker 1: Dancing to Havannah Nights. So you're saying, Peter Sagel wrote
Speaker 1: Dirty Dancing too, I know, but the it is true.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like one of those things
Speaker 1: in Hollywood where even though Peter Segel wrote the movie,
Speaker 1: they cut out all the words he wrote. In fact,
Speaker 1: he was quoted as basically saying this, like he claims,
Speaker 1: there isn't a single line of dialogue left from the original.
Speaker 1: They also stripped out all the political stuff, but you know,
Speaker 1: they had to put something there, so instead they just
Speaker 1: filled it all with dancing, which you know, because stays
Speaker 1: true to the name, and so it makes sense. That's
Speaker 1: pretty funny, you know. It does remind me of those
Speaker 1: poor writers in Hollywood who make like two hundred or
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars and they live in fancy houses
Speaker 1: and and dry fancy cars, but their parents are super
Speaker 1: suspicious of what they do because they only work on
Speaker 1: the fourth or fifth draft of bad movies, and these
Speaker 1: movies never ever get made. It's crazy. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: very very strange. But anyway, thinking about Peter Segel made
Speaker 1: me wonder, like, why are movie economics so weird? How
Speaker 1: does so many terrible movies get made? And of course
Speaker 1: why is it so hard to make a movie with lions?
Speaker 1: I know we both wondered this for a year, so
Speaker 1: I only going to answer that today, so let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 1: Mangesh Ticketer and sitting on the other side of the
Speaker 1: soundproof glass. This is one of my favorites. Mango dressed
Speaker 1: today as Dwayne the Rock Johnson from his favorite movie,
Speaker 1: The Tooth Theory and such a good movie, such a
Speaker 1: great actor. But that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: So Mango, I know, we wanted to talk about movies today,
Speaker 1: like little secrets about how they get made and kind
Speaker 1: of what makes a one star movie a masterpiece, and
Speaker 1: other funny stories from movie sets. But before we get started,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I love to tell
Speaker 1: people is that used to work in a video store,
Speaker 1: because especially for the younger generations today, it kind of
Speaker 1: feels like nobody knows what a movie store is anymore.
Speaker 1: I know, it's from like a different era and and
Speaker 1: I honestly loved video store so much. Like going there
Speaker 1: as a kid, you'd spent so much time looking at
Speaker 1: movie covers and deliberating over which movie you'd want to
Speaker 1: watch because you don't only get to pick one and
Speaker 1: and then finally picking it out like and as a clerk,
Speaker 1: I actually really loved recommending movies that I thought people
Speaker 1: would dig. But you know that this is in the side.
Speaker 1: The best part of the video store I worked at,
Speaker 1: which is called Vizar and Durham, it was that it
Speaker 1: was this really fun and welcoming place. But everyone who
Speaker 1: worked there except for me, was a lesbian. And it
Speaker 1: was perfect because, like, I didn't know how to date
Speaker 1: or talk to girls, and and this woman joy Like
Speaker 1: she'd give me great advice on that my car broke
Speaker 1: down all the time. She'd helped me fix it all
Speaker 1: the time. And when she wasn't solving all of my
Speaker 1: life problems, we were just watching movies and talking about
Speaker 1: movies and it was so good. It's a good thing here,
Speaker 1: part time genius. We never deal stereotype. That's great, that
Speaker 1: worked out for you. But you know, the funny thing
Speaker 1: to me was that even at like an arts movie
Speaker 1: store like that one, like and it was one of
Speaker 1: those places where movies were organized by director by country
Speaker 1: of origin, you'd still find so many terrible movies on
Speaker 1: the shelf. And you know, Jerry and I would would
Speaker 1: often flag them with these little post its that they
Speaker 1: had around. Uh so, I think there was a terrible
Speaker 1: one of Pam Anderson and this really horrible movie and
Speaker 1: we put like scn on pps on the cover. Or
Speaker 1: there's this like horrible low budget adaptation of the Bible
Speaker 1: and it just looked so bad and we put better
Speaker 1: than the book on the cover, you know, just really
Speaker 1: super helpful stuff. I'm guessing you probably had at least
Speaker 1: a couple of frustrated customers over the years, but it
Speaker 1: was such a great store. I remember it really well
Speaker 1: and love spending time there. But just to be clear
Speaker 1: for all of our listeners, we're not snobby movie watchers,
Speaker 1: like we love terrible movies. And in fact, I know
Speaker 1: you want to talk at some point about why tomb
Speaker 1: Raters considered such a master piece. But before we do
Speaker 1: that that there was something I've been collecting, just some
Speaker 1: quotes here. I wanted to read you a few of
Speaker 1: these quotes from Roger Ebert, and specifically about movies he hated.
Speaker 1: So I've got a few of them written down. But
Speaker 1: here are a couple examples of just how brutal Roger
Speaker 1: Ebert could be when he talked about these quote alleged comedies,
Speaker 1: so trying to decide which ones to share here. So
Speaker 1: here's one from Freddie got fingered. So here's what he says.
Speaker 1: This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This
Speaker 1: movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
Speaker 1: I don't really know exactly what that means, but it's
Speaker 1: still just such a great quote. All right, And here's
Speaker 1: one about Spice World. Here's what he has to say
Speaker 1: about it. Spice World is obviously intended as a rip
Speaker 1: off of A Hard Day's Night, which gave the Beatles
Speaker 1: to the movies. The huge difference, of course, is that
Speaker 1: the Beatles were talented, while let's face it, the Spice
Speaker 1: Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the
Speaker 1: age of thirties standing in line at dunkin Donuts. I
Speaker 1: love that dunkin Donuts is the players that you need
Speaker 1: to find talent. Wap that that's obviously where you find it.
Speaker 1: But man, he could be brutal when he didn't like
Speaker 1: a movie. Yeah, so, so obviously being a movie critic
Speaker 1: comes with its downsides. And being forced to review movies
Speaker 1: you might not want to watch. But you know what,
Speaker 1: one of the things I think is funny is that
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert loved Laura croft Tomb Raider. He gave it
Speaker 1: three stars, and and that's despite the fact that it
Speaker 1: was almost universally panned. So I also found some quotes
Speaker 1: like that, This is from the Washington Post and they
Speaker 1: called it quote remarkably joyless. The Wall Street Journal called
Speaker 1: it quote flavorless, drab, violent and a bloodless way, and
Speaker 1: sexy in a sexless way. And the Austin Chronicle said
Speaker 1: the game is great fun, but the movie should be
Speaker 1: taken out back and shot. So obviously people had some
Speaker 1: pretty strong opinions of it. But whether you loved or
Speaker 1: hated this movie, what's fascinating is that it's considered a
Speaker 1: total masterpiece in Hollywood. And that's purely because of how
Speaker 1: the movie was financed. So I got this from the
Speaker 1: writer Edward j Epstein, who discussed why and and basically
Speaker 1: he showed that executives at Paramount only spent nine million
Speaker 1: dollars to finance the movie. Like this was a massive production.
Speaker 1: It's a total popcorn movie, a cost around million dollars
Speaker 1: to make, but before the camera started rolling, Paramount actually
Speaker 1: signed away the distribution rights to six European countries for
Speaker 1: sixty five million dollars, and then it decided to shoot
Speaker 1: part of the film in Britain, which I guess allowed
Speaker 1: it to qualify for some sort of tax relief. So
Speaker 1: there was this complicated scheme where they sold the film
Speaker 1: to British investors who got this massive tax break, it
Speaker 1: was like multimillion dollars, and then they sold it back
Speaker 1: to Paramount, so Paramount actually got another twelve million dollars
Speaker 1: that way, and then they did the same thing in
Speaker 1: Germany and before shooting a single frame, Paramount had already
Speaker 1: collected ninety million dollars I know. And once they sold
Speaker 1: the TV rights to paramount sister company, they actually netted
Speaker 1: money before tomb Rader hit theaters, like it was actually
Speaker 1: profitable before they released it, which is just so insane
Speaker 1: to me, and it also kind of makes me wonder like,
Speaker 1: why was Laura Croft spending so much time rating tumbs
Speaker 1: when the real treasure was just finding a good accountant.
Speaker 1: That is pretty incredible. So for all you British investors
Speaker 1: out there interested in helping part time genius. Find some
Speaker 1: tax breaks. You know, we could use twelve million dollars. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's look into that. Well. You know, actually, every
Speaker 1: time we talk about tax shelters, it actually reminds me
Speaker 1: of the episode we did a while back. I think
Speaker 1: we titled it Where the Sunniest Places to Hide Your Taxes?
Speaker 1: And in doing that episode, we realized that basically every
Speaker 1: James Bond movie takes place in a tax shelter. You
Speaker 1: think about Panama, Switzerland, Monico, the Cayman Island. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty funny when you come up with the list of these,
Speaker 1: But I know you learned a few more unusual things
Speaker 1: about the economics of movies. So do you want to
Speaker 1: share just a few of those. Yeah. So one of
Speaker 1: the things I love is that product placement hasn't always
Speaker 1: been worth the money. So this is an extreme example
Speaker 1: of it. But in Natural Born Killers, there's a story
Speaker 1: that Abilene Boots actually offered to give free boots to
Speaker 1: the entire cast if Oliver Stone put the name on
Speaker 1: a truck. So there's this one scene where Juliet Lewis's
Speaker 1: character is driving in a convertible and she's driving towards
Speaker 1: the truck, and to get the shot of the logo,
Speaker 1: they had to get the car and the truck passing
Speaker 1: each other at the exact same time. But you know,
Speaker 1: Oliver Stones and artist, he wanted in one take. So
Speaker 1: they started the shot a half mile away from each
Speaker 1: other and then drove and use these walkie talkies and
Speaker 1: and they were trying to get the pace of the
Speaker 1: vehicles just right. And it didn't work out for all
Speaker 1: of our stones I it was just a disaster. So
Speaker 1: they try it again. They tried it again. They basically
Speaker 1: lost a whole day or two of shooting, and it
Speaker 1: cost them about three thousand dollars a day. It was
Speaker 1: all just to get a free pair of boots. Isn't
Speaker 1: that the same thing was just related to this product placement.
Speaker 1: I still don't fully understand the the starting half a
Speaker 1: mile away thing. What what what would that achieve? I
Speaker 1: think you just want to get a long shot of it,
Speaker 1: like you want to get a beautiful long crane shot
Speaker 1: of it. But M yeah, I mean, and now I
Speaker 1: guess there's digital stuff that you could figure out and
Speaker 1: slip in. But at the time, dollars a day for
Speaker 1: a pair of Boots is definitely not worth that. I've
Speaker 1: never spent that much on Boots. The other thing that's
Speaker 1: totally crazy to me, and and this might answer a
Speaker 1: little bit of the like why do terrible movies get made? Question,
Speaker 1: is that director has actually claimed that they have to
Speaker 1: water down their movies just to make them suitable for teenagers.
Speaker 1: And according to Epstein, who's you know, the Hollywood Economists,
Speaker 1: that there are a few reasons why you want to
Speaker 1: market two teens. So some of them are obvious, like
Speaker 1: if you have product tie ins or merchandise or fast
Speaker 1: food mentions or whatever, teens are just much more susceptible
Speaker 1: and likely to buy that stuff. They're also predictably clustering
Speaker 1: around the same shows, like it's a less fragmented group,
Speaker 1: so you can buy ads and kind of reliably know
Speaker 1: where they are to build awareness. But the big reason
Speaker 1: movie studios make movies that are PG thirteen and targeted
Speaker 1: teens is that they're the only demographic that's desperate to
Speaker 1: get out of the house, Like they're looking for any
Speaker 1: excuse to get away from their parents or their kids siblings.
Speaker 1: So they're the group that needs the least convincing to
Speaker 1: go out on opening day and buy tickets. And apparently
Speaker 1: there's this whole marketing formula. I think marketers try to
Speaker 1: hit you up with seven ads before a movie comes out,
Speaker 1: like you need that much exposure to build awareness. And
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it's really crazy to me, but
Speaker 1: but it also makes sense. Yeah, it does make sense.
Speaker 1: And and I had a feeling that you were going
Speaker 1: to talk about teenagers and the movies, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: I keep hearing this thing from classic directors saying that
Speaker 1: they'd never be able to make their artsy movies today
Speaker 1: because they have to cater to teens so much. In
Speaker 1: looking around at this there's actually some pretty funny stuff online.
Speaker 1: But here's a little clip. I just wanted to share it.
Speaker 1: Someone cutting up the Ten Commandments to play like a
Speaker 1: teen movie. So just take a quick listen to this
Speaker 1: fair high Ramsey's was the biggest player around, no doubt.
Speaker 1: But when the new kid in school I am a
Speaker 1: stranger in a strange land, realized hanging with the in
Speaker 1: ground wasn't so easy, he took a stand. Man shall
Speaker 1: be ruled by law, not by the will of other men,
Speaker 1: Moses mos. Now the battle is on to see who
Speaker 1: can get the girl who will rule the school and
Speaker 1: if a zero can become a hero, so let the
Speaker 1: games begins. So that was a little mash up trailer
Speaker 1: called ten Things I Hate about the Commandments and it
Speaker 1: was by Mike Dow. I definitely go see that. And
Speaker 1: will I know you've got some great facts you want
Speaker 1: to share about animals at the movies. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, let's take a quick break. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius where we're talking terrible movies. So
Speaker 1: will I know you wanted to tell some animal stories,
Speaker 1: which is usually my domain, but I like that you're
Speaker 1: tackling it today. But before that, can I just read
Speaker 1: you a little list of things that you used to
Speaker 1: see that the movies and you no longer see. Just
Speaker 1: comes from our old pal caricaval Chick. But here a
Speaker 1: few things you no longer see it the movie. So
Speaker 1: some of these are obvious, like ash trays. There used
Speaker 1: to be signs that read ladies, please take off your
Speaker 1: hats everywhere, you know, just as a reminder, because that's
Speaker 1: when people used to get super dressed up for shows.
Speaker 1: But theater is also used to come with cry rooms,
Speaker 1: which were these glass enclosures and soundproof rooms in the
Speaker 1: back of the theater, and that's so that parents could
Speaker 1: take their crying babies and still watch the movie without
Speaker 1: disturbing anyone. I didn't know what you're gonna where you're
Speaker 1: gonna go with that. I was just assuming like if
Speaker 1: people just got too emotional, that could go somewhere without
Speaker 1: out being heard. So this was for the babies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for the babies who also get very emotional. Um. This
Speaker 1: one's also interesting to me. Theaters used to be much grander,
Speaker 1: so you think about those like red curtains that used
Speaker 1: to open up for the screens, and and just how
Speaker 1: elaborate ornate theaters used to be. But all that change
Speaker 1: in with this Americans with Disabilities Act. They actually required
Speaker 1: that newer renovated theaters with more than two seats needed
Speaker 1: wheelchair access to all rows. So suddenly theaters started splitting
Speaker 1: up their bigger theaters or just started making smaller theaters
Speaker 1: to counter that. And it's crazy, but that's also why
Speaker 1: you started seeing three or four theaters at a place
Speaker 1: showing the same movie at similar showtimes. Yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: thought about that. So my favorite old thing about these
Speaker 1: old theaters was that, especially during the depression, it was
Speaker 1: hard to get people to come to movies, so to
Speaker 1: get people to spend their money, they'd have these collectible
Speaker 1: dish nights. And the whole idea was that movies where luxury,
Speaker 1: but husbands and wives could both agree that they could
Speaker 1: spend for a ticket or splurge for a ticket if
Speaker 1: they could also come home with a gravy boat or
Speaker 1: a coffee cup and saucer, and suddenly it made it
Speaker 1: more worth it. So these have been all across the nation.
Speaker 1: And uh, speaking of the depression, this is the last
Speaker 1: one that's actually part of what lifted popcorn sales. And
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this, but initially popcorn vendors would actually
Speaker 1: stand outside of theaters and they were independent sellers and
Speaker 1: it sell to the public who were coming in. But
Speaker 1: then theater's got greedy realized they can sell the stuff themselves,
Speaker 1: and now popcorn is obviously this hugely valuable thing and
Speaker 1: keeps theaters alive. But you know, apparently ounce for ounce
Speaker 1: movie theater popcorn actually costs more than filet mignon. Oh wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they sell a ton of it. Yeah. I've actually
Speaker 1: read that theaters put things in the popcorn to make
Speaker 1: the smell waft more in that that's not that surprising,
Speaker 1: but I mean it does explain why when you're sitting there,
Speaker 1: it just fills up the theater makes people more hungry
Speaker 1: for it. So anyway, all right, Well, on a different
Speaker 1: topic related to just weird things and movies and funny
Speaker 1: things about movies, I know, one of our favorite facts
Speaker 1: is is how the Cohen Brothers complained that the cat
Speaker 1: that they used in Inside Lewin Davis was so awful
Speaker 1: to work with. Of course, this comes as no surprise
Speaker 1: to me. They kind of just had to wait for
Speaker 1: the cat to do what they wanted. Like you'd find
Speaker 1: a cat that liked to jump, and then you'd put
Speaker 1: it in a scene, start rolling, and then you just
Speaker 1: have to wait for it to jump. And it drove
Speaker 1: them crazy, and something I haven't thought a ton about,
Speaker 1: but I can only imagine how difficult that is when
Speaker 1: you've got animals and you're trying to get them to
Speaker 1: do like a very specific thing, and especially with cats,
Speaker 1: I know him with tight budgets and directors wanting to
Speaker 1: play god, you know, not having an animal act to
Speaker 1: your will as I'm sure difficult. And I actually love
Speaker 1: stories of animals ruining scenes. There's this story from Raiders
Speaker 1: at the Lost Arc where Steven Spielberg was really irritated
Speaker 1: because instead of fleeing from a fire, the snakes kept
Speaker 1: going closer and closer to it to warm themselves, And
Speaker 1: at one point he was so frustrated that he picked
Speaker 1: up a snake, looked in the face and told him
Speaker 1: something like, you're supposed to hate fires. You're ruining my movie. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope they listened to him. You know, I do
Speaker 1: love the care that animal handlers use on set, and
Speaker 1: it even extends to the smallest of creatures like insects
Speaker 1: for examples. There was a few examples of this. But
Speaker 1: of course, you know the old movie Shaw Shankra such
Speaker 1: a terrific movie, and you know the old prisoner Brooks.
Speaker 1: In the film, he fed a live maggot to his
Speaker 1: pet crow, and it went against all animal regulations when
Speaker 1: he did this. So the crew actually found a grub
Speaker 1: that had quote died of natural causes and used that
Speaker 1: for the film. But that's actually not even the craziest
Speaker 1: case that I came across here. I think the best
Speaker 1: story might be from Silence of the Lambs, where they
Speaker 1: had over three hundred tomato hornworm moths on set, and
Speaker 1: and they were all treated like these little divas. So first,
Speaker 1: when they traveled, the moss all flew first class. I'm
Speaker 1: sure this was in all of their contract riders and
Speaker 1: I don't know why we know this detail, but we do.
Speaker 1: And then they were put up in a room with
Speaker 1: perfect climate for them, so exact humidity, temperature conditions, everything
Speaker 1: that was ideal for them. But the craziest part when
Speaker 1: they were on set, they were all put in these
Speaker 1: tiny little harnesses for those high speed stunts. And it
Speaker 1: almost makes me surprised they didn't outfit them in these
Speaker 1: tiny little helmets as well, But it's just pretty great.
Speaker 1: Like Silence and the Lamps is still held up as
Speaker 1: the prime example of how to care for animals on set,
Speaker 1: because not one of those three D plus moss was
Speaker 1: hurt on set. Plus the producers even found a retirement
Speaker 1: home for all the malls, and that they know that
Speaker 1: became roommates with the animal wrangler on set and lived
Speaker 1: out the rest of their natural lives with them. So
Speaker 1: I love that tiny harness fact. And I never would
Speaker 1: have imagined that there were three moths involved in the filming.
Speaker 1: But you know, I am curious, what is the life
Speaker 1: band of a tomato moth? Well, I think it's like
Speaker 1: two to three weeks, But but don't pay attention to that.
Speaker 1: The key part is that they were comfortable, manga comfortable
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. I do like that.
Speaker 1: So what else have you got? All right? Well, I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk for a minute about the movie Roar,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, the craziest and possibly worst movie
Speaker 1: that involves animals. Actually, there's some photos of the making
Speaker 1: of this movie from Life magazine that are just bizarre
Speaker 1: to look at. You should you should look them up online.
Speaker 1: They're photos of Tippy Hedren looking into her ridge and
Speaker 1: a lion peeking in two there's one of a lion
Speaker 1: asleep at her feet, which just makes lion looks like
Speaker 1: these giant house cats. But then there's another one of
Speaker 1: a lion with its jaws and its paused, just kind
Speaker 1: of gently placed around the kid's head at the swimming pool.
Speaker 1: You've seen this before, just pulled us up. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: How is the savy's name terrifying? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but this it actually kind of ties back to the
Speaker 1: economics here because roors considered one of the biggest disasters
Speaker 1: of indie filmmaking. Basically, Tippy Hedron, who was terrified of birds.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you remember that's Alfred Hitchcock, took advantage
Speaker 1: of this by throwing live birds at her in the
Speaker 1: movie Birds. But she was not at all afraid of lions,
Speaker 1: like she'd somehow fallen in love with these creatures. On
Speaker 1: a trip to Africa, she and her husband at the time,
Speaker 1: his name's Noel Marshall, they dreamed up this idea of
Speaker 1: doing a movie with real lions, and the plot was
Speaker 1: about a family of conservationists who go to a home
Speaker 1: in Africa. They're told that the lions at the place
Speaker 1: won't harm you if you just don't act scared or
Speaker 1: something like that. I mean, the movie doesn't really make
Speaker 1: sense and the plot isn't important to this story. But
Speaker 1: to make the movie, Tippy and her husband actually asked
Speaker 1: this animal wrangler to get them fifty tame lions to
Speaker 1: work with. I mean, just an absurd request, and obviously
Speaker 1: this wasn't possible. But what he did do was he
Speaker 1: started introducing young lions to them so that they could
Speaker 1: foster these lions and then they would be growing up
Speaker 1: with humans. So for eleven years, and this was on
Speaker 1: and off, but Tippy Headron and her family actually had
Speaker 1: live lions at their home and then they shoot here
Speaker 1: and there, and they put their children in the film too.
Speaker 1: And of course I don't know if everybody knows this,
Speaker 1: but Melanie Griffith, whose Tippy Headron's daughter, she quit the
Speaker 1: movie at one point because she saw two lions hustling
Speaker 1: in the front yard. And she then told her mom
Speaker 1: that she didn't want to lose her face to a line,
Speaker 1: which seem reasonable. I gotta be honest, Yeah, that seems
Speaker 1: reasonable to me. So I don't understand why that maybe
Speaker 1: wasn't a little bit of a wake up call. But
Speaker 1: you know, the filming was a disaster. Not only did
Speaker 1: Tippy and her husband keep running out of money for filming,
Speaker 1: people also kept getting hurt along the way. I mean,
Speaker 1: not the animals. I in fact, I think no animals
Speaker 1: were hurt in the process of this, but something like
Speaker 1: eighty cast members were, which I think is probably a
Speaker 1: record at least was a record at that point. And
Speaker 1: the movie cost I think it was like eighteen million
Speaker 1: dollars and then only made two million dollars. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not an economist and I don't know a ton about
Speaker 1: movie making, but that feels like maybe that was a failure.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but it just goes on and on like
Speaker 1: not surprisingly, it ruined their marriage. They end up getting
Speaker 1: divorced soon after. But there is one good thing that
Speaker 1: came out of it. So while Tippi Hedren did come
Speaker 1: out of this experience believing that lions don't make great
Speaker 1: house pets, her love for them only grew and so
Speaker 1: she started the Shambala Animal Sanctuary. This is in California,
Speaker 1: and many big animals end up there. So when Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson's home zoo was shut down, for example, Shambala adopted
Speaker 1: his tigers. That's insane, you know. I I heard you
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about animals, and I just assumed you
Speaker 1: were going to talk about Rentintin And you know this
Speaker 1: whole story about how he should have won the first
Speaker 1: Oscar like Susan or Lean wrote this in her book
Speaker 1: about Rentinton, that he got more votes for Best Actor
Speaker 1: in the first award ceremony, but the Academy thought it
Speaker 1: would set a bad precedent, said they rigged the awards
Speaker 1: for a human to win and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: New York Times report this, Susan or Lean said it
Speaker 1: was true, and everyone you know acknowledged that Rentintin was
Speaker 1: the biggest movie star at the time. But what's funny
Speaker 1: is that the Academy actually disputes this history and says
Speaker 1: Rentintin was never on the ballot at all, which you know,
Speaker 1: adds a little intrigue to this wonderful fact that everyone
Speaker 1: keeps talking about. Yeah, and it's still still a nice
Speaker 1: story either way. But all right, Well, how about we
Speaker 1: take a little break then come back with a few
Speaker 1: of the strangest, most influence chill movies of all time.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part time Genius. So before we get
Speaker 1: to a fact off mango, why don't we do a
Speaker 1: little back and forth on you know, some of the
Speaker 1: strangest movies that have I guess what you consider surprising
Speaker 1: impacts on the world. And there's some easy ones that
Speaker 1: people might already know about. I'm not sure, but for example,
Speaker 1: I think before the movie Amally came out, they were
Speaker 1: like a dozen kids named Emily and England and Wells.
Speaker 1: And then after the film came out, there were over
Speaker 1: a thousand kids a year who got the name Amalie.
Speaker 1: And you see this trend also with things like haircuts,
Speaker 1: Like this is one of my favorite facts as it
Speaker 1: relates to movies. But all right, there's this famous story
Speaker 1: about how after Titanic came out, the Taliban shut down
Speaker 1: any barber shop that was giving out Leonardo DiCaprio haircuts
Speaker 1: because boys were just going crazy for them. Now, there
Speaker 1: is not much funny about the Taliban, but I can't
Speaker 1: help it. That is just a funny and bizarre fact.
Speaker 1: I don't think about The Titanic that much, and I
Speaker 1: certainly don't think about Leonardo DiCaprio's haircut that much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty great. All right, Well, what's your favorite story
Speaker 1: about a movie that had a surprising impact on the world.
Speaker 1: So I guess for a quick one, maybe something like Bandy.
Speaker 1: And I know the animation style was completely different from
Speaker 1: everything else, but I like that it might have actually
Speaker 1: launched Stephen King's career. He often refers to Bandy as
Speaker 1: the first horror movie he ever saw, but in a
Speaker 1: bigger way, I actually think Borat might have had one
Speaker 1: of the most surprising impacts on the country. And um,
Speaker 1: obviously in the movie We've Got Sasha Baron Cohen, he's
Speaker 1: making fun of kazakh Stan. Some people saw it as
Speaker 1: harmless and nonsensical and and you know, just as a joke,
Speaker 1: but that's not at all how the Kazak people saw it.
Speaker 1: Like when the movie came out, Kazakhstan's president actually forced
Speaker 1: President Bush into a meeting just to discuss how the
Speaker 1: film was negatively depicting the country, and he actually did
Speaker 1: the same thing with European leaders. But the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that the film kind of had a point. So
Speaker 1: the country had at that time just fallen into corruption,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of easy to pick on the
Speaker 1: country because it hadn't formed much of a national identity
Speaker 1: post leaving the USSR. But after the film, they started
Speaker 1: working to bring in European businessmen. They started showcasing how
Speaker 1: business friendly and progressive the country was. They worked on
Speaker 1: tourism campaigns and oddly the film actually made people want
Speaker 1: to visit. And then they even invested in their first
Speaker 1: state produced film about Genghis Khan. It was called Mongol.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that. It was actually
Speaker 1: nominated for an Oscar But it was all away for
Speaker 1: the country to try to reclaim and celebrate its history
Speaker 1: while showing there's a thriving and beautiful modern industry there.
Speaker 1: And and I think it's kind of amazing that Borat
Speaker 1: is really the thing that spurred all of this, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was his goal from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: All Right, well, I've got a couple more that I
Speaker 1: wanted to share, you know. Of course, you know, I
Speaker 1: love the movie The Big Lebowski, and it brought the
Speaker 1: word dude back to the world, and I don't know
Speaker 1: whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but
Speaker 1: it also spawned a little cult or religion that was
Speaker 1: called the Church of the Latter Day Dude. And I
Speaker 1: mean mostly, of course, this was a joke, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was based on things like taking long baths and
Speaker 1: bowling and of course drinking white Russians and I guess
Speaker 1: a little bit of Taoism. But you know, back in
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, the church had over eighty thousand Judas priests,
Speaker 1: which I think is no small feat. But actually I
Speaker 1: didn't want to end on that one. I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to end on a sweeter story, and that's about
Speaker 1: the movie Do the Right Thing, which of course wonderful
Speaker 1: and important in its own right, but it has this
Speaker 1: second legacy that it's actually the first movie the Obama
Speaker 1: saw together when they were a young couple. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to Brock, it kind of sealed their dating status
Speaker 1: and it the first time Michelle allowed him to touch
Speaker 1: her net. And as the former president told Spike Lee
Speaker 1: when he met him for the first time, I owe
Speaker 1: you a lot. Oh I love that. So why don't
Speaker 1: we end up that note and kick off the fact off?
Speaker 1: Did you know that Steven Spielberg opted not to direct
Speaker 1: Harry Potter movies because it was too easy for him.
Speaker 1: Here's what he actually said about it. Directing those movies
Speaker 1: is quote just like withdrawing a billion dollars and putting
Speaker 1: it into your own personal bank accounts. There's no challenge. Wow.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're in a pretty good position when you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, the millions and millions or hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars I could make from that, I'm just not
Speaker 1: that interested in that. Too easy. Wow. Actually, there was
Speaker 1: this This American Life a month or so back about
Speaker 1: him and how high school inspired him to direct amis Thought,
Speaker 1: and it was so good. Did you listen to this episode?
Speaker 1: I haven't heard that, Yeah, but you should definitely listened
Speaker 1: to it for for all our listeners if you haven't already.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, on a completely different note, I don't
Speaker 1: think I even remembered broccoli playing a big role in
Speaker 1: the movie Inside Out, but apparently kids felt that it did,
Speaker 1: and so in the Japanese version of the movie, the
Speaker 1: vegetable was changed to bell peppers because quote, they are
Speaker 1: more universally hated by Japanese children. That's crazy. So here's
Speaker 1: a fun one British filmmaker named Charles Lyne raised nine
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to make a ten hour movie about paint drying.
Speaker 1: And you might wonder why why would you make a
Speaker 1: ten hour movie of just paint drying? And it was
Speaker 1: basically an f you to the British Censorship Board. He
Speaker 1: did it just to force a couple of sensors to
Speaker 1: have to watch ten hours of paint drying. That's actually
Speaker 1: pretty funny, even if it is evil. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I love that it cost nine thousand dollars to do that.
Speaker 1: But al right, well, did you know that the only
Speaker 1: time White Castle has made a vegetarian burger was for
Speaker 1: Harold and Kumar, So apparently pen is vegetarian. So White
Speaker 1: Castle obliged, but only that one time, which isn't that shocking,
Speaker 1: But it is pretty funny to imagine what this vegetarian
Speaker 1: burger looked and tasted like. I can't even imagine. I
Speaker 1: know now that I know they can make a vegete burger,
Speaker 1: I want to try it. You should demand it. So
Speaker 1: here's a little fact I love about the movie Drive.
Speaker 1: A woman in two thousand eleven sued the movie's distributors
Speaker 1: for false advertising because quote, it had very little driving.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's got a point. So yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: Well here's a fun When I learned about the movie
Speaker 1: Sleepless in Seattle, there's a writer pitching a story in
Speaker 1: Meg Ryan's office about this guy who sells quote the
Speaker 1: greatest soup You've ever eaten while also being the meanest
Speaker 1: man in America. And if you listen closely to this part,
Speaker 1: you know they're talking about doing a story on the
Speaker 1: Soup Nazi. And the greatest thing about this is it
Speaker 1: was actually a few years before the Soup Nazi became that,
Speaker 1: you know, big plot point on Seinfeld. That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. It's here's one about Quentin Tarantino
Speaker 1: when he was still starting out. At the time, he
Speaker 1: was living on his friend Linda Chen's couch, and she
Speaker 1: was a typist, and she had actually agreed to do
Speaker 1: some typing for him if he just house s at
Speaker 1: her pet rabbit. And of course Tarantino is a great scriptwriter,
Speaker 1: but not a good bunny sitter, and the rabbit sadly
Speaker 1: died under his watch. But to make up for it,
Speaker 1: he named one of the characters in the film for
Speaker 1: the pet. But if you remember in the beginning of
Speaker 1: pulp fiction, there's this robber who goes by the name
Speaker 1: Honey Bunny, and that's actually named for Chen's rabbit. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that. All right, Well, I know we've done
Speaker 1: a few Steven Spillberg facts here, but this one's gotta
Speaker 1: be tough to be. So, he was filming Schindler's List,
Speaker 1: and obviously this is a very heavy and difficult topic,
Speaker 1: and the cast would not surprisingly get pretty depressed while
Speaker 1: they were filming this. So every once in a while
Speaker 1: he would try to change the mood for the cast.
Speaker 1: He just call up his friend Robin Williams, put him
Speaker 1: on the speakerphone, and the comedian would immediately start reeling
Speaker 1: off jokes, and that, of course helped chair everybod audi up. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that. I actoually miss Robin Williams, and I
Speaker 1: had a different story about him. During the filming of
Speaker 1: Mrs Doubtfire. He wasn't sure if the costume was believable enough,
Speaker 1: so he wore it to an adult bookstore and just
Speaker 1: made all these ridiculous purchases and when no one recognized
Speaker 1: him in character, he decided the costume was believable enough.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty great. But I do think your fact
Speaker 1: is too good and you definitely went today's fact off. Wow.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's pretty good fact, Mango, but you
Speaker 1: know what, You've already given it, so I'm gonna take it.
Speaker 1: But thank you very much, and thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: We always love hearing facts from you, and I know
Speaker 1: there's so many great movie facts out there we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear those from. You can always email us part
Speaker 1: Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com, where you
Speaker 1: can hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Parttime Genius
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Speaker 1: from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Speaker 1: Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to
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