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The Mask (1994)
327 Plays2 years ago
Comic creator Ryan Estrada joins Perry to revisit Jim Carrey's first foray into superhero movies—1994's The Mask! Based on the Dark Horse comic, this movie took a much lighter tone than the source material. All these years later, there's still a lot to like about it and the effects mostly hold up.
Visit Ryan's website to learn more about his comics.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
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Transcript
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Imagining Superhero Powers
00:02:01
Speaker
With these powers, I could be... a superhero! I could fight crime, protect the innocent. Wait for world peace! But first... Hold on to your blood, nuns! It's time for an overhaul!
Guest Introduction: Ryan Estrada
00:02:40
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and I'm welcoming a new guest today, and that is a award-winning comic creator, cartoonist, and that is Ryan Estrada. Ryan, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm ready to talk movies.
00:03:00
Speaker
I'm ready to talk movies too. I'm glad you picked this one. We're going to be talking about 1994's The Mask. We'll talk more about it once you get into that discussion and just why I was kind of excited to talk about this. But before we do that, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, all that fun stuff. Well, as I mentioned, I'm Ryan Estrada. I call myself an artist, author, and adventurer.
00:03:26
Speaker
because I travel around the world making comics. People may know me from Banned Book Club or my upcoming book, Occulted. I do a series called Student Ambassador. A lot more people probably know me from a comic that went viral on the internet called Learn to Read Korean in 15 Minutes. But I make all sorts of comics that you can find at ryanastrada.com. Some are fiction and some are true stories about very dumb things I've done while traveling.
00:03:59
Speaker
Okay, very cool. And how'd you get into comics? What was kind of, were you always an artist from like a young age or did it come later in life? What's kind of your origin story, as we say?
Ryan Estrada's Comic Journey
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I was making comics as a baby. Like before I have memories, my mom's like, you're making comics before you could talk.
00:04:19
Speaker
And then among my first words were like, I'm going to be a professional cartoonist. And I decided to start going pro when I was six. And I started pitching my comics to newspapers. And it took 10 years of bothering my local newspaper before, before finally like, fine, kid, all right, here, you can do a weekly comic. And I've been going since and making graphic novels. And I've gotten to work on comics for Star Trek and
00:04:42
Speaker
Popeye and Garfield and all sorts of like all the things I loved as a kid. So yeah, it's just I've never not made comics I don't know what else I could possibly do Yeah, yeah, I feel you on that so What was your your history with comics in general? What comics did you I assume obviously you're you're a fan of comics as a kid But what kind of stuff were you into as a kid? How did you first get interested in comics? I
00:05:13
Speaker
When I was younger, my first introduction was newspaper strips and reading all the free panel gags and then moving up to comic books. Early on, I was giving it so early that it was mostly a lot of licensed comics, all my favorite cartoon characters now in the funny pages.
00:05:35
Speaker
and, you know, moving up to graphic novels and really just exploring everything I could. Like I was so obsessed with a kid, I'm like, I have to read everything because I know this is what I'm going to do and I need to learn everything that I can. Okay, very cool.
Exploring 'The Mask' Movie Origins
00:05:50
Speaker
And so today we're talking about The Mask, 1994 films based on the Dark Horse comics starring Jim Carrey, first movie starring Cameron Diaz, this was her introduction into movies. What was your history with this movie?
00:06:10
Speaker
I've never read the comic and having read it recently to prepare for this, it's probably good because it's not really a kid's comic. But I went into it because that was the year that everyone was all about Jim Carrey. It was his miracle year where he had three movies that blew up and made $700 million. And then the next year, all three of them had animated Saturday morning cartoon shows.
00:06:40
Speaker
If you grew up in that time, you couldn't not go see a Jim Carrey movie because it was like, this is what we all do as a society now. And for a long time, it was kind of that trivia thing. Like, did you know that The Mask was based on a comic book? But it was a comic that none of the kids I knew had read. So yeah, it wasn't until preparing for this that I finally sat down and tried to figure out what this thing was based on.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, I had a similar experience. I was, I believe I was 11 years old when this movie came out.
Comic vs. Film: 'The Mask'
00:07:13
Speaker
And I knew Jim Carrey back from when he was on In Living Color. I'm not sure if you ever watched that, but that was my introduction to him. And then Ace Ventura came out and I'm like, oh, that's the Fire Marshall Bill. He's in the movies now. And then The Mask and Dumb and Dumber.
00:07:35
Speaker
And yeah, that was kind of like his big trilogy of movies early on that like everybody went and went to see and and I remember at that time.
00:07:48
Speaker
I think even now and definitely at that time too, The Mask was definitely my favorite of it. It was me being a fan of superhero comics and everything. It was very much in the wheelhouse of the stuff I was into and they had the animated series too. I'd only watched a few episodes of that. I'd never seen a whole lot of it, but I wasn't familiar with the comics. It wasn't until years later that I found out there was a comic book and I remember picking up
00:08:12
Speaker
Um, one of the trade paperbacks, I think, and I, I had to have been like maybe 12 or 13 at the time at the comic book store. And, and the clerk, he's like, Oh, you're buying the mask, huh? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, you like the movie, don't you? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, books very different. Okay. And he's like, yeah. He's like, Stanley's not such a nice guy in this. I'm like, okay, all right. We'll give it a try. And, um,
00:08:33
Speaker
And that was my first introduction to the comic. About a year or two ago, I picked up one of the omnibuses, which had like all the early stories of, and the best way to describe it, which was kind of described on, I'm taking this from Wikipedia, is it's basically, it's like, Tex Avery meets the Terminator. It's kind of how it was described. And I think that's a pretty accurate description of it.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, and what I found interesting that I didn't realize until just recently is that by the time the actual issue one of the Mask comic book came out, Stanley Ipkiss was dead. And it was about Lieutenant Callahan, the guy in the movie that's just like the annoying cop falls him around. He was the Mask, well, he was Big Head. It was being called the Mask in the comic. And like Stanley, he was investigating like the serial killer Stanley Ipkiss and found the Mask in evidence.
00:09:27
Speaker
Stanley it kiss actually came from the three shorts that ran as part of an anthology book called mayhem That like that's all there is to Stanley kiss is those three little shorts and it's amazing that like that's what became the franchise of animated series and all this and that's why when I Was trying to figure out which one I want to talk about like the ones that fascinate me even if they're not like my favorite
00:09:54
Speaker
comic book movies, I'm always fascinated by the ones that aren't like, you know, there's, there's always going to be another Marvel movie and like that, that comes from some corporate database. But like when there's some like creator that's made something weird and unique and then they get the call and I'm like, somebody's getting paid today. And that's amazing.
Adaptation Challenges in Comics
00:10:15
Speaker
Like I've, I've had, uh, I've had some of my comics, like no end product has come out.
00:10:23
Speaker
but there have been things that have been in development working. Like when you get that email, especially like the one that was in development for me was like webcomic that like no one read and like I forgot that I made and one of the world's largest companies emailed me and said, are there rights available for this? And I'm like, wait, what? How did you even hear about this? So that's kind of what I imagined like when,
00:10:50
Speaker
when they went to the people that made the mask and just being like, hey, can we turn this into a multimillion dollar kids movie? And they're like, okay, I guess. I'm sure it had to be something. I'm sure it had to feel like that. I'm sure that wasn't something that was on their radar.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, so we're both creators, but obviously you've had more experience on the adaptation front than I have. I unfortunately have not yet gotten one of those emails, although I am definitely waiting for them.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, I gotta imagine that's such a, I've got friends who have gotten those emails though and just gotta imagine that's such a surreal experience, especially when they've told me about it and they're like, so the email comes first and then don't get too excited because then it's just the email. Like you don't know what will happen after that. Something may come of it, but you know, nine times out of 10, they're just like putting feelers out there and they're not, just because they sent you that first email saying they're interested doesn't mean it's actually gonna end up
00:11:56
Speaker
in a movie or a tv show or anything like that yeah i've actually gotten that the email like hundreds of times and like what's funny is a lot of times the like i when it first started happening every time you're like oh my god my life is about to change uh but then eventually you realized that like
00:12:16
Speaker
99 out of 100 of them they say the first email is hey we really love your book we would love to make an adaptation of it tell me are the rights available and I say yes and they say that's great can you send me a free copy so I can read it and I'm like wait how do you love my book if you don't even know what it is and then and then you send it to them and you never hear from them again yeah because I think they just you know they just hear about something and they're not gonna bother like
00:12:43
Speaker
They're not even going to waste their time Googling what something is, or let alone read it until they know if there's money to be made off of it. So they pretend they like it to get a free book. And I'm like, you could just say you haven't read it. That's fine. You don't have to lie. But I did have one that actually made it pretty far along in the process. They paid the license to the option for it. They were developing.
00:13:09
Speaker
Talking to cast and they're getting ready to shoot a pilot and then it all fell apart and that's kind of what interesting about the mask is that what I related to is the changes that happen in adaptation I'm I'm Famously like I don't care if if someone adapts my work and makes it completely different Like what happened with the mask like that's fine with me out number if someone is Has a creative take on what I do and makes it completely different make something amazing. That's great
00:13:39
Speaker
If someone is very loyal to what I make and make something like a just live-action version of what I wrote, that's also great. But if someone makes something terrible and everyone's take away as the comic was better, that's also great for me because my comic still exists.
00:14:01
Speaker
So yeah, my comic still exists. So I always look at it as I would love to see what someone's gonna do with this, but then the one thing that they wanted to do for my comic is turn it into a vehicle for someone else. Like the mask was very much a Jim Carrey vehicle. It was more based on Jim Carrey's comedy than it was the original comic. And they wanted to turn my comic into a vehicle for a young actor. But the problem is my comic was about a young Asian American girl trying to fit in.
00:14:38
Speaker
And I just lightly questioned that decision. And that was enough to have them just completely cancel the show. Yeah, I've softened on that difference of adaptation thing. Because it used to, when I was younger, it definitely used to stick in my cross. Like, oh, this was nothing like the comic. But I've softened on that in a lot of aspects. I mean, Constantine is one of the movies I always point to where
00:14:59
Speaker
And the actor they wanted to turn to a vehicle for was very much not Asian.
00:15:05
Speaker
first time i saw that movie i hated it because it was i was a huge fan of the hellblazer comics nothing like the character um but then a few years ago i watched it again and i'm and i was watching it um like this is actually pretty damn good you know just forgetting the fact that you know it's not at all like the character from the comic books but it's actually a pretty entertaining movie um so yeah i've softened on that a lot myself um and um
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, I get what you're saying. Like some of those choices they make, one of my favorite stories is about the crow when they're trying to adapt it. And James O'Barr, the creator was sitting in this meeting with all these Hollywood types. And one of these executives, he goes like, I've got it. We can turn this into a musical. We can get Michael Jackson to play the lead and it'll be great. And O'Barr thought the guy was joking and he starts laughing.
00:16:00
Speaker
And then everybody in the room just kind of turns to him and looks at him like he's crazy. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, you were serious. So that your story about, you know, the story about this eight, this eight, this girl and what it's like growing up with an Asian identity and they wanted to use it as a vehicle for a non-Asian actor reminded me of that story. But also to your point too, yeah, there's that
00:16:24
Speaker
There's that famous Raymond Chandler quote when he was asked how he feels about Hollywood butchering his movies. And I don't know if this is apocryphal or what, but this is something I've heard many times over the years. He points to the bookshelf and he's like, Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books. The books are still right there on the shelf. The movies are their own thing, but the books still exist. Even if they make a bad movie, it's not gonna go ahead. It's not gonna be destroying the book or anything like that.
00:16:54
Speaker
If the movie is too faithful and it ends up replacing the book, people are like, oh, we don't need to read the book. But the conversation around it is, oh, this is different from the book, this is different from the book, the more people won't be interested in reading the book. So I think, you know, I'm very loosey goosey about how adaptations work. When I watch films, I'm like, you know, same thing. When I was a kid, I would stress out about it. Like, you know, it was tantamount to murder in my mind of the crime of
00:17:22
Speaker
not adapting something right. Now I'm like, it's all, we're all weirdos making art. Like some weirdo made some art and then another weirdo made some other art with a similar idea and they, and they paid them a lot of money to be able to do it. So, Hey, like with mask, I don't know what their contract was. I don't know how dark horse contract works. Like with image, I know it was all creator owned. So one of those becomes a movie. The creator gets all the money. I don't, I'm not sure how it was with dark horses, but if dark horse got a big paycheck or the creators did, but
00:17:51
Speaker
You know it had to have been financially good for them everything that came out of the mask all the you know The movie the sequel the animated like even even if that um even if that sequel
00:18:04
Speaker
didn't make any money, I'm sure that the creators of the mask got a couple of bucks. Yeah, I'm not quite sure about, the mask is, I think, usually with Dark Horse. I think it's usually the same similar creator-owned situation as it is with image, but the mask is kind of a unique situation. Just what, and I'm just going off the Wikipedia entry here, so apologies if I've got any of this wrong, but the base concept was created by Mike Richardson.
00:18:34
Speaker
And he had pitched it to Dark Horse Comics with Mark Badger, and this was a strip called Mask, but it was spelled M-A-S-Q-U-E that ran in early issues of Dark Horse Presents.
00:18:52
Speaker
Badger's strips became much more political, and then Richardson ended the strip to bring the character back the original concept. Chris, wanna- Yeah, those early strips, it's funny, because he looks more like Ghostface from Scream than he does The Mask. I wonder where, if the concept was even there at that point, that he was green, because those are black and white strips, and it just looks like a long skull face. I'm wondering if the green thing came in later,
00:19:21
Speaker
or if that was always in their mind. But yeah, it was more about an assassin that wore a mask to hide his identity, and a mask made him a little more powerful than anything resembling anything that came after that.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, and then Chris Warner was hired after that to revamp the character, bring it closer to Richardson's original drawing of the character, and he kind of created like the definitive look, and then this ended up being, and then John R. Cootie and Doug Monke were hired to do the stories, at first in Mayhem numbers one to four, and they kind of established what the character is. So I'm not sure
00:20:00
Speaker
if Arcudi and Monkey were doing it under a work for hire contract, or if they had any sort of ownership over the character. So I don't know what the deal is, but it's probably a little bit more complex than most of the Dark Horse stuff. Mike Manola, for example, pretty sure he owns Hellboy outright. But yeah, the mask seems like a unique thing.
00:20:24
Speaker
And talking about what was originally intended for this, because Chuck Russell, the director of this, he was known for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors. He also did a remake of The Blob. And so he was known for horror movies. And just also as a side note, he's from Park Ridge, which is literally like five minutes away from the town I grew up in. So I thought that was a nice little thing I just noticed.
00:20:54
Speaker
But I think they intended it as a horror vehicle at first. They were kind of like, okay, we want this to become a new horror franchise.
Jim Carrey's Unique Role in 'The Mask'
00:21:02
Speaker
That's how it was originally pitched to New Line. And based on that original comic, that would make a lot of sense. And then I think it was, Russell actually found the violence to be off-putting. He wanted to be less grim and less adult-oriented and more family-friendly. And I think eventually after that,
00:21:23
Speaker
you know, they toned down the script and everything. And then they eventually got Jim Carrey for the role. And the role, the script was rewritten for Jim Carrey specifically based on his work in In Living Color. So that was kind of like how he came about.
00:21:46
Speaker
And yeah, it was, I mean, let's talk about what your opinions were of it now. What did you think rewatching this movie? I'm not sure how many times you've watched it since, you know, you saw it as a kid. I mean, me, I don't think I've seen this movie in at least 20 years before last night. So this was, it was almost like rediscovering it in a way for me. How about you? Yeah, for me as a kid, it was one of the, you know, back in the day before there was any streaming, anything,
00:22:14
Speaker
your family would own six VHS tapes and those six VHS tapes were the movies you watch for the rest of your life. And so we'd watch it like once a week just because like, it's on TV, let's see which one of our six VHS tapes we're gonna watch. So I knew it like backwards, forwards, every line, every movement. And watching it again, leading up to it, I'm like, I don't remember everything that happens in it. And then once I turn it on, I'm like, my mind is six seconds ahead.
00:22:44
Speaker
watching it after having read the comics it's it was a weird experience seeing exactly where it diverged and like you feel like you can
00:22:53
Speaker
You can feel where that original script was and feel exactly where they diverged from it, because the setup is almost exactly the same as those original comics. You start off in Edge City, and then he finds a mask in a different way. But then he talks about how he wants to be a superhero, but after he gets some revenge first, it's almost the exact same lines. And then there's even some of the same shots.
00:23:20
Speaker
when he gets revenge on the thugs and they do that Tommy, you know, he makes a Tommy gun out of a balloon. That's like shot for shot from the comics, except of course in the comics, he then fills them full of bullet holes and they're bloodied all over the sidewalk instead of running away comically to funny music. And then the exact same scene with the mechanics and the police come in to see them, except instead of the, you know, the car parts comically shoved up the rear ends,
00:23:49
Speaker
they're like shoved through their skull and blood's pouring out. So it feels like they, for at least the first half, it feels like they didn't change the film that much, the script that much at all. And then I think toward the end, they kind of veered a lot more from where they were going originally. But yeah, it feels like they must have separated, like the villain of the movie feels a lot like what
00:24:16
Speaker
Stan Leipkis himself became in the comic when he became like an abusive boyfriend who like for him the mask was more like an addiction and like he just was obsessed with revenge and I feel like you know as a kid I loved it and I still thought it was funny even if some of the earlier Jim Carrey movies can feel kind of grating now
00:24:39
Speaker
Like it still works with the mask because of the tone of the movie and the way it all works. So I still had a lot of fun watching it. And I think that it was a good idea to alter it in that way, especially if you're working with Jim Carrey, especially at that time.
00:24:59
Speaker
I think it's a good idea to turn it into a vehicle for him and I guess it kind of changed the whole franchise that the comics started being based on the movies more than they were the original comics and using designs from the animated series. So I still had a lot of fun watching it.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was surprised because how much I really enjoyed rewatching it. Because sometimes when you go back to those old movies, you watch The Kid, and my family had that exact same situation as yours. It was one of the six VHS tapes we owned, and I've watched this tape incessantly. This was definitely my favorite of the Jim Carrey vehicles out at that time.
00:25:39
Speaker
And I like the other ones, but you're right. Ace Ventura, I had a chance to rewatch that a few years ago and it was painful to watch actually. It was really hard to watch it again. That humor just does not age well. But this surprisingly held up pretty well. And sometimes when you're watching those movies that you loved as a kid,
00:26:01
Speaker
You'll sometimes have that experience where it's just like, oh my God, what the hell was I thinking? How did I find this entertaining? The other reaction is very much in, you get nostalgia brain. You're like, oh my God, this is so awesome. I totally get why I love this. And I definitely had that latter reaction towards it.
00:26:20
Speaker
I mean, there were some minor quibbles I had with it, which we can get to, but you mentioned about the divergence from the comic, and I think you're right. You know, my memory of the comic is a little bit faded because I haven't read it. It's been a few years since I read it, but I do remember those specific scenes you were talking about, especially the auto scene with the auto shop and the violence and all that. But yeah, you're right. The whole idea of
00:26:48
Speaker
Stanley Stanley's transformation and how the mask kind of drives him insane that's not in the movie at all instead you kind of take the dark aspects of Stanley and you separate it into Dorian and the mask in the movie now is instead of Being instead of driving the the wearer insane like it does in the comics with all the power it instead it enhances whatever the
00:27:16
Speaker
whatever's already in the purse to begin with. Kind of like, you know, Erskine said in Captain America about the super soldiers serum, right? You know, it enhances whatever's there. So good becomes better, bad becomes worse. The mask is kind of a similar thing. So like Stanley says in that one scene, if you're a little repressed and a hopeless romantic, then you become this love obsessed wild man. Whereas if you're someone like Dorian, then he says we're all in big trouble.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, Dorian was the part of the movie that bothered me most, but it was the part that bothered me as a kid, too. Like, I think he's just a really boring villain because his thing is he gets the mask, and then, like, he doesn't really do anything with the mask. Like, he still just walks into the club like a normal person, ordering people around, and he still, like, tells his thugs to shoot people. And it's like, don't you have superpowers now? Like, isn't the whole point that you don't need to tell thugs to shoot people? And then, like, sure, bullets bounce off of them.
00:28:15
Speaker
later, but like that was only because he wanted to show off that skill. Like he didn't need to stand there and be shot. Uh, he still let other people do all his work. Like it, and I, as a kid, I always like that the makeup for him is so ugly and not like in a fun way. It just like the hair to begin with makes it look weird, but like it doesn't even look like an exaggeration of him. It just like he turns into like a thick neck to like pointy chin guy for no reason. Like,
00:28:45
Speaker
just make him look like the Basque, I don't know, and have him like, you know, he's not going to be the Tex Avery stuff, but if they were able to give him a new way of moving that like was based on like, you know, character in an action movie as opposed to a comedy, like, it would have been more interesting. But like, it just felt like
00:29:05
Speaker
It just felt like he was wearing a Halloween mask and not transforming into something else. I agree. Yeah, I noticed that. I never noticed that as a kid, but I definitely noticed that this time around because and I also noticed how in this time around, I also noticed how, you know, there's all these things having to do with cartoon characters that Stanley's into. Right. He has the screwball classics on videotape. He he's got, you know, little cartoon, you know,
00:29:34
Speaker
ornaments and furniture and stuff like that. So we're getting this lead in and the reason why he's this Tex Avery inspired character is the mask is because this is the kind of stuff he's entered. This is the kind of stuff that he likes. So that influences his behavior and how he uses the powers.
00:29:52
Speaker
It would have been really interesting if we had seen some of that with Dorian as well, but you're right, we don't. I thought the hair thing was kind of funny, though, just because of that high poof. But otherwise, I think they were trying to take some inspiration for the comics and make him similar to Walter, who's one of the enemies that the mask faces. That's the only thing I can think of as to why they went that route. But otherwise, yeah, that was a definite missed opportunity to do something interesting.
00:30:22
Speaker
with him and show the differences between their characters in how he uses the powers differently. Instead, we only see him using the bullets, and that's it. Yeah, but even the way the mask works, it feels like, you know, when Stanley Ippicus puts on the mask, he becomes a completely different person and doesn't even remember. Like, he's not even sure if that really happened. Whereas Dorian will be in the middle of a conversation, put on the mask, and then continue the conversation.
Character Dynamics in 'The Mask'
00:30:49
Speaker
like as though he's the same person like it just didn't feel like it was consistent in the way the mask worked. That's a good point too. I think you could probably work around that by saying that Stanley's so repressed that it brings out this completely different personality but and that would have been you're not going to have you're not going to do that in like a family friendly movie that's that's intended to be a vehicle for Jim Carrey but
00:31:16
Speaker
That would be an interesting angle to explore from a character psychology point of view. Why does Dorian remember who he is? Why is he not a completely different character when he puts on the mask versus Stanley, who becomes a completely different person? That would be a very interesting idea to explore, but we don't have the time or the interest in the filmmakers to really pursue that angle in this movie.
00:31:44
Speaker
I think what might have been interesting because we see him plotting against the bigger boss the whole time what might have been interesting is if he as a villain were like afraid of that guy and you know in every everything that held him back was because he showed the respect to him and like like bowed down to him and then maybe he was
00:32:07
Speaker
student in the mask on behalf of his larger boss, but then when he puts it on, that's when it puts out the repressed like hatred. And then he becomes this unpowered, you know, maybe then he kills the bigger boss and wants all the power for himself. Like it would be interesting to see him in some way change. And then that's what, you know, makes him more, you know, not to do if he were a villain throughout, but then he became
00:32:34
Speaker
an even bigger, more powerful villain, I think it would have made the end scene more interesting.
00:32:40
Speaker
I think so too. I think, you know, anything that we got that would have expanded on his character more, because as it stands, his character is just very flat. I mean, he's just like out of the, you know, the Goomba stock footage website or something like that. He's just, you know, very one note. I mean, you know, Reggie Cathy, who plays, you know, one of his henchmen who dies, seems to have more to work with than Dorian does in the entire film.
00:33:13
Speaker
But let's talk about Jim Carrey, because one of the things that didn't hold up as well for me in this was, I love him as the mask, but I think as Stan Lee, he, I think this is part of just, you know, this being the time it was made in, him being a young, unexperienced actor at the time, he was doing what people expected out of him.
00:33:36
Speaker
I felt like he was still a little bit too Jim Carrey-ish, even when he was in the Stanley mode. I think it would have been better if he was a little bit like the, you know, like the line about how at the beginning he's like, I think I'm wearing her down. And like those little, he has these little quips and these little Jim Carrey mannerisms that I think detract from the idea of Stanley being this repressed nice guy. Yeah, it just feels like he's performing for the camera, which in a role like Ace Ventura,
00:34:05
Speaker
where that's his whole thing is he's performative and like weirds people out, that works. Even if now watching it, it's a little less fun to watch, but it's still funny. But like with, I think you're right that with the mask, because the whole point is that he becomes that person, it would be more powerful if he allowed the Stanley Ippkiss character to be more oppressed and not performative.
00:34:31
Speaker
and more quiet and then let that come out of him as Big Head, or I don't know if we should call him Big Head or the Mask, but as the green guy. But yeah, all of those little things, it feels like he's in a sketch comedy and reading off a cue card and doing it in the funniest way possible. But for those scenes, it might've been funnier if we could see Jim Carrey being quiet, but the knowledge in our minds that
00:35:00
Speaker
This is not how Jim Carrey is supposed to talk, what I think made it really funny because we know that it's coming. Yeah, I think if he was a little bit more buttoned up as Stanley, I mean, it's been a while since I've seen it, but my memory of Liar Liar, I think before he starts, he has the truth thing go on and he's this more
00:35:25
Speaker
straight-laced type of guy, I think would have worked a lot better if he had done that kind of thing. And I know Jim Carrey's got the chops for it. We've seen him do much more serious acting roles since. But I think at this time, he just wasn't experienced enough. There just wasn't that desire in the part of the producers to see him doing something like that. So it was just kind of like, do the rubber-faced zany routine was kind of their approach to it.
00:35:54
Speaker
And I guess you wanted to show off some of the rubber face stuff before his face was covered in CGI. Yeah, that too. But that actually brings us to talking about him as the mask. And I think we'll just stick to calling him the mask, because that's what he refers to himself in the movie as. And then in the comics, they later got away from the big head thing, and they started calling him the mask as well. That was one of the things they kind of adopted from the movie.
00:36:21
Speaker
They'd said that they had actually saved a lot on special effects budget because of how
00:36:29
Speaker
how limber he is, how exaggerated his expressions are. And so they're able to really utilize that a lot. And he is just relishing that. Like the fake teeth he wears as the mask, those were originally only intended for silent scenes, but Kerry actually taught himself how to speak with them so that he could speak as the mask with those teeth and have them on the entire time.
00:36:55
Speaker
Little things like that were a really good touch, and they really helped. I mean, I love him as the mask. I think it's still a great performance. What did you think of that? Yeah, I love it. It's the role that he was born for, to act like a human cartoon. That's what he loved to do at that time, and all of his movements and everything. And yeah, you just plus it a little bit with some eyeballs popping out or something like that.
00:37:23
Speaker
use CGI to make him jump a little bit higher, but those effects wouldn't work if he wasn't already moving like a cartoon character. There are moments where you see the CGI on the dog or another character and you're like, oh, this is really dodgy 90s CGI. But anytime it's on Jim Carrey, it works. It still stands up because they have to do so little of it to make them look like a cartoon.
00:37:53
Speaker
like when you put a dog wouldn't work like you put those bulgy eyes on a dog and it's gonna it's it's not gonna work so they need to put a full dog head and the seams really show but with Jim Carrey it's just the the little the little bit that you have the kind of like how that's why Jurassic Park still holds up is because they
00:38:14
Speaker
They spent so much money on these amazing animatronics that they can just plus it a little bit with CGI and then put CGI where it works. And that's kind of like Jim Carrey's face became the whole of Jurassic Park where it's like, you know,
00:38:30
Speaker
Let's just plus this a little bit, plus this a little bit, and then. Talking about the CGI, that was something that really kind of surprised me going back to this because, yeah, there are some scenes where it gets a little bit dodgy. I can forgive the dog stuff because that's just something so outrageous that it actually kind of works in that instance, but other stuff, like the first time he puts on the mask and you've got the bad CGI of the mask forming around his face, that was definitely dodgy.
00:39:00
Speaker
But a lot of other CGI, I was very surprised at how well the effects in this movie held up. Jurassic Park is a good comparison because, you know, Jurassic Park, they use that mix of CGI and live action. Terminator 2 also did something similar to that. And they had a lot of that in this movie as well.
CGI vs. Practical Effects
00:39:21
Speaker
You compare it something to Spawn, which came out, you know, in 97, just three years later.
00:39:28
Speaker
And the CGI in that movie is just utter dog shit. But this one, they had the good sense to just use as much CGI as the bare minimum that they had to, and then the rest, they relied on practical effects. And I think the result is something that surprisingly still holds up a lot today. Yeah, there was this very thin window in the very early days of CGI where they're like, we know this doesn't look great,
00:39:58
Speaker
so let's just figure out exactly the bare minimum we can use to make this look good and work really hard on the physical things on the set to make sure it blends in well and they really had to think about how they did it and that lasted for a very short time and those movies still stand up and then right after that they're like well it worked for them let's just do a bunch of CGI and they were not ready for that and they did not you know do the same planning to make things work on set they're like oh well
00:40:27
Speaker
CGI guys will fix all in post and see if you guys are like, yeah, we can't fix this Gonna look great. We're working on video toasters at this point. It's the 90s and Yeah, some of the movies don't work out right even today like, you know movies that came out Four or five years ago. Well, even if the special effects are a lot better because because nowadays directors are that's what they do they're like well, we'll act this all out in the green screen and
00:40:55
Speaker
everybody's in green pajamas and they'll work that out later. Because they don't do that planning and think about it, even a movie made five years ago with $100 million effects, right now you can look in and be like, eh, I don't know about that.
00:41:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, CGI has come a long way and I'm definitely not someone who is anti CGI, but I think there is, there's something to be said for practical effects. There's something to be said for finding that nice balance between the two. And this movie definitely struck that balance. I was really impressed with it. And how much a lot of the humor even surprisingly holds up because like I said, you watch, you go back and you watch Ace Ventura.
00:41:39
Speaker
that humor is rough, but this one, the Joker. And I think it's because it's such a cartoon focused movie that the humor still works as opposed to Ace Ventura, which was just more the standard adult or like, I guess, teed humor at the time would be more accurate. But let's talk about some of the scenes that really kind of stood out to us. What were some of the things that you really enjoyed rewatching this time around?
00:42:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, just the, especially that first time when it becomes the mask and goes to the club, like all of the, like as a kid, like I, you know, I had watched all the Looney Tunes. I knew who Tex Avery was as soon as he like turns into a wolf and whistles. And I'm like, we're not riding hood. I get that. You know, I'm captain America saying, I understand that reference and like the dance and everything. Like that's just like, that's one of the best special effects you can have is just put Jim Carrey on some stairs and be like, do weird stuff with your legs and like,
00:42:37
Speaker
He does that for several minutes before they even do anything, any special effects to his legs. He's just doing weird stuff with his legs and it works.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. The Coco Bongo scene was great. One of my favorites is still the Cuban Pete dance number when he gets all the cops doing it. That scene always jumps out in my memory when I think about this movie. And also, just like that one line at the end when Kellaway's talking about how cops singing and dancing in the street, it's ridiculous. And then his partner is like, the SWAT team got an offer to open in Vegas. That's just one of those lines that always makes me laugh.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, and the Cuban Pete thing is one of the ones where it's funny and then you think about how that actually works. Does he have the power to mind control everyone in the city? That's a power that the bad guy could have done something with.
00:43:34
Speaker
We, I mean, that's, because yeah, like the problem with the mask is that it does basically grant these unlimited powers to whoever wears it. And if you're gonna give the mask to a villain then, and you're not gonna use anything like it, that does create a logic problem. It's like, well, he's got all this power, how come he's not using it? So yeah, that's another, like we talked about before, that was that big issue with Dorian is we don't really see,
00:44:01
Speaker
why it's so terrible for him to have the mask. They never show us that. They tell us it's bad, but they never actually show us what makes him so bad. If anything, it just makes him confident enough to strike back at Nico, the crime boss. Otherwise, it doesn't really do much for him.
Exploring Antagonist Depth
00:44:22
Speaker
Okay, so What other things are good to talk about? Oh, I want to talk about Cameron Diaz because this was her first movie and I remember as a kid watching this movie I was stunned by her. She was like the most gorgeous woman I had seen at that point in my life and it's kind of funny to go back and watch this and see how a lot of her role in this movie is just built on her sex appeal and it wasn't until later when we get to like
00:44:52
Speaker
something about Mary that we find out, oh, she's actually really good at the comedy stuff too. Yeah, and she was really smart in her career. Like I remember hearing an interview over talking about how like, she knew at the beginning, her acting wasn't where she wanted it to be. And so like after this movie blew up, she had a whole bunch of offers for films and she turned them down.
00:45:14
Speaker
because she's like, I need to learn how to act first. So that when I get my next chance, it doesn't like blow up in my face. And I think that's incredibly intelligent to have that like presence of mind and knowledge of yourself to be like, you know, and of course her acting in this movie is great. But, you know, I guess she felt that, um,
00:45:41
Speaker
You know, apparently I can do this one specific thing, but I want to show there's more to me than that. So I'm going to take acting classes and then choose exactly the right roles.
00:45:50
Speaker
and it worked out for her. Definitely, yeah. I didn't know that she had done that, that she had had that presence of mind to think that far ahead, but that was definitely a very smart career move. And yeah, her acting is not by any means bad in this movie. If anything, it's just that the role is, there's not really much of the role to begin with. I mean, no, she's literally just written there to be the love interest and, but she still does manage, like she still brings that like,
00:46:20
Speaker
innocent humorous quality to her performance. Like when she's sitting there in the bank and that whole point of that scene is just about what a knockout she is. And yet she's still got this approachable innocence about her too in that scene. Yeah, like you introduced the character as like
00:46:42
Speaker
in the process of robbing a bank and then that's just kind of like, as you move on, you're just like, yeah, let's just forget about that a bit. Of course, it's because her boyfriend is a mobster and you slowly realize she doesn't really have
00:46:57
Speaker
Choice in this matter, but yeah, it's an it's it's an interesting arc that the script doesn't really do much with but then again because it's a Jim Carrey vehicle, it's not a Vehicle for exploring all of these side characters. It's like we need to set up for Jim Carrey to do plenty bouncy things It's it's that she is great in this movie but it's sad that like her most memorable scene like the dance scene is where she spent half of it as like a CGI blob that's being spun around and thrown up in the air and
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, now, I'm not under it. It's again, it's been a long time since I've read that that first omnibus, and I'm not sure if there was ever any sort of explanation as to the mask's origins, where it comes from or anything like that. But in the movie, they do this whole thing with, you know, it's very strongly suggested that it's actually
00:47:49
Speaker
Loki was banished. Odin had banished Loki, you know, the Norse trickster god into the mask. And so that's kind of why it's like, creates this kind of mischievous persona. What did you think of that explanation? Did you remember that from the comics? Or was that completely from the movie as far as you know? And what did you think of it? Yeah, I think every single incarnation of the mask has had a completely different origin story.
00:48:14
Speaker
Whether it's whichever run of the comics or whatever issue with the comics or the movie or the sequel or in the series It's always different. And yeah, I think that the movie does the good job of giving it the bare minimum Just like you know, it doesn't matter there's a mess that makes you do crazy stuff and they you know Especially the way he's talking with Ben Stiller's character that it's like this is the origin story they give in the in the movie is Jim Carrey's
00:48:43
Speaker
Imagining of what it might be based on what he read in this book And then they immediately cut to the guy wrote the book being like yeah, it doesn't mean any of that What are you talking about? I wrote a book about metaphors and so I think it's funny to like give you just enough that you Be like, okay. It's a magical. I don't know mythology mythological thing and then if you want you completely disregard that because there's nothing official saying it until the sequel and
00:49:08
Speaker
Loki is a character and comes in and I still haven't seen Son of Mask, but the clips I've seen make me not want to. Yeah, I've never seen it either. I've only heard, you know, I only know about it by reputation and it's definitely not a good reputation. So I'm not in any rush to check it out.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, the Ben Stein thing is a good thing to mention, too, because we haven't talked about him yet. That was a nice little addition, seeing him in that. Obviously, everybody knows him as the Bueller-Bueller guy for the most part. I thought it was interesting to see him. I love that line he says at the end when he's trying to...
00:49:48
Speaker
like Stanley is like kind of forcing himself into his office and Dr. Newman just has no time for him and he's just like I I wrote this book about a metaphor and you're taking it way too literally and coming here with this mask and he's just like look and Then and Stanley saying like well, you know, I'm supposed to go meet her tonight Should I go as myself or should I go as the mask and he's like if I tell you will you just go away right now?
00:50:15
Speaker
And the acting, when Jim Carrey is going to put on the mask and show him, and then it doesn't work, and he does that. That's a great thing. That's one of those where he's a special effect. Just have him bob his head back and forth a little bit, make a weird sound. And even the little bit of his face, you can see through the slits in the mask. He's so expressive that you can feel the face through that mask. I can't believe I called Ben Stein, Ben Stiller.
00:50:43
Speaker
It's okay, I make mistakes like that all the time. But also, so another thing about Cameron Diaz is apparently Anna Nicole Smith was originally who they had wanted for the part, but she was busy with Naked Gun 33 as a third.
00:50:57
Speaker
And a costume director had actually recommended Cameron Diaz. And the character was originally written a little bit more like the Amy Yazbek character, the Peggy Brant character, where she seems good, but she's actually bad at the end. But because of Cameron Diaz's, you know,
00:51:17
Speaker
After they cast her, they're just like, that role doesn't work for this actress. So they rewrote the role to make her a genuinely good person who's kind of forced into doing these bad things. And I think that definitely worked. So then that leads to Peggy, the reporter in this movie. What did you think of her in the movie and Amy Yazback's performance? Yeah, I remember as a kid, like, even though that's like,
00:51:47
Speaker
One of the most basic twists, like her turning him in was like the biggest, most shocking twist in the world as a kid. But yeah, I love that character. I love the comedy of like when she's introduced and it's like the second time that a woman goes straight to Stanley and like stresses out his friend. I think that whole run is good and the way they end the character with her turning him in was pretty funny.
00:52:16
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed that. Yeah, apparently, like she just disappears after that scene. And part of the reason for that is because apparently in the and you can read this in the in the comic adaptation of the movie, she was originally supposed to be killed in the script. But they had taken that I'm not sure if they have ever they ever filmed that but they had cut that out of the movie, just because they didn't want to have that kind of
00:52:42
Speaker
they didn't want to have that level, they didn't want to have like that level of seriousness in this movie, which then she ended up being in the animated series that was based on this movie too. Apparently he also, the mask also appears in Space Jam, A New Legacy. So I never saw that movie. But he's got an appearance in there apparently. Yeah, it's just in a crowd scene, there's like a million characters. It's not like, it's,
00:53:10
Speaker
They just get like, it basically looks like that much coath players standing on a basketball court. This dude's like in the background of shots. But yeah, that's a weird shot in Space Jam where it's him next to the nuns from, what is that X-rated movie? It's like a, there's like an X-rated movie about like,
00:53:28
Speaker
like murderous nuns that has been banned in the United States and like hasn't been released in like 40 years and they're like in it next to Jim Carrey in a children's movie about Bugs Bunny. It's very strange. I vaguely know what you're talking about. I can't remember the name of it though, but I've definitely heard of that before. We also had
00:53:51
Speaker
uh peter rygaard as kellaway in this movie one of the weird things is it's funny because he was that role they were trying to get richard gear for it apparently and when i'm watching it last night i kept thinking he looks he keeps reminding me of richard gear but his by his appearance but his voice does not at all and um
00:54:11
Speaker
What did you think of what they did with Kelloway? Because obviously he's a character from the comics. They changed him a lot from the comics, right? In the comics he starts off like he does in the movie trying to hunt down Stan Leipkis in the mask and then eventually he puts on the mask himself and becomes one of the wearers. That's really interesting you say you're supposed to be Richard Gere because now that I'm thinking about it, it feels like one of those things where they're like
00:54:37
Speaker
You know, if you get hired for a role and you find out they wanted someone else and you wonder like, oh man, do they not want me here? And then like, imagine him sitting in the makeup chair, watching them like slowly transform into Richard Gere and like make his hair just look, look just right. And you imagine picturing like, Oh, okay. They really, they really wanted Richard Gere instead of me. And I also imagine him like, I imagine what that guy must've been thinking. Like when he heard they're going to do a sequel.
00:55:05
Speaker
Jim Carrey's not gonna do it. He had to have been like, yes, this is my time. I know how the comics work. I know that my character takes over. And they're like, yeah, it's Jamie Kennedy and a baby. He had to have been like, what? Yeah, that would have been,
00:55:26
Speaker
That's surprising that they went that route with that for the sequel because there's, you know, I can understand if you can't get Jim Carrey back, right? But you don't have to use it with Stanley Ipikis because there's all these different characters from the comics who take it up. And yeah, it would have been more interesting to give it to Mitch Kellaway and see what he does. Or even, you know what? Because in the comics, Stanley's girlfriend, Kathy, picks up, starts wearing the mask for a time.
00:55:53
Speaker
maybe do a sequel with Cameron Diaz and her character putting on the mask instead would have been a lot more interesting. There you go. Yeah, but I think the issue was just that they weren't sure if those characters could do the mask acting in an interesting enough way. And they thought the only person, if it's not going to be Jim Carrey, the only person that can pull off that level of comedy is J.D. Kennedy.
00:56:18
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately. But anyway, those are kind of the main things I wanted to say about the mask. Was there anything else that you wanted to mention that we haven't touched on yet? I think it was just a really fun thing to watch. And it really felt like it was weird because I know that in doing it the way they did with the CG and everything, like it had to be planned so carefully. It wasn't going to do, but it really felt improvisational. Like it felt like
00:56:48
Speaker
one of those movies where it's just, you know, here's a series of setups for a scene and then let Jim Carrey go wild. And I wonder how much of it was scripted and how much of it was like, Oh, he did that on set. I guess we have to figure out how to make that work in CG. Cause like, I remember there was that story of when they're making Flubber and in the middle of a shot, Robin Williams, like pretended to put his face in Flubber.
00:57:11
Speaker
And because of that one little move he did, it took him like an extra million dollars in CGI. Cause like CGI was not advanced enough for like it to wrap up around someone's face. Oh, wow. And so like, I wonder if, um, if any of that happened there, how much of it was like, all right, he did a weird wolf. I'm sure the wolf thing was planned as an example, like, I don't know. He's doing a weird wolf whistle thing. I guess we got to figure out how to remove his head.
00:57:40
Speaker
turn it into a wolf head. And just, yeah, I think that there's so much weird stuff going on. It's fun to watch even if, you know, through the past, the nostalgia glasses. It's a very weird movie. And it seemed like all the weirdness comes from a comic book, but it feels like if you didn't notice it based on a comic book, you'd be like, where
00:58:02
Speaker
Where did any of this even come from? Why would these scenes follow each other? But I think they did a good job of making it a cohesive story and turning it into a vehicle for Jim Carrey, I think gave it that through line that it needed to work. Because without his style of comedy, I think it might have been a much more confusing movie, but
Final Thoughts on 'The Mask'
00:58:26
Speaker
just
00:58:26
Speaker
Once you're like, yeah, it's a bunch of weird stuff that justifies Jim Carrey doing weird faces, then it seems to work well.
00:58:34
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think it was very enjoyable. And that would be interesting to find out if there was anything that Jim Carrey did, because apparently he did a lot of ad-libbing on the set. So I do wonder what kind of things they had that he had done that they were like, oh, crap, now we got to figure out how to do this. So that'd be an interesting thing to look up. I briefly glanced at the trivia on IMDB. I didn't see anything that jumped out at me.
00:59:05
Speaker
Uh, the main thing was just that how they, they were able to use less effects than they had planned because of Jim Carrey's performance. Um, but yeah, it's, it's a fun movie. It holds up surprisingly well. Uh, you know, again, Jim Carrey's performance in the Stanley part of it was just much more standard. Jim Carrey wasn't that impressive. I think they could have done with a little bit more button up.
00:59:28
Speaker
But when he's in the mask mode, it's magic. Again, it's great seeing Cameron Diaz in her first role here. Peter Green is Dorian. Again, it's just there's not much to that character. Like I said, Reggie Kethi as his henchmen has more to do than in just his short appearance than Peter Green has in the entire movie.
00:59:53
Speaker
But yeah, this holds up surprisingly well. I would definitely recommend it. And the last thing I want to talk about before we close up is, did you ever watch the animated series that followed this up? Yeah, I watched it on Saturday morning as a kid. It was much, much sillier. And it felt like each episode didn't, some of the episodes didn't really fit with the others. Like some were more about lore and some were just about like,
01:00:18
Speaker
I don't know, here's a weird thing we want to draw. Let's make an excuse to put into this episode. The other thing that fascinated me as a kid about the cartoon is that, like I said, that was the year that there was a Mask animated show, a Dumb and Dumber animated show, and an Ace Ventura animated show. And I forget which was which, but some of them paid likeness rights to Jim Carrey and some of them didn't.
01:00:42
Speaker
And I think the mask is the one that looks at least like him and they didn't pay for it, or they did pay for it. And the ones that, I don't know, it was a very weird little system that they had there. But yeah, it wasn't a great show, but it's weird that the comics ended up becoming the mask, the animated series part two after that.
01:01:04
Speaker
There's also apparently a crossover between the Mask and the Ace Ventura animated series. Now, my understanding of it, I watched a few episodes way back in the day, but I never watched it regularly. Just from what I've read about it is that it was definitely better than the other ones, than Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber. And it had some pretty good
01:01:29
Speaker
parodies in it as well of comics and other animated shows. So it might be worth checking out again. Although one of the things I thought was interesting is they bring back the Peggy character for the animated series. And the show is kind of a continuation of the movie. They mentioned the fact that she had betrayed him.
01:01:51
Speaker
It's kind of hinted that he kept the mask after like either he had lied when he said he threw it away or that Milo had brought it and had kept it or apparently it's not that clear, but
01:02:04
Speaker
Callaway is back too, but they didn't bring back Tina, and she's never mentioned at all in the series. I mean, I guess they just wanted to remove any potential love interest in there and just make it completely, and just maybe have that will they, won't they thing, or have some sort of tension between him and Peggy, but. So yeah, interesting. I'd be interested in checking it out and seeing how it holds up now.
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I wonder when there's weirdly specific things that one character is never mentioned, it's often there's some incredibly weird rights situation where like everything, you know, like if you look at the history of the tick, whereas like, is it Ben Edlin that made the tick? You know, he ran every single version of the tick in every TV show, but like because he worked with these people, they own the rights to these characters that he created.
01:03:00
Speaker
So like, even though he's doing a follow-up of his own show, like that's why the Fladermouth became Batman well, because he didn't own the rights of his own character. So I wonder if there was some weird stuff like that. I'm always fascinated by weird stories of adaptation, how all that works. One of my favorites, it's not a comic. But have you ever heard about the adaptation process of the book, Cuba Mine? No, I don't believe so.
01:03:26
Speaker
It was just this woman that wrote an autobiographical book about her time growing up in Cuba during the revolution and it was doing very well that they someone wanted to make a movie they paid for the rights to make a movie and She actually worked with someone to write a script and they were developing Developing it for a while and then they came back to her and said hey, so the movie is gonna shoot soon She's like, that's great. They're like we've made some changes and She's like, what were the changes? They're like, well, it's not called Cuba mine anymore
01:03:56
Speaker
It's called Dirty Dancing 2 Havana Nights. And there's not a single word of your script in it. And she's like, what does it have to do with me? She's like, well, it takes place in Cuba. And there's someone that dances. But everything else is different. Anyway, we're going to make this movie by. And now that's the adaptation of her book. It has nothing to do with her. And she can never make a movie out of her book because technically someone already did. That is so ridiculous. That is so ridiculous.
01:04:24
Speaker
I mean, I could go off on copyright situations and all that, but we're not going to get too much into that now. But instead, I think in summary, this movie, it did hold up a lot better than I expected it to.
Recommendations for Rewatching
01:04:40
Speaker
When I put this on the list of stuff to show to potential guests,
01:04:47
Speaker
I had picked it up, I'd found it somewhere very cheap, picked it up and I had had it on DVD and just haven't broken it out since I bought it. And so I've been wondering, I wonder if anyone's gonna pick this to watch and whether or not it will hold up.
01:05:03
Speaker
Like how good does this compare to my childhood memory? So I'm glad you picked this and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had rewatching it. A lot of it still works. So I would definitely recommend to anyone if you either haven't seen this movie or if you haven't seen it in a while, you know, pick it up. It's worth another viewing. Yeah, I've been a little scared to rewatch it. Like I rewatched some of the early Jim Carrey movies with my wife that like the ones that weren't, I thought weren't as goofy.
01:05:33
Speaker
Like we watched Liar Liar and it was a lot more of like mugging than I remembered. And like some of the, just felt a little cringy, but it didn't feel cringy in the mask, I think because they set up that world. And I enjoyed it. I picked it, like I said, because I want to talk about something weird. I want to talk about something where we could get into like the interesting aspects of adaptation and what they change. And I had a lot of fun watching it again.
01:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show. So why don't you tell people again where they can find you? Well, if you want to see my comics, go to ryanastrata.com. And pretty much everything I've ever made is there. There's tons of comics you can read for free. And it'll tell you about all of my books that are in bookstores. I wanted to mention that on May 2, I have a new book coming out called The Cultid.
01:06:29
Speaker
And that is the true story of how my friend grew up in a cult just on the road from Heaven's Gate that taught her that Star Trek was real and Gandhi was a space alien. And it wasn't until she saw in the news about Heaven's Gate that she even knew what a cult was and then had to sneak into an abandoned library to learn the truth about the world because she was not allowed to go to school. She was not allowed to read anything about, they said, you can't learn about our world because it's ending.
01:06:55
Speaker
So you learn about the next one. So she had to escape to learn science that wasn't science fiction. And it's a whole true story about how she got out of it. So I hope people check that on May 2nd. It's called The Cultid. And anything else you can find at rhinestrata.com. Oh, wow. So that sounds really interesting. So yeah, we record these episodes way in advance. So by the time everybody is listening to this, that should already be out. So definitely go check that out. Check out his website.
01:07:22
Speaker
As for us, our website is SuperheroCinephiles.com, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. And remember, if you subscribe to the Patreon for as little as a dollar a month, you get these episodes a week in advance with no ads. Plus, you also get access to the Superhero Cinephiles book club where
01:07:39
Speaker
We have different people come on and we talk about comics and graphic novels about once a month or so. Sometimes less frequently as I get, because I'm very busy unfortunately, but we try to get them off as often as possible. Ryan, thanks again for coming on and thank you everybody else for listening and we will talk to you next time.
01:08:01
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:08:21
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comics but don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this, for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemaPod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:09:04
Speaker
Thank you for listening, and as always, good night, good evening, God bless.