Topic: Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Topher Mac is up super late talking about one of his favorite movies.  The 1997 movie about an assassin forced to go to his 10 year high school reunion.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello. How y'all doing, ladies and gentlemen? I am Toph Mac, and this is Shadows That Shine. I am days away. Just a few short days, much less than a week, from my 20th high school reunion. Woohoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Oh my! And because of that, I thought after we get done talking about what's going on in the current events of this la cinema, that we could cover a movie that is one of my all-time favorite movies that has to do with high school reunions. That's right, gross point blank, starring John Kurzak. Kurzak. Mm-hmm. Um also starring Minnie Driver, who is in another one of my favorite movies that you'll find out about later on. Later on. But before we get into the ins and the outs of the gross point blank topic, I thought we could start by chitting and chatting about the box office. We're gonna go straight into it. Yay, box office. Woo! Everybody loves box office, especially Topamack. July 24th through the 26th. The Odyssey brings in an additional $87 million, setting a record because it did not drop as much as uh movies normally drop. It was it was a very successful second weekend. $87 million is now added into their grosses, which domestically is 286.4, internationally 353. For a worldwide total of 639.6 million dollars. Universal Pictures has got to be happy. Some are saying the film is already profitable. I've heard arguments that it's not quite there, but there is a strong belief that this movie will in fact uh cross the billion uh dollar threshold and uh that it is tracking to be Christopher Nolan's most successful film ever. Good for him. Happy to hear it. I genuinely very happy to hear it. So, second place, Mona, 10.5 million dollars. Uh Mona, of course, a Walt Disney uh studio motion picture release. Domestically, it has now uh second place. Uh it did say it added 10.5 million dollars for its new totals being 102.5 million dollars, internationally 125.7 million dollars for a total of 228.2 million dollars. It continues to be underwhelming financially. It's not a total flop, though, I don't think. I mean, I've heard that it was a $200 million budget, and if that's the case, then yes, it has absolutely flopped. Um, but it could have been worse, you know, it really could have been worse. Um, you know, I say that and I I've watched it, so no, I'm kidding, I haven't watched it. It's a terrible movie. Why would I watch that? It's not fair. You can't judge movies you don't see Topher. That's right, other Topher. You know, I don't have a co-host, I gotta talk to myself. It's extremely late at night. Uh, for those of you who don't know, we release at 6 a.m. I am looking at the clock right now at 2.56 a.m. This is the latest I will have ever recorded an episode. Third place! $10 million is what Toy Story 5 uh secured over the weekend for Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures, bringing their totals. Oh, it's a lot more impressive. 448.6 million, 573.5 million. That was the domestic followed by the international for a worldwide total of 1 billion dollars. Fantastic. That uh they've been doing the business that they're doing. If they're still open and in the theaters next week, I have decided I'm gonna go watch Toy Story 5 and see what the hype's all about. Um, but that's only if it's still in the theater. I have not checked the show times to see if that's the case. I've been too busy being stupid happy for our number four movie of the week. The uh the one and only Hades Town. That's right, the Hades Town. Um I forgot what that fancy word that they're calling this uh type of uh production. Uh live shot, I think it's called. Anyways, Bleaker Street Media has brought in 9.7 million dollars. I have uh it was the second most successful uh movie of its kind, only behind Hamilton and only a little bit behind Hamilton. It was so successful that they extended its run a few extra days. I wish it was still in theaters right now so that I could tell you to run and see it. I loved that movie, but we'll get into that in a little bit. We'll get into that in a little bit. I want to talk a little bit more about that. Hey, fifth place minions and monsters, which I did actually go and watch yesterday. Uh well, I guess technically two days ago now. Um they have brought in fifth place nine point six million dollars, which also um makes its domestic total 155.4, international 256.5, worldwide 411.9 million dollars. Universal Pictures has to be happy with that. That is a fantastic haul. Uh surely they are profitable at that point. I mean, we haven't even gotten into other windows of finance which just the theater grosses, it is sitting in a beautiful place. Now, so you know, uh there were some other uh movies in the top five. Um that's unusual. I saw different listings for what was uh fourth and what was fifth place. Uh one version of this says Hades Town was fifth, but hey, you know what? It is what it is. Um The Invite continued to make money. Uh it got sixth place, Evil Dead Burn, Young Washington Obsession. All of these um did really well. Essentially, with only 31 releases this weekend, which is even less than the week before, which is actually half of two weeks before in terms of releases, and it only dropped the grand total of the uh weekend gross for July 24th to the 26th, dropped negative 24.8 percent. That means that they made 141.5 million dollars in three days. Fantastic work, of course. The Odyssey leading that, and um that's our box office situation. I will uh I want to jump from there right over. We're not gonna waste any time with you guys here today, right over to I did go and see Minions and Monsters Monsters, and I did go see Hades Town. Minions and Monsters was okay. Minions and Monsters, it was it was just um, I would call it adequate. I don't like animated films uh as an adult. It's a uh an unfortunate prejudice that I have, which is why it probably is better than I'm giving it credit, but I'm not you know, I mean, I ended up uh grading it at three and a half stars. I I boosted it a little bit more than I wanted. I will say this they had a lot of good jokes in there. It was funny, it was sloppy, but it was fine. Another thing that I gave three and a half stars to was uh Hades Town the Musical. It probably should actually be four stars. Um I might change that uh rating. It was beautiful. Um, I did have some issues with the direction. I don't think the person who directed it uh was as effective as they could have been. They did a weird thing at the beginning of uh that movie where they were trying to show the audience as well. I didn't like that choice, but I did like that they went backstage. I did like that they showed that one of the cast members had broken their leg so that it wouldn't be a thing later. It also helps with a sort of uh esoteric quality to the movie of like this is people telling the story. It's it's sort of that Jesus Christ superstar thing of alright, y'all, we're gonna put on a show now. Is everyone ready for us to put on a show? Um I think I already talked last week about Clash of the Titans uh not really being for me. So that's what I've been watching. Not a lot of not a lot of things there. Hey, for Hades Town, I did want to get into this. For Hades Town, uh the trailers, they had something pop up. I was with friends for this one, and we could not stop laughing. Angel Studios is doing the little drummer boy, and they're and there's this ridiculous scene of a uh Regiment drummer marching forward like it's this powerful moment. It's like it looks like a comedy sketch. It looks like a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch, and it read that way, and I laughed harder than I've laughed at anything Saturday Night Live has done in a long time. Um, not trying to sideswipe SNL there, but I'm just saying that's how ridiculously funny taking that song and using it in the context that they did was. I have a feeling that that will either absolutely bomb or be fodder for a great deal of humor. So yeah. Uh also, we I don't know if I mentioned this before. Avengers has dropped a trailer, and they have also made announcements about because we're talking about the future now, and uh uh the MCU has confirmed that there will be a Black Panther 3 and that T'Challa's son will be um of age, he will be an adult, and we have also had it confirmed that we are gonna have a ghostwriter movie starring Project Hellmarys uh and the notebooks. Um I'm bad with actors, but that guy, Goslin, I think is his last name. Those are things that they're gonna do. Um I am of course excited because on July 31st, Spider-Man brand new day comes out. And I'm even more excited because I have found out that tomorrow night I will get to see the uh or tonight, if uh you're listening to this on the day that uh everything dropped, I will get to uh I will I will get to enjoy the new Spider-Man movie a day before everyone else with a special uh they're doing like a day before the day before premiere. You know, they used to do midnight movies. Um I don't know if any I I feel like my crowd's not young enough to not know this, but just in case. Um they used to do midnight movies, midnight showings of movies, and they would every single screen in the place would play that movie at midnight. Then after a shooting happened, they started doing it was that, and there was some like, are you kidding me? We have to be here until four in the morning every Thursday night. This is insane. So then they started being like, okay, well, we'll we'll do a 7 or 8 p.m. showing or a 10 p.m. showing the night before the official open of the movie. Well, now in some cases, like when I went to see Odyssey and when I go to see Spider-Man on Thursday, they're showing it in the afternoon and they're packing in a whole extra day of showings. But to go even further, Spider-Man is having an additional extra day on Wednesday, one fan showing that I'm gonna be at. Uh if this was New York City, if this was Los Angeles, if this was honestly, those are the only two cities that I could accept something like that from. I think that it skews the numbers of opening weekend because all those showings are gonna be included in the opening weekend. And it's weird. But nevertheless, I'm very excited to see Spider-Man brand new day, and I will be covering it. Uh I will be covering it next Wednesday. I will I am also fully intending, just so you know right now, to do a special extra episode after I do my um my reunion this weekend. It will be another reunion-themed movie. I'm not gonna tell you what it is yet. It's gonna be a special drop. Um, but you know, sit back and think about what's your favorite high school reunion related movie. It could be that one. It really could, depending on what it is. Unless, of course, your favorite high school reunion-based movie is uh Gross Point Blank, in which, hey, look, that's what we're covering today. Lucky you. Uh speaking of weird stuff, July 30th, a movie called Cyrus 71, which I believe is an anime, is coming out. Opening up with Spider-Man Brand New Day on the 31st is I Want Your Sex, which is a movie about a woman boss who sexually harasses an employee. There will also be another what appears to be animated or anime-like film called Sheep in the Box. Um, so that's what we're dealing with there. Additionally, on August 1st, a movie called Devour is coming out for horror fans. I don't I haven't seen any trailer for it, uh, but I do know that it is going to be it's a horror film and it has uh vampire stuff around it. I'm not a big vampire person. Uh not that I'm scared, I I'm not scared of it. I just, you know, it's not my thing typically. Uh with some exceptions. I guess there's like a woman Dracula in it, and there's a band that's touring around and like gets lost in a place, and I'm not sure of the specifics, but um maybe if that's your thing, you should check that out. So that gets us there. That gets us there. We have now talked about uh oh, and they did also drop a uh Welcome to the Jungle sequel, uh Jumanji, another Jumanji movie. It's supposed to be the last Jumanji movie, uh, from what I understand. Like that's true. Um, it does finish the trilogy of the new Jumanji movies. I have not watched it. I intentionally waited because I know they're gonna show it on the big screen probably this weekend. So I'm gonna wait and watch it at one of the movie showings. I'm gonna be seeing like three or four movies this week. So I'm gonna wait for that and and see it that way. So there we go. Uh once again, I'm Toe from Mac, and this is Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. And I'm very excited that we're gonna be talking about Gross Point Blank. This is um definitely one of my favorite movies. Definitely I'm super jazzed about it. Uh let's go ahead and real quick tell you that uh its estimated budget was $15 million. It made $28 uh million dollars. I've seen some other numbers that tried to claim it was 30 million. Uh it did really well. Um, it definitely did really well for a small thing like that. Uh, it did well in DVD sales. You don't see it pop up very often on streaming services, or at least I have not, but I own a physical copy and I own a digital copy, and I watch it that way, and I do watch it fairly regularly. This really genuinely is one of my favorite movies. Uh, it was released through one of Walt Disney's uh subsidiary uh companies, but it's credited under Walt Disney uh Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Released April 11th, 1997 domestically. And it was hour 47 minutes and oh whoopsie whoopsie daisies. I pressed some wrong buttons. Um Gross Point Blank is uh stumble stumble stumble. This is a good time to remind everyone that I go live to tape. We do not edit, we do not edit off of this show. I think it makes for a more interesting show. If you don't agree with me, let me know. Be like, hey, you, you're an idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. This is terrible. I don't think it's terrible, I think it's wonderful, and I appreciate you listening. Alright, like I said, John uh John Kusak is in it with Mini Driver, uh Alan Arkin also in it, and here is one of this is the reason I originally watched it. Dan Aykroyd is in it. I have this theory that anything Dan Aykroyd's in and anything that um John Goodman is in is worth at least one watch. And I have never been let down by having that as a belief system. Uh this is such an all-star cast, though, that I want to keep naming some of the people. I don't normally name actors, and I certainly don't name them before I name directors and writers, but I'm gonna do that this one time because so many people that hit me in my nostalgias. Joan Cusack, uh which is John Cusack's uh sister, Joan does a fantastic job in this movie. Uh some of you may know Joan Cusack from uh she was a Saturday Night Live cast member at one point, but you may also know her from the movie Toys with Robin Williams. Yeah, there's a deep cut for you. Who's Joan Cusack? If you don't know who Joan Cusack is in you, but you know Toys, then something's wrong. Alright, um Hank Azaria, who's one of the voices of the Simpsons character, uh one of the Simpsons voice actors, he's in it, live action style. Jeremy Pivin's in it, uh Mitchell Ryan is in it. It's just a non-stop or uh uh a non-stop wow inus to so many big people. Alright. That's enough of the actors. Let's talk director. The director of this film unfortunately passed away last year. His name is George Armitage. George Armitage has also directed what did he also direct? He directed seven movies, of which none of them were movies that I recognized. They all seemed like uh weird choices. Uh most recently he directed The Big Bounce in 2004, which has uh Owen Wilson and uh Morgan Freeman and Gary Senis. I it's weird because like this is a good movie and it's well produced. Together, especially stuff like the soundtrack choices, he's a good director. He did write a movie that I a made-for-tv movie that I absolutely love called uh The Late Shift. And he did that before, if I'm not mistaken, he did that before uh this movie came out. Now, more interesting than the director on this film is the writers. Uh, the story screenplay was by Tom uh Jenkowitz, who has really done almost nothing. I mean, he literally has only got two credits on IMDB. He's nobody. However, the two other screenplay credits, uh actually, there's four screenplay credits in total, but two of them go to D V Deventis. I'm sorry, foo. Divincenti. I'm sure I said that wrong, and Steve Pink. And you're like, I don't know who those people are. Yes, you do. You don't even know that you know who these people are. Uh they have written as a writing, I I guess as writing partners, but they both are credited for following up Gross Point Blank with high fidelity. And uh one of them, which I believe is Steve Pink, but I gotta double check, uh, also directed the Hot Tub Time Machine movies. So isn't that impressive? That's that's wild. Uh that he has maintained a relationship with Joan, uh I'm sorry, with John Cusack, who also has a writing credit. I didn't know that until today that he has a writing credit inside of this. It's fantastic. I'm gonna have to do a deep dive one day. Maybe we'll revisit this film with a a guest host.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Okay. Um so tagline.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Every man uh even a hitman deserves a second shot. That's a stupid tagline. Like I said, it came out April 11th, 1997. It did really well with money. Um and I can't find any other technical things that are worth mentioning. So let's actually talk about the movie. What do you say? What do you say? We'll talk about the movie. Um John Cusack plays a great he does a great job of balancing uh first of all, spoiler this is gonna be my spoiler-free uh moment with this movie before I just uh speak freely. Uh, I do deeply love this movie. I think everyone should watch this movie. I think that um everyone above the age of 25 should watch this movie once at least, and it would be most ideal to watch it like I'm doing. You know, I'm revisiting this film with a high school reunion this week, which is gonna be weird. It's gonna be weird. I missed my 10th high school reunion because I got called back into the city to work on a um to work on a project, and I was actually down south thinking I was gonna get to go. I I upset a lot of people because I had made a big deal about wanting it to be a certain time. Maybe they weren't upset. I just think they were upset in my head, in in my narrative of it. Um John QSI plays a uh Martin Q. Blink, and he just does a great job of balancing sociopath and loving, caring person. And that balance between, well, I don't care about you know, like I can kill a person, it's nothing. But also you feel that he loves the Debbie Newberry character played by Minnie Driver. All right. Um great, he just did a great job. All right, um, by the way, spoilers are happening now. If you don't already, if you haven't figured that out, moving forward, I'm speaking freely about the movie. Um while you wait, I'll say something that's you know you could have figured out from the trailer if in c in case you want to turn it off and go watch the movie and then turn it back on. Uh oh, speaking of which, it it does not seem to be streaming anywhere. Like I said, hard to find streaming-wise. Mini Driver did this movie and did um and did uh goodwill hunting pretty much back to back. And in Goodwill Hunting, she uses her real accent, and in this movie she does her American accent. She was originally supposed to do her American accent in Goodwill Hunting. And instead, instead, she decided uh I mean the director and the writers of Goodwill Hunting decided it was best that she use her natural accent. I think she does a good job. There is like if you know she's not American, there is a scene or two where her accent slips a little bit, but not in any gross sort of way. No pun intended. Dan Aykroyd. Dan Aykroyd delivers an incredible, weird, like you believe that he's the person that he is. He's this snaky little sociopath, and you just believe it. He does a very, very good job. This is uh shortly after he did his directorial debut with Nothing But Trouble. Um, you know, this is him getting back into acting. This is him preparing for Blues Brothers 2000, uh, which is on the horizon. And I, you know, I just love that I love that he's in it and that he did a great job. As I mentioned before, Joan Cusack. Small role, brilliant role. Hank Azara is exactly what he is in every movie that he does live action. A little bit of a shit, a little, a little annoying. Alan Arkin is in this, and I don't know if you guys know who Alan Arkin is. Uh he was in Little Miss Sunshine, he was in Edward Scissorhands, he was in Argo, he's done a few things, and I've always found him interesting to watch on screen, and I think he does a good job playing the psychologist here. So, you know, I keep saying all the stuff about performance, but let's talk about what is the movie. Uh Martin Blank is an assassin, and Martin Blank is made to go back to um a Detroit suburb called Gross Point, and Blank doesn't want to go back because apparently he had run out on his girl on prom night, which you know, I guess, and this is an age difference thing here that I'm having trouble relating to because it's not an instinctive knowledge, but I've inferred that um prom is like the week of graduation in this time period and in this region. Now, for me, prom is the month before you graduate. Uh, almost a whole month, sometimes more than a month. So it was weird to me where it's like you can run away on that day, still get your degree and join the military, which is what he did, and then he became, you know, a uh nearly sociopathic um uh killer for hire.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And so, you know, they get they get into all that.

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He he screws up the first kill, uh, but it's not his fault. But then he screws up a second uh kill, and it kind of is his fault, but it's also chance. So we haven't seen like he's killed two people within five minutes of this movie starting, but done so uh blunderously both times. You can tell he's not in his A game. Then you you know he kind of addresses that a little bit during his psychology, uh, I mean, uh psychoanalysis that's happening. Um, he gets confronted and asked to join a union, but he doesn't want to do that. And this is before anything significant is happening, he just doesn't want to do it because he's like, I want to be by myself. This is not what I got into this for. Lone wolf. Lone wolf. One, but you know, the Dan Aykroyd character is super trying to push for that. So you got all that stuff going on. This is just the beginning, just setting it up. Then you find out that this girl that he's in love with that he abandoned is hosting the radio uh station. He pops in, he says hi. Now, by the time we get to this point, we have established a few things. This is gonna be a dark humor-filled film, and the music in this film is gonna be um descriptive to what's happening. It is a good score in that way. It also is banger after banger after banger. I don't like 80s music, all the music is 80s music, and it's every exception to the rule. I mean, it's not every exception rule, but it's almost every exception rule. I there's not, I think you have to get all the way to the reunion before there's a song I don't like. And obviously, it's still one of my favorite movies because they use the song I don't like so well that you're glad it's there. The whole course of this movie, Martin Blank is trying to decide. Um decide what to do with his life. He's hit a juncture, he's unhappy, uh, he needs a change. It's said very well by uh Mini Driver's character that he needs a she uses some weird word that I suddenly cannot recall. Go figure. My memory is about as long as my wait a minute, wait a minute, let's not say that on here. I'm Joe from Mag. You know, I'm a stand-up comedian. I don't know if you know that. You can tell by how hilarious I am on this podcast all the time. All right. The long and the short of it is this is a great movie. I'm not gonna keep you guys here all day. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. I'm dead ass about to cut this thing short, but before I do, I do want to talk about um. I think the story is clever. I have a theory that there's another genre that hasn't been identified yet. And I wrote about it in my film appreciation class a few years ago, and at some point I'm gonna have to have a debate with one of my buddies because I talked to him earlier today. I think it's a genre, he thinks that it is a uh trope, and I call it the return and reflect genre. There's a whole bunch of these movies that exist like this, where you have a character that is either in a rut or about to realize he's in a rut, goes back to an important location, usually a hometown, um, often for either a reunion or funeral or a holiday. And while they're there, they will uh contemplate what's wrong with them and explore the past in order to figure out what to do in the future. And I um it is one of my favorite if I'm correct in the genre, it's it would really be a sub-genre. And if I'm correct, it is my one of my favorite subgenres. Um just like space movies, just like um crime movies, crime movies, probably more in space movies. So this is also a crime movie, so it's this and it's that. Like, there's a lot about this that speaks to what I like. I like looking back and contemplating uh where I should go based on where I've been in moments where you pause and look. I'm in one of those moments in my life right now, uh, without a uh without the reunion even happening, but now I have my own real life reunion happening. So the love story is fun and cheeky and interesting between the mini driver's character and uh QSEX character. I think they have great chemistry, and you know, I'm rooting for them the whole way through. You root for this person who does all these awful things. There's lots of murder in this movie, there's lots of killing, and even beyond that, like Blank does some other things that are kind of point at how big of a douchebag and how terrible he is, and you're still rooting for him because uh the charm and charisma of John Cusack, it just works for me. I hope it'll work for you. Go check it out. I believe the um I believe I said it was 1997 was the release. I've been tofer Mac. I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Thank you for listening to Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast.