iTunes Exclusive Episode Kubo And The Two Strings

Whoo
I wish you a beautiful smile
Yeah
Hah
M Vic
It's so priceless
What the hell
What the hell
Hey
Yeah
But
Light
Whoo
It's cyber
Greeding's Empire, Remember, and Or Members.
If you are hearing my voice, it means the following conditions have been met.
At least once in your life, you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast live every Sunday,
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But it probably also means you subscribe to the show on iTunes, because it is time for
another, at Tunes exclusive!
The 229th one of these bad boys.
Welcome!
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast, and I have got no strings attached to
me.
Just kind of how I roll.
I'm not alone for this particular episode.
Joining me across the desk as he tends to do is my co-host, and a man who I really wish
would have been with us for what we're about to talk about, but we're going to tell him
all about it.
He is Chad.
Welcome, sir.
I was exhausted that night.
I know you were a brother.
I wouldn't have been worth much.
I know you are.
Also enjoy joining us, and joining us, he is joining us.
He is the official fact-checker of this show, and a man that enjoys a good leather recliner
every once and again.
You may know him as fond Don Go, but his mom and name and Don Vortam and a column Don
Vortam welcome, sir.
You know, I bought a new couch recently, and he kind of has his reclining things on each
side.
Oh, like we have in the green room.
Exactly.
It's a good thing he didn't go, because we're going to get into something to think about
this film that Chad probably would have fell asleep.
I mean, I almost did.
Not by the content of the film.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
Every time we do one of these, it is to review something, and this is no different.
Today, we are here to review the latest film from the debuting of Director Travis
Knight, but he is also the CEO of a company called Lika Studios.
Do you know anything about them if you've seen the box trolls or paranormal?
Paranormal.
Same thing, but it is called Kubo in the two strings.
Before we start this whole thing, we got to think.
The great people, Julie, and Austin from Slyfox.
They did such a great job.
What do you mean?
There you go.
See me.
See me.
But they bite us to this thing.
Oh, we had a good experience while we're going to get to that everyone.
We're going to talk more.
We're always in one.
You have probably seen this film bandied about here and there and the press and watching
the TV and the things that the kids with the clothes and the hair do.
But let me give you the low down.
Kubo is a young boy, lives on top of a mountain on the water with his mother in the oriental
area.
It's Japan.
Okay.
And because it's talked about samurai and samurai as a Japan thing, who's his mother
is having some issues due to an accident that she had.
So during the day, Kubo goes into town and he has this magic primitive loot for
a lack of a better term.
When he plays it, little pieces of paper fold into shapes like origami style and come
to life.
Yeah.
Well, he always has to be home before sundown, because his grandfather, who is basically
a god, you could say, in his ants, are kind of after him because he's already lost one
eye.
I'm explaining this as the film looks on.
I'm going to go deep into it.
But it turns out that he has to go on a quest to retrieve three magical items that form
a samurai suit that he can combat the rest of his family with.
Sound good?
Yeah.
Those who don't know what the loot is, that's like that square funky guitar thing.
That makes sense.
Meaning.
Well, in the middle ages, they were very rounded big, but it's very, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just in the thin part.
No.
Okay.
So Chad, have you seen a lot about this film?
Yeah.
They're advertising the full out of it.
What are your impressions by what you've seen?
Because before we get into it, I want to see where his mind frames at with this.
The visual style is very reminiscent of Coraline.
And it's the same studio.
Coraline was the one I forgot.
Well, I mean, but it looks more like Coraline than the box trolls or paranormal.
It's it's it's shares a a darker universe stop motion animation, which is kind of a
lost art form.
Yeah.
They're keeping it alive.
But the way they're doing it, out of you see the feature rights on this.
No.
It's kind of neat.
All of the character models they're actually making with 3D printers.
Yes.
I did see that.
So with Kubo, you have like an entire box of Kubo heads that have different
different expressions.
So it's easier for them to depose the frames than it used to be where you had one
figure and you had to kind of do different stuff.
So it's kind of neat the way they're doing this.
Some of the scale on this is absolutely unbelievable.
What you see a little bit of at the end of the film before the credits roll.
Are you intrigued?
Are you mildly intrigued?
Is this man?
I probably should go see this this weekend.
Oh, I'm definitely intrigued.
I mean, again, the other reason I wasn't there is because I was right now.
Yeah.
But somebody who hasn't seen the film, I want to gauge your level of interest before
Don and I start talking about the big time interested.
You should be.
Now, I just want to say one small thing.
Please do.
My interest.
I just thought, uh, another animated feature possibly.
My big good who knows.
That was my interest level going in.
It seemed interesting, but it didn't really blow my mind.
Oh, not me.
I saw the first trailer that came out.
I was like, you have my attention.
Because I've always been a fan of stop motion animation and a
love Asian culture.
So yeah, plus the fact of this looks like a really interesting story.
Looks like Samurai Jack Jr.
We got to the theater and I did see that it was rated PG, which was a little
interesting to me.
Yeah, that's a lot of money.
But it does earn that PG rating.
There are some things in this that might be a little intense for the
younger ones.
Yeah, let's just say it.
This runs an hour 41.
Okay.
So it's got it's a little bit longer than your average kids movies
fair.
But I will say that for the most part, there wasn't a lot of rustling going
on in the theater that we were in.
The kids were focused.
They were locked in.
There were a couple of things here and there, but these were much
young kids.
So for the, for the audience at this film was catering to completely
locked in, completely focused.
To be, it almost looks like they're catering to the, uh,
James and the giant peach audience kind of.
Kind of sort of, but it's younger than corpse bride.
But I will say this.
I had very high expectations going into this.
I didn't.
I just thought and it's, it really exceeded my expectations.
It looks beautiful.
What you worry about when you go into a film like this is, is it
going to be style over substance?
Is it going to be, woo look at all this cool stuff and we're not
going to tell you a story.
No sir.
The story here, the script here is amazing.
It takes a couple of nice little twists and turns.
Yes, it does.
Which are great.
Your voice cast here, Kubo, is played by art Parkinson.
Does that mean anything to you, sir?
Dennering any bells.
It probably should.
Art Parkinson?
Uh-huh.
I got nothing.
Nothing yet.
Not thinking.
You might know him from Dracula Untold, not kidding.
That's Rick on Stark, sir.
Oh, is it real from Game of Thrones?
Oh, wow.
Also Charlize Theron.
Once he starts on his quest, he had a little, there's a lot of magic involved.
And he had this little monkey trinket that his mother gave him.
Well, his mother brings that monkey to life and that monkey kind of serves as his guide.
Voice by Charlize Theron.
Who did incredible?
Oh, absolutely.
And then he had a beetle, a man who was turned into a beetle, played by man, probably
should take a shirt.
Yeah.
Anyways, man.
Sometimes, if you look at him in my arm or I ain't got a shirt on, you know, don't
forget about the hour at our hour at our hour at our hour at our hour at our hour.
That's what I was getting to.
I can stop burying the leafy.
McConaughey is in this, also playing the sisters that are his aunts who are very Kabuki warrior
kind of deal.
Mm-hmm.
Take a Kabuki warrior and combine it with a raden for Mortal Kombat and make it female.
Right.
That's what you got.
Voice by Runeemara.
Great, Nish.
And let me tell you about this one, voicing the older lady in the village.
Here's a name you haven't heard in a minute.
Brenda Vakara.
How about that, sir?
I saw her on IMDB.
And also, George Tk has a very brief role in this because Kevin Dangos from the movie
brothers was with us.
And he asked me to say, who was he in this film?
Go, you did not hear him go, oh my god, he does say he does because I was like, are
we ripping on Tk and then we got to the credits and I was like, nope, he's in it.
Movie brothers here at movie, the movie brothers, BRUTHAS.com.
That's their website.
Also voicing, as we talk about Mortal Kombat, I was about to say, carry here at Kuwaitagawa
who I'm a big fan of.
Shane, was that he was Shane something like that?
He was Shane Songa.
Shane Song himself.
Everything about this I loved.
It's got a very rich, layered story to it.
It looks absolutely gorgeous.
There were a couple of shots that I thought were a little too green screen for me.
But nothing that made me go, oh, I'm out.
You know what I mean?
And that kind of unavoidable and that's stop motion animated film.
There was one shot specifically towards the end where I kind of went, yeah, the contrast
was a little bit off the screen.
But it didn't take me out of it.
Oh, and voicing the grandfather, the great Ray Fines.
Oh, he's grandfather, okay, because I see, I see his name in the credits as moon.
He is the moon king, but he is also Kubo's grandfather.
Okay, there's a lot going on here.
So I'm saying, but it's beautifully shot, it's beautifully told.
It's a lot of fun, really for me, my favorite character in this is McConnell.
That doesn't show.
He tells Kubo that he, his, that Kubo's father was his master and taught him the
ways of the samurai.
Oh, he was his, but he doesn't remember very much about it.
And it's one of the scenes that we saw, it's because they did have a huge intro to this.
And we'll tell you why here at the minute.
But one of the scenes they showed as a demo of what we saw was one of the very first
times you meet McConnell Hayes character and he's fallen on his back because he's a beetle
and he's trying to get up and he's rolling and he's like, you need help.
No, I'm good.
After two or three rolls.
Yep, good to meet him up.
So he's a literal beetle.
He's not just, well, he's a human beetle.
Okay.
Because he's got multiple arms and stuff.
Okay.
My shadow has to go there, I mean, she, she, she, they're on for me, I mean, everybody else
did incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But she made that part.
She made that part for me to connect with it first, but once I kind of got settled in with it
and I understood what was going on, I'm like, okay.
I'm with you now.
Well, you're not going to give any spoilers.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
One of my favorite points is Kubo kind of messes with her a little bit and she just turns
around and walks up to him and just knows to know's don't mess with the monkey.
That's in the trailer.
I don't have a thing.
One thing I want to add on her though.
I didn't even, I knew was her, but I didn't know it was her.
You know what I'm saying?
Fair enough.
What I'm saying is she made that voice in that character so well that I didn't
always picture her throughout the film.
Oh, no, yeah, which is a good compliment for me.
And again, visually, absolutely stunning.
There's a fight scene because Kubo can actually create things with his guitar.
At one point, he creates a boat that they're on and there's a fight scene on the boat
between monkey and one of the sisters that visually absolutely took my breath away.
Just, there's nothing about this film that just didn't make me go, wow.
Do you think it's going to get instant comparisons to like Kung Fu Panda just because of the subject matter?
I think there are people that were will.
I person that, what is wrong with my grammar today?
I don't know.
I think there are people that will.
I didn't.
I'm like, when I started watching this, there's nothing.
I mean, I had Coraline in my brain.
But I was never to me this movie stood alone.
There was nothing.
I was like, oh, they're just ripping on this.
This movie really does stand alone.
And that's hard to do in this day.
Well, the reason I asked because I know that you're a fan of Panda.
All three of them.
Now, me too.
And that is that one of the things that made you kind of pumped about this.
No, I'm a fan of all things feudal Japan to begin with.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of the samurai culture and all and the ninja culture and all that.
I just, I'm also a fan of a good story.
Right.
If you tell me a good story, you have me.
And this tells an amazing story.
Again, visually stunning.
Enhanced shall we say.
Oh, a little bit.
By a little thing, I like to call Dolby Cinema.
This is not a thing that's in every city.
But if you have a theater in your city that features Dolby Cinema,
you would be not doing yourself a favor by not seeing this film in it.
This is the first stop motion animation film that was made for Dolby Cinema.
And not just visually.
Because it's all, but it still carries the Dolby Atmos.
There's about 50 cinemas in the US.
Right.
But I think we have four or five minutes for this alone.
But you and I have been to the Dolby Atmos many, many times.
You see many, many films.
Well, remember when we would go, we were kind of having to squint and look for all the speakers.
Yeah, not anymore, my friend.
They're all backlit red LED.
That's cool.
Talking about like, there's six subwoofers hanging from the ceiling.
But even the speakers on the walls.
There's actually a raise of speakers on the wall.
It's not just single speakers on the walls.
Over a hundred and twenty eight tracks of audio in this.
They're God.
And you know, that would be enough normally.
Oh, no.
Let's take it to another level.
They actually put subwoofers in the seats.
That's brilliant.
So when, in the very beginning of the film,
when Kubo's mom is rowing a boat in the ocean like
and the thunder hits, it hits your seat.
You start shaking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
Yeah.
Say that five times faster.
Yeah.
Five times faster.
Okay.
And I mean, beautiful leather recliners that actually have a little bit of a head rest to them.
And they recline bad.
I will say, be advised if you go, especially if you're here at the Dallas Fort Worth and you go to North Park.
By redoing this theater, they've probably cut the seating capacity by two thirds.
And half at least because the seats are twice as big number one.
Number two, you've got to, you've got enough room to stretch out and your feet are kicking the,
the little divider between you and the rowing front of you.
Goodness.
But it's that good.
Like they did the two or three feature sets about Dolby, cinema, and about like a studios in the
beat before the movie started.
Really.
And at one of them, they're talking about how the contrast the colors are deeper.
And the screen goes black.
And I mean pitch black.
And then just something comes on the screen.
This is yes.
The projector is still on.
Like that's how rich the contrast is.
It's pure blackness.
It is.
It was absolutely gorgeous.
And I never really heard of too much of this cinema thing.
Oh, yeah.
We have.
But you know, I don't know.
No fair enough.
That's fair.
Yeah.
But going in and I didn't expect much on this thing.
And if you go to my written video at www.clubass.com.
That's all website.
I put on there.
This experience of Dolby blew me away.
That Dolby was amazing.
And there's no words to describe how incredible it was.
I just can't.
It's something you just have to experience.
And you will be blown away.
And the thing was this film was made with the intent of going into Dolby theater.
They intentionally made it that way.
But if you don't have one, it doesn't mean you shouldn't know.
Because this film is really, really that good.
It's that much better to see it in Dolby cinema.
But it's really that cool.
This sound.
The visuals.
On this film, like they're, you know, you see them like grabbing in the rocks and stuff like that.
You really.
I put on there.
And my review that you felt like you were there.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And the lightning hit and no seats shake.
Oh, my.
And adding to the gorgeousness.
Yeah, right.
Here's my one question.
Should I should have been 3D with that enhanced.
I don't know.
I think imagine that it would have looked gorgeous.
But I wouldn't.
I didn't say to myself, wow, I wish this was in 3D.
I just, I was, I'm just curious.
Don't be wrong.
I was blown away.
But I was curious.
What that would be like in 3D.
Oh, I'm sure it would be amazing.
Yeah.
So is that theater not equipped for 3D?
I don't know.
I don't know.
We didn't watch a 3D print.
Now I did see there were 2 projectors up there.
So I'm assuming that there were there are 3D capabilities.
It's not seem like they're kind of, but kind of.
But the whole experience was just everything was top notch.
I couldn't be happier.
Like this in Peach Dragon back to back.
I feel like I have to watch Predator like 150 times of the next month to get to, to like,
stop the feels.
Like Predator.
So movies of its ilk.
I just a bunch of 80s action films.
Oh, okay.
Get the testosterone back flowing.
Okay.
Okay.
Again.
I have to do a certain activity of clouds.
I like to quote the very famous philosopher and American.
The brain.
When he said pinky.
If I could reach you.
I would approach you.
I mean, that's what it takes to get us out of that mood.
It's a one showing of strange magic.
Yeah.
Exactly.
But it's it's just so good.
And I was completely blown away by this.
Anything else you want to say if we put some ratings on this thing?
Yeah.
You've got me sold.
I put on there.
If I had one fault in this film.
Even though the kids were into it,
I thought the plot might be a little complicated for a far, far, far, far.
Well, we did that up front.
Like leave the young little, little ones at home.
But still, they would be with that seats and everything.
I think it would still be good.
But just might be all complicated and see the papers move around and all that.
Brain.
Brain.
Maybe I would say fourth grade minimum.
Yeah.
For this.
Because with the young ones, it might be a little tough.
And there are some intense scenes too.
Yeah.
That would be my only complaint about that.
The way we do the final analysis on this show.
We're not going to give you thumbs up thumbs down.
We're not going to give you letters, numbers and pictures of animals.
Nothing like that.
Here's what we're going to do.
The way we do it on this show is we're going to ask up to two questions.
Question number one is would we see this film again?
If the answer is no, then we're done here.
The answer is yes.
The follow-up question is how far are you willing to go to see it?
Because that's going to gauge how much we enjoyed the film.
So from top to bottom here's the spectrum.
Full price evening show.
Twilight.
Matt and A.
Early morning.
Second one at the dollar theater.
Red box.
Netflix.
Table.
Dawn.
Would you see this again?
Definitely.
How far are you willing to go?
I'm giving the double double covenant.
Kevin.
Kevin.
That's what I said.
No.
Literally.
I mean.
If it costs each adult 20 bucks to see this in the Dolby.
It's worth it.
I absolutely agree with John.
Just that Dolby cinema with such an amazing experience.
But again, if you don't have Dolby cinema, I don't care what you have to do.
Go see this movie.
But if you have that choice, it's worth the cost.
It's worth it.
It really is.
And there's one more shout out that I want to send.
And I've got to look the name up.
So I'm sure I get this right because I don't want to screw this up.
And I said, did I tell you about the the end credits sequence to this?
The song that was played over the end.
Yes.
Yes.
There is a cover of George Harrison's while my guitar gently weeps by
Regina Spector.
That is absolutely flipping.
Amazing.
Well, this is Darryl Mariana, led to the score.
Was it something that stuck was the score itself?
Something that's the score was gorgeous too.
But the way it was kind of cool because they added kind of a feudal Japan flavor.
Just just a dash.
Whereas Steve Austin likes to say salt and pepper on a good steak.
That's how it works.
And music supervisor Sarah Mataroto, who, by the way,
I've kind of a Kevin Bacon thing to.
I know somebody who knows somebody who's related to her kind of a thing.
Shout out to the, got to shout out to people we know kind of sort of in a way that we've never met,
but we know people who know them and things.
But yeah, everything about this top notch could not be happier.
Before we end this whole thing.
Yes, we have to think.
We have to think Austin.
We have to think Julie.
We have to think everybody at Sly Foxy.
See me.
See me.
See me.
We can't be the only people that do that.
I don't want to pitch a money.
They would pay money if you would stop.
But you know what?
I think by now they're like, you know what's coming.
Just fight through it.
It's coming.
It is Kubo in the two strings.
Go see it.
This movie.
Shall we do the plug?
Oh, just, just as an FYI that the, the composer,
composer for salmon fishing in the Yemen.
Channel is in Yemen.
Just so you know.
Alright.
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And Jules Wormick, I really think she's going to dig this sir.
I'm telling you this is date night this week.
I'm just letting you know.
Our normal show every Sunday night, 70's during four Pacific is your one stop shop for all things pop culture.
Or just keep subscribed on iTunes and you get all the cool stuff like this.
So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
Brittany Palmer, you could still use your voice in this.
I'm just saying it.