117 - "Real Steel" (2011)

Hey everybody, my name is John.

I'm Bob. He's by their Butch and together we are The Butch and The Bi and

this week, we had a good time watching a tale of a father that doesn't want to son.

We had a good time watching some big metal men.

We had a good time watching Kate from last have about four lines of dialogue.

Oh, we had a good time watching the future of fighting. Yes,

no, the future of fighting is just me and Bunny playing VR boxing. We're good time watching Real Steel. You deserve better than me.

You say something, please. I tried. Okay, what do you want from me? I want you to fight for me. That's all I ever wanted. Man this movie's way, way better than I remember being it's just been like, a decade since I've seen it. And it's one of those movies that holds up really, really well. It's directed by Shawn Levy, who's the guy who did Deadpool two. He also is doing Deadpool three. He did the Adam project. There was another big one that we watched a couple of free guy. Yes, he did freak out. He also didn't hate the museum. This guy was all over that like, early 2000s to mid 2000s with a bunch of these types of projects. And then he suddenly like, it was like, oh, yeah, now I'm doing all the big IP stuff. But, ya know, this movie is phenomenal. For those that didn't see real steel in 2011 or haven't watched it recently. I don't know. Do you highly work? I highly recommend it. Yeah,

no, I definitely. I had a good time.

Yeah, it was it was genuinely like, man, it was really good because it was it was billed as the Rockem sockem robot movie. And I think we saw was a corridor crew did their VFX artists reacted personally. I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. That movie was good. Like, like, I knew it was good for the boxing part. And I kind of forgot how good the performances were from. So we've got Hugh Jackman is playing, abandoned the drunk father who was a former boxer, turned kind of robot Shepherd. He takes these boxing robots in the future that have become the main source of entertainment when it comes to combat sports. And he is remote controlling them for these fights. And he's terrible at it. For the most part because he's sad and drunk and hasn't resolved his past trauma. So

he's good until he's distracted and he's easily distracted is the theory. I was struck by women. Yeah, our first viewing of him as like, okay, he's doing good. And it's like, Oh, you got cocky and you got distracted. And that is his downfall.

Yeah, speaking of getting cocky, you got cocky about 10 years earlier? 11 years? 11 Yeah. Wow. You're like, Yo, man, I'm in a band and the father 11 years earlier. He got really cocky with someone who made a baby and then left that woman and she died.

Immediately she died right but she died

when he turned 11 and basically just dropped dead. No, I've heard Did they say what it was that?

I think they did but I don't remember anything wasn't important to

the plot. All you need to know mommy and daddy dead and he was gonna go live with his aunt, who is a man talking about having three lines of dialogue. She is the doting wife of a bajillion air you assume at this point and is the aunt of Max Kenton, who is Charlie Hugh Jackman's character Ken son, played by Dakota Goyo, who has done nothing in the last 10 years. He was in a bunch of these movies like these types of movies and stuff and then stopped acting because he was a child actor that was probably not a great situation back in 2011.

He's very good in this. I hope he's doing well in his current life.

And then they are joined by eventually Lilly, who is caught hot off the heels of lost lost just ended two years prior to this coming out. And this is the first thing I think I saw her and after that, I don't know. I don't know. She's right after but, and she plays the childhood friend kind of her her father was Charlie's boxing mentor. And so they like grew up around each other, but like kinda like, Barry Allen and Iris West Allen it's

yeah, it's pseudo siblings, but actually, we like you with a hot search.

Yeah, they shifted like midway through the movie where it's like, Hey, we've been in close for a long time, but there's no like there's sexual tension, but it's like not addressed sexual tension and then immediately like, he comes back at one point and just cuddles with her in bed and it's like okay, The other man let's check them and then a bunch of other people in this Anthony Mackey's in this Kevin Durant who people may remember as the blob from X Men Origins Wolverine, you know he's in this with a lot less prosthetics,

but still some somehow is that something is still a prosthetic.

No none this movie you just said a lot less instead of no. This is still the equivalent to No,

it's just funny because the implications. Exactly your locations.

Yeah. So they called me in high school. That's actually a doowop banned from the 60s. The implication everybody please welcome the implication they were gonna be they really they had a great number of hits. But the temptations actually beat them out on all of those songs. They wrote them at the same like, is like, Oh man, these ideas they keep getting stolen or something. I don't know

that it was people were not. People were ready for something that was no longer implying they wanted explicit and said temptations one over implications.

People need you to spell it out to them. And the implications weren't doing that.

I just can't tell if he likes me when he plays the song for me. I don't know. It's the implication.

Another notable cast member and this is Phil LaMarr. Who is the voice of Jon Stewart Green Lantern from the Justice League animated series. He's literally there's a bajillion on one projects. I mean, he was on Adventure Time he was he's been around the block is a voice actor and he plays an ESPN boxing Narrator correspondent type of thing. But yeah, no, this this movie's basic premise. Yeah, has the it's it's Rockem sockem robots, but with a lot of heart. Oh, yeah, by the way, it's been a hot second since we've done one of these

as ever is gonna roll up like we haven't been anywhere.

We've been places Yeah. Emotionally,

emotionally. We've been places physically not really.

Yeah. Well, you you have you've been really busy. Yeah, I

did a couple of vendor things with my art.

Yeah, well, you've done the vendor things. You have your on arcades Penny Arcade team. So you've been doing that occasionally.

I am trained to now to stage manage at our case. So there's a chance that you won't see me in the box office, but you will hear my voice from the booth.

No matter what Bob will always be put in a small box at the arcade. I actually the box office is pretty big

box office was pretty big. And the the stage manager booth the booth is nice and

cozy. Cozy. Is that the word they use in the official training. The thing about

the booth is that you're the only one in there in the box office. You'll have interns and stuff but in the booth, it's just you so it is cozy. It's like a little womb that you live in and you push all the buttons to make the show happen. Good.

You heard that here first, folks. The sound booth at the arcade cavity theater is the womb that makes it go room. Yeah, you've been busy. I've been depressed.

Oh, to be clear. I've been depressed too. But I've just been busy. You've been busy

and depressed. I've been depressed and swimming in it. And so yeah, but we realized hey, you know what, we really liked doing this Bob gave an impassioned Spiel rooting for the show to continue and the show must go on.

They do wish like they do in the sports movies.

Exactly. Bob beat the shit out of me. And then at the tail I was like you couldn't do it. And then I got up and

I was thinking of like high high school college and I wasn't drawing back like

a wire high school or college kids

I was thinking and not of this type of sports movie that we saw but of the ones where a coach is like you know they had us in the first half

of every episode of Ted Lhasa Yeah.

Ted last so doing a really bad job.

I want Ted last Oh in real steel to i That's the cross. We don't need fast and the furious and transformers. We need real steel and Ted Laszlo

just put Ted lasso in any sport.

I don't know you know where I went to last. So we talked about this we're getting very off topic but it's still sports and so I remember how when we saw Avengers endgame for the first time and like it sports now right? I want to read last Oh coaching the fight or like we're refereeing the fight an end game between fantasies army and the Avengers. Just like throw it out. Tickets or whatever they throw it sports players.

Usually flags I think yeah, but they're little cards. Yeah, I mean, sometimes their flags what the

implication of calling card a flag is. So anyways, we're we're back we're gonna do this. We're not doing the video versions anymore. For the time being maybe for some special occasions. Back to Real Steel. What was asking us what was your favorite robot because we got you got a good chunk there like seven or eight robots in this movie. You don't need to remember the name.

I mean, you got to love at Um, he's just good. He's a good good boy. Um, I just aesthetically I really enjoyed the scrap robot that he fought in his I was

gonna say, I think that's my favorite too. He kind of looks like Frankie from Small Soldiers.

Yeah, I love guide is put together from disparate pieces. It's just I love what I'm talking and I realize I'm laying a little joke trail for John and I can see his eyes also realizing that I'm laying a little joke trail, and he follows it. Like a little joke monster. Our relationship

is just, you know, those like cartoons where it's the old like railway push cart things. It's I'm, I'm pushing the cart, and then you're constantly picking up the track behind us and putting it in front of us. Yeah, perfectly. So that's it. It's what we've been doing for five years. Five years, five years, five years. So I want to call them Igor, because it looks kind of like Frankenstein II. But I don't want to call them Frankenstein. Because yeah, that's a really but no, I really I like that fight. And also, that's like the, that's the first time we finally see our main characters kind of working together. And winning is really good. Because the you know, he hasn't been around for that kid's life. And that kid has issues.

Yeah, I feel like, there were a couple things that I wanted to see more of. Okay, which was specifically like, any discussion besides we get one little bit talking about mom near the end. And I would like to see maybe a little bit more of that, because it sounds like they both say mom was really cool. And it would have been cool to get a flashback. Yeah, some sort of flashback anything sprinkled throughout the show that because obviously that was someone that they both loved. And that's their only connection when they meet is this woman. And I would have liked to seen some of that. And the other thing was exploring Adams interest, like

his whole because he's like, so yeah, the kids like, Oh, you're you're different. You're special, you have autonomy, you're self aware. And then they never ever go back to there's a

moment where he's looking in the mirror one point. And yeah, that's the thing is that I wish we could have seen somehow known more about that I'm

under the impression that they ran out of budget very quickly, because the end of this movie, it's it, it feels rushed, a little bit. But it's to get that pay off in the timespan of the movie kind of thing where they're suddenly at a pro level event kind of thing. And I think they probably were running out of time and budget, especially with the effects because a lot of these robots were practical components. And that was one of the things that helped really sell it back then and help it hold up now. And man studios should be taking note because if you combine those practical elements with what you can do with computers now instead of entirely putting it all on the computer and the VFX artists and overworking them. You wouldn't have the issue of people's only big complaint about things being like It looks like a PlayStation two game even though it doesn't really look like the PlayStation two game.

It. Yeah, that is truly seeing things and being like is even if right now I'm seeing a digital recreation. This was made by hand first, which gave the people doing the digital recreation, actual reference and good stuff to work off of.

Well, it also matters so much to work. Yeah, because there wasn't no it wasn't like, Oh, you're looking at a tennis ball to know where they're at kind of thing. Like you're, you're tracking them. And they're the one of the really great components about Adam, the robot that they find a scrap yard is that of his autonomy is that it gives this kind of like a boy and his dog kind of story to max. And so it's really charming. And one of the Charlie very quickly picks up on the fact that like, oh yeah, kid you're putting on a show because he's doing these little dances because the robot has this mirroring chip that lets it mirror, whoever he's he's he's a sparring bot. And it's all that sort of stuff. And they do this whole dance before shows and people eat it up. And I'm like, yeah, that's, that's what makes the show. And I really love that. It's kind of that rocky element of like, you've got the mentor figure who at some point what like, you know, as the mentee, you can still see the elements of them still being the student and their learning by becoming the teacher kind of thing. There's this level of greed that Charlie has from the jump, and that's whittled down in a very natural way, but not an unearned way. Like, it's clear that whatever has happened with his past, has led him down the path of like, okay, well, I'm useless now. And it's kind of something we're getting into with AI. And, you know, it's, it's really interesting to watch some of those elements play out in this movie where it's like, okay, well, you had these athletes that no longer were good enough because they couldn't tear each other limb from limb. And so what are they going to do? Well, okay, some of them are going to become the remote controllers. And this is always an argument when it comes to talking about like infrastructure and changing over to renewable resources like wind, solar water, as opposed to fossil fuels and the such. And it's that like, Okay, well will you do about everyone that doesn't want to train for that, and that gets into that we just need a UBI. But anyways, I really, really appreciate that this movie does not lean on the spectacle for the core of it. The spectacle is really good. But it is not the core of this movie.

Ya know, the relationship between father and son is, is integral and I mean, the movie starts with him already very in debt. And then he pushes his luck with his rodeo bot and has to skedaddle real quick when he finds out that the woman that he had made a child with died.

Yeah, it will. And it was also he was getting out there because he owed Kevin Durant of money. That was the bigger reason it was not the child.

Yeah, no, but that was that was a good motivating factor besides just running.

Yeah. Which by the way, Kevin Durant, Dick in this oh, so good. Yeah, there's this point. So they've gotten really successful. They've kind of got the Nate from Titleist and got on the wonder kid thing, where they're, you know, they're really in they go to the giant Coliseum that's like, where they host these events. It was it was the it was the being arena, Microsoft, which we both cackle out when that came on screen. Oh, 2011 so far away. But Kevin Durant and his crew show up to get their money, so to speak, but they also are, like, we said, we're gonna beat the hell out of us. So they do. And it's a gut wrenching like, because at this point, like they have finally kind of not perfected their relationship, obviously. But they have gotten it to a point where, like, you're really rooting for them. Yeah,

they've started to realize who's strengths and weaknesses and like how they can work together to do a really good job, not necessarily at the relationship, but the robot fighting that they're doing. Yeah, that's like they're starting to get that down really well.

And it's leading to the positive outcomes in their actual relationship. Yeah,

as you can see them like celebrating together and starting to actually build a bond. And then this, this cowboy, Dick shows up,

ya know, it's a rough scene. And I really enjoy that the kid is like he's portrayed so well, he is playing a kid like he's excited about the robot. He's excited about the sports. He has that glimmer in his eye when he learns that his dad was a boxer, the kind of like the little tempers and fights he's having with his dad are very natural. And also just that level of like, they treat like he is not, he's treated like a kid in a movie, but not as just a prop in the movie. Because there's a lot of points for the whole kind of conflict is Charlie and Max kind of arguing over? What's the right idea? Should we do this fight? Should we bet this much money, so on and so forth? And he's given a lot of agency, and really a lot of scenes to show him really be like, No, we're going to, we're going to do the scrapyard fight, take meat, this is called the zoo that we're going to visit like, and he kept pushing us like, Okay, we're gonna go and he's like, no, no, don't bet that, like, they were really complimenting each other really well. And it was showing that he was a fully developed character. And especially in that era, it was so rare that you had kids that were if the if the movie wasn't the, if the kid wasn't the main character in a movie, or if it wasn't a kid centric movie. The kids rarely were not just props in the movie. And this is just a really good example of that kind of dynamic.

Yeah, it's and the fact that like, he has an interest. This is another thing of my, the world that I'm creating around this movie, and specifically the story, the fanfic, I'm reading about this kid in his life with his mother, and her talking about his dad, like he, you're gonna ask, you're like, it's my dad. And he's like, Well, we're about fighting. And like, he has an interest in that, like, noisy boy shows up. And he's like, I watched his fight with whoever it was so many times. And he like, he knows Japanese from playing video games. And he knows what proper is such a good moment. Like, yeah.

Oh, it's all set in 2057 2027. They had high expectations for what the future looks like.

It's, that's the fun thing about any past movie set in the future is they had high expectations. Some of them were dystopian, but there were still high expectations.

To be fair, there's just some of those dystopian expectations aren't entirely off.

Oh, yeah. No, of course. I'm just trying to imagine seven years of stuff.

Seven years of like, the development of the robots. Yeah. Think of VR.

Yeah, no, that's what I was thinking of. Like,

yeah, yeah. And especially where like, I mean, if you look at like, what I We live in we can go in my closet and look at the first set. And Adam was a second generation sparring bot. And he's kind of like clunky, but he's really durable kind of thing. And then you start looking at the newer stuff and it's really cool looking, but it's also really fragile. Yeah, no, I Well, and it's also I think the the fragility there for the main bots. It's kind of be intentional, because people want to see the carnage and you might as well make it not immediate destruction, but like easy destruction.

Yeah, they're not. It's not the idea. This is a marathon fight like we see at the end. And they're like, they go all five rounds.

You know how we knew it was in the future. Their smartphones were transparent. All the little like, like when he's on the truck, and he has little monitor that pops up. It's all just like clear acrylic with LEDs in it.

I love. I love that. That is what we want so badly. That's something we're like, we want the screens when these Iron Man screens and holograms that make sense. We want it so bad. We keep putting it are speculative fiction. What humans humans really, it. It's what humans crave. It's what humans crave. Is having little rooms that pop up like we see Doctor Strange. And we're like, yeah, that but make it tech.

Yeah. Okay, so Evangelii Lily, very charming. In this movie, the kid is enamored with her very quickly. They all have really great chemistry, she must have been shooting something else at the time of this movie, because there's even a part where he calls her to have a conversation. And it doesn't bounce back and forth like other phone calls in the movie. And it's just like she had to been doing something else this time. But like, for the most part, good. Yeah. Very kind of very supporting background. Yeah. there to remind Charlie of his failures,

and the voice of reason of Dude, what are you doing? But also, ya know, it's a fun character also like him just like looking at her and making her melt after a bit of time, which then is Sutton does to him. He's like, Batman.

Oh, it was a combination of Big Daddy, the Adam Sandler movie and Rock Em Sock and robots. Because it's similar permis where it's like, he is the kid for a summer kind of thing. And they start out kind of like, Oh, God, you're a kid. And then it's like, oh, we're best friends. But now you gotta go away because I don't have any legal right to you because I sold you. Which is a part of this movie is that like, the like 78 year old man that's married to his ex sister in law is like a bajillion air and offer was offers no, it's he tries to like reason with him. And Charlie pretty immediately goes $75,000 And he's like, isn't he goes 100,000

Yeah, they work out a deal. My first thought when that scene started, actually was that he was because the way the old guy was talking about a little bit sounded like he was gonna be like, Please don't make me do this and the other. And it didn't go that way. But a little bit of me was going to be like, Oh, Charlie's making his offers like, oh, no, you misunderstand.

Yeah, there's a version of this movie. It's not a good movie at all. It's but it's a version of this movie set entirely from the perspective of his time with the aunt in between. And it's just her using him as a prop as a child because it's clearly like, towards the end she's got a little more emotionality, but towards the beginning of the movie, it's very like, this is my little poodle. I'm gonna put my little bag kind of vibe. But um,

yeah, I enjoyed her yelling at the end man's game.

That was really good, really good fictional sports. It reminded me of like Echo VR, frisbee game of play a lot of it's got that same kind of, I just want that give me the weird future. He like, unrealistic sports. I don't want to play sports. I want to play fake sports that make me feel like a badass. And this is one of those things that would make me feel like a badass.

Yeah, there are so many just wonderful moments. One of them is when Evangeline Lilly and a kid are both watching him in his element as a boxer and they like are both tearing up and like it's just it's really lovely to see someone in their element, especially when it's like Charlie is a person who has not been in his element in a very long time. And it's that moment of seeing someone do something that they love and being like, Oh, this is who you are. This is

you're in that flow state. Yeah. And Rec interesting watching that now as an adult that has that concept more understood, kind of thing and it's like yeah, the it's the he he's such a good boxer character. Like it's just it's a really good like comeback story kind of redemption arc you don't feel like it's undeserved throughout the movie like because the thing is like his whole like, oh, I can get money out of this guy. But like he even frames it as like everybody gets what they want. The kid gets a home. She gets his nephew or nephew. I get them out of my hair and you get to make your wife happy kind of thing. I could pay off my ridiculous debts. Yes. Because I'm have poor impulse control when it comes to gambling. Oh, no. I'm a dad character in a movie. But yeah, yeah. Anything else you want to add about real steal? The only real stealing that was happening was our hearts being stolen by the real man. Hugh Jackman. Such a real man.

I feel like people said that and then we're also like, incredibly betrayed by him singing and doing these.

Yeah, and those people can get fucked. Absolutely. Yeah, there was I saw a really unhinged post on Reddit as a screenshot of somewhere else that's even more unhinged. Have a photo examination of Henry Cavill by like some q&a, where they're like looking at his eyes and like, No man has those kinds of eyes. It's like clearly that's the trans woman like kind of thing. It's like a trans man like this you're just attracted to Henry Cavill but you really need him to be a lady for that to be okay. There's

so many layers of of pathos here like dude, you don't even know what's going on in your own brain and you biological essentialism, stuff ridiculous.

Imagine being that low on the rung of society.

You look at a man or like his eyes or to be a woman, he must have been assigned female at birth because it's impossible for a man to have eyes. That beautiful

man can be attractive to me a real man.

I'm a man and that's a man and men don't

steal his man national treasure but like it's like Nick ages to steal someone's eyes. It's like Ryan Reynolds cheekbones or something.

He's stealing all the bits to build the perfect, man.

Oh, yeah. It's like that one movie. The really bad one Young Frankenstein

watch this movie. It's a good time. It's John constantly yells at me to put my iPad down and actually did.

Yeah. It's when I when I've seen something before. And I know there's a thing coming up. That's just a visual cue. And if you miss it, you're like, yeah, it's gonna like I'm like, okay, like, clearly there's parts like during fights and stuff like yeah, it looks cool, but I'm gonna I even drone out a little bit sometimes.

You also have seen it before. And so there are times I'm looking over you and you're on your phone and I'm like, okay, um, but yeah, mostly like I'm looking back and forth. As I'm drawing something. It's not just me like Doom scrolling at the same time like I am actively drawing

in the beginning of draw Yeah, I was gonna say Where can they find you on the internet?

They can find me at a small frog art on Instagram on Patreon where you can support me and see art early because sometimes make whole bunch of art at once and then I release it day by day.

Did you ever set up like I guess I know you took your website down but isn't the domain still linked domain is

still up that is where you can buy stuff directly. That's my shop at a small frog art.com where I have some plushies readies copies of PIP. Various stickers, and some customs if you have a vision and you want me to bring it to Fuzzy life.

Speaking of bringing things that are fuzzy to life, you're gonna occasionally listen to me and my friends talk about random things and my junk lobster has a hunk about it with junk lobster and friends podcast, which you know, there's not four episodes I have to edit still, if you're still here through this go to www dot the Butch and the bi.com That's AMD not ampersand because the internet does not like ampersands where you can find all of our episodes. Thanks for listening. What do you say? What do you say? You say? No? No you know doing a bit fine. Oh my god, you stick my life stuck in my life. My life by

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