Oz the Great and Powerful with Dana Schwartz

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Blank Check Productions / Talkhouse

Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Comedy, Film Reviews

4.6 • 6.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2022

⏱️ 128 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ah, yes - we’ve arrived at the reason why we held off on covering Sam Raimi for so long…because we didn’t want to end our series on such a dismal note! “Oz the Great and Powerful” - Raimi’s last feature until the recent “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” - features James Franco in a performance that guest Dana Schwartz (“Noble Blood”) characterizes as “having the energy of a hot boy in a school play who’s laughing with his friends in the front row.” It doesn’t have the tactile, zippy cinematic language of Raimi’s best work, instead opting for the popular hyper-saturated, entirely digital look of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” (a clear influence). But it *does* have a little girl made of porcelain who almost made Ben cry. Topics discussed include our desire for a Mila Kunissance, Zach Braff being the surprise MVP in this movie, whether “Tinkers” are a specific ethnicity or a class or workers, and the Disney IP lawyers who had to be on set making sure nothing infringed on MGM’s copyright of the classic Oz visuals.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm many things but a good podcast is not one of them.
0:26.3	You could be if you wanted to. That's just it. I don't want to see. Kansas is full of good podcasts,
0:33.6	church-going podcasts that get married and raised family, podcasts like John Gale, podcasts like
0:39.1	my father who spends whole life trilling the dirt just to die face down there. I don't want that.
0:46.0	Annie, I don't want to be a good podcast. I want to be a great one. Trilling the dirt?
0:52.0	See, you are already messed up in your impression of James Franco in this movie by giving us even a
0:57.9	little bit of energy. I know. I was trying to pull it back as much as possible. Yeah, you were giving
1:03.6	me city by the sea, James Franco. And I need Oscars 2011, James Franco. Do you want an astounding
1:10.8	fact? I do. I do want that. He was paid $7 million for his performance in this film. Now,
1:19.1	I don't find that astounding relative to where he was in his career at the time because this was
1:23.5	peak James Franco fame arguably. And this is the moment that tests his box office drawing power,
1:29.9	but it is arguably the peak of his fame. The only argument I have against being the peak of his
1:34.8	fame is that he's already hosted the Oscars, right? And that is where people are like,
1:39.4	hmm, are we sick of this guy? Do you see the thing? He hosts the Oscars like a week before they
1:45.6	closed the deal on this. That makes it. And there was the thing where it was like they asked Disney,
1:50.6	like, are you having any trepidations? And they're like, no, we believe he is a leading man capable
1:54.0	of holding his own within a $200 million temple next to an attractive female actress trying her best.
2:00.1	Right. The problem with the Oscars was he only had one theater actress next to him. What if we
2:05.6	give him three? My point is just I believe that they would pay him $7 million. Yeah, I cannot believe
2:12.5	he would give this performance and go, yep, feels about right and deposit that check.
2:18.0	Didn't that's for me. And thank you. Well, you know, the problem is that he was in one, two, three,
2:24.7	four, five, six, seven, eight, nine movies in 2013. Maybe that's why he looks so tired.
	...

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