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[Music]

Hey there, pick six fans. One sec, I'm just wrapping up a text.

I'm sending a message to my co-worker who scratched my car in the parking lot at work,

and I'm trying to get just the right emoji to capture how I feel.

The message reads, "Dear Tim, I know it was you, I know where you live, and you were gonna pay.

So should I do a devil face or a steaming mad face?"

Eh, I'll figure it out later. Right now, I would like to welcome you to the show.

The show in question is pick six movies, and it's a podcast where me, Bo, and my best pal, Chad,

make up some dumb theme and then select six movies that fit that theme, and we call that a season.

This is season 24, one we are calling Pop Culture Club, and you have landed on episode five of that

season. This time around, we are looking at movies based on things that bubbled up in pop culture,

and some very smart movie executive said, "boo, boop, we should make a movie if that thing everyone loves."

Of course, by the time the movie came out, people usually had stopped loving it, but you can't fall

people for trying. This movie is the emoji movie, and nothing says rich characters and high stakes,

like those dumbass smiley faces you use when you text somebody. Maybe broccoli for Tim?

Nah, that doesn't seem right, and I think that's kind of sexual. Anyway, enough of my work problem,

I have vengeance to wreak and you have a show to listen to. Let's get Chad in here to give us some

information on this shortcut shit heap, and I'll be back on the other side to talk with them about

this movie in detail. A lot of detail. Sit back, relax, and let's hit send on this emoji movie.

Winky Face.

On November 30th, 1995, the cable network, Home Box Office, or HBO as the lazy people call it,

debuted the surrealistic, hilarious sketch comedy show, Mr. Show with Bob and David.

The series featured a relatively, at the time, unknown Bob Odenkirk, who would later go on to

much more notable fame as Saul Goodman in the TV series Breaking Bad, and starring as the titular

Saul Goodman in the critically acclaimed spinoff Better Call Saul. The David in the Bob and David

was David Cross, who would later go on to play Never New Tobias on the sitcom Arrested Development.

Mr. Show with Bob and David is one of the greatest American sketch comedy shows ever.

Incorporating elements of Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Kids in the Hall,

Elements of Saturday Night Live showed up, all with the edge of the alternative comedy scene of the

1990s. The show featured early appearances by then unknown stars like Sarah Silverman, Jack Black,

Paul F. Tomkins, Brian Boseane, and Tom Kinney, the man who would later go on to voice Spongebob SquarePans.

The initial season only created four episodes, but those four episodes had an underground following,

and comedy nerds, like myself and Bo, passed around VHS copies of the show. One in particular,

was a high school kid who thought the show was hilarious, and he had a relative, at HBO,

who was an executive and realized they needed to expand to a more youthful demographic and kept

the show on the air. Mr. Show with Bob and David was picked up for three more seasons running through

1996, creating some of the greatest sketch comedy ever. The Titanica sketch, where a death metal band,

Titanica, visits a kid, played by David Cross, in the hospital. After a suicide attempt, where the kid

was listening to one of Titanica's songs and decided to jump into a vat of acid to end his life,

is truly one of the funniest things ever filmed in the history of ever. The lie detector sketch

where Odin Kirk is progressively asked a series of escalatingly strange questions to which he

always responds "yes", and the audience ultimately realizes he's just applying for a job at a shoe

store. Fantastic. The lifeboat sketch, where five survivors on a lifeboat turn out to be people

from a 90s era talk show, actually holds up pretty well. The sketch ends with one person sucking the

ink out of a pen, while another person claims they're gonna fuck a fish. The sketch where mobsters

discuss what's the highest number known to man, it turns out to be 24, pure Mr. Show comedy gold.

White trash icon Ronnie Dobbs inspired a musical parody of the TV show Cops, as well as a major

motion picture, run Ronnie Run, that was troubled by personal conflict, bad writing, and creative

control struggles. The show would effortlessly weave one sketch into the next, and then circle back

on earlier sketches with characters reappearing and bookending jokes that were set up 20 minutes

earlier. It was smart, it was silly, and at times it was great cynical satire. The latter of which

was on full display in the season 2 finale with the sketch titled Green Light Gang, where a group

of movie studio executives absent any original ideas decide to make a movie based on the most

popular coupon in America. A coupon for socks. The movie comes out and it is a financial disaster,

so the filmmakers sue all of America for misleading them into making a movie based on a coupon for

socks, and America loses the lawsuit. So everyone in the United States is sentenced to one viewing

of Coupon the movie. This then leads to a trailer for the film that uses every action movie cliche

to sell a movie about a mom buying socks for her family. This ultimately leads to the

end credits of the show where Coupon the movie is turned into Coupon the Ride at a theme park.

It is stylistic, it is silly, it is dripping with satire. Because no movie studio executive

would ever green light a movie based on something as ridiculous as the popularity of a coupon

until they made the emoji movie. To understand how the emoji movie was made,

we gotta go back to understand how emojis came to be so popular. Throughout history,

people have used different ways to communicate spoken language, written language, sign language,

body language, symbols as a means of communicating date back to the use of hieroglyphics,

all the way up to modern day traffic signs. As the digital age came to be, so too emerged a new way

to communicate. In the early chat rooms of the 1990s, people used emoticons as an early form of

online net speak if you will. Colin Dash Close Parentheses was a sideways smiley face to express

happiness. Swap out that closed parentheses with an open parentheses, you gotta frowny face,

and it's a cute way to express sadness or disappointment. Bring back the closed parentheses and swap

out that colon with a semi colon, you gotta sideways winky smiley face to show your re-insarcast.

Maybe the only use of the semi colon for most people where they felt they were using it correctly.

This ultimately led Japanese artist Shikitaka Curita at the age of 25 to develop a series of 12 by 12

pixel icons to enable people to quickly convey information for Japan's top mobile carrier,

Tacoma. If you wanted to say the weather was snowing, you could just select the snow icon and

not type out the word "snowing". That's a six character collection, just saved yourself pal.

All in all, Curita created 176 emojis, which are included in New York's Museum of Modern Art.

If you're in the neighborhood, you'll step by and see him. He's probably search online.

It'll be a lot easier. Take less time. The word emoji is derived from elements of the Japanese

words for picture, write, and character. "Emoji". It's purely coincidental that the word "emoji"

and "emodicon" bear any resemblance. The original emojis included symbols for weather,

technology, traffic, the moon phases, but they also included ways for people to express emotions.

You know, kind of dress up the messages that they were sending. Instead of just texting,

"We're having pizza for dinner, you could text, we're having pizza for dinner, heart emoji."

And that better? It was a dawn of a new way to communicate.

Tacoma customers loved using the emojis so much that other platforms worldwide,

specifically Apple in the US, incorporated them into their platforms as well.

And Unicode support considerations were adapted, encouraging platforms and vendors to align emoji

standards. As emojis grew in popularity, they grew in variety.

Yellow smiley faces had ever changing variety of emotional expressions.

There were plants and animals, foods, professions. The list went on and on.

And if your platform didn't have the emoji you needed to express yourself, don't worry.

A bunch of third-party apps showed up to help you out.

There were pushes to expand the diversity and representation of emojis by allowing users to

change the skin tone and sex of the emojis to be more representative of worldwide populations.

As the popularity and use of emojis became more mainstream, the digital form of communication

inspired other creative endeavors. In 2016, a musical called "Emoji Land" premiered on the

Rockwell table and stage in Los Angeles. Well, I'm bet that was a rousing success.

That same year, the very first "Emojicon" was held in San Francisco.

But a lot of those people that saw that "Emoji Land" musical went to the "Emojicon" as well.

That's my guess. I'm in 2017. There were episodes of "Doctor Who" and "Samurai Jack" that featured

characters that only communicated with emojis. But the cultural impact on the arts didn't stop there.

Because much like the creatively bankrupt executives who greenlit Koopa in the movie,

as satirized on "Mr. Show with Bob and David," some real-life creatively bankrupt film executives

gave a greenlight to make the "Emoji Movie." You may be wondering how the emoji movie got made.

I'm gonna tell you, as I mentioned, a group of creatively bankrupt studio executives said,

while kids were always stumbling around banging on their iPhones, clicking the clock and texting

these emojons. They love em! I'll bet we could make a movie about emojons. The kids could go

see the movie about the things they love and then we could get some of their sweet, sweet money.

What do you say, boys? Let's get rich. And that's what they attempted to do.

The movie was ultimately directed by Tony Leondas. Early in his career, Leondas worked on the

Prince of Egypt and the sequel to "The Lion King." Yes, that was a thing. He worked on "Cronk's New

Group," a sequel to Disney's "The Emperor's New Group." Also, I guess that was a thing. He worked

on "Lilo and Stitch Tubes." He worked on a bunch of Disney sequels. He finally got to direct an

animated film that wasn't a sequel, so a movie called "Egor" for the Exodus Film Group. Although

I am not familiar with the film, it featured an all-star cast including John Qzak, Molly Shannon,

Steve Buscemi, Sean Hayes, Eddie Azar, Jennifer Coolidge, Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall,

Christian Slater, and John Cleese. How have I never heard of this movie? 39% of rock tomatoes,

cost $25 million, $30 million. That explains it. The onus was working on an original idea for

DreamWorks animation titled "Boo." That's B-O-O, Bureau of Otherworldly Operations,

but that movie got scrapped. During this time, there was a bidding war with Sony,

Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures all vying to see who would get to make a movie about emojis.

Good God. When the dust settled, it was Sony Pictures Animation that won the rights to make a

movie about emojis. Interly on this with his original idea, which was more or less kind of a

rip-off of Toy Story. I mean, a movie inspired by Toy Story. Leon is with the Sony and pitched his

idea for a movie about emojis, visiting the real world. Calm our heads prevailed, and a producer

said, "Look, just focus on the emoji world inside the phone. Didn't you see Wreck-It Ralph? It came

out just like a couple of years ago. Jesus Christ, man. Why reinvent the wheel?" So Leon just patched

together a story about how the emojis lived in their own world, helping him along the way to also

get some writing credit for Eric Siegel, who wrote some stuff you don't care about, and Mike White,

who was the guy that penned School of Rock, and he wrote a few episodes of "Breeks and Geeks."

And most recently, he's the creator of White Lotus over on the aforementioned

home box office. Leon is who in interviews stated that he is a gay man, felt connected to the main

character Jean's situation as an outcast, and that the film was very personal, originally titled

"Emoji Movie." "Express Yourself" was fast-tracked to get into theaters so they could start printing

money as quickly as possible, or so filmmakers thought. There was immediate backlash from the

public, because it was a movie about emojis. But you know what? The Lego Movie surprised a lot of

audiences in 2015. You know what audience? Maybe you should wait and see what the filmmakers come

up with. It was announced that comedian TJ Miller would play the lead character Jean on July 17th,

2016, which is World Emoji Day. What the hell is that? Leon does wrote the part with TJ Miller in

mind. Miller had growing popularity from his role as Erlich Bachmann on the home box office sitcom

Silicon Valley. He'd also appeared in the Yogi Bear Movie and did voice work in other family

animated films, including Big Hero 6 and How to Trade Your Dragon. Now later in his career,

Miller got in trouble for a whole bunch of stuff, including sexual assault allegations

and making a bomb threat on an Amtrak train. That's another story. But don't go looking for him in

Deadpool 3. Annapares came in to voice the female lead, James Corden from Carpool Karaoke

fame came in to lend his voice talents to the cast, then came the most important casting call of all.

Who was going to voice the shit emoji? I mean the poop emoji. Reportedly filmmakers went to

Jordan Peele, a black man, to see if he would like to voice the character of shit. Peele's response

to his manager was, "That's fucked up." Ultimately filmmakers gave the role to Sir Patrick Stewart.

Other cast members include Meyer Rudolph, comedian Steven Wright and Jeff Ross,

actresses Sophia Fergara, Jennifer Coolager in there, singer Christina Aguilera, and celebrity

chef Rachel Ray. What are we doing here people? So they make this thing. And the marketing for

the movie kicks in. The teaser trailer comes out. He gets 4,000 likes and like 22,000 dislikes

in I don't like a week or a month because it looks terrible. There was all kinds of noise

about the movie coming out, including the filmmakers ringing that bell at the stock exchange.

They turned the Empire State Building, Yellow for Emoji Day. Nobody cares about any of this

stuff when a movie comes out. Sony invited YouTuber Jacksfilms. Who was the film's number one supporter

before the film's release? Well they invited him to the film's premiere, but it turns out Jacks

film's praise for the movie was all sarcastic. Take that boomers. Leading up to the film's release,

there were review embargoes. Ooh that's not good. And the movie comes out on July 28th 2017.

Prime time summer family film going fun. Free pandemic. Movie comes out and it lands in second

at the box office behind Dunkirk. And just ahead of Girls Trip and Atomic Blonde. Spiderman

Homecoming was in fifth place having been in theaters for a month. The best review for this movie I

found came from David Erlich of IndieWire who gave the movie a D on a scale of A to F. That's

being generous. Saying of the film make no mistake, the emoji movie is very very very bad. We're talking

about a hyperactive piece of corporate propaganda in which Spotify saves the world and Sir Patrick

Stewart voices a living turn. But what do critics know? Alright here's a review from a normal person,

like you or me. Well like me anyway. A normal person named Colton Baxter who wrote a Google review

that reads this quote. This is easily the greatest film I've ever seen in my life.

Nothing even comes close to this masterpiece. After I saw this movie I literally had to stop

watching other movies because I knew nothing could compete with it. The plot is engaging.

Animation is gorgeous. This is quite easily the greatest piece of media ever produced without a

doubt. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire hour and a half hoping that Gene would make the

right face. 16 people found this review helpful. You know what Mr Baxter? Think. Make that 17.

The emoji movie was nominated for and took home Golden Raspberry Awards for

Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screen Combo and Worst Screenplay. The filmmakers didn't

have to sue America for tricking them into making this movie the way the makers of coupon the movie

did. The movie cost 50 million bucks and it pulled in about 220 million worldwide. Is that a lot?

I have no idea. All I know is it wasn't enough to make a sequel and since that's all we need to know

what said we get Mr. Bo Ranzil in here to break this movie down in way too much detail just to see

how bad it is. Ladies and gentlemen eggplants and peaches it's 2017's The Emoji Movie.

[Music]

And welcome to Pick Six Movies. I am Chad Cooper and I am joined by a man who has

ambitiously created his own digital icons for communicating called "Ebojis." Mr. Bo Ranzil,

Bo how are you doing today? Winky Face Chad. Winky Face Middle Finger. Shoe.

This movie is the emoji movie is bad but if you really take a few steps back from it it appears

to have all the ingredients needed to make a slightly competent mostly in offensive movie

that nobody asked for. In the same way that if you stitch together a bunch of parts of different

corpses you have the body of a man but no spark of life. I would agree with that. This movie has a

lot of color there are pop music songs famous voice actors there's a paper thin plot there are

cliched character arcs you know there's there's like the overused themes of being yourself or true

to yourself or something but yeah it's just all shallow and disjointed. Yeah it's a shocking example

of how to make a movie that doesn't appeal to anyone or anything that no one wanted or asked for.

I am not above the no one asked for this kind of movie you know I saw that new evil dead movie

I was like nobody was really asking for a new evil dead movie and then it came out I was like

this is pretty good. I'm not saying you shouldn't make something that no one asked for no one ever

asked for the iPhone and it shows up and everybody suddenly wants smart friends I'm not saying

that that's a reason not to do something I'm saying that sometimes people ask for something

and that's the reason it got made sure like if people were clamoring to make the insert movie

title here that shouldn't be made but people wanted it like the spice girls movie that's something

they're like oh I would see that it's like a hard day's night but with the spice girls and

they're popular like yeah that's something people would go but no one was saying I love emojis so

much I want to see a movie about emojis yeah I hate emojis I don't like using them in fact I rarely

if ever do I think I have a handful of times in fact I hate them so much famously Alan of mutual

Fred of ours she would send me text and include emojis and I would just let's be honest be

rate her for using emojis because as someone who believes deeply in the utility of the English

language I'm like there's a way to express yourself without the use of these stupid little symbols

that became a joke where we would type out emojis so that I would send her a message and then say

pizza slice happy face pineapple right and type that out as opposed to making it an emoji and it

became a running gag and it took literally a decade probably before I ever actually used an emoji

it's a bastardization of communication that I know I'm the losing I'm on the losing side of this and

all I just hate it I think I only use it with one or two people that I know and it's sarcastic I

understand look I'm an old man there is a generation that have grown up in the digital age that the

use of emojis is no different than you or I using spray paint on a bridge or just references to the

movie midnight run it is just eponymous right it's just something that is gonna come out of them no

matter what you want right and I get it I understand it but I just despise it because because you're

an old man it's not it's not for you right and it's not how I communicate it's not how I even when I

text people I've had relatives and loved ones that will say like you don't have to use commas in

text messages you don't even have to use capitalization really and I'm like what kind of monster

writes a sentence without proper punctuation you know it's just yeah the way I am the way I grew up

though there's a focus I have on the importance of the written word and even in text messages I

cannot let that go I agree with you I've had people call me out for using correct punctuation and grammar

and I'm like well that's because you're ignorant right that's because I know how to communicate and

how to express myself and they're not calling me out because I'm using it incorrectly they're

calling me out because I'm using it and it's like haha look at this guy yeah mr. booksmarts

with this periods and his cameras yeah yeah the number of times I read an essay from

my students and it's like they're texting it to me with all the bad grammar and you are instead of

you're and that kind of thing like I just want to stick and the ability to just crack them across

the skull every time somebody writes a formal bit of writing as if it is a text message but it's

the way that they've learned to communicate and also I don't want to be arrested you're telling me

there's wait there's three different ways to use the word to that's fucking crazy it's just a number

right but what no it's stunning and I wonder five ten years from now and maybe it won't matter

because five ten years from now a boss will expect the same kind of communication as they are

giving to them but writing an email like you're writing a text to like somebody higher up in a

company you're gonna be fired on the spot and then they're gonna come for me here's my biggest

problem with this going and I got a lot of them the biggest problem I have is that it never fully

explains the rules of the world that it creates and I'm gonna do my best and I get hung up on all

of these tiny details because when you start pulling on these threads of the plot the entire

film just falls apart and I get this is a movie for children or stupid people I understand that

but still movies like this and by like this I mean movies that are ripping off everything that Disney

and Pixar ever made just put up some guardrails as to what this world is like what is the reality

in which these characters exist so that you can establish conflict and drama suspense just

and purpose it doesn't do that at all I think I could probably without trying list 20 questions

that are not answered in this movie that should have been I don't know that I could come up with

the same just because at a certain point I stopped caring not about doing the show obviously but I

just didn't care about the world that the movie is creating enough that was like I just need to

get through this this movie is 86 minutes long dude that's with credits yeah it's a tight 77 if

you chop those off that was my goal I've just got to get through this because I had seen this movie

before and I remembered enough about it to know that it was terrible pushing back through it it was

like I just got to put my head up like you said all the ingredients are there it's funny because

watching this again I was struck by how blatantly the ingredients are there like this feels like a

dryer race board full of popular ideas and tropes that all get shoved into a movie and somebody

forgot that it also has to be intellectually and or emotionally engaged and we have to care

about the characters in the movie you can't just throw all the ingredients in the potbo you got

to cook with love and it's also hard you know at it's outset to find myself interested in an emoji

that is just by it's a very nature such a one note kind of thing and even if an emoji like the one

in our movie can make different faces it's still just a thing you throw in a text or a email as

happens in this movie and that's it that's all it's ever going to be like I don't need every movie

to have stakes that include the end of the world or anything like that but the stakes in this movie

are so low like everything goes wrong Chad somebody resets their phone that's if everything goes wrong

I don't know but here let's let's get through this this one this won't take too long so this

movie kicks off and we get the Columbia Pictures logo with the woman holding the torch and an

animated set of hands holding a phone comes into frame snaps a picture then places a smiley emoji

face wearing black sunglasses on top of the woman holding the torch is faced and then our cartoon

person text it to someone else I'm assuming that in theaters moments just before this happened there

was a short informal clip asking people mostly the assholes to keep their phones in their pockets

and not be the assholes that they are during the movie but then this movie starts and you get this

real mixed message up come on you can take out your phone come on take it out of your pocket

that guy's gone make a bootleg copy of this movie if you want live streaming we don't give a shit

come on right it fairness I hate it when people use their phones and movies it really does

distract me to no end but if I had seen this movie in a theater I would have begged someone to pull

out their phone just to give me something to look at that wasn't gonna make me angry

peep it over someone's shoulder to see what text they're sending like you tapping them on the shoulder

apes it's why are you apostrophe re by the way if you're gonna begin a sentence with a dependent

clause like that you got to put a comma after the dependent clause to introduce the independent

clause but you don't have to do that the other way you can do independent clause the independent clause

with no comma is this too much yeah just just put the comma okay boomer

right fucking idiot so you need a semicolon because it's two independent clauses you've got there

they're related ideas or you can just common use a conjunction either way but you're going to need

one of those uh if you try to tap my shoulder one more time i'm going to punch you in the face

old man no no not a colon a colon you can't use security security we start this movie after the

god awful thing that they do to the columbia logo with tj miller as you pointed out the problematic

tj miller and who could have seen that coming everybody right based on how he's an asshole and

everything he's in surprise surprise turns out he's an asshole right but he's doing voiceover here

we are in the greatest place in the world the smartphone yeah you're like oh god already i

hate this because i think the smartphone is one of the things that is going to lead to the downfall

of whatever civilization we got left but what do i know i want to get your thoughts on the voice

acting in this movie because the performances that are given except for my erudoff they all just

feel like it's the actors reading their lines and i'm assuming that's because the characters

themselves have no depth and they don't really do anything and they don't have purpose i mean i

don't know what you're going to fill that empty vessel with but tj miller just really feels like

he's reading the script for the first time we'll get to my erudoff later is smiley but she's doing

the overly happy flight attendant or guest services representative but everyone else is it just

sounds like them just being who they are in real life yeah i agree with that i think that everyone

is sort of sleepwalking through this except for my erudoff you could kind of argue patrick

steward but that's just so humiliating luckily he's not in this very much i thought about tj miller

you know if you had to play this role of gene what do you do because the character like the entire

character is summed up with them like why am i such a misfit i am not just a knit

with you can't fire me i quit why can't i fit and blah blah blah which to that point the real plot

of this movie was covered in ranking and basses root off the red nose reindeer yeah that guy's weird

get him the fuck out of here and then they go on a little venture and at the end they come back

and they're like hey could you use your weird misfitness to save the day sure i can do that and then

they have a little dance party and sing a song that you know i would love it if at the end of this

though he was just like fuck you you guys kick me out of your fancy cube yeah i'm just gonna watch

the world burn that's it we're all gonna go to hell together tonight you know see i think this

movie would have been i got a few ways they could have made this movie better one not make it two

it could have been directed by spike jones and have him do to this what he did with where the

wild things are which is a fantastic movie if you haven't seen that come in and make this movie this

surrealistic commentary on the the destructive nature of mobile phones and how they connect us but

also isolate us be down for that this movie kind of dances around the idea of the negative effects

of phones but then it's so busy celebrating apps and text messages and emojis that it

forgets to be about anything right and so the only thing you can come away from is really

the story of jean which just isn't all that interesting so after tj miller says we're here in

the most amazing world of the smartphone each little app is its own planet of perfect technology

providing services so necessary and essential and then the movie pans out of the phone and we see

a bunch of high school kids just wander around with their heads buried in their phones and we meet

Alex who owns the phone that contains all of the emojis we are going to meet in this movie so in

your phone you have a set of emojis so every phone has its own set of emojis that are living

thinking beings that's what we are to conclude that's right every phone is its own universe

connected apparently by Dropbox and nothing else but if you get a new phone you basically you are

the lord and you are causing a flood to destroy all of humanity yeah some say the world will end

and fire some saying ice or you can just reset a phone it's just gonna let the battery run right

right but yeah that's the other thing is like when it overheats because you left your phone in the

car seat and the sun baked it until it just stopped working for a little bit or you let the battery

go down does everything stop to all these people go into some weird like comatose state you know what

would have made this movie better is if they did what the lego movie did and make the people real

people and make the emojis animated i think that would have been better yeah there's this paper thin

story of Alex who gets this text from a cute girl named Addie that he likes

and TJ Miller tells us this is Alex he just like every high schooler his world revolves around his

phone he walks around awkward and embarrassed and horny all the time he's constantly putting his

biology book over his lap thanks to his unexpected and untimely boners and as attention spans decrease

and life moves faster that's where i come in who's got time to type out words just use emojis

and so we swoop into the phone to go to textopolis yeah the home of emojis and it looks like something

out of zootopia it looks like the world of wreck it Ralph but for emojis everything in this feels like

something you've already seen before oh yes the derivative nature of this movie cannot be undersold

no TJ Miller tells us each emoji does one thing and we have to nail it every time and so we see

this Christmas tree and some princesses let's pause on the princesses because this comes in later

these four princesses come out two by two with varying skin tones and and hair hues and they all

just look so pretty and they're trot trot trotting off and having watched this movie twice

twice both in preparation for this i was like why wouldn't because spoilers jailbreak our female

hacker we're gonna meet in a few minutes she turns out to be a princess but she's not one of

these four princesses why wouldn't you make her one of the four princesses here and sort of have

her show her disdain for being a princess instead they all walk out of this beauty salon and they're

t-hanging and giggling i guess because he would ruin the surprise later for reveal that i don't

know that anybody cared about no i cared about it but at the end when they're like oh she's the

princess i'm like yeah but there were four princesses earlier again i'm really gonna try hard to

not pull at these threads but it all of this is just sloppy lazy writing and filmmaking you are 100

correct because the movie doesn't think past the thing it's doing to think about how that affects

other things in the movie because one of the things that we could see here is one of the princesses

like doing the whistle and calling birds thing you could have done that reveal at later in the movie

with jailbreak and her doing that would let you know who she is right and that would be a more clever

way to handle that reveal than just like whoopsie days at your hat fella right and make it part of

the actual plot and not just a beat where you reveal more about this character you could actually

use it and when she does use it it's kind of played as part of an extended gag but it would it would

play so much better if you had that be the defining moment for that character where she uses her

weakness as her strength jean goes on to say the devil the poop emoji the thumbs up they're all

good to go they just have to show up by the way bow devil poop emoji thumbs up that's what i send

my wife every time i leave the bathroom after taking a shit let her let her know to stay away for an

hour so jean says well the expressions though we have it rough because we have to be on all the

time like if the crier wins the lottery they still have to cry or if happyface breaks his arm then

you see this nightmare of this happyface emoji saying like oh my right arm's broken i can see the bone

in this grade and you're like oh my god this is hell for some of these characters and and the cry

emoji comes out of a bodega and is like oh i just won the lottery i'm rich so their society has

currency and millionaires and health care because the one with the compound fracture is headed to the

hospital so do they have like a single payer health care system like canada there's no way their

health care is part of their employment benefits i think everybody works for the same place in town

or at least they're dependent on the monsters ink scare factory knock off how long has this world

been going that it has evolved to a point like as soon as you turn your phone on or all these

emojis just immediately in this culture i think another way you could have made this movie better

i don't have a single recommendation but another approach to have made this movie better would to

have made the emojis unaware of alix and the outside world set it in this environment and let

that be it just lean more into the zootopia side of things that it's emojis and here's what emojis

they're doing it doesn't really have it's not trying to do the satire on apps and the impact of

smartphones on human culture just do a movie about emojis then you don't have these questions

like what happens if the phone dies what happens if you get a new phone like emojis live in emoji

and that's it and the movie it never it never goes beyond the surface of presenting this story of

jean and so forth like it as you said it raises all these questions about this world and how it

operates but it doesn't care about any of that stuff because it's too busy huh cactus emoji right

and look at this guy over here it's poop right and it doesn't do anything with it now we finally get

to meet jean because if you didn't know who tj miller was or recognize his voice you have no

idea who the narrator is turns out it's jean our meh emoji he comes walking out of this brown stone

and he says i'm jean i'm a meh so i got to be meh all the time and when he goes outside he runs

into this pink sprinkled donut emoji that is pushing a baby carriage filled with an assortment

of donut holes implying that they're babies and also jean has parents so do they have sex do they

reproduce right is it a sexual reproduction or emojis fucking and then why would two meh's

have sex to make jean all right look here's another idea you make textopolis all these emojis

and some are real emojis but then there are other emerging emojis that haven't been introduced yet

and you have the jean character and he doesn't know what his emoji is because he's got all these

different expressions and you sort of make the movie a self discovery where at the end he's like hey

i'm not just one thing i'm many emotions all at once like you could do that yes that which is

slightly what they do but not really yes again because they're it's not actually saying anything

you know there's nothing below the surface of jean can't be just one emotion he can't maintain

that emotion you know when he sees all these baby donuts and his expression breaks the donut freaks

out like he just exposed himself or something then he rolls up on some monkey emojis who are in

little suits there's a joke about them being up to monkey business and then he laughs and goes past

them to a crosswalk where a shrimp is there standing beside him waiting to cross the emoji street

and he's like this is going to be my first day on the phone and he ends up knocking over

some emoticons as he's walking which as you said in your introduction we're sort of the precursor

to emojis and he says oh i hate knocking over the elderly like this yeah and then he just grabs a

balloon out of nowhere to float away to work yeah why wouldn't you make this just do the

wizard of Oz you take jean you haven't meet a few people and like he has to go to the cloud

to get the source code or else by a certain day everything's going to be deleted which is sort of

what they do but that deletion doesn't come until later in the movie and it's real random where

Alex is like hey my phone's kind of fucking up i'm going to take it down to verizon or the apple

genius bar and have him fix my phone also for what it's worth having a job title of apple

genius is about as inflated as the subway sandwich artist

neither genius nor artist correct we get to meet jean's mom and dad who as i mentioned are both

meh emojis jean's dad is voiced by deadpan and ultra dry and brilliantly witty comedian

steven right which is perfect casting to play the dad meh but the mom is voiced by jennifer

koolage who some of you know as stifflers mom and she's on those white lotus series yeah yeah

and when i think about her i just think about this over the top sometimes sexy persona and that

did not feel like very good casting i was like look i Rachel dretch probably had a pretty open

calendar yeah Rachel dretch is a good call jean's mom and dad they escort him into the men's room

which again i'm like so these things piss and shit do they eat food would they eat those donuts

dude and also it's poop coming out of the bathroom do they live in the toilets and they're just on

their way to work now i don't know the mom and dad say to jean jean you can't go to work at the

factory or whatever the hell this place is you show other emotions then man jean says that's not fair

all my friends work at the cube and then as you said a little tiny shit emoji comes out and he's

like i'm working at the phone today and i'm only 10 i'm like where are their child labor laws in place

10 what kind of society is this and then the dad shit emoji comes out and he's voiced by

sir patrick steward and he's like that's because i believe a new son and then there's a crack about

them not washing their shit hands are they actual shit also if this baby poop emoji is 10 years old

has alex had a phone for 10 years that's been turned on this entire time i know i know i know

never been reset i don't i don't know this time move faster so that you know one year in textopolis

is a month in human terms like you said there are no rules to this so who knows and nothing matters

the whole movie it feels like it's seeking for any sight gag or hacky pun that they can throw in

i will give credit where credit is due one little joke i thought was funny was that when the kid

shit emoji walks out of the bathroom he has a tiny piece of toilet paper stuck to his heel

which i was like that was kind of clever and as he and his dad walk out they are chanting

we're number two we're number two and and that made me giggle a little bit the number of times that

sir patrick steward has to degrade and humiliate himself in this movie like every line he has is

a line that you're like oh please don't say that you're such a better actor than any of this it's all

wordplay involving shit or assholes or farts there's one star trek reference later on but yes most

of it is just like look son we're poop we're living poop can you believe it look at all the flies

hanging around us jean says mom dad if i'm a working emoji then i'll finally fit in just give me a

chance i'll make the right face i promise dad his parents like all right son you can go to work at

the cube so jean goes to work and the cube isn't really a cube it's a series of cubes and we meet

smiler who is a woman emoji with this grotesque over the top happy persona and big chomper teeth

to match as i mentioned earlier this character is voiced by mia rudolf she does not know how not

to try she gives a hundred percent all the time and she's trying in this it's just nothing she has

to say is very funny so she's delivering these lines with incredible energy but there's just

nothing more than that behind it now and i feel bad for because my rudolf is wonderful and i love

mia rudolf to death yes so she's like look everyone everyone gets their own cube and then when

alix selects you you're scanned and the scan is sate alix's text box and there's nothing like

getting scanned for the first time and at that point i'm like did she is that a fuck joke

well good it seems like a real inefficient way to make emojis appear on a phone because it's like

this stacked row of cubes that are about i don't know what like a hundred long ten high and then

there's a big metallic finger that goes to the appropriate cube and then scans the face of a

living emoji in that cube chat i just had an idea for how to make this movie less worse all right so

what if instead of this scan and they pop up in the text box it's like those old bank pneumatic

tubes that sucks yeah the emojis up to the text box okay every time the text is used they're kind of

called up that way right they kind of shoot up onto this digital stream or whatever into the text

window okay and our hero somehow escapes the phone and is walking around in the real world there he

realizes oh life isn't just one emotion life is complicated and messy and everybody experiences

all these emotions kind of like what the movie does only instead of somebody with all these multiple

expressions realizing that that's okay to have somebody with one emotion understanding that life

is more emotionally complicated than a single emotion all right and so that is the lesson that

he learns and then when he goes back and you could still have kind of the same ending where the emoji

expresses something that's more complicated than a simple smiley face or angry face at the end of

the movie which helps this teenager understand likewise that life and complicated emotions

are just part of the growing process okay you I agree with this but you have Spike Jones directed

and when you say comes into the real world he just comes into the bedroom of the kid who owns the phone

and it's essentially 90 minutes of this kid talking to this emoji and they're having like really

deep philosophical conversations about what it's like to grow from a child to a youthful teen

into a young man and the complexity around that and there's lots of tears and laughter and then at

the end of it you realize that that none of this took place it's just this kid talking to himself

working through some shit oh I like this a lot it's yes yeah yeah I'm totally on board the final

shot is the the kid walking into his parents bedroom and they're asleep and he opens up the nightstand

and it's empty and then you see the kid's hand put a gun in the drawer and then he closes it and

goes back to his bedroom and you're like that kid was gonna kill himself but he didn't I mean it's

dark but I like it better than this I also like the idea I like the idea also of the movie being

our better version of this is him going to talk to his parents about whatever complicated thing

he was talking like maybe they're getting divorced right sure absolutely and then dad's got a high

ball sure mom's on the phone with her personal trainer in quotes but the end of the movie is him

putting down his phone and understanding that this connection that he has with his parents is

something that goes beyond the digital to express these complicated emotions he doesn't need text

messages and emojis he needs to sit down and talk with them yes that is a way to make this movie

say something but I also like that we're we need to talk about Kevin situation was barely averted

thanks to this you know schizophrenia induced conversation he has with an emoji I like that too

all of this would be better all of it would be much more interesting than what it is that we're

dealing with it's smileer leads them to the favorites area which is this like roped off

exclusive club yeah it's like the VIP lounge for emojis there we first meet high five is played by

bane to the national conversation James cordon who's just like please let me in please let me in

and jean slips by to go into his cube where he's gonna work as meh we do find out that high five

has been replaced as a most used emoji because that's who gets to go into the VIP lounge favorited

emojis the ones that use all the time and he used to be a favorite emoji but he got replaced

by the fist bump but that's the kind of thing that you see over on eight chan or so i've heard

that kind of supports those charlotsville protest in january six where it's like do you see that

cartoon documentary about the emojis government's placing high fives with fist bumps fist will not

replace us fist will not replace us come on boy say it after me i didn't understand that's what

replacement theory was that's replacing high fives with fist bumps that is insidious it goes a lot

deeper it goes all the way to top pearl milling company syrup i didn't buy a jamama for different

reasons but i sure as hell ain't buying pearl milling company syrup replacement woke right

anhyzer bush sending cans of beer to some transsexual making it impossible for me to enjoy

a bud light because every time i do i'll have to question my sexuality and am i attracted to

this transsexual it's hard to parse i'm gonna blow up bud light with dynamite and high powered

weapons in protest to a person whom i have never met or heard of since yesterday right and whose

circle of influence does not come anywhere near behind but i am so knee jerk terrified by the idea

that sexuality is more than me drunkenly throwing my dick into my wife that even entertaining the

notion that it is a larger sphere of emotions and physical relationships and identification that

i have to threaten to shoot cases of bud light by a lake or whatever the fuck kid rock was doing

it's just the most small-minded and pointless sword because again you've already bought the

bud light bud light one they'll give a shit if you drink it or not it's a shock anyway i want to

talk a little bit about the fact that high five looks like a naked version of the hamburger helper

mascot kind of with a band-aid on for some reason that's what i want to talk about he's wearing a

band-aid on his index finger which i thought maybe that's supposed to be like a bandana and it really

feels like something that should be addressed in this movie but it is not it's really unsettling

because i immediately go to well is that a masturbation accident because i'm a dirtbag and

so but you're right we we go back to the in quotes real world in this maybe where Alex is in class

debating about what to text this girl Addy so everybody in the cube goes on high alert because

uh oh an emoji is about to be called up in action and jean's parents are there watching him on his

first day of work and this is a real moment of identification i had in the movie where this

teacher is trying to teach a bunch of kids who are just staring down at their phones and not giving

a shit about nothing else yeah sure enough Alex is i guess texting about the class or whatever and

it's pulling up the meh emoji the whole place goes batshit because you know meh is being called up

for the first time but he panics and can't maintain the meh expression and so this messy confused

looking of emoji is sent up the girl ends up putting her phone down and is like what the fuck is this

emoji all about her response is like yeah right and just puts it down because she doesn't understand

what that message is supposed to be and then jean is now asked to leave the cube because he is fucked

up and upset the order of things because a met emoji is what was called for that is not what he

delivered and therefore the phone is now in a race for survival we'll find out because what he

selected and what appeared are two different things yeah he leaves the cube or the wall of cubes and

a sirens are going off and he jumps out and grabs this metallic picking finger that goes

cube by cube it tumbles over due to poor craftsmanship and just smashes through multiple rows of these

emoji cubes does this just shut down the whole operation what happens if this kid Alex in the real

world detects another emoji they don't have the infrastructure or a backup wall of cubes to make

that happen they don't have a sight B absolutely there's no like ela sauna right for emojis or whatever

smileer meanwhile like as everything is falling apart she's like you're a malfunction you're gonna

be destroyed hey that's what happened in rec at Ralph remember she had a glitch and she was an

outcast i liked that movie not like this one that is a farce even the sequel which is not nearly as

good as superior to this in almost every way yeah with with some of the same themes yes but yeah

this is awful so yes smileer she's our villain in the movie or the closest thing we have to a

villain or an antagonist right there she is the antagonist for sure jean goes up to the top of

whatever building they're all working in and his parents come up to comfort him and jean's like

i'm a malfunction but his dad is like how about we go hide you away in our apartment like what

he's like i can't do that i've got to serve some kind of purpose around here i'll show you yeah and

then he just runs off he goes to the board room where they're having this emergency meeting to decide

whether or not he should be slaughtered in the town square inside the emoji elders they decide that

jean is a malfunction and the board comes out and it's some emojis we've seen before one of them's

the shit emoji and jean says to the shit emoji tell me true turd what happened in there

so smileer tells him we're gonna delete you rather than you wreck everything for everyone else

and so here's this antivirus bot that comes out of nowhere and tries to shoot him so jean runs off

again then we cut to high five yep who has snuck into the favorites exclusive lounge yeah as he's

sneaking through here jean tackles him on accident and says any five response are coming and high five

believes this is because he's snuck into the favorites lounge and so he's on the run with jean

right hey did you notice in the vip favorites lounge that beer coffee and dice we're all in there i'm

like i think our kid alex maybe on a downward slide i'll tell you there's one

missing that shows up later it's in the unused basement and i'm like don't worry your time's

coming yeah the fact that it will we'll talk about this i'll say so high five then leads them to the

loser lounge where the emojis that don't get used hang out which as we were hinting at includes the

eggplant emoji yeah and if there is a teenage boy involved oh that's in the favorites for sure

ab so lutely but i gotta ask you yes in the early days of this podcast we used to do a lot of

quizzes remember those days we used to do quizzes uh-huh because we had interns that like writing them

for us you want to quiz i would love a quiz all right i'm going to give you an emoji or a series

of emojis because they're going to increase in difficulty and i want you to give me its

sexting definition as defined by the website bestlife.com bestlife.com the first results that show up when

you're searching for the keywords top dirty emoji meetings bestlife.com is it a legit site you decide

all right moe you ready for this all right all right all right yes yes so we've already talked about

the the eggplant is for a penis okay yeah that's right um the peach emoji vagina clearly it can be

a vagina or butt um here we go okay all right okay sign of fingers isn't that just like the old

school fucking emoji specifically it was anal sex okay so i'll give you how i'm going to give

you have credit for that thanks a pointing finger emoji would that be a penis it's fingering okay

don't overthink it taco oh well that's got to be vagina all correct the hot dog a penis sweat drops

oh well that's ejaculate the judges would have also accept orgasm or semen okay now here we're gonna

we're gonna take things up a little bit all right these are gonna be some combos donut and banana that's

about to be some sex specifically anal sex oh i don't know what's going on over at best life but

i want to find out yeah so it sounds like somebody's getting adventurous over there and i like it

tongue taco sweat drops uh that is oral sex specifically kind of lingus correct on a female uh to the

point of orgasm mouth eggplant fireworks uh that's a good blue job yeah oral sex for for a man that

will blow your mind all right okay here's one waving hand peach devil that's got to be female

masturbation that's a good guess in this case waving hand peach devil was you're gonna get a naughty

spanking okay all right well fair enough okay it's open to interpretation it's not always clear

that's why you got to be careful you don't you you got to make sure you're on the same weave

leak with the people who are getting your your sexy emoji combos all right now these are the

advanced combos all right these are going to be worth triple points all right yes movie ticket

flamingo dancer eyeballs i'm going to a strip club very i very good i want to see you strip yeah

that's very good tongue peach exploding head emoji uh that's got to be like mind-blowing kind of

lingus well in this case uh i'm gonna lick your butt and blow your mind all right rim job or

kind of lingus of all right snake and tulip oh snake and tulip i mean vaginal sex i want to

slither inside your innocent bottom who knew a baguette and a honey pot i mean all of mine are

going to be the same if it is a tube-shaped object go for yeah then i'm saying again this would be

because honey pot it that's what uh the spies were called beautiful spies were called so i would

think that would also be vaginal sex yeah i want to put my penis in your sweet vagina yeah the for

extra credit the heart emoji followed by a bone emoji is that just like i like your dick yes it's

and more more directly i love your penis not the first time you've ever heard me say that you judges

would have also accepted i'd love to bone yes okay um i feel like i acquitted myself well there

i think you did very well considering you were a man who by your own admission does not use emojis

very often you were able to navigate those waters successfully thank you i haven't used those emojis

but i've said almost all of those things mostly to my local clergy do a police officer with as i'm

handing in my driver's license hey you're not a cop are you you got to tell me sir i pulled you

over with flashy lights are you saying you're a cop then jean tells high five hey they're not after

you they're after me i'm a malfunction you know did you see rec it Ralph anyway come on we gotta go

so high five says you're a malfunction we've just got to find a hacker and get you reprogrammed

this will require us to leave the texting app but i've done it plus i heard a mysterious princess

left and she lives on the cloud we need to go find a hacker named jailbreak that is our mission that

is kind of the thrust of our first half of the movie where they decide hey we've got to get some

disguises to get out of here so they just grab a christmas tree emoji and a cactus emoji that they

used to disguise themselves so they can make their way out of textopolis and outside of the text

are they corpses they're not alive they're just like laying on this couch is this like a uh uh

a weekend at bernie's scenario where uh only if every time that you play the bongos if the christmas

tree starts dancing around a little bit we get a bernie's two had honest to good as magic in it

mm-hmm it did well it was voodoo but yeah well that's still magic black magic

well sorry i didn't mean to suggest otherwise i know that well i mean it wasn't like david

copperfield like hiding an elephant from a crowd or something right right no this was

this was more like the craft then now you see me now you see me a movie destined to be on this

show at some point oh my gosh especially now you see me too now you see me too is maybe one of the

most mind-boggling sequels ever made anyway so we're now in the wallpaper of the phone in between

the apps yes the space between worlds high five is like there's a unique world inside each one

don't worry about it we're not going to investigate any of that look let's just stick our face into

weChat where there's a bunch of puppies or something stamping out emojis like it's a

sweatshop i don't even know what the hell weChat is i don't know either like all of this stuff is

sort of this backdoor advertising for a bunch of different apps then they poke their head into

facebook and this is where jean says hey i didn't know that alix had all these friends and high five

says something that sounds like it's going to be a thing that the movie is about and then it's not

which is well they're not friends they just talk about themselves and also you don't need friends

you need fans and that's what these people are likes are all that matters here and you're like

oh okay so this movie is going to be about high five potentially learning that it's friends that

matter not fans but i to the best of my memory this has never brought up again no jean does say

i'll take one true friend over all of that support huh listen learn well forget about that from now on

we cut to jean's mom and dad and the dad says i blame you for jean's disappearance you just wanted

a vacation we had this kid so you enough to work so much our boys on the run we'll go find them

ourselves so off they go to look for him and hopefully a good divorce lawyer high five and jean reach

the piracy app which is skinned to look like a dictionary app there's a comment here where jean

asked kai five why would a teenage boy put a skin on an app what does he have to hide and then high five

gives it's a little side to side with the eyes implying that his phone is riddled with pornography

yeah that seems to be missing from this movie doesn't it like how much porno this freshman in high

school is watching on his phone right like as soon as he sees the internet app whatever that may be

google or whatever as soon as they dip into that the history it's just a hundred open tabs of

like disassociated keyword searches as this young man tries to figure out his own sexuality

shortage anime fuck you know that kind of stuff it's like balloon rough stuff like what

just a fully clothed woman just popping balloons talking asmr green new deal blowjob you're like

what not even sure why we got political so high five is like be careful in here this place can get

rough and they go into the sounds of we're not gonna take it because nothing says this is a rough

place like a 40 year old party anthem yeah it's like it's the star wars bar yes it's a bunch of weird

o's like what viruses and trolls and internet trolls jeffree raw shows up for a paycheck yeah not a very

big one clearly it's a living not much of one the bartender is a Trojan horse which doesn't really

go anywhere high five walks up and says hello we're looking for jailbreak and like uh jail breaks

over there and they turn around and they're like you mean jailbreak is a go go go go go go

all right all right so we meet jailbreak who has blue hair and this dark knit cap with a little

skull logo on the front of it she looks like every clicheed skater girl she looks a lot like

the female character from record Ralph speaking of you've seen all of this in pieces and parts

in other movies high five says to her hello i'm high five i know what you're thinking i'm the

the nude hamburger help a fellow but i'm not um we need your help turning my friend jean here

into a true meh using your hacker abilities and jailbreak says beat it losers and then uh at this

point the avi bot show up to kill jean and jean flips his shit and starts making multiple faces

and jailbreak says hey i can use you come on guys follow me so the avi bot start killing everybody

in the star wars bar jailbreak jean and high five they scamper over to this secret door that empties

into a tunnel that will save them and they go just like in star wars only instead of into a science

fiction action adventure movie they end up in candy crush didn't you feel gross yeah i'm not sure

that if it's the most egregious example of them co-opting a phone thing because i think maybe this

spotify one is dumber but this does feel in defense of the filmmakers if you're making a

movie about a phone and abs i mean candy crush is probably as big as it gets right and they'd

already made an angry birds movie so couldn't do that right so what's the other app that is

recognizable as a game on a phone other than angry birds jean falls into a level of the game

and here jailbreak and high five have to play candy crush but they need to be careful not to

destroy jean but then they realize hey the only way to get him out is to destroy him so they do

that and then he saved the one thing i do like about this moment is there is that cutaway where

jailbreak has a daydream about matching him and then he just explodes into goo hmm she's got problems

i appreciate that i like a little darkness but think about in your own life if you were just

sitting there talking to someone and your mind drifted away to a place where the person you're

talking to their head exploded like scanners uh-huh oh was that it oh um yeah weird so that happens

there's also a parallel scene where alex is trying to make a little time with atison outside of school

and when they're playing candy crush you can hear his phone going delicious divide and alex gets

all embarrassed because they're hearing these words and he's probably got a boner and um he

calls up wireless wireless to make an appointment to get his phone fixed this puts an appointment on

his calendar and we cut up to the boardroom where everybody just starts losing their shit because

they realize that the phone is going to go into the shop they are going to be erased tomorrow yeah if

they find a malfunction so the plan is we got to get jean back and murder him in the town square

to make sure we're clean when we get to the phone store and to make an example to the other emojis

let them know what happens if they step out of line and so jell break tells jean that she is going to

become his knight in shining armor and says all we've got to do is go to just dance from candy crush

and then on the drop box and then we can go to the cloud so we can reprogram you all we've got to do

is use facial recognition to get through the drop box firewall that she's banned from because

she's already tried to get through one time right but because he can make different faces they can

try a bunch of different times yeah jean explains that back to her and jailbreak says yeah that was

my idea thanks for me explaining it to me you dick and so jean's parents make their way into

youtube yeah they go looking for him this goes right other than to just say like hey youtube is an app

and then jean's parents decide that they're going to split up to look for them because they're on the

outs with one another and we see that there are some anti-virus spots sent by smile or to follow them

so that they can you know essentially use jean's parents to find him yes and so jean and then

jailbreak make their way through this tunnel while high five who has been eating all the candy crush

candy is losing a shit on this sugar high jailbreak says i just want to get out of the phone and into

the cloud because there's so much to see and do i want to be where the ones and zeros are i want

to be up there codden hagen typing away on those what do you call them oh yeah keys up where they

code up where they run more code up where they hack all day in the microsoft son system

i want to be like all of this movie is just stuff from other movies i really love musical

breaks in this show when they happen but jean by the way is telling jailbreak like hey i don't

remember any hacker emojis and jailbreak's like i don't want to talk about it hey what's out over

there and high five is like hey mate i think this hacker emojis into you and so they end up going

to the just dance app they have to keep quiet and not turn the app on some music doesn't play and

alert you know the rest of the phone question mark do they are yeah it doesn't wake up giant

sized Christina Aguilera but then high five sees a big red button and pushes it because that's what

he does that's kind of his thing which wakes up giant sized Christina Aguilera with her purple

hair and long ponytail high five says that's fine with me because i can dance like michael

and it's always good when your kids movie references a credibly accused kidfucker i think

that is always important yeah it turns out jailbreak cannot dance uh oh and uh there's this dance off

and Christina Aguilera leading this says you get three chances and if you fail you're gonna have a

digital death and i was like wait can emojis die apparently so because they're deleting jean if he

gets caught by these avy bots so there's the stakes are murder and death apparently long story short

jean encourages jailbreak to dance and she eventually gets into the groove as wams wake me up before

you go go plays to no one surprise high five he's just having a grand old time off on his own

jean looks over at jailbreak and he says hey express yourself that was the name of this movie

originally but they got rid of it because it kind of sucks during this touching scene Bo jean comes

up with a brand new dance move where he kind of plays peekaboo and each time has a new face they

ask him what this dance is called and it's called the emoji pop that's fun though i wonder Chad do you

think anyone in the making of this movie realistically thought this was a thing that would catch on

like the bat dance or something something right like why have this big fancy dance that you're

setting up in this movie if somewhere in the back of your head you're not thinking like people are

gonna be dancing like this people are gonna do this in a club this is gonna be the next

gangdom style yeah right of course the christina agulera avatar loves it and as jailbreak dances

her hat comes off and we see that she is wearing a princess tiara and has combed brown hair not the

shaggy blue hair when her hat pops off the blue hair is attached to the rim of this knit black cap

it looks like a wanes world halloween costume prop yes it does i like the idea that she has stolen

this from like from spencers some spirit store that popped up over in some no longer used app space

it's over in group on they just hung up a sign for 30 days so the avi bots bust in and jean says

don't worry because those robots can't dance and then while the robot goes downloading

funk protocol and so it turns out they can dance disco inferno plays uh-huh and there's one cutaway

where we see that alex is in class when disco inferno starts to play and so we hurriedly

deletes the app and that's where everything goes to shit inside the phone yeah because everything is

starting to disintegrate as our heroes are trying to escape jean and jailbreak get out of the app

then jean reaches back to grab high five but an av bot grabs high five pulling him down into this

abyss of deletion right then another app moves into place as alex manipulates the icons on his phone

and then jailbreak says well high five said he's he's gone in the trash and so we've got to get to

drop box and this is where we get one of the lessons question mark of the movie where jean says we've

got to go get him and jailbreak's like yeah but we're we're right next to drop box we can just step

inside and we're out of here by the way like i've always gotten by looking out for number one

and jean says in a line that makes me wince every time it's spoken in the movie what could

it be in number one if there aren't any other numbers and jailbreak has this apiphany chat where

she goes wow okay good point this blew her fucking emoji mind when he says this it is something that

she never considered this way before because she is a sociopath and a narcissist and jailbreak is like

well we can write the music stream from spotify all the way to the trash icon did you notice whenever

alex has his phone and he gets flummoxed he like pulls it out he boggles it and it squirts out of

his hand like a bar of soap until he finally catches it and then he pulls it in close and kind of

and he looks around it feels very much like something woody the cowboy would do in toy story

yeah i mean like his his movements are comically jerky like even as i watch it's like i feel like

i've seen this before reach for the sky back in tikstapala smiler is stressing and says we only have four

hours until deletion and then she decides that she's going to use this illegal upgrade on one of the

bots is like lightning flashes outside like it's frinking science gas then we see high five wake up

in the trash app with the christina agulera and a spam letter did in an internet troll this christina

agulera avatar is weeping and like her mascara just pouring down her face and she's just almost

automatically just doing her dance moves and crying which they never come back to her like

no she dies in this right and then when high five got pulled into the trash there was a robot

that was yanking him down we don't see that robot there seems like that's a big miss the internet

troll died you know there's so much pornography in there oh yeah i would think that that would be

99 percent of it but as soon as you go to the trash it should just sound like uh uh oh

because this movie doesn't have an original thought associated with it the abyss from the trash is

essentially the place where bing bong dies in the movie inside out a movie that came out i think

two years before this oh yeah that's true i didn't put that together but yeah i like the fact that

jeffrey ross is the internet troll tells high five this is the last face you ever gonna see

gross meanwhile jean and jailbreak ride a stream of songs in a canoe where did this

bow come from la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

be shy we're going to ride the music you can kiss the emoji trademark copyright it's totally that

jean does ask her during this scene hey let me ask you a question when a princess whistles do birds

fly down from the sky like in sleeping beauty and snow white and is parodied by fiona and

shrek when she's saying real loud and that bird exploded can you do that and jailbreak gets real

pissed off and she says that's a complete myth take that back you piece of trash i'm sorry i'm sorry

because she's bipolar she says let me let me just change the subject did you know that on the first

set of emojis a woman can only be like princess or a bride and i was like wait a minute i thought

the first emoji was smiler that's what the movie told us she's a woman somebody didn't pay attention

to the details of this movie or maybe jailbreak didn't pay attention in emoji history class or

maybe she just cherry picks her facts to a lot of the particular narrative confirmation by as much

jailbreak jailbreak says to him when we get to the cloud you can be whatever you want to be hey look

here's a whale song coming up that we're not going to hear but look up in the sky there's a digital

pixelated whale flying overhead like in free willy and free willy to the adventure home and free willy

three the rescue and in the little known direct-to-video release free willy escape from pirate co you won't

see anything like this sitting in a cube genie boy and jean says you know it's funny you want out of

the cube but i want in and jailbreak says to him jean if it means you can't be yourself what's the

point also what's the point of this movie is it be who you are is it except who you are don't let

others define you no man is an island words hurt more than a fist dancing solves everything you know

what i just think it's cool that you're just the way you are jean's like she thinks i'm cool and he

flies around but sorry that's yeah yeah before they can fall in love too much though they've reached

the end of the stream and wash up on the shores of the app or whatever and in the trash app high-five

is singing and moaning what is he singing about it's a no body knows yeah the old spiritual yeah an

african-american spiritual that came out of slavery again you know it's a kids movie chat this is what

belongs here then this light appears above high-five and all these other individuals thrown into the

trash and jean comes down a rope to rescue high-five one detail we got to mention here is that high-five

does find an old email to atty where he expresses his love and feelings for her and includes a high-five

emoji in the email that will come up later that's right the skylight opens and then they what do they

come down on it's just like a little pulley with rope yeah and as soon as they get high-five up

he's like listen my brothers and sisters here's the rope so you can free yourself and as he turns

around he kicks that pulley thing down the hole too sealing the horrifying fades of our other apps

trapped in there there's no way they can get out with a rope this thing's like 500 feet above their

head yeah best case scenario they should just pile up all of the trash and get to the top and climb

out through the hole but we never see these characters again we assume that they die here yes probably

worth mentioning also that Alex's pal says that the girl that he's interested in atty is going to be

with her friends at the promenade which as fate would have it is where Alex is going to get his

phone reset every time we see Alex he's always got this wingman poking him in the rib like hey man

there's atty go get you some and he's like oh I don't know what to say I should send her an emoji

how about you send her one of those porn videos you're always watching say this could be us she's

got snapchat send her a picture of your car it'll only be there for a few seconds and then you'll

see she'll know what you got going on think she'll like that yeah girls love dick pics do you have

eggplant your favorite send her that and that little squirty sweaty thing that lets her know that

you jerk off to her girls like that stuff she hates mom looks more of an instagram where we see pictures

of Alex and his family in Paris ooh la la and looks real sad because she sees him i think it divorced

she can't start her over at this stage of her life she's got a teenage son she's got a lot of

baggage let's face it she's gonna go with his dad she's gonna move back in with her spencer aunt her

sister the exasperated emoji so jean's mom walks into a photograph of Alex his mom and dad in Paris

and i don't understand this at all she goes into the picture and it's like the matrix it's that

effect where everything is stuck three dimensionally in one location but then there's a character that

can walk through it so it pivots around it's unnecessary she goes over to this fountain she's

like mmm a shitty man i wish i knew where my son was i never should have married that other piece of

shit and mel meh and then mel is sitting on the other side of the fountain he's like mmm i can hear

you but i need to tell you something the reason our son jean is such a malfunction is because of me

i can show other emotions too and he comes around and they make up right and so as our heroes travel

through the phone high five once again sjel break is the truth that what they say about you whistling

and calling down birds and she's like shut up i will kill the next motherfucker that asked me

about whistling yeah and then at this point the av robot the supercharged one shows up and apparently

the filmmakers of the emoji movie saw spider-man too because this thing now has dock-auk extendo

pincher claws and once it gets super sized it reminded me of like a pint-sized version of saurot the big

eye creature from the lord of the rings like it's got a big red eye on top a teardrop shaped black

body and then it starts chasing them and they're like we got to split up yeah and so they do you

because the filmmakers saw the original shrek bow and that's how they escape that dragon that was

chasing them they split up and ran around until the dragon's chain created knots on itself so it

couldn't get after him but it only lasts for a second like they lose the thing for a hot second

and then it just comes back after him but they do escape into drop box in the meantime well you

know every teenager bow has drop box that's the coolest after is right it's not just for old people

that have to you know share files between work and podcast co-hosts and what not drop box but

turbo tax quick books that's what all the cool kids have man right you need a budget is in there

i don't understand why this kid has drop box other than to help progress this movie's excuse for a

plot along but they hop into drop box and the avi bot can't follow them because it has illegal

malware except in two or three minutes it totally follows them so i don't know what happened there

they climb into what looks like a theme park ride like it's three seats across with a little lap

belt and because it's a drop box they get dropped and they zoom down it's all it's wonderfully fun

for people under the age of four to watch this and they land in front of a firewall which is

literally a wall of fire and it speaks with this robotic female voice similar to glattos in portal

or our own beloved pixx bot from this podcast she's a sweetie jean steps up on this platform and

jailbreak is going to start spouting off passwords so jean pulls up one of his faces he says the wrong

password and he gets blasted with a charring stream of fire from below and does this hurt jean

it seems to at least a little bit but he goes through it a hundred plus times and he even asks

do i have to do this every time shut up yes yeah you do they're just trying password after

password and it's jailbreak going through all of you know Alex's personal files to try to find the

word that serves as his password jean at one point says geez i don't know i probably use the name of

a girl i liked and jailbreak is like he's never mentioned any girl i think he might be gay

and then high five is like this is nothing wrong with that whatever he wants to do whatever he wants

to be is fine she's like yeah i know but he hasn't told his parents yet i keep looking in through

the notes on his phone to see if he's like working on a speech or something that he's gonna give them

and maybe to his friends but high five is like no no no i found this email down in the trash he's

definitely straight in fact he says horrible things to this young woman it turns out that here's this

email which actually reads you and i were like diamonds in the sky you're a shooting star i see

a vision of ecstasy shine bright like a diamond then it goes on to say you just seem so cool out

signed Alex and then a high five sign so his love letter to her is just a copy paste of Rihanna song

lyrics yes along with you seem so cool well that's that's how he makes it his own i guess yeah it's a

real seeridow to berserk we got on our hands here Chad jean steps up on the platform he uses the

password addy and the firewall opens up and they get led into the magical land of Oz i mean the

cloud and they trump trump trump in and it's sort of these digital clouds everywhere in these tall

futuristic looking buildings with tubes zips up and around and jailbreak says so i guess i'm gonna

start hacking i'm gonna turn you into a real meh high five i'll get you back in the vip section

and we're gonna be good to go and high five is excited everybody gets what they want but then

jean goes over to jailbreak and he's like hey jailbreak look you're the coolest emoji ever and

my feelings are huge now he's like what he's like i want to stay who i am with all of these

multiple personalities and they hold hands and jailbreak is like whoa whoa whoa man look i got a

plan and it doesn't include me being a princess waiting for some prince like you said i was beautiful

that's nice and all but look i've been dreaming of getting here this is over and then jean's like oh

really well i guess i'm really a mess because you broke my heart and said those mean things

and then that av bot shows up because everything they said earlier doesn't matter how did it know

the password bow i i got nothing for you it comes in and just whips its doc ock claw grabs jean by

the face like he spider man and then he yanks him back to text opolis for that public slaughter

and then we cut to the phone store cellular cellular or whatever wireless wireless uh run by mario mario

right and at the store alloch shows up as like hey i'm early for my appointment and they're like oh

that's okay we can get you in early and this is one of the more exciting customer service scenes

that you're gonna find in this movie i think it's rivaled with the the moment where he goes to the

coffee shop and is like hey do you have hazelnut creamer and they're like yeah we do he says thank

you and leaves them an extra generous tip of seventy five cents i mean for a freshman high school that

seems like you're really doing them a favor yeah i mean he upped it to twenty percent and that's

not nothing for a high schooler so jailbreak has achieved her plan she's on the cloud hooray for

jailbreak yay and then high five walks over and he's like jailbreak that av but just took jean back to

the start of the movie it happened right over there it was really loud and violent i'm so i'm

honestly surprised you didn't hear all the commotion yeah sorry i was too worried about

getting what i want what was your name again hamburger and this is concerning high five says

jean looked more met than i've ever seen him look at me before what did you say to him and jailbreak

says ah it's not what i said to him it's kind of more of the way i said it i mean what i didn't say

all right look we got to go save jean christ i can't believe i got to do this and then in what is a

truly perplexing moment in this movie jailbreak whips off her nik cap with the attached blue wig

and she's got a little crown on her comb brown hair and this whole film she has just been espousing

the offensive nature of female stereotypes but then here she just uses her natural princess abilities

to whistle in an effort to call birds to help them is the message of this movie you don't have to

conform to preconceived definitions of who you are but when you're in a pinch toss your ideals out the

window do what you got to do to get what you need what a better movie this would be if she said no

i can't do that thing that i've been telling you i can't do and instead i'm gonna use this other

talent i have that i had to hide all along right like explosive farts like a sheep

and just like blast it through the air oh boy that'd be good yeah the reason that no one ever took

me seriously as a princess is because i could propel myself into the air like a jet pack only i use

my ass but sure enough she whistles a couple of times nobody comes and then she gives it another

whistle and in flies the twitter bird boy that's aging well yeah at one point in the future this will

serve as sort of a reference to the fact that there was in fact something called twitter sure

that this movie will not age well no no i mean already with the candy crush it's like i think

we've all moved on from that you know it's one of the beauties of the digital age is that the pace of

things is so quick that things are always replaced by better versions or different versions of those

things like facebook is losing subscribers because tick tock is more popular and eventually tick tock

will not be popular and there'll be something else and twitter is dying but oh the guy who invented

twitter it has and has done an app called blue sky and that seems to be the thing that's gonna

supplant twitter it's just this constant churning yeah of abs the best this movie can do is to be a

snapshot of a place in time but yeah when you see this twitter bird show up all i can think is like

oh yeah that is the app that now users that have authenticated blue check marks beside their name

are actively telling people just keep in mind i am not paying for this because i think this app

is garbage so anyway we come back to smileer who says now we can delete gene the technician will

discover that there's nothing wrong with the phone and will all be safe and there's a countdown clock

on the wall with three minutes but alex showed up early for the appointment uh-huh so that doesn't

square and like and then you don't really even need this countdown clock on the wall that doesn't

matter at all no so they show up and gene's there and he's all sad and all of the emojis are there

in their cubes because they're wanting to see a public execution yeah this is like late 18th century

france yes the fact that they don't have torches in the background is is a real miss do you think that

because you know ched when you die all your muscles relax and you end up being and pooping

yourself right do you think that when this happens to gene when he's deleted do you think a little

poop emoji appears maybe that's how they reproduce that would be pretty good but gee's parents show

up to stop smileer and the robot has fired up its lasers to kill gene and his dad is like this is

all my fault because i can do exactly what gene's doing so you'll have to delete us both and sure

enough to say vbot just grabs the dad is like fine i will destroy you both he's like oh i didn't

think this through then sir patrick stewart chimes in as poo and says you're making too big a stink

about all this does everyone get it because i'm poop yeah that uh it makes a stink like poop does

i was in shake speed i'm going to call my agent after this

so his dad tells gene i was all wrong son i'm happy to die with you yeah and at this moment of

apocalypse high five and jailbreak show up they come crashing through the ceiling which is exactly

how shrek and donkey show up at the end of that first shrek movie to stop the wedding oh i didn't

even remember that i guess that's true i know it's true i've seen shrek a bunch in a minute we're

gonna get a scene where all of our characters are being killed which is a tip of the hat to toy

story three i wish that movie had stopped right there in toy story three when they all link arms

and swirling the drain around this open fire pit and just fade to black then you get the word

thin it's been a pleasure serving with all of you it sure has woody

well he sure was a surprise that they all died tonight nobody saw that coming but that's friendship

died with the closest friend in a fire pit it's better than dying alone but not by much not by much

she got french but you still revved in

yes so they're they're trying to turn off this stupid avi butt and jailbreak gets thrown free

and sure enough high five comes to the rescue because he hits all the buttons because he's a

bunch of fingers and it's either hitting buttons or going in butts it's one of the two

so jean's asked jailbreak like hey what happened to be in number one she says well that's the thing

what about all the other numbers and you're like oh i just hate all of this this is not a lesson

this is just a thing that makes me mad to hear it so this buzzer sounds and the phone's about to be

deleted this is the star trek thing where we hear patrick stewards yell red alert red alert and

it's one of the most demeaning things i've ever seen in a movie adi shows up at the phone store

while that's happening jailbreak says we've got time to send just one text to try to get through

to alex and save everybody so we don't have to listen to a randy newman song have to or get to you

be the judge and then the heart face emoji and shy emoji are like you should send us because

that's how he feels and high fives says no no it should be jean because he conveys all of those

those emotions and smileer says an emoji can only be one thing yeah but she got crushed and killed

and she says that from off-camera yeah and that's where jailbreak shows off her tiara and everybody's

like a princess and she's like you can be more than one thing and then as the last of these apps are

dissolving jean has a flashback to all of the wild adventures that he and jailbreak and high five

went on and so jailbreak sends this final emoji message it's a real head scratcher because they're

trying to ratchet up the tension and then jean just has a little pleasant flashback looking through

the postcards of his mind of things that happen throughout this horrible movie right before you

die you remember all the stuff that you did all the friends that you made all the people you knew

and you shit your stuff and fool your pants and poop friendship and oblivion because that's what

waits on the other side you know that's how they could have made this movie better it's like it

feels like they were trying to make something good they should have just leaned into the shittiness

of it and just did what uh like you know how book of mormon parodies that like all of the tropes of

Broadway musicals do that for animated movies like realize like we know this is going to be

shitty let's just make fun of computer animated films oh yeah if somebody had actually cared to

make something that wasn't just a callous money grass just like make it so grotesquely cynical

and then you could truly have them all die at the end you know i mean it wouldn't be a kids movie

but it would be shocking and funny and music by not Randy Newman everybody's time for a movie

i'm gonna sing a song here we go look at us we're instagram here's some pictures of somebody's grandma

but she ain't alive anymore dick pics who wants a dick pic i got a dick pic for everybody so

Alex gets this stupid emoji which is like hard eyes and a kiss and a blush and all these things

and he sends it to Addie who kind of sees it and giggles a little and comes over to him and says

hey i love this emoji that you sent me but i love it because it expresses all these feelings at once

and i like that you're one of those guys who can express his feelings yeah words would you why do

you have your hand shoved in your pants like that would you want to go to the dance with you sure i

would love to go to the dance you would you mind if i go clean myself up in the bathroom you're so

funny it's funny because the guy just came on his cell he never talked to a girl before his pants

are all sticky and she can see everything he didn't expect this when he came to the phone store

it's called all gazels your first org gazel when you're 14 standing back to a girl while he's

humiliated all the abs are dying yeah well all this is going on inside the phone everything is

getting thano snapped or if you want to go old school it's like the nothing from the never-ending

story they are just disappearing jean sees his parents get deleted high five gets deleted

Alex walks over and unplugs his phone from a cable that stops the deletion which that's not how

anything works all the other stuff would still stay deleted but that's not you know sure everybody

celebrates jean like you did it you saved everybody jean and then we go to our next scene or wrap up

where music is playing and jean is going to the favorites area where he stopped by the bouncer or

whatever this is all just a ruse that everyone has set up because they want to play a trick on their

savior and it turns out there's no longer a favorites area because now we live in a communist

utopia where everyone is equal and they all do the emoji pop dance to celebrate the fact that

they're all still alive and then we see Alex take a picture at the dance that he and adi have gone to

he selects jean as the emoji to attach to this even though when he does it jean is not doing the

kind of kissy face shy face he's just making whatever the fuck face he wants to i guess

he's earned that right as savior of the phone sure and then credits the second most embarrassing

thing i think is seen in this movie during the credits where you see and sir patrick steward as

quote poop yeah that's pretty bad but there's also a mid credit scene chat because i didn't see

that why not it's smiler in that dungeon where eggplant is although he's probably been promoted

upstairs it's the dance and she's in braces like her jaws wired shut oh playing gofish with that

little sushi roll and a bunch of others and in the basement and that's it that was a rough one that

is a terrible terrible movie yeah is it the worst we've seen this season maybe we said that a lot like

super mario brothers is so fucking weird like it shouldn't be celebrated but it at least is

this weird blend of something that directors were going for and this other stuff that happened to

the movie and you can kind of see the kernels of something interesting there this is the most

cynical movie that we've done this season that only exists to make more i would agree with that

we've had a few seasons like this before where the entire collective is just right yeah and this

season is pretty pretty bad because they're all cash grabs no one was really trying to do

anything other than make money mario brothers might be the best movie we we see this season it's

quite possible which is shocking that movie was awful yeah yeah it certainly wasn't this movie

and i can't speak to what our season finale is going to be because i have not seen this movie

in decades which bow would you care to introduce what our season finale of this season's theme

pop culture club is going to be by the power of grace gold shed we are going to watch that

dolph longren franklin jellah masters of the universe movie and god only knows it can't be worse

than this franklin jellah is in it and my understanding is that this was a performance that he was

truly proud of and having him coming into every scene chewing the furniture of the walls and the

legs of other characters is gonna elevate to a certain place absolutely i'm not saying it's

gonna be good i'm saying it's gonna be better yes so we're gonna go out on not a high note that's

our first thing we're going out on not the worst note i also want to say just because it's timely

of when we were recording this we really consider doing jerry springer's wingmaster but yeah that

movie was a comedy and it didn't fit it wasn't going to do what we wanted it to do but i just

wanted to say rid jerry springer he provided me personally with hours upon hours of violent white

trash entertainment through my college and early 20s so yeah rest in peace jerry springer and

twicky day forever you know maybe a photo any final thoughts that you have on the emoji movie

they should have just called this movie sopatrix do it because it's cool

i'll see you two weeks time everybody.