Topic: Catch Me If You Can (2002)

3 months into the movie pod, Topher Mac talks box office and discusses ideas and themes within the Stephen Spielberg film Catch Me if You Can (2002).  

Transcript

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You know, there's this theory uh that I have certainly said before that I have I'm pretty sure heard before by several different people, and that is entertainment is really uh lying to tell the truth. I mean, it it absolutely is a medium where everyone participating is pretending to be someone they're not, or pretending to be something that they're not, um, even when they're playing themselves, they're being performative, or they're playing fake versions of themselves, you know. For example, on that, in case you're wondering, I'm thinking of uh this is the end, where none of those people are like that in real life, not really, they're being performative, they're telling a story, and through the story that they tell, truth comes out, truth of the human experience. Why does any of what I'm saying matter? This is a movie podcast, it matters because today we're covering catch me if you can. Ah, we're gonna get into the giant lie that is catch me if you can. Uh, it's it's cons on cons on cons, baby. Yayo! Oh man, there's so many cons. You think it was Tony Cons. Ah, bank account, he's rich. That's a bad joke. Ah, before we get into uh the things, I thought this week uh I should point out that today, uh, as you listen to this, if you're listening to her on day one, it's Wednesday. The same day later today, because you can catch this starting at 6 a.m. every Wednesday morning. Um, but if if you haven't, what am I saying if you haven't for? Try to make a mistake like that, AI. Um, what I'm saying is uh this evening on YouTube, I will be the guest on Zach uh and um oh fuck, this is a mouthful. Zach and JP's burnout hygienes. I'm the special guest on that. Uh so if you like me, Tophra Mac, uh the regular uh co-host of this here fancy schmancy podcast, then you'll like listening to me over there with two people that I know you guys like because I've seen them download numbers. So, you know, maybe go check it out. Uh and funny enough, currently not on the YouTube platform as of recording. Uh, Shadows That Shine, that is one of the ones that we bypassed uh temporarily. But this is YouTube only. That's where you go, that's where you uh give it a listen and a gander, because I'll be visibly seen. You will see the homeless looking man that is Topher Mac. All right, now that we got that out of the way. Hi, hey, how you doing? You having a good week? Huh? Huh? I missed you. I'm glad you came back. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Well, let's get into that box office. What do you say? You're listening to the Shadows that shine, a movie podcast. I'm Tover Mac, and I'm not gonna break, I'm not gonna stop. We're just gonna go right on into it because I want to get this thing done, uploaded, and I want to go to bed. That's that's the truth of the matter, is is I really, really want to go to bed. Uh uh, this has nothing to do with movies, but like depression is great, you know, like when when you need energy to do things, here you are not doing things. Yep. Yep. Alright. Um, actually, the truth of the matter is I haven't been watching a lot of movies this week because I've been playing through Hogwarts uh Legacy. That is the the Harry Potter uh game for uh the Nintendo Switch, is what I'm playing it on. Uh it is basically a movie that you can play through. I'm not a big video game person, but I have them and occasionally I participate in them in between watching movies, which I saw some this week. Uh I saw uh uh I re-watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And then, you know, got back on the video game and tried to find some Fantastic Beasts. See, see what I did there. Uh honestly, I can't think of any other movies I saw this week except for Catch Me If You Can. Uh, I'm watching through community. I'm not a big TV person, but I'm trying to get through that. So, you know, not always gonna be a week of fantastic films. I think I already talked about the fact that I watched both the ring movies and that I preferred the Japanese version best. Uh, I'm not able to get to the movie theater to watch all these wonderful movies, which, as I said in the last episode, getting us back on topic here, it was gonna be competitive. And I wanted to know who was gonna win. What new movie was gonna come out in D-Throne the Devil Wears Prada 2? And the answer is none of not none of them. Uh Devil Wears Prada 2 uh pretty much said um no, we're gonna keep kicking Tushy. Uh apparently people like that movie because it added 43 million dollars to the coffers of Walt Disney Pictures. Uh, that of course brings their totals now to 144.8 million dollar domestic, 288.4 international, 433.2 worldwide. That means it's making bank, it's creeping on half a billion, should uh be there by the weekend. Uh that's not a bad place to be. I mean, they did have a large budget for it, which I'm just realizing I did not write the budgets down again. Look at me being unprepared. Uh, but I can always type in Devil Where's Prada 2. And then I gotta say, hey, you, what's the budget? And you're you, you know, this would be why interns would be a good thing. It was a hundred million dollar budget. I got there eventually. Uh, thank you for your patience, people. Mortal Kombat 2! Mortal Kombat 2. Um, that is the second place movie. And hey, maybe don't press a bunch of buttons with a microphone right beside it, huh? Uh, it had an $80 million budget. You know what it brought in? $40 million domestically. Uh add $23 million to that internationally for $63 million. Not a bad opening weekend. I mean, it's the beginning of summer, and it uh it's a sequel to a movie that came out a long time ago. It's been years, so yeah, not bad. Michael, third place, added another $36.5 million to its total, which of course uh makes it cross the $500 million worldwide threshold. Here, I got a little ahead of myself. Domestic 240.5 million, uh, international 30 uh 336.9 million dollars for 577.4 million dollars. Now, as I was starting to say, that means that it is one of only two movies to have ever to have ever uh crossed the 500 million dollar uh uh line. Uh and I'm of course talking about music biopics, they have not been able to do that. These two movies did. So congratulations, Michael, on uh making a lot of people money. But if you know they're making way more money with the music. Um fourth place, that cute, quaint little story that I was telling you about, the sheep detectives. It brought in 15.9 million dollars. 15.9 sheep detectives and um rough uh oh wait. I'm having uh trouble finding the I think the budget's around 80 million, so you know it's losing money for that. Um by the way, I forgot to mention uh Mortal Kombat is a Warner Brothers uh release, and uh Lionsgate released Michael. Uh The Sheep Detective is an Amazon MGM movie. They've been being aggressive with really interesting choices, so I kind of had to congratulate them because they're having a good year. Okay, like creatively speaking, they've been releasing some of the more interesting movies this year. Um, 15.9 domestic, 12.1 international for 28 million dollars so far. Hopefully, they'll be able to stay with it and make their money back because it was a cute, cool little idea. Fifth place 7.5 million dollars. The Billy Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft, The Tour, live in 3D. That was the movie I told you about last week that James Cameron co-directed. So yeah. This one ain't gonna be a billion dollars, buddy. Not gonna be a billion dollars, buddy. 7.5 domestic, 12.6 international, 20.1 worldwide. Paramount pictures international, of course, releasing that. Uh go figure that Paramount Pictures releases anything James Cameron touches because he made those comments uh you know about that merger, and he was all in favor of the merger. And yeah, Paramount's good guys, of course you feel that way because they let you do what you want. That's what's happening there. Hey, I didn't get a name, some other movies that I was interested in following up on. Um sixth place Super Mario Bros. Galaxy. I'm I'm gonna go farther, is what I'm saying. Uh, but I'm not gonna be all detailed like the other ones. Super Mario Galaxy movie uh is six, Project Hell Mary seventh, eighth is Hokum down 50% this week with what it brought in, which was 3.3 million. That means we get all the way to eighth place before we uh leave the million dollars uh for the grosses, and I gotta tell you, that's pretty cool. I think that's pretty freaking cool. That that means it was a strong weekend, except it it wasn't as strong as I thought it was. Actually, uh Box Office is down 6.4% from the week before, and that was the Devil Wears Product 2's uh release when it was Mike Wendevil and they were both making a ton of money. But you know, it's nice that like this is a little more spread out, and it's not one movie making everything. Um, I also wanted to point out, you know, we're getting close to the halfway point for the year. Our top movies for 2026, uh, domestically, that is Super Mario Bros. Galaxy with 412 million. Of course, worldwide, they also lead that list with 941.2 million for them, and uh you know, Project Hell Mary, then Michael, then Hoppers, then Avatar. That's the domestic list. Uh, worldwide follows very similar except Pegasus III, which is that um Chinese film, which suddenly has different numbers than it did before. Go figure. Uh yeah. Yeah. All in all, it feels uh like we're in a relatively healthy place right now with box office numbers. I also, you know, think that they're oh, I forgot to do uh one of the things that I'm supposed to do for this. You know what, everyone, I gotta put you guys on hold. Creaky chair. Uh I gotta put you guys on hold for a minute. I'll be back in just a minute. You're listening to Shadows that Shine, uh, a movie podcast. Hey! Here we go! Here we go. Alright, I have to skip ahead. Normally I do the trailers at the end, uh, you know, the coming soon, uh coming attractions. Why does words not work today? Uh we're gonna get Obsession, which should be a uh a very interesting uh horror film, and we're gonna get In the Gray, which is of course the first of the films directed this summer by one of my favorite film directors, Guy Richie. He's a top 20 director for me. And uh they're also gonna have Is God Is. I don't know, any uh I kind of glanced at it, it looks bad. Uh or let me rephrase it. It didn't look like my kind of movie, it might be your kind of movie. Uh they also had something called Driver's Ed and something called Magic Hour, Life Hack, and Mobile, and then they have uh an anime release coming out this week. Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway, the sorcery of nymph Cersei. That's a that's a mouthful. Um Driver's Ed's a comedy. Uh I don't recognize any of the people in it. Oh no, I do! Uh playing principal will be Molly Shannon in that, and there's also a teacher uh role for Kumo Nanjani. Yep, I have trouble singing Indian names. Um, I suck. That's what that's what that is. I suck. Um all right. So we said all the things, we did all the things, let's get right on to it. At the beginning of this podcast today, I started mentioning the idea that uh lying to tell the truth is gonna basically be the topic. Like I'm gonna say that the topic is catch me if you can because that's the movie that we're covering. But let's face it, this is all about lying. This podcast, uh I mean, not this podcast, this movie, catch me if you can, is one giant lie based on one giant lie, based on one giant liar. Um by what we get out of it is a Broadway musical. No, uh, I mean that does happen, but what we get out of it is a fantastic movie by a skilled director. This will be our first uh movie that we cover of Mr. Steven Spielberg, uh, the great American film director. Alright, catch me if you can't PG 13. It's two hours and 21 minutes. As I mentioned before, it is based on the 1980 uh book of the same name. The book is by Frank Abignell Jr. and Stan Redding. Uh, it was released on December 25th, 2002, which means it was a Christmas lie. I mean a Christmas movie. DreamWorks Distribution released it. While I was researching this episode, I did a weird tangent down uh the story of DreamWorks because again, I'm very interested in the business of the entertainment business. I'm gonna have to do an episode just on DreamWorks. Uh, it's fascinating, of course. It was co-founded, or not co like three founders. It was uh Jeffrey Kessenberger. Um I'm sure I'm saying that wrong, uh, Steven Spielberg, and then uh I can't remember the other guy's name, but he's big in music. So they had three powerhouse super successful people starting a movie studio, which you know I, Topha Mac, want to do. And so, coughing in your ear, uh this movie is uh a few years after this uh project began with them, it's after the success of Shrek. It's um they had a lot of successes, and this is kind of in the middle, it's before they started um floundering. So, directed by Steven Spielberg, now because Steven Spielberg has had such a long and illustrious career, I wanted to uh maybe speak in terms of where this fits into his career. He did this movie after Minority Report, but before the terminal. And um and you know that the terminal comes next because uh the same guy that did the screenplay for this, Jeff Nathansen, also does the screenplay for the terminal. He also did a number of very uh mediocre screenplays. I I'm not trying to like knock them because you know a lot of the movies that this guy has done is uh you know, like he did Rush Hour 2, that was a good movie. You know, some people like Rush Hour 2 better than Rush Hour. I mean, some people are wrong, but I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Actually, I I think those are two um fairly equal movies in some ways. Um, I don't know, whatever. What do you think? What do you think? You know what? Go on to Instagram and tell me what you think. Yeah, yeah. Let me hear your thoughts. I want to know them. Uh at uh uh sh at Shadows That Shine. And we're also on Facebook too, so you could be over there just ribbing me a new bithole about my opinions, which I have plenty of. Uh there's a little Easter egg in the movie. Uh Steven and Tom's fourth project. Everyone talks about it. It's their fourth project together. Apparently, Steven Spielberger and uh Tam, Tom uh Hanks. Um this the previous to this, the other three movies that they did were Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, which is one of the greatest films ever made, and Joe vs. the volcano. That's right. I'm not sure I haven't sat down to actually figure out what I think the best movies ever made is, like what my list of what I think is the best movies ever made that I'm aware of. But uh Saving Private Ryan is probably in the top 20 of that. Um and might be much higher than that. Uh it is a very, very, very, very, very good movie. If you haven't seen it. Never heard of Joe vs. the volcano, though. I'm gonna have to look into that. Um, I skipped over the business. It was a $52 million budget that made $164.6 million domestically, $187.5 internationally, for a total of $352.1 million dollars. Or, in other words, it made bang, it did good money. It did good money, and of course it did good money. It is one of the best directors um of all time, paired with one of the best uh Hollywood actors of all time, and also paired with a uh one of the most beloved Hollywood actors of all time. I mean, it was a recipe for success. And that's even before you get into the fact that uh Christopher Walkins in it, who's another beloved uh American actor. Uh, the opening as we get into this movie, there's this really great two and a half minute long credit sequence, and it's a tribute to somebody named Saul Bass. Uh now this version was created by all Olivia. Names Oliver Olivier Kunzel Kunzel and Florence Dagas. That sounds like uh uh I I don't know. That's those are names anyway. Saul bass is the important thing. That's why I want to talk about this. So, way back like 50 years ago, 60, 60 or 70 years ago, Saul Bass was making some of the most interesting openings to movies. Um, he had a style uh for movie posters that was uh very big. Saulbass created the like you know, the iconic way that James DuBond movies open up. He did all that stuff. There's a great uh video essay about it that you should check out next time you're on uh Instagram, just go Saulbass uh video essay. It'll probably be the first thing that pops up because how many people could possibly have talked about this great man? Uh the answer is a lot. Um yeah, fun fun little fact. This is Tom Hanks' seventh consecutive film to gross over a hundred million dollars on the box office. Now, eight movies before this one, uh, he directed for the first time, and he directed one of my favorite movies of all time, which is That Thing You Do, which we will cover one day at some point, but I want to get better at this before I cover it because I love that movie an awful lot. Uh so like I was saying, now I can put the phone down, the notes down. Now I'm just talking to you guys. All right, I was that scattered with notes in front of me. Let's take a moment to say oi ve. There were words in front of me that I could point to and go, oh, there's the thing. Alright, look. Uh Frank Abingno Jr. has like this important uh position where he makes a lot of the rules and creates a lot of the things that have to do with bank safety and check safety and and money safety. Uh so the fascinating thing about that is he's such um what's the word? A liar. He lies a lot, like he still lies a lot, like he did all the like served his time stuff and still lies a lot. And then he has this really important uh position. Because if hackers have taught us anything, is um if you're really good at being really bad, they'll pay you a lot of money to be really bad for them. Uh I f I was really disheartened to find out things about this movie that weren't true. For example, after uh in real life, it wasn't like in a bed uh in a bedroom and go to the living room. Uh in real life, it was a court, and he was asked asked to choose who he was gonna go with, and he never spoke to his father again after that, off the divorce. Um and the relationship with the father didn't exist there, and there was no Carl Hanratie, and not only that, but he's like in a an amalgarithm of a bunch of different agents. One of the agents, Tom uh words, Tom Hanks. I see that's how bad I am with names, is I forgot Tom Hanks' name, and he's Tom Bleepin Hanks, he's America's uncle, and I forgot his name. I hate me for that. Um so Tom Hanks is doing a perfect impersonation of this one FBI agent, which is the one who actually got Frank Abingnell the job uh working for uh the FBI's uh tax uh money fraud, check fraud, whatever you call it fraud. Um so that's I mean, that's some of the lies that are there. Like a lot of the I mean, pretty much every everything that you're watching is uh exaggerated or straight up a lie. Like never happened or certainly didn't happen the way that it was. But you have Steven Spielberg at a place in his career and a place in his life where he is contemplating his father. Now, if you go to his early films, a lot of the times you have his dad being uh a not great person or completely absent. Um very common theme, and if I'm not mistaken, this is like one of the first movies in his uh filmography where the father is there, and the father is a is is someone that the main character keeps checking in with, and it's so fascinating to me how he portrays them, where it's like, I want you to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong and not to do it. Of course, um The Fable Mans, which came out a couple of years ago and and is um a dearly beloved movie uh in my world, he he explores his relationship with his father in that movie on a deeper level than he ever did. But it makes watching this movie and the fact that this is like really truly the first time um, you know, if I scroll through his IMDB, I'm sure I wouldn't see anything that goes against what I'm saying, but he does he know fathers, there's no strong father figures in any of those. And for him to choose this movie about lying and con men to be like, all right, this lying con man guy looks up to his father. Um, it's it's just an interesting place for an artist to go. I would love to sit down with Mr. Spiberg one day and say, hey, what would what was going on in your brain when you did this movie? Because your relationship with your father. I I have a very bad uh relationship with my father at this point, but uh it wasn't before, it was a really good relationship for a little bit. Um but you your relationship with somebody can only be so good uh when the person you're trying to have a relationship with is not a good person, and I think that's fascinating and interesting in its own way. And I like the idea that in this story, Catch Me If You Can, you have somebody who finds a surrogate father. And that's how this role of Han Raddy got expanded the way that it got expanded. There's a lot of actors, a lot of bit roles in this movie. They could have, you know, chopped up different FBI agents going after him. That could have been part of the appeal of it, is like, well, failure, failure, failure, failure. I'm the one who succeeds. Oh, speaking of things that were made up, even the way that Frank Abignell Jr. was caught totally fabricated because he just was seen by somebody who someone uh recognized him on a wanted poster. The real life is is depressing and boring because crime is depressing and boring. It's not the exciting thing that movies make it out to be, and I think part of that is because uh I love the crime genre of film. But really, if you think about it, it it's because it serves a great metaphor of talking about social uh crimes, and it serves a great idea of like it's a great active um sauce way to talk about so many things. Um it's a it's a lying to tell the truth. And uh film crime is sexy and real crime is super duper lame. Yeah. I'm trailing off because it's late at night. Um I'm gonna take a a break, a brief break, and see if I can um see if I can collect my thoughts because I know I have something else to say about this movie, and I just don't know what it is at the moment. And I took some time and I can't remember what I was gonna say. Uh so we're gonna try and have uh guest host coming in uh real soon. Some of the plans that I had uh fell through. We were gonna have a guest host for this that fell through. Um, this is gonna happen from time to time. I want to appreciate, uh say that I appreciate each and every one of you guys for stopping through here. And if you have a movie that you want me to cover, let me know. Uh I have a whole bunch of stuff I want to cover, but like just let me know. Uh I like rewarding audiences and listeners in this case. So, you know, let me hear what you got to say. Um what an interesting moment that like he doesn't want the Leo's character, Frank, doesn't want to do what he's doing. But the love that he needs to to satisfy him uh won't stop him. Won't step in and say, Hey, maybe don't uh do that. Let me show you a better way. That's interesting. You that's I think that's why you know that the person that wrote it isn't a bad person. I wonder morally and and uh I I mean I I wonder what like an actual bad person thinks about it. I th I've played bad guys a lot in my career when I was an actor. Um I played psychopaths, I played serial killers, I played assassins, I played um uh liars, cheaters, real scumbag type people. And I've I've thought a lot about what it's like to be on the other uh side of morality. Because I I think of myself as a good person. I try really hard to be a good person. I know that I come up short from time to time. Sometimes I'll do something and I'll walk away from it. I'll be like, man, I wasn't the good guy in that story. I do know some really bad people, and they don't think that they're ever the bad guy. That's fascinating to me. And I think, even after like with the book and all this stuff, I think Frank Abignell Jr. doesn't think he's the bad guy in that story. You know, but it's so fascinating that Steven Spielberg wanted to cover this subject and he wanted to paint a bad guy as a good guy, as a victim, because that's what Frank Abignell Jr., according to this movie, is he's a victim. You know, you see it very early on in the movie. Um, you know, he pretends to be the French teacher, and you know, and his mom's way of dealing with it is strange. You know, she shows a pattern through the whole movie of running away from confrontation, but the father just sort of laughs it off. Like, I can't believe that you pulled that off, almost encouraging the bad behavior, uh, and then literally encouraging the bad behavior as the movie went on. And you know, in a way, in a way, that's like we know we're talking about uh lying to tell the truth. In a way, that's that's what's going on in this in this whole like sort of story structure. Um the father stays in the story the way that he does to keep getting uh closer and closer to pushing uh, you know, it's this the sins of the father reflects on the son, and also um the inability for a parent to parent well leads to uh often leads to criminal nature. Now, mind you, sometimes, sometimes, just bad-natured people. Um, but I think Steven here is having sort of pushing in our face, hey, it's the parenting that created this guy. They they failed to do their job. I don't know. That's that was bouncing around my head. It's part of the reason why I wanted to cover the film. I don't know. Uh personally, I'm I'm having a lot of issues with um with my parents. And it's interesting in different movies. Um, I'm not saying that my issues are the same issues as this movie, but it's interesting to see how these different dynamics can be. Uh, whether it's a parent that doesn't understand your passion or understand your morality. Um, I understand his desire to look to a surrogate father. I think it's interesting that they kill him off in the in the film at the point that the surrogate father really steps into the father role. And I would even be willing to bet if I sat down with Spielberg, I'd want to ask him, is the that conversation that you have in the airplane, is that is that more like what you and your father were really like? You got in trouble and you were trying to get something, you know, you were trying to get an eclair and your dad just doubled down and was like, fuck that. I'm eating the eclair. The whole thing. I wasn't gonna, now I'm gonna. Is that who his dad was? Maybe it, maybe it's the opposite of who his dad was. Maybe it's what he thought his dad should have been. I'd love to have that chance one day to sit down and go, hey buddy. What's uh what's going on in your nagging, Mr. Spielberg? We're gonna cover more films by Steven Spielberg. We're uh almost certainly gonna cover the Fable Mans. Um, of course, he did uh some movies with George Lucas uh that we're gonna cover. Um I'm talking, of course, about the Indiana Jones movies. We're gonna eventually cover Jurassic Park because it's one of the most important movies in the history of film uh in terms of uh how it changed the business. I'm not saying that I love that movie, uh, but you probably do. So it'll be good when we cover it. Um and then, you know, I'll find some other stuff along the way of his. Tom Hankswise, we will definitely be covering that thing you do, but we're also definitely gonna cover uh Force Gum. And we're gonna cover um other things that Tom Hanks has been a part of. So expect more of that. Um I uh uh again appreciate your time and energy, and thank you for listening. I hope that any of this was useful or uh enjoyable at the very least to you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. I this is Shadows That Shine, a movie podcast. And I've been Topher Mack, and all I got left to say now is bye. Bye.