Hellboy II: The Golden Army with Amelia Emberwing

0:23 All right. Welcome to Podcast Like It's the 2000s, the podcast where we talk about the films of the aughts. Here from our perch in 2026, I'm one of your hosts, Phil Lisco.

0:32 I'm your other host, Emily St. James, and a fun fact. about me is that I am trying to light a match right now and not, I'm really struggling.

0:42 It's okay.

0:43 Most of the time, these facts, they're a little exaggerated, but in this case, it's absolutely true.

0:47 This is literal.

0:48 This match is defeating me. I had a whole joke lined up, but I'm just focused on the match. And that's important.

0:55 With us today, to wrap up our.

0:57 I broke it.

0:58 Jesus. You broke it? I mean, that match really had it in for you.

1:02 It snapped in half. It didn't want me. It didn't want me.

1:06 We're listening to wrap up our miniseries on Guillermo del Toro's 2000s films. His entertainment journalist, critic, and editor, Amelia Emberwing. We're talking Hellboy 2 and The Golden Army. Thank you for joining us, Amelia.

1:18 I'm so excited to be here. I'm also so excited that I just saw smoke come into Emily's frame. It didn't work.

1:24 It didn't work. It just smoked.

1:26 Gotta get another one.

1:27 But we do have a new Pope, so it all works out.

1:30 We do.

1:30 Yeah.

1:33 Actually that was the mice they were electing a new pope and they were like yeah there's a new mouse pope yeah we love oh that would be such a good hbl show god the mouse pope.

1:43 The mouse pope yeah the young mouse pope obviously.

1:45 Guillermo guillermo would direct it i think i think he would be.

1:49 Into that i think exceptional stop motion like.

1:53 Oh yes like the beginning of this movie obviously yeah what a beautiful what a beautiful series that would be Emily was just lit up with the light of a flame. Oh, we did it. We did it. We did it. Yeah. So, Amelia, I reached out to you a few months ago about whether or not you would come on the pod. You were kind enough to say yes. And I sent you the list of Guillermo movies, if I remember correctly. And you originally picked Hellboy 1.

2:22 I did.

2:23 And then I was like, but what about Hellboy 2? And you were like, love Hellboy 2. Let's do Hellboy 2. yeah um did you see the hellboy films in theaters was this yes were you okay and did you know the comics beforehand or i think i knew.

2:40 The comics after one so like one is what drove me to the hellboy comics later so by two i was more familiar okay.

2:51 Okay yeah um so is hellboy one of your guys are you a fan of hellboy You know, it's.

2:59 Really funny upon revisiting Hellboy 2, you know, when you're younger, male archetypes like Hellboy are a lot more acceptable. And now it's like a grown woman. I'm like, God, grow up!

3:18 There's a little bit of a rusted development with the titular character, I would say. um and like now.

3:25 He's a dad and like it's fine and in the hellboy three that we will someday maybe.

3:31 Ever we're never getting up with three it's.

3:33 Gonna happen it's gonna we have to believe we have to believe we had.

3:37 Our we certainly had moments where it felt plausible yeah um i think we might have moved past that but emily we we talked hellboy one uh-huh uh last week or two weeks you know what i mean um and six months ago six months ago you had not uh re-watched how boy too relatively recently right i mean how boy too.

4:00 It's been i saw it i saw it one time in theaters liked it actually i remember like quite liking it and then it just like it's the same thing that happened to so many movies that summer it just got swallowed up in my brain by the dark knight and iron man Which it came out between. It was sandwiched between them. But like, yeah, it just, I had not thought about it since then. And I watched it.

4:23 I think I liked it a lot. I think it's better than the first one. Also, I have a bunch of friends who insist it's better than Pan's Labyrinth. I'm not willing to go that far, but I.

4:35 Think it is.

4:36 I think it's closer than I want to admit.

4:39 Yeah, I.

4:42 I totally agree.

4:43 One of them being David L. Sims.

4:46 David L. Sims saying better than Pan's Labyrinth.

4:49 He's not a Pan's Labyrinth, Stan. He thinks it's kind of a mess. So, which, whatever.

4:54 That's interesting. I mean, I know that Griffin and David are both sort of, their mileage varies on Guillermo in general. Like, he's been a guy that inevitably they will probably cover at some point on the pod. But I also had only seen this once in theaters. I quite liked it in theaters. Similar to you, Emily, sort of subsumed by other movies of that summer. Absolutely fucking loved it this time. Like, just completely. I admire, as anyone who listened to our Hellboy episode, I have some issues with the first Hellboy.

5:31 I like it. I think it's a lot of fun. But this is just Guillermo off the chain in a way that I'm just, like, really, really here for. Give me the troll market all day long It's.

5:42 Weird because it's simultaneously You can tell he's once again trying to make a Blade 2 A movie that will be a big hit So that he can continue to make movies like this And then he also is like But the world is ready And like after Pan's Labyrinth I get kind of why he thought that And yet the world was not ready They weren't ready Although I.

6:09 Would say, and Emilio, obviously very interested in your thoughts on this too, but just sort of, if this movie didn't come out the weekend before the dark night, there's an argument to this film having legs, right? Like I think it could have stretched out at least for another weekend and at least probably got another 20 million domestically, 25 million domestically, something in that vicinity that would have, probably got us a third one but because it dropped 70 percent in its second weekend because of the dark night i think the universe was like people don't care about this.

6:49 Yeah i think you're absolutely correct i mean this is this is such an exceptional film and it's so quintessentially comic booky right like we we have a habit of of infantilizing comic book films and being like oh that's great for a comic book movie no that's just a great movie that is comic booky. Like you feel like you're in a hell boy comic in both films, but like particularly into where he goes off the rails a little bit more, but it released, as you mentioned against one of the greatest comic book films of all time.

7:28 Like you were dead, you were dead from the start. You were, you were, you were like, that's, that's on universal at that point.

7:35 Like, sure.

7:37 Especially because Batman Begins did so well. It was not a surprise that Nolan's trilogy was going to go as hard as it did. And so it is really disappointing that I think you're absolutely right. This would have gone on for a little bit longer if it weren't people having to choose. Even then, obviously now people have to be way more discerning about double features because going to the movie is a $ 100 affair. But even at the time, are you going to spend your whole weekend in a movie theater watching comic book films? Or are you going to go.

8:16 Do something else? And a very different tonality.

8:18 Comic book movie right for sure.

8:20 As we talked about in our dark knight episode emily you know really changed the game in terms of what was expected of comic book movies same with iron man too.

8:30 I mean both iron man and dark knight give the non-comic book audience an out dark knight is is very serious and self um self-important i say that i say that nicely complimentary in a way that in a way that is like oh, yes, well, this is about Batman, but also it's kind of heat. And you're like, oh, okay.

8:53 I guess I'm going to watch Heat. And Iron Man famously, accidentally, invents this thing that we still live with, which is the guy saying, you don't have to take this too seriously because I know it's silly and I'm Robert Downey Jr. And we're all having fun together.

9:09 And I'm Iron Man.

9:11 I do have fun with you, Robert Downey Jr. Thanks for coming over last night. We played... What did you play? Scrabble? We played Parcheesi until like 1am. And then I was like, you guys got to get home. I have to wake up in the morning and take a kid to preschool. Hellboy doesn't do any of that. Hellboy is like, this is, you're going to have a blast. This is going to be weird. There's humor, obviously there's like stuff in it.

9:35 And it certainly is laced with a kind of like tragedy, but it is very much not asking you to, it's asking you to immerse yourself in a world and not giving you the like slender thread of you you are being reminded you're not a nerd for liking this you know.

9:51 Oh my god it is it is i mean as the first hellboy movie as well and you could argue gear mother's entire oeuvre is let your freak flag fly freaks welcome here please you know join us so I totally agree with you Emily that the comic book movie for all intents and purposes changed drastically in the summer of 2008 and this movie is the opposite of both of those films which I think is, I mean, ultimately I think is why I probably enjoyed it as much as I did watching it yesterday. You know what I mean?

10:27 I think that we have been inundated with the winky Marvel universe for so long and also the grounded Nolan version of comic books that to have something so sort of unabashedly, you know, embracing comic books in this way, I just don't think we've seen in a while. And I don't really think anyone is doing it. But it is a little alienating at the same time, right? Like, I do think that to some degree people are like, you know, the Angel of Death makeup is tremendous. The Chamberlain makeup is phenomenal. Like, but it is also just like, you've got to, you know, you've got to ride with this shit.

11:09 Yeah.

11:10 You've got to be willing to, like, give up a part of yourself and go on a journey. Which I feel like Guillermo consistently asks of audiences, like, let let go of the part of you that finds normalcy to be important and just come on this journey with me. And sometimes, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Uh, but I think, I think on this one, like it does offer such a universal theme that it, it, it, it's essential that that universe universality, that's not a word, but you know what I mean? Uh, that, that aspect exists because it is so fantastical. Like this, this is, this is even weirder than the first Hellboy. And it is going into like a deep fantasy realm. And it is like taking you on this side quest that like the,

12:00 the collective experience of like, we all understand what this means was sort of essential.

12:07 Absolutely. I think that, I mean, Emily, you read the comics.

12:13 Yeah. Some of them. I haven't read nearly because there's so many.

12:18 Right. Do you feel like both these films are, you know, not slavish necessarily, but they certainly feel as though they're doing justice to the comics, right?

12:30 I mean, to the spirit, as far as I know, this is not really adapting any art as directly as the first one does. But, like, the thing that I think makes these... un-comic bookie from the perspective of just a random person going to the multiplex is that they are indebted to a different sort of pop culture grounding than Marvel and DC films. Marvel and DC are very grounded in a different kind of pulp storytelling and this is like every story that would have frightened medieval children has been turned into this vast panoply of trolls and fairies and bullshit. And I like that again, as, as someone who grew up evangelical and does not have a lot of pop culture aimed at her, like hell boy feels like it is, but yeah, it's, it's, you don't,

13:32 you will look at this and you look at even like guardians of the galaxy, which is similarly Daffy, but it's built atop 30 sci-fi. Like that's, that's like the core of what it's doing. And this is like the core of what it's doing is frescoes and churches of skeletons, eating people like.

13:52 And like Irish folklore.

13:54 I mean, it's, it's yeah.

13:55 Yeah.

13:56 Which, which to your point gives it a richness and, and makes it feel like, idiosyncratically its own you know what i mean but at the same time you can understand why some people are like but guardians is star wars you know what i mean so i'm like i i feel like i understand it i want to get a little bit of context for listeners who might not have seen hellboy to the golden army it's based on as we mentioned the dark horse comic character uh it's a sequel to the original hellboy um it's written and directed by gamal de toro from a story he co-wrote with uh mike mignola who wrote the comic. Ron Perlman is back. Our cast is back, except for one person who's been sent to Antarctica in a throwaway line. In

14:37 the film, Hellboy and the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense must battle a mythical prince who plans to reclaim the world for his magical kindred. It opened on July 11th, 2008, against Hancock, Journey to the Center of the Earth, WALL-E, Wanted, Get Smart, and Meet Dave. Remember Meet Dave, Emily?

14:55 I met him.

14:56 Yeah?

14:56 Yeah.

14:57 I've actually never seen Meet Dave I saw Meet Dave And I was like I don't want to.

15:03 I'm sorry Feels like he was really being thrusted on America.

15:08 Let's see if we can name a good Dave I don't think we can The.

15:12 Movie Dave I like the movie Dave.

15:14 But he's not real Who's a good Dave There's gotta be.

15:18 One Oh you mean in real life.

15:21 If I were to meet a Dave Which Dave would.

15:23 I be Super Dave Osborn.

15:27 That's not his real name, is it? I don't know. It can't be like a David.

15:33 Dave.

15:35 Dave Lawson of Rustic Films.

15:38 Sure. We do love Dave.

15:40 He's good. That's one good Dave.

15:41 Dave Letterman.

15:43 When they remake me, Dave, it.

15:45 Can be about Dave Lawson. This movie will go to make $ 168 million on a $ 85 million budget. Pretty, pretty pricey movie. All things considered. It's got a 78 score on Metacritic from critics, a 7.4 from audiences and a 3.5 average on Letterboxd. This film was nominated for best makeup at the Academy Awards and it lost to the curious case of Benjamin Button. I take umbrage with this. I think this movie should have won best makeup. I think if nothing else, from a quantity perspective, the makeup in this movie is, uh, is pretty phenomenal. What are your thoughts on that? Emily, you think Benjamin Button should have won?

16:30 Uh, I, I, I don't mind Benjamin Button.

16:34 I love Benjamin.

16:35 You know, like I think, I think it's good. I think that has good makeup. I think, I think that what often happens in is people, um, old age makeup is very hard and that had a slightly different problem in terms of doing old age makeup. And just like, I do think that it made, it was a very similar technical challenge in terms of like quantity. It's just like, I think that people often in the Academy often wrongly conflate monster makeup with like easy makeup. Not easy, but just like you don't have to like like if I have to make someone look like Winston Churchill, that feels like a narrower needle to thread.

17:20 I totally agree with you in the mind.

17:22 Yeah, whatever. I probably would have voted for this, but I'm not sitting here being like Benjamin Button. What a tragedy.

17:31 No, I agree with that.

17:32 I'm going to look up who else was nominated.

17:34 I think you're right, Emily, that they approach makeup from a believability perspective and a realism perspective as opposed to an ingenuity or creativity perspective. I think that they're like, well, I mean, that angel of death, they just made that up. But that's what's impressive about it.

17:54 The other nominee was the Dark Knight. And you could argue that Dark Knight deserves it because of Heath Ledger's makeup, which is.

18:03 Sure, which is iconic, yeah.

18:04 Which, like, is not, like, complicated, but is, like, you know, probably one of the signature makeup jobs of the 21st century.

18:14 It's true. Roger Reber gave this a three and a half stars. Said, imagine the forges of hell crossed with the extraterrestrial saloon on Tatooine, and you have a notion of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II, The Golden Army... In every way, the equal of its original, although perhaps a little noisier, it's another celebration of his love for bizarre fantasy and diabolical machines. And once again, a strong performance from Ron Perlman, whose face and voice and movements make him one of the great comic heroes. Del Toro, who preceded Hellboy 2 with Pan's Labyrinth and the underrated Blade 2, is now warming up for Doctor Strange and the Hobbit.

18:47 He has an endlessly inventive imagination and understands how legends work and why they entertain us and that they sometimes stand for something for love for example i love that he drops two movies that guillermo does not actually make which is just you know classic guillermo del toro yeah um i forgot he was attached to dr strange which is kind of funny considering that dr strange would take several years to get to the screen there was.

19:13 A period there where he was attached to everything that was like kind of weird and dark and remember he was going to do justice league dark whatever that was meant to.

19:21 Be correct yes yes Yeah, Amelia, I.

19:24 Want to know, do you rue that we did not get Guillermo's Hobbit movies? I think they would have been better than what we got, and also I'm sort of glad that he didn't get trapped in what seems like an impossible situation that destroyed Peter Jackson's mind.

19:42 I think everything that you just said is true. um i am i am sort of notoriously a a hobbit hater i don't i don't love i don't love the book and so when we got three films this big i was like what do you mean now that said would i watch a singular guillermo del toro take on on the hobbit despite being a hobbit hater yeah was his.

20:08 Plan to do one His plan was to do two. Oh, two.

20:12 And I like, I'm not a, I don't care ultimately about a faithful adaptation of the Hobbit, but I understand why they were like, it's a book where there'll be like, and then they escaped in barrels, which is on screen. It has to be like longer than, than a one sentence or whatever. And like, I think that the movies we got way earlier, overdid what that was, but I understood conceptually why he was like, this should be two movies.

20:42 And I know that part of that was just Warner Brothers wanting money, but conceptually I understood that an episodic story like that, which is better suited ultimately to television, like needed a little more space, but yeah, it didn't need three movies. And I hope that Guillermo would have held fast on that, but who the fuck knows? Who knows?

21:02 I need it.

21:03 I believe I believe that he's like pretty, pretty focused on that kind of thing. But I will I will say to to your point about the two movies and the footnotes and all of that, like I say that about The Hobbit, about why do we need three books? But I'm also like one of 12 rings of power defenders for.

21:20 Oh, wow.

21:20 Like for a footnote that's like this long. So what do I know? What do I know?

21:25 I like when there are rings of power.

21:27 Oh, do you?

21:28 I actually watched the first half of season one and really loved it and then never kept watching. It's really good.

21:36 It's really good.

21:37 I liked What's-Her-Face as Galadriel. Morphine is so good.

21:43 I think it's Morvid. I did that wrong.

21:46 It makes a V.

21:47 Yeah, come on the pod, Morvid.

21:49 Come on the pod. I think the Hobbit, not to go into a whole... hobbit hole but i do think that um the fact that guillermo has a producing credit on all of the hobbit films and screenwriting credit too and screenwriting credit yeah is first of all a testament to you know peter jackson giving due where it is you know um necessary but it also makes me think like they were really far down the road on these things right like guillermo was like.

22:20 They were a couple weeks from production when the last rights issue happened And held it down for like a year. And that's when he left because he was like, I can't keep throwing my life into this.

22:32 Right. It wasn't that they had creative differences, right? It was really just like, I can't do another year of this.

22:40 Some clause in some contract somewhere made someone think we can't make this movie. And it delayed it for yet another year. because famously the rights to The Hobbit are complicated and all over the place because of various adaptation deals that were made over the years. And J.R.R. Tolkien did not arise from the grave to sort all that out. Amelia, I got to ask, when you say you're not a Hobbit fan, do you extend that to the fictional species?

23:07 Do you just hate Hobbits?

23:09 No, no.

23:11 But I will say I do like In Rings of Power, which I have just defended. I hate the Harfoot storyline so much. Bless you. Go get out of here.

23:21 I just, I get out of here.

23:23 And I, I love both actresses and I think they do such a good job, but I just, the Hartfoot aspect of it as it's tied to Gandalf, which was its own rights issue. And like made me look like a moron because the whole season, everybody's like, it's Gandalf. And I'm like, it's legally not Gandalf. It's not Gandalf.

23:44 They can't use Gandalf. And then the finale happens, and lo and behold, it's Gandalf. And I'm literally texting reps, like, explain.

23:51 Yeah, how did they do that?

23:52 Explain yourself. And they still haven't. They still haven't. So it's just like, whatever. But, no, I am not.

23:59 They paid extra for Gandalf? Yeah, did you? How did you?

24:01 What? Explain it.

24:02 Anyway. They got the DLC. They got the Gandalf DLC.

24:05 Yeah, but they just, like, plucked him out. I am not a Hobbit hater as a whole, but I might be a Harfoot hater as a whole, maybe. They're... it's the, it's the.

24:17 I don't know.

24:17 I can't explain it. It's fine.

24:20 The thing. So I, I, I, I recently watched, um, Zach Kroeger's resident evil, which I think is a very fun movie. And what I love about it is that there will be a scene where somebody just says a proper noun and not knowing the games. I'm like, that must be something. And rings of power was like that times 700. I know I've read Lord of the Rings, but I've never like dug into all the esoterica. So they would be like, like a guy would walk up and be like, and this is Sela Brimbor. And I'd be like, oh, do I know him?

24:54 Should I know him?

24:57 The fans would just be like, this is so cheesy. This is so bad. This is not what I ever would have done. And I was like, I think that might be my dad. Like, I think that might be who that is.

25:08 I do think, though, that the Peter Jackson Guillermo thing actually starts a little earlier. Which is that Peter Jackson tries to get him to do Halo.

25:18 Yeah.

25:19 So that happens. He turns that down in order to direct Hellboy 2. He also turns down I Am Legend and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They just came to him with all the Harry Potters. And he was just like, I just don't want to do it.

25:33 Everybody wanted him to become a studio guy for hire.

25:37 Yes.

25:38 And I think it's to his credit that he was always like, that's not me. I have things I'm passionate about.

25:43 Yeah.

25:44 And I think it's also to his credit that like, I understand what he could have seen in the Hobbit that made, cause there's a lot of cool monsters and stuff. And like that, that was the thing where he was like, I think this will be how I, I level up. And ultimately.

25:57 And I also just think too, like, I agree with you, Emily, that he it's, it's a, you know, it's a double-edged sword because he didn't ever do that, you know, franchise play or whatever the case might be. That would have made it probably easier for him. to get the passion projects made and it actually puts more weight on them to perform right like this film which you know we won't get into the minutiae of it but like it was originally with sony and revolution studios and then revolution studios goes under and sony decides that they don't care about hellboy anymore and universal is the one that actually buys the rights to make this movie because they think that it's a franchise and they think that you don't

26:35 care about what have you um But, like, again, there's pressure on this to perform as we see that we don't get a third one. Like, he is making it harder for himself. But to your point, Emily, you got to give him credit for also sticking to his guns and saying, like, I know myself.

26:54 Yeah.

26:55 Guillermo del Toro heard one for you, one for me. It was like, no.

26:58 Like, no. All for me. Yeah, all for me.

27:01 Like, imagine if he had agreed to sign on to all those things. Like, how many... because of creative differences headlines we would have had just like yeah he left of course he was like i'm not doing any of this yeah it.

27:13 Is kind of wild that blade two is this one time where he's like i'm gonna make one for you guys i'm gonna make it a huge hit you're gonna love it and now he's just since then he's been like but i did i did that for you did it already 2002 remember um no but like and and like Obviously, he's had his Crimson Peaks, which just the audience is not vibed with, which I love.

27:35 My life, I love Crimson Peaks.

27:37 Yeah, the audience is wrong. Yeah, the audience is wrong. The audience is always wrong. Let's just face it. Pacific Rim was a hit, especially internationally. Frankenstein evidently was very successful. Shape of Water did very well, especially internationally. He has stuck to his guns in a way that has gradually brought him a broader audience in a way that you can't say of god bless him i love him someone like wes anderson who like sticks to his guns and just like his audience keeps just getting smaller.

28:11 I do think it's interesting that his most successful film if we're talking like just the actual number itself right like made the most money it is pacific rim which made over 400 million globally cost obviously being what it is his most like investment versus return is a shape of water yeah which costs 19.5 and somehow made almost 200 million dollars worldwide people love to see sally hawkins fucking fish man which is great i mean i'm here for it but i just think that's pretty amazing i it's it's crazy.

28:51 I think that Shape of Water has so many different end points. If you want to watch it as a movie about fascism and fighting it, you can do that. If you want to watch it as a movie about the power of the movies, you can do that. I also think people underestimate how popular monster fucking is as a subgenre. There's so much of it. It's so popular, especially in the romance space. And I think that because Hollywood is an industry driven by men, they sort of don't understand that Because they don't understand why anyone would find that attractive. And it's a metaphor for loving a man.

29:30 A lot of things. Always.

29:32 Almost always.

29:33 I mean, I would actually say that I wish we got to see Nuala and Abe Sapien. consummate their relationship.

29:42 I think that should have happened. That was exactly the point that I was going to make. I love so much that Guillermo del Toro remembered what he did to Abe Sapien here.

29:51 It was like, I'm going to get you back. We'll come back around.

29:54 I'm going to make it up to you.

29:55 And he did.

29:56 He did. And then some.

29:58 This legally distinct version of Abe Sapien is going to get the girl.

30:04 Yeah, I mean, I do think that Guillermo's I Am Legend might have been interesting. Perhaps more interesting than the one we got.

30:12 That probably would have been cool.

30:15 Yeah, but I mean.

30:16 Like, he's done vampires, though, you know? That's true. Not in the sense that he couldn't do it again. Like, if he announced he was going to make Dracula, I'd be like, do we need another one? But then I'd be like, well, it'll probably be fun.

30:26 Sure, yeah. I mean, him turning down Halo, you then see basically Halo in Pacific Rim, right? Like Pacific Rim is him doing. He's like, I'll give you a robot thing. Sure, here you go.

30:38 Halo is very different from Pacific Rim. Of course, but I'm just, you understand. Yeah, that sort of sci-fi video game-ish aesthetic.

30:45 As I was watching this movie, I was thinking a lot about like sequels that go ham, that sort of really kind of Like the first one sets the stage. And again, I don't, I don't want to sound as though I don't like the first how boy I do, but I was thinking a lot about like the first Adams family or even like the first babe where like Adams family values, babe two are just so are just like those movies at 11. And I do think that, and neither of which were particularly successful. I do think that sequels that go like, above and beyond and almost like just get really crazy underperform like people kind of just want the first one again.

31:31 I mean batman returns is the class.

31:34 I love batman returns but.

31:35 Example of it goes it goes all out and it was uh it wasn't a flop but they were disappointed in how it did It's.

31:43 It does feel like you kind of people just want you to play the hits and don't get too weird with it. But anyway, sorry.

31:51 The counterpart, the counterpart, the counterpoint I'm going to offer to that is The Conjuring 2. uh which is far and away better than the first it does go harder and audiences responded really well to it but it's because it added it added a piece that we were missing in the first one and like okay.

32:09 I've not seen the contrary films oh oh.

32:11 I highly well i highly recommend to a point uh um that's.

32:16 How many are there four.

32:19 There's four and then there's like a whole universe.

32:21 Yeah so it there's there's the nun.

32:25 And yeah uh none one great none two not uh like that that whole you go on a journey um but conjuring one and two like conjuring one good like hell boy conjuring two exceptional conjuring three bad conjuring four good again not great but good again like and it's sort of you sort of see it as soon as like james wan goes on his on his like uh whole producer journey versus like i'm paying hyper focused to every single one of these but point is uh they it's it's actually to tie it back to batman sort of has an arkham asylum arkham knight like the video games situation where arkham asylum is It's so exceptional, but it's like the boss battles are sort of redundant. And then Arkham Knight is like, no, or sorry, Arkham City,

33:19 Arkham City, Arkham City, Arkham Knight is the third. Arkham City adds in like these different varying sort of levels, but I just sent us on a whole.

33:28 No.

33:29 I love that for it. But we came.

33:30 Back to Batman and eventually we'll make it back to Hellboy.

33:34 Yeah. Phil, I do want to know just for your, for your, your frazzled nerves, a conjuring one is one of the few films to have ever received an R rating for being scary.

33:43 They are, they are very frightening films, especially the first two.

33:47 So I shouldn't watch them.

33:49 I mean, I think they are fun, scary more than like unsettling, scary, but they are, They are pretty, I would say, jump scare forward. They're some of the best jump scares ever. Okay.

34:04 I imagine I will.

34:06 I strongly prefer the first to the second, so that's going to be where I take a stand.

34:12 So, as our listeners can attest.

34:13 The first and second are both good, and they're worth watching.

34:17 And this is information for you, Amelia, more than anything, that I didn't like scary movies for a very long time. I was a bit of a scaredy cat. Emily has taken it upon herself to expose me to as many of them as possible to sort of prove to me perhaps that they're not that scary or just out of enjoyment of scaring me. One way or the other is really hard to say. But I do think she has proven her point a little bit, which is that I have now been, generally speaking, I don't like to go to the movies for scary movies because I don't like being trapped in a dark room with a scary movie.

34:51 If I'm watching it at home, it's a little easier for me. But I did go and see Weapons and Resident Evil, and I didn't find either of them particularly scary. So I'm wondering if maybe scary movies, I'm not as scared of them as I thought I was.

35:04 And I think the thing about Craig is he always peppers it with horror, or with humor, rather.

35:11 With humor, yeah.

35:12 And I think it's something like The Conjuring in a crowded theater is electric, but also... I know you don't love a jump scare and they're very jump scare forward, which is why I'm like, you know, maybe I.

35:26 Might, I might not like that, but I, yeah, I, um, I, yeah, I, I really, really enjoyed resident evil. Um, it was funny cause I was nervous about it. I went with my girlfriend and she's like, don't worry, I'll be there.

35:41 It'll be fine.

35:41 I was like, okay, that's, that's, that's sweet. Um, she's like, it won't be that scary. And then, um, Within 10 minutes, she was way more scared than I was. And my savior was no longer, it seemed. But it was, I had a really good time with it. But I want to talk about Luke Goss for a second, Emily.

36:05 Ah, the Goss.

36:06 The Goss.

36:07 The hot Goss.

36:09 He played the villain in Blade II. We had Roxanna Haddadi on to talk about that and how hot he was in that. Yeah. um he's pretty hot in this too emily.

36:20 All the hot goss yeah right yeah.

36:22 He's i mean he's he's kind of played the same role but uh i'm here for.

36:27 It it is interesting the degree to which this movie seems like it takes place in the pan's labyrinth for sure for sure like you can imagine that nuwala and nuwata are like um ophelia is like great great great great great great grandchildren because time moves differently in the underworld or whatever sure it is so so easy to imagine that this is like a shared place.

36:55 Yeah it's it there's no question that the creatures in particular i mean the angel of death in particular with the eyes and the wings felt very much like the eyes and the hands um you know uh It definitely had that sort of vibe to it. But again, the sheer amount of creatures in this movie, specifically in the troll market, it really just, you're just like, well, he's just like completely off the chain. Like he gets to do whatever he wants here. Pan's Labyrinth obviously had a much smaller budget and, you know, felt a little bit more intimate and a little bit more contained in its universe.

37:37 Yeah.

37:37 But yeah, I know what you're saying, Emily.

37:40 Yeah pale man should have turned up here like that man should have turned up do you think irma owns the pale man ip absolutely absolutely it's time and the faun he's got to own the faun too right yeah but i think there's not as many story opportunities for the faun the pale man like the story writes itself kids keep trying coming to take his stuff and he.

38:00 Keeps eating them yeah um i uh I think it's kind of funny. I know we talked about Dark Knight and Iron Man, but I do think it is kind of interesting that Iron Man ends with the infamous, you know, I am Iron Man. He goes public. This movie, they go public after the first act, which I respect.

38:21 Although it is, you know, it is like following a whole movie of them. So it does, it feels less momentous in a way because the first movie, they keep feeling like they're public, even though they're not.

38:32 You know? Yeah. There's, yeah, it's got a, the first one has a very Men in Black-y kind of vibe to it, where like, I think people are seeing them, but they're like, I don't know, doing stuff to people to erase their minds or something like that. Like, I just, it feels kind of like that. David Hyde Pierce did not do the voice in this film of Abe Sapien.

38:53 He did the voice in the first film. Doug Jones did it in the second film. And do you know why that is, Emily?

38:59 No, I don't.

39:01 Because they thought that David I. Pierce was going to get them box office bofo, I guess. He didn't do any press for it. So they felt as though, why pay David I. Pierce if he's not going to do any press for the movie? And thus, Doug Jones got to do it for the second one.

39:17 I mean, here's the thing. Hellboy 1 came out a couple of weeks before the television show Frasier ended. I'm sure they were like, well, this is a twofer. You're going to get Hellboy and Frasier coverage.

39:33 What an odd Venn diagram to expect to overlap. Because listen, I am in the center of that Venn diagram. I'm a huge Frasier girly. But you saw my face when you said that they thought David Hyde Pierce was going to get... Why?

39:48 I think it's incredible. I love it.

39:50 Why?

39:51 I really do. You have so.

39:52 Much love to David.

39:54 Why? The producers hoped that Pierce's name would make the first movie a box office smash. That's the words that I read on the internet.

40:02 I love this.

40:02 Take it for what it's worth. He refused credit because he felt that Abe Sapien was Jones's work. And more credit to David I. Pierce for that. Fantastic. So he didn't do any promotions or interviews or wouldn't even attend the premiere of or have credit. So at some point you got to ask yourself, well, what are we doing?

40:19 I mean, it's, it's, you know.

40:21 Amelia, I got to ask, do you think that Frasier could get a job at the BPRD and like, would he fit in well there? The character Frasier Crane, I think.

40:29 I think.

40:30 I think Frasier Crane is in this movie. He's, oh God, what's his name? The fussy, the fussy.

40:37 That's Seth MacFarlane's voice, but I know who you're talking about. Johan.

40:41 No, Tom Manning. Oh, Tom Manning.

40:43 Oh, Jeffrey Tambor's character.

40:44 He's Jeffrey Tambor's character. Like this fussy, like, I don't think you like me, but also like, I just really need you to do the thing. So I think Frasier Crane is absolutely already working there.

40:55 I could see Frasier Crane also as the king.

40:58 There is a part of me That is, like, if this movie occasionally cut to an episode of Frasier, it would kind of make sense.

41:07 Yeah, like, all the library stuff, for sure.

41:09 Yeah, for sure. I also could absolutely see it being on a TV screen in Hellboy's bedroom, right? Like, he just watches Frasier.

41:16 It's just on.

41:18 Yeah.

41:19 Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

41:20 Well, I mean, like, outside of all of it, like, Ape Sapien is so Niles-coded that, like, Not just because of the voice. That's the same character.

41:33 And his love for Newala does feel very much like his love for Daphne.

41:43 So I guess that Hellboy is Bulldog? Is that what we're saying?

41:49 I think Hellboy is actually Frasier fanfic is really what I think we've discovered is that that's really what it is. Yeah, I mean it is– I mean I just think it's funny that David Hyde Pierce essentially was like undercut any possibility of him being helpful to the movie outside of just his voice.

42:10 I do wonder what they were– because like David Hyde Pierce– David I Pierce has done a fair number of voice acting roles that have done well because he has distinctive voice. Like he's a voice in a bug's life, which was a big hit, but I don't know that anybody went to see that because they were like, guess who's in this. It's David.

42:28 I mean, the truth is that, that I'm actually a little surprised that David I Pierce doesn't or didn't do more voice work because he does have, obviously has a very distinguished, distinguishable voice, but like, He's he's in a bug's life, right? He's one of the voices in a bug's life. And that's kind of it. Like, he does feel like a guy who actually could be.

42:49 A treasure planet. Let's not.

42:51 Oh, right.

42:52 Sorry.

42:52 I forgot.

42:53 Yeah.

42:53 We'll cover someday, I imagine.

42:55 Yeah.

42:56 Yeah. Who is he in that?

42:58 He's he's Delbert Doppler.

43:02 Sure sure the name makes sense and he does.

43:05 A lot of like narration stuff um he's uh uh he has done a lot of voice work on tv as well like for instance sure he's in the simpsons as basically yeah right i think he just likes i think he's got that frazier money he never has to work again in his life so he just does stage stuff because why not like if that's what you love Including.

43:32 When they tried to get him to come back to Frasier.

43:34 Yeah, it's true. He's like, no, he, he does have a net worth of approximately $ 40 million. So that's good for him.

43:42 I had a net worth of approximately $ 40 million. I would, I mean, I would keep working all the time because I'm a fucking workaholic, but like, sure. I would definitely like take a week off.

43:51 Absolutely.

43:52 Yeah. And let's not forget, he did the voice of slim, the stick bug in the books, like video game too, which.

43:57 Probably video games.

43:59 Okay.

43:59 So that's important. So when this film was essentially greenlit right after the first one came out, it did well enough. I mentioned that the rights became whatever, dropped away, Universal picks it up. Then, because it's a Universal movie, Guillermo explored several concepts for the sequel and had planned versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolfman in the Hellboy universe.

44:20 Fuck yeah.

44:22 He should have done it.

44:23 He should have done it.

44:24 You know what I... I would watch.

44:27 Yeah.

44:28 Yeah.

44:29 This, this line of, of thought has like, now all I want is Guillermo del Toro's league of extraordinary gentlemen.

44:37 Yeah. Yeah. What? Well, we also, we talked on our Hellboy episode and Amelia, you know, this is the, we're opening the door to your feelings on steampunk. This, you know, not, not a great face from Amelia, not a fan of steampunk. This one's less steampunk.

44:51 Yeah. This one has a lot less steampunk. Yeah.

44:54 Yeah.

44:54 I mean, there's a lot of gears. We do have a whole gear sequence, but I would say that the cost, this is just a lot more sort of fantasy and a little less steampunk.

45:05 Bard fantasy for sure. And like, so listen, my problem with steampunk isn't an issue with steampunk as a whole, like Guillermo's version of like the real version of steampunk is like, it's actually functional. Where I have an issue is when somebody slaps a gear on a thing and they're like, no it isn't you put a gear on a thing like here even that's fair even in its limited capacity in hellboy 2 like those gears have a function those gears are doing a thing and so like that's that's what i need to be on board with steampunk.

45:36 But do you feel as though loveless is giant mechanical spider at the end of wild wild west is that would you say that that is purposeful.

45:46 I love.

45:49 That terrible, terrible movie. I am one of Wild Wild West's number one defenders.

45:59 I love that for you.

46:01 You can't say it didn't age well because it wasn't appropriate then either. Correct, correct.

46:08 It's true. It was bad then. It's bad now.

46:12 Especially as such a loudmouth activist, I can't tell you what makes that movie okay in my brain. But it kills me. It's hysterical. And what I love so much is that stupid spider is like, I wanted to use it in Superman and you wouldn't let me. So I will simply go make another movie with this same spider and you can't stop me.

46:33 Great.

46:34 And he was right.

46:36 He was right. The spider is great. The spider is the thing people remember about the movie. And it's racism.

46:44 And it's racism I think it's that it's equal opportunity racism and ableism like it's just it's awful in every direction like it's not choosing a target it's the awful stereotypical I'm not racist I hate everybody but for some reason it works there I have no explanation yeah.

47:08 So Emily I do think that Krauss is pretty steampunky but You get how he functions. You get why he works. And also, he's a ghost. So that, I think, is the secret sauce. Like, if when they launched the AI chatbots, they had not been like, you're talking to a computer. They had been like, you're talking to a ghost. That's all I would do. I would just be like, oh, hello.

47:32 How are you?

47:32 Are you my grandmother?

47:33 I'd be like, I'm not going to tell you who I am. Oh, interesting.

47:39 I mean, I do think that Johan... who is voiced by Seth MacFarlane was originally voiced by Thomas. Forgive me. What is his name? Yes. Crutchman. Thank you. But then Guillermo, for whatever reason was like, this voice isn't working for me.

47:58 It was like, it doesn't work with the gear sounds.

48:00 That was like, it was a weird thing. And so, I mean, I actually do think that Seth MacFarlane is funny in this movie. I think he does a great job with the voice.

48:09 He's very enjoyable this is this is from a period when before he'd become yeah like he's always been a little insufferable but this is from a period before he would like before when he hosts the oscars is when i'm like okay all right nope nope nope yeah this is like when he's still not quite invincible family guy's back but it has not come to define an entire generation of boys like.

48:34 Yeah, I think he's fun in this. I think Johan's a fun character. And I mentioned this in our Hellboy episode, but I think it's worth mentioning for Johan as well. Of Guillermo sort of not ever wanting characters to fit cleanly into boxes of like good or bad. Like Johan is kind of their friend and also a little bit of an antagonist. Like it gets you kind of both sides of the coin a little bit, which I think is I appreciate, right? Like, it would have been easier to make him a more sort of villainous antagonist.

49:10 All technology should be ghosts.

49:12 Yes, I agree. I agree. I mean, the scene where... This is a ghost right here.

49:17 It's a ghost. That's how that works. That's how that works. works.

49:23 I think the scene where Hellboy accidentally smashes Johan's helmet and then Johan inhabits the locker so that he can beat the shit out of him with the locker doors is just, it's just good shit. Like that to me is just like, silly broad wonderful what are the rules who cares this is great.

49:45 I i spent that whole scene being like how are they going to get him back because now he's just leaking into the atmosphere he's going to cease to exist and then the next scene he's just he's just back.

49:55 In a new suit and his helmet's fixed it's fine i mean it's like one of my favorite moments of the movie is when johan possesses one of the golden army soldiers and it turns from red to blue so you know it's good now And he fights as a giant golden army robot thing. It's great.

50:18 When you possess something, change the color right away.

50:21 So your audience knows. Your friends know. Yeah. Johan, secret MVP of this movie a little bit. Just really kind of a great addition to the team.

50:32 That is the funniest thing about this. Amelia, I went under your thought about Myers in the first one. The first movie they have Myers, this nice enough white man who's clearly there to convince people that this is a movie it's okay to like. And in this movie, they're like, Myers is gone. Here's a German robot ghost.

50:54 That's why this movie's great.

50:56 Yeah, like, listen, they were right to send Myers to Antarctica.

50:59 He was a nothing.

51:01 Like, go. You're nothing. Like, you're a nothing character. You're just, you're white bread. Off you go. He likes the cold.

51:11 It's also just, it helps the relationship between Hellboy and Liz as well. Like, you get rid of the love triangle, and now they're just struggling in their relationship, right? And it's, ultimately, it's It's richer than the love story was, the love triangle was in the first one. As I mentioned in our Hellboy episode. Love boy. That should be the third one.

51:38 Myers just really didn't work for me. I found him really vanilla. The actor didn't really work for me. The role just didn't work for me. Rupert Evans, who plays Myers, apparently could not reprise his role, Emily, due to him casting in the stage version of of kiss of the spider woman in london in 2007.

51:57 I mean a good show so good.

51:59 There you go good for him i just yeah that is give us johan.

52:04 That is candor and ab who also broke curtains which is how david hyde pierce won his tony award and now we've done it.

52:12 We did it yeah i really love how many timelines we've gone on here this time i think we're really crushing it like full circle moments all around it's great.

52:21 Um i like i i i'm gonna disagree a little bit the thing i think suffers in this movie is the love story that's the thing where i'm a little bit like i like i like that they're just a couple yeah but it feels like it's all done via exposition and also hellboy being in a cbs sitcom like he's just kind of like oh girls.

52:40 We end on a phrase where he's like twins yeah it's great that's the part that's the part i like but everything leading up to it Feels like we're being told.

52:50 How they feel about each other. Without really getting to see the actors together.

52:55 I agree with that.

52:56 I think part of it. I'm going to Goldilocks a little bit. And say that I'm both of you. On the one hand. I like that Liz is very much calling out. This man child. In the way that he deserves. But on the other hand. It's very much a product of the time. In that she's sort of presented as.

53:15 Fussy.

53:17 Like for rightfully calling out this giant man child repeatedly. I am going to disagree slightly on the showing, not telling solely because of the, of the death scene. And not like just the, the, I listen, I'm, I'm here as a hero. I'm here as a good guy. I will give you the entire world. If you bring this back, like, that's it. Zero question, zero concerns. I don't care. That one's mine. give it back to me. And then like, then now you have to convince him to come back. Like, I'm like, okay, cute, fine, whatever.

53:52 Yeah.

53:53 Did you know that also happens in the finale of the King of Queens?

53:57 Oh yeah.

53:58 Doug is, Doug is lying there with a sacred spear, like inches from his heart. And Carrie like drags him to the angel of death and is like, spare his life, please. And the angel of death is like, actually he's going to cause the apocalypse. you will forfeit the whole world and she's like yes of course and then it's just like it cuts to them in their living room and jerry stiller's there and he's like what and that's the end it sounds great this actually.

54:21 Sounds great yeah i think they should rewrite that i do think.

54:25 That this movie and and if there's something that you could ding it for and i don't know if critics did or not but like i think that this movie is Obviously, Guillermo loves the monsters, loves the mythology of it, right? And I think that the imbalance you're kind of talking about, Emily, I think is because he's a little more invested in all of that stuff than he is in the relationship.

54:47 Selma Blair sells it. and just to note Selma Blair and Jeffrey Timber are two very normal people that we talked about in a Hellboy episode who are problematic individuals you can listen to us and talk about that two weeks ago but Selma Blair sells that moment so much and she's kind of holding up the love story in a way that I don't know that Pearlman is you know.

55:19 I fully agree with that. And I think that's also kind of a product of the time where like, you say that you like this person, but you're not willing to make the teeniest, tiniest, smallest individual sacrifice whatsoever. Like you put her toothbrush in muck, like it was like cat food. Yeah. Like what, what, what do you mean you say that you care about this person? Like, do you actually love her? Do you just want her to be yours? And it's very much like presented as a, I just want her to be mine. But like, that's also just sort of, how male love was often depicted. Like, to bring it back to Iron Man, like, look at the Tony and Pepper of it all. Like, do you love Pepper Potts?

56:03 Do you? Well, I think that it's interesting because, you know, the flip side of it, to some degree, if you will, is that the other love story in this movie is the one I was more invested in, which is the one between Abe and Nuwala. And that one is shown through such a sort of rose-colored glasses lens of this sort of, like, Which, by the way, this is a Guillermo trope in itself of like sweeping romantic, like just this really kind of cinematic over-the-top love versus this more terrestrial love is an interesting juxtaposition. The problem is what you're talking about, Emilio, that the grounded one isn't as interesting.

56:42 There is a thing that we sort of see. across del toro's career that we've seen in these movies specifically which is he's a man who has two daughters and it is the as a father of daughters arc he kind of goes on that continues into the 2010s because crimson peak and shape of water he's he feels like he's like sort of figured out that women are people correct yep pan's labyrinth obviously beautiful like beautiful uh female roles in that but like the lead is a child and like so it is you know but this movie kind of feels like he's seeing things from Liz's perspective a little bit and also what a killjoy my gosh yeah.

57:29 I mean I think that you know I think you're always in a movie like this going to gravitate towards the bigger romance. Right. And by that, I mean, just the one that feels more theatrical and feels, you know, and that's why I think that the Abe and Newala one is, is interesting. That being said, you do have sort of this moment at the end where Abe throws the third piece of the crown to the prince, just because he knows that it'll save Newala, even though it like threatens the whole fucking world. And then when it's clear that the prince is lying, he was like, he lied to us. And Hellboy's like, we need to talk after this if we survive this. Right? Like, I think that there's something about that kind of, it is sort

58:15 of a moment of recognition that one of these love stories is more believable than the other. One of these love stories is more sort of in the here and now, if you will. Yeah. Which is the Hellboy and Liz.

58:28 One, but.

58:28 Well, and, and you've, you've just sort of perfectly articulated my singular, like deep frustration with this movie. And it's, it, it's that exact second. And I'm not going to call it a plot hole. Cause it isn't, but like, it's, it's the, you do stupid things when you're in love of it all. Like, if you don't give me this, I'll kill my sister. Okay. You'll also be dead. A fact that I, Abe Sapien, know.

58:53 Yeah. It's, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's a little yada yada. They're just like, we got it. We got it. We got to make this happen.

59:03 We got to get there eventually. He's got to have this. Let's figure out how to do it. But yeah, that's, that is my like one big issue. is just like that's fair you dumb boy yeah.

59:13 I don't i really do not buy that moment and it kind of throws off what is otherwise a really powerful climax across multiple axes and yet it's like well i guess we got i guess we gotta just give the guy the crown and there had to have been a different way to do that yeah I wonder do we think David Hyde Pierce would play Abe Sapien again if they made a Broadway musical of Hellboy?

59:38 One million percent.

59:39 Yeah.

59:40 Well, he would want Doug to be offered it first. And then if Doug passed, he.

59:45 Would- Do we think Doug Jones can sing?

59:47 Hard to say.

59:48 I actually, I feel like we do know the answer to this question, but I'm not actually familiar with how. I think he can.

59:56 Let's call him.

59:57 Let's see. Let's call him.

1:00:00 Doug Jones sing. All right.

1:00:02 Let's find out. A little piece of trivia. Mr. Wink is named after some of Blair's dog, Wink.

1:00:14 He can sing. He self-describes his singing voice as awful. But he has sung in an episode of Star Trek Discovery before. And every year he posts a holiday special on his Facebook page that's just him singing a song for like a minute. Well, okay. I don't know if he's Broadway quality, but I do feel like David Hyde Pierce.

1:00:39 Is David Hyde Pierce Broadway quality?

1:00:40 Yes, he's a wonderful singer. He won a Tony Award for a musical.

1:00:46 It should also be said that the Wink suit weighed 130 pounds. The man inside, Brian Steele, who portrayed Wink, lost 12 pounds in sweat making this film. People were very upset on the crew when they killed Wink. People really loved the character. In fact, many people on the crew on the day that he was set to die put signs around their neck that said, save Wink. That's so funny.

1:01:21 Because like Cruz so traditionally are like this. I like this character, but also this is a monster, terrible thing to work on. So like, it's funny that they adored him so much that they were like, no. keep the worst part of my day in this.

1:01:34 Great i love it i do feel like i do feel like yermo runs sets where shit like that happens yes yes yeah yes i one of my dreams is to play a character that i lose 12 pounds in sweat just because that you hear that every so often and you're like that sounds miserable and a little part of my brain is like but i wonder how much sweat that would be i would i would do i want to experience that not really but do.

1:01:59 I probably do i I mean, speaking of Doug Jones, he could only see out of the crack across the mask that he wore as the Angel of Death. The mechanical wings weighed about 40 pounds, so he couldn't walk with them on, which is why the Angel of Death floats. They had to have him on a wire. I really believe that Doug Jones has put his body through so much for Guillermo del Toro. It's pretty phenomenal. Like, God bless him. He really is the MVP of Guillermo's movies. Like, it's crazy.

1:02:32 And you truly just think about how much of a string bean Doug Jones is. And I'm just like, 40 pounds? You're going to snap that little man in half? Little man. He's very tall.

1:02:41 He's very tall.

1:02:41 But still, like, very skinny.

1:02:42 He's stretched.

1:02:43 Very skinny. Yeah.

1:02:44 Like, whoop.

1:02:44 Yes.

1:02:45 Yeah.

1:02:46 Ah.

1:02:48 I just, you know, to just dive into the plot of this and sort of jump around a little bit. But Little Hellboy, very sweet up top. as the sort of the, the, I'd say he's probably like a 10 or 11 year old version of how boy.

1:03:00 And I'm glad they found a way to bring back John Hurt, even if he's just kind of like.

1:03:04 It's really sweet.

1:03:06 Yeah.

1:03:06 He's in a great flashback where this movie immediately dives into a insane fairytale mythology depicted in stop motion, because of course it does. That's how you would expect it. You would also expect your villain to be introduced, just doing elaborate martial arts by himself in the subway. As one does. um it's it i am i literally wrote down i already like this more than hellboy in the first like 10 minutes of this movie because it's it's immediately saying like.

1:03:37 You're either in or you're out i think this one doesn't have enough cats that's my other complaint it doesn't have many versus a lot more kids there's no there's no bucket or a basket of cats yeah There is a baby, though, that he has in his tail for a whole action sequence, which.

1:03:52 Is pretty cool.

1:03:53 That's not better. We don't want babies. It's not better, but it's kind of cool.

1:03:58 I famously love babies, especially my own. But they grow up to be people, and kittens grow up to be kitties. And that's fun.

1:04:07 What is this logic?

1:04:08 I think that's very reasonable logic, to be perfectly honest.

1:04:12 That baby that Hellboy saves? We don't know what he's like now. He might be a piece of shit.

1:04:17 Okay. That's fair. I'm pushing back more on the kittens turn to kitties.

1:04:23 I'm picking up what you're putting down.

1:04:29 I will say, I made a face about Little Hellboy just because his teeth upset me.

1:04:36 The teeth are upsetting.

1:04:38 Not full-grown Hellboy. Those teeth are fine. But the teeth on Little Hellboy, I don't like that.

1:04:45 Is that a kitty?

1:04:45 Hi, kitty!

1:04:47 We got a kitty on camera.

1:04:49 She has been laying at my feet meowing this whole episode, and I don't think you can hear it. I think that she has thoughts on Hellboy, which I guess.

1:04:58 She's upset about the catch and peril. Like, there's a whole kitty and peril arc here.

1:05:03 Which, forgive me, what's the name of this kitty? Sally. Sally seems... not thrilled to be on camera.

1:05:10 She's turning 15 in a few days, so she's got thoughts. Okay, I'll put you back.

1:05:16 The tooth fairies are great. I mean, just little demon flying things that eat whatever is basically put in front of them. It's great. The tooth fairy sequence where literally you see them just eat an entire man is great.

1:05:36 That also happens in the Vin Diesel film, The Tooth Fairy. Or was that The Rock? Was The Rock The Tooth Fairy?

1:05:43 I think The Rock was The Tooth Fairy.

1:05:45 And Vin Diesel was The Pacifier. It also happens in The Pacifiers. A bunch of pacifiers.

1:05:51 I love the shot of Hellboy in slow motion falling out the window with the emo music playing. It's great. You got a young Jimmy Kimmel popping up. Take from that what you will.

1:06:05 So much of this movie It feels like, oh, we're going to put some pop songs in there. We're going to have, like, modern relevance. It feels like they're trying to make this a big hit. And God bless him, he can't help himself. He can't help himself. He's like, what if there was a little man who was, like, partially a cart? And you're like, I guess.

1:06:24 I guess. Yeah, I'm into it.

1:06:27 It's true, Emily. The needle drops in this movie are pretty, what's the word I'm looking for? anonymous except for the eels beautiful freak which is a great song but also is called beautiful.

1:06:42 Freak and it's probably not gonna help your box office yeah no um so there's that uh yeah the the the king is amazing the the makeup of his crown and then when he turns into like it's like a wooden waxy stone that they turn into.

1:07:01 This these people when they this race when they die that looks so fucking cool and like tactile. I just love it. Yeah. There is one other steampunky thing in this, which is they have these goggles that they wear for a sequence of this movie where they can see people as they are, which is basically just an old woman as a troll.

1:07:27 Yes.

1:07:28 Great. It's hot.

1:07:30 Yeah.

1:07:30 It's hot. It's great. I have no notes about it, She then leads them to the troll market, obviously. The most Guillermo del Toro place that's ever existed. It obviously rules. It's great. We meet a little creature that says, I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor.

1:07:48 And then he nuzzles.

1:07:51 And then he nuzzles back into his.

1:07:54 And it's... The line delivery on I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor is somehow... the cutest thing in the entire movie. Like what, which is truly just like, what if, what if I gave you something adorable?

1:08:10 Like, yeah, it is like, it is also like, I have a three year old, almost four right now. And she is constantly trying to just climb back inside one of her mothers. Like she's at that stage where she's like, I need to just, and like, it is such a kid thing to be like, I'm a small tumor hanging off of you. And I'm like, I know, sweetheart, you are.

1:08:40 I mean, I do think that that's a line for the ages and it defines this movie in so many ways.

1:08:48 I wonder if there is to some extent, the troll market is a really classic midpoint set piece, but also it's so imaginative and memorable and fun. And the stuff, at Giants Causeway is less immediately arresting even if it has more like story weight and I wonder if there was some if that throws off the balance of the movie in a way that like hurts it a little bit.

1:09:13 Yeah I agree with that I think too you have the elemental forest god set piece and which is beautiful to look at, incredibly well rendered. You have this incredible shot at one point where he's got the baby in his tail and he's climbing up the hotel sign. And you've got this amazing crane shot. I mean, it's really a tremendous set piece. But to your point, Emily, it's a little sweaty how they use it to sort of be in the middle of the fight to have Nuwata questioning Hellboy's love or defense of human beings who don't love him. So don't kill this elemental forest god that's wreaking havoc on the city. And then when we kill said forest god, we see all this beautiful foliage that grows from it. And you're like, I'm getting the messages

1:10:03 a little muddy around here. I'm like, what exactly are we saying?

1:10:08 See, and I love the duality of that scene because the elemental is just doing what it's told to. And like, you've got, like, it also is, is in its infancy. So you have the protagonist and the antagonist each holding something while the antagonist is weaponizing and the protagonist is protecting. And I love, love the juxtaposition of that scene and the thematics of it. But also to your point on the CGI, you remember when we took our time with that because this film from 2008 looks better than a huge swath of films that have come out in the last decade because we just... churn and churn and churn and churn and like it doesn't have to be like that look at how gorgeous the moss was the moss a little too glossy yeah sure uh but like just

1:11:09 the attention to detail that's happening all throughout that scene and the growth and it's just like oh yes.

1:11:15 Pretty yeah i was i was following i don't remember what movie this was it was a using ai for its cgi and they were like adamant no we did not and it was like so you're just saying it was ugly or bad and like i obviously good for you but um yeah it was such it's like it really it's a lot of these special and i don't want to blame them for because a lot of these visual effects houses are overworked and underpaid and all these things but it has really trickled down into um so much film and television now well yeah and.

1:11:50 Like to be clear i'm so sorry Just to be clear before, before we move on, like zero judgment for all of these VFX houses, because it is fully these studios being like, Hey, I need you to make, and this is not what happened, but I'm using it as like a hyperbolic example. Like we need you to make end game in three weeks.

1:12:09 Go.

1:12:10 Yeah. Yeah.

1:12:12 Well, it's, it's, I mean, I could make end game in three weeks. Okay. It would all be good.

1:12:18 I believe in you.

1:12:19 It would all be in city skylines, but that would be fine. That's the engine I would use.

1:12:23 Yeah, the Chloe Zhao approach.

1:12:25 Yeah.

1:12:26 I think that there is no question that we're overworking these special effects houses, and it's making very muddy, dark, visually unappealing looking movies where we're hiding special effects in various dark atmospheres and whatnot. And it's a testament to Guillermo's work, which is that Most of his movies take place at night, and yet they still look so rich.

1:12:51 They still look... The amount of time and care that's put into all these things is just tremendous. And that sequence is visually astounding. It has some really interesting ideas in it. I would argue it has maybe too many ideas in it, which is why I found myself just kind of being like, how do I parse all of this exactly? But yeah, I mean, I obviously... Mention the fight between Hellboy and Johan is great. We then have that really playful, fun scene where they're singing love songs, Abe, and both of them getting drunk and singing love songs.

1:13:25 I can't believe you called the needle drops anonymous when we've got Barry Manilow's amazing.

1:13:30 We have Barry Manilow, sure, but that's... yes you're right it's a great needle drop it is it is to me actually one of the great like cut to credits needle drops.

1:13:41 Uh there's just of my lifetime it's great i'm not complaining about that i'm speaking more to like what you were referring to emily of that there are a couple needle drops in the guts of this movie.

1:13:53 By people i've never heard of songs that are nothing that just feel like soundtrack fodder.

1:13:58 Yeah, and strictly speaking, the scene where they're singing karaoke is not, or singing along to Barry Manilow. It's not a needle drop. It's diegetically presented and the characters are reacting to it in the film. It is technically a needle drop over the closing credits, but not quite in the same way.

1:14:12 You understand what I'm saying.

1:14:13 I understand what you're saying. I just am arguing with you. That's my relationship on this show. That's your rule.

1:14:19 The Goblin Master Blacksmith had some real labyrinth energy, I thought.

1:14:25 Mm-hmm.

1:14:26 Just especially when they first meet him and he's like giving them like riddles basically and you're just like oh god it's great but it's it's it's insane i do.

1:14:36 I do feel like if guillermo del toro met a small member of another species who started giving him riddles he would be the happiest he's ever been of course yeah the the like the tiny dwarf or whatever or gnome would be like And if you answer this incorrectly, I will kill you. And he would be like a great. Yes.

1:14:54 Sign me up.

1:14:55 I think that's all he's ever wanted in his life.

1:14:57 I agree wholeheartedly. Yeah. I mean, I think that we talked about this a little bit earlier, but like, I do think that the Liz giving hell boy a reason to live by telling him he's going to be a father is a nice emotional potent thing.

1:15:16 And it's a little like when Popeye gets spinach. it's a lot like that.

1:15:21 It is a lot like that um so the the fight with the golden army when the golden army first showed up i was a little bit like this is called the golden army this golden army better be really impressive and when they first showed up aesthetically i was like this is fine it's not until we get to the actual fight and we start to see this there's a a sort of what's the what is the right word they almost seem animalistic to a certain degree like they have some sort of an animation to them that like that they i don't know that they feel something i don't know how to explain it but like it's guillermo imbuing them with something more than just being like automatons that i think is sort of classically him um

1:16:09 love obviously as i mentioned johan possessing one of them and then he tears off one of the arms and gives an arm to hellboy and it's it's a great it's such a fun great sequence that feels really cathartic until they all put themselves back together again and you realize that it's all for naught and it's like what did we just partake in obviously the fight with hellboy and noada in the gears is great um.

1:16:33 It does kind of remind me of the, the, the Samuel character in the first one, the monster there, which can just keep coming back. I think that is often inherent to like fairytale monsters or religious monsters. And so often inherent to hell boy, but it does make it, it does make it harder to feel like you've earned the big, like climax. Although I think this one crosses, I think both of them cross that bar. It's just, you keep fighting the same monsters over and over like you're in a video game a little bit.

1:17:02 Right yeah you get to have your cake and eat it too in the sense that like we get to see this cool action sequence they get to you know get we get to see the catharsis of them beating the army then the army comes back in order for him to have to fight nuwata and you know what i mean like it kind.

1:17:18 Of yeah well and like i think i think i credit uh credit Guillermo on that like specifically because like I'm I'm a wrestling fan and I like whenever whenever two like big monster characters wrestle I'm like I don't care you're both you're both huge and like so so we call we call them monster characters because they're often like big beefy wrestlers often get put into the archetype of villain and so like I'm basically only interested in like big monster characters who are like good actually, because it just, it goes against cast. But I think there's a knowledge of that here of like, listen, I know I called this movie golden army. So I'm going to give you your golden army set piece, but also you

1:18:10 want to watch the flippy elf fight. Hell boy. That's what you're here for.

1:18:16 He's so flippy.

1:18:16 He's so flippy.

1:18:18 Like we get it you fucking know how to flip congratulations whatever yeah uh it's still a great fight um the gears it just looks really cool like it just it is it's great that that just the set design and the interaction with the set design the way that hellboy is crawling inside the like it's it's all just really um it's really tactile and it feels like they're in a real space i think that we've all seen many in action sequence in a cool room with gears and yet they're not interacting with those gears. It's all just sort of like wallpaper. So I think, I thought that that was all really cool. Poor Newala, poor Abe.

1:18:59 I mean, it's a tragic ending for them, but then we get twins and we get a freeze frame and a cliffhanger that we all wanted Hellboy 3. But it's a fun cliffhanger insofar as that you don't need another one.

1:19:12 This movie is the most that a movie has ever felt like a TV show canceled on a cliffhanger. There are other film franchises that have ended on cliffhangers, but this one sets up in a very TV fashion. Six or seven staggered like, I want to see what happens next. Hellboy is going to launch the apocalypse. Liz is going to have twins. Abe is sad. All these, like this new team, are they going to stick it? Are they going to stick together? And then it just, yeah, it just did not happen, which is fine.

1:19:45 I do want to just very, very quickly talk about the aforementioned potential sequel that did not come to fruition. Basically, Guillermo talked about still wanting to direct a sequel. It was put on hold for other various movies he wanted to make. Ron Perlman donned the Hellboy costume to meet a terminally ill boy as part of a Make-A-Wish foundation in 2012. which inspired Del Toro to do everything he could to get the sequel started. It was in development hell.

1:20:12 Necessary budget was rumored to be $ 120 million. At one point, Del Toro wanted to publish it as a comic, but Mike Mignola didn't want to do that. Then with the success of Deadpool, Ron Perlman tried to convince fans to start again. He started a whole Twitter campaign. Del Toro said that if the Twitter campaign poll got to 100,000 votes, he would have a sit-down meeting with Perlman and Mignola to to develop the movie it got 132 000 votes cast they had a meeting and then at the end of the meeting they said we're never making the third movie that's basically the end of it.

1:20:50 And that's the end of that saga.

1:20:52 Yeah i mean it's it's i i you know i.

1:20:55 Never say never it took guillermo del toro 20 years to get his frankenstein movie made I.

1:21:02 Think the reason that this feels a little more dead, I'm not trying to crush your dreams by any means, but because Mignola then stripped all the stuff out of Hellboy 3 that he wanted and put it into these other two Hellboy movies that came out. There was a reboot in 2019 and then there was like another one that came out in like 2024.

1:21:19 Ooh, but they were bad.

1:21:21 They were really bad. I mean, I could see perhaps Guillermo doing like an animated something to like do it. but that feels, I think.

1:21:32 I think they should do hell boy three. It should be about old hell boy. They should just call it old boy. That's not a name that's ever been used before.

1:21:39 I like that.

1:21:40 Yeah.

1:21:41 Logan it, Logan it, but with hell.

1:21:43 In that shit.

1:21:43 Yeah.

1:21:44 Yeah. I could, I could get behind that. I'd see an old hell boy movie. Maybe you're right, Emily, old hell boy. Let's make that happen.

1:21:52 And now like, so if his twins were born in.

1:21:54 2009, like, they're 17 which is uh i don't like those words i realized the other day that people born in 2010 will be able to vote in the 2028 presidential election and it kind of broke me just a little it's.

1:22:11 Awful i don't like that at all yeah the uh the you were born in the 1900s yeah it's the worst thing.

1:22:17 That's ever like yeah Yeah, I was born in the 1900s.

1:22:21 So here's the thing is so funny because I, I don't care about age like aging does not bother me. There's something broken in that part of my brain, I guess, but for some reason, that specifically is where I draw the line like you're from the 1900s factually accurate but shut your mouth.

1:22:39 I don't mind my own aging. What bothers me is that other people are aging and that's some of them were born in 2000. Oh, we're born in like 2005 and are like 20. I'm like, that feels wrong.

1:22:51 That feels inaccurate. That's an attack. So at the end of our episodes, Amelia, we rate our films. Zero to 99, zero being lowest, 99 being the highest, 50 being the demarcation of whether or not you recommend a movie. We try to rate it from when we first saw it. And now to see if it's changed at all. Emily, would you like to go first?

1:23:12 Yeah. I saw this in 2008 and genuinely cannot remember how I felt about it. Cause that was when I had no money and saw one movie a week. And like, so every time I saw a movie, I either thought it was a genius masterpiece or I felt bad for wasting my money. But I recall liking it well enough. So let's just say I would have given it like a 70 rewatching it the other night. I, I, it was on sale. So I bought it for five bucks.

1:23:37 Yeah.

1:23:38 UHD on streaming. And I was like, I should watch that again. I had a really good time. So I'm going to say like 86. Well, I like it a little bit more than Hellboy.

1:23:47 I have basically the same ratings that you have. I have like a 73 and 08. I liked it. I watched it the other day. I'm at an 88 now. I think this movie is great. We'll watch again. Probably not the first one again, but definitely the second one again. Amelia, what about you?

1:24:03 I don't want to be boring, but I like, I pretty, pretty much fall in line. Like, especially with the, I truly don't remember what I thought about this movie in 2008. Even a little bit like, and it's, it was, it was before I started doing criticism professionally. So I can't even go back and like figure out what past me thought about this.

1:24:22 That's totally fair. Do you have some things you'd like to plug Amelia? Things that people can listen or watch or read you?

1:24:31 Yeah. So you can follow me everywhere at That Witch Mia. But we do have a new project coming out between myself, Perry Nemiroff and Rosie Knight. It is a new podcast called Cackles and Coffee. And if you want updates on that, you can follow any one of the girls or you can follow Cackles pod across social as well.

1:24:55 Love that. People should absolutely follow you.

1:24:57 You're a great follow. I, we should, we should have asked you this at the start of the episode. This is bad podcasting, but what's your, what's your favorite GDT? What's your favorite Guillermo del Toro movie? That's a good question. Or TV project. If you're like a strain head, which sure.

1:25:12 Emily was. I.

1:25:17 Called ourselves wormies.

1:25:21 We, we touched on this a little bit, but I think it's crimson peak.

1:25:24 Okay.

1:25:26 I think it's Crimson Peak. Oh my God. What a beautiful movie. The problem with Crimson Peak, and it's not a problem with Crimson Peak. Bless you, Guillermo. You walk on water. I love you. You are the maestro. You are so smart in all ways, except for one. I am on my knees begging you to stop saying the sentence, it's not horror, because you're wrong. And I know that you made the project and I love you so much.

1:25:55 But Crimson Peak is a horror movie. We watch Jim Beaver's brains leave his body. He just did it with Frankenstein, which is exceptional and is romantic and is still a horror movie. And audiences who can't ingest horror really struggle when you tell them. it's not a horror movie. And then they see Jim Beaver's brains.

1:26:21 He just, I think he, he, I think dislikes how binary people's perspectives are of.

1:26:28 I mean, like, I think you are fully correct, but bless you. My King, my leash.

1:26:35 I love you.

1:26:36 Stop saying that.

1:26:37 I think, I think I, I mostly agree with him because I think that a ghost story has a different emotional valence from the pure horror but you're right it does have some like really shocking sequences I just yeah I think he's trying to get at it's people often don't think you can have like a great love story in horror but there are a lot of ghosts there are a lot of ghost stories that are great love stories and I think he was like trying to like right drag people toward that for sure but yeah it's uh.

1:27:09 It's a great movie I love it I've watched it many times it's definitely a top three for me with Guillermo Emily, now that we are at the end of our Guillermo miniseries, have your top three changed? Has your top changed?

1:27:23 You know, I probably would put Pan's Labyrinth at the top now, which I would not have done before we started this. And then it's definitely Devil's Backbone. And then, of course, everyone's favorite, Nightmare Alley.

1:27:34 I love Nightmare Alley.

1:27:37 Yeah, those are my top three. But Hellboy 2 moved up a lot for me. I probably should revisit some of his 2010s work because I remember really loving Shape of Water and Crimson Peak and thinking Pacific Rim was kind of whatever. But I'm glad we did this. I'm glad we spent Halloween season revisiting.

1:28:00 Spooky season talking GDT. I absolutely loved it. Amelia, thank you so much for wrapping up this miniseries with us. um next week we start a brand new mini series on 2000s ya fantasy uh with lemony snicket's uh what is.

1:28:18 The series of unfortunate and to be clear to be to be clear this is all the when harry potter blew up this is all the franchise starters yes that were like here we're going to do a new ya franchise we're not talking about harry potter for some reason We're avoiding J.K. Rowling for some reason.

1:28:38 Who can say?

1:28:40 I am fascinated by and we're covering some big movies in it. We're covering Unfortunate Events, Spiderwick Chronicles, one of the biggest hits of all time.

1:28:50 Golden Compass, another massive hit.

1:28:52 Golden Compass, Chronicles of Narnia, Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Twilight.

1:28:57 Yep.

1:28:57 There's a lot of good stuff in there.

1:29:00 It's a great... I'm super excited. Do you have any Snicket thoughts by any chance, Amelia? Are you a fan?

1:29:06 Not a fan?

1:29:08 I really liked the series. I have a limited recollection of the film, or I'm mixing up those two things, and I really like the film and have a limited recollection of the series. I truly cannot recall which order they happened in.

1:29:24 Movie first.

1:29:25 Mm-hmm.

1:29:26 Yeah, which one has Neil Patrick Harris? I like the series. I have zero recollection of the film.

1:29:34 It's fair. Most people do. I don't think most people have much of a deep feeling about, honestly, either. I think people love the books. Yes. Emily, have you read the books?

1:29:48 No, the books feel a little to me like they are sort of lost to that era. you know like yes um to be fair i think the same has also happened with harry potter where subsequent generations aren't picking it up as much and some of that is because the author is a monster person and some of it is just like it was so huge at one time that now kind of feels trapped in that time and like because it was so big we will keep getting harry potter things as long as millennials are alive but uh which is for a long time going forward yeah um but Yeah, it feels to me like Series of Unfortunate Events just kind of got trapped in that era.

1:30:29 It did.

1:30:29 Whereas, like, you know, Twilight has transcended it because it was so huge. Narnia and Golden Compass are both based on much better books, so it's kind of an interesting... I don't even fucking know what the Spiderwick Chronicles is, if we're being totally honest. But you're going to learn.

1:30:44 You're going to learn. Yeah. i mean i do think that i agree with you i actually remember i didn't see lemony snicket in theaters i remember watching it on video and and actually quite like really liking.

1:30:56 It i saw i saw in theaters because i saw all the oscar nominees that year and i enjoyed it um a fair good time with it i saw it at like the dollar theater which is kind of the.

1:31:06 Ideal way to see it i'm excited to check it out um amelia again thank you so much for coming on we hope that you'll come.

1:31:14 On again for having me Yes, I had so much fun.

1:31:18 We will absolutely have you back to talk about who knows what, but it'll be something from the 2000s and it'll be great.

1:31:24 I'm excited. Can I ask you two a question that I think we are the exact right collection of people to solve?

1:31:30 Great.

1:31:31 So I went to YouTube to double check that the Barry Manilow song ends Hellboy 2 and I was watching it and off on the side, Olivia Rodrigo has released yet another cover version of stupid song that she did. And I, I love that song. I think it's great. I don't know why she keeps, why does Olivia Rodrigo keep doing stupid?

1:31:50 I didn't know.

1:31:50 Covers.

1:31:51 I didn't know that she was doing that.

1:31:52 That's just like the second. I evidently I'm this deep on her now.

1:31:56 Are these live covers?

1:31:57 This one's an acoustic. She, there was one she did in a park recently, like, and that's real. That's a really good arrangement. I'm just like, is this like she trying to go up the charts or something? That's a question I have. And we're all music journalists, which is why I'm asking.

1:32:14 I do think that, I mean, there have been, there are three singles thus far, right? It's been Drop Dead.

1:32:23 The Cure, and Stupid Song.

1:32:26 I just wonder if she's, I don't know, just really wants Stupid Song to chart. I don't know.

1:32:31 I think that everyone thought Stupid Song was going to be just to be a top 10 mainstay. And it has not been that. It is a top 20 mainstay. It's just kind of hanging out in like the 12, 13 range.

1:32:45 And I wonder if she's trying to get it up a little bit.

1:32:48 But the top 10 now is.

1:32:49 It's underperforming.

1:32:53 No, the album has performed enormously well. The problem is that the Billboard charts are now like so dominated by things that are on TikTok. which is how something like choose in Texas can be number one for like 23 weeks or whatever a song. I like, I'm not choosing Texas for that one. I mean, choose Texas, but it's just like, there's so little chart turnover now. And I think she's just trying to be like one of the 10 songs we will be listening to for the rest of time.

1:33:15 So I, Amelia, do you have thoughts on Olivia Rodrigo?

1:33:19 I'm going to be so real. I hoped that you were going to ask us questions about how matches work because I could not tell you an Olivia Rodrigo song if you had a gun to my head.

1:33:29 That's okay. I just thought maybe I looked at you and I was like, you know how the billboard charts work and you can answer.

1:33:35 It seemed like you had the answers.

1:33:38 Maybe I just have a knowing face, which I also factually know is not accurate.

1:33:42 I think it's also that you both wear glasses, so you both seem knowledgeable.

1:33:46 It's the shape.

1:33:48 Of like you just you you look librarian-esque so you must have the dewey decimal system just like.

1:33:55 Yeah um all right uh this has been a blast abelia thank you again and so much fun we'll talk soon bye guys