1999: The Podcast

Our episodes on robots and animation have finally led us here: The Iron Giant, one of 1999's most notorious duds, and also one of its most beloved films. The Iron Giant was the feature directorial debut of Brad Bird, who would go on to direct landmark Pixar films The Incredibles and Ratatouille  and now serves in Pixar’s senior creative team. Unfortunately released in the highly competitive first week of August, coming in at #9 behind the likes of, among others, The Thomas Crown Affair, Runaway Bride, The Blair Witch Project and, also debuting that weekend, the box office behemoth The Sixth Sense, going on to make just $23 million on a budget of $70 million. How and why did such a lovely movie featuring a giant robot (and inspired by the suicide of Sylvia Plath) fail? We discuss that and a lot more with someone who would know: Dr. Sam Summers, co-host of the Disniversity podcast, and a lecturer on Animation History and Theory at Middlesex University in England.

Following up on our discussion of Bicentennial Man, we discuss two movies, starting with the 28th highest-grossing movie of 2001, Steven Spielberg's A.I. - Artificial Intelligence. A.I. has a lot of connections to 1999, since it was originally meant to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, and starred two of 1999's Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominees, Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law. It's also proven stunningly prescient and holds up in a way that makes it arguably better now than it was 25 years ago. Spielberg's latest, Disclosure Day, while appearing to share a lot of DNA with A.I., is...less good. And John rants about it a lot.

Bicentennial Man was the 40th highest grossing movie of 1999, opening December 17th in 4th place and taking in $87 million dollars worldwide on an almost literally unbelievable $100 million dollar budget. It's also the one movie of the year to star the late Sam Neill. Directed by Chris Columbus with script by Elia Kazan’s son Nicholas Kazan, based on the short story “The Bicentennial Man” AND the novel “The Positronic Man” by Isaac Asimov, with perhaps the most phoned-in score James Horner ever wrote, Bicentennial Man stars Robin Williams, Sam Neil, Embeth Davidtz, Wendy Crewson, Oliver Platt, Kiersten Warren, Hallie Eisenberg, John Michael Higgins, Bradley Whitford, Stephen Root, and noted January 6th Capitol Insurrectionist, Jay Johnston. This week, John and Julia talk "family films", uncanny valleys, Williams, and, of course, Sam Neill.

This summer's Toy Story 5 is unique among Toy Story movies in that it's a direct continuation of the story of Toy Story 2, so we decided it was a great time to take a second look at Toy Story 2! Originally conceived as a direct-to-video sequel, Toy Story 2 opened November 19, 1999, bringing in $487 million worldwide and going on to become the 3rd-highest grossing movie of the year. The film brought back Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, Laurie Metcalf, R. Lee Ermey, Estelle Harris, from the first film, adding Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Wayne Knight, and Ariel the Little Mermaid herself, Jodi Benson as Barbie, and this time Randy Newman brought in Sarah McLachlan to help craft the most famously devastating three minutes in the whole series.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was the 4th-highest grossing movie of 1999, behind Toy Story 2, The Sixth Sense, and The Phantom Menace, opening on June 11 and taking in $55 million that weekend, going on to make $206 million at the domestic box office on a $33 million budget. Directed by Jay Roach and written by Mike Myers and Michael McCullers, The Spy Who Shagged Me saw Heather Graham stepping in to the Powers Girl role, replacing Elizabeth Hurley. The hugely anticipated and hyped sequel to the 1997 original, the movie came in with sky high expectations. The results were, well...mixed. But there's no question that Austin Powers was a huge cultural milestone, so we wanted to see how it held up. Helping us get the summer off to the most shagadelic start possible is actor, writer, podcaster, and activist ⁠Siri Dahl!⁠