Oh, you hear that? Can you just see in your mind's eye, Ben Affleck walking down a hallway in sunglasses? But is he wearing a suit? Yeah.
Okay. He's wearing a suit because this is 2003's paycheck. Oh, wait. It's 2003's paycheck.
And of course, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe, not including paycheck. Do I have to do the? Okay. Yeah, you got to do it.
I've seen I'm doing it for memory. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Blade runner. Total recall.
Barjo. Barjo. Namassiss. No, that's not it.
That's what I wish it was. Screamers. Yep. The other one.
Imposteror. Hostor. And now paycheck? Minority report.
Minority report. My goodness. I'm bad at this. Oh, I didn't.
I need a I think some sort of Philip K. Dick ask memory surgery to make it better. What is this guy's mind been wiped for the past the past two months? Been wiped out.
That's right. I had a really good observation about this movie. And I have to wipe it out. I do have a good observation about paycheck.
Oh, you want to lay on me now? No. Okay. They never welcome to Dick me.
Dick may the official Philip K. Dick movie podcast. Oh, even though I don't even know man. Yes, this is our Philip K.
Dick series called Dick me where we're going through all of the adaptations of Philip K. Dick. Not the TV shows so much. Yeah.
Yeah, let me just watch all of the man in the high castle. Yeah, I got time like that. Yeah, sure. Maybe in an alternate history.
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Also, I'm going to do something we have not been doing Dan and that is talk about the Patreon. Yeah, not.com slash G.Pod.
Patreon.com slash G.Pod. Okay. I'll continue. All right.
Well, we have episodes coming out every Friday and what we've been doing is a double feature of pairing of sorts with whatever we're doing on Tuesday, then we do some sort of a paired movie with it on Friday. Yes. So put it in the language that the millionaire see listen to the show will understand. It's not unlike when you go to a fine fine steak house and your waiter will say, I'm like, ah, sir or madam, might I recommend that with that filet mignon?
This delicious milkshake. Ah, with my garlic, my my my petite filet, my garlic sautéed asparagus. May I have a strawberry milkshake, please? Right away, sir.
Excellent choice, sir. In a wine glass. I want and I know I give me a fribble. I want it from friendlies.
So if you if you guys like fribbles, check out patreon.com slash G.Pod. Sort of an audio fribble. Yeah, this week, I mean, we're talking paycheck from 2003, directed by John Woo. And so naturally we're pairing it with another, what I've come to call, WooVee.
Yep. This Friday we're going to be talking the killer from 1989. We're also going to be talking a decent amount about Megalopolis. Megalopolis, the Meg.
The Meg is Dan is gone. But of course, this episode we're talking about paycheck, which was written by Dean Greg, Dean Jorgaris, who wrote the Meg. Wait, really? Yes.
Wait, which Meg? The Meg. That was obviously written by Frank, like Francis, like Sinatra from the movie. Yeah.
How about that? He wrote the Meg from 2018 and he's credited on Meg 2, the trench. Story by. Story by.
That's when earlier before we started recording, I was like, oh, yeah, I can't wait to tell you something. Like I'm going to put below your mind with this. Go below your mind, bro. That's all it was actually.
Interesting. The Meg. Huh. Well, this week we're talking, of course, about paycheck with Dean Griffin and Dean.
George and George Garris. No. George Garris. Gordon Gorgaris.
I'm Dean Gorgaris. Oh. A thousand stone monsters writing it. A thousand typewriters could eventually come up with paycheck 2003.
Yep. This is, of course, based on the Phil K. Dick's story, short story called paycheck from 1953. Starring Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman.
Eric. No, Aaron Eckhart. Eric Purcell of it. Thomas Jane and Aaron Eckhart.
Always. It's a fine line, isn't it? The easy way to remember is that Aaron Eckhart is the one who looks more like Sam the Eagle from the Muppets. There are shots in here in this film where it is uncanny.
He is a bit of... Who else we got? Paul Giamatti. We got Michael C.
Hall, Dexter himself. Yeah, right. That was shocking. Put on a bit of an accent too.
Non-regional sort of not from here in an accent. Was it the Mid Atlantic? Yeah. But also Mid Atlantic.
Yeah. What about Colm Fjord, Fjord? Yeah, I'm going to go with Fjord. Fjord.
Yeah, we know him, of course, from our Stephen King podcast, King Me, where he was the main bad guy in Storm of the Century. That's right. He's like the Ice Devil. He is like a cold miser of sorts.
More like cold Fjord, right? Yeah. Like cold Fjord. Like cold Fjord.
Hey guys, I'm cold Fjord. This is shocking to me that there are two acting Colms. Who's the other one? Colm Meany.
Oh, I know what that is. The Irish guy. Yeah, no, no, no, I don't piss me off. No, I know what he is.
Oh, Brian? Yeah. Yes. Come on.
And no, that's not my derogatory term for all Irish people. I don't call them O'Brien's. No. Not into the mic at least.
We got Joe Morton, who... Not to be confused with Colm Meany. In Morton Joe. Oh, in Morton Joe.
Yeah. Joe Morton, I know him probably best from Terminator 2, where he plays Miles Dyson, but he's been in a ton of that shit. He's the titular brother from another planet. He is the brother from another planet.
He's also in the movie Crossroads, The Blues Guitar Movie, where he plays sort of a demon. Is he like the devil who... He's the devil's right-hand man. He's the guy who's like...
He's the guy who's like, Steve Vy, practice these sweeps. Basically, yeah. He's like... Steve Vy, you must transcribe these Frank's Apple like guitar solos.
Probably can't play on either. That guy. I forgot. It's been so long since I've seen that movie.
But he's like, the main blues guy, the guy who's going with Ralmachio or whatever, he's like, it's real up in his face and he says something about your bitch too and whatever. He's real mad at him. He's like, that's Joe. What about Peter Friedman?
What about him? From Succession, we know him. Also ex-husband of Joan Allen. Really?
This guy's highly, highly-willed. Look at it. I mean, a guy like this landing an absolute... Turd like this.
Yeah. Oh, you're just landing Joan Allen. I thought you meant the movie paycheck. No, no.
And also, Catherine Morris. Catherine Morris plays Rita in this movie. She's only in the first maybe 10 minutes. But we know her as John's wife from minority report.
That's right. If you're adapting a dick, you gotta get Catherine Morris. We need Morris. Yeah.
That's a weird connection. It really is. But yeah. I think that's like the most of them.
Right. I almost had a heart attack because I saw John Cassini is in this. But I was like the Crip Keeper? That's John Cassier.
Different guy altogether. I found out. Hey, I've won a million. I've won a melisabic.
Who? Like, later on. It's like early on in her career. But she goes on to be in like a lot of stuff.
She's also... She's not in... What's that show on Banshee? Oh, pry.
I shouldn't say probably. I don't know. Yes, she is. She's on Banshee.
She's in your favorite show too. Or movie rather, The Misogynist. I know you love that movie. I do love that movie because...
You're in it. Yeah, sorry. Because I'm in it. It's documentary.
Now, what did it... Paycheck. All right. What is this?
All right. Not just... Hey. Corporate espionage.
Let's talk about it. Seems like some of these actors were going to just throw a paycheck if he has me. Stop. Paul Giamatti is lively.
He's committed. He's doing all of his moves in succession. Yep. He does do all of his moves.
Dan, would you be surprised to learn that Paul Giamatti was 36 years old in this? No. I think I wouldn't be surprised because Paul Giamatti has been 36... The first 36 years of his life is 36 years old.
And then from 37 to now, he's been 50, 51 at least. Yeah. It's always amazing to me when you look it up. Oh, how old is like...
How old's Affleck in this? It's like about 31-ish. What about Giamatti? Who's like...
He's like... They have the same birthday actually. Yeah. Yeah.
It's just weird. They're only five years apart. It's weird. Yeah.
Like the age gap between me and you is bigger than that. That's true. And yet I'm the Giamatti. Yeah.
I'm a bit of an Affleck in that. I am kind of an alcoholic. You know, a couple of failed marriages, sure. Giamatti and...
I mean, it's not better being Giamatti. No. I mean, you just... You get more of like...
Like who comes up to Giamatti on the streets? I'm sure there are plenty of people that are like... They recognize them and like, Giamatti, like you're the guy from this specific thing. Yes.
And listen, when people come up to me and they say, You're Paul Giamatti, right? Paul Giamatti. They have various... What do people recognize him from?
Yeah, what do you think of like this is big? Well, I'm sure winos are coming up to him all the time. No. I'm saying I love Giamatti sideways.
Or they're like, year after this sideways. Really? Well, maybe Ben Franklin impersonators come up to him. They're like, I love Giamatti and John Adams.
Right? Isn't that it? He played John Adams. He did play John Adams.
Right? Was John Adams a contemporary of Ben Franklin? Yeah. I'm not a history guy.
This is a... The show's called Dick Me. It's not exactly a lot. Yeah.
I don't know who signed the Declaration of Independence. I know who stole it. Yeah. All of them in Franklin.
Yeah. You know those fuckers that wrote and signed it? For the most part, we're in their late teens, early 20s. You can't compare yourself to the Founding Fathers.
You can be like showing... The Founding children. If they... If a bunch of fucking 22 year olds tried to lead a revolution now.
They probably do it on TikTok. Yeah, it would probably be a TikTok. Yeah. We don't TikTok.
You probably do it on Dance of Revolution. It would be Skibity, whatever. Skibity Country. Skibity Ohio.
Yeah. Rizzed up. Yeah. Yeah.
No, we can't get bogged down in the distant past with our Founding Fathers. We're talking about the future here. We're talking about paycheck. We're talking about three years in the future.
Yeah, it's three years in the future. And corporate espionage. I want to talk to corporate espionage. Let's get into it.
What do you think? Pro. Yeah, me too. Fuckin' everybody shit.
All of these guys. I wish it was more out in the open. Like in real life, I wish we found out some like... Yeah, you could be like a famous corporate spy.
Yes. Like, oh, I heard that Johnson and Johnson just hired... A third Johnson? Yeah.
I'm not sure if I can get another Johnson to the day. What was I going to say? It's okay. We were talking about corporate espionage.
What's right now? Cool it is. We should know about it. We don't.
Yeah, but we don't. There would be a great like a spy. Like if we found out that... Sort of like a gentleman thief who everyone's like, oh, he hired Michael Clayton.
Yeah. That guy's... You don't want to know part of that. That's a train wreck.
That's an exploding horse of a man or whatever. That's an exploration. That's an exploration. Nobody's looking at the horse.
Importantly the horse doesn't explode. So pay check the PKD. Yep. Very similar to pay check the film.
Once again, we have like kind of a one for one here a little bit. There's no dove in the short series. No dove in the short series as far as I know. Interesting.
Some of the specific items change, but like the story remains intact. It's like the corporate by mails himself some stuff. Yeah. Does a cool guy.
I mean, like that premise, I think is very fun. I agree. It's like Memento, but better. Ooh.
Like the premise is better. Then what if you tattooed himself? Oh, well, yeah. I like that.
Yeah. It's weak. Weak sauce. I like objects.
Totally. Yeah. Say that. I don't know how hot I am on this movie.
I loved it. Did you? No. I liked it.
I have fun. I went question immediately. I really enjoyed early on, very early on when he starts doing like budget version of minority report computer. That was crazy.
That was really funny. And it was like you could see like the frame rate on it. Do you see the animation? As soon as as he starts getting into.
Right. Here's a holographic 3D model of whatever I'm supposed to be reverse engineering. And it's just little rectangles. Everything is just a rectangle of sorts.
Which is, I mean, you got minority report and for sure, like Steven Spielberg is like, all right, he's thought about it. He's had meetings about it. This is what it's going to look like. Tom, when you're up here, this is what you're doing, the hand movements, whatever.
And the producers of paycheck had also thought about it. And they were like, you have to do that. You have to do that. Do that.
Do that. And like, and John Wu is there like, I don't know, wave your hands. Just pretend like you're touching the internet somehow. Whatever that means to you.
Yeah, let's interpret that. We'll fill it in later. We'll, you know, base it around your hand. Move right.
No, sorry. We open up with Affleck looking, you know, looks sharp. This is a 30 year or so year old Affleck. And he's got these nice suits.
He wears sunglasses. He's got a nice quaff of hair. And he's hired by a company. His profession is a reverse engineer.
Yeah. He's got his hands on prototypes and just technologies of various sorts. Right. And he figures out how to make it.
And then he makes it better. And then he makes it better. Yeah. We see this.
The example is basically a high tech version of one of those pens that you flip over and the ladies close come off. Some company, he goes to a tech expo and we see like, it's just like a little computer monitor with a lady going, Hi, I'm Colleen. And she's just talking. And then the camera pans so that it's perpendicular to the screen.
And what we see is that the face of this lady is jutting out somewhat. So it's like a 3D artificial intelligence, I guess. Yeah. It seems like it's some sort of an AI 3D projection sort of thing.
Not like you still would need like a laptop in front of you to be. Which he hates. He hates it. He hates that you have the screen.
Right off the bat here, like, you know, you're trying to like get your bearings on the movie. Like what is this world in all this shit, right? The idea. So this company hires him.
He reverse engineers it. And then they wipe his mind for however long. I think this first one is a couple months. They say it's two months and that's about as long as you can do it without it causing like permanent brain damage.
Right. So for two months he works on this project, then they wipe his mind and when he comes to, he has no recollection of working on the project. Nothing that happened in between there. It's all just sort of gone.
Feels not cool of that lady to bone him, right? Yeah. Catherine Morris from Minority Report. Yeah.
I did think that was a little weird and funny. Like, oh, like, because we, the way that it's presented to us, that we go linear in time. We watch him, you know, we watch the unboxing of this product. And then he's like, he's locked in a room essentially for not the entire time, but it's his office.
And he's like taking the thing apart, trying to figure it out, whatever. And then at a certain point, like she comes up, she kisses him, whatever. And then it like time stops and then it starts going in reverse all the way back to the very beginning. And then we're brought to, let me see, Affleck, he's in a chair.
They're like scientists or whatever around him. Paul Jimani is there and they're like, all right, how? He's in a total recall chair. Yeah.
All right. All right, Jennings. So he's like, oh, he's like, I love the, like, can't let he also, they have like a thermometer on him too. It's like if his brain goes above even one C above 43 degree, he's cooked.
He's toast. Never comes up again. Not really. Not really.
No. Yeah. What's the last thing you remember? And they're like, he's like, oh, the Red Sox got into the playoffs.
This fucking guy. This is a set up. Yeah. Several times he warms the Red Sox.
I got this fucking guy in the line. Socks. I got to say though, this is the second time the Sox have come up. We just talked about this was it last week on the world world.
That's right. When when Daddy Tom and that boy, they were playing baseball. Do you know about my three dads? I don't want to ask.
I only ask as you mentioned, Daddy Tom, which is one of the three dads. Oh, no. Daddy Tom, Daddy Mike, Daddy Mo. Maybe I'll explain this later.
Is it like a sketch or something? It sounds like it. No, it's this, it's these three dads. Okay.
It's like these three guys who are basically like independently producing a reality show about their family of like two married dads and a third dad who's like someone's ex-husband, like one of the guys ex-husband and they have like two kids and they seemingly just like film all this themselves and they have like a YouTube channel. And in the promos that they make for it, the twins yell, we have three dads. And what is this called? I think it's called my three dads or something.
I don't know what. It's not coming up. No. Oh, could be a dream day.
I told you. Daddy. That's Tom, Daddy Mike. Daddy Mo.
Daddy Mo. You think I made up Daddy Mo? I wish I had what hour three dads. Hour three dads.
Yeah. And it's YouTube.com slash hour three dads number three. Not. Oh, don't you dare spell it out.
Well, all right. I'll have to check that out later. I encourage everyone to because these guys are also like two of the Mike and Moak are heavily plastic surgery. It's fascinating.
Like Rob Lowe and be kind of a catellabra. Yeah. Yeah. Never see that.
No. But trust you. I mean, you wouldn't do me wrong on this one. It's a soda bird joint, which is I mean, he's good.
But yeah, fellow Liberace. Michael Douglas plays Liberace. Matt Damon is like much younger, living boyfriend or whatever. And then at a certain point, Rob Lowe comes over to talk to one of them about getting plastic surgery.
He's a plastic surgeon and Rob Lowe's face. He looks like long legs. It's crazy. But it's not nobody.
Nobody talks about nobody dresses it whatsoever. That's good. It's just like sort of a jump cut to him sitting there and you're like, whoa. There's just like shrieking violin.
Yeah, basically. Yeah, he's a bit of long legs. Could have been longer if you ask me. But I can't believe you've never seen it ever seen it ever three days.
No, I know. I don't have to watch that. Anyway, sorry. I was looking at their Instagram page.
Dan is going down a daddy rabbit hole. You can't go any deeper than I've been. No, no. Down the daddy hole.
So Jennings, huh? Jennings wakes up. Wake up. He's been in it for two months and mine is wiped.
His friend slash partner slash mind wiper. Yeah, Shorty played by Jimani. His name was Shorty the whole time. The whole time.
Daniel. He's there and he's like, all right. All right. All right.
I use after his sineps. Is it half like he's, you know, he's shy. I'm a pro. No, you're going to get a caprese sandwich at the airport.
I forget which is nothing that's side tangents here. But there's some voice actor, not Tom Kenny, one of those guys. One of the big guys. I'm thinking about doing impressions and he's like, oh, to do Paul Giamatti, you have to try and swallow your own chin.
Actually, that's actually very helpful. What is that? Gizmo doing? She's always up to business.
She's always up to business. Nah, she's not good. Yeah, knock her down a peg or two, please. Yeah, she's just out of reach.
Okay. Anyway, so after F like wakes up, Jennings wakes up, he of course has to go into some sort of a physical therapy session with a Bose staff. Yeah, also run by Paul Giamatti. Yeah.
Not a guy who looks like he knows his way around. Mind-wiping scientists also sort of his like Mickey to Affleck's Rocky. Right. Like training him being like, they're these like columns of like padded, whatever.
Yeah. They have lights that flash on them. And they're measuring his reflex. So what Giamatti's saying, right, is like you're getting slower and dumber because I keep shooting a laser in your brain.
Right. But please continue. Yeah. Keep going.
Yeah. That was a little Nicky. It was a little Nicky. That's a fine line.
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. All right. Get, get, get.
Time stamped that. Time stamped when I yelled it. Damn cat. No.
So this scene of him with the Bose staff just hitting like dummies and whatever, only in the movie because later on he has the likes of Bose staff. And unfortunately up to this point throughout the movie, people keep going. He's not a fucking secret agent. He's just a engineer.
Yeah. He's again, he is a reverse engineer. Yeah. That is his job.
Yeah. Not spy. Not, not, you know, bad ass like. But it's all a part.
You can see the damn future. Right. So all this stuff, very silly. We're off to the races here.
Later on he gets Jennings and Shorty. They're invited to a party at Aaron Eckhart's house. James Rethrick. Yeah, Rethrick.
Rethrick. That's just rolls off the tongue. Just raps off the tongue. No.
This is, I'm sorry. I know I always talk about this, but like the Wikipedia plots and ops is I love when a super fan of a shooting in the level of detail here for no reason. Things is contacted by his college roommate, James Rethrick. Like the college roommate.
I don't need to know that at all. Who is the CEO of technology company? All com. We should know that because that comes up.
That comes up. So goes to this party. There's a bunch of, it's very like, very elitist. You know, it's people.
People are really making Paul Giamatti feel unwelcome. Yeah. Oh yeah. I guess I'll just eat these crudetate.
Just another celery stick. Fucking. You ever listen to Giamatti's podcast? That exists.
Oh, Dan. It actually exists. I'm sorry for you to be like, no, his podcast. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, I just shit my pants. No sponsorship this week. Keep shitting my pants. I get a fucking sponsor here.
No, his podcast is called Chin Wag. And Paul Giamatti's Chin Wag with Stephen Asma, who's his friend. And it's just the two of them like talking. It's not if you search chin, it's not even the first thing that comes up.
Yeah. Just such a, okay, should I listen to it? It's, you give it a shot. It can be boring, but like, you know, this is weird.
I'm looking at the, so weird. All the episode descriptions have emojis in them. All right. Maybe, maybe.
All right. So maybe that's maybe. So they're at the party, whatever. And who else is there?
But Uma Thurman. Uma Thurman Rachel. With more clips in her hair. Did you notice this?
I didn't notice the clips. There are like 10 what look like potato chip bag clips just up and down the back of her head. I'm like, yeah, like she's trying to keep something in there. All right.
And again, in another scene. It's also just like more, more, the clip budget on this thing. I can't imagine. I think this has to be right around the same time as Kill Bill or like maybe.
Yeah. Same year. Kill Bill one comes out of three. Really?
Well, her. Uma Thurman. Come on. Uma Thurman.
Obviously, like goes without saying. I think her hair in this is insanity. She looks like Jeff A from Long Island. Yes, she does.
They have the same hair. It's like very blonde, very sort of thin, but like, I don't know, like kind of poof. It has belt. They do her pretty dirty, especially in this opening scene.
It's like someone should have dabbed her with like one of those like oil. Yeah. Oh, she'll. Someone should have dried her up.
And as two guys, it just finished a whole pizza together. I know a thing or two about having grease all over my face. I know a thing or two about needing a napkin. Generally.
I think her character in this movie is done so dirty and has nothing like. She re-talk about it. She presses the thunderstorm. No, I know.
She does press that thunderstorm button. Several times. No, yeah. She the actress is in her like early 30s at this point, right?
The character feels like they're in their early 20s where they're like, don't understand like everything that's going on. Like I feel like the way that she's acting is just like a very. Very naive. Yes.
Younger naive person. Which, yeah. You see, you think this thing should have like fricking couple of two, someone from the OC. Yeah.
Couple of. She'd have been like, Misha Barton and Josh Hardin. I don't know. I don't know.
See. I don't think so. Chad Michael Murray. Yeah.
They should have. Rachel Dolisal. Dolisal. His first Rachel Dolisal.
Oh. I just think that her character is played a little too naive. It's so funny that her name is basically Rachel Dolisal given her history. Anyway.
I just think, yeah, the character for the actor, I just think the character should have been better in general. I just don't think it was written all that well. Yeah. It's crazy that she's, she knows less than the guy who had his memory wife.
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. It's cool. She does his wack and in person, an oomatherman impersonator over the head.
Yes. Yeah. So at the party, Affleck comes up to a matherman and he's like, hey, you know, starts talking and they talk for maybe 30 seconds. Yeah, they do like, they do like a little witty, like they enter back and go slightly witty and then he's just like, do you want to go fuck?
Basically. You want to go fuck somewhere? He's like, yeah, we can, we can keep doing this little cutesy thing or we can just get out of here and go someplace right now. And she's like, like the way that she laughs it off is like not feel like somebody that like in their 30s would be like, all right, fuck off dickhead.
Yeah. And then he's like, I'm going to go over there and have a conversation. If you grow up, yeah, essentially in the meantime, you could come and join and we could try again. Yeah.
Right. And he's just like, I don't know. Yeah. Well, it goes like, yeah, he's like, yeah, shit, nice to meet you.