The Director's Chair Network

BABY DRIVER _ All the Wright Mov(i)es.mp4
that's right you've pressed play on all the right moves a limited series from the director's chair
network about the filmography of edgar wright today we are discussing the film baby driver and
i'm pleased to welcome from frank stallone who is this guy uh doug welcome to the show doug hey andy
thanks so much for having me man yeah this is a great pleasure of mine i'm really happy to be here
thank you yeah i had a lot of fun talking about frank stallone with uh you and ryan and uh he
suggested that uh i include you in the series and i was like that's a great idea let's get doug on
and this was one that i wasn't sure who uh i was going to do this episode with because this is a very
divisive movie i would say and i'm very curious to hear your thoughts about it because baby driver is
maybe the american film debut of edgar wright because we have the cornetto trilogy are you
uh when i say that do you know what i mean how familiar i do okay yes some people are less aware
but um so the that and those are very british right the sean and hot fuzz and world's end
are extremely british and then you have scott pilgrim which is extremely canadian
if you remember that did you see scott pilgrim i saw like half of it i don't think i ever finished it
oh okay but i i don't know why i i was enjoying it and then i stepped away from it and never went
went back to it for some reason yeah chronologically we have just to pull the curtain back a little bit
maybe i'll edit this out but i haven't even recorded that episode yet we're still but i've been saying in
so many other episodes that it's my favorite movie of edgar wrights so um i would encourage you to go
watch that one but what i what i want to know is what is your first memory or experience or opinion
of edgar wright how how how how what do you show up with uh when we start talking about edgar wright as
a director well his his really mainstream films that were shawn of the dead and hot fuzz
hot fuzz is probably the one that i've seen the most and okay it's probably my favorite out of
well um well the films of his that i've seen um the uh my my introduction to him was through i used to be
part of this podcast community because i i was on a show called rocky minute and this podcast community
was a movies by minutes where um creators would take a movie break the movie down into one minute chunks
and then each episode was analyzing one minute of film yeah i've heard of shows like that that's awesome
yeah so um so one of one of the guys that i was associated with he did the cornetto trilogy
so um that was my introduction i watched um through him i watched uh shawn of the dead and um that's
where i learned i knew about hot fuzz i was watching hot fuzz before um are you watching these movies one
minute at a time show or you did watch the whole movie first i yeah i would watch the movie and then
listen to the the podcast but i was i was actually on um a couple of minutes for hot fuzz uh on his show
but um it's ever edgar wright is he's one of those directors where you you can really break him down to
those like minuscule chunks and and really get deep and analyze because he's he's one of those
when i don't know how to describe him he's really like artsy eccentric quentin tarantino like i would say
right he's he's stylistic he's definitely like you could watch a movie and say oh that this feels like
edgar wright you know and it's like i i didn't really know much about baby driver going in i thought it was
another english movie you know it's just i mean the the main actor his name is fucking ansel you know
that's not a british name i don't know what is yeah um but i was surprised watching it that that it's like
all based in in america atlanta um right it's you know and ansel is as american as they come
but it was is he though i don't know maybe he's doing an accent in this he barely talks but um yeah that's why i was
saying this is basically his american film debut and it's a big departure in a lot of ways one the
big one that i noticed when i was sort of looking at the credits and comparing it to the rest of the
catalog is that edgar wright is the sole writer on this which became relevant to me the more that the
movie went on the more that i thought about the previous films and i know this is you know mostly
about baby driver but i can't help but compare it to everything that i've watched leading up to this
and how the tone and the voice of baby driver is very different from the cornetto trilogy and it's very
different from scott pilgrim so when we get to this stage in his career
this is kind of him taking full ownership of the whole production and that's where our discussion
is going when we start talking about what's what's good or or what we can criticize about baby driver
i think it's important to point that out because um sean and hot fuzz and world's end it's becoming
so much more apparent to me that the voice of those movies is simon peg's voice yeah and very much of what
i like about what i thought was an edgar wright movie is maybe a simon peg movie it's simon peg's sense of
humor that makes the cornetto trilogy special um did you find anything like when when you put when you think
about hot fuzz versus baby driver they both have a lot of car chases and gun play sure and and you and
you're saying that hot fuzz is your favorite and a lot of people would agree with you and then you watch
baby driver when you put when you put them side by side what do you think yeah i i would say um hot fuzz
just like you were saying that hot fuzz and shawn of the dead i honestly never saw world's end so i can't
compare but they they sound like they were um made you know from the same sheet of music it's you know
they they it might be simon peg's voice but like he does uh edgar wright does this thing in those films
where like his transitions are like like quick little montages of mundane things you know like
like him putting a tea bag in the water you know yeah but it's like an action montage like a quick
cut thing um yeah to transition from like one scene to another and uh i noticed that he did that a lot in
hot fuzz he did that a lot in shawn of the dead this this is different this is different in the sense that
it's it feels more like uh like a musical kind of i don't know if you would agree i 100 agree that is
definitely in my notes yes yeah because even even like like all the the scenes that don't have um music in
them have like a beat to it you know it's it's constant throughout and um like the meticulous detail that he put
into the scenes that do coincide with the music i can't even wrap my head around the work that went
into this yeah the editing i wonder if they were playing the soundtrack over a loudspeaker while they're
shooting it to try and keep a metronome of what will end up happening in post-production to make this
all sing the way that he wants it to and you're right there there is definitely an emphasis on
the soundtrack of this the the music of it is uh main basically almost the main character of the movie
maybe even more of a main character than baby himself who i did not find to be a substantial
likable character while i'm watching it you know which kind of is something that i would
say is a weak point of the film in general but uh if we're going to get into it i i want to point out
that one of the main themes of the movie is that the character of baby has tinnitus he is in a car
accident as a child where his parents are killed he's left with tinnitus which is like a ringing in
the ears that he always has and he uses his ipods and his the music from his family or his mom or his
life to drown it out and i know a lot of people that do have that so it it is relatable to me which is a
good thing to paint a character with and so when the credits are rolled before the movies even started
i don't know if you noticed this they're showing like the the production cards and who are all of the
stuff leading up to the movie starting and it's just a high-pitched ringing that is just like setting
the tone for what it's like to be in the driver's seat of uh of the character of fate did you notice
that when you started watching it i didn't i read it after the fact that that that was a note that he
put in i didn't notice it um or maybe i did but i didn't it wasn't consciously noted to me how have you
had you seen this before i invited you to watch it uh i saw bits and pieces of it years ago like
around the time it first came out um but i never saw the whole thing all the way through so that's
now you're really your first experience with watching it all the way through yeah yeah okay makes a lot of
sense when you watch it from front to back by the way a lot more sense than when you're piecemealing it
sure if you're if you're just sitting down and you don't know what what it's about or anything about the
character why would you pay attention to the fact that this is kind of ringing out uh as the credits
are rolling to get the movie started but if you know that and you re-watch it maybe that's a bit of
a callback or an easter egg which edgar wright is famous for he loves a good callback even all the way
back to his the television show space till start he'll reference that in you know they'll probably be
references to it in running man but yeah yeah so um it's not surprising or shocking to me that he's
inserting these callbacks and easter eggs or planting the seeds of that uh right before the movie even
starts so he does a lot of uh references movie references music references it's like especially with
the the simon pegg and nick frost relationship you know what i mean it it feels like me sitting down
with my friends just making stupid movie references you know back and forth that it's like it it's very
relatable when you look at it um like those older films this one this one is a straight up like action
rock opera like i don't know how else to to describe it it's wild yeah it is uh it's an action musical with
no none of the characters sing though it's no it's it's unique in that way but i think maybe it leans on
the gimmick of that too much because yeah because i i mean i think i was gonna wait to say this till
later in the episode but the the characters of baby and deborah i don't care about and that is not a good
place to put a viewer of the movie in to not care about the leads of the movies and not not think that
that just i didn't feel like those two actors had chemistry and i don't think that they gave baby enough
what you call saving the cat character development where you're just like oh this is a good guy and yeah yeah
it kicks off with that him being a getaway driver in a robbery uh that's something a bad person would do
so they need to establish that he is likable and he says so little at the beginning of the movie when he is
being standoffish with the other characters and you just don't know where he's coming from that by the time
he opens up to deborah and the audience it's it's almost too late too late yeah that's that's actually
a really good point i didn't think about it that way i i i thought that there was something shallow
about his character and like you said like you want to root for this guy you want to you want to see the uh
the good in him to to be able to root for him and there's a couple of minor things like where he gives
the the the black lady her purse and and he he uh tells the the the post office clerk not to you know
he gives her the signal not to go in like yeah and the way he cares for his his his foster dad like okay
but that those in in in and of itself like is it's too little to uh to really establish him as like a guy
with a good heart right it's too little too late and then at but at the end of the movie they just kind
of justify um basically the way the movie wraps up as he was he had good intentions the whole time
but he's a straight-up murderer at one point in the movie so uh like i said i just didn't find him to be
a likable character even if you're trying to make an anti-hero you gotta you gotta give this person
a sense of humor or yeah yeah and i i guess we'll get to another part they tried and like
give this guy a personality that is um at one point it's just like oh i'm putting on different sunglasses
sunglasses are my personality my ipod is my personality and me me making these songs in my
room when i'm not robbing banks is uh with antiquated technology is my personality but that doesn't endear
a viewer to the actor and maybe it's the fault of the actor or maybe it's the fault of the writing but
you're not uh i just wasn't rooting for baby at any point and at the top of the movie you get like some
really great camp you get some main characters you get john ham who i thought was great in it possibly one
of the better characters yeah then you get kevin spacey where you're just like oh this is possibly one of
kevin spacey's last roles so uh yeah it's like i'm not glad to see him and then you get john barenthal who's amazing
you can't just be in crime right not without being a little criminal i just want to find out what's
going on between those ears aside of course from uh egyptian reggae ding has two scenes and then walks
off the movie and basically all of the charm of the movie walks out the door with john barenthal
yeah he between him and john ham they they were they were characters they both showed emotion which is
something we didn't really get from baby um uh you know they they had layers which is something we
really didn't get from baby um i don't know i i guess like he he does seem like a kind of like a one
dimensional character um throughout but but was that edgar purpose for him i don't know yeah i don't know
maybe because you get i know that a lot of um authors the people that i know that uh dabble in writing
talk about the 50 shades of gray series and the character of i don't really know this that well
but the character the female character i think her name is anastasia or something like that um has like
no personality so that the reader can kind of insert herself into that character and that's why so many
women were horny for that book because they could see themselves in the character and maybe that's what
edgar was trying to do with baby like let you feel like you're in the driver's seat yeah yeah but um or just
like his his character is the car and i gotta say the stunt driving in the movie is fan-fucking-tastic and all
practical from what i learned very important that's very important to me and it is on full display
right at the top so i think i think the adrenaline of that first bank heist with the the red subaru wrx
sequence that is so uh engaging that you kind of forget you keep waiting for them to establish baby as
likable and it just doesn't happen for so long so you get this this fun action sequence and then you get
what you were talking about this musical like singing in the rain thing where he walks down the street
and is it's choreographed and in time and it kind of reminds you of like some of shawn of the dead and
all that a lot of the other there's a long one shot right yeah so you're like oh we're having fun and it's
reminding me of a way better movie that i enjoyed so and this is all in the beginning so you're you're
it's delivering on a lot of your expectations which is something that i've talked about in the other
uh recordings of these movies where it's specifically world's end where i'm expecting this to be as good as
sean i'm expecting this to be as good as hot fuzz and when it's not i'm gonna say that it wasn't as good
yeah that's just kind of where baby driver is at it's just not as good as hot fuzz right right it was like
leaving the theater after the last jedi when when i was like i was like hmm i i don't feel anything like i do
after a normal star wars film what's happening but you said you didn't see world's end and that's the
way i felt about world's end not to not to spoil it for you but right the it it just became they they
sean was such a great success that they were like if it ain't broke don't fix it let's just replace the
the horror genre with the action genre and they they gave us hot fuzz and that was wildly successful
like to what you were saying it's your favorite a lot of people say it's their favorite and i think
that it delivers because they get they got a plussed up budget they got a plussed up cast they got you
you know more they got everything they wanted based on the success of sean to make the movie that they
wanted to make with hot fuzz but then scott pilgrim comes and goes and they're like we want another
hot fuzz and just world's end was a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of sean and hot fuzz and it
just it just wasn't it just wasn't as funny it wasn't as um it's depressing because it's so much of it is
it's about addiction and and mental health and then and then it's just like well you're you're just
copying these other two better movies and in a darker less well thought out way to me i don't know
i guess my point is that baby driver wants to be as good as hot fuzz but it still isn't and i think that a
lot of that has to do with the fact that simon peg had nothing to do with the writing and so much of the
the character development that is so strong between the the characters that simon peg and nick frost
develop between like the the different character arcs and character traits that they put into sean and ed
and danny and nick and um uh gary and andy in in the cornetto trilogy like none of none of this depth of
character and the references that they make to the music they like and the video games that they like and
and it's all these things that make these um two-dimensional characters three-dimensional in your
brain none of that applies to the character of baby yeah and it even goes back farther than that because
earlier on you mentioned spaced which is a series that i i caught up on recently after after you invite i
saw a couple episodes back in the day and then um after you invited me on i said you know i gotta revisit
it and i actually watched the whole thing and it is very much like you you could feel the the simon peg
influence like you said in sean and in hot fuzz um it's it's the same in spaced and it but you could
definitely see simon peg's influence on those films and the lack of it on this film even though it edgar
wright it it it has the same like uh like i said it's like a same musical sheet that it was written from
but it's it's just there's something missing i don't know yeah say it's missing something was missing and
yes and you're echoing what i what i'm saying is that the when edgar wright decided to write this all
by himself he's there every other movie if you go look on it his imdb is co-written by somebody else except
this one and that i think is one of the critical problems with the the likability of the characters
the funniness and the fun of the dialogue that you expect from an edgar wright movie based on
uh the the everything that came before this and there's one point that you'll probably remember when
he's talking to his his depths deaf stepfather where the joke is that he like holds a banana up to his
ear do you remember that yeah yeah like oh i guess i can't hear you i you were both deaf and i can't hear
you because i have a banana in my ear and that's supposed to be like a punch line yeah and it just it was so
weak that i think that's when i realized that the writing is off the writing is not up to
snuff meanwhile the movie looks incredible the action i like all of the pacing and the action
and the visual effects like he does a lot of things they have those um goggles that light up at one point
that is like a something that kind of is a takeaway that people would remember um so visually killing it
directory like pacing with the music and whatever that's all killing it but the the writing you don't
care about baby you don't care about deborah you don't care if they're together that you care more
about john ham and like buddy and darling the their characters than you do about the main character to me
am i am i wrong did you were you more interested when john ham was on screen than when baby was on screen
yeah i i i i was i liked i really liked kevin spacey's character too um i'm coming to realize that i i
dislike jamie fox i tried to like it's like jamie fox every freaking movie he's in it's like oh here we go
again but like i convinced myself for a while like oh this guy's a good actor like i'm supposed to
dislike him in this film and in this film and in this you are yeah i'm like wait a second i dislike
him in everything i think it's a jamie fox problem and not a character problem um yeah uh but there was some
smart um i guess some smart writing details like like when he's watching the tv earlier on in the
movie and and as he's flipping through the channels all the lines that he sees in those movies he ends up
using throughout the film um like the monsters incline that that he uses the kevin spacey oh yeah you're not
just saying what you think i want to hear right you consider me a friend don't you
do an ir team nothing's more important than our friendship good enough and then you know at the
end you know kevin's this is the only part that actually made me laugh when he's like enough of
the monsters inc line you you're gonna shoot me too never you and i are a team don't feed me any more
lines from monsters inc it pisses me off yeah right and i'd even i didn't even really pick up on that
that's a good uh catch and it's not like they it was a secret but it just didn't resonate with me
um when when the the uh post office teller thinks that the kid is his son and he goes they grow up so
freaking fast how old is he four eight they grow up so freaking fast don't they it's like that was
that was one of the uh lines from from when he was flipping through the channels earlier oh okay um and
there was like two more examples of that and um so just some smart writing details like that were
were uh included but i think it just goes to show you that the character of baby is a is a a hollow
yeah void just waiting to be filled by something else like whether it's what he's watching or listening
or what i'm assigning to or what i'm assigning to it as a viewer this this character is just like a boring
character but i cut you off what were you what were you gonna say no i i was i was kind of alluding
to maybe edgar wright focused so much more on the action and and the the musical element the beats and
everything that the uh the writing and you know the character development was kind of secondary to all
that like the spectacle wasn't it wasn't the storyline it wasn't the actor's um job it was it was the music
and it was the action so i don't know i could be wrong about that but maybe he focused so much on
those aspects and really didn't put too much thought into you know yeah except for the long takes i i i
saw it at that first um that coffee shop run took like 30 takes or something like that and also i don't
know if if this was an obvious thing too that um like as he's walking down the street the words that
are sung were graffitied on the on the walls and everything like that just like a monkey yeah you do
yeah it's like okay yeah so i mean yeah stuff like that is is smart that and those like those little
edgar wright touches um also one one other thing that that i thought of all the musical the synchronicity
of it yes yes thank you okay um it did it remind you of shawn of the dead when they're beating the uh
the bartender to can't stop us yes yeah there there's definitely seeds planted in the previous films
even in space that come to like full fruition and bloom in later movies and a scene in the very beginning
of shawn where everybody is just kind of like on beat at one point and it's it's all in time and then the
the bartender fight scene with the queen song all these things were setting the table for baby driver which is
now it's a whole meal of that right and i think that's all edgar was focused on when he should have enlisted
like he did in almost every other movie somebody to do a screenplay and make these characters likable um
and that's that's just the weak point of this movie and i think that it's saved by pros like professional
actors like john ham and kevin spacey and jamie fox that probably were on set and going well i'm gonna do
this and i'm gonna make this character that i'm gonna assign these person that build these personality
traits into my character whereas this ansel algort guy that is playing baby is just a puppet he's just
edgar's puppet he's not he's so if he wasn't if he wasn't so tall i would just say that he's an npc like
yeah yeah yeah he's very nondescript he's he's not giving main character energy yeah and i just didn't
i didn't care about him i didn't like him i i i think actively disliked him i think i don't know i just
you just couldn't make me care about him in the movie i think it's okay considering that
john ham and i i can't even reference john bernthal i i really so wish that he was in more of the
friggin movie yeah but the um but uh john ham and kevin spacey really filled in those gaps
they gave they gave the movie substance they gave a personality and um you know they they filled in what
i think ansel was yeah but and then when they they introduced the love interest uh i don't know the
actress's name but i know that she went on to play pam anderson in the the tommy and pam movie where
basically she was third build behind the talking penis i don't know if you saw that but uh i'm just like
this woman is just likes him for no reason she's not likable in the movie and every time
that they're not driving a car or robbing a bank and it's just the two of them i just am wishing they
would get past it to the next and more interesting thing there was a lot of just the two of them too and
it yeah too much yeah i mean she she had that like southern bell kind of uh you know persona that i
mean it was fine i didn't really dislike her at all i i thought that none of it was earned you know what
i mean it's just like there was no no reason to think that these two would like each other except
that she served him coffee at a diner a couple of times so what is it you do
i'm a driver oh like it like a chauffeur you drive around important people i guess i do
anyone i'd know i hope not well aren't you mysterious maybe maybe
i came on very quickly like he's not that handsome and even like not to skip to the end but the guy's
in jail for five years and you wait for him because you knew him for a couple of weeks i didn't believe
that either even i don't know that was even a little ambiguous to me because like it just seemed fake
like him coming out with the rainbow in the background and they were yeah it was like a weird
like uh oh yeah color that's a good point like you could you could make an argument that it's not real
like it's just imagining it like he was imagining it before like maybe he's still in jail and he's just
dreaming that he's meeting her and they end up together um because everything else that he said
was just a reference from to something else or two you know for like you said what he was watching on tv
right yeah yeah there's another sequence where like just when you start getting sick of the fact that you
don't care about baby then you get uh the cameo from flea why does he listen to music all the time
dark he's got mental problems no no i'm the one got the mental problems in the crew no and that's when
jamie fox shows up and you get the truck the truck sequence with the the military guy chasing him around
and that's one yeah those are the things that save this movie are are the car chases and and that's great
it it makes the movie watchable but uh it doesn't make for um just you want to be invested in the
characters so that you want to re-watch it and spend time with these characters that you liked some more
and when you don't care about those characters you don't care about re-watching it
well i'm um the network that uh the frank stallone uh show is on it's it's the part of the action
heroes network i also do a podcast with ryan and our buddy craig where we go through sylvester stallone's
filmography and i'm a child of the 80s i that like that action scene was my jam back then rambo like uh
predator you know all that they arnold the sylvester stallone stuff and you want to talk about one
one-dimensional characters okay a shit a ton of action but there's these characters like they're
action heroes but they have zero substance they have zero like their backstories nobody gives a
shit about um just to show me the the explosions show me the blood squibs you know like the more the better
yeah and and maybe that's why this didn't bug me as much is because like i'm i'm a child of that
like action genre where like the characters back like the love stuff bugged me a little bit because
i was you know i kind of wanted to get to more car chases and more right you don't you don't see
schwarzenegger having coffee at a diner for 10 minutes with a woman that you don't care about sweeping a
girl off her feet like you know it's so but like that's maybe that's why i didn't care as much i just
wanted to get back to the action i found like the the uh the musical element to the movie like far more
engaging too so like and the scenes with him and her were the only ones that didn't have music in it so i
wanted more of that yeah like i didn't care about the backstory and that's not that important to me
when i'm watching an action film um i just wanted more of the good stuff and the good stuff like the
the mike myers mask bit yeah yeah i did enjoy that what the fuck is this man awesome powers
doc said michael myers this is mike myers it should be the halloween man this is a halloween mask no the
killer dude from halloween oh you mean jason no hey what i'm talking if i'm going to talk about uh how
the writing wasn't good and not as funny as what simon pegg would do with the other movies that i enjoyed
so much that's that bit was very funny there's a couple of there was a couple of good shining moments
and that was one of them after that one you get the the opening sequence where everything seems to go
just right with the wrx uh car chase and then you get this one where jamie fox becomes involved in the
caper and everything doesn't go right and he ends up jamie fox ends up killing one of the other robbers
because he fucked he it was his fault um and then they do the same thing that we were talking about
the musical number of the coffee shop the coffee run from the beginning they do it again a la sean of
the dead where like he goes to the coffee shop in the beginning everything's normal he goes to the coffee
shop in the middle everybody's dead but he doesn't realize it was all the same characters right right
they were all zombies the second time around yeah so this is kind of a spin on that where the when
everything went right with the robbery he was in a good mood and he was enjoying the song and everything
was a you know a sunshine and fun getting the coffee now this this was all up and then everything
is out of pace like his whole the whole coffee run is out of rhythm and he's not into a guy right right so
and you could see that that was by design and that but it's just like you were saying edgar cares more
about the the rhythm of the movie than the likability of the main character it's like that's why i was saying
the the the cars and the and the and the music are more of a main character than baby right right yeah i
think if you can look past that i think you can have a good time watching this yes and i i was trying
to gauge that while i was watching it i got to a point in the movie where i was saying this is kind of like
the italian job or this is kind of like oceans 11 and would i rather watch this than those and trying to
figure out where in the pantheon baby driver fits into the genre of a caper movie and i guess i'm curious
did this remind you of um a lesser movie or a better movie when you're watching it did you did you think it
was like the italian job or were you because you you said you were you were just you were watching it
the way you're supposed to watch it you're not watching it having watched everything that came
before it and looking at this with like a microscope that the way that i am so when you were watching it
were you just in digesting it as what it's supposed to be and enjoying it or were you saying oh you know
i like this better or comparing it to anything else no i i i think i was trying to enjoy it the way it
was intended like i was really into like the like watching for the musical beats and even like i
mentioned before that the scenes that didn't have music to watch like the rhythm of the scene to see if
if it did like have a flow which it which it kind of does you know like there's one scene towards the end
when they're they're making their escape and like you can hear his heartbeat as he's driving
um like they're they're focusing on the highway the white lines of the highway and you hear his heartbeat
and the heartbeats every time they drive up over one of the white lines i i was looking for the whole
movie to see if like these beats kind of matched up and everything and it would and i'm i hope that
that that was zegger wright's intention because i was i was kind of invested in in that aspect of it
yeah it that was definitely the intention and i was kind of on the lookout for when it got out of that
because this was very hyped when it came out i would say it was overhyped based on the fact that you know
after people saw it maybe it didn't it wasn't as beloved as hot fuzz so it it was overhyped and under
delivered but there was a lot of coverage about the fact that the it's to the rhythm of the soundtrack
the fact that the car chases are all practical effects and it was delivering on those things but
i think that everything else that they weren't hyping up is where it fell short and why it just kind of
leaves you wanting more of that simon pegg personality injected into the writing or the the writing of
scott pilgrim which is which is so there's it's scott pilgrim is so jam-packed with references and
love letters to video games and comic book that's like comics and music yes yes right and it's just
it's nothing but character development yeah and then you get to this and it is like basically none so yeah
like like a flip of the switch yeah it's just a glaring omission that is uh it's i don't know the chink in
the armor of the movie is just on full display and i don't know much about edgar wright's style his
directing style i've seen far more quentin tarantino so i can comment more like from one film to another
on his but um so i i don't know like i'm i'm assuming that edgar wright's um intention was to receive it the
way that i did and i could be completely wrong maybe he really wanted like an like an artsy uh
character driven story here and like if that's the case then it was a swing and a miss and i i hate to
do that because edgar wright like in his in his own right is he's a fantastic filmmaker and he deserves
like all the accolades he gets and but like i said he's he's stylistic you know what i mean he's you know
he has a certain style and from one film to another the the the footprints are there even though like
the story is completely different the the angle might be completely different to what he's trying to
do yeah but the way i received it i i think i enjoyed it more than you did like i said the the character
stuff was lacking but i didn't really care because i i was way more invested in the other like the musical
aspect than the action aspect that i was i was okay with it yeah and and that's great and i think
that he is he knows that he is going to be delivering this to both of those that's the
spectrum of people that are going to buy a ticket for this are going to be people that don't know
anything about they didn't even know that it was directed by the guy that directed hot fuzz are going
to buy a ticket to this and then there's the other people that definitely know all of that and
seen all of his movies so it's it's okay to say that you you just sat down and you never watched the
trailer and you just let the movie be what it was going to be and the the musical synchronicity of the
action was all of the charm of the movie and you had a good time at the movies that's fine but yeah um when you
do what i'm doing and are watching the whole catalog of the movies and recognize
what was missing in this one and i that's this and it's my i guess my point is that he's a great director
and that's why the director credit is separate from the writer's credit right all the time the the movie's
written by a good writer and directed by a good director and just because you're a good director
doesn't mean that you're a good writer and i think at this point of watching all of the movies what i'm
realizing is that at while edgar does have good instincts with writing and has good ideas about
the way that the plot should go he needs somebody that is an accomplished screenwriter to help fully realize
uh what i've come to expect as a good edgar wright movie and it's just the all of the writing that i
enjoyed previously is not here now so i have to assume that all of the value of the writing of those
other things can't be contributed to edgar wright yeah that's i mean that's it's sad to think of it that way
because like you think of an edgar wright movie you think like like his his dna is all over it
but i mean yeah i mean maybe maybe just a script doctor that came in and and looked at it and then
punched it up where it needed to be punched up yeah um i would hate to think though that that he can't
do something without the help of simon pegg because in his own right he's a fantastic director but
like simon pegg like well he's he's a great he has great writing instincts yeah and i i'm i haven't
gotten to it yet the the last one before running man comes out is uh the last night in soho and i know
that a lot of people have strong opinions about that film as well and i've only seen it the one time
and i'm looking forward to watching it again and i know that the writing partner in that is somebody
that is not uh one of the typical go-to people that you would associate with edgar wright which is mainly
simon pegg like when you when you think of edgar wright you're you're thinking of edgar and simon together
and that is the chemistry that you want to make a good movie even though arguably world's end didn't
meet that expectation but then what a three ain't bad yeah so then you get scott pilgrim which is
a love letter to the comic it's a love letter to video games it's a love letter to playing music and it's a
love letter to love and this but this is very much the work of what's it brian leo malley the comic like
because scott pilgrim versus whatever is a whole series of comic books right that was the inspiration
for this movie and it's just packed it's jam-packed with so much references and that's what people really
like about the simon pegg stuff is when they reference things that you recognize you're like
oh this is a reference to a video game i played this is a reference to a movie i've seen and that makes
you feel like you're friends with the characters in the movie because you like the same things especially
the the more um obscure references that you're like oh i get that one yeah yeah and that's what what made
space so good too yes like yeah just packed with references and then you get to baby driver and it's just
like if you don't maybe that was my problem i don't know all these songs there's a lot of obscure songs and my
yeah yeah my favorite parts of the movie were when they the easy like sunday morning part
and the um uh hocus pocus
uh foot chase part and i know those i know i know i know and like those songs so maybe um maybe it
suffers from that but just like me not getting the the reference but i mentioned quentin tarantino a few
times too like he he's he puts a lot of obscure songs in his films too and when directors do that
to the extent that tarantino and erica right do i almost feel like they're up their own ass about the
kind of music that they like they're like oh we like all this these obscure like b-sides from the 19
late 60s early 70s like whoa you never heard of this song but here it is yeah you know um but i mean like i i was
along for the ride i noticed that more in tarantino's movies like i i think quentin tarantino was way up
his own ass about a lot of things sure yeah i would agree with you uh but you know i i did notice like
that i didn't know a lot of the songs that that they referenced in this but i i didn't care as much
about the songs as trying to notice the way the scene and the song fit together yes it was a journey
for me watching this yeah i i think you're right though a lot of the song selection was selected so
that it would uh shadow the the action of the movie and it definitely does like certain songs and i'm sure
that the way that he paced the directing had to do with the the song and i'm sure that the song that
he picked was selected to fit a certain scene so it kind of it probably went both ways but especially the
first one it the way that he's he's in the car and he's just kind of in his own world and then you look over
and the the robbing the bank and it gets chaotic and the music gets chaotic along with that sequence
and then it goes back to him and then they jump in the car and the car chase starts and that's when
the song kicks in to the right tempo uh so that whole song is edgar was like i'm gonna write around this song
i got to tell you about the fabulous
most groovy bell bottom bell bottom bell bottom
and and they shot that movie based on that song alone and it worked it works perfect but was that
the armored truck one is that the one you're talking about that was the opening one i'm talking about the
first sequence but they all do it though like and then the even the post office one that that very like
carnivaly song
yeah yeah jamie fox dies uh that's definitely the right tone for that scene too and they all are but
there's a lot of them are so obscure that i think it makes it harder to enjoy it and i think you would
enjoy it more if it was a more recognizable song yeah i i agree because you can kind of tap your foot along to it
um the the the the one about the the armor truck one was was interesting because remember before um
he starts the song and then before like the action starts he had to rewind the song
let's go wait wait i gotta start the song over
the fuck
okay go back to oh right start it over again and um i i i read somewhere uh i don't know if it was imdb or
google or whatever um that the song wasn't long enough to encapsulate that whole scene so him rewinding
it was kind of like written in so so they can long elongate the song a little bit yeah
that's interesting so i mean those are details that that i'm like
you know it's those were the the things that i found interesting about yeah well there's definitely
tons of thought and that's that's to agger's credit for sure if we're if i'm gonna say everything that i
didn't like about the movie i have to bring up the things that i did and what he has always done with
all of the movies is have so many layers of themes and um just production beats and the the the edits and it all
really does sing and it is there with baby driver just it's just the the writing and is the only thing
that is the weak point um but i did love the shoot out with the in the arms uh exchange the the dirty cops
shoot out that that was a lot of fun with paul williams yeah yeah and testing and your choice is
well i'm gonna go with the picnic shoulder because um i just love smoking pigs
yeah was that the cameo you were expecting in that scene no not at all yeah that was fantastic though
yeah so there there are all these fun things that keep it interesting specifically john ham who uh it
does a lot of the heavy lifting at the end and kevin spacey's character arc that goes from
very like trusted partner to maybe like a bit of a bully when baby tries to get out of the life and he
drags him back in right and then becomes kind of the guy that is trying to help him finally escape at
the end and uh that's another trope of the edgarite movies the the over-the-top violent parts where that when
jamie fox character gets killed is definitely the most memorable part of this when um he drives him
into the rebar and then when kevin's yeah but all of the all of those movies it's just something that
he does that i think is a great memorable trick for the viewing audience he inserts those things and then
you're like oh remember when this happened in the movie because it was so over the top yeah everybody
remembers it like the guy landing on the steeple in uh hot fuzz exactly yes yeah perfect example what is
his name uh no that's uh timothy dalton yeah skinner yeah yeah yeah and um but when kevin spacey gets
hit by the car that's rad oh yeah yeah it's brutal and then ran over again backed over and then uh the
part where baby jumps over the car too he goes yeah and him tries to ram him and he does the leap over the
car move fun yeah and the part the parkour part during the hocus pocus oh yeah um song when they're
escaping on foot and darling gets killed that's uh a fun sequence too he's just oh he doesn't just drive
good he runs good too isn't this fun but that i got winded just watching him that was a lot of running
yeah yeah yeah he did uh well in that scene and maybe that's why that's how he got the role because
he because he could pull off the parkour but that my favorite part in that is when the cops are he runs
into the mall and the cops are clocking him and he goes into the store to do like a costume change and
yeah he i'm gonna cover up my blue jacket with another blue jacket what are you fooling with this
just trying to put on uh new sunglasses yeah yeah they had a similar jacket but it was all for nothing
because immediately they they were back on to him yeah i did get a i want to talk about the things that
i did like and i did like seeing this the the red subaru wrx a lot there's a lot of subculture around
that car and they just announced that the company is not doing well and i could just feel all the wrx
uh fanboys buttholes tightening up about the fact that they're not going to be able to get parts for
this car anymore and that scene kicks ass yeah and i love the uh purple caprice as well that i would not
mind owning that purple caprice it was badass some of those old old school cars were were nice looking yeah
nice looking cars that that one in particular that was a beautiful car definitely not a low profile escape
not many of those on the road are yeah like the all the other toyota corollas that they used in this
movie but yeah yeah i just wanted to point out the cool cars in a cool car movie and kevin spacey had had
another uh another uh another i think it was another edgar wright good writing moment when he's he's drawing
out a map on the chalkboard while he's given like all this exposition about baby about baby's backstory oh
yeah and then he acknowledges it he's like i i told you all of this while drawing a map on the goddamn chalkboard
or whatever like isn't that like yeah like yeah i was like oh wow like he he did the exposition thing and
he acknowledged it you know it wasn't you like yeah cheesy and like if he didn't acknowledge it
right because all right it's an exposition dump that we get in every friggin movie where you don't have
time to build this guy's backstory so you have one character that tells it yeah actually acknowledges it
right yeah and edgar is so good at being self-referential and being meta about the about
screenwriting and i do like that about him and i like that about this movie as well yeah and um one
other visual thing i wanted to point out um do you remember again as part of the love story but when
they're in the laundromat yeah like all the dryers that were going at the same time with different color
clothes in each dryer which was kind of visually stunning yes that was you when i say this movie
looks good there are parts that just it really stood out the thought and uh set dressing and the motion of
that and even the thing where they're they're listening to the deborah song together with the same earbuds
and they're kind she's kind of leading him around because they're attached by the earbuds yeah so it's a bit of a
a choreographed dance what's your story baby you from here i am keep going keep going keep going
you're from here you're a driver you like music you don't talk much no i've uh spoken more to you today
than i have to anyone all year whoa okay not a motor mouth noted and that's that's when i was realizing
that i don't like the two leads i was just like if this was if this was two better actors with better
chemistry this would be so much more of a charming scene so it's not even i guess it's not even the
the writing so much as the the casting of of these two specifically baby i just i still like that i i
couldn't relate to the guy because he didn't give you much to relate to no and and that specifically
sounds cheesy as like something that matthew mcconaughey and kate hudson would do and you know you know
you know right yeah and it's supposed to be like a meet cute thing but yeah yeah and then the other
the other thing i just like that's the whole thing with the recording device and oh just this is just
something i like to do i record people without their knowledge and then i go home and make shitty beats on
antiquated technology yeah the the song sucks and this whole retarded means slow was he slow no slow slow
this whole thing is only there so that it can come back later with the the sentimentality of the
mom's cassette tape or whatever but it it really shoots itself in the foot with the fact that jamie fox's
character bats has gone through every interaction in this movie basically killing people for a lot less
than discovering that you're recording him without his knowledge and compiling evidence are you an
undercover cop like why are you doing this jamie fox's character would have killed baby right then yeah
yeah looks like he's going somewhere two o'clock in the morning
are you know good it's good
because we gotta discuss this
no no it's the same one
baby your call time to make a big boy decision can we do this thing or not
now why don't you want to go and do that
it's just me fooling around i like to record stuff why you like to course though you're the police
you're supposed to go on the road not to the cops speak up baby i like to listen back to conversations i
make music out of the words songs mixes it's just something i do
that's why that's why that's excuse and he wouldn't have said well i guess we're gonna drive over to your house and
get these tapes and play them and decide that you're cool see this this was the other thing this whole thing
didn't make any sense so they've discovered the tape recorder jamie fox should have killed him right there
they go and get the tape they bring it back he proves that he's making this music that is categorically
terrible that song sucks i don't i don't i mean i would have killed him just because the song sucks not because
he's recording me without my knowledge i'm sure it wasn't just that one like he had dozens of tapes of that crap
i know so they have all these reasons to not trust this guy anymore and then he just goes i'm the driver i'm doing it this it's decided and kevin spacey and everybody else are just like well if the undercover cop says he's in he's in
why would they let that happen that doesn't make any sense i guess because the script said they had to let it happen i thought like i thought that tape that recording thing was was stupid too because i mean
there was no point to it it didn't yeah there wasn't really a payoff to it except the only thing that paid
off was that they the the villains learned that he knew zebra oh oh yeah when they had the sequence where
they are where she sings into the recorder right then they discover that that he knows her after the fact because
of that that's mainly the only purpose of all that all of that that i wished wasn't even in the movie was there was for
that but it it wouldn't it doesn't make sense it it was like critic it's a critical error that it doesn't
make sense because jamie fox would have killed him over that yeah he killed a store clerk over gum yeah
right right so i hated that about it but um i i did like john ham i liked the shootout
um you know it's it's sad when uh what's it was it darling it was that the girl yeah yeah yeah yeah
character and then seeing a hot chick get get whacked off yeah so then that pits uh john ham against baby
and we get the the finale of that and um i liked that sequence the parking garage sequence the and john
ham i thought i like john ham in a lot of stuff i the very little criticism of john ham i feel like he saved
this movie did you know he was going to get out of the car before it fell off the uh the upper deck
yeah yeah i i kind of yeah i kind of i kind of know how movies go if you don't see somebody die they're
not dead right right right yeah but uh he gives himself he turns himself in and you're supposed to
think that he's a good guy he murdered jamie fox and i mean granted jamie fox deserved to die but at that
point he's a murderer so that they have to reconcile that some way with this you know getting off getting
off light for good behavior five-year prison sentence and all of the character witnesses standing up for him
because he was charming at the post office yeah he left the purse for the old lady it's like yeah
really that's all his greatest hits like the you know the good boy uh part part of him came out in
the testimony yeah he was robbing bank he wasn't a good guy he's not a good guy in in that post office
scene too when when uh john ham and darling got in the car and if he left when they were supposed to
leave everything would have been fine but first he hesitated then he killed jamie fox yeah like that
complicated everything if he just drove away everything would have been great everything would
have been fine yeah and that's but that justifies everything all of john ham's motive at the end of the
movie which yeah we needed for the end of the third act but yeah uh yeah it again yeah you're right that
doesn't make sense either just leave and everything would have been fine yeah you did this you did this
to yourself and it's one more reason why i don't like the character okay fair enough and this i have it
you're making a compelling case counselor you really are well i feel bad because hughesie uh i did world's end
with uh hughesie and 2k and hughesie poisoned me against this movie before i even started watching
it oh really he's like i hate that movie it sucks so i sat down and watched this for all the reasons
that it's not a uk movie hughesie is that why i guess but i did mention i was watching it and comparing it to
other movies and i was trying to put it in a hierarchy of things that i would that i'd rather
watch baby driver over which is maybe whatever oceans 11 3 or whatever 14 and then uh italian job or but
the one that i was wishing i was watching while i was watching it and comparing it to that it couldn't
live up to was the robert de niro movie ronin have you ever seen that i have yeah yeah yeah when you talk
about car chase movies and caper movies and guns and plots and all of that shit ronin is especially as
i get older and i'm like oh i want to watch a 50 year old man be a badass yeah that's ronin man yeah
that's upper echelon man that's that's another level yeah yeah but also like comparison is the death of
joy andy you know when you try where you'll go looking for the ronin in in baby driver you're gonna
very disappointed i you know doug that is a great point because i've made a lot of comments on this
series leading up to this episode that things that i don't enjoy about movies are when they don't meet
expectations that have been set by other movies and that is not edgar wright's fault that is my fault
for thinking that something is going to be something that it's not and i acknowledge that
and i'm glad you pointed that out and i here i earlier on i made a comment about the last jedi
which i compared to every star wars movie before it so i'm guilty of it myself but you know a little
introspection never hurts you know sure yeah and i i mean all this to be i wouldn't be doing this
series if i didn't like edgar wright i just i i'm i'm cat categorizing a lot of these things that i have
largely watched and enjoyed i don't regret watching any of them but i'm trying to understand what
what i like and what the commonalities are and what the through thread is of of when i get down to the
heart of what an edgar wright movie is and when i look at the upcoming running man i get very excited
and i will tell you why because well before i tell you about why what is your awareness of the new movie
the running man that's coming out in november do you know anything about it nothing except that he's
involved that he's okay have you any have you seen the original yeah oh yeah many times yeah yeah okay
based on what you said earlier i figured it's it's it's i know there's a book and it has nothing very
like diverts tremendously from the book the first one i don't know does that go right plan on keeping
it closer to the the book i would think that that how that's how he's gonna make it stand apart as its own
movie and based on i'm pretty sure i read the the novel but long long long time ago to a point where i
don't really remember it and i think there's a lot of room for him to make this his own and i'm very
excited about it mainly because when i talk about the fact that the weeks the weak spot in baby drivers
that edgar didn't have a writing partner and then you look at what was good about the previous movies that
when it comes to the writing and that mainly being simon pegg in the cornetto trilogy but my favorite movie
is scott pilgrim and the co-writer of the running man is the the co-writer from scott pilgrim there you go
that's a good start michael michael michael bacall who has connective tissue to tarantino he was he was in i
i think he was one of the bastards and in glorious bastards and he has a small role in death proof so
these guys kind of have this boys club of uh bootstrapping independent films as kids and coming up at the
same time this brotherhood of robert rodriguez quentin tarantino edgar wright and uh eli roth that were all
involved in grindhouse um has now cultivated this relationship between michael bacall and edgar wright with
scott pilgrim and i already said that's my favorite edgar wright movie so now all of those fingerprints
are going to be in running man so that's good yeah that's all yeah and we know that edgar wright can do
action you know so i mean i'm so excited yeah i want i wasn't before like i knew it was coming out and
everything but not you know good lead to the glenn powell is you know in more and more things he was in
the twisters and um uh he's got a new football thing i think on prime or netflix or something right now like
he's he's nothing but on everybody's radar so that's a good leading man to have replacing arnold
and uh good you know ip to be drawing from and it's just it's on it's on track to be good i'm getting my
all of my hopes up doug so that yeah and i'm really hoping for a scott pilgrim and not a uh baby driver when
well i i think the the original as as far as the book is concerned that the uh ben richards i think
is the the character's name is um is he's not like this this big hulking monster like arnold right he's
just like an average guy that's trying to survive and um that's what makes like his quest like all that more
you know um astonishing is that he was able to do it all just as like a normal guy not this right yeah yeah
yeah exactly that's why uh people love die hard it's like oh average looking bruce willis not stallone
or schwarzenegger and right yeah very easy for you to um be a one-to-one to that kind of scenario as
opposed to just uh rambo blowing it yeah yeah so all right you got me related you got me excited for uh
for running man this this yes awesome yes and uh yeah i'm gonna say that once that comes out
if you if you have a chance to see it on opening weekend see it and then i'm gonna have uh a live
stream where i invite everybody back to say what they thought about the movie so you're invited for
that and uh did you have any final thoughts about uh baby driver anything we didn't talk about no i i
checked my notes i think we covered everything and you know i i i said it a hundred times during this
episode like i enjoyed it for the for the things that i think edgar wright put on the forefront of
this film like the action and the musical beats and the story line was okay the the acting wherever it
lacked like it didn't bother me enough where it took me out of the film or it made me not enjoy it so i i
enjoyed it and um i don't know i might i'll probably visit this again um you know but this is maybe like
the fourth time i've seen it i've seen it a few times so it's interesting enough because like i feel
like this is like every time i watch this i i'm gonna pick up more things you know i'm different so i'll
definitely watch it again and yeah edgar's the king of that by having little easter eggs and like callbacks
and things that you didn't know it's the first time so all of his movies are very rewatchable and again
it's not it's not the acting it's it's just it's just the uh the writing so um but it still makes for
an entertaining movie and i oh i i we didn't talk a whole lot about spaced but i did i've been doing them
about two episode chunks at a time and the one that i thought was most it seems like a lot of his films
as i'm watching spaced he's just um taking these inspirations from episodes of spaced and using them
in his films and the one that was relevant in baby driver was the episode i think it's episode four in
season two when tim is trying to get the comic book job from the the exec and the guy was kind of in the
chair like the claw from inspector gadget or a james bond movie and i was just thinking that it was a little
bit like kevin spacey's character that tim was baby and that guy was kevin spacey and it seemed to be a
one-to-one that made re-watching spaced and watching baby driver uh make sense okay i'll buy that yeah
i'll align with that that definitely sounds like it could be yeah like you know i mean you got the
die-hard element with him crawling around in the air vent and everything right yeah you got a matrix
reference a terminator reference all the all the great references thrown into space i love i got a movie
back with space man i i watch it again like i i got a lot of the movie references even yeah you remember
the the uh i'm sorry to tangent on this but yeah the robot the robot wars one where yeah that yep that
was a good episode the robocop reference where it had like the the green grid and every time he he
drilled in a screw like the grid came wider and wider and wider wider
he's on this off so you can hear us
i love this guy like that was a total robocop thing oh yeah
bring in the led he's on what's the story we were able to save the left arm what i thought we
agreed on total body prosthesis now lose the arm okay yep and that's why spaced was so good and it
it really speaks to uh we're we're very close to the same age and it speaks to our generation in in a way
that is like chicken soup for the soul or comfort food all the video he's playing all the video games
that i played when i was a kid he's talking about comics and movies that i watched when i was that age
so it's it's uh the voice of a generation and it that's like proof right there that transcends culture
and countries like different upbringings and everything like this is a british series that we relate to
because of the references you know what i mean it's it's wild the way that works out yeah it's fandom
it's fandom is a personality is the way that i've been putting it on other episodes and people love it
because they feel like they're if we like the same things that means we're friends and that means that
i know you and you know me just because we both watched baby driver together this is only the second
conversation we've ever had our connective tissue right there we're forever bonded yes okay well
you'll be in my wedding now
so thank you so much for joining me for this episode and everybody should make sure to check out doug and
ryan on frank stallone who is this guy are you guys making new episodes do you have anything coming up do you
want to plug anything at this time well outside of the frank stallone like we basically just scour through
his um instagram because he's he's just a wealth of of buffoonery yeah anybody if anybody's watching this
based on my involvement with the dabble verse just know that frank stallone is a lol cow in his own right
and doug's podcast is worth checking out if if you like that type of stuff that it's right on par with
all this right yeah if we're completely honest ryan and i took that idea from w atp about about like
analyzing one person and kind of just keeping up with the buffoonery again yeah i don't know what other
word to use that's perfect like outside of like his current stuff i've been looking back into uh like
frank stallone's been active since the 70s so i go back to look at like past um interviews he's done
and other tv spots and and stuff and podcast interviews and and that's where we found the the jesse lee peterson
stuff right you uh were on i just that's amazing yeah i just looked at frank stallone interviews and
that came up and it was just mind-blowing salad gold yeah yeah it's just it's never ending so we'll be
doing that for a while if um we also i mentioned before we do the uh sylvester stallone uh movie reviews
um at analysis we've gone through almost all of his movies we got a handful of them left starting from
the beginning everything that's not rambo and rocky because those have been done to death so like his uh
lesser known films um but that's on the last city action heroes podcast network you can find that
tango and cash we did tango and cash yeah good the bad the ugly we've done it all and he's got plenty of
it oh yeah yeah terrific so yes please everybody i encourage everybody to check all of that out it's a lot of fun
and uh if you're thinking about missing the next episode of all the right moves don't don't don't don't