Princess Mononoke & Sofia the First

Princess Mononoke

Reegs: to Bad Dads Film Review, the podcast where every opinion is as questionable as Prince Andrew's travel itinerary. In the week that Donald Trump unironically declared himself king of a people whose country was built on the fundamental rejection of monarchical absolutism, what better time is there for Princess week.

So pull up your royal chamber pot and get comfortable as we kick things off with a chat about the top five palaces. A conversation that's more disturbing than finding out what's really happened to Snow White in the Seven Dwarfs cottage. Our review wee this week is Hayao Miyazaki's epic, nuanced, and thought provoking story about environmentalism and humanity's relationship with nature Princess Mononoke, in which studio

Ghibli

Ghibli?

Sidey: think jib, but

Reegs: Yes, both are okay, apparently. Proves that for every princess with a glass slipper, there's one with wolf blood dripping from their chin. And because we clearly hate ourselves, we're also reviewing Sophia the First, a Disney animated series about a little girl who becomes a princess overnight.

And in this week's very special episode, Sophia learns about inheritance tax and the horrors of medieval dentistry. Probably. Fittingly, Jersey, where we're broadcasting from, has its own relationship with the monarchy and has not one, but two castles. One, a coastal fortress, which was a long time ago, the seat of local power.

And the second, located on a tidal island. It was the home of Charles II, who, in recognition for help to given to him during his exile in the 1640s, gave the then bailiff of Jersey a large grant of land in the American colonies, which he promptly named Jersey. Uh, But Elizabeth Castle isn't the only ancient relic for which the island is known.

We also have Dan. He's so old he was Mary Antoinette's cake consultant, and his Ancestry. com profile just shows a picture of some algae.

Please also put your hands together and welcome gorgeous Chris. He could be the Crown, crown prince of any kingdom, but thinks a royal flush is what happens when you clean the palace bathroom.

And taking the servant's entrance this week, it's the man so enthused by the topic he spent the last seven days polishing his scepter, which explains the calluses on his hands and why he can't look the museum curator in the eye anymore. SIDEY.

Sidey: I

do have calluses actually.

Working out, so buff? Yeah.

Reegs: Is it? From, is it? Oh, nice. And then there's me being slow.

Sidey: Part of me did wonder if Dan was going to do it again.

Reegs: I know.

Sidey: Anyway, do you want, because we're going to talk about palaces, we did it earlier, but the timing was out. Do you want the definition of like what the difference is between a castle? And a palace for the,

Reegs: to invalidate a great amount of my

Sidey: for the avoidance of doubts.

I should have had a really, really

Reegs: well, a castle was to do with this architectural features. It had battlements and Yeah. Walls and towers. And a palace was the official resident of a,

Cris: monarch or

Sidey: of about the purpose really. Palace is primarily a residence for royalty or high ranking nobility like kings, queens or emperors, often associated with luxury and elegance. Whereas a castle on the other hand was primarily built for defense and protection. Castles were fortresses where nobility or royalty could live, but their main function is

Reegs: So Yeah.

So are we, are we gonna allow castles or is that?

Sidey: Because they can live there.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: So I think they're both in. But just in case anyone was wondering. Who watched what?

Dan: I, I watched a bit of Napoleon.

Sidey: Oh Joaquin.

Dan: Yeah,

Cris: Joaquin Phoenix. Oh, what did you think of that? Because I watched that and I wasn't impressed.

Dan: Well, it was late when I put it on and it, it wasn't that it was, I wasn't enjoying it when I turned it off. I was just falling asleep, . But it was, I quite enjoyed it. I dunno, it got up to about Egypt where I'd done it

Cris: oh no. If you watch the whole, I dunno, for me watching the whole thing, it was a bit slow.

Dan: Right. Okay. But it was, you know, it's a different take on it. Obviously it's, it's not. him just doing the battles and everything. It's this love affair with his wife this complex kind of relationship that they're, they're having. So I was, I was quite interested in it. And the other thing I've been watching, which is really funny modern family.

Have you seen that?

Sidey: Oh, well it ties into this week

Dan: week then. It's, it's so, Nelly put me onto it. I've

Sidey: I have seen loads of it. Yeah.

Reegs: how does it tie onto this?

Sidey: The. The middle child, the girl with big boobs, is Sophia the First.

Reegs: All right

Dan: right,

Sidey: Ariel Winter, I

Reegs: that as well that was good

Dan: Yeah, I've only just, sort of, new to it.

So, it was

Reegs: Phil is a funny character and

Cris: is that the one with Sofia Vergara and Ted, Ted, Al Bundy, not Ted, not Ted Bundy. No, no.

Dan: Al

Cris: Yeah. different different ones there.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: Yeah. So I've been watching that mainly, but I'd been in Lisbon in

Cris: Lisbon

Dan: Lisbon for

Sidey: How'd you find the bread over there?

Dan: Loved it, brought it back. Yeah, if you've got, if you've got really just a small bag, that's enough for a loaf,

for a loaf and, and bring that back.

Lovely wine great food. Really lovely city, easy to get around. There's metros everywhere, but we just walked everywhere. We just

Cris: metros, there's trams, there's everything. But yeah, you walk

Dan: We walked everywhere. But I'd recommend it. If you get a chance to go, and you haven't been, or even if you have, go back.

Cris: Yeah, it's really nice.

I

I didn't watch anything, to be honest. I watched maybe a couple of episodes of Vikings, but it's starting to get boring now. And yeah, that's it. Not much, really.

Reegs: Just the homework. A lot of gladiators as well. That's what I've been sting the

Sidey: theme song.

Reegs: The kids like it. We like it. Put it on and just for, you know, half an hour or whatever,

Sidey: hated the original iteration of it, so I don't think I'd be,

Reegs: I quite liked it as a kid, and,

Dan: liked her You

Reegs: And then my kids really like it now, and they like the guy, there's one on there called Legend.

Sidey: is above.

Reegs: Oh man, they're all amazing, like, look at,

Sidey: But I remember Wolf, he just, sort of like an old

Reegs: they've got two guys who are, like, a bit of a dick, like Wolf was, and they're maybe even better than being a dick.

This legend is, like, posing in, like, like, one of the games they kicked it off and he started doing press ups on the side and quite funny. So yeah, a lot of gladiators.

Sidey: you strong recommend

Reegs: Yeah,

I would.

Cris: I

Reegs: Yeah, and I've been singing the theme tune all, all night,

Cris: yeah, I am not, I, I, for whatever reason, I thought it's something to do with actually like Roman gladiators, but now I realize what you're talking about. Okay.

Sidey: I watched Moana 2 last night.

Reegs: How was that?

Sidey: Not good. No? No, I didn't really get it. Let me understand.

Cris: Well, you loved the first

one.

Sidey: loved the first one, yeah. It's probably okay, but only okay. Did you No.

No.

I hadn't the song's not good.

Cris: Did

you watch it at the cinema?

Dan: cinema?

Sidey: No home

Yeah, it was just pretty average. I mean I understand what the plot was about. It's a moderate

Reegs: recommend. It didn't really

Sidey: didn't really make any sense just people in boats

Cris: Nice. I have actually watched something, but it was, it's fairly long. And it was a French movie. It was the count of Monte Cristo, the new 2024 or 2025 version of obviously the Alexander book.

And this is done slightly different. I really love the book and I I've read it numerous times. It's a slightly twist to the story, but it's the revenge story of Edmond Dantes, which is still very good. But it could have been done better. And I think for they pumped a lot of money into it. There's a lot of good French actors in it.

And pretty much whoever's an actor, a good actor in France is in it, except for Vincent Cassell, but I thought they could have done it into a mini series like they did with Shogun. Where it probably could have been better with six to eight episodes and included a bit more characters included a bit more of how the book was, because I really like Shogun with the way they stuck to the book and they kind of kept it pretty much how the book told it in eight episodes or whatever, and I wish they would have done that, but it was, it was good and it's very long as well.

It's two and a half hours. I

Dan: It's a film, yeah,

Cris: film. Yeah, it's a film. It was, it was good. I used Kara's car to pay for it on Amazon though.

Reegs: I

Dan: I've

Sidey: I've twice sat

down to watch the start of season three of Yellow Jackets, and think I've got 10 minutes in.

First time I didn't get to the credits, I fell

Dan: And the second

Sidey: And the second time I got about ten minutes and fell asleep.

So, that's not a reflection on the quality of the program. Just tired.

Yeah.

Dan: Working too hard, my friend.

Sidey: I don't know about that. Staying up too

Cris: gonna stay up too

Sidey: Right, shall we talk about palaces?

Reegs: What were there, was there anything from last week? Or have we done it, what was

Sidey: There was no extra

Reegs: Oh.

Cris: I think we had them all on here last week,

Sidey: Yeah, we need to hear from Pete, really. Pete's injured, though, so he's, you know, he's,

Reegs: You weren't here. What was our top five? It was top five clones. You got a favorite

Dan: Favorite clone, I'll come back to you. I'll have to

Cris: Oh, you also dodged a bullet last week though.

Dan: With the movie

Cris: infinity

Reegs: have loved it.

Cris: dodged a

Reegs: You should watch Strong

Dan: that was a horror film, wasn't it?

Sidey: It's not that horrific. It's not that

Cris: horrific. It's more just boring.

Reegs: I can't

Sidey: one take on It

Dan: good,

Cris: and long. But, yeah.

It was good though.

Dan: long film. Right,

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: The audience was split, put it that

Dan: Okay. Okay.

Sidey: come back to us with a clone. We're going to talk about palaces in the meantime.

Reegs: Well, I was gonna talk about you being a clone.

you're a twin.

That's a genetic clone, isn't

Dan: I guess so. Yeah. But I, I wouldn't say I was one of my favorites.

Reegs: It's not in your top

Dan: no, not in my top five. I'll, I'll, I'll think of a better clone. Clone me.

Reegs: you still gotta think of palaces yet.

Sidey: well, Rob? Yes, you're definitely

allowed. I hope so,

Reegs: so, because half my list is

Sidey: you're allowed castles,

Cris: Okay, well, I'm gonna put the first one in, which is Bran Castle in Romania, which is called Dracula's Castle for all you foreigners. And we, we are going to go to Romania in

A

few

Reegs: is, have we got a chance to go to

Cris: We're gonna go past it, but

Reegs: on the way up to

Cris: yeah, on the way to Cluj, but it's, it's a bit of a, you kind of have to go around, out of your way to get there

Reegs: Oh. Would the train take us there?

Cris: No, no, and well you have to get out of the train to go to the castle, it doesn't go through the castle, the train.

Sidey: But

see, I get that right. But then people say that Whitby, the castle there is, is Dracula,

Dan: really. Whitby Bay?

Reegs: it had Dracula

Sidey: in it. Yeah.

Reegs: Not the real

Sidey: Dracula,

Cris: Well, the

look, I don't claim to

to be Dracula

or to know him, but the story goes that he is from Transylvania and this actual castle is in Transylvania because Transylvania is a region of Romania.

So, I dunno, the, the one thing I would say about this castle is the fact that they, my people sold. every artifact and item in there, replace it with fake ones. And if you're a foreigner, you pay double the money. If you're a local, you don't pay the same. So that's kind of how it works. It's still nice.

And it can be quite eerie. And especially on a dark winter's day, when it gets really foggy, quite misty and quite,

Sidey: Right,

Cris: it looks quite interesting, but personally it's nice to go and see, but you're not. It's not a, a big place. So

Dan: we hire it out and have a party?

Cris: probably if you pay enough money, you definitely can, but it's gonna be really creepy.

Reegs: have they got there? Is there, 'cause I mean, have they really

Cris: spears and shit, and s

Or some torture instrument? No, because this was the thing. Vdi imp paler. He just impaled people. He didn't really,

Reegs: he was just, yeah, that's what he did. That's why

Cris: he, he, he just was, I dunno, very

Sidey: So that was his name and that's what he did.

Cris: Yeah.

Sidey: Well, what are the odds?

Reegs: I know.

Cris: Yeah. Well, in Romanian, his actual name was Vlad Dracul, which Dracul means the devil.

So

Dracu, Dracula, that's kind of the way.

Sidey: stand a chance.

Cris: Well, he wasn't a very nice guy, by all accounts.

Reegs: But he couldn't turn into a bat,

Sidey: I don't

Cris: don't think

Sidey: in terms of, like, film or TV versions of him, what are you going to put in?

Cris: as a Count Dracula?

I don't know.

Sidey: Street one?

Cris: I've

never seen that, but

Sidey: I love the count.

Dan: One,

Cris: No, Hotel Transylvania has to be there. That's the best. Yeah. That's the best version.

Sidey: One, two, or three,

The trilogy. Yeah. Okay. Nice.

Cris: Holy Trinity.

Sidey: Daniel.

Cris: Daniel.

Dan: I've not actually seen this film but it is one that I've looked at a few times. It's called Scoop.

Cris: yeah. I've seen it.

Dan: You have? Yeah, the Prince Andrew

Cris: yeah. Randy Andy. I've seen it recently.

Dan: Gillian Anderson, it's got Billy Piper, who used to be married to Chris Evans. And it's that drama size, er Newsnight interview in 2019 where, and I saw the

Reegs: where he

Dan: where Princess Andrew doesn't sweat It's just so fucking bizarre,

Reegs: can't sweat.

Dan: It was like, no, no, I couldn't have been there because I, I don't

Sidey: was that his thing about Pizza

Dan: yeah,

Reegs: of express in working or something, wasn't he?

Dan: It was just awful cringy

Sidey: He thought that this interview was going to

Reegs: It was going to make

Sidey: clear him, you know, and be a total PR dream.

and

Dan: I think it started because I've seen a bit of the trailers about He's walking through Central Park with Epstein. Nine years before

Cris: Yes, yeah. That's the only picture they have

Dan: and it's the only picture they've got and some Paparazzi is is heard it and that fucking always walking fruit.

So he's managed to get a snap of them and Obviously, he's denied it he denies it and then Wait a minute, you've got this fucking photo of you from nine years ago and they've kept it. it was just so cringy, so horrible. He doesn't swear. He doesn't do any of this. And as you say, he's, he's, well, he's at the palace,

Sidey: think at the end. He, he goes, I think that went quite

Reegs: that went dunno,

I dunno,

Dan: reading the room here, Ang, but yeah, that, that would be one to recommend.

Cris: I've

seen that recently, that movie. It's actually, I quite enjoyed it. It was okay. It was good. And not too long. So it was good.

Reegs: the

Sidey: Okay,

Dan: not long.

Sidey: past the length criteria. Yeah.

Cris: Yeah.

Reegs: What about the Palace of the Goblin King?

From Bowie. Your favourite.

Dan: Toby's mine now, Sarah!

Reegs: mine now, Sarah! The thing he lives in. I love that movie. It's been a long time since I saw it, but I was just thinking about it today. Do you remember how ri It was a Jim Henson the

Sidey: of it

was?

Reegs: Like, you had that, like, hideous gnome guy and the big hoggle, yeah.

And you had the big lumbering guy and the It's like a fox that rode a dog.

Sidey: The cracked fox.

Dan: Soundtrack for the ages as well.

Reegs: Yeah. So the Palace of the Goblin King.

Sidey: Cool. What about a pair of ice palaces? There's one in Die Another Day. Yeah. James Bond. Oh, we could talk about James Bond, because, you see, the broccoli, Barbara Broccoli and her brother in law have fucked it off to Amazon. They drove

Reegs: they drove a truck full of money to

Sidey: their house. Honestly,

Dan: you're gonna get a money based spin off, and I

Sidey: long. Oh okay,

Dan: getting old and they didn't want to Well, Amazon already

Sidey: but I mean they could have maybe

Reegs: were the Yeah, but

Dan: yeah. It was either they

had

Sidey: who was going to keep

Reegs: a very

Sidey: engine running.

Reegs: There's another franchise just completely creatively bankrupt probably before it's even started like you say all this are they really gonna do spin offs? Yeah, as soon as you've said that it makes a horrible sense that I don't want to

Sidey: want to see. So

Palace is in Die Another Day. I think it gets Blown up and the guy gets all shards in him.

Reegs: It's

Sidey: brosnan era. It's not a great

Reegs: Yeah, but he's good, the ginger guy who is also Korean.

Sidey: Yeah and there's also the fortress of solitude which is a kind of ice palace in superman And I think we're going to get to see that in the new superman. Yeah which I am sort of excited about So we'll see

Cris: Okay, I've got a real place and it's a real palace in England, Blenheim Palace? Blenheim, yeah, whatever, that, that place. And he, he is, this guy, Palace, he's in James Bond, Spectre.

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: He is in Napoleon, that you've just mentioned.

Sidey: Dynamite! Napoleon

Cris: no, definitely not.

Reegs: It's

the prequel to the Napoleon

Cris: Napoleon Dynamite. Yes, yeah, it's his grandfather. Right. He's Napoleon, but without the dynamite. And Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, and there's a couple more films.

Reegs: Harry Potter, a couple of

Cris: It was the

Reegs: It was the exterior for the Ministry of Magic.

Chris, if you were, you know.

Sidey: that way inclined.

Cris: I'm not,

Sidey: never

Cris: seen Harry

Reegs: Harry Potter

Cris: only put these movies that I've actually seen because I know there's a few others. There's also an Indiana Jones that was filmed there and some other stuff,

Sidey: Oh, what? There's a university.

Probably.

Cris: Indiana Jones, one of them, with Harrison Ford.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah. I know who he is,

Reegs: might be, yeah.

Cris: Yeah,

Yeah,

Reegs: Yeah, no, what, with Mutt, and then the motorbike, where they drive. Yeah, it might be, actually. Or

Sidey: Or just where he is the professor.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Oh, that's where he is the professor,

Cris: So, that kind of

Sidey: yeah, I'm into it.

Cris: Okay.

Reegs: Daniel?

Dan: I'm

going to mention Napoleon again, because yeah, third time lucky with this one.

It starts with Marie Antoinette being beheaded

we and she

She, She's

kind of taken out the palace of Versailles.

Sidey: Yeah, I've been there.

Cris: been there. I cycled around the gardens really good.

Dan: well, she was there in, in 1793, but and she,

Cris: No more head. it's

Dan: it's starts this way where you just think.

Sidey: Oh, she's having a

Dan: French don't give a fuck like, you know, there you go off with her head.

That's it not having this drag her out Beat the shit out of everybody and then this one she can walk through and she she tries to keep that regal Appearance as she's going to the guillotine They put their head down, no nonsense, chops it off, they hold it up and they show around and Napoleon is in the crowd and he's just kind of looking and thinking, and it just made me laugh because I thought, yeah, well.

You know, all the shit that's going on these days with people not liking their you know, the people they voted in or, or their monarchy or the people that are running power and everything. They wouldn't put up

Sidey: one's got any balls anymore have they Dan,

Dan: No, they've not got any more. That's it.

Cris: That's

Dan: So there you go. That was a good one.

Cris: Yep.

Reegs: A couple of Quick Star Wars palaces for you.

Got Jabbers Palace

Sidey: great a palace though, it's kind of grubby.

Reegs: Yeah. And it had that's where Max Rebo and the Jizz way Liz were

Sidey: Yeah, and Salacious Crumb.

Reegs: and salacious crumb. Yeah.

Sidey: And a massive beast in the dungeons. The Rancor.

Reegs: So it wasn't all bad down there. That was Jabber's Palace.

And then you had the, the Feed Royal Palace on Nabu, which featured heavily in the

Sidey: With Princess Amidala. Like, all that sort of stilted kind of speech that she had, it was really weird.

Reegs: but then it turned out George Lucas was right. It is going to be all about

Sidey: FC. Yes! It's going to just be a massive

Reegs: So, yeah. What about Crystal Palace, FC?

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: Yeah. Selhurst Park.

Reegs: Selhurst Park. What about Selhurst

Cris: Park?

Well, that's the home of Crystal Palace.

Reegs: Yeah, I couldn't find any films that were set there, I looked for that. But I did see, they're mentioned obviously in things like Ted Lasso, but they were in the Damned United that I know Dan's mentioned many times on the pod.

And also in Escape to Victory Johnny Byrne, Budgie Byrne. Played for Palace in the 60s and 70s, he was the football consultant on the film helped choreograph the football, even had a small cameo in the

Sidey: Word up

Reegs: Palace.

Sidey: There's also a song by Richard Ashcroft called the crystal palace

Reegs: Palace.

Nice.

Dan: Are they pointless like arsenal or

Reegs: wondered how long it was

Dan: There we go, just a little dig just a little

Sidey: How about some video game Castles.

Bowser's Castle from Mario. I've been playing quite a lot of Mario Odyssey and Peach, Princess, Toaster, whatever the She's got a castle as well and then again, I really like Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom and there's it's called Hyrule Castle. Looks great. Great level, great like game design and that.

Yeah. Strong, strong recommend for that.

Cris: Okay, I had in mind the castle from Disney where they show the castle at

Sidey: Cinderella's castle, isn't it?

Cris: Is it? Is that what it is? The

Sidey: As in the one that comes up as the logo.

Cris: The logo at the beginning of every movie, is that Cinderella's castle? Yes. Well, I hope it burns down. But I just thought I'll give it a mention just because I hate Disney.

Reegs: There's a lot of Disney castles, got a big list, you've got Beauty and the Beast, you've got King Triton's Palace

Sidey: You're a big fan of Beauty and the Beast, aren't you?

Reegs: Yeah,

Cris: Oh, I love it.

Reegs: one. Elsa's Ice Palace and Arendelle Castle from that one, and Rapunzel's Tower, that's more a semi isolated structure.

Cris: Is that Shrek?

Reegs: Well no, it's Rapunzel, tangled and all that malarkey, but

Cris: But Ponzel is in Shrek as well.

No,

Sidey: She is, yeah, she's in a cameo.

Reegs: Is she?

Sidey: There was, is someone who works at your cafe.

Who we outed as a massive racist.

Cris: I know, yeah,

Reegs: How?

Sidey: Because she loves Rapunzel. And they've recast her as like an Indian woman.

And we're like, oh right, you just hate foreigners. She's like, no, no, no, don't

Cris: She's only young, bless her as well, it's a young girl, but, yeah. She's like, oh, I can't believe they put this Indian girl in Rapunzel. She's got magic in her blonde hair, it's like she's got the sun in her hair.

How is this Indian girl gonna have the sun in her hair if she's got black hair?

Okay.

Sidey: Okay, racist.

Cris: Yeah. I do have, I did have the Chateau of Versailles, but Castle. It's a castle in Croatia in Dalmatia to be more specific. That's where

Sidey: Where the dogs come from.

Cris: Dalmatians come from there. Yes. It's in a movie called the gray man.

And I have watched it a few times now.

Sidey: good, yeah. Yeah, it's really good.

Dan: one with

Reegs: yet.

Cris: It's Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans and

Sidey: Ana de Armas.

Cris: Ana de Armas and the old guy, older

Dan: I think I started to watch it

Sidey: Bob.

Cris: Billy Bob, yeah, Billy Bob. It's good, it's good. A lot of shooting, a lot of stuff. The castle at the end is, I really like the castle at the end. It looks really cool. And I think they crashed a helicopter in there, if

Sidey: They do, yeah.

Cris: So, in reality, they didn't crash it. It's still intact, the castle. Because I know you were worried about that. Yeah. Interesting you

Dan: Interesting you mentioned Billy Bob because he was a, A

I

heard his voice when I was listening to

Sidey: Mononoke.

Dan: Mononoke. Mononoke. And I just couldn't remember his name. I was like, oh, what the fuck? And I kept on thinking of Tommy Lee Jones, but I knew that wasn't it.

I knew it was, it was kind of Billy Bob Thornton, there you go, the triple barrel. But I've got the Ice King's castle in Adventure Time. Did you ever watch Adventure Time? Yeah and it's got multiple rooms, and it's kind of this maze, ice castle palace. I thought that was pretty cool.

There's a few palaces in that actually. There's the Candy Kingdom as

Sidey: well

Dan: It's got and the Duke of Nuts castle. So they're all pretty Good castle and stroke palace content.

Sidey: Hmm.

Reegs: Well, a memory palace. You ever heard of that?

Sidey: Sherlock?

Reegs: Well, I have heard, it's in, it's all throughout all sorts of media. And I read today, it's an idea that dates back to ancient Greece.

It's the idea of kind of placing your memories inside like a physical structure in your mind and then wandering around it so that you get great recall.

Dan: Yeah, they did that in Sherlock.

Reegs: They do it in Sherlock. They do it in Thomas Harris. Does it for Lector, Hannibal Lector, I think in In the books of the Silence of the Lambs

Sidey: series. Yeah.

Reegs: and it's also in a, in a, Derren Brown does it as well and describes in, in very vivid detail how he does it and it's also the sort of centerpiece of the movie The Cell, which was this

Sidey: Oh, Vince Vaughn.

Reegs: yeah, Vince Vaughn,

Sidey: Vince Vaughn,

Reegs: And Tarsem Singh, and was the director, and it's just like really crazy vivid, Nightmare thing.

He's a serial killer that's gets, you know, you can actually wander the memories of his like mind. And yeah, it's, it was pretty good.

There's that one.

Cris: Sounds

good.

Sidey: This sort of stuff lends itself to fantasy things quite a lot. So I was thinking of Game of Thrones and also Lord of the Rings. So you've got Helm's Deep, there's a great big battle there. Minas Tirith, and what's the name of the ones in Game of Thrones?

Reegs: Harron Hall is the really big one. That's the big one. Where the iron keep is

Sidey: Keep

Reegs: Oh, the red Keep, that's the

Sidey: one as well, yeah. So loads of good stuff

Reegs: What was the other, can't. There's others,

Sidey: They all just get completely raised in the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones. And for some reason it's kept proper on my algorithm. The hound and the mountain having the fight and then they go off the I think through a wall actually on a staircase into the fiery depths. So yeah, there's that.

And then my last one is my nomination.

Cris: Okay. I've got a a name which is very close to your heart, Dan, because it's a location in Bohemia and Moravia, which is now known as the Czech Republic, which is half of your family is from there.

It's a castle, which is known as the pink castle splendid aristocrat aristocratic residents, who, which features in the location of the historical thriller, the illusionist.

Dan: Oh yeah, I know that

film

Cris: there's a, there's a, the castle in that film is in the Czech Republic and I also have,

Reegs: Ed Norton,

Cris: yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. And there's also Seanburn Palace

Dan: And Wolverine is in it as well, isn't he?

Cris: Yes. Hugh Jackman.

Yeah. And the Seanburn Palace, which is a castle in a palace in Vienna, which is really, really cool. It is features in the regime with. Kate Winslet. She's in the regime and she's been to this palace and it's really interesting.

Sidey: Nice.

Cris: So this is a real, these are real places rather than fantasy.

Dan: You've got the Indian Palace restaurant mentioned in The Hundred Foot Journey, which was a Helen Mirren film.

But the only other one that I've got is my nom, and I might as well go straight in with it. The Castle. Did you ever see that film?

Sidey: No.

Reegs: Australian

Dan: The

Sidey: Oh no, I've not seen that one. yet.

Dan: it's an absolute ripper, mate.

Sidey: No,

we didn't do it on the pod, did we? No.

Reegs: did we? No.

Dan: did we not? I might have mentioned it once

Sidey: mentioned it.

Yeah, I've definitely heard you talk about it. Yeah.

Dan: and it's about this really down to earth Australian family who love their home and it wants to somebody wants to buy it to build a shopping center or build a an extra part of the runway or something

Reegs: It's like the beginning of Up.

Dan: and they can't, well they, they just. Hunkered down though and say and it's based on a true story and they hunkered down and say don't want to do

Reegs: man's home is his castle.

Dan: Exactly and And it goes to court and it or the rest of it, but it's it's a really good one

And

that's my norm

Reegs: I'll nominate the Palace of the Goblin, King Labyrinth.

Sidey: Cool. A couple of songs that mention castles. Castle on the Hill, that's one of your favourites Riggs, Ed Sheeran.

Another one of your favourites, Palace, by Sam Smith.

Cris: This is just getting better and better.

Reegs: What's it going to be next, ABBA?

Sidey: no. When I

Reegs: I went to pay my parking fine thing, in the, ABBA was playing. And then money, money, money

Cris: came It's

Reegs: like, is this taking the piss,

Dan: It is

Sidey: piss. And then I thought, I thought that Led Zeppelin would have some songs about castles or palaces.

Reegs: Persia. Yeah, that seems their vibe,

Sidey: Particularly the battle of evermore, which si But they don't, they sort of infer that they might take place in land that would have a castle, but they never explicitly did mention one. And I'm gonna put in one and you might argue with me that it's just a big house. But I'm gonna go for Zana.

Do. From

Citizen

Reegs: Citizen Kane.

Sidey: I thought it might say that.

Reegs: that. Is

Sidey: But I'm doing it

Cris: part of the movie, or did someone actually say that in the movie?

Sidey: that? Well it's the poem, isn't it? In Xanadu, the K'Qarna Stately Pleasure Dome Decree.

Reegs: it? And he

Sidey: and he built,

but he built this enormous palatial home and it's got like a zoo and a big warehouse of all his stuff.

But, you know, he still wants his

thing and, you know, what was it? No, no one knows.

Cris: I'm gonna, I'm gonna sneak in a second one because the first nomination is the actual nomination is obviously no, it is I'm going to say it in Italian just to

it's the home of the Pope it's in Vatican

Sidey: He's in hospital right now,

Cris: a real, yeah, yeah. Let's pray. Let's all

Reegs: He's on the mend.

Cris: Yeah. Well, we all prayed.

Reegs: does he need to pray? I mean, it's like he's got a

Sidey: got a Well, God will just do it anyway.

Cris: anyway, Palazzo Apostolico is in the Vatican City, it's in Piazza San Petro and,

Sidey: been to Vatican City?

Cris: I have, yeah, I haven't been inside because I didn't have money at the time, but it's cost 16 euros to get into the Palazzo Apostolico, 16 59 actually, in, in euros, in today's currency

Dan: when I went 1659

Reegs: and,

Cris: Yeah, And

and with a, with a slightly second norm to the Pa Alto Parliamentary, the, the Parliament Palestine book arrest, which is, which we're all gonna see, and it's all, its might, which is the second biggest largest building in the world. So

Reegs: Second largest building in the world. Is it

Dan: it?

Cris: We're, we're gonna see it. Yeah. If you want to, if you want to visit

Sidey: Is that Ceausescu's

Cris: Ceaușescu's gaff, yeah. Yeah, it's, you can't, you won't believe.

Reegs: but the building where they assemble the spaceships, I've seen that. That's fucking enormous.

Sidey: does this mean like residential building?

Reegs: Oh

Cris: Yeah, like official built, not,

Reegs: oh, right.

Cris: yeah, the, I think Amazon has bigger warehouses in, I don't know, Mexico or somewhere, but I'm,

Reegs: yeah, that was probably obvious, wasn't it?

Cris: As an official

Dan: did they, what's it used for now?

Cris: The parliament and there's,

Sidey: It's a storage

Dan: It's an Amazon storage locker.

Cris: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So that I, I, I sneaked in another Romanian reference there because,

Sidey: Oh god, forget it, you're Romanian.

Cris: Yeah, sorry.

Sidey: You will be. Right, we'd need a another.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Best, give us your best palace.

Reegs: mononoke one out.

Sidey: We've got quite a lot of snackage going on.

Reegs: Yeah. And you are not partaking

Sidey: partaking, but there is one thing that has piqued my interest.

Dan: Ah, the three

Sidey: three way

Reegs: It's a three-way suck off.

Sidey: Yeah, you gotta suck. I suppose you don't have to do it at the same time, but it seems

Reegs: It

seems to be designed that way.

Or do you have the whole

Sidey: So for people listening, it is like a circle filled with goo in three pouches

Reegs: that it all connected, interconnected,

Sidey: interconnected And kind of lends itself to three of you sucking it off at the same time

Reegs: Yeah. But you would be within what is essentially kissing distance, because we were gonna do it, weren't we?

But everybody's chickened out now.

Sidey: No, I'm

in.

Reegs: And you're not

chickened

Sidey: lot have taken out. I'm in.

Dan: No, no, I'm out.

I've chickened out.

Sidey: If you could like

Reegs: out. If

Sidey: you know snowballing,

Reegs: Do

Dan: snowball

Sidey: in snowballing range.

Reegs: been snowballing lately. And that segues

Sidey: And that segues really nicely into this week's main feature, which is princess Mononoke. And I think we might have posited that it was our first

Ghibli, but it's not because we did my neighbor to Toro.

Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. was just saying it couldn't

Sidey: We did, yeah. Dan nominated it, I think.

Dan: Long

Sidey: And all.

Dan: Did you hear about the pregnant bed bug?

Reegs: I did not.

Dan: Oh, no, she's having a baby in the spring.

Sidey: skipping

well it's, the movie starts and then there are no credits, it's straight in.

Dan: It's straight in with something a little bit weird. And there's

Reegs: with an action scene, really.

Dan: An action scene with a giant pig which has got worms coming out of its body. Yeah. A

Sidey: demon, yeah, it's a demon.

Dan: worms

Reegs: worms are really like

Sidey: Cumberland sausages?

Reegs: That Wormy,

Dan: slimy,

Reegs: dildo y, they're very different. The animation, oh man, there's so much

Dan: it, it looks, I mean, it's hard to describe it. It looks,

Sidey: So there's something beneath it, So, at first glance, it looks, Like what it is, which is a, some sort of beast with these, but it don't, no, that, that only reveals itself afterwards.

Because it, it's completely covered in these sausages sort of worm y type things, and wherever it touches, it is sucking the life out of the ground, it's killing everything in its way. And these people, these scouts or whatever, they are worried that it's going to Go towards their village. They're trying to get it to fuck off somewhere else, but that's not very easily done.

Ashitaka? He, he basically nails it right in the eyeball,

Reegs: Yeah, twice.

Sidey: With

Dan: Not without pleading with it first

Sidey: He gives it some chat. Yeah, he just said, please Dima, we, we, we beg of you, you know, try and He tries to reason with it, but it's, it's a rage

Dan: Well he gets, he gets tentacled.

Sidey: He gets it on the

Dan: He gets wormed on the

Reegs: He gets worked on the

Sidey: They're like all individually, like. Prehensile kind

Reegs: prehensile kind of thing. And then

Sidey: and then it does reveal itself to be this giant boar Yeah. Thing. And he has to arrow it right between the eyes and effectively stops in its tracks.

It was last resort 'cause it was going towards the town, this idyllic little kind of village. Not in any way like capable of defending themselves from something like

Reegs: There's a difference in my house to having this on,

Dan: There was resistance in my house to having this on, on Sunday afternoon.

Sidey: I had tried to watch this years ago with my daughter, like a couple of years ago. two, three. And we got past this bit, but then the next actually where he like is shooting people's eyes and like cutting their heads off. Maybe this is too much.

Yeah. But this bit, they said there's a there's an a wise elder woman in the village and she comes out and the thing speaks to him and says, you disgusting people my rage and hate

Dan: We are gonna bring a world of

Sidey: Yeah. So there's like ominous. Yeah. He's got a curse and he reveals his arm and it's covered in this.

kind of, rash slash

Dan: Yeah, it's like

Reegs: slash,

Dan: like a

Sidey: He's got like a, like a rage arm.

Reegs: Not that we saw. So, Big Resistance

Sidey: that we saw.

Dan: yeah, as I say, bit resistance I said, look, give this five minutes and

Sidey: don't get more violent.

Reegs: I

Dan: And I was thinking, oh, I don't know if they're going to stay with me with this. But we watched the whole thing together. So, that was pretty cool. Just to watch, watch it with

Sidey: It's out of the gate though.

And it's not a surprise if you've seen any of these, his other films, like it's stunningly

Dan: the,

Sidey: It's amazing.

Dan: The

animation. Because you've got,

Sidey: is hand drawn in here,

Reegs: And the level of detail, like, is really astonishing, sometimes you like

Dan: That's

the name of the little antelope? Called?

Sidey: Oh

Reegs: yes, the elk.

Dan: Yeah, the

Reegs: The red elk that he rides. Ah yeah, when it comes out the water and it

Dan: because that's what he's our hero is, is escaping and shooting from his bows and arrows and Yeah. Eventually this He's on a quest.

Sidey: Yeah. 'cause he's, they've been warned that they're all gonna die. Or be killed, or some sort of rage, something's

Reegs: no, he Ashitaka is specifically cursed and then exiled from the village because of it, and they find like a bullet in the boar's

Sidey: big,

Reegs: as it decays, and that will lead them on to the next bit.

So it's a bit of iron in there, and they realize that must have come from humans. That'll send Ashitaka. And he quickly comes across another fight, which is where we start to see his super strength revealed. He shoots those guys. It's a last resort. He's intervening in a fight. And he shoots some guy and it takes both his arms

Sidey: and takes both his arms off. It's the samurai, isn't

Reegs: the samurai, isn't it? And

Sidey: the next one

Reegs: the next guy as well. And then he meets Jigo? Jigo? What was his name?

Dan: Billy Bob Dun.

Sidey: The guy with the wart on his

Reegs: Yeah,

he's a wandering priest This sort of fat old man who's surprisingly sprightly

Sidey: When he fights, he can really go.

Reegs: Yeah, sort of like Yoda in

Sidey: Exactly what I was thinking, yeah. He's walking on those it's like a plank of wood with an enormous platform, but it's just a straight bit of wood.

Takes some balancing, I'd imagine, to walk around on them.

Dan: it's like a, a shoe shaped like a T. Yeah.

Sidey: a T.

Reegs: So Jago puts him on to the forest spirit, which is we'll see it's like a It's like a did dear with a human's

Sidey: face

a bit like Princess Bride, they're going to have to navigate this forest that they say people haven't been able to get, or people are too scared to even go in.

Yeah. Because you do at night time see this fucking enormous thing

Reegs: Yeah, walking around, yeah.

Sidey: way, way above the tree, like, line. And he captures a glimpse of it in its kind of,

Reegs: Daytime form.

Sidey: Yeah, like a big kind of deer with

Reegs: With this sort of human face, sort of.

Sidey: It's a

Reegs: It's a crazy

thing to look

Sidey: at.

Dan: said it looked like my sister Paula. Ha

Sidey: like my sister Paula. So sorry.

Reegs: these were my

favorite

Sidey: my favourite things. These

Reegs: These were

Sidey: amazing.

And like a, like a, you know, wobbly head toy

Reegs: And they click. And

Sidey: then they click back round and just like a bobble head.

Reegs: Oh, there's a bit later where they're all like happy and there's thousands of them all clicking and

Sidey: Sometimes you can see their butt cheeks.

Reegs: cheeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he follows them through the forest. There's one, when you see one first of all, there's a soldier there that's injured and he's terrified by it. As was I. Because it is a creepy thing to look at.

Sidey: and then, yeah, they, there's fucking loads of them and they seem to be guiding them through the forest.

Dan: imps, aren't they? Or,

Sidey: yeah, exactly, yeah.

Dan: yeah, they're they show that the forest is healthy and that it's it's clean and everything. And you're right. They, they help guide our hero through the forest. Although the people that he's rescued from another encounter high on the ridge where some wolves have started attacking.

Yeah, the wolf cubs.

Sidey: Lady

Reegs: Mora is the one of the

Sidey: wolves.

No, the woman in charge of Irontown. Oh,

Reegs: Oh, Eboshi.

Sidey: Lady Eboshi's there and they've all got rifles and these kind of like boomsticks, where it's just some sort of metal thing that just fires, and they're caught in this midst of this battle, where they're fighting the two cubs, and she says, well, do you think they're big?

Wait till you see their mother.

Reegs: to

Dan: And

what is happening is Lady Abushi, Abushi? Yeah, she is taking the resources of the forest because there's the iron mineral there. So she's, taking up the trees and she's digging for the iron content and the minerals and obviously those that rely and these forest imps and and all these other magical creatures including the wolves really don't like it and they're upsetting the balance so already you're starting to see the the, the conflict between humans and this kind of natural world.

Reegs: and like you say, the factions within those as well, because there are a number of you know, there's the gorillas, there's the wolves, there's the boars, there's the forest spirit.

There's also on the human side, there's the samurai, there's the, his people, which an, an indigenous endangered tribe

Dan: As man,

or Lady Abushi, in, in this case, has started to take more than they need, or,

Sidey: So she could have said, well, we'll end the war, but we'll take half of your mineral resources. Imagine that. Imagine if that had happened, I'd be fucking so far fetched.

Reegs: First of all though, we'd have to declare that even though we know that you didn't start the war, we'll just say that you did, because we'll just rewrite

Sidey: Anyway,

Reegs: Anyway, yes

Sidey: thought that the apes seemed quite wise here.

Dan: Kind, kind, kind of wise, but

Sidey: but I was kind of on team Ape's side a

Reegs: They mostly just want to take it for the apes, though, don't they?

Dan: but yeah, they, they,

they're not, nobody's really looking for the full

Sidey: message really of the film is laid bare here, right? It's like

Reegs: Well, within, so, Irontown, No, but it's still, you say the message, there's so many layers to

Sidey: know, but

Reegs: Irontown

Sidey: the main crux of it, the environmental message.

Reegs: Yes, yes. But even then, it's not heavy handed in it. And it talks, you know, because I in town itself, which is a represents humanity's achievements and technological achievement. It's like this great big forge.

They they've they hand operate. And it seems like this symbol of oppression, but also it's staffed by prostitutes and lepers. And you know, and although is is she doing it for altruistic reasons? It's not very clear. Yeah. But good things are happening even so yeah, good content that

Dan: Yeah, it is. It's, I mean, they're looking for, everybody's looking to be the winner in their own battle, the apes, the,

Sidey: What has also happened is Ashitaka has seen the cubs, but now he's clocked Princess Mononoke.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: He's seen her.

And it's a human girl.

Reegs: drinking blood. Yeah. From from a bullet wound that the wolf

Dan: Yeah. Well, she's, she's suck. I dunno. Is she trying to suck the

Sidey: I thought she was Yeah, but there was It wasn't like poison to suck

Reegs: said it was rejuvenating, didn't she? For her,

Dan: Right.

Sidey: So she's like gone full Tarzan. She's been raised by these kind of

Dan: the blood is smeared across her

Sidey: had been thrown She had been discarded by Humans and raised by these,

Reegs: rom Reus style

Sidey: And so she was, she'd gone fully native.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Fucking hates humans.

Reegs: She does.

Dan: There was a boy in Germany that was raised by wolves.

Did you ever hear that? It was a true story? No,

Sidey: No. Wait

Reegs: I'm waiting for a joke.

Dan: joke, yeah. No, no

joke. We'll have to Google that. Maybe Chris,

Sidey: What, in like the city centre?

Dan: boy I think just outside of Munich.

Reegs: who

Dan: No, the boy who was raised by wolves.

Reegs: Bring

Sidey: going to go boring again, but did you see the election map of the results of the German election? Like, could not be more split East and West.

Reegs: Oh,

Dan: Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't,

Cris: the boy raised by

Dan: There you go.

Cris: Yeah, Dina, Dina Sannishar from 1860 to 1895 was a feral boy. A group of hunters discovered him along wolves in a cave in Pradesh, India,

Sidey: is a true story? No,

Cris: in

Reegs: raised by wolves in India,

Cris: wasn't in Germany.

Reegs: Uttar Pradesh, was it? I've been

Dan: another, there's another German kid as well

Cris: Germany.

Sidey: Anyhow. there is beef between

Cris: boy.

Dan: There you go,

Sidey: and

Dan: It's happened before.

Sidey: There is beef.

Reegs: Yeah, there is. Beef between the, between humanity and, and nature.

Sidey: Humanity's expansion is encroaching on the forest land and they don't like that. And so there's competition about resources, et cetera.

and that leads to conflict.

Reegs: And there's other conflicts going on because G Gego is got a sort of, we're not going to do justice to this film, so we'll just have to skate through the bits, but Gego's got a band of mercenaries because he believes that if he beheads the forest spirit he can give it to the emperor and it will grant him immortality.

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: it's pretty far fetched

Dan: he's kind of out for his own. But so is the whole spirit itself. It is pretty far fetched. So why not? Maybe it could. But when they plan this ambush to do it, it's

Sidey: Well, first of all, Ashitaka sort of ingratiates himself into the town, doesn't he? He

Reegs: he learns

Sidey: goes in and he learns what it's all about. He sees that they're all from the brothels, the ladies there. They give the fellas a real hard time, it's quite funny.

Dan: As, as right at the beginning, the, the wise old lady of the village says, look, you gotta go on this quest and go and see without any hate in your eyes or without any kind of judgment in your eyes. And he's the only one that is able to, to do that.

Sidey: Yeah. He is very neutral, isn't he? Yeah, yeah,

Dan: he, he's Mr. Neutral.

Reegs: that is his role kind of through this he's sort of a mediator between all of the parties isn't he? Yeah

there's, oh

gosh, there's

Sidey: well, he spent some time there

Reegs: story as well that develops between him and Ashitaka between Ashitaka and San

Sidey: Yeah. It never.

Yeah,

yeah, we'll get into it. But because she does launch a pretty like full on almost kamikaze assault on the on the town.

It's just her. She she she rides one of the wolves

to the town jumps off her was around a million miles an hour, just with a dagger, I think. And

Dan: oh, she's prepared to

Sidey: wants to take out Lady Agoshi.

Dan: who's a bit of a ninja herself.

Sidey: They kind of portray the men in town as being like fairly fucking stupid

Reegs: and the girls are all crack shots.

Sidey: Yeah, they're the they're the real

Reegs: despite spending the whole time in dressing gowns with their hair tied up like they've just got outta the

Sidey: quite a bit of cleavage going on as well and it,

culminates with a battle a sword fight really a goshi with her swords, and monologue with her dagger, and a bit of a fight going on but she's not gonna win.

Not this time. I can't remember exactly how it plays out in the, in the fight, she gets knocked down, she gets smashed into a wall.

Dan: Yeah. She's out the game and he has to jump in

Sidey: He's just gonna take her out

of

Dan: Take 'em

Sidey: they're like, no, you fucking

Dan: he, he's

Sidey: they just shoot him. They just shoot him.

Reegs: Doesn't he doesn't, he stun her and then he carries her out and doesn't she stab him as he's going out and they shoot him on the way out

Sidey: He gets shot and just

Reegs: sort, it's like passive resistance essentially.

He just picks her up and walks out of there

Dan: and they can't believe that because one of the, the girls says I'm going to shoot you if you move, if you try, and he goes, no,

Sidey: Well, he's, he's also had rage hand because the guy isn't the captain of the guard has got his samurai sword out and he's just grabbed it with his rage hand and bent it almost magically just completely rendered that useless. So he's completely flummoxed and then he just walks past him carrying

Dan: he opens the door that 10 men need to be

Sidey: don't do it. It'll kill you. It'll kill you. The effort will kill you.

Dan: you can see the blood dripping out of his wound. But he does open it and the wolves come to collect,

Sidey: They take him to the, the

Dan: Princess Minnoco,

Reegs: They take him to the, the, where the forest spirit will be. Yeah. And they leave him in a lake, don't they? 'cause he's injured as they go out. There he is. He really succumbs to his injuries and she has to then rescue him essentially on the elk. Who's called

Sidey: Mr. Elk.

Reegs: Non alcohol.

Sidey: I thought they kept saying Yakult. No, it might Yeah

Reegs: Yeah.

cool. So, the forest spirit comes along it, like, materializes, doesn't it, there, in the clearing. Like

Sidey: It can just appear here and

Reegs: there. And when it steps, it's,

Sidey: sometimes like Jesus. It can walk on water.

Reegs: It can walk on water, also where its footsteps touch, things grow and then die, to

Sidey: of the one from before the rage monster. It brings life. But like you say, it does decompose.

Reegs: it

because it neither is good nor bad, it just is, it's life and death and that's it.

Dan: it looks like a stag until it kind of looks up and then it looks like my sister Paula,

Reegs: a bullet, yeah. Ha

Sidey: But Yakult comes along and but stops before going because there's an island in the middle of the lake And san says, ah, you're very wise you knew not to set foot on the island, otherwise it's like sacred land so the, long story short is they heal Ashtarka.

Dan: But they don't heal the, the arm, they just heal

Sidey: They can't do that, the magic doesn't extend to that, yeah. But the, but the bullet wound is healed, so he's, he's up on his feet

Reegs: again.

Dan: we're all gearing up now for an epic final battle because Billy Bob Thornton still wants the head of Paula and you've still got A force trying to take down the humans.

Reegs: Lord Bor.

Dan: the

Sidey: Voldemort.

Reegs: Lord Ocoto, was that his name? The giant

Dan: Huge boar. I mean, you don't realize how big he is

Sidey: boars

are a real nuisance. If you have a chateau, for example, and boars on your land, it's a real pain in the arse. Yeah, they're really, really annoying.

They're

Dan: very

Sidey: very gamey,

I think, quite nice.

I think low and slow on the barbecue.

Dan: Well, there's a massive slaughter and they're prepared

Reegs: Oh, yeah, they launch all the, all like, explosives at the boars and I thought, imagine how beautiful that would

Sidey: beautiful that

Reegs: Walking through there

Sidey: like Barbecue.

Well,

Dan: Well, he says that doesn't, he smells of

Sidey: for, like, lecter, don't they? They take the skins of the boars. Yeah. Humans. To chase them through the forest. And the guy's like, No, it's the fucking humans wearing their flesh. And you're like, Ooh.

Reegs: the fucking humans wearing their flesh, you're like You know, capitalize on the aftermath. And the wolves are kind of swept along in it, basically because San is as well. So you get this opposition of nature and

Sidey: it's a

ground swell of like, it's, we've gotta unite against the

Dan: Yeah.

the wolves seem pretty wise

Reegs: the enemy of my enemy and all that.

Dan: they can see that the, the boars are pretty pig headed and they're not going to change their minds. Once they decided they're going to attack, they said, well, even if we all die, the last one of us is going to charge in and they'll never forget we were around.

And that for them is, is the sacrifice they need to make.

Sidey: make. Yeah, it, it trundles along like in an excellent way. But it does, it does culminate in,

Dan: So many different meanings.

Reegs: themes and stuff going on, plots

Sidey: the humans ultimately are going to come along and fuck everything up.

Reegs: Gigo.

Sidey: Gigo we've seen that sort of rifle factory where all these lepers are trying to help make all these rifles and eventually they

There comes a point in the film where they get to take a shot at the forest spirit and I think it's the man himself who takes the shot and, and just fucking shoots his head clean off.

Reegs: because he could

Sidey: yeah, cause he could, sometimes he's a stag like type deer,

other times he's an enormous giant. At night.

Reegs: ethereal creature.

Sidey: walking through the forest. And that's the point where they shoot his head off and it turns into a enormous rage monster because he's just had his head shot off. I don't think you'd be that thrilled yourself.

Reegs: himself.

And everything it touches decays and dies

Sidey: like we saw earlier on with the. Much smaller scale, but this is like full, like the whole forest is gone.

Reegs: And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, it's only consuming everything, Up until the point, essentially

Sidey: take the head, they lock the head in an iron sort of cauldron, and they're running that around trying to get it back to the emperor, but fucking no chance.

Reegs: And eventually then AKA offers the head back to the, to the forest spirit to reconnect. It takes it away. So ego just doesn't get away with it, thankfully.

Sidey: No, and the forest spirit kind of goes away in a it kind of evaporates in a big gust of wind, which kind of, like, moaners it all where the forest starts to grow

Dan: Yeah, but he, at

Sidey: He actually, before the gunshot, he Looks at the rifle and flowers and things start to grow out of it. You think oh, he's gonna like jam the right? No Because it just fucking goes off and shoots his head off. You know, oh that was disappointing but he does then

Start off the regrowth and the

Dan: But he's gone forever, but he's still with us kind of thing, one of those.

So there's a sadness there that you will never actually see this creature again, but he's never really left because his spirit

takes

Sidey: one of the so one of the differentiators, I think between this and. More so the older sort of Disney ones where you might have had Ashitaka as the hero and San as the princess

There is not an everlasting love here. She's like no, I fucking hate humans.

She's like I still hate them I cannot forgive

Reegs: There's like a brief flirtation that's

Sidey: you thought it could have been going down a love story, but she's like no No, I still absolutely fucking hate you all is that Oh, yeah, no, I get it because of all that shit we just did. Yeah, it's I'm gonna go and work Ashitaka, so I'm gonna go and help them rebuild Iron Town and what we haven't said is that lady

Reegs: She's

Sidey: Eboshi's had her arm shot off in the battle.

So she's kind of like rethinking how much of a twat she's been And so they're gonna rebuild the town

Reegs: In a more

Sidey: try and be better renewables, maybe. But it sounds like

Reegs: like They stop fracking.

Sidey: go to hell. Drill, baby, drill.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: And

And strokes like, yeah, no, I get it. Your point is completely valid. I'm going to go out with them, but I will also come and see you.

So there's like a reconciliation in terms of everyone's kind of like got their bit in the world, but there's no like kissy kissy. We're

Dan: we, we found, we found a new way to move forward. But the, the beauty of the original. Balance has been spoiled forever and

Sidey: not Well, I think there's optimism that there

Dan: there is optimism that there is a way back, but It won't ever be the same because that

Sidey: Because humans.

Dan: of spirit is has been Has been gone and we well humans.

It's our nature to want to you know create

Reegs: To dominate our landscape.

Dan: and well, they're they're building like these iron Sort of guns and things and and just to try to yeah to dominate to

Reegs: Instruments of war, Dan.

Dan: Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: What is it good for?

Dan: Huh

Sidey: Say it again. I've seen nothing.

Dan: But what is this good for this

Sidey: this film? This is, like, an animated work of art. really

Dan: As I say,

I said look let's watch five minutes and I knew

Sidey: it will get

Dan: It'll get them.

And, and

Sidey: so

Dan: it's quite a long film. We had a phone call about an hour and 15 minutes in, which stopped

Reegs: from your

Dan: the, it wasn't, no, it was, it was from the sister in law. But we, we put it on pause and I was thinking, okay, well, that we still got an hour to go.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: I don't know if we're going to get back into this.

But. Nelly was really

Sidey: Yeah, Manon loved it.

Dan: While Yana took the call upstairs. We just tucked

Sidey: in. Straight back in, yeah.

Because

Dan: it was just watchable. Really, really kind of what's going to happen next. And even though the themes are so large and so big that maybe a 13 year old isn't going to grasp all those nuances and things.

There's something really compelling about it. There's something that you just don't understand why, but it is because the themes are so Yeah. Yeah. yours Really, really

clever. The animation is, is just my preferred cartoon animation. It's that hand drawn, really

Sidey: it is hand drawn. It was the last animated film to use the plastic, you know, the cells, the plastic cells where they would

Dan: Oh, really?

Sidey: And Zaki animated Drew. something like over half of them himself. And you think there's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them.

Reegs: thousands of them. You know, I

Sidey: one bit where,

Reegs: stuff

Sidey: yeah, there's one bit where, you know, I kept noticing stuff and I'm like, well, they didn't have to animate

Reegs: animate that,

No,

Sidey: There's one bit where his Yakult like ducks down to go under the. door and I'm like, they could have just waited and just have him walk. And I'm like, it's just great.

Yeah,

Reegs: No

Dan: No, that's it.

Sidey: when they said Miramax picked this up for the US distribution, and everyone's favorite Weinstein said, well, we're going to have to obviously cut this down for an American audience. And he was fucking appalled. It's like, Absolutely fucking no way. So fucked off and then sent him a samurai sword that said, no cuts.

And like it engraved into the blade. And and he was like, okay, well we'll just leave it shall we

And he said, that's how I beat him. I thought, that's great. Yeah, just a completely uncompromising vision. This guy. Amazing.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, it's beautiful. It's just absolutely, and the It reminded me in a weird way of the film Mother we watched. Remember that, where it was just so many kind of different themes and so

Sidey: much Less like infant

Reegs: This was sort of like Avatar for grown ups,

Dan: grown ups. Yeah.

it.

There's a lot going on and it'll probably remind anybody who watches it of different things that they've seen because it's just got so many themes

Sidey: Or the little forest Nymph things came back at the end, all like,

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: clicking their head

Reegs: was thousands of them all clicking at him. Their heads rotate 360 degrees

Sidey: then, and spin back.

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: Yeah, cool. The only one I haven't seen is the Boy and the Heron. It's

Reegs: It's supposed to be

Sidey: Not, I'm not up to date with that one, but all of this stuff is great. Really, really great.

Dan: Strong recommend.

Sidey: Really strong.

Sphere the first?

Reegs: Huge

fan. There's hopefully severe. The last,

Sidey: Well there are 110 episodes, so if this one didn't grasp you, there's 109 others that you could, you know, fill your

Cris: could Was this 36 minutes or

Sidey: 26.

don't exaggerate.

Probably two or three of that is the credit, so, you know, then you're willing, you're nearly at 20 minutes really.

Reegs: Did you like the intro music? Here it

Sidey: Here

it is. Did your kids watch this when you were younger? Or do they watch it now even?

Reegs: now even? I remember watching this episode

Sidey: I remember watching this episode that we watched. We watched the big, or the great, or the amazing sleepover. So, what's happened is, backstory, is that Sophia's mum has married very well. Like a Meghan Markle really into she's married the king and so Sophia has gone from being a commoner

like

buttercup.

Yeah, so now being royalty and she's having to adapt For being scum to living in a palace She's also got an amulet which enables her it gives her the power to speak to

Reegs: So

Sidey: Yeah, so Moana, for example can just Understand what the pig and the chicken Of communicating. Yeah. Just innately.

But the fear being a bit lame.

Reegs: Needs, a magic

bracelet

Sidey: Cedric. she always says that the crux of the villainy is that he's after the ambulance. the, thrust of

the

Reegs: the story. Right, so because the parents employ an in house magician slash villain

Sidey: Yeah.

Well, I think he's got,

Reegs: he didn't get past the DBS

Sidey: he, no, he has got a line to someone else.

I think that's pulling the strings.

Reegs: Oh,

he's a puppet.

Sidey: puppet. Yeah.

Reegs: realize, I

Sidey: Yeah. He's like the

Reegs: Darth Mall to . Yeah. Right. Okay.

Sidey: But this is a much more simple story of Sophia and her new.

Horrible, scummy, like, Kardashian esque friends.

Reegs: Oh, her sister was fit though, step sister,

Sidey: then having her, like, scum, commoner friends come round for a

Reegs: Oh, and they're really disgusting yokels, like, you know, they

Sidey: They're very, very multiculturally woke. This is this whole Disney woke thing.

Reegs: but we, let's be anti woke now.

Sidey: fuck them all, So yeah, they are, I think have she's got two friends come over and there are another, so there's her step sister and her two friends. And there's, they're sleeping in this kind of observatory room sort of thing. It's quite spectacular.

Reegs: room sort

Sidey: that practical, but and what happens is that wouldn't you know it, her common friends and her posh Royal.

New friends don't get along. Well, they didn't really fall out per se, but

Reegs: They're, they're just embarrassed by them a little bit. It's

Sidey: a, it's just a clash of cultures.

Reegs: Yeah. It's, they're sort of doing, what is it Pygmalion or what's the other thing?

Sidey: Les Miserables. Do

Reegs: She is embarrassed by her friends being in

Sidey: She's basically, she is embarrassed by her friends being in inverted commas, common, whereas she keeps giving them tips on how to mingle with the hobnobs.

Reegs: hobnobs It's a terrible

Sidey: song, yeah. Songs are not great. I think they were auto tuned as well. It did really seem kind of auto tuned to me. Which is something I'm not a fan of. And then eventually our friends get really fucked off with her being a fucking, like, phony baloney, so they fuck off.

It's year of slag. We're out. And she realizes it's at this point I was like, why has she not got a nose? It's really weird. It's like, taking a shotgun to her face. She's got massive eyes, and hair and stuff, and then, it's like the most, like,

Reegs: Tiny, tiny nose.

Sidey: nose. And her mother then has to come in and impart some wisdom.

Her mother's really hot and her mother has to impart some wisdom about don't judge your friends, even when they're being twats. That's the message. It's like, damn, it was being a fucking slag. Yeah. She goes and races off and finds their friends and says, please come back. And they put pine cones in their hair.

Did you see that? Did you make it up to

Reegs: I, I got to the pinecones and wrapping, I got into a bit where there was

Sidey: was only about four minutes to go

Reegs: they fell into a like a model of a solar system. There was a chocolate milk fountain and a puppet show that went out of control.

Sidey: video of the guy who puts cheese in the chocolate fountain?

Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: It does not end

Sidey: Anyway they they said that So, Sophia and her original friends are having a great time, but now her royalty friends

Reegs: Step sister.

Sidey: Sitting in the boudoir board and they're like, man, if only we were like classless scumbags,

Reegs: only we were having

Sidey: we could have fun too. So they go cap in hand.

Reegs: get a load of ecstasy.

Sidey: they all know it's Ket.

I think they're all like a full Elon and Ket up real nice and end up having a great time together, realizing that they're all alike in the end,

Reegs: I think. Everyone's the same, or something. And then you can fuck off back to your pitiful hovel while I continue to live in my fucking in house observatory.

Sidey: That

Dan: the message. I missed this, but it doesn't sound like I missed too

Sidey: much.

Reegs: Lion Guard.

Sidey: Lion Guards, Sheriff Callie, which is great Vampirina, this, and maybe something else. And they were essentially the same IP, just,

just

put in different genres, right? And then they're basically exactly the same.

Reegs: same. Fish out of water stories.

Sidey: Be friends with your friends, stuff like that. Yeah. Sing a song. Yeah. So it does feel

Reegs: It's

Sidey: really

Dan: Overdone. Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: Songs weren't great.

Reegs: The animation is interesting because it apes that traditional style that you're familiar with from like, Beauty and the Beast was what it was most reminiscent of, but it's done with CGI.

Sidey: it doesn't feel like they interact properly with the background. Yeah. So when they walk, it feels like they just don't belong together.

They, they just sort of

Reegs: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Sidey: look correct. It, she does though. meet all the other Disney princesses throughout. So there is more connected with the Disney cinematic universe than the other stuff because you meet Snow White, she meets

Cinderella and she has a lesbian affair with the one from Aladdin, Jasmine.

So there it does give you that. Moana's on it because she wasn't an official Disney princess at so strong recommend for that reason, but not for the songs or the plot or the content or the animation.

Reegs: Oh, yeah.

Dan: Probably better

Cris: Sounds like a strong recommend to me.

Dan: Yeah, okay loads of it

Sidey: up It's not really topical

Reegs: you two idiots, yeah.

Dan: may be

Cris: something lined up. It's not really topical with the top five, but it doesn't really matter. Did we do forests?

Sidey: Gump by

Dan: No, I'm

Cris: I'm not going to recommend You hate him, I love him, but you hate him, so

Sidey: him. Okay, so forest theme episodes. Incoming

Cris: well, that's the thing. I've got the Top 5 Forests, but the movies that I've chosen are not really related to Forrest.

Sidey: That's fine. That's, that's completely Okay.

Cris: that

would be, I've got them written down on my telephone.

Dan: Oh

wait, that sounds prepared.

Cris: my mobile phone.

Which is, one of them is a French film, which is on Netflix. It's called The Stronghold.

It's set in Marseille, and it's made in 2021.

Sidey: Home of the bouillabaisse. Pardon? Home of the bouillabaisse.

Cris: Yeah, Bouillabaisse.

Sidey: Bouillabasse.

Cris: And top five forests. I'm yet to find something to do with forests and animated children's things, but I'm going

Dan: something for

Cris: tomorrow.

And the main is a most wanted man

Dan: Okay, Denzel?

Cris: Seymour Hoffman.

Dan: Seymour Hoffman.

Sidey: R. I. P. Okay.

Reegs: I might have seen

this.

Cris: It's 2014.

Sidey: I haven't seen it.

Cris: I've not seen it, but I kind of came across it and I think.

Dan: Well, we'll look forward to that, and join us.

Sidey: Yeah, I'm keen for that. All that remains is to say Sidesigning out.

Cris: out. . Thanks,

Dan: Dan's gone.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: You're last. You're normally last. Say it.

Reegs: Reece has left the building.

Cris: Go on.