Miller's Crossing with Ari Aster

It’s a movie about hats, and a movie about giving folks the high hat. It’s also a movie about how Jon Polito is the greatest actor in the world. It’s Miller’s Crossing! Filmmaker Ari Aster (go see Eddington!) joins Griffin and David to discuss the Coen Brothers’ knotty homage to the gangster genre, a film overloaded with memorable characters and witty lines of dialogue. We’re doing a deep-dive on Gabriel Byrne, litigating Marcia Gay Harden’s surprise Oscar win for Pollock, and once again examining the Coens’ body of work through the lens of Jewish identity. Don't watch Tino's Dick Fart https://youtu.be/J2c4-QRWCJc?si=aOYQ5T61kQH1q2h4 Read Faber Screenplay Books https://www.faber.co.uk/product-category/non-fiction/film/screenplays/?srsltid=AfmBOorRIO1jc-nHeyFIJ46eXh29APe9v4jdzVhkLcPOIouFgC7rYCW5 Check out Straight Time https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078326/ See Eddington https://a24films.com/films/eddington#watch-now Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

  Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things.

• 0:12David Sims?

  Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now.

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also, the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

  It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work.

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share.

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

  Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

  And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it.

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:38Griffin Newman?

  Talking about friendship. I'm talking about character. I'm talking about health, Leo, and I ain't embarrassed to use the word. I'm talking about podcasts.

• 1:47David Sims?

  What's the word you're replacing?

• 1:48Griffin Newman?

  Ethics.

• 1:49David Sims?

  Ethics?

• 1:49Griffin Newman?

  It's the opening line of the movie.

• 1:50David Sims?

  That's polito.

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51David Sims?

  I'm gonna give you the hi-hat. No, I'm not.

• 1:53Griffin Newman?

  I was trying to see if there was a, hi-hat is my favorite. Thing in this movie.

• 1:58David Sims?

  I think people need to say that more.

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  I think it needs to be said all the time.

• 2:02David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:04David Sims?

  Or I need to give people the hi hat more and tell them I'm doing so.

• 2:07Griffin Newman?

  We need to.

• 2:07David Sims?

  But I feel like you actually can only say, are you giving me?

• 2:10Griffin Newman?

  No, I think we need to be doing it and saying it. I think you're right that you can't tell someone else you're giving them the hi hat.

• 2:16David Sims?

  No.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  You can accuse someone else of giving you the hi hat and you can give someone else the hi hat. But you can never call it before you do it. Uh, Lex G always talks about getting the hi hat, which is why he's one of our finest film critics. One of, not number one. Uh, I was trying to find a hi hat quote.

• 2:35David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, sure.

• 2:36Griffin Newman?

  But none.

• 2:36David Sims?

  But it's mostly just him screaming, are you giving me the hi hat? Or like, you're giving me the hi hat.

• 2:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, jawing.

• 2:43David Sims?

  Keep going.

• 2:45Griffin Newman?

  Last time we jawed, what?

• 2:46David Sims?

  Calling women twists?

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:48David Sims?

  That's something that they do in this movie?

• 2:50Griffin Newman?

  My stomach has seized.

• 2:51David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 2:51Griffin Newman?

  I like everything he says. I think he's a good man of good character.

• 2:55David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 2:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56David Sims?

  He's kind of a nightmare.

• 2:57Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:58David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:58Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, good man, good character. And he's letting you know from the beginning, it's about ethics.

• 3:03David Sims?

  It's about ethics.

• 3:03Griffin Newman?

  It's about ethics and game journalism. That's what this movie's about, right?

• 3:07David Sims?

  No, no.

• 3:08Griffin Newman?

  Miller's Crossing isn't about ethics and game journalism.

• 3:10David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  I think it is.

• 3:11David Sims?

  Do you think the Coens have played video games and you can talk, guest? It's fine. You can weigh in on this. They do have kids.

• 3:17Griffin Newman?

  They have children.

• 3:18David Sims?

  I'm mostly here to listen. I just wanna. That's fine.

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  It's time for you to take the stuff back.

• 3:22David Sims?

  They have kids, so they probably played a video game. All he is.

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:25David Sims?

  Have the.

• 3:28David Sims?

  Have the Coens played a video game?

• 3:30Griffin Newman?

  You're doing that as a Google?

• 3:31David Sims?

  Do you think you could do a Miller's Crossing video game? Pretty fun. Like that video game where you were the guy from Mad Men and you would guess if people are lying? Or was it, it was like a gangster video game?

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Elin Noir.

• 3:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Griffin Newman?

  I thought you were describing a Mad Men video game.

• 3:46David Sims?

  Yeah, a guy would be like, uh, yeah, I know, I didn't see nothing. And you would like press X and be like, you're lying, you piece of shit. Or whatever, like that was the game.

• 3:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:53David Sims?

  Yeah, they should do that.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  Those games that are basically like cutscenes, choose your own adventures. I never play any of these, but I'm like, this just looks like you're watching a bad animated movie.

• 4:01David Sims?

  Basically.

• 4:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but you're telling me you're gaming.

• 4:05Griffin Newman?

  Are you giving me the high hat right now?

• 4:06David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm giving you the high hat. Can you fucking introduce the podcast?

• 4:09Griffin Newman?

  Hey, don't give me the high hat. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 4:13David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 4:13Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies and ethics and game journalism. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is a mini-series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen. It is called Pod Country for Old Cast. Today, we are talking about Miller's Crossing. Kind of. Well, we said Raising Arizona is their guarantor.

• 4:40David Sims?

  I think so. Raising Arizona is the mood, the big hit. Raising Arizona gets them this movie, don't you think? Like, they can't make a movie at this scale.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  With Blood Simple.

• 4:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  With Blood Simple, because that, that was also a huge hit and that, and that, well, I mean.

• 4:53David Sims?

  Blood Simple was a relative.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  It was a huge sleeper hit.

• 4:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. For, for a film that cost basically nothing.

• 4:58David Sims?

  And then Raising Arizona was like, kind of a proper hit. Like, you know, people really went to see it and obviously it was well regarded or whatever.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  But they talk about how they were chasing Raising Arizona for a while because there was the feeling of, are these guys ever gonna make a profitable movie again? And this is the start of them releasing a run of incredibly well-reviewed movies that don't make money.

• 5:18David Sims?

  Right. It's, this, Barton and Hud sucker all kind of don't do well.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Well, they don't cost much either.

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  They don't, they're smart about that.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Hud sucker costs a lot. It's like, they're Joel Silver, you know, forty million dollar. I mean, it's, Hud sucker for me is maybe the one I've seen the most.

• 5:33Griffin Newman?

  It's my favorite.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  I love it. I love it very, very much.

• 5:37Griffin Newman?

  I would never argue it's the best. And part of it being my favorite is just that every time I watch it, I go, I can't believe they got to make this.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  I would say, from a, like a directorial standpoint, it might be the high point. It's up there with their most beautifully, like, realized films.

• 5:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 5:54David Sims?

  I feel like their entire, well, I really like almost all of their movies, but that nineties Miller's, starting with this. All the way to Lebowski, there's never of like a foot wrong visually. There's never really foot wrong at all.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  No, although this is Sonnenfeld and then Deacons comes right after this. And there's a big difference between, I would say, the, you know, the looks of those films.

• 6:16David Sims?

  Yes. And there's this sort of notable like shift, gear shift sort of thing to Deacons coming in. Every time the camera rushes in this one, you're like, Perry, we're going for autumn. He's like, I want to run the camera one more time. Let me just fucking run it out.

• 6:29Griffin Newman?

  It feels like they're trying to push Sonnenfeld toward what they ultimately would do with.

• 6:34David Sims?

  Deacons is giving them more of the.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:37David Sims?

  Class.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  But there's still, you still got the, you know, the Evil Dead impulses.

• 6:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  With, with the careening camera, which they only do like once or twice, once here.

• 6:48David Sims?

  I think it's only once.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  It's just, it's just with the screaming and, you know, always put what in the head and, you know, the, uh, going into, uh, I forget the wrestler's name.

• 6:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the, the ape? Is that what they call him?

• 7:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:00David Sims?

  The big guy. Uh, I also forget his name.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  It's boxing, isn't it? It's not, it's not wrestling. I'm thinking of Barton Fink now. But yeah.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  Right. Wallace Berry wrestling picture. I'm gonna, I'm gonna admit transparently because I got a bunch of plot stuff wrong on Blood Simple, which our listeners have been haranguing me for. I'm, I'm not even going to pretend I can recount the actual inner workings of this movie.

• 7:23David Sims?

  This, I think this movie is simpler than Blood Simple. Maybe I'm wrong. I've seen this movie a lot too.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  It's got more characters.

• 7:30David Sims?

  It has more characters.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  And more names that you have to memorize. Like, you know, and like, you know, uh, you're right. Rug Daniels, you've got, you've got one shot.

• 7:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Or not. Well, you got one scene. You got one scene with Rug.

• 7:41David Sims?

  The moment at the end where Gabriel Byrne clears up like who shot Rug Daniels and why is real like Dashiell Hammett stuff where it's like, by the way, we know that wasn't just totally like a plot dead end. Like we do know why that happened. F Y.

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  Which is something they love doing. No, I mean, I, I think the magic of this movie for me is that it is really clear and easy to track the character story within this movie, even though every scene is them discussing deep inner workings of a thing I can barely get my head around. I understand what every character's doing.

• 8:17David Sims?

  But it's pretty, it's basically just, there's just this side and this side and one guy kind of flipping.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's what I'm saying. I understand that.

• 8:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  I'm not sure how well I understand Mink.

• 8:27David Sims?

  Well, you know, sometimes Ari, a man loves a man. I don't, I don't mean to.

• 8:33Griffin Newman?

  Go on.

• 8:34David Sims?

  No, it is funny how Mink just swoops in and he has that one incredible, you know, like run a dialogue and you basically never see him again.

• 8:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:42David Sims?

  But you hear about him a bunch and his, his body is vital.

• 8:45Griffin Newman?

  You hear him over the phone too.

• 8:46David Sims?

  Right. And his dead body is a vital plot point, but that's, it's.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  I want to see him with, with the Dane. I want to see, you know, what they get up to behind closed doors.

• 8:55David Sims?

  All right. Well, all right. I, I. Miller's Crossing side equal with, is Jay Freeman still alive?

• 9:01Griffin Newman?

  I don't.

• 9:01David Sims?

  No, he's not. That's too bad.

• 9:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I, I watched this with captions on as I'm want to do and they could not keep up with Mink's dialogue.

• 9:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Griffin Newman?

  They just started dropping every other sentence because they're like, we're not even going to attempt to do this.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. Buscemi can do the, the red a tat.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:18David Sims?

  This is the first.

• 9:20Griffin Newman?

  It is wild that this is the first.

• 9:21David Sims?

  Well, it's only the third movie.

• 9:23Griffin Newman?

  I know, but it still feels like he comes on screen and you're like, this is a guy they've been working with for centuries.

• 9:28David Sims?

  But he's a brand, he's kind of brand new. Like Mystery Train's the year before. I, I think of his first big movie as Parting Glances, right? That's 86.

• 9:37Griffin Newman?

  What year is New York Stories?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  When was In the Soup?

• 9:40David Sims?

  In the Soup, great movie is, uh, when is In the Soup? When's In the Soup? It's 92, so it's after this. Uh, New York Stories is 89, so the year before.

• 9:50Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 9:50David Sims?

  The same year as Mystery Train and yeah, those are the two big.

• 9:54Griffin Newman?

  I just feel like all of these, like.

• 9:56David Sims?

  Slaves of New York, the James Ivory movie, which I have never, never seen. The rare like, uh, James Ivory being like, can we do a contemporary movie in the eighties? No one watches and he's like, fine. Get the, get the dresses out. We'll do another one of those.

• 10:09Griffin Newman?

  It just feels like this entire like spat of early Buscemi one scene performance movies. He just arrives and everyone is like, oh, cool. I know what to do with this guy. Was just fully formed. It's like this guy has ultimate utility.

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  Hit the ground running. Um, our guest today, talking about Miller's Crossing is Ari Aster.

• 10:29David Sims?

  What's up Ari?

• 10:30Griffin Newman?

  Eddington and Theaters Now.

• 10:31David Sims?

  Eddington and Theaters Now.

• 10:32Griffin Newman?

  Eddington and Theat- and that is the full title, right? Eddington and Theaters Now.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  And Theaters Now.

• 10:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:37David Sims?

  Hereditary, Miss Mar, Bo's Afraid. I don't know. Ari Aster's here.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Tina's dick fart.

• 10:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah?

• 10:45Griffin Newman?

  Was that a short film?

• 10:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:47Griffin Newman?

  What's it, what's the, can you repeat the title?

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Tino's dick fart.

• 10:50Griffin Newman?

  It's a good title.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  I'm in it.

• 10:52Griffin Newman?

  You're in it. Were you the titular dick fart?

• 10:55Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 10:55Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  But I, I, uh, it's a product and I, and I use it.

• 10:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  You're a customer.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:03David Sims?

  Oh, it's like, oh, it's, but it's one of those, you have, I'm watching it, just sorry to tell you, but, uh, it's one of the, um, the squeezy bulb things here that I use to suck snot out of my children's noses is, uh, is a crucial part of the movie.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  But you can also put it into your dick.

• 11:18Griffin Newman?

  And that's, that makes it fun.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Anyway.

• 11:21Griffin Newman?

  No, it's a good credit. That's a very good credit.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  I don't actually want people looking for this. I don't know.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Uh, a couple of years ago, uh, we, we, we, you've long been a white whale to get on the show. And, uh, there are episodes we had talked about in the past, and a couple of years ago, I don't know if you remember this, uh, but Marie, uh, producer on the show, and I ran into you and we're talking to you and you said, I'd only want to do a movie if it's a movie I have memorized. And I said, give me some examples of movies, just in case we ever get to them. And I believe what you said was anything by Hanukkah, anything by the Coen brothers, and I think the third was Scorsese. Does that sound right?

• 12:02David Sims?

  You definitely love Marty Scorsese.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I'm not sure. I don't remember saying that, but, but all of those sound.

• 12:10Griffin Newman?

  The picks make sense.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  More or less right to me. I, I, I love all those filmmakers. This is a movie that I have more or less memorized. I wasn't able to re-watch it last night, which I intended, intended to do.

• 12:23David Sims?

  I just had no.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  A little rustier than I wish I was.

• 12:26David Sims?

  I had no fear. You've, you've memorized.

• 12:27Griffin Newman?

  You have in your head. Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, this one's important to me, but those, those guys make sense to me too, as, as people that you could talk, talk me into doing this for, especially while I'm like.

• 12:41David Sims?

  In press mode.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  In press mode, which is not a mode that I tend to, uh.

• 12:45Griffin Newman?

  Before you go back into hibernation, press hibernation.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  I mean, I fucking hate it, but I, but, but I'm, you know, I was gonna say, I'm happy to be here. I don't, that, that also, that also strikes me as not quite sincere, but I, but I.

• 13:00David Sims?

  It could be worse, I guess, is I feel, that's, I feel like that's how you feel being here. You're like, it could be, there is worse places I could be at least in press mode.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  It could be worse and, and I, uh, and I, I, I'm happy to, uh. Just to have the opportunity to, to, to say publicly that I, I love Miller's Crossing.

• 13:20Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it's important stance to take in this day and age.

• 13:22David Sims?

  It would be really funny if you came on and you were like, well, there's kind of a C minus.

• 13:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:28David Sims?

  Like, not my fave Coens.

• 13:30Griffin Newman?

  What's your history with them? Do you remember what the first movie of theirs you would have seen would be?

• 13:35David Sims?

  Yeah. What's your Coens sort of, right? Yeah. Like what would have been the first theater Coens? I don't know.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  I think the first one I saw was, I think it was actually just on television. I think I saw it pretty young. I think I was like 10. And I saw Raising Arizona and that, that for me was like, whoa, what the hell is this?

• 13:57Griffin Newman?

  Immediately locked down.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. Just like, this is a language that, you know, like I haven't heard before, but like I, I, speaking to me.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  And I kind of watched them all from there. I, well, I mean.

• 14:11David Sims?

  I mean, you're my age. Like, I feel like we were both too young to have seen Fargo in theaters, probably.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I was aware of it because I loved the poster.

• 14:19David Sims?

  Yes.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Loved that like embroidered.

• 14:22David Sims?

  Yeah, the, the homespun mystery poster. And also that was a movie that was at the Oscars and Francis won. And I remember my mom, me being like, what's that? And my mom being like, uh, you know, it's hard to explain Fargo.

• 14:34Griffin Newman?

  But almost every episode talking about Billy Crystal cut into Fargo.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 14:39Griffin Newman?

  As a child being like, what is this movie?

• 14:41David Sims?

  But I don't think I saw Coens in theater until Oh Brother. This is a point I've made.

• 14:45Griffin Newman?

  Same for me.

• 14:45David Sims?

  Big Lebowski was rated 18 in the UK.

• 14:48Griffin Newman?

  He grew up in England.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  I did see, I think the first one in theaters was, was Lebowski for me. Uh, and, and I think it was because my dad thought it was so funny. And then my mom, and so he recommended it to my mom and then she took me. Was it 98? So I guess I would have been 12.

• 15:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  So Fargo did come out when I was 10, which is, I think around the time I saw Raising Arizona, which, which makes sense that I would have kind of like.

• 15:11David Sims?

  And is this general early for you? Kind of like, I'm starting to understand what a director does. I want to like, watch a movie and then see more by ex person versus just watch movies?

• 15:22Speaker 04

  I can't trace exactly when those things were. I, I, I do remember, I would say the first time I like really became hyper aware of, of the director was when I watched Goodfellas when I was really young as well. And I, I remember just thinking like, what makes this feel different than other movies? Like, who, you know, what's he doing that's different? Cause this feels. I didn't, you know, I, I obviously didn't have like, you know, I didn't have the language for it or, or, you know, but I, but I, but I just could see that somebody was doing something behind the scenes that was making this different.

• 15:57Griffin Newman?

  Raising Arizona, as you said, is the same, and you locked in on that.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  Same thing. And at that, at that, at that point, I would, you know, I would have been still addicted to cartoons. And it's like, whoa, this is, you know.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a straight line. They're creating an on-ramp for you to, yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Totally. Yeah. Just making these cartoon, like miniature worlds.

• 16:16David Sims?

  Wait, who's your cartoon guy?

• 16:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's get into this. This is important.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  Who's my cartoon guy?

• 16:20David Sims?

  Yeah, you know, it's like.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  Your favorite tune.

• 16:22David Sims?

  Someone points a gun at you and it's like, you have to make a feature adaptation of a cartoon character.

• 16:27Griffin Newman?

  And let's be clear, the gun they're pointing at you is a big cartoon gun. It's got a big quirk in it. If they shoot it, a flag will come out that says bang.

• 16:34David Sims?

  You know, it's like Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker. I don't know. Like, fucking Wile E. Coyote, whatever.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Oh, my guys.

• 16:41David Sims?

  Or do you, maybe you don't have a guy.

• 16:42Griffin Newman?

  So you're doing WTCF. We have to prep you for this by asking who your tune guys.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Well, I'm talking about myself as a little kid watching Raising Arizona. So I guess let's just go, let's like, take a little time machine.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Back to nineteen ninety-six or whatever it was. And I, and you know, I'm, I'm watching Rocco's Modern Life. I'm watching.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  That makes sense.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Ren and Stimpy. I'm still watching the Rugrats.

• 17:04David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. They're getting a little, they're getting a little, whatever.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:08David Sims?

  Crusty around the edges, those Rugrats, but they, they were okay.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  But I'm still like, I'm still identifying with Chucky Finster though, you know?

• 17:14Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna guess that. I didn't want to autocomplete. I was gonna say.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  Angelica.

• 17:18Griffin Newman?

  Rocco also has some Bo energy. Like, character to character. I think there's a little rock, the way rocker, Rocco engages with the modern life around him.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  There's some Ren and Stimpy in there too. I, but I, but well, Rocco's Modern Life has one joke that I identified as like, that's my humor when I was really young, which was the episode where, um, where Heffer becomes convinced that, you know, that, uh,

• 17:46Speaker 04

  What is it? Uh, I'm not sure what the, the chicken place is. It's.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Choke, choking chicken?

• 17:52Speaker 04

  Uh, it's, I can't remember, but something chicken is.

• 17:55David Sims?

  Chewy chicken, initially called choking chicken.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  Chewy chicken, chewy chicken is people. Chewy chicken is people. So like the soy and green, the soy and green thing.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  And then, and so he, you know, he comes out screaming that. And then there's like a family of chickens going up the stairs and they're like, well, that's a relief. And I go, I just remember really.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  That's a good guy.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  That's a good guy. I remember just, that had me laughing for like 10 minutes. Um, I was a really stupid kid, but I, so.

• 18:19Griffin Newman?

  No, no, that's not sophisticated. Yeah.

• 18:21David Sims?

  I, we grew up in a perfect era for that of, you know, cartoon, like that was the, we had it best. I really think we had it best.

• 18:29Griffin Newman?

  Well, the nicotine revolution was.

• 18:30David Sims?

  Stuff was just slipping by.

• 18:32Griffin Newman?

  You also basically doubled the amount of cartoons that were being made because of cable, right?

• 18:37David Sims?

  We need stuff, like we gotta fill hours.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  Like so much of Saturday morning cartoons was still us watching the things our parents grew up on. And suddenly there's this wave of like cable channels making new shows. And Nickelodeon in particular pulled a bunch of like underground cartoonists and were like, just do your thing. So you had these shows that were, if not subversive, at least were quietly kind of like for their own entertainment, which then could transmit a signal directly to the type of kid could be like, I get this. This is doing something different. That's, I mean, it's the thing I feel like we talk about on this show all the time, but that feeling of watching something when you're young and going like, why is this different? The way you're describing watching Goodfellas, it has to be the person who made this because this is doing something different than anything else I've ever seen.

• 19:24David Sims?

  But so then, all right, Millers Crossing, when do you get to Millers Crossing? I watched this in college for sure. Like I don't, you know, I had long, you know, I'd seen a bunch of Coens or whatever. By the time I finally rented this on Love Film and watching on my college, like 10 inch TV.

• 19:39Griffin Newman?

  I think this is the last one I saw, not counting like new releases that came out after I saw it. In my going backwards in Coens, I think they played this at film form some point in the last 10 years and it was my blind spot. And I also had only seen it the one time before rewatching last night versus every other Coens movie.

• 19:57David Sims?

  Really? So this isn't a big one for you?

• 19:59Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I've seen five times. I, I love it. I don't, I was kind of surprised when I put it on, why haven't I rewatched this? Cause all their other movies are movies I tend to throw on if I can't fall asleep. And this one I just never go back to.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Well, this was, this was an early one for me. This was really early. Like, as I was first digging in, this was one of the first movies that I, that I rented of theirs. And I, and I remember this is around the time that I also was obsessed with Goodfellas and I, and, and, and this, this came out the same year.

• 20:28David Sims?

  This is the year of the big three gangster movies.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  It's overshadowed by that, although, but it, and, and, and it makes sense because, you know, Goodfellas is the best movie ever made.

• 20:37David Sims?

  I agree.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  But then.

• 20:38David Sims?

  I agree.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  But, but this is one of the best movies ever made.

• 20:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  I, I was completely blown away and this is a film I just kept rewatching and, and, you know, and I, I was a kid who, you know, I was a fat kid with like a debilitating stutter. So, you know, I keep hearing about these kids who are making super eight movies with their friends.

• 21:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  But, you know, what do you do when you have no friends?

• 21:05Speaker 04

  Uh, and so I, you know, instead of making movies, I just like wrote scripts.

• 21:09David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  And thi- this was one of the scripts that I was completely obsessed with, you know, I, I, I.

• 21:16David Sims?

  Would you get your hands on scripts to see like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  No, I, I, I was, um, printing scripts from like, like from the internet, like, like Drew's Scriptarama.

• 21:26David Sims?

  And their, their scripts are, I feel like, unique, right?

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Simply scripts, you know?

• 21:30David Sims?

  Simply scripture. But like, don't the Coens kind of write their scripts more narratively or what? I feel like there's some, uh, approach they have that's not typical.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Oh, the Coens?

• 21:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  No, the Coens are, they, they write them as like prose. They don't do like, I, I think they do do interior, da, da, da, but, but they, but they are, you know, they're, they're literate. Um, and well, they're literary and in a way. And, and this, this film especially because, you know, I mean, the dialogue is just, is so musical and so beautiful and has such like rhythm to it. And obviously, you know, the film is like something between pastiche and homage. Um, and it's specifically got its sights on.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  Dashell Hammett, but one of the first scripts I bought was, well, one of the first script books I bought was this and Barton Fink's screenplay published together with the Roderick James introduction.

• 22:26Griffin Newman?

  We have that somewhere here. It's a, there's a third one in there, I think, as well.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  Uh, no, it's just those two.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Um, it's just those two, the Faber, the Faber, uh,

• 22:35David Sims?

  The, uh, the.

• 22:36Speaker 04

  Published.

• 22:36David Sims?

  The Clapper, you know, uh, cover.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  Those were the best. If you were, if you were, if you were collecting scripts, the Faber series was, you know, was absolutely the best.

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  Is it titled as like collected Cohen's screenplays, volume one?

• 22:50Speaker 04

  No, no, no, you're, yeah, I, I know what you're thinking about. That came later.

• 22:54Griffin Newman?

  But then there's no volume two. There's a volume one that's three of them together that I got recently and then volume two never happens.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  Is that right? I mean, Faber published like almost all of them, you know?

• 23:07Griffin Newman?

  They started doing them solo.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  And they did, they did, yeah, they, they did the man who wasn't there again with another Roderick James, uh, intro, which, those are the funniest.

• 23:17David Sims?

  Roderick James, of course, is their editor, who is them.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  Who is them.

• 23:21David Sims?

  Although I think they didn't start doing that until, is it Barton? Like they didn't, they initially, or like Miller's Crossing was edited by somebody else, right? It was Michael Miller. Uh, right. Barton Fink is Roderick James. So that's from, but did, is Raising Arizona, did they edit that one themselves? I'm gonna check. No, Michael Miller is their, right. Is their editor on that one too? Yeah. So, but Roderick James, famously, they wanted to dress Albert Finney up as him. One year when he was nominated, maybe for Fargo, they were nominated under that. And they were like, we're gonna put out Albert Finney in a costume and have him like sit there. I don't think it actually happened.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Who's the guy they use for?

• 23:56David Sims?

  They have like a photo.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  For Forever Young films?

• 24:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Which he shows up for Blood Simple and he goes, forever young, forever young. Uh, they've used him a few times.

• 24:09Griffin Newman?

  It's there absolutely.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, that guy is so funny. So funny.

• 24:14Griffin Newman?

  When you're young and you're reading this script and trying to like, Pull the math from it to be able to apply to learn how to write your own scripts. What are the, are there things you remember latching on to or observing and engaging with it in that format?

• 24:28Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I mean, the film is like, you know, uh, famous for its labyrinthine plotting, which was so complicated that they had to take a, that they had to take a break from it to write Barton Fink.

• 24:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  Cause they got confused.

• 24:41Griffin Newman?

  Most productive writer block of all time. Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. But, um, when I first started writing screenplays and like, kind of obsessively reading them, I was just obsessed with dialogue writing.

• 24:52Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  And, uh, and so I was really into, you know, David Mamet, Patty Chayefsky, uh, and the Coens really. And there were a lot of other screenwriters that like still, that meant a lot to me. Like, you know, I was really into Paul Schrader when I was young and I was really, I, and, uh, and I got into Bergman pretty young and I, I really loved his screenplays and, you know, and Kenneth Lonergan, who's, who's still maybe the best dialogue writer, you know, like, living.

• 25:20Griffin Newman?

  I'm with you on that. Uh, I, I was looking at his IMDb the other day because I was like, how few credits does Lonergan actually have? There's the early run of him getting the credit on Analyze This, which he says they basically totally rewrote.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Right. And he showed up for Gangs of New York.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes. He's sole credited screenwriter on Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which is incredible.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  Forget, yeah.

• 25:41Griffin Newman?

  No one else gets credit on that. But the thing I always forget is he wrote two episodes of Doug.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  He did.

• 25:47Griffin Newman?

  Going back to Nicktoons, which makes a ton of sense.

• 25:50David Sims?

  Yep. He wrote series four. He was in the writer's room for that one, I guess. I don't know. Doug, a tough protagonist to write for.

• 25:58Griffin Newman?

  I think Lonergan was mostly animated by Porkchop. That's really who he dug in.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  His, and, and his plays, you know, are, are incredible.

• 26:05David Sims?

  His plays are incredible.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  I read his plays obsessively in high school. I think in a similar way of just being like, what, what is this and how does he do this?

• 26:12David Sims?

  I've also talked about this, but the, you know, This Is Our Youth was revived in London when I was a teenager as this like rolling, like thing with celebrities.

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:21David Sims?

  Like it was, the initial cast was Hayden Christensen and Anna Paquin and Jake Gyllenhaal. But then they would just bring in all these other young, hot American actors.

• 26:29Griffin Newman?

  The other day, which was.

• 26:30David Sims?

  I have the Pope. Damon did it, which is bizarre. He was way too old to be doing it.

• 26:35Griffin Newman?

  Freddie Prinze Jr. And Chris Klein did it together.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:39David Sims?

  And like

• 26:39Speaker 04

  One of the worst titles for anything.

• 26:41David Sims?

  This is our youth is a very, very bad title. I'm sure he regrets that title a little bit, right?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a very good play.

• 26:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  With a horrendous title.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  That's another thing. I found this Playbill article where they were talking about.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  But you can count on me as a bit. Sorry, I'm.

• 26:57Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  Just musing on bad titles for great things. You can count on me. I remember being, because I love that film.

• 27:05David Sims?

  Incredible movie.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  And I remember almost not seeing it because the title.

• 27:07Griffin Newman?

  It's.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  And then being so happy that nobody said, you can count on me.

• 27:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  It's.

• 27:13Griffin Newman?

  You're sitting there the whole time going like, don't blow it, my guy.

• 27:17David Sims?

  It's.

• 27:17Griffin Newman?

  Especially the final bus stop scene. You're like, it could come at any second.

• 27:21David Sims?

  Sundance-y kind of movie. I mean, I know it was.

• 27:23Griffin Newman?

  Seen it. The title kind of.

• 27:25David Sims?

  No, it's a totally fine title, but now I'm realizing like, actually, he usually shits the bed with his titles. No, I'm kidding. I mean, Margaret is a great title.

• 27:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:33David Sims?

  For the movie. It's a tough sell, maybe.

• 27:36Griffin Newman?

  Right. It also falls into the Tootsie problem of like, so who plays Mark?

• 27:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 27:40Griffin Newman?

  It's a poem. There's a Playbill article I found that was when You Can Count On Me was about to come out and they're saying like, everything's coming up Lonergan. He wrote the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie, his first directorial effort. Like, This Is Our Youth continues to like sell out in London and he was like, my next thing I'm doing is This Is Our Youth as a movie.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:59David Sims?

  Oh, interesting.

• 28:00Griffin Newman?

  Like it is absolutely, as long as people don't think I shit the bed on this first film, I'm doing that next.

• 28:06David Sims?

  But it's not, it's not cinematic at all.

• 28:08Griffin Newman?

  At all.

• 28:08David Sims?

  Sitting in a fricking dirty apartment. Like it's a play. I don't know.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  It makes sense because it was so beloved.

• 28:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  And, you know, everybody likes young people.

• 28:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. He could, in theory, get three big stars to do it.

• 28:20David Sims?

  Damon Affleck, Casey Affleck and Summer Phoenix was that cast?

• 28:25Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 28:25David Sims?

  I gotta find the Kieran Culkin one. I saw it like three times. I just kept.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  I saw the Kieran did it on Broadway. Michael Sarah. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that.

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

  And, and.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  At the Roundabout. Yeah.

• 28:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:36David Sims?

  And Tavi, right?

• 28:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Find out who played the female part against Klein and Prince, though.

• 28:41David Sims?

  Colin Hanks did it in London, I think. Anyway, this is not important.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Now I'm seeing why these go for two.

• 28:47David Sims?

  Sorry. Okay, Miller's Crossing.

• 28:48Griffin Newman?

  Because we talk about the important things that everyone else is afraid to talk about. Here's what I want to ask about Miller's Crossing. Or rather, a point I want to make, Bloodsable does not have a ton of dialogue in it. The dialogue that's in it's really strong, but there are extended sections that play out in silence.

• 29:04Speaker 04

  Well, it's mostly just the, the private eye.

• 29:10David Sims?

  Yeah, M M at Walsh.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  And M M at Walsh, who, who, you know, is, is, was a real get for them in their first film. He's a-

• 29:19David Sims?

  Proper recognizable character actor.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  You guys seen Straight Time?

• 29:23David Sims?

  Yeah. Heather Burns, the greatest.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  The greatest.

• 29:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, ooh.

• 29:27David Sims?

  Yeah. Love Heather Burns.

• 29:28Griffin Newman?

  But yeah, but that's a good point that like, what they did for M M at Walsh, a guy who was always kind of taken a sturdy, but never got that good of a showcase, I think immediately gives them so much clout with other actors of, well, I want them to do for me what they did for him. And just from Raising Arizona on, they're getting great people. But Raising Arizona is so dialogue forward, but the criticisms at the time, as we read all the insane reviews when it came out, are people being like, why is this so fucking overwritten? There's all this insane criticism at the time-

• 30:00Speaker 04

  From Raising Arizona?

• 30:01Griffin Newman?

  Critics, yes, being like, no one talks like this, rather than getting that that's the point?

• 30:07David Sims?

  When you dive in- And then Miller's crossing- The critics don't really fully align on the cones until Fargo. Like, I mean, obviously they were critically beloved in their way, but like every movie, there would be a huge swath of usually older critics being like, this is all sizzle. Like, you know, this is pastiche, like you say, like this is not-

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Well, and there's that, there's that like, I'm always mystified by this one, but the, they judge their characters. They don't like their characters.

• 30:28David Sims?

  Right, right. They're patronizing, yeah.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  They love their-

• 30:32Speaker 04

  I've, I've never understood, well, no, I've just never understood that as even a criticism. It's like, it's like, especially when you're making a genre film, it's like, I, I want you to destroy everybody you create. Like, you know, like, that's, that's like, I've, I've paid for this movie, you know?

• 30:50Griffin Newman?

  Also, their movies are about cruel and indifferent universes.

• 30:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they, and they've all, they've, they've always been world builders, you know? And, and, and they're, they're people who are very conscious of kind of all the traditions that precede them. And what kind of distinguishes them is that they're, they're both like- Like a reverential thing going on where they where they absolutely like, you know, love these traditions and then they're also totally irreverent where they're, you know, kind of blowing them up and, and, uh, and so you do have something like with Raising Arizona, you've got like a lot of like Tex Avery and all the, you know, but, but then, you know, with, um, with Miller's Crossing, you have specifically Dashill Hammett, you've got Howard Hawks,

• 31:36Speaker 04

  you've got this like really explodes with Hudsucker Proxy where it's like, okay, this is sort of Capra. It's like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and it's like, okay, it's also like the big clock and it's, and like you got Sturgis and, um, it's, it's mostly Capra with like the speed of Howard Hawks. And then with Miller's Crossing, you, you've got, I would say mostly Hammett with, uh, again, the, uh, like the, the treatment of dialogue that you get from Howard Hawks and then, and then like a, a minimalism that like even just the rooms are empty.

• 32:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And after how kinetic and sort of like thoroughly stylized Raising Arizona is, I think you're right that they didn't totally align until Fargo, but this is a movie where you see a lot of their critical critics swing back and go, maybe these guys have depth. Not everybody.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  This is the first of their films that feels, that has like an elegiac quality.

• 32:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  And I, and I do feel that if you're one of the people who whatever was like, saw Raising Arizona and was like weird enough to be like, they don't like these people. I don't like this, you know?

• 32:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  This movie is really moving and it's a great film about friendship.

• 32:55David Sims?

  That's the, I think you have to watch it a couple of times to figure that out. Maybe because the first, cause it's so visually overwhelming and because the plot is ostensibly naughty and complicated that, so you're like trying to keep track. And then the more I watched it, the more I locked in on like, yes, it's a film about friendship. It's a film about a person. Weighing whether there's any morality in like what he does, right? You know what I mean? And like making a moral decision and then regretting it essentially like I'm reading the Eber review. I would, the Eber review is interesting where, cause he is, he has the criticism, I think a lot of people had where he's like, this is a gorgeous movie. I don't believe that anyone would live in these rooms. Like these rooms are too beautiful. It's not a gangster movie like, and can be in the times, who I think of as like one

• 33:39David Sims?

  of the kings of the old guard back then, like futzy kind of a whatever, bad critics. Sorry, Vincent. Um, was a big hater who was like, this is like fucking Dick Tracy, you know, the Warren Beatty movie.

• 33:51Griffin Newman?

  Overly precious toy train, pasty.

• 33:54David Sims?

  Yeah, this is just these kids playing with gangster action figures. And you're just like, I'm just saying, not to diss my own community, but.

• 34:01Griffin Newman?

  But I think this movie is, uh, even on a surface level, more sincere and less ironic, less, right? Which broke down some of their detractors who get fully won over by Fargo. And I think part of it is to your point, when you're talking about all the different elements, they're synthesizing in like, you know, hot suckers after this, but in Blood Simple and in Raising Arizona, they're getting the charge from putting disparate things together, right? What if you combined Mad Max with Flannery O'Connor with Wile E. Coyote? And to some people, they just short circuit and go, you can't put those things together. The things that Miller's Crossing is synthesizing are all starting at a closer place to each

• 34:46Griffin Newman?

  other. So I think people were just like, okay, this is a less manic thing. A thing that I find funny, cause I was trying to remember why I saw Miller, uh, not Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona at a young age. And it was that I was obsessed with the AFI did their hundred years, hundred laughs list. After their first 100 years of movies list, they tried to do every year, a new one as a TV special that I was obsessed with. And then Blockbuster had a little pamphlet where you could check on which ones you had watched as a comedy obsessed kid. And in 1998, Raising Arizona was 30 on their list.

• 35:22David Sims?

  31.

• 35:23Griffin Newman?

  31. But like barely 10 years later, it had gone from like, what is this overwritten stuff to, we all agree, this is one of the 50 best American comedies ever made.

• 35:32David Sims?

  Yep, Fargo's also on that list.

• 35:34Griffin Newman?

  Where was Fargo?

• 35:35David Sims?

  Ninety-three.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  And I'm sure Big Lebowski's on there now and.

• 35:38Griffin Newman?

  Now would be, yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:40David Sims?

  Right. Now, I wonder if Raising Arizona, well, who knows? Just because Big Lebowski sort of became their most famous out and out comedy in a way, but.

• 35:52Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 35:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 35:53Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more. That is an all-star cast.

• 36:14David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 36:34Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the Count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 36:50David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Eschery and a spatial dolby atmosound design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home, feel the terror of being hunted, and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation, written by Robin Ahern, now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com/listen2dracula.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 37:25David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 37:26Griffin Newman?

  It's not cuffing season for me, it's cozy season for me. And this year, that meant finally upgrading.

• 37:32Griffin Newman?

  My new mattress from Lisa.

• 37:33David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 37:34Griffin Newman?

  It's supportive, comfortable, and just what my body needs after a long day. It makes crawling into bed on a chilly fall night feel like luxury.

• 37:42David Sims?

  Yeah, I have a Lisa too. They've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. They've got eco-friendly materials.

• 37:55Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you hear eco-friendly and you go, oh, but I'm going to sacrifice comfort.

• 37:58David Sims?

  No.

• 37:59Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 38:00David Sims?

  They've been awarded best hybrid and best memory foam mattresses by New York Times' Wirecutter. They're featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. And they work with local nonprofits across the US to donate thousands of mattresses each year to families in need. Over 43,000 mattresses donated to date. Go to lisa.com for up to 30% off mattresses. Plus, get an extra $50 off with promo code BLANKCHECK. Exclusive for our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BLANKCHECK for up to 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 38:47Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 38:47David Sims?

  Yes?

• 38:48Griffin Newman?

  Shop.com is giving away $1 million in Shop Cash.

• 38:52David Sims?

  Wow. Shop has all the stores you love and lets you track every order in one spot.

• 38:57Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 38:59David Sims?

  And now, 1,000 shoppers are each going to win $1,000 in Shop Cash just in time for the holidays.

• 39:06Griffin Newman?

  You get gifts for everyone on your list, or get yourself something a little merry and bright. Find exactly what you're looking for at shop.com.

• 39:15David Sims?

  Got stocking stuffers, maybe. The sickest luxury items. Cookware to kicks, toys to high-tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once. Okay? That's shop.com. You can just go, click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 39:38Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals, and checkout All at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million shop cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 40:07David Sims?

  I'm opening the dossier. We have research. All right. We don't just make stuff up. Okay. So obviously, right. They're pivoting out of Raising Arizona. Joel says, we don't want to do another out and out comedy. We wanted to do something that was a little bit morbid. We've always liked gangsters. And they talk about the visual. The starting point is the visual is the hats, the long coats, the hat blowing onto the ground. Tommy Gunn's Dirty Town Gangster Stories is how Joel Cohen puts it more pulp lit than movies per se, right? Like they're starting more

• 40:39Speaker 04

  The sound of the cork being pulled out of a

• 40:42Griffin Newman?

  Skip Lee say, once again, the goat. No movies sound better than Coen Brothers movies because every single action has such a distinct resonance to it. Any like shifting of weight in a chair suddenly is the most visceral thing you have ever experienced.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  I'll just say, since I'm only able to talk on the Miller's Crossing podcast, but I've got a lot to say about all their films. I will say for for sound design, the road trip sequence in Inside Lewin Davis is is is so mesmerizing.

• 41:14Griffin Newman?

  The John Goodman.

• 41:16David Sims?

  Goodman, Garrett Headland.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  Everything about it. It's so just it. It is such a hypnotic, like 20, 25 minutes. It's it might be their best filmmaking, but also the but just the sound design. It's like the whole thing is like. Almost underwater.

• 41:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  And it's really, it's really eerie and, and also just their like metronomic sense of like pacing, like reaches like a sort of apex or they, that's the, they have a lot of, they have a lot of like apogies, like, you know.

• 41:53David Sims?

  They do. They have multiples.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  I can't talk on, on Hud Sucker Proxy or Serious Man Podcast, but I, but I will say.

• 41:59Griffin Newman?

  You can share your thoughts here. This is your space. Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  I, I will say Serious Man, The Goy's Teeth, and then Hud Sucker Proxy, the, the hula hoop, which I know Sam Raimi was, was involved in, in, uh, in, in helping to, to, to direct. Those two are like, I mean, just, you know, as far as the medium has been like pushed.

• 42:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  As far as montage is concerned, just absolutely amazing.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  And the Hud Sucker, right. The Hud Sucker sequence feels mathematical in the way it is interweaving different games that are being heightened and de heightened. You basically, within one extended montage, have like 10 different narrative tracks that you're keeping your tabs on. Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  And, and just like what they're doing in that movie with, um, the Cacheturian, you know, uh, it's a, I mean, it's, it's, it's Carter Burwell kind of riffing on Cacheturian's Spartacus.

• 42:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Mostly the Adagio, but it's a, I mean, just what they're doing with music there is so great. It's like, you know, it's very, it's like, it's very Rube Goldberg and they're very Rube Goldberg-y filmmakers.

• 43:07David Sims?

  The sort of Serious Man True Grit, uh, inside Luan Davis, whatever, apogee, one of, one of like several apogees. Is that does feel like.

• 43:15Griffin Newman?

  Drawing a circle like for kids.

• 43:16David Sims?

  Like for kids. Um, that feels like where they're just like, we can, I'm not saying in an arrogant way. It's just they're so, they can do anything.

• 43:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 43:23David Sims?

  Like they can work in any genre at that point without any kind of like, oh, let's see what this is like.

• 43:27Griffin Newman?

  We, we've recorded our Hud Sucker episode quite, quite a bit ago. And I was trying to do some tidying around the office and I found this, which I don't think was shared on mic and never went acknowledged. Uh, Ben, uh, I believe drew this up, which is a chain. And it says, you know, for kids. Was this your handiwork?

• 43:48Speaker 03

  It's just like an idea I was playing around with.

• 43:50Griffin Newman?

  Just pitching the idea of a chain to play with.

• 43:52David Sims?

  Oh, because you like, just like a metal chain.

• 43:54Griffin Newman?

  Ben likes chains, right?

• 43:56Speaker 03

  It's a, it's a quality of, of something I love in film.

• 44:00Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, you know, you know, for bad kids. I, I missed the key word, the chain is for bad.

• 44:06David Sims?

  There's no Ari movie with chains, though. You've never really done chain work in your, in your oeuvre.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  Uh, Bo, Bo was afraid. He breaks the chains, remember in the play?

• 44:15David Sims?

  Yes. Okay. Yes, that's right. That's right. Okay. So you've done some chain. It just must be fun to like, as a director, evaluate like piles of chains, right? Like, is this the right chain?

• 44:24Speaker 04

  It's more in my private life.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  When you're visited by Jacob Marley.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Ari, same, I gotta say.

• 44:32David Sims?

  Yeah. So, okay. Uh, Mills Crossing, as you already, you know, noted, Dashiell Hammett is obviously their biggest, uh, inspiration versus James Kane, Raymond Chandler, whoever else that they've also sort of paid homage to over the years.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, Chandler would be Big Lebowski. Kane would be man who wasn't there.

• 44:50David Sims?

  And kind of blood simple.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blood simple for sure.

• 44:54David Sims?

  Kane, Kane the horniest, I would say. Chandler kind of the coolest. And Hammett, I, I feel like is the most emotional. I don't know. Maybe that's very broad of me, though, actually.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  I'm not sure if I would say Hammett was the most emotional because.

• 45:07David Sims?

  Glass Key is emotional, which is a book I love because that's, that is about friendship. That is about a guy being like, I can't be friends with you anymore.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  But you're also outside of the characters, uh, in, in Hammett. Whereas with, I would say, is Kane the most emotional? Not necessarily.

• 45:22David Sims?

  Kane's just so horny.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  With Mildred Pierce, maybe. But, um, Kane is like so just bare bones and, and, um, like nothing extraneous. Whereas Hammett is like more colorful, I would say, and is having more fun with language and, uh,

• 45:39Speaker 04

  And then Chandler is, is, uh, you're, you're just always inside of like Marlowe's.

• 45:46David Sims?

  Right. A drunk motherfucker.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, point of view.

• 45:49David Sims?

  Who like can't put his pants on, but also it's so cool. Yeah. Just speaking to what you're saying, Ethan, cause there's a quote from Ethan. Millers Crossing, definitely an exercise in doing a hammock story. It's that thing of not being in the character's head. And part of the mystery is who is the main character? So, cause with Sam Spade, who I feel like is the most famous hammock guy. You are spending the whole thing being like, yeah, what does he want actually? Like, I don't get it. He's cool.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's an enigma and, and, and Gabriel Byrne in this movie, uh, Tom, Tom Reagan. He's, uh,

• 46:20David Sims?

  You might not know, the character's Irish. You might, did you pick up on that?

• 46:23Speaker 04

  Subtle detail.

• 46:24David Sims?

  Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's stoic.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's, he's a stoic who,

• 46:27David Sims?

  Sort of man a few words.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:29David Sims?

  Stone faced, often.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  Very, very red harvest in, you know, it's like, he's doing something. We know, we know he's got a plan. We don't know how much of a plan he has. He's seen, he, he seems to be a brilliant improviser.

• 46:42David Sims?

  Have ideas for a plan. What's the line? Yeah, right. Yeah. Something like that.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  And I guess, you know, red, red harvest is infamously the, you know, the sort of, uh, the, the text for Yojimbo and then like, you know, and then those, those Sergio Leone.

• 46:59David Sims?

  The man with no name.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. The man with no name, but specifically a fistful of dollars, right? And then, yeah, just a guy who, in the case of like Yojimbo, like, you know, rolls into a town, a street, you know, like a, a drifter who then pits, you know, pits two warring gangs against each other. But here, here, you know, it's somebody who, who's of the world and in the world and.

• 47:25Griffin Newman?

  What's the line that you subscribe him to? He's like the guy behind the guy whispering in the ear? This sort of notion of the type of guy who's not usually at the center of these stories.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  The right-hand man.

• 47:36Griffin Newman?

  Right, and is so reluctant to reveal himself in any way. There's the-

• 47:42David Sims?

  Tough to date. I feel like this guy might be tough.

• 47:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's the exchange he has with Marcia Gay Harden where she's like, that's a hell of a long way to go to get what you want. And then he says, what would that be? And she says, me. And it's a thing he would never, ever say to her that she's basically pulling out of him of, I think you just got fired and got your ass beat, rather than saying, I love you, which is the thing you would never do. And yet the whole time, in almost every scene, I'm trying to figure out, is he manipulating this current situation to his own ends for what he wants? Or is he battling back and forth in terms of what he actually wants? I think what makes this character interesting to me is at different times, I think he's in complete control or complete chaos,

• 48:30Griffin Newman?

  based on, is he cleaning up the messes of something he did wrong before? Or is this all how he was trying to build it out purposefully? Cause I, I think there is some shifting of, at, at moments in this movie, I'm thinking, he's planning all of this so he can get out. Or he's planning all of this so he can be on top. Or he's planning all of this to help,

• 48:52Griffin Newman?

  Albert Finney, or just to get Marcia Gay Harden, or all of them. Does he think he can pull it all off?

• 48:58Speaker 04

  And then, and then by the end, it turned out he, you know, he, he did have the plan.

• 49:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 49:03David Sims?

  Do you think he, the whole time is like, that's how it's gonna unfold. I'll switch sides and ferment chaos.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  Well, of course, not when he like lets Bernie Bernbaum like go in the woods, you know?

• 49:13David Sims?

  That's the one time he's letting the mask slip or whatever. That's the sort of crux, right? It's like it actually, and I would fucking let him go too. He won't shut up. I would, I would struggle to shoot Bernie Bernbaum. And then it's so great when he shoots him.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 49:27David Sims?

  It's one of the most satisfying murders of a person ever in a movie.

• 49:31Griffin Newman?

  But having only-

• 49:31Speaker 04

  It's one heart is a great line.

• 49:33David Sims?

  Yeah, it's one heart.

• 49:34Griffin Newman?

  Having only seen this movie twice, admittedly.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 49:38Griffin Newman?

  I did, in this watch, feel like there is a midsection where his priority becomes Marcia Gay Harden.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  And then he's sort of trying to untangle the damage he causes by letting his emotions override that much. I think there's a window where that becomes the dominant driving force for him. And then he starts to close up again.

• 49:58David Sims?

  He's definitely, look, he's a compulsive gambler and he likes, he likes to drink her too.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  He likes to pull the cork.

• 50:04David Sims?

  Yeah. It's not like Tom is a completely straightforward person. There's obviously a lot raging inside of him that is, you know, that he, he deals with in traditional 1920s gangster ways. Be funny if he went off and like did art or something, but you know.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  He's a really good painter.

• 50:23David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. But yeah, he's not sentimental, I guess. And he's, and Albert Finney, Leo, right? Is such a sweetheart in this movie, which is so, he never stops being a sweetheart. Like he's really not a cold blooded, he's a very warm blooded guy, right? Like he's a, and I feel like Tom is like, I don't know how to be like that, or I don't understand like how to sort of handle this, like, you know, this emotional person, right? I don't know.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Albert Finney, at the end of his career was, uh, in those last, like, you know, 15 years was playing a lot of warm guys.

• 51:01David Sims?

  He's.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. Aaron Brockovich and all this, but, but.

• 51:03David Sims?

  My favorite actor, basically.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  I, I mean, Saturday night and Sunday morning is one of my favorite performances.

• 51:08David Sims?

  That is basically one of my.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  And that's where he plays.

• 51:10David Sims?

  Core movies.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  That's where he plays like a brute.

• 51:12David Sims?

  He, as I've told, I've said on this podcast, that is, that's like, my dad was always just like, that was me.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  You were raised on that movie. Yeah.

• 51:19David Sims?

  Yeah. It was a working class British guy, like in that era.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  Drinking all the time.

• 51:24David Sims?

  But he just always. It's just like, we just got food back, like proper, like, and I don't mean even good food, but Britain in like the late 50s is basically like, we're now allowed to eat regular amounts of food again. We've basically just been drinking our brains out.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  If a character was just beer.

• 51:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:42David Sims?

  It's Albert Finney.

• 51:43Griffin Newman?

  He's a human.

• 51:45David Sims?

  What I love about that is that's 1960, 1963. The next movie he makes is Tom Jones in 1963, which is basically like, what if a guy fucked his way through like England in like, you know, whatever era.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  But the commonality is there was always.

• 51:57David Sims?

  The Oscars were like best picture, I think. Like this is, this is the best picture of the year.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  He always had that, like, not to be corny, but the twinkle in his eye. And there was this like well of warmth that you could apply in different ways, but there was something of like, and Aaron Brockovich, you want to see him be won over, right? But something like this, what's funny about it is that he's not doing the tough layer on top of it. I mean, it's one of the, the most insane things is that this was not only not written for him, but written explicitly for Trey Wilson, who dies two days before filming.

• 52:27David Sims?

  Right. Who's obviously wonderful in Raising Arizona. And you get it, you, I mean, like you, you can see him in this, but then I also cannot imagine anyone else but Finney in the robe with the Tommy gun, like, you know, in that whole sequence, you're like, yeah, it's this is, yeah.

• 52:41Griffin Newman?

  And, and the weight of the history of what he provides, like Trey Wilson clearly would have knocked this out of the park because he would have been.

• 52:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 52:48Griffin Newman?

  Eager to have this kind of opportunity.

• 52:50David Sims?

  But seen one of Finney sitting there, you're like, yeah, I get that this guy's run this town for 20 years or whatever.

• 52:55Griffin Newman?

  It's like production value and like weight, and especially because the movie basically opens on him silently, largely just reacting, you know? That's sort of like worth its weight in gold, but it is wild that it not only was not intended for him, but that he jumps in so last minute where you're like, this is Finney with zero prep?

• 53:15David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 53:16Griffin Newman?

  Like if Trey Wilson dies two days before, like, how did they even get to Finney that quick? Get an agreement out of him, get him on set within a week.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a really soulful performance, but also he's so clearly tapped into whatever they're doing, you know? I mean, like there's the gag where Gabriel Byrne breaks into the ladies room and, and he's, he's dressed in drag as like one of the attendants. It's like, you know, which he asked to do, it's just like clear that he has the same sense of humor is.

• 53:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was into the idea of being Roderick James at the Oscar. Like, I'm just like, it's so.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  So great.

• 53:47Griffin Newman?

  Funny, but also this.

• 53:48David Sims?

  Beautiful freak.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  Feels like a movie, especially at this point. Their career that you imagine only gets greenlit if they have someone like Finney in the supporting role.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  Well, this feels like a classic like.

• 53:59David Sims?

  Let me get back to the research then because, okay, so famously, yes, it usually they say they write very fast. Like that's, I feel like their typical explanation on screenplay writing, but as we said, the plot slows them down. It takes them, they say about eight months because they stop in the middle to write about Barton Fink. They get some distance from it. They kind of go on vacation. They come back to it. They figure out the plot and they also say they don't change the dialogue, but they rewrote part of the script during filming, which I don't really understand, but maybe they just kind of restructured the, you know, plotting in some way. They obviously are not very into symbolism, explaining symbolism.

• 54:43David Sims?

  Barry Sonnenfeld says like, they won't say like the hat represents this.

• 54:47Griffin Newman?

  We're going to talk about that.

• 54:48David Sims?

  But they will say, yeah, we wanted to make a movie with hats. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing with the cones. They're like hats, like we, we started with hats. What do the hats mean? And they're like, oh, I don't know. We just like hats.

• 54:58Griffin Newman?

  Right before we recorded, we were talking about how you were worried going into this series of like, isn't it going to be tough? Because they famously don't want to talk in interviews and we're not going to get the context that JJ is usually good at digging up when he's not busy being fired. And that you've been surprised that there is a lot of stuff they say, despite the reputation, you can pin all this together. But I feel like so much of their reputation comes from the hat where this movie comes out and everyone was like, what does the hat mean? And they kept on being like, we just thought it was kind of an interesting image. They really downplayed any weight behind it. And I feel.

• 55:32David Sims?

  Cody, think Cohen, the hat doesn't represent anything. It's a hat blown by the wind.

• 55:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 55:36David Sims?

  It's an image that came to us that we like.

• 55:38Griffin Newman?

  And then Barton Fink almost.

• 55:39Speaker 04

  I don't think that's disingenuous. No, I don't either. I think that, I think that that strikes me as, as being right. You know, I don't see that and think like, man, that hat represents, you know?

• 55:48David Sims?

  I agree with you. I think that's the secret. You gotta just, I mean, look, I'm.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  I got you have made movies, I'm sure where people are like, but Ari, what does this mean? Like?

• 55:56David Sims?

  That that scene, come on now, explain it to me now, Ari. You know, I'm like, I'm sure you get this all the time.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 56:01David Sims?

  And that's really fun and you love those questions and you'll have to answer them.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:05David Sims?

  Right?

• 56:05Speaker 04

  And and sometimes you dangle stuff knowing that it's gonna, you know.

• 56:09David Sims?

  Right, you're not.

• 56:10Speaker 04

  It's gonna waste people's time.

• 56:11David Sims?

  You're not a babe in the woods being like, la la, you know that sure, like, okay, this will be something.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  That's the joke, the joke.

• 56:17Griffin Newman?

  From this point on.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  Is like, you're gonna think this means something.

• 56:20David Sims?

  Well, that's why the dick in the attic and Bo is my favorite thing.

• 56:24Speaker 04

  Well, that's the whole point. The whole point is like, the whole point is.

• 56:27David Sims?

  Be up there.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  Is the whole movie, you're like, you know, you build the intrigue and you make it like an object of suspense. And then you reveal like, you've just wasted your time and your thought and your energy on this. And and it's it's the stupidest possible thing that could mean nothing.

• 56:43Griffin Newman?

  But also, it kind of means like everything. It's like, isn't everyone's father kind of a penis?

• 56:48Speaker 04

  That's the trap, you know, it's like, even, I mean, it's almost the, it's almost like the one thing I regret where it's just like, uh, like I, I.

• 56:57David Sims?

  Are you having too much fun?

• 56:59Speaker 04

  It's such a, well, no, it's just such a fuck you. And it and that was sort of the point was, you know, I guess to to quote Susan Sontag.

• 57:06David Sims?

  Please.

• 57:06Speaker 04

  I, it's a, it's, it's a gesture that's against the very idea of interpretation, right? Like, just like, try, yeah, just try to interpret this.

• 57:14David Sims?

  I just gave Ari the finger.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Well, that's exactly right. It is. It is a middle finger to anybody, uh, you know, investing anything.

• 57:21David Sims?

  Like, sort of doing semiotics and.

• 57:23Griffin Newman?

  I mean, against everything we've just said, can I give my hat read?

• 57:26David Sims?

  Oh, please.

• 57:27Griffin Newman?

  Something kind of clicked for me watching it this time.

• 57:29David Sims?

  Yeah, the hat is a penis.

• 57:30Griffin Newman?

  The hat is a penis. It's Bo's dad.

• 57:32David Sims?

  What's up?

• 57:33Griffin Newman?

  The hat is Bo's dad. It's a call for.

• 57:34David Sims?

  Right. What's the hat?

• 57:35Griffin Newman?

  No, I think, I think it is literally just a hat, right? But I think the reason, not just the imagery, right? But then also the hi hat being thrown out as the term all the time.

• 57:46David Sims?

  Give me the hi hat, sure. Refers to symbols, but yes.

• 57:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And the first scene after the, the opening credits and the hat imagery is them calling out that Gabriel Byrne lost his hat.

• 57:56David Sims?

  Yes.

• 57:57Griffin Newman?

  And it goes back to the Leo thing.

• 57:58David Sims?

  They are very into knocking his hat off his head. A lot.

• 58:01Griffin Newman?

  And there's a lot in this movie of when people are wearing a hat, when they're not, when they take it off, right? Which I think is just. Literally what it is and down to Polito talking about like ethics, right? That this is a movie to me in many ways that is about this kind of like early 1900s. All the immigration happening, these different cliques from different countries coming to the major cities and trying to establish a social hierarchy. You know, where did the Irish stand relative to the Italians and to the Jews and all these people trying to make a name for themselves? But all of this was couched in this idea of like manners and ethics and gentlemanly behavior and who can you trust? You know, the Sopranos thing of like, do you feel like we got in after all the good stuff had happened, right?

• 58:46Griffin Newman?

  That that era of like mobsterism and even what Goodfellas is kind of addressing is like, this is starting to get tacky. And the shit that they talk about being so animated to them is like these movies that have this kind of dialogue and the hats and the long coats.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're fetishists.

• 59:01Griffin Newman?

  These guys used to talk well and dress well, right?

• 59:04Speaker 04

  That's absolutely right.

• 59:05Griffin Newman?

  And the idea of what you did with your hat was shown could be an ultimate sign of respect or disrespect to someone else. That the major thing in play here, that in many ways, the central tension of this movie is can you do something that breaks the gentlemanly nature of crime?

• 59:21Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 59:22Griffin Newman?

  And if you do that, is this irrevocable? Polito's hatred of the double cross.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  We're all pretending to be gentlemen.

• 59:28Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  To what extent are we really? Yeah, no.

• 59:30Griffin Newman?

  The hat is a meaningless thing that all this weight is put on of it could be the ultimate affront if you do the wrong thing with your hat. Or if you lose it, do you feel like you're no longer a man? But it is just literally a hat. It's nothing.

• 59:42Speaker 04

  It's just a piece of poetry. Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  I gotta say about Taylors and haberdashers during this era, they were fucking cleaning up.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay, go off.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  They were making so much money because you gotta think like these knuckleheads show up, they get a full wardrobe.

• 59:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Then they get shot by a Tommy gun minutes later.

• 1:00:02Griffin Newman?

  Good call.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  They need.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  They just then turn out another henchman.

• 1:00:05Griffin Newman?

  They're not just gonna patch a hole. They're gonna give you a new hat from scratch.

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  If you go to the Shenandoah Club, you know, there's a lot of henchmen up on that.

• 1:00:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  That upper floor in that hallway.

• 1:00:16Griffin Newman?

  They were working in quantity.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:00:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. It was a good time.

• 1:00:21Griffin Newman?

  Do you know also, Ben, do you know that the reason the Mad Hatter exists as a character is because hat glue used to make people literally fucking insane?

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, they would use mercury.

• 1:00:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. So they were cleaning up, but then they were also probably like hitting themselves in the head with a mallet.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Everyone was crazy back then, you know what I mean?

• 1:00:44Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:00:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary Capturing Bigfoot. On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:01:01David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:01:26David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows, a Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever seen. That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:01:37Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:01:46David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:01:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:01:49David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever, you see it in a documentary for two seconds. But this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:01:56Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:02:10David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:02:12Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:02:15David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:02:45David Sims?

  As Ari alluded to, you got three big gangster movies this year. You have Miller's Crossing, which is this sort of stately, almost to a point film, right? Like where it's like, it's so painterly and beautiful. You got Goodfellas, which is like Scorsese poking the gangster movie in the eye, I feel like, right? Like he's like, this is not The Godfather. These people were not classy. They did not like all dressed like beautifully and like have poetic conversations in dark robes. They were like weird little psychos. God bless them.

• 1:03:12Speaker 04

  And it's about how being a gangster is fun.

• 1:03:14David Sims?

  It's super fun. And then someone might shoot you because you were annoying for one minute or said something. In The Godfather, it's like, may I have permission to shoot? Yes. Yeah. You know, I love The Godfather, to be clear, but I feel like Scorsese's like, come on, like, let's.

• 1:03:30Speaker 04

  And then the horror was Home Alone.

• 1:03:32David Sims?

  No, you have The Godfather Part Three.

• 1:03:35Griffin Newman?

  I put Home Alone in there. I think Home Alone is kind of important in this.

• 1:03:38David Sims?

  I don't know that the wet mandates were organized crime. I think they were kind of just a sort of a spec operation.

• 1:03:44Griffin Newman?

  That's the pointed satire of the film. They're disorganized crime. What were you gonna say about The Godfather Part Three?

• 1:03:49David Sims?

  Well, it's just, obviously, that's a flood movie. I don't know if you agree. Maybe you think The Godfather Part Three is perfect up and down, but you know.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  I do think it's flood.

• 1:03:56David Sims?

  It's a movie where you feel like Coppola is maybe not, his heart isn't in all of it as much as the first ones. There's lots of interesting stuff, but it's got a bit of a relic. Right. It's, you know, like, and it is also kind of about like the gangsters of old who are so, you know, finally appointed are getting a little garish. There's a lot of gross money, right? There's the whole thing with the Vatican, you know, whatever. It's just like tarnishing, you know, and the Miller's Crossing is more the sort of picture perfect, like Norman Rockwell gangsters. I don't know how to describe them.

• 1:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Which is what they're obsessed with preserving, the sense of like, this means something.

• 1:04:34David Sims?

  And the whole Bushido, you know, of like, if Leo says so, then you got your marching orders. I'm like, that's what you do.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Miller's Crossing is pastiche. And, and it's like, you know, like a tribute to a way of making movies and a style of filmmaking that, you know, that is very classic, but, but is dead. And so, you know, it's, it's not a surprise that Miller's Crossing like wasn't a commercial hit.

• 1:05:03Speaker 04

  But now for now for me, I feel like it's such a successful tribute that like I I I put it with those movies. I put it with.

• 1:05:11Griffin Newman?

  Sure, it fits into the.

• 1:05:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, with with those gangster films of the.

• 1:05:16David Sims?

  Yesterday, right?

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, of like the the the 30s and 40s and, you know, films like.

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  God, I'm trying to think like I.

• 1:05:25David Sims?

  A roaring 20s.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  It's a little, I mean.

• 1:05:29David Sims?

  Those Cagney movies are not quite this energy, I guess.

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I I'm trying to think like what what would I put this with because it is so hammet that it's that it makes me think of those books more than it makes me think of any film.

• 1:05:41David Sims?

  Which is what they're saying like they are like our big inspiration is more books versus us doing our version of The Big Sleeper, what you know, like whatever, you know, Key Largo. I mean, I don't know, any gangster movie. There's so many gangster movies that you could think of.

• 1:05:54Griffin Newman?

  Well, and for how classical it is, I think it's hard to put it up against the films from the actual era because what it has is the distance and the perspective to be mourning the loss of this.

• 1:06:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it feels like a Michael Curtis film or something.

• 1:06:10Griffin Newman?

  That's a good call.

• 1:06:11Speaker 04

  As far as how how they shoot it, how you know, the the dialogue is more stylized than anything.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  Should I watch every Michael Curtis movie?

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:06:21David Sims?

  400.

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  But there's so many of them, but there but there's so many great ones.

• 1:06:24David Sims?

  I feel like I've seen.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  So many great ones.

• 1:06:25David Sims?

  The only gangster movies I've seen is Angels of Dirty Faces, which is very, very good.

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:06:31David Sims?

  But I don't I'm not actually that up to on, you know, up on his like his vast amount of output. I've seen Casablanca, which I'm a fan of that one.

• 1:06:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's good. I actually think that movie's.

• 1:06:43David Sims?

  I've seen like Captain Blood. I've seen, but yeah, I'm not a big Michael.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  Yankee Doodle Dandies.

• 1:06:47David Sims?

  I have seen that many years ago.

• 1:06:49Speaker 04

  Breaking Point.

• 1:06:50David Sims?

  I don't think I've seen that. That sounds good. What's that? What's up with that? Is it a boat movie or a wolf movie?

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  It's another boat movie.

• 1:06:56Griffin Newman?

  Michael Curtis never made a talking wolf movie, did he? Like a talking animal picture?

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:07:02David Sims?

  He was what Hungarian, right? Yes. Anyway, okay, Millers Crossing. This is their second Circle film, which Blood's Blood Sip also.

• 1:07:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Circle just signs up and is like, we get it. We're in the the Coens business for the long term.

• 1:07:15David Sims?

  It's 20th Century Fox, who funds most of the movie, who had obviously done Raising Arizona. Ben Barinholtz is the guy they're working with. And basically, like, they had this arrangement early in their career where Circle Film was basically like, do what you want, we'll sell the movie. And, you know, I mean, there's nothing like that arrangement now, like the way things worked back then does seem kind of unique, or maybe the art film scene was a little.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  Well, you had, you know, you had home video and

• 1:07:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  And that, that just, that, that made everything less of a risk, you know, like

• 1:07:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  If it doesn't make its money in theaters, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's gonna make its, its money on, on video.

• 1:07:53Griffin Newman?

  This movie was seen as a flop, but it also costs less than $10 million. So.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

  Yes, the budget's a little.

• 1:07:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. They're like between foreign sales and TV and video.

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  I'm not worried. I think their only, their only meaningful flop was, was Hush Hush Rexy.

• 1:08:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  That's the only one that ever, you know, probably like led to some serious discussions about like, how do we play the next one?

• 1:08:16David Sims?

  Yes, right. We actually need to think, be sort of thoughtful of our budget next.

• 1:08:19Griffin Newman?

  Now, this also feels like a movie that today, even if a studio were to say, sure, we'll make this, it would be green light contingent on you getting one of 10 actors.

• 1:08:30David Sims?

  Yeah, fucking gangster squad.

• 1:08:31Griffin Newman?

  That they could get people to sign up. Right. That, well, that's contingent on you getting five of the biggest stars simultaneously.

• 1:08:36David Sims?

  Get a bunch of big actors.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  Well, Gabriel Byrne is not a star.

• 1:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:39David Sims?

  No, I was about to speak to him.

• 1:08:41Griffin Newman?

  And be like, and by the way, this is our guy we're picking. And they're like, the fifth lead from Excalibur?

• 1:08:46David Sims?

  Right. A casting director turns them on to him. He, right. He'd done Excalibur and like The Keep and, you know, Lionheart. You know, he's like, he's a guy. He's not famous at all.

• 1:08:56Griffin Newman?

  Had he ever been the center of a movie? Certainly not a Hollywood film.

• 1:09:00David Sims?

  Uh, not a big movie.

• 1:09:02Griffin Newman?

  And then he basically becomes shorthand for an noir for the rest of the 90s.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  Now, you've worked with Gabriel Byrne.

• 1:09:08Speaker 04

  I have, and, and he's, uh, one of my favorite people. He's a, he's a really, really wonderful man.

• 1:09:15David Sims?

  Famously, a guy I've seen on the street many, many times for some reason, to the point where I was like, what's going on?

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  Say hello. He's, he's just a good guy. He's great.

• 1:09:22David Sims?

  I am a big fan of What Happens to Him and Hereditary. I think one time I interviewed him, I, I just think it's so funny.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  Good.

• 1:09:29David Sims?

  That if you think about that movie just from Gabriel Byrne's perspective.

• 1:09:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, he really didn't ask for any of that.

• 1:09:36David Sims?

  He asks for none of it. Almost every scene, he's like, what? Like as, as some fucking insane, you know, further breakdown is a, and then he just catches on fire. And that's the, I'm sorry that I'm spoiling all your movies on this podcast.

• 1:09:49Speaker 04

  It's fine. I mean.

• 1:09:50David Sims?

  But if you, if you rewatch Hereditary and you're like, let me just get right into Bern's perspective, he really shouldn't have married her. I'm sorry to say, sorry to be rude to Tony, who's, you know, a luminous creature or whatever, but he should not have married into that family.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  No, he, you know, he, he took a wrong turn somewhere.

• 1:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Was casting him in Hereditary partially inspired by this? Is this your favorite performance of his?

• 1:10:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was super starstruck by him because, because of this.

• 1:10:21David Sims?

  And he's got an iconic face, like a low key icon. Nobody really looks like him.

• 1:10:26Speaker 04

  He had a great face, great eyes, great presence, very like there, he, he's just a very grounded, like authoritative, you know, you just, you take him seriously.

• 1:10:38Griffin Newman?

  And like deep well of bottled emotion. You can just cut to him listening to a conversation and be endlessly fascinated by what is this guy thinking right now?

• 1:10:48David Sims?

  He's, yeah, they love him. Uh, he is the one who insists on the Irish accent, which they're resistant to, but obviously I think good, good call.

• 1:10:56Griffin Newman?

  It's also a light lilt.

• 1:10:59David Sims?

  Sure. Yeah. He's like, oh, hello. You know, yeah, no, it's a.

• 1:11:02Griffin Newman?

  He's not chomping on potatoes, but it, it helps in this way that like these people are the early wave of Americanization. They're all kind of one foot in, one foot out.

• 1:11:11Speaker 04

  Of course. It also makes him a bit of an outsider in the film.

• 1:11:14Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:14Speaker 04

  Even though, even though, uh, Leo, you know, the Albert Finney character is also, you know, ostensibly, you know, like Irish.

• 1:11:21Griffin Newman?

  And Finney has similar, he's putting a little tiny inflection sometimes. Yeah.

• 1:11:26David Sims?

  He says, obviously, as you often will hear about Cohen's directing style would be fairly just kind of like, you know, rudimentary or not, not too involved. And, uh, one point he said, what's the significance of the hat? And, uh, Ethan replied, mm. And that was it?

• 1:11:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:11:43David Sims?

  Uh, another point, he said, like, I think, uh, in this scene, I'll like, walk out of the room. I'll put the drink down, walk out of the room. And they were like, he would never leave a drink, like, in the glass, finish the drink.

• 1:11:51Griffin Newman?

  But that's good direction.

• 1:11:52David Sims?

  That's what I mean. Like, they're, they're on, they're on those points, like.

• 1:11:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's a key detail of the character. Yeah.

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  Uh, obviously, right. Trey Wilson dies right before the shoot starts, uh, gonna start. They delay 10 days and, uh, Albert Finney pops in.

• 1:12:06Griffin Newman?

  Like, how did they even get through to him?

• 1:12:08David Sims?

  Uh.

• 1:12:09Griffin Newman?

  I know they're at Fox and everything.

• 1:12:10David Sims?

  1-800-ALBERT. No, I don't, I don't know. Uh, Finney says, he also, as Finney apparently also got a little, put a little more Irish on it. Uh, Ethan, quote from Ethan Cohen, "We got mugged by the Irish." Albert Finney, of course, is not Irish, but he is British. And, uh, yeah, he just really wanted to do it. And he was really into the, uh, the attendant thing. He begged for that. They were like, no. And he was like, please. I mean, British guys love to dress a drag. Like, that is number one. Like, you know, just to do some panto, essentially. Yeah. Uh, this is Marcia Gay Harden's.

• 1:12:42Speaker 04

  Something in the tea over there.

• 1:12:43David Sims?

  Yeah, 100%. Uh, this is Marcia Gay Harden's, like, first role, basically, in a movie. She's in Angels in America on Broadway.

• 1:12:51Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:12:52David Sims?

  But I.

• 1:12:52Griffin Newman?

  But she didn't originate it.

• 1:12:54David Sims?

  Yes, she did. Um, but, uh.

• 1:12:55Griffin Newman?

  Why do you think Debra Messing originated it?

• 1:12:57David Sims?

  You thought very wrong, my friend.

• 1:12:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:12:59David Sims?

  Um, but that, I think, is actually maybe after this. Uh, yeah, that's in, like, 93.

• 1:13:05Griffin Newman?

  This is one of those performances where I, when I, when I saw this for the first time, I went, like, I kind of now understand better why she won the Oscar for Pollock.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  It's also because she says in that movie, "You've done it, Pollock. You broke it wide open." Which is something you have to do in a biopic.

• 1:13:22Griffin Newman?

  You have to say.

• 1:13:23Speaker 04

  You have to have somebody say, "This is history."

• 1:13:26Griffin Newman?

  Jackson, no pressure, but if you fleck this paint correctly, you might be remembered for the rest of time.

• 1:13:34David Sims?

  Best scene, the best scene in Pollock is when he's biking and he's got all the fucking booze on the bike and he falls off the bike.

• 1:13:39Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I don't think she's bad in Pollock, but this is one of those things where you watch.

• 1:13:43David Sims?

  I haven't seen it in 30 years, in this 125 years.

• 1:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Someone gives before they win the sort of surprise Oscar, and you're like, oh, this is everyone years later catching up and being like, we probably should have given her more credit earlier. She's phenomenal in this.

• 1:13:58David Sims?

  She's a great actor.

• 1:13:59Speaker 04

  She's great in this. She's very, she's very sexy. Are you allowed to say that?

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  We're allowed to say that.

• 1:14:05David Sims?

  Yeah, we don't tone police on this podcast, okay? We are allowed to call Marcia Gay Harden circa 1990.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  Sensuous.

• 1:14:11Griffin Newman?

  She's, she's very sexy.

• 1:14:12David Sims?

  Very, very smoky sexy. I feel like, you know, they're again, you know, like they're evoking.

• 1:14:16Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, sexiest performance in this film is John Polito.

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  I mean, Polito is one of the best actors to ever do it, you know?

• 1:14:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  John, John Polito is so amazing.

• 1:14:27David Sims?

  He, I mean, apparently basically just walked in and they were like, great. Like, you know, like they saw tons of guys and then he walked in.

• 1:14:33Speaker 04

  And he continues to be amazing in all of their films. As, as Creighton Tolliver.

• 1:14:38David Sims?

  He, he feels like they built these sets, though, and he just walked in. You know what I mean? Like, the sets just summoned him in costume. Like, they didn't even have to find out about him. He's great. And I love him in Lebowski.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:14:51David Sims?

  He's so funny in that movie.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  As a brother Seamus.

• 1:14:53David Sims?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  He's one of those great character actors because he just is a type. Like, he's just, he, you know, you couldn't get somebody to play Johnny Casper who wasn't Johnny Casper.

• 1:15:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to see if I can find this because it doesn't look like JJ put it in the dossier, but I think it's his random roles he did for the AV Club, where he talks about that he wanted this role really badly and the Coens wouldn't see him for it.

• 1:15:18Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:18Griffin Newman?

  Because he had read maybe for Blood Simple and at that point he was like, I was a heartthrob. I had a full head of hair and I was like 40 pounds lighter. And they were like, that guy's a pretty boy. And he kept being like, you don't understand what I look like now. And he was saying this all with this attitude of, I'm so glad I'm no longer a pretty boy and I could get to play guys like Johnny Casper. Like, there was this part of him that this was always in his soul and the body was wrong for a while. And then he aged like milk and walked in and they were like, as you said, holy shit.

• 1:15:48David Sims?

  It was just like, great.

• 1:15:49Griffin Newman?

  You're right. You're perfect. And it was like finally unlocked for him of like, this is the guy I've always wanted to be. This movie, it is astonishing to me that it didn't get a supporting actor nomination, but then every time I watch it, having only seen it two times, I'm doing the math being like, well, who do you put?

• 1:16:04David Sims?

  Well, Turturro got critic awards and critic attention. I feel like Turturro probably was the play because it's the showiest performance.

• 1:16:11Griffin Newman?

  And Finney's the biggest star in the legacy.

• 1:16:13David Sims?

  Right, obviously.

• 1:16:14Griffin Newman?

  But then Polito, I think is.

• 1:16:16David Sims?

  I have, look, I love Polito.

• 1:16:17Griffin Newman?

  The MVP of this movie.

• 1:16:18Speaker 04

  Um, Polito's amazing. I love, uh.

• 1:16:20David Sims?

  Ah, did somebody hit you?

• 1:16:23Griffin Newman?

  Just the look of-

• 1:16:24David Sims?

  What's a man? He's on the Rizler.

• 1:16:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28David Sims?

  Um.

• 1:16:29Griffin Newman?

  Coming in with the little sailor outfit.

• 1:16:31David Sims?

  This is the first Tatura collaboration that he went to school with Francis McDormand, so they knew him. Obviously, he also just sort of feels like a guy that's been in Coen Brothers movies.

• 1:16:41Griffin Newman?

  That they built in a lab.

• 1:16:43David Sims?

  A hundred percent. And I do think that he's amazed, like-

• 1:16:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:16:48David Sims?

  He's, you just want to reach in the screen and punch him. Like, he's so awful and slimy and like, so satisfied with himself.

• 1:16:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58David Sims?

  He's so unafraid of being a little douchebag.

• 1:17:00Griffin Newman?

  The scene where he comes back-

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  And like same in the Spike Lee movie, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like that was his, like, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do the right thing and-

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. This is the year after-

• 1:17:09David Sims?

  Jungle Fever, he's so nasty in that one, yes.

• 1:17:12Griffin Newman?

  But that, the scene where he shows up and now is like really feeling himself, I actually hold all the cards. Right? I'm gonna tell you what's up, Tom. And then within that, he starts to break down about his vulnerability of the actual reason he has to put his thumb on Tom is because Tom saw him break and he doesn't want Tom breaking his tough guy image. And then he flips it back into, if you ever tried to shoot me again, I just scored a few tears. Like, this flip of, I actually have the power because you know I'm not powerful. But also, if you ever try to get the power back on me, I'll pretend I'm pitiful again.

• 1:17:55Griffin Newman?

  But in reality, that wasn't a fucking move from him.

• 1:17:58David Sims?

  No, he doesn't want to die.

• 1:17:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:00David Sims?

  I mean, he's, I guess, the kind of guy that, like, if Tom has a gun pointed at him, he's probably just gonna like stoically be like, alright. Right? I mean, he's probably not gonna drop to his knees and go, look into your heart, you know?

• 1:18:12Griffin Newman?

  Do it again, he starts-

• 1:18:13David Sims?

  Bernie would do it. I'm saying, I'm saying, like, that's in Bernie's nature, probably.

• 1:18:18Griffin Newman?

  No, no, Tom, Tom would just, yeah, he'd take it.

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  Um, Steve Buscemi gets the part because he can say the lines, essentially. They were like, we need someone fast. Ethan calls it a lost art, like, horseback riding, which I like. Uh, and, uh, of course, Sam Raimi's in this film. They're still very close with him. They filmed the shoot in New Orleans, which I feel like is a classic place to film all the way up to now because it has all this old fashioned architecture that you can still just use. It's why Ben, like Fincher uses it for Benjamin Button and all, right? You know, like you just like

• 1:18:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, free production.

• 1:18:48David Sims?

  You don't

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  Okey.

• 1:18:49David Sims?

  Yes. Right. That's Hammond, Louisiana is the, is Miller's Crossing, the, the trees and all that. Uh, but yeah, like, right. The, the general look is brown. Where did you shoot? I think you shot Eddington in New Mexico and Arizona or like around there?

• 1:19:03Speaker 04

  I shot Eddington in New Mexico, uh, primarily truth or consequences, but also a lot of, a lot of stuff outside of Albuquerque and in Madrid. Uh, and I, and I grew up in New Mexico.

• 1:19:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:19:16Speaker 04

  This is my New Mexico movie.

• 1:19:18David Sims?

  My, my cousin lives in Silver City, which I think of as like the sort of wrong side of New Mexico, not in a bad way, but like not near all the sort of New Mexico stuff. Like you're not going to go get, you know, ceramics or see opera or like, like

• 1:19:34Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:19:34David Sims?

  Visit the George O'Keefe House or whatever. It's all the way on the other side, but I, it is very, very, very cool over there.

• 1:19:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a very specific place. A weird place.

• 1:19:45Griffin Newman?

  It's a weird place. I found the Polito interview. It was, he had done Death of a Salesman and they had seen him in that and he was 35, 150 pounds lighter, full head of hair. And they called him in and wanted him to read for the Dane because they were like, that's his physical type. And he was like between 35 and 39. I aged like 30 years, doubled my weight, lost my hair and had to beg them to let him read for Casper. And then when he walked in the room, they were like, oh, you didn't tell us you look like this now.

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Barry Sonnenfeld, this is the last time he works with them. Uh, they wanted him, they just kept saying handsome and he didn't like that word. Uh, and they went back and forth and back and forth. And finally, uh, Sonnenfeld said, quote, what if we just make it look nice? And they were like, yeah, that'd be great. So they, they agreed on nice versus handsome, but they, you know, I feel like they're, they want to be more conventional, less flashy, right? Like not as

• 1:20:38Griffin Newman?

  It's a deeply brown film.

• 1:20:40David Sims?

  Yeah. And the camera needs to be more stationary and it's a lot of conversation. So we're going to be, you know, being conventional.

• 1:20:46Speaker 04

  Their films with Sonnenfeld are, you know, the lighting is a lot more flat than, than what Deacon's brings. He brings them like a lot more mood and a lot more texture and

• 1:20:56Griffin Newman?

  And depth.

• 1:20:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58David Sims?

  Sonnenfeld never shoots another movie again, right? Like, this is it. Like, Addams Family is, what, 91 or 92?

• 1:21:04Speaker 04

  And Sonnenfeld's films, once he starts directing, look like these films.

• 1:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:09Speaker 04

  Like, Get Shorty, you know, kind of looks like a contemporary Miller's Crossing.

• 1:21:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 1:21:15David Sims?

  He shot Misery the same year. He shoots Misery for, um,

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  It's right.

• 1:21:20David Sims?

  Rob Reiner.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  Which is a great looking movie.

• 1:21:22Griffin Newman?

  And when Herman Stoller is the year before this?

• 1:21:23David Sims?

  Yes. And then that's it. And Addams Family is 91. So it's like really much, you know, and like, look, those early Sonnenfeld movies are so good looking. Like, I love those 90s Sonnenfeld movies. Like, they look fabulous, like.

• 1:21:36Speaker 04

  Addams Family Values?

• 1:21:38David Sims?

  Addams Family Values is a masterpiece. Red and Black is wonderful. And then.

• 1:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Wild Wild West still looks good.

• 1:21:45David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:21:46Griffin Newman?

  I'd argue everything from the 2000s on stops looking good.

• 1:21:49David Sims?

  It's weird that they stopped looking good. That's what I was trying to describe him. And it's not like I hate Barry Sonnenfeld, and I know you worked with Barry Sonnenfeld, but like,

• 1:21:56Griffin Newman?

  I, I'd never.

• 1:21:57David Sims?

  I guess you never worked directly with him.

• 1:21:58Griffin Newman?

  He had a contractual position. I, I just, I want to make it clear with no disrespect. I never met the man.

• 1:22:03David Sims?

  But it is odd that he went away from the really ornate stuff, like, and started doing more conventional kind of comedies and stuff.

• 1:22:09Griffin Newman?

  RV looks insane.

• 1:22:10David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:22:11Griffin Newman?

  He's doing a thing in that, or whoever his DP is, but it's, it's, I would say, not successful. And then, uh.

• 1:22:19David Sims?

  Seen RV?

• 1:22:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Griffin Newman?

  Runaway Vacation?

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  I have, yes. I've seen it. I, I saw it in theaters. And, uh, it didn't make the biggest impression on me.

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  Fair enough. It didn't make your Sight and Sound top 10, right?

• 1:22:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember. It was 11 on the list?

• 1:22:34Speaker 04

  It was edged out.

• 1:22:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That has, like, the widest angle lenses in the world and has the color palette of, like, a fucking bag of Skittles. But then, like, Nine Lives looks terrible.

• 1:22:46David Sims?

  Sure. Well, there were some challenges with that one, probably. Uh, Carter Brerwell score, you could say this about half a dozen Carter Brerwell scores for the Coens, but it might be the best score you ever gave him, like.

• 1:22:57Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:22:58David Sims?

  He's got so many great scores, but it's.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  Very romantic.

• 1:23:01David Sims?

  Right, using these Irish melodies and like, all that stuff.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  He can identify how in the middle of a piece, he can just hit one note that suddenly fills the entire thing with dread and melancholy.

• 1:23:12David Sims?

  They have Frank Patterson, the singer, like, record a new version, like, that's not a vintage Danny Boy. Like, that's a, that's an original Danny Boy.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  That's probably the best sequence in the film.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Speaker 04

  It's uh, it's pretty amazing.

• 1:23:26Griffin Newman?

  It's transcendent.

• 1:23:26David Sims?

  What do you think of the guy going the, shooting the Tommy gun in a circle like five times while he's dying?

• 1:23:32Speaker 04

  It's just the greatest.

• 1:23:33David Sims?

  I agree. I agree. I agree. If you don't like that, then like you can just take your toys and go home.

• 1:23:37Griffin Newman?

  Different people.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  And one of my favorite traditions in, uh, you know, just in movies is, you know, the gun that, that has like endless ammo.

• 1:23:47David Sims?

  Yes, right.

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  And I feel like that's a gag that they kind of keep going back to, like when the bar is being shot up by all the cops and there's the, just that, you know?

• 1:23:55Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:56Speaker 04

  It's just endless. Um.

• 1:23:57David Sims?

  You know what's fallen out of favor when, when characters are shot by a Tommy gun and they go like this? Yes, like, like the, the real.

• 1:24:06Speaker 04

  gyrating.

• 1:24:06Griffin Newman?

  They still standing up straight, taking the bullet. Bullet after bullet. It's the, it's the Robocop boardroom.

• 1:24:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Griffin Newman?

  The guy who does not lose his ability to stay upright while being filled with like eight hundred.

• 1:24:19David Sims?

  He gets right.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  Which, which also, which also, uh, happens to, to Peter Weller.

• 1:24:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:24:25David Sims?

  Yes, he does. He gets shot one gazillion times.

• 1:24:27Griffin Newman?

  But you don't fall over until the squibs stop.

• 1:24:30David Sims?

  Was Eddington your first?

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Right and take the Swiss cheese.

• 1:24:33David Sims?

  Eddington's your first gun movie, right? Are there guns in Bo?

• 1:24:37Speaker 04

  There are, there, there are guns in Bo. Yeah.

• 1:24:39David Sims?

  But like Eddington is like action. Like I feel like you'd never directed like gun action in that scale before.

• 1:24:46Speaker 04

  Bo has action scenes in it. They're just comic. They're comic, but they're, but it's the same, it's actually the same, it's actually the same challenge, which is like, how do I sustain this action? For as long as possible, you know, and action is just cause and effect. Uh, and, and, but the Coens are masters of prolonging set pieces. Um, which again is the Rube Goldberg thing, right?

• 1:25:13David Sims?

  You kind of can't believe we're still going.

• 1:25:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:25:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:25:15Speaker 04

  But, but Eddington is, uh, the first time I've done like maybe what I guess you might call proper action, even though. It's meant to be funny as well.

• 1:25:26Griffin Newman?

  You have like, right, all the, uh, Denny Minoschee, Chase stuff in Bo.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  Well, exactly.

• 1:25:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which feels a little Raising Arizona.

• 1:25:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Griffin Newman?

  We, we've been saying this in other episodes, and I'm sure will come out 15 years from now. But they are like, for not being thought of as action filmmakers at all, anytime they do an action sequence, you're reminded they are amongst the best on the planet. I mean, obviously, like, they have as good a sense.

• 1:25:49Speaker 04

  No country.

• 1:25:50Griffin Newman?

  They are better at establishing, uh, uh, spatial geography.

• 1:25:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, they're, they're, they're incredibly lucid. Everything they do is right. In some ways, they feel to me like the true successors to Hitchcock in, I mean, they're the opposite in that, in their method where Hitchcock would do, uh, or sorry, I'm saying, I said Hitchcock. I actually meant Kubrick, but, but both, actually. They, um, uh, so now that I'm scrambled and I, and I said Hitchcock, but I, I, but I said Hitchcock for a reason. Even though it was, uh, an accident.

• 1:26:29Griffin Newman?

  It was positive Freudian.

• 1:26:30Speaker 04

  Which is, you know, that they, their films are incredibly designed. And when I was saying Kubrick, uh, and I was saying, you know, opposite methods, which is, you know, uh, that he would do endless takes and they, they tend to do very few takes. I find that their films are immaculately made. And then I think what really ties them to Kubrick is, is their sense of humor.

• 1:26:55David Sims?

  Right. This particular kind of sense.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  Which is like something, it's something between, well, it's, it's, it's, it's sort of misanthropic, but then at the same time, it's also, you know, they're just Jews. It's, it's just very Jewish.

• 1:27:10Griffin Newman?

  It's all boiled down to that.

• 1:27:12David Sims?

  Whereas Hitchcock is just British, like, and they'd like all of his weird shit. You're like, right, he's just a weird British guy. And like, they are just Jews and this. I mean, like, well, I'm thinking or no country, like, no country is like, would you, would you take the money, right? You know, like, right at the start, like, there's a big briefcase full of money. And like, the Jewish mother in me, or the Jewish, like, part of me is like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, if you take that money, like, Javier Brunem is gonna shoot you.

• 1:27:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:27:38David Sims?

  You know, like, I can't, yeah, right. Well, we're gonna, we'll talk about it on that episode. Ben usually in these, when he watches these movies, like, I would take the money and be fine.

• 1:27:45Griffin Newman?

  My takeaways, if I were in this movie, it would end with me owning an island and being happy. I'd make the right choice.

• 1:27:50David Sims?

  Like, Ben watched Sam Raimi's Simple Plan and was like, yeah, that would work out.

• 1:27:53Griffin Newman?

  I could solve this.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 1:28:05Speaker 06

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:28:06Speaker 05

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 1:28:10Speaker 06

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet?

• 1:28:14Speaker 05

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 1:28:17Speaker 06

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye. Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:28:31David Sims?

  Leo O'Bannon is the mobster of a town, a city, whatever. We don't need to, we don't care to know what it is, I guess, in the prohibition.

• 1:28:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  He's the Irish boss of what I consider to be sort of like a mid-sized city, right? Like, this is not New York, LA, or Chicago, right?

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't seem like it.

• 1:28:49David Sims?

  Like, it's, it feels more just like Gangsterville.

• 1:28:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, although I'm not sure if it's not Chicago.

• 1:28:55David Sims?

  Maybe it's, it feels, it just feels like smaller than Chicago, if that makes sense, just because it is like, he has a nice house, and he has a nice club. It doesn't feel like he runs this, like, big industrial city. And like, the mayor is just a schmo that he knows, and the chief of police is another schmo and all that. But he really likes this girl, Verna Bernbaum, I guess is her name?

• 1:29:21Griffin Newman?

  Here's Leo's twist.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  And she's related to, she's the sister of Bernie, who is a bookie, who has been skimming off of the match fixing arranged by Italian gangster Johnny Casper. And Johnny wants him dead and Leo doesn't want him dead because he doesn't want to piss off Verna. And Tom and Tom is in this situation of like, do I give, you know, my boss really needs to kill this annoying Jewish guy. God bless you, Bernie. I'm Jewish, just to be clear. But I do hate Bernie because he's Jewish, obviously.

• 1:29:56Griffin Newman?

  Bernie Sanders.

• 1:29:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:58Griffin Newman?

  You backed yourself into that one, my brother.

• 1:30:00David Sims?

  You know, like, Tom is like torn between like, I must show loyalty to my capo, you know, like, right, you know, like, I have to be like a loyal soldier and like, I'm watching Leo piss it away. And Leo, maybe because he's old, maybe because he's getting sentimental or whatever, is just like, I'll be fine. Like, who cares? Like, he has this like, kind of suave, like, you know, like, like, I deserve to be in love. I don't know. Am I, does anyone want to, I'm just summarizing the plot of Miller's Crossing at this point. I feel.

• 1:30:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, you've left the Dane out of it.

• 1:30:35Speaker 04

  And before we leave the Jewish thing too early.

• 1:30:37David Sims?

  No, let's never leave it.

• 1:30:38Griffin Newman?

  We're staying on it.

• 1:30:38Speaker 04

  I just think, I think there's also this really interesting thing that happens when they first start making films where especially Jewish critics like Jay Hoiberman.

• 1:30:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  Are like alarm. Accuse them of being anti Semitic, which is so, so weird. And there is an interesting tradition among Jewish critics to, to disdain Jewish filmmakers.

• 1:31:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:03Speaker 04

  I won't expound too much further on that because.

• 1:31:06David Sims?

  As a Jewish filmmaker.

• 1:31:07Speaker 04

  Well, as a Jewish filmmaker who has recognized that, that tradition playing out before his very eyes.

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  I, I think there can be this reactionary sense sometimes, like a, you know, of just like, don't get us in trouble or don't like, sort of like shine a spotlight on all our nonsense, or I don't know what it, you know, like.

• 1:31:27Speaker 04

  Or is it, why these Jewish guys?

• 1:31:29David Sims?

  Well, maybe it's just rank jealousy.

• 1:31:32Speaker 04

  They're all sorts.

• 1:31:33Griffin Newman?

  There was a thing we've talked about and the Coen brothers are like a big notable exception from this trend, but very often when the highest level, most prominent Jewish filmmakers finally make their sort of explicitly culturally Jewish movie, it feels like they are trying to goiwa shit a little bit. There is this feeling that I've always found fascinating within these studios that are often run by Jewish people and these filmmakers that are predominantly Jewish, making Jewish family movies and being like, but it can't be too Jewish.

• 1:32:01David Sims?

  What are you thinking, Eric?

• 1:32:02Griffin Newman?

  I mean, we talked about it a bit with the Fabelmans.

• 1:32:05David Sims?

  Yes, sure.

• 1:32:05Speaker 04

  Well, that's funny because yeah, the Fabelmans and the and Sirius Man couldn't be

• 1:32:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:32:10Speaker 04

  Further like it's like, those are two very different Jewish.

• 1:32:14David Sims?

  Jewish American films, you know, it's like Sirius Man to me is like the ultimate film about being like Jewish American, right? Like that sort of crazy dichotomy.

• 1:32:21Speaker 04

  That's the great movie about Jewishness.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  Fabelmans fell in your Sight and Sound top 10, right? I think that was your

• 1:32:28Speaker 04

  It's a

• 1:32:29Griffin Newman?

  Sirius Man, I think.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  It's another one that, well, Sirius Man is there.

• 1:32:33David Sims?

  It is, it is there. Wow. I have this right here.

• 1:32:35Speaker 04

  It's there right under Shoah. You're right.

• 1:32:38Griffin Newman?

  They're the two. Yeah.

• 1:32:39Speaker 04

  It's a double feature.

• 1:32:41Griffin Newman?

  Armageddon Time was the same year as Fabelmans. I love both of those movies.

• 1:32:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:32:45Griffin Newman?

  But they both have that thing of not casting a single Jewish actor.

• 1:32:48David Sims?

  Well, with Armageddon Time, I'm very sympathetic to James Gray, needs actors who are famous to fund his movies and all that. But whereas Fabelmans, it was kind of interesting, but Fabelmans felt very honest to me from Spielberg in terms of like, this is about my Jewish identity and my upbringing, but we were also this kind of assimilationist family. And it's like, it's very vital to that movie. I love that movie.

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  The one I always throw out as punching bag is

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  Armageddon Time is like, we live on poisoned land. Obviously, yes. A darker film.

• 1:33:17Griffin Newman?

  The one I always throw as the punching bag is Sean Levy's This Is Where I Leave You.

• 1:33:21David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:33:22Griffin Newman?

  A sitting chival movie with a family comprised of Jane Fonda, Justin Bateman, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey.

• 1:33:29David Sims?

  Adam Driver.

• 1:33:29Griffin Newman?

  Adam Driver, Corey Stoll. Yes.

• 1:33:31David Sims?

  No, no, I've never seen that film.

• 1:33:33Griffin Newman?

  Deeply bizarre. That's on my Sight and Sound top 10.

• 1:33:35David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:33:36Speaker 04

  And then there's like, you know, 10 Woody movies.

• 1:33:38David Sims?

  Yeah, who? What? Which guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:41Griffin Newman?

  But that becomes like his subgenre, right? Like, I feel like he's viewed as one of the few guys where it's like, this guy makes Jewish family movies.

• 1:33:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:51Griffin Newman?

  In a sort of sustained.

• 1:33:52David Sims?

  But he didn't make a lot of movies about his childhood.

• 1:33:54Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:33:55Speaker 04

  Well, there's Radio Days.

• 1:33:56David Sims?

  There's Radio Days, there's the stuff in Any Hall.

• 1:33:58Speaker 04

  There's a lot of stuff in Any Hall.

• 1:33:59David Sims?

  Right. But he rarely did that, you know, he never made the Fableman's real.

• 1:34:05Griffin Newman?

  Radio Days is kind of.

• 1:34:06David Sims?

  Radio Days.

• 1:34:06Speaker 04

  Radio Days.

• 1:34:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I do think there's some weird kind of like call is coming from inside the house thing with the way people reacted to this at the time.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  But not Millers. Wait, wait.

• 1:34:21Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, when you were saying the, the sense of some accusations of this movie being antisemitic.

• 1:34:27David Sims?

  Right. Or their general, well, cause like also like, again, John Turturro, who is 100% Italian.

• 1:34:35Griffin Newman?

  But it's a classic. Isn't that Anthony Quinn mode of this guy has a lot of face, so we'll have him play every single ethnicity.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  But also like, it's like this quiz show, I feel like there's a Barton Fink.

• 1:34:45Griffin Newman?

  He had a big Jew run.

• 1:34:46David Sims?

  Right. He was, he was playing these kind of these Jewish characters who are often like perceived by the world to be very annoying in the movie.

• 1:34:55Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that is what Quiz Show is about.

• 1:34:57David Sims?

  Quiz Show is basically just the whole movie is them rubbing their temples, being like, but he's so annoying. Like, we can't have this guy on television. We can't.

• 1:35:05Griffin Newman?

  TV executives will literally commit fraud in order to get John Turturro off television.

• 1:35:09Speaker 04

  Like, yeah, yeah, if it were radio, it would have been fine.

• 1:35:12Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:35:13David Sims?

  Um, and this movie is just like, you know, the, the problem is if, if they just fucking shoot Bernie is like, we're fine, right? Like, there's no plot.

• 1:35:24Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 1:35:25David Sims?

  I guess Verna breaks up with Leo. Or is Casper probably gonna like, cause trouble anyway?

• 1:35:31Speaker 04

  No, I mean, there's, there's still a movie probably, but it just, but you know, but this is such a, like a, there are a lot of dominos here. So that's just one, that's just one of the dominos.

• 1:35:41Griffin Newman?

  I, I think the, the world around is acknowledging what you called out or sensing what you called out, which is like, is Leo getting a little complacent?

• 1:35:51David Sims?

  Yeah, and a little soft.

• 1:35:52Griffin Newman?

  Is there an ability to grab the chair here? It just feels like there's an energy swirling around of like, can the hierarchy of power change in the DC Universe?

• 1:36:01David Sims?

  Right. And Black Adam is just lurking around the corner. No, what happens in this movie is like, Leo gets more power, knocks off his enemies.

• 1:36:11David Sims?

  I guess gets married to the lady he loves at the cost, basically of his buddy, Tom, being friends with him. He really doesn't lose, like, it's actually, everything works out great for him.

• 1:36:25Griffin Newman?

  But also, Tom is the one who

• 1:36:27David Sims?

  Tom takes a bunch of punches, Tom makes all this happen.

• 1:36:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:31David Sims?

  Through, and like, Tom sacrifices their friendship, I guess, or decides not to be friends with them anymore.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  There's this feeling for all of the internal conflict, the movie almost circles all the way back to the starting point. Obviously, a tremendous amount has happened at the center, but in terms of the key dynamics between the three people, they've all reset to where they were at the beginning.

• 1:36:51Speaker 04

  Well, it feels like Tom, by the end, you realize that Tom was ready to sacrifice everything to basically just win Leo the war, you know, like, like, to basically, like, like, Leo gets himself into this fix, and Tom doesn't agree with it, but every, but everything that happens in the film is kind of revealed to be Tom, despite, you know, having misgivings there, like, you know, kind of putting himself in hot water to, to get Leo out of this.

• 1:37:24Griffin Newman?

  He basically has two great loves in his life that are almost equal, who are Verna and Leo.

• 1:37:29David Sims?

  I would say his two great loves are booze and gambling, but yes.

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  Drink and, and game.

• 1:37:34David Sims?

  Right. But, I mean, his relationship with Verna, Verna is not loving. He doesn't seem like a guy who's very good at being emotional.

• 1:37:41Griffin Newman?

  He's in love with her. It's not a loving relationship.

• 1:37:43David Sims?

  Definitely obsessed with her.

• 1:37:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. But that's what I'm saying. In both cases, like, the whole thing of him getting in the fight with Leo.

• 1:37:48Speaker 04

  Well, he loves Leo more. I think that's what it is. It's that, is that he, he has really strong feelings for her, but he, he can't, you know, he can't allow it.

• 1:37:58Griffin Newman?

  The moment where she says

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  Doing it.

• 1:38:01Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:01David Sims?

  Doing it, but

• 1:38:01Griffin Newman?

  He gets in the fight with Leo to say to her, I love you, because he can never say that. And even when she calls him out, he won't admit it, right? And likewise, the entire movie is his way of saying, I love you to Leo. Which he could never say verbally. And the moment he decides to actually shoot Bernie is the moment that his love for Leo trumps his love for Verna.

• 1:38:23David Sims?

  That's true.

• 1:38:23Griffin Newman?

  In my mind, not to over-

• 1:38:25David Sims?

  He's also pretty fucking sick of Bernie at that point.

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  That's a huge part of it, but there is this kind of like-

• 1:38:30Speaker 04

  Also Bernie has to die so that Albert Finney can go to the funeral and wear a yarmulke.

• 1:38:36Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest decisions.

• 1:38:37Speaker 04

  Which is just such a funny-

• 1:38:39Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what I love about that moment? I love imagining this entirely dramatic scene playing out and the Coens just laughing hysterically behind the monitor at, "We got Albert Finney to wear a yarmulke." That it was the only thing they were paying attention to. It is the most justified, the entire movie, you're right, is setting up just to get to that one image.

• 1:38:58David Sims?

  But, but it's also, I mean, the emotional decision, I, like, I don't think Tom makes a strategic decision in not killing Bernie, right? Like-

• 1:39:09Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:39:10David Sims?

  That's, that is his, his heart-

• 1:39:12Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:39:12David Sims?

  Or whatever, getting the better of him, don't you think?

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes, no, because if he was doing it for Verna, he would have told her much sooner. He holds on to it for so long and lets her hate him.

• 1:39:22Speaker 04

  Well, no, I think he's doing it for Verna in the truest sense.

• 1:39:25David Sims?

  When he says, "Look into your heart," that's literally what he's, she's in his heart.

• 1:39:29Griffin Newman?

  But he's not letting himself get any credit with her for doing that.

• 1:39:33David Sims?

  Because like, that scene is so iconic. Obviously, it's the, the poster of the film and it's sort of the best remembered.

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  It's the notion of what happens in this place in the deep woods.

• 1:39:41David Sims?

  It's so funny because it's like, yeah, he throws his shot away and he's like, "Get out of here, I'll never see you again." Bernie is back in 10 minutes.

• 1:39:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:39:49David Sims?

  Bernie, do you think Bernie even like goes to another town? He just like doesn't walk around the forest and is like-

• 1:39:55Speaker 04

  He starts feeling embarrassed and he's like, "I don't like this feeling, fuck him."

• 1:39:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:39:59Griffin Newman?

  What am I gonna do with my life?

• 1:40:01David Sims?

  Like, I would have-

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  His ultimate threat is, "I'm gonna start going to restaurants."

• 1:40:05David Sims?

  Right, yeah, yeah, that is a good threat, yes.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  No, that's what's so stupid about it is like, you can't trust this guy for a millisecond. He's gonna get so antsy so quick.

• 1:40:15Speaker 04

  Well, because ethically, he's kind of shaky.

• 1:40:17David Sims?

  Yeah. Bernie, yeah, he's not, doesn't have like a rigid moral code that he abides by or anything like that.

• 1:40:24Speaker 04

  I'm quoting John Polito, just to be clear.

• 1:40:26David Sims?

  Yes, um, there's one moment where they use the word glitch in this movie.

• 1:40:30Griffin Newman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:40:31David Sims?

  Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. That's no country. Sorry. I was also right now. Anyway, Carrie.

• 1:40:34Griffin Newman?

  And Wreck it Ralph, that's the movie you're thinking of.

• 1:40:36David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  They use the term glitch.

• 1:40:37David Sims?

  They do. Um, you see Wreck it Ralph, are you a fan? Wreck it Ralph?

• 1:40:40Speaker 04

  Never saw it.

• 1:40:41Griffin Newman?

  Princess Vanellope.

• 1:40:42Speaker 04

  Isn't that John C. Reilly? I'm a John C. Reilly fan.

• 1:40:44Griffin Newman?

  I mean, additional writing credit, John C. Reilly as well. I think he did a pass on his dialogue.

• 1:40:49Speaker 04

  Maybe I'll watch it.

• 1:40:50Griffin Newman?

  Ben's number one hero.

• 1:40:51Speaker 04

  Doctor Steve Bruhl.

• 1:40:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:53David Sims?

  Um, so, uh, yes. Okay. So Leo is, Johnny's basically saying, I want to kill this guy Bernie. Leo will not lift his protection on Bernie. And so a sort of mob war heats up in the background, which is mostly like them just fucking with each other's clubs. And Tom getting, you know, the shit beat out of him. I think the scene where who's the big guy? Who Tom hits with the chair.

• 1:41:21Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm forgetting.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  Who's the actor?

• 1:41:23Speaker 04

  He's the guy from Dumb and Dumber.

• 1:41:24David Sims?

  Exactly. Like that, that it's one of those guys.

• 1:41:27Speaker 03

  Wait, he's the guy with the most annoying sound in the world?

• 1:41:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and he's the one who goes, Jesus, Tom.

• 1:41:33David Sims?

  Jesus, Tom.

• 1:41:33Speaker 04

  And just a little piece of trivia there. That, that gets cut out of the Criterion version.

• 1:41:38David Sims?

  What? Why?

• 1:41:39Speaker 04

  Uh, I, so my, my editor, Luke Johnston, is Joel's editor right now. Luke's been working with him since Buster Scruggs. I, I know that they went back into the cut and they, and they just took out a few things. And one, one of the things is him saying, Jesus, Tom.

• 1:41:57David Sims?

  That seems so funny.

• 1:41:58Speaker 04

  And another is the woman in the Shenandoah Club who's like hitting, who, who screams.

• 1:42:02David Sims?

  Goes, ah! That I can see them being like, we're being a little too silly here. Like I can sort of understand losing that moment because it's almost like a Raising Arizona moment in Miller's Crossing.

• 1:42:13Speaker 04

  Raising Arizona, they do it in Hudsucker too, when, when.

• 1:42:16David Sims?

  Yes. Oh, right.

• 1:42:17Speaker 04

  When he says.

• 1:42:17David Sims?

  When the guy squats, yes.

• 1:42:19Speaker 04

  The splats and there's the, the big lady who screams. It's always a big lady.

• 1:42:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:24Griffin Newman?

  But isn't there also a moment in Hudsucker at the party where he tries to speak, I forget what language it is? And says the thing that offends the one so dearly, they do the same moment again.

• 1:42:34Speaker 04

  In the what? In the?

• 1:42:35Griffin Newman?

  In Hud sucker. He's at, it's the Peter Gallagher party. Yes.

• 1:42:39Speaker 04

  There's the blue letter.

• 1:42:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:42:41Speaker 04

  Right? Where like, he comes in with the blue letter and we push into the screaming mouth of,

• 1:42:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:45Speaker 04

  Of the greatest. Of one of the women in the, in the, the waiting room.

• 1:42:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, the Paul Newman secretary. Yes.

• 1:42:52Speaker 04

  And then what's the one you're talking about? You're talking about?

• 1:42:54Griffin Newman?

  Maybe I'm, I'm confusing this, but there's at the, the Peter Gallagher ball.

• 1:42:58Speaker 04

  Oh, Peter Gallagher, there, there are the two, like, uh, rich women.

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I feel like he tries to speak to the woman in like Dutch and says something that's accidentally.

• 1:43:08Speaker 04

  And, and the, yeah, right. He says something in, uh, I'm, I don't know if it's Dutch, but, uh, and, and then the woman is scandalized and she screams and the guy throws his martini in his face and punches him.

• 1:43:20Griffin Newman?

  Right. But it feels, that's a very Raimi influenced thing. That feels like, right? The evil in the woods as the camera. Those moments where they go off. Yeah.

• 1:43:31David Sims?

  And this really chunk of the movie, you have this sense of like, everyone's still with Leo, the cops and the political firm, but Tom is sort of pointing out over and over again, like your, your support is kind of weak.

• 1:43:42Griffin Newman?

  The, the moment the cops come in and raid, uh, uh, Casper's.

• 1:43:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:43:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes. No, but even his weird like hideout.

• 1:43:50David Sims?

  Yes, right. His, his.

• 1:43:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. Well, I guess they had been doing.

• 1:43:52David Sims?

  His warehouse, right.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  The gambling.

• 1:43:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Just this feeling of there still are all these gentleman agreements that are holding all these systems together.

• 1:44:03David Sims?

  Then they try to kill Leo, the Tommy gun sequence we talked about. I mean, that sequence is perfect. But it's after that, that Tom admits to Leo, like, you know, Bernie is not worth it. Verna is not worth it. She, for example, I am having an affair with this woman.

• 1:44:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. Cause there's.

• 1:44:18David Sims?

  And they break.

• 1:44:19Griffin Newman?

  There's the earlier scene with Leo where he keeps Verna in the room with the door closed and doesn't give it up. And at that moment, right, he, he creates the fissure.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  So why does he say it? Explain it to me. I'm dumb.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  I think in that moment, he is considering the possibility of prioritizing his own happiness.

• 1:44:38David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  I don't think he's committed to it. That was my read watching it last night.

• 1:44:43David Sims?

  Or, but, or is it him being like, I have to break with Leo to like? Whatever, survive or have him survive or anything like that. Like is, why does he reveal the affair to Leo? Or does he think Leo would be like, oh, well, actually then I don't like her. I love you.

• 1:44:58Speaker 04

  I think it's because he want, I think it's because he knows he has to.

• 1:45:02David Sims?

  Right. He needs to like push away.

• 1:45:04Speaker 04

  Well, but, but, but he also needs, he needs there to be a story. Like, like he needs it to reach Johnny.

• 1:45:11David Sims?

  Yeah, right. This is a real, like, I'm not an undercover agent. Yeah.

• 1:45:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. He can't just come over saying, yeah, like, yeah, we got into a fight.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  It's his departed. It's his like, look, would a guy go this far just to, right, take down a whole system?

• 1:45:27David Sims?

  Man, the departed is so good. When are we doing Marty? What Marty would you want? It's your favorite Marty. I mean, I know.

• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  Marty would I want?

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36Speaker 04

  Maybe Age of Innocence, maybe Last Temptation of Christ, just because that one doesn't get talked about enough. Or I would say, I love Casino. I love Raging Bull. Love them all. I love them all. After Hours, King of Comedy. Actually, Silence, I think is.

• 1:45:53David Sims?

  We've talked about this.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  Fucking. It's so under.

• 1:45:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:45:57Speaker 04

  Like that, that's one of the greatest films ever made and it doesn't get talked about.

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  It's an astonishing movie. It does feel like it's weirdly been.

• 1:46:04David Sims?

  It needs like another 10 years for everyone to sort of whatever, settle down and be like, right.

• 1:46:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say Silence for me is, is, is best film this century.

• 1:46:15David Sims?

  And you like basically all the films you made this century.

• 1:46:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I, I, I love them all. I love Shutter Island.

• 1:46:22David Sims?

  I love Shutter Island.

• 1:46:24Speaker 04

  It's amazing.

• 1:46:26David Sims?

  And that's a movie about.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  Irishman is incredible too. Irishman is just great, great, great.

• 1:46:30Griffin Newman?

  There's that interview he did a couple of years ago where he's like, in retrospect, I regret making Shutter Island just because I'm getting older and who knows how many films I have left. It is such a.

• 1:46:40David Sims?

  That's the one you regret?

• 1:46:41Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. It's a proof of you operating at such a high level that you're like, Shutter Island was maybe kind of a toss off. I could have done something with my time.

• 1:46:48David Sims?

  So fucking good.

• 1:46:49Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 1:46:50David Sims?

  But I really think that's a movie about friendship too, because that's Ruffalo being like, I made all this because I'm worried about you, buddy.

• 1:46:57David Sims?

  I'm spoiling every movie. Um, all right. So, okay. So, yes, he, he goes over to Casper. Casper is like, uh, prove your, you know, make your bones by killing Bernie. And, um, he does, he can't do it. And we've talked about all of this. I don't know why I'm going through.

• 1:47:12Griffin Newman?

  He looks into his heart.

• 1:47:13David Sims?

  He looks into his heart and he sends Bernie on his way. And then I do feel like they must've gotten stuck on the last, cause that is when suddenly a ton of.

• 1:47:22Griffin Newman?

  How does this untangle?

• 1:47:23David Sims?

  You have the sort of like the Dane who is, uh, Casper's right-hand man, but has a thing going on with, uh, the, uh, Mink. But Mink is obviously with Bernie now. And that's probably the chain of information that is the problem more than, right? You know?

• 1:47:38Griffin Newman?

  I want to call it something in the Miller's Crossing sequence, the first one, which is that it is the most iconic part of this movie. And I feel like is a thing people cite as like a level up move, moment for Totoro in his career of like, how did he access this level of like absolutely heartbreaking, pathetic vulnerability? That is so uncomfortable. And then watching it last night, realizing 80% of that sequence plays out on Gabriel Byrne's face. So much of what Totoro was doing is not on camera. Most of his pleading is off-camera dialogue over Gabriel Byrne weighing it.

• 1:48:16Griffin Newman?

  And it speaks to how effective what Totoro is doing that in your mind, you almost correct it to being like four minutes exclusively on him.

• 1:48:24David Sims?

  It's a great performance and it's a great scene because you really have, I was watching with my wife and she was like doing other stuff. And I was like, by the way, they're gonna, this scene is gonna be impossible to ignore.

• 1:48:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:36David Sims?

  That makes sense. Like you can't even look at your laptop. Like if you're just working while that scene is happening, you're like, Byrne, can you just let him go? Like, can you shut him up?

• 1:48:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:48:46David Sims?

  Let him go. I don't care. I just can't listen to him anymore.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  Isn't this the part of the movie where they start the whole like shoot him in the head kind of runner joke?

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, one in the head.

• 1:48:57Speaker 03

  Or one of the henchmen is like.

• 1:48:59Griffin Newman?

  You gotta do it twice.

• 1:49:00Speaker 03

  But it's such like gallows humor. It's, but it's very funny. Uh, and I love that. It just becomes this recurring line.

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  I think they say one in the brain specifically. Yeah.

• 1:49:09David Sims?

  Uh, Polito really nails that part when he does it, when he kills, uh.

• 1:49:13Speaker 03

  Always put one in the, yeah.

• 1:49:14David Sims?

  The Dane was written for Stormare, I've heard, which is crazy.

• 1:49:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:49:18David Sims?

  And he's wasn't available because he was like Peter Stormare was always like doing like the Swedish King Lear or whatever. You know what I mean? Like he has like this whole other life where he would come into America and be like, yeah, I'll play some psycho for you. And then in Scandinavia, he's.

• 1:49:31Griffin Newman?

  But I think Freeman's great in that.

• 1:49:32Speaker 03

  He's so good.

• 1:49:33Griffin Newman?

  Fargo ends up being like the greatest role you could ever write for Stormare. I almost think Stormare would have been, he is so innately odd that it might've unbalanced this movie a little bit. There's something about the Dane being fairly stoic.

• 1:49:47David Sims?

  Yes. The Dane's just kind of this rock.

• 1:49:49Speaker 04

  He's, he's stoic, but he speaks more than, than Stormare in, uh.

• 1:49:53David Sims?

  In Fargo. Yes.

• 1:49:54Speaker 04

  Than Grimsrud, where, where I think his only line is Unguent.

• 1:49:57David Sims?

  Unguent.

• 1:49:58Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:49:58Speaker 03

  Where's Pancake House?

• 1:50:00Griffin Newman?

  It's the inverse is like Freeman.

• 1:50:01Speaker 04

  I'm fucking hungry now, you know?

• 1:50:03Speaker 03

  I'm fucking hungry now.

• 1:50:04Griffin Newman?

  Freeman can deliver this much dialogue.

• 1:50:06Speaker 04

  Supposed you set this entire car.

• 1:50:09Griffin Newman?

  Freeman can deliver this much dialogue and still feel stoic and mysterious. If Peter Stormare is standing somewhere, you're just like, what the fuck is going on with that guy?

• 1:50:20David Sims?

  Um, but there you have this like, the most vulnerable moment Tom is in, I feel is when he gets Polito to kill the Dane instead of him.

• 1:50:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:30David Sims?

  Right? Like, it's like, that's the sort of like shakiest part of his entire scheme is, is Polito's the most volatile. Casper, Johnny Casper's the most volatile element here, right?

• 1:50:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:41David Sims?

  And he has to basically convince him like, hey, no, your guy who's been with her a long time is actually the guy double crossing you, not me.

• 1:50:47Griffin Newman?

  It's also interesting that so many of their films are people getting in over their heads who don't understand how complicated the situation they're in is, that they believe they have all the angles figured out. And the movie is constantly pulling back to reveal like there are 20 things they're not considering. This is all going to bite them in the ass.

• 1:51:05David Sims?

  Because all this. It's very simple. It's like he then handles Polito by being like, if I put him in the room with Bernie, one of them will kill each other.

• 1:51:12Griffin Newman?

  But this is one of their only movies.

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  And he's like, and I figured it'll be Bernie because he's the more desperate and he'll have the, he'll know what's coming.

• 1:51:19Griffin Newman?

  Whether or not you believe that Tom has all of this figured out from the beginning is one of their only movies where the person at the center does have a handle on everything.

• 1:51:27David Sims?

  He seems pretty smart.

• 1:51:28Griffin Newman?

  It's evolving. Right.

• 1:51:29David Sims?

  Yeah. I feel like a minute one, you're like, this guy's smart.

• 1:51:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. Their other films are just someone immediately gets in over their head and keeps digging deeper.

• 1:51:36David Sims?

  They usually make movies about idiots.

• 1:51:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:39David Sims?

  Or like you have like Frances McDormand in Fargo or Tommy Lee Jones in No Country where you're like, this person is upright, but they're not really, they're coming in and viewing what's going on.

• 1:51:49Griffin Newman?

  Llewellyn Moss isn't an idiot, but he doesn't understand what he's getting into.

• 1:51:54David Sims?

  I think Lu.

• 1:51:56Griffin Newman?

  People thought I was too critical of the characters in Blood Simple being dumb, but it's more, it's more that they're oblivious.

• 1:52:03David Sims?

  You don't think Llewellyn Moss, he's not an idiot. Josh Brolin in No Country.

• 1:52:07Speaker 04

  He just makes some mistakes, you know, bringing the water back out. I mean, I mean, even if he didn't do that though, he still would have the tracking device with the.

• 1:52:17David Sims?

  Right. He's fucked no matter what.

• 1:52:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:19David Sims?

  And also the thing in No Country is like, you could give the money back. It doesn't matter.

• 1:52:22Speaker 04

  And Tommy Lee Jones there is, is ineffectual. Like he's.

• 1:52:25David Sims?

  Or he's just like, I can't, I don't know what to do about this.

• 1:52:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's.

• 1:52:28David Sims?

  I can't, I can't operate on this level. Like this is exhausting.

• 1:52:31Griffin Newman?

  I think the defining feature of a Coen idiot though, is the confidence that they have it figured out.

• 1:52:36David Sims?

  Yeah, then.

• 1:52:36Griffin Newman?

  Llewellyn doesn't have.

• 1:52:37David Sims?

  See every Clooney character, like whatever. Right. Yeah.

• 1:52:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. Pit and Burn After Reading, the sort of like, I'm, I have every angle.

• 1:52:45Speaker 04

  Well, everybody in Burn After Reading.

• 1:52:47David Sims?

  Everybody in Burn, like even Malkovich, like who thinks he's smart or whatever. Like, yes, yes.

• 1:52:52Speaker 04

  He's the one who at the end runs out of his house in a robe with a hatchet.

• 1:52:56David Sims?

  With a hatchet and chops George Clooney to death.

• 1:52:58Speaker 04

  Right. No, it's, uh, it's, um, it's, it's Richard Jenkins.

• 1:53:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Jenkins, poor Jenkins. Jenkins is that classic Coen, like they find him, I think for, is it intolerable? Or is it Man Who Wasn't There is the first time he works for them?

• 1:53:09Speaker 04

  Man Who Wasn't There, he plays the, the lawyer, the alcoholic lawyer.

• 1:53:12David Sims?

  And I feel like they're just like, oh, we, we need to like, just put this guy through the blender every, like they love.

• 1:53:17Speaker 04

  Your friend McDormand brings him into Olive Kitteridge, which is great.

• 1:53:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:53:22Speaker 04

  Whoever hasn't seen Olive Kitteridge that's listening in on this is a. That's a great, it's a mini series.

• 1:53:30David Sims?

  I watched it at the time, it was on HBO, yeah.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:53:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Griffin Newman?

  Jenkins, the king.

• 1:53:35David Sims?

  I love Richard Jenkins.

• 1:53:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:37David Sims?

  You've never used Richard Jenkins, what's the matter with you?

• 1:53:39Speaker 04

  He's busy.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  He is busy. That guy works. He's been a little, he hasn't really done much recently, but he played Jeffrey Dahmer's dad in the Dahmer thing.

• 1:53:49Speaker 04

  Oh, thank God.

• 1:53:50David Sims?

  It's one of those things where you're like, where's Jenkins? And they're like, ah, fuck, he was busy playing Jeffrey Dahmer's dad.

• 1:53:55Speaker 04

  He's in season 12 of a CBS sitcom called Rich. He had one like leading role, like the visitor, right? Yeah. The Tom McCarthy.

• 1:54:03David Sims?

  He's great in.

• 1:54:04Griffin Newman?

  There was one that came out during the pandemic that was a Sundance movie that then went straight to drive-ins that was him running like a restaurant.

• 1:54:10David Sims?

  It's called The Last Shift.

• 1:54:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:12David Sims?

  And I know that because Divine Joan Randolph is in that movie. And when she won the critic circle award for New York, she asked for him to introduce her. And we were like, why Richard Jenkins? She was like, we did this movie together and we love each other. And he gave the sweetest, like most loving intro for her. For a movie, I would root it in a movie I've never seen, The Last Shift.

• 1:54:32Griffin Newman?

  That felt like a movie that people liked at Sundance. And it was like, this is going to be one we'll talk about in the fall. And then the fall was bad.

• 1:54:39David Sims?

  It was 2020. Yes. Yeah.

• 1:54:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:42Speaker 03

  Could we just quickly shout out, if we're going back into the plot, I love, uh, Polito's cousins, the twins, trying to get the position. It's just such a stupid, silly little thing.

• 1:54:53Speaker 04

  And the mayor, and the mayor. And they'd be the co-hosts. Tom, can't you tell them?

• 1:54:56Griffin Newman?

  Polito kicking the mayor out of his own office so he can sit behind the desk.

• 1:55:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:55:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Polito's just extraordinary in this. And it is, you know, I'll keep talking this series about Ethan's line about, he thinks the defining trait of a director is tone management. And Polito is doing a different sized performance than everyone else in this movie. And yet there is like a core humanity to what he's playing that stops it from being a cartoon character.

• 1:55:24Speaker 04

  And it's the biggest part he ever had. I mean, even with the Coens, you know, he, he shows up. Uh.

• 1:55:30David Sims?

  He's more of a sort of one.

• 1:55:31Speaker 04

  Pretty, he's pretty silent in Barton Fink.

• 1:55:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:33Griffin Newman?

  They use him basically as a joke of misdirect in Barton Fink to be like, you're used to that guy yelling.

• 1:55:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, but Michael Lerner comes in and.

• 1:55:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:41Speaker 04

  That, that.

• 1:55:41David Sims?

  Here's who yells at Toledo.

• 1:55:43Speaker 04

  That's a great performance.

• 1:55:44David Sims?

  Incredible.

• 1:55:44Speaker 04

  I, I.

• 1:55:45David Sims?

  He's amazing.

• 1:55:46Speaker 04

  I, I had an experience working with Michael Lerner on Bo is Afraid.

• 1:55:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  Uh, I'll, I'll actually leave it at that, but he was, uh, but.

• 1:55:54David Sims?

  That was very near the end of his life, I imagine, because he died in 2023. Yes.

• 1:55:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, uh, yeah, he's, he's amazing.

• 1:56:01Griffin Newman?

  It felt like Lerner kind of got the praise that Toledo should have gotten of the rolling effect of the Coens building this type of character and the fun of watching a guy like this burst blood vessels and speak continuously.

• 1:56:13David Sims?

  Aren't Lerner's only two Coen roles Barton Fink and Serious Man? Like, is he in another Coen Brothers movie? Because him and, him and Serious Man is such a funny end to his collaboration where he just walks in the room and keels.

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  I think that's it. I don't think he's in, yeah, he's not in any other.

• 1:56:30Speaker 04

  The pipe with the pipe.

• 1:56:31David Sims?

  He's got.

• 1:56:32Speaker 04

  Where they're like, he's figured out that, and then he's just fucking.

• 1:56:35Griffin Newman?

  Where he comes in with all the papers.

• 1:56:36David Sims?

  One of my favorite gags of that movie. So Millers Crossing, yeah, you know, a bunch of shit happens.

• 1:56:42Griffin Newman?

  Toledo will just do these like precision turns though within a monologue, like the density of the language, it, which is so precise and so often playing out in these long takes. And then he will have like six emotional swings within it and it never feels like he's pushing. And there are moments where he's doing like sketch comedy-esque moves of like, sitting with his jaw hanging open and like disbelief, like sort of like cartoonish shorthand of a visual representation of an emotion and yet he's still making it feel like this is a real person and a person who is a credible threat. I, I, he's just like extraordinary in this.

• 1:57:18David Sims?

  Um, I love Ole, Olek Krupa.

• 1:57:20Griffin Newman?

  He's the guy I keep calling the A, right?

• 1:57:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:24David Sims?

  Um, he's, he's, he's great.

• 1:57:27Griffin Newman?

  Bernie's, Ursat's roommate.

• 1:57:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:57:29David Sims?

  Um, yeah, I don't know. Uh, Michael Jeter's in this movie?

• 1:57:34Griffin Newman?

  Didn't clock him and Danny Aiello, I also didn't count.

• 1:57:36David Sims?

  No, no, no, no. It's Danny Aiello, the third.

• 1:57:39Griffin Newman?

  That's why.

• 1:57:40David Sims?

  It's Danny Aiello's son.

• 1:57:41Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:57:42David Sims?

  Who is one of the cops.

• 1:57:44Griffin Newman?

  Got it.

• 1:57:44David Sims?

  But not, uh.

• 1:57:46Griffin Newman?

  Senior.

• 1:57:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh, no, I was looking for Jeter and I don't know where he is.

• 1:57:50David Sims?

  I don't either.

• 1:57:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:52David Sims?

  Yeah, apparently he's like one of the gangsters.

• 1:57:53Griffin Newman?

  We just always like to do a Jeter corner.

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  I like that, uh, old, uh, the captain, the old guy.

• 1:58:00David Sims?

  The police captain.

• 1:58:00Speaker 04

  Police captain.

• 1:58:01David Sims?

  That guy's great.

• 1:58:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  That guy really gets made fun of too. And like, he's, he's making a good fucking point. And like, you know, Tom's too hard on him.

• 1:58:08Speaker 04

  Even the way Tommy has a relationship with the cops every time they show up is a funny gag too. Where he's just like, good to see you bud. And he just like strolls out.

• 1:58:18Griffin Newman?

  It's also like the Irish cops.

• 1:58:19Speaker 04

  Rain or wind or snow. That's the mailman.

• 1:58:23Griffin Newman?

  So good. Uh, no, but there's like the tribalism vaguely of like, the Irish cops are always going to side with the Irish gangsters. It's better that they're running the crime.

• 1:58:33David Sims?

  They'd rather that be it. Right. This film, right? Also, I love, this film was initially called The Big Head, uh, which is, uh, supposedly like the nickname for Tom Reagan that, you know.

• 1:58:43Griffin Newman?

  That is a good title. Millers Crossing is a better title for this movie. I would like to see.

• 1:58:47David Sims?

  Millers Crossing is a great title for a painterly gangster.

• 1:58:49Griffin Newman?

  I would like to see a movie called The Big Head.

• 1:58:52David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:58:52Griffin Newman?

  I want that to exist.

• 1:58:54David Sims?

  Ari, is there anything in this movie we haven't touched on that you want to talk about before? You know, I just, you know, I don't want to like bring us into the box office game and such before. You know, cause it is so rich with little details.

• 1:59:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. Let me see. The last scene is a, is like something of a nod to, to the third man.

• 1:59:11David Sims?

  Yes. No, definitely. Yes. And the, the third man is always a great way to end the movie.

• 1:59:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  I think like, you know, having everyone kind of take stock and be like, I guess we're not friends anymore is a great way to, yeah.

• 1:59:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. And just, just like a long, uh, a long forest road where somebody's walking towards you and then. Walks right past, which is a little different than, it's a little different here, but it's definitely evoking that.

• 1:59:33Griffin Newman?

  But you also have Tom tilting his hat down and then the camera kind of swooping up under him to be able to catch his eyes.

• 1:59:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:40Griffin Newman?

  And staying on Gabriel Byrne with the saddest eyes in the world.

• 1:59:42Speaker 04

  What's he gonna do now?

• 1:59:44Griffin Newman?

  It is my favorite kind of ending.

• 1:59:44Speaker 04

  Is he gonna just drink like 1 billion gallons of whiskey and die?

• 1:59:47Griffin Newman?

  My favorite kind of ending in movies, period, is character goes through a whole insane thing. They've made it out the other side and then the ending is what the fuck do I do now? Yeah, anytime someone pulls that card, I, it works for me. And Gabriel Byrne is like a perfect face to do that with.

• 2:00:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Speaker 04

  And I think, I think just going back to the third man, I do feel like that a lot of their DNA is there in that film. They've talked about that film being important to them, but I, I, I mean, even just the eccentricity of the score in that film.

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  The zither.

• 2:00:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, the zither and then the opening, uh, the opening narration, which I believe is Carol Reed speaking.

• 2:00:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:00:28Speaker 04

  Which is, you know, Graham Greene, right, you know, writing, uh, the irreverence of that opening narration in The Third Man just feels like, uh, it just, it just feels important for them.

• 2:00:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And, and the friction of these elements shouldn't be put together. This is not the normal way to tell the story, right?

• 2:00:50Speaker 04

  I just remember, yeah, there are a lot of filmmakers I would say are very important to them, like, like Lubich and Billy Wilder.

• 2:00:57David Sims?

  And Preston Sturgis, obviously. Like, they cannot shake Preston Sturgis.

• 2:01:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:01:01David Sims?

  Who should they?

• 2:01:02Speaker 04

  No. Um, and then, uh, and then The Third Man especially just feels important.

• 2:01:07David Sims?

  Carol Reed's so weird to me because he's made a bunch of great movies. He also won Best Picture for Oliver, which is not a film since I was a kid.

• 2:01:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:01:16David Sims?

  But I doubt one of his better movies.

• 2:01:18Speaker 04

  I'd say three especially great movies.

• 2:01:20David Sims?

  Like Third Man, uh, The Fallen Idol and what's the other one?

• 2:01:23Speaker 04

  And Odd Man Out.

• 2:01:24David Sims?

  Right. Those are, and like, and yet like.

• 2:01:26Speaker 04

  And they're all, and they're all Graham Greene.

• 2:01:27David Sims?

  Right. And The Third Man is correctly venerated, but I feel like he is not talked about in the sort of whatever, great directors of his era.

• 2:01:35Speaker 04

  The Fallen Idol might be my favorite.

• 2:01:36David Sims?

  Fallen Idol's so good. One of the best kid performances ever.

• 2:01:39Griffin Newman?

  I just remember seeing Third Man for the first time after hearing people talk about it so long and that so much of the framework was also, and obviously one of the greatest film scores of all time. And I'm seeing these noir images and Orson Welles and the hat and the tunnel, all this stuff. And in my head, I'm like, oh, I can imagine what the score is. And then the movie starts, as you said, with this like jaunty narration and the zither music and that immediate feeling of this is not what I think the tone of this movie is supposed to be. How is that going to get to that point is the kind of thing that it feels like animates the Coens.

• 2:02:10Speaker 04

  Also, Joseph Cotton's kind of like bumbling buffoon.

• 2:02:13Griffin Newman?

  He's so good.

• 2:02:14Speaker 04

  As, as a, like, like the audience surrogate being something of a, of a buffoon is, is important for them as well.

• 2:02:23David Sims?

  Joseph Cotton, the John Goodman of his day. You know why?

• 2:02:25Griffin Newman?

  Why?

• 2:02:26David Sims?

  Never got an Oscar nomination.

• 2:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:02:28David Sims?

  It's like one of those guys where you're like, he's in like half of, you know, twelve-ing masterpieces.

• 2:02:32Griffin Newman?

  John Goodman of his day. Yeah. No, fair enough. Uh, to the, to the hat point.

• 2:02:36David Sims?

  I'm glad that I got you with that one.

• 2:02:38Griffin Newman?

  Just, yeah, no, it was good. I was trying to do the math on that. Did he ever play Roseanne Barr's husband?

• 2:02:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:43Griffin Newman?

  Did he live long enough?

• 2:02:44David Sims?

  His last movie is Heaven's Gate, I think. Like, he doesn't live.

• 2:02:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, just because you invoked, uh, Lubitsch. There's the famous Lubitsch anecdote that I don't think ever made it into a movie, is always retold as like a great example of the Lubitsch touch, but I think was in some development session where they were, had like four pages of dialogue of a couple fighting to show that the love had gone out of their marriage, an older couple. And then he said, scrap all of that. They're in an elevator. He's wearing a hat. A younger woman walks onto the elevator and he takes off his hat.

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 2:03:17Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, it's one of the greatest, like, fucking show, don't tell examples of a thing that maybe never made it to screen. But I kept thinking this while watching the movie last night and the importance of the hat of just like, it's not that the hat represents something. It's that the hat can be a communicator.

• 2:03:34David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 2:03:34Griffin Newman?

  What people put on the hat is the point.

• 2:03:37David Sims?

  And if you get your hat knocked off, you're vulnerable.

• 2:03:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:03:39David Sims?

  You feel vulnerable. You're exposed.

• 2:03:40Griffin Newman?

  The movie kind of uses the hat in a similar trope of like, right, that, that's when you've lost your status.

• 2:03:47David Sims?

  Do you think Tom's good at sex? I think he's really bad at it.

• 2:03:49Griffin Newman?

  You think he's really bad at it?

• 2:03:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52Griffin Newman?

  He's not good at talking. I think he has to be good at sex.

• 2:03:55David Sims?

  He's a bad communicator.

• 2:03:56Griffin Newman?

  I think he has to be good at sex, otherwise no one.

• 2:03:58David Sims?

  Do you think he cries for one hour after he has sex?

• 2:04:01Griffin Newman?

  I think during, but he lasts the full hour. So you gotta weigh that.

• 2:04:05David Sims?

  Oh, sorry for throwing that out late. Okay.

• 2:04:08Speaker 04

  Tom's a choker.

• 2:04:11David Sims?

  There's just so much buried in that man. There's so much rage and. Feeling.

• 2:04:16Griffin Newman?

  I think he's a clean line.

• 2:04:19Griffin Newman?

  What you see is what you get.

• 2:04:20David Sims?

  He's an easy hang. Like, imagine fucking watching a baseball game with that guy. Get me away from this first.

• 2:04:25Griffin Newman?

  Imagine his, like, fucking manosphere podcast. He just sits there, lets the other person talk.

• 2:04:31David Sims?

  He's like.

• 2:04:32Griffin Newman?

  That's his energy in.

• 2:04:34Speaker 04

  Tom likes to watch, I think, actually.

• 2:04:35David Sims?

  Yeah, you're right. You're right. And he actually.

• 2:04:37Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of got the cuck chair in his apartment.

• 2:04:39David Sims?

  He does have a cuck chair.

• 2:04:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:42David Sims?

  I'm glad we said cuck chair on this episode.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  Hey, it's part of the legacy of our show.

• 2:04:47David Sims?

  As I've said about the hotel cuck chair, where else is the chair supposed to point? Hotel rooms just have a bed in them.

• 2:04:52Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:04:53David Sims?

  You know, everyone makes fun. You know what I'm talking about? Ari, do you know what I'm talking about?

• 2:04:56Griffin Newman?

  The one plush.

• 2:04:57David Sims?

  You go to a hotel room, there's always a chair pointed at the bed.

• 2:05:00Griffin Newman?

  And it's at like a perfect 45 degree angle.

• 2:05:03David Sims?

  That's the cuck chair. Well, you're gonna paint faces into the wall. Like, I mean, like, it's just, it's not a big room.

• 2:05:08Speaker 04

  Some hotels have like a sibian in the bathroom.

• 2:05:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:05:13Speaker 04

  Important.

• 2:05:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the good ones.

• 2:05:15David Sims?

  We're gonna play the box office game, Ari. If you don't know, we're gonna, Griffin is gonna try and guess the films that were the top five of the box office. When Miller's Crossing came out, which was October 5th, 1990. So when does Goodfellas come out? Because Goodfellas is early in the year, isn't it?

• 2:05:31Griffin Newman?

  Isn't Goodfellas like March or April?

• 2:05:33David Sims?

  It was September. I should note also that this, Miller's Crossing opened the New York Film Festival this year.

• 2:05:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:05:40David Sims?

  And, you know, generally, I think was, was treated with, you know, a lot of fall to all.

• 2:05:45Griffin Newman?

  So was Goodfellas in the top five?

• 2:05:47David Sims?

  Uh, no. Uh, yes, it's number five. It's number five of the box office.

• 2:05:52Griffin Newman?

  Where does Miller's Crossing open?

• 2:05:54Speaker 04

  Dances with Wolves, maybe?

• 2:05:56Griffin Newman?

  That's very late.

• 2:05:57Speaker 04

  Summer.

• 2:05:58Griffin Newman?

  Dances with Wolves comes out December.

• 2:06:00David Sims?

  Dances with Wolves is not on this list. Okay, so, okay, number one of the box office, Griffin. It's new this week. It's an action film. Stars an action star, a new action star.

• 2:06:08Speaker 04

  Die Hard.

• 2:06:09David Sims?

  Not Die Hard.

• 2:06:09Griffin Newman?

  Is it Segal?

• 2:06:10David Sims?

  It is Steven Segal. And here's the challenge. Name his third movie.

• 2:06:15Griffin Newman?

  It came up in box office game, the website the other day, and it completely foiled me. It's the one with Kelly LeBroque? I think it is the one with Kelly LeBroque.

• 2:06:24David Sims?

  It is not.

• 2:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Fuck. It's not above the law.

• 2:06:26David Sims?

  It is not above the law, which is his first film.

• 2:06:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:06:29David Sims?

  It's very good.

• 2:06:30Griffin Newman?

  And it's

• 2:06:32David Sims?

  It's not the one with Kelly Rock, which is his second film.

• 2:06:34Griffin Newman?

  Which is called?

• 2:06:35David Sims?

  Hard to Kill.

• 2:06:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:06:36David Sims?

  Which is a great title.

• 2:06:37Griffin Newman?

  This movie is called, tell me how many words it has in the title.

• 2:06:40David Sims?

  He was a three word title guy.

• 2:06:43Griffin Newman?

  Is it blank to blank?

• 2:06:44David Sims?

  No, it's blank for blank.

• 2:06:47Speaker 04

  Out for Justice?

• 2:06:47Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:06:48David Sims?

  That's a great guess.

• 2:06:49Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it's not that?

• 2:06:50David Sims?

  That's his fourth movie.

• 2:06:51Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, it's not Out for Justice.

• 2:06:53David Sims?

  Out for Justice is the next year, and that's the one with Jerry Orbach.

• 2:06:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:58David Sims?

  Good movie. Uh. Or maybe it's bad. I can't remember.

• 2:07:00Griffin Newman?

  Is it Cars for Kids?

• 2:07:01David Sims?

  Uh huh. It is directed by Dwight Little, uh, who made, you know, the fourth Halloween movie and Murdering 1600. A lot of glorious 90s trash, H. Little. Uh, yeah, you're missing.

• 2:07:13Speaker 04

  Rose for Emily.

• 2:07:15David Sims?

  And, uh, I've never, I've never seen this movie because I feel like I would remember the movie with Keith David is the second lead. He's probably having fun.

• 2:07:22Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's called, uh, uh, Marked, Marked for Dead?

• 2:07:26David Sims?

  Marked for Death is the name of the film.

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:07:28David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  I almost got there.

• 2:07:29David Sims?

  Number two, the box office Griffin is a re-release of a Disney film. An old classic.

• 2:07:35Griffin Newman?

  It's an old.

• 2:07:35David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:07:36Griffin Newman?

  Give me the decade of its original release.

• 2:07:37David Sims?

  40s.

• 2:07:39Griffin Newman?

  40s.

• 2:07:39David Sims?

  Early.

• 2:07:41Griffin Newman?

  Early.

• 2:07:41David Sims?

  Early 40s.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Early 40s. So it's not, okay, so it's not like, it's not Bambi.

• 2:07:48David Sims?

  No.

• 2:07:49Griffin Newman?

  Is it a princess movie?

• 2:07:51David Sims?

  Uh, no.

• 2:07:52Griffin Newman?

  No, it's an animal movie.

• 2:07:53David Sims?

  Nope, it's a weird one.

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, it's a weird one. It's not, it's not an animal. It's not a princess. It's a weird one. It's not Fantasia.

• 2:08:02David Sims?

  It sure is Fantasia.

• 2:08:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:08:04David Sims?

  Um, yep, Fantasia. Do you like Fantasia?

• 2:08:07Griffin Newman?

  He does have animals.

• 2:08:08Speaker 04

  I love Fantasia.

• 2:08:09David Sims?

  Do you like Steven Seagal? I forgot to ask.

• 2:08:11Speaker 04

  Uh, do I like Steven Seagal?

• 2:08:14Griffin Newman?

  Not his work. I like his personality.

• 2:08:15Speaker 04

  I like him as a person. I think he's a, I think he's a good guy.

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  His values, his physical appearance.

• 2:08:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, I mean, uh,

• 2:08:23Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:08:23Speaker 04

  No, I don't. I don't. Uh, let's just, let's face it. Uh, Fantasia I do love.

• 2:08:28Griffin Newman?

  Fantasia's great.

• 2:08:29David Sims?

  Fantasia's great.

• 2:08:29Griffin Newman?

  Fantasia's amazing.

• 2:08:30David Sims?

  Uh, number three is a, um, psychological horror film starring one of your favorite actors.

• 2:08:37Griffin Newman?

  Is it Pacific Heights?

• 2:08:38David Sims?

  Yes. Michael Keaton is the scary guy.

• 2:08:42Griffin Newman?

  Movie I watched the first time last year, like quite a bit. It's the John Schlesinger.

• 2:08:46David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:08:46Griffin Newman?

  It's got a stacked supporting cast. Everyone in that is like a fucking five star actor.

• 2:08:50David Sims?

  Mako.

• 2:08:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:08:52David Sims?

  Laurie Metcalf.

• 2:08:53Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:08:53David Sims?

  Carl Lumley, Tippi Hedren's in this?

• 2:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, everyone's in it.

• 2:08:56David Sims?

  You seen this movie?

• 2:08:57Griffin Newman?

  What's this?

• 2:08:57David Sims?

  Pacific Heights.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I've seen Pacific Heights.

• 2:08:59David Sims?

  It's fun.

• 2:09:00Griffin Newman?

  Pacific Heights is great.

• 2:09:01David Sims?

  Number five is Goodfellas. Number four is another of the big hits of the 1990, of the year 1990. Giant smash hit, won two Oscars.

• 2:09:08Griffin Newman?

  It won two Oscars.

• 2:09:09David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:09:10Griffin Newman?

  Is it City Slickers?

• 2:09:11David Sims?

  No. Come on now.

• 2:09:13Speaker 04

  Give me another.

• 2:09:14David Sims?

  Romance.

• 2:09:15Griffin Newman?

  It's a romance that won two Oscars. Major categories?

• 2:09:18David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  It's romance. It's not Pretty Woman.

• 2:09:20David Sims?

  Nope. Duh, Weepy.

• 2:09:22Griffin Newman?

  A weepy romance?

• 2:09:23David Sims?

  Sad romance.

• 2:09:24Griffin Newman?

  Is it Ghost?

• 2:09:25David Sims?

  It's Ghost.

• 2:09:25Griffin Newman?

  It's Ghost.

• 2:09:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:26David Sims?

  Jerry Zucker's Ghost.

• 2:09:27Speaker 04

  So Ghost must have been out for a while then.

• 2:09:30David Sims?

  That was a July film.

• 2:09:31Speaker 04

  It's been out for four months. I know that that was crushing. That was the movie of that year.

• 2:09:36David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 2:09:37Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:09:38David Sims?

  All right, you've also got.

• 2:09:39Speaker 04

  Box Office.

• 2:09:39David Sims?

  Postcards of the Head from the Edge, which has been out for about a month. Flatliners, Joel Schumacher's Flatliners. Uh, you've got Narrow Margin.

• 2:09:48Griffin Newman?

  Is that a JCVD?

• 2:09:51David Sims?

  Peter Heim's film with Gene Hackman.

• 2:09:53Speaker 04

  Narrow Margin is, is, uh, is, is actually pretty fun.

• 2:09:56Griffin Newman?

  What is that? Is that like?

• 2:09:57David Sims?

  It's a remake.

• 2:09:58Speaker 04

  Gene Hackman thriller.

• 2:09:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:09:59David Sims?

  Gene Hackman and Ann Archer.

• 2:10:01Griffin Newman?

  What is, is he a lawyer or is he a cop?

• 2:10:02David Sims?

  He's an LA deputy district attorney trying to keep a murder witness safe.

• 2:10:06Griffin Newman?

  I like the sound of that and I'm sure he's very even keeled.

• 2:10:09David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Uh, you've got, um.

• 2:10:12Speaker 04

  Bad but fun.

• 2:10:13David Sims?

  Right. Uh, ninth, you've got opening, uh, is a neonor called, oh, the Michael Chimino movie, Desperate Hours. Right. Like late Chimino.

• 2:10:20Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:10:21David Sims?

  With Anthony Hopkins and a normal Mickey Rourke. Uh, huge bomb.

• 2:10:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:10:26David Sims?

  And then Funny About Love, the, uh, late Gene Wilder movie.

• 2:10:29Griffin Newman?

  Directed by Leonard Nimoy.

• 2:10:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a weird, it's Gene Hackman, is the poster him with a clock on his head?

• 2:10:37David Sims?

  Uh, yes, that's right.

• 2:10:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38David Sims?

  Cause the biological clock is ticking or something.

• 2:10:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think he's an old dad is the premise of the movie.

• 2:10:43David Sims?

  Sure. You seen that?

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  One.

• 2:10:45Speaker 04

  I haven't seen Funny About Love, no.

• 2:10:46Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that's one where, uh, the people who worked on it were like, yeah, he just seemed really sad. Like he didn't want to be in a comedy. I think he did it right after Gilda died, maybe?

• 2:10:55David Sims?

  All right, we're done.

• 2:10:57Griffin Newman?

  Where did Miller's crossing open? You didn't say this.

• 2:11:00David Sims?

  Like number 50. It's like, you know, in one screen or whatever.

• 2:11:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:11:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:04Griffin Newman?

  And it ended up at?

• 2:11:05David Sims?

  It made like $4 million. It was unfortunately.

• 2:11:07Griffin Newman?

  Got zero Oscar nominations.

• 2:11:09David Sims?

  Which is crazy.

• 2:11:11Speaker 04

  But it's forever young.

• 2:11:13David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:11:13Speaker 04

  Forever young.

• 2:11:15David Sims?

  But it is, there are a few years off from like their real Oscar breakthrough.

• 2:11:19Griffin Newman?

  It is a forever movie, though.

• 2:11:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:21Griffin Newman?

  And Barton Fink will get two. Yeah, but then Fargo is the breakthrough. Uh, Ari, thank you for being here.

• 2:11:26David Sims?

  Ari, you have to catch a plane. You gotta go.

• 2:11:28Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me. I gotta go.

• 2:11:30Griffin Newman?

  Eddington, uh, one of the best movies of the year.

• 2:11:33Speaker 04

  Wow, thank you.

• 2:11:34Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I saw it and had a great time. And by a great time, I mean, we were thrilled at the level of panic attack we were having. Uh, I recommend to everybody. I think it's, uh.

• 2:11:43David Sims?

  Please see Eddington.

• 2:11:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:11:44David Sims?

  Especially in a theater.

• 2:11:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh, funny and exciting and thought provoking.

• 2:11:47David Sims?

  With that movie. And I mean that like as the highest compliment.

• 2:11:50Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Yes. Um, and thank you for being here and thank you for doing this. And I wish you a great, long sleep as this press tour comes to a close.

• 2:11:58Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me. This was fun.

• 2:12:00Griffin Newman?

  Can you take it easy? You gonna take it easy?

• 2:12:03David Sims?

  You're good at that, right?

• 2:12:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:12:06Griffin Newman?

  You're kind of a max chiller.

• 2:12:07Speaker 04

  Probably won't.

• 2:12:08David Sims?

  Playing some video games. You love video games? Sorry.

• 2:12:11Speaker 04

  I don't play video games.

• 2:12:12Griffin Newman?

  Donkey Kong Bonanza?

• 2:12:13Speaker 04

  I don't.

• 2:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Pauline is back? Does that move the needle for you?

• 2:12:16David Sims?

  All right, all right, all right. Let's get Ari out of here.

• 2:12:18Speaker 04

  Might just go to that hotel with the, uh, with the Sibian.

• 2:12:24Griffin Newman?

  And that's your plug as well, right?

• 2:12:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:26Griffin Newman?

  In multiple ways. Uh, thank you for being here. Uh, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Barton Fink with our friend Chris White returning to the show.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and as always, Bear Stop giving me the fucking hi hat, David.

• 2:12:50Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by L.A. Montgomery in The Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:13:35Speaker 03

  Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.