No Other Choice

Join Pulp Men (and Woman) of the Year Griffin, David, Ben, and Marie as they discuss Park Chan Wook’s latest offering, the silly and sublime No Other Choice. We’re talking about paper, AI-proof jobs, the handsomeness of Lee Byung-hun, the possibility that Director Park is the Michael Jordan of dissolves, and the fact that this is likely Griffin’s favorite film of 2025. Plus, David breaks down over the finale of Stranger Things, and we all apologize for a bunch of stuff. Read the Chevy Chase New York Times profile. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/arts/television/chevy-chase-documentary.html 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/! 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? 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.

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around. 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.

• 1:10David Sims?

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

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  I am fighting a war for our podcast.

• 1:41David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:42Griffin Newman?

  We just spent approximately four and a half hours.

• 1:47David Sims?

  We mostly did the March Madness bracket, but it was also looking for a quote.

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Four and a half hours were spent trying to find an opening quote for this movie. A movie I love, one of my favorites of the year, possibly my single favorite of the year. I'm chewing on the idea that it might be my number one. It jumped up majorly for me on second viewing after loving it the first time. I found it.

• 2:10David Sims?

  Twenty twenty-five.

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  For the year 2025. This, of course, is an episode in 2026. But I'm talking about my 2025 film rankings. And I think this film has an excellent script and the internet is just not letting me find those quotes. But he does constantly say,

• 2:26Speaker 02

  I'm fighting a war for this family.

• 2:27Griffin Newman?

  Fighting a war for this family and I turned it into I'm fighting a war for this podcast.

• 2:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  No other choice.

• 2:32Griffin Newman?

  That's all you have to say?

• 2:34David Sims?

  To that quote, I mean, he is.

• 2:36Griffin Newman?

  Would you fight a war for your family?

• 2:38David Sims?

  I mean, sure. What would I murder other people to get a job?

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  That's not what I asked.

• 2:42David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  That's not what I asked. I asked, would you fight a war for your family?

• 2:45David Sims?

  Well, that is a very vague and leading question, my friend.

• 2:49Griffin Newman?

  Question.

• 2:50David Sims?

  No.

• 2:51Griffin Newman?

  No?

• 2:51David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 2:52Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:52David Sims?

  Unless it's some sort of metaphorical war that's like.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Well, he's fighting a metaphor.

• 2:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  He's fighting a medical metaphorical war for his family.

• 2:59Griffin Newman?

  Let me reframe the question. That's fair, Marie.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, what?

• 3:02Griffin Newman?

  Marie, Barty.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Who?

• 3:04Griffin Newman?

  Salinas? I'm sorry, mayor.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Mayor, the woman of Blank Check?

• 3:08Griffin Newman?

  Mayor of Blank Check.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Thanks for the introduction, Griffin.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  Anytime. David, would you fight a philosophical metaphorical war for your family? Yes or no?

• 3:18David Sims?

  Sure. Let's do it.

• 3:19Griffin Newman?

  Follow up question. Would you murder people in order to get a job?

• 3:22David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 3:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  I would.

• 3:24David Sims?

  Follow up question. Would you get into an, like a, okay, airplane, like a fighter jet? What am I doing with it?

• 3:32Griffin Newman?

  Flying really fast.

• 3:33David Sims?

  No, that's fine, but.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  But also fighting a war.

• 3:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:36Griffin Newman?

  And shooting people with missiles.

• 3:38David Sims?

  No, no, that's really not my thing.

• 3:41Griffin Newman?

  But David, what if all the enemies you were fighting and firing against just had generic Power Rangers helmets and there were no flags of any kind to imply

• 3:52David Sims?

  Okay, so sort of a Top Gun.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  which country you were at war with.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  A Top Gun Maverick situation, yeah.

• 3:56Griffin Newman?

  What if there's some plausible deniability of, are these robots?

• 4:01David Sims?

  It would be funny if Jon Hamm was like, our enemy is the robot nation.

• 4:07David Sims?

  If they just fully leaned into that, like, they're not people. Or Tim Robinson comes on and he goes like, they don't matter. He just does a little speech.

• 4:15Griffin Newman?

  This is Power Rangers Dino Force.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  What if it, what if it's like a thing where it's a stealth, uh, Mission Impossible move where it, they're all the entity?

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, they take their masks off and underneath it's just the glowing.

• 4:29David Sims?

  Like some scrambled.

• 4:30Griffin Newman?

  The blue eye of Sauron.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Speaking of fighting a war for one's family.

• 4:34David Sims?

  And again, this is somehow relating to my family, this battle I'm doing with a robot.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yes. Isn't that the plot of Mitchell versus the machine?

• 4:42Griffin Newman?

  Ask you major questions. You have to filter through your own life.

• 4:45David Sims?

  I saw that movie once and obviously the director of Mitchell's versus the machines is a fan of our show.

• 4:50Griffin Newman?

  Was a past future guest.

• 4:51David Sims?

  I know, I know. He's a great guy and I loved him and I loved that movie, but I watched it once and my kid was my first kid. My daughter was if that she was very young and I remember she had like a witching hour, sort of like screamy time during it. And I'm so scarred by that and I've never gone back.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry.

• 5:09Griffin Newman?

  I remember that and this is inexact science, but in my memory, that was the first movie I heard you run through the filter of as the father of a daughter, even as an infant, where you were like this triggered certain things emotionally in me as a fodder, as a fada.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  As a fada.

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  You turned to the mother of your child and said, as a fada.

• 5:33David Sims?

  Hello, mother.

• 5:34Griffin Newman?

  I, I feel like that movie would probably eviscerate you now.

• 5:37David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 5:38Griffin Newman?

  And will continue to eviscerate you.

• 5:39David Sims?

  Being just very charming and funny.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  I, I think it's really, really good, but I think, I think it.

• 5:44David Sims?

  Are they doing a sequel or is that kind of a maybe?

• 5:47Griffin Newman?

  I believe that has been announced.

• 5:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Griffin Newman?

  I believe that is officially announced. Marie, would you fight a war for your family?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  So what I was going to say is that my husband has become obsessed with this, you like, it's a TikTok.

• 6:03David Sims?

  A single TikTok?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  But yes, but when I say that he's become obsessed with it, like, I mean, in an ironic way, like, he doesn't actually subscribe to this worldview. But it's a guy who's like one of those like alpha male influencers.

• 6:17David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Who.

• 6:18David Sims?

  Smart guy. Sounds like.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  The phrase was when I walk into a room, my wife knows I'm a predator.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  And he means it as in like, uh, men should be like alpha predators out there going to war for their families. But whenever I hear a man call himself a predator, I think of like, I don't know, rapists.

• 6:43David Sims?

  Yeah, that comes right to mind. I think of, I think of the yautja and I think of.

• 6:49Griffin Newman?

  I was going to say, if the movie Predator Badlands taught us anything, it is possible to overcome your programming.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  It is. You can be, you can be a sensitive predator.

• 6:58Griffin Newman?

  More emotionally intelligent predator.

• 6:59David Sims?

  There's the.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  And he does kind of end up fighting a war. He like, he has a chosen family that he then goes to war for at the end of the movie.

• 7:06Griffin Newman?

  War against his biological family. Can I say, that yautja's dad is a little toxic.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  A little toxic.

• 7:14Griffin Newman?

  He's a little trying to behead his child. Masculinity.

• 7:17David Sims?

  Uh, there's some TikTok I have, it's so buried deep in my fave somewhere, but just of a wife going up to a husband with this, like, would you hit me in the face with a shovel for like a, you know, a million dollars? And he goes, I hit you in the face for a million dollars? He'd have trouble keeping me off of you.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 7:35David Sims?

  Staged, cause it's like buried like, but it is funny. And then she's like, okay, I get it. He's like, a million dollars?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  I would, well, how hard would he do it?

• 7:46David Sims?

  Well, I mean, that's what's funny. I mean, all these questions you're saying.

• 7:48Griffin Newman?

  I, I used to have a stand up bit about that.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Where you would hit a woman in the face for a million dollars?

• 7:54Griffin Newman?

  No, I, I'm questioning if I should say what my specific was.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  I think this episode should include more of you talking about stand up.

• 8:01Griffin Newman?

  Continuing on from the no other, is this thing on? But, but just that, when people say like, would you do this for a million dollars? Of course, the answer is always yes. The only part you need to think about is how you would explain to people that you became a millionaire.

• 8:16David Sims?

  Sure. Right. Right.

• 8:17Griffin Newman?

  You take the money.

• 8:18David Sims?

  Came up to me and they, uh.

• 8:20Griffin Newman?

  But then how do you communicate? That was what the bit was.

• 8:22David Sims?

  Right. Right. That sounds like a good bit.

• 8:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:23David Sims?

  What's the podcast?

• 8:24Griffin Newman?

  This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin.

• 8:28David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 8:29Griffin Newman?

  Hey, it's Ben Hoss.

• 8:30David Sims?

  Wow, our producer.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  And I'm woman.

• 8:34David Sims?

  Okay, well, we need to address if we're gonna keep referencing this. So someone on our Reddit, a normal place for normal people.

• 8:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a good place for good people.

• 8:42David Sims?

  Right, posted a thread, what was the title?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  I'm new to.

• 8:47David Sims?

  Who's the woman? Question mark, question mark.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  I'm new to Blank Check, who is woman?

• 8:52Griffin Newman?

  Look, Marie, you're part of the family.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, although I will say I have had people say to me like in my life, like, hey, I'm always looking to listen to your episodes, but you're not searchable. Cause we don't put my name in.

• 9:03Griffin Newman?

  I think this is a thing we should, here's, here's my first bill I'm presenting. I'm putting before the House of Blank Check in 2026. The early Marie appearances, we did do with Marie Barty. And then we started being like, you're just the fourth chair.

• 9:19David Sims?

  Right, you kind of.

• 9:20Griffin Newman?

  We don't need to put you in the title. I think we gotta re-add.

• 9:22David Sims?

  You're not special.

• 9:23Griffin Newman?

  I think we gotta add Marie back into the title.

• 9:25David Sims?

  See, but my thing is that it's because like even this is a great example of where we're at in the schedule where Marie has done three episodes in a row. I find that like having your name three times in a row, kind of clutters it a little bit.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Maybe I should change the episode descriptions to just include my names.

• 9:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 9:43Griffin Newman?

  Possibly, but I'm also just like, now there's a fuzzy, we, here's my real thing. We gotta get Yoshida and Lawson feeling more competitive again. I think they're not clocking the fact that you're running circles around them.

• 9:55David Sims?

  It's the start of a new year.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:56David Sims?

  We're doing all this inside.

• 9:58Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me.

• 9:58David Sims?

  I've got some hot takes.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  Our new year started with, with is this thing on?

• 10:02David Sims?

  An episode that, look, people got mad at us about that too. Look. David's holding a flower pot over Griffin's head? I want to talk about that for one second because there were some people, you know, not just on the Reddit, just being like, oh my God, this movie's barely out yet. And he put out the episode. I'm like, look, man, they schedule the release for mid-December. They don't tell you, you know, when they set those dates, when they're going to expand it. Because they don't know.

• 10:25Griffin Newman?

  This is a good thing to address.

• 10:26David Sims?

  You know, the, the studios don't totally know because they don't know what the landscape's gonna be. It seems to be expanding, I believe, this weekend.

• 10:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:34David Sims?

  So hopefully more people can see it. We do our best with the schedule.

• 10:37Griffin Newman?

  We do our best. I, I, I had to travel for most of December. It was a real kind of like crunch to get all those new release episodes. A to see those movies and get them recorded before I flew out. And at the moment, like in December 10th, that we had everything scheduled, it was like.

• 10:58Griffin Newman?

  Is This Thing On is going wide.

• 11:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  Nationwide Christmas Day, limited the week before, and no other choice is getting a limited release Christmas Day. It makes more sense to put Is This Thing On first. And instead now, like, no other choice at the time we are recording this, the same week the episode's coming out, is currently on more screens than Is This Thing On, which they've been going really slow on the rollout with. We try our best, but these distributors fuck with our plans.

• 11:25David Sims?

  I mean, and God bless them. I know it's a weird landscape out there. I have some other hot takes, topical hot takes.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Okay, go for it, David.

• 11:33David Sims?

  Chevy Chase.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  What's going on with that guy?

• 11:35Griffin Newman?

  Did you watch The Doc?

• 11:36David Sims?

  No, no, I've only seen some clips in which he seems, I don't know, like a little acerbic.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't care about that man.

• 11:43David Sims?

  I do have a little bit of the, I don't, I don't know how much I care. I'm fascinated in the train wreck-y way. I'm a little less interested in what I understand is the psychology of his background and being raised by somewhat abusive parents and all that.

• 11:57Griffin Newman?

  The doc is less about that.

• 11:59David Sims?

  Yeah, it touches on it. It's all about that.

• 12:01Griffin Newman?

  I think The Doc is worth watching, but I think the interview press tour he's been doing for The Doc is meatier than The Doc.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, you described it as like near Quincy Jones level.

• 12:11David Sims?

  Yeah, some of these interviews are amazing.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  I only read the Times one.

• 12:15Griffin Newman?

  That's the best one.

• 12:16David Sims?

  That one's pretty wild.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Pretty wild.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  I'll link to it in checkbook today.

• 12:21David Sims?

  Um, you know, it is interesting, as many have noted, that it's like everyone who ever worked with this guy, barring the occasional Goldie Hawn, like who he seems to have treated well because like he knew she was a star, right?

• 12:33Griffin Newman?

  There, I'd say there are like.

• 12:34David Sims?

  There's like a handful of people who are like, I always got along with him.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Didn't Beverly D'Angelo like him?

• 12:38Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, there are like four blonde comedians of a similar age range who he made multiple films with, who are like, he's always been a sweetheart to me.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 12:47Griffin Newman?

  And, and his family.

• 12:49David Sims?

  But that's the thing, everyone else is like, working with him was, I'd speak to it about my therapist to this very day, every single day. And then, but you're like, but he has a stable family life. All his kids seem to like him. Weird. That's a little interesting. I don't know if, there's no answers, I know this.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  I have a take from watching The Doc.

• 13:07David Sims?

  Sure.

• 13:08Griffin Newman?

  Which is, I, I think he is just one of the least internally resolved people in the world.

• 13:14David Sims?

  It doesn't seem, he just has put a lot of the bad stuff over there and then some, you know, the family stuff over there.

• 13:21Griffin Newman?

  To be as blunt as possible, it just feels like he really values his family and is really protective of them and is like so caring and present. And then when he's dealing with his career and his front-facing persona, he both has his guard up where he's like, everyone's trying to fuck with me. I have to defend myself. And isn't this what people want me to do? Be a Chevy Chase style asshole?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Would you say-

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  Like, there's a combination of him thinking, this is me honoring you by saying something mean to your face, and also that he is like, super paranoid.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  When you bring up how like intensely protective he feels about his family.

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  He has no other choice. He'd go to war for his family.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  That's what I was going to say.

• 14:03Griffin Newman?

  He's holding the flower pot above Dan Harmon's head.

• 14:05David Sims?

  I'm just, I'm looking at the Your Newsletter, New Marie. That's where I'm getting some of my hot takes from. Housemaid, haven't seen it. Love that it's making money.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 14:12David Sims?

  Do more of that, please.

• 14:13Griffin Newman?

  It's fun trash.

• 14:13David Sims?

  Bestseller.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  I want to give a shout out to my friend Ellen Tamaki, who is in that movie. She wrote-

• 14:19David Sims?

  Shout out.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Shout out to Ellen. Uh, I think she plays like a bitchy friend.

• 14:23Griffin Newman?

  Have you not seen it yet?

• 14:24Speaker 02

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 14:25Griffin Newman?

  There's a, there's a, there's a bitchy friend group.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yes. I think she's part of the, like, the other moms.

• 14:29David Sims?

  The Stranger Things finale. Now, I haven't checked in with Stranger Things since Barb died. R.I.P. Barb.

• 14:34Griffin Newman?

  People were saying, they were like, the gang is being so defensive. They're glazing Avatar and fighting a war to protect the, the most popular, highest grossing films of all time, and then being dismissive of Stranger Things. I want to be clear. I've just never seen it. It's just a thing I've never engaged with.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  I have also never seen it.

• 14:51Griffin Newman?

  I, I don't take some oppositional stance to Stranger Things.

• 14:54David Sims?

  I'm taking an oppositional stance.

• 14:55Griffin Newman?

  You're allowed to do that.

• 14:56David Sims?

  The algo is showing me things, right? And mostly, it seems like a lot of people were complaining about the finale who liked the show. I haven't seen the show. She fucking 11, right? That's her number, right?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:07David Sims?

  Millie Bobby Bon Jovi.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Millie Bobby Bon Jovi. I saw a clip on Twitter of her

• 15:13David Sims?

  This is exactly what I'm talking about. Marie, this is what I'm talking about. You're stepping on my hot take.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Sorry, go for it, David.

• 15:18David Sims?

  She's fighting the big monster.

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 15:20David Sims?

  She jumps into it with her psychic powers. Somehow kind of opens its fleshy spider body up. It looks like the spider from Wild Wild West, but flesh.

• 15:29Griffin Newman?

  Major spoilers, I was about to start the show this week.

• 15:31David Sims?

  She lands inside of it. There's a floor. Like, there's not like a sort of organic inside. Like, she's not even on, there's like a sandy floor, Marie.

• 15:40Griffin Newman?

  Inside the tummy?

• 15:41David Sims?

  Yeah, have you seen this?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw the clip, I didn't even register.

• 15:44David Sims?

  I texted my brother, I was like, why is there a floor? And he was like, oh, everyone's always nitpicking.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  I didn't, you know what, David, to be honest, I've watched that clip several times. I didn't register that it's Vecna. Is that the name of the monster?

• 15:57David Sims?

  No, Vecna's the guy. The mind flayer is the big thing.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Okay, all I knew about this fucking show was that there was something with egos and she got a nosebleed.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  That's season one shit, right?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  How do we get to a big monster?

• 16:13Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Barb?

• 16:14David Sims?

  Stranger Things. So there's a floor inside.

• 16:18Griffin Newman?

  You're saying that's quite a strange thing to happen? The show promised you that.

• 16:22David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Like, I should be, I should be like, that's strange.

• 16:26Griffin Newman?

  It's what it says on the bottle.

• 16:27David Sims?

  Yeah, it promised you from the start.

• 16:30Griffin Newman?

  It's quite true.

• 16:30David Sims?

  Why is there a floor? Why would a beast, why would it stomach be like a sandy floor? Perhaps it's almost weird.

• 16:40Griffin Newman?

  You're telling me this one episode of television is two and a half hours long and costs $5 billion? That is quite strange.

• 16:47David Sims?

  That is the other thing, that you're like, this is expensive and it looks like Linkin Park. But I mean, everything has that problem now.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Wait, no, you're so right. They should fucking score that little clip.

• 16:57David Sims?

  I'm sure, I'm sure if they go on.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  Crawling in my skin, a floor, it will reveal.

• 17:04David Sims?

  Like, look, she jumps in, okay? They're all like, oh my God. And one of them, by the way, is stout looking.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Why is she wearing a uniform?

• 17:11David Sims?

  Why is she wearing this? Look how fucking terrible this looks. This looks like shit.

• 17:16Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say.

• 17:17David Sims?

  Okay, she's gonna jump. Right, she jumps into this fleshy beast. Look at this beast.

• 17:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:21David Sims?

  Okay?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  These wounds, they will heal.

• 17:25David Sims?

  Right, and it's gonna eat her. And then she goes inside.

• 17:26Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh, it looks like a portal is opening inside the stomach.

• 17:29David Sims?

  You know, it's like ripping open guts. And then there's just a floor.

• 17:32Griffin Newman?

  That is quite strange.

• 17:33David Sims?

  What the fuck?

• 17:35Speaker 02

  It looks like he swallowed a lot of sand.

• 17:37Griffin Newman?

  David, that is empirically one of the strangest things I've seen in a long time.

• 17:42David Sims?

  Kind of like decorator, like sand it. It's just, I'm just like, if you're doing a D and D influenced fantasy adventure, design your creatures.

• 17:54Griffin Newman?

  We're doing some grab bag right now.

• 17:56David Sims?

  Do some work.

• 17:56Griffin Newman?

  Cause this is our second episode of 2026, but our first record of 2026.

• 18:01David Sims?

  Yeah, so I had to get off.

• 18:02Griffin Newman?

  I want to get a couple of grab bag things off the ground.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Ella Mack pin on Ella Mack.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  We're putting a pin on Ella Mack?

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  They're putting a pin on Ella. I have a thing to say about Ella Mack. In fact, I'm going to take the pin out because I forgot the other thing I was going to say. That was an episode, as, as mentioned, we were in a crunch to get those December episodes out. We saw that film before it was released, before Ella Mack fever swept over the land. And, and thus we were a little ahead of the discourse. We didn't quite know what people were going to land on in their discussion of Ella Mack. And woefully.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  You didn't talk about sex scarf.

• 18:35Griffin Newman?

  The sex scarf was not discussed.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:37Griffin Newman?

  Now, I want to say.

• 18:38David Sims?

  The sex scarf, we're referring to the fact, because of course 14 people saw this movie.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  All of them listeners of this podcast, including Celine Song.

• 18:47David Sims?

  Yes, who listens to this podcast?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Well, she said this, that Ella Mack was her favorite movie of 2020.

• 18:52David Sims?

  Uh, she has sex with her loving husband, uh, Sauce Boy, uh, right, played by.

• 18:57Griffin Newman?

  Sauce Magnet.

• 18:58David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Jack, Jack Loudon.

• 19:00Griffin Newman?

  He waters his sauce.

• 19:01David Sims?

  And post-coital, she has a scarf wrapped around her neck in a, in a styling choice that is unaddressed.

• 19:07Griffin Newman?

  Now, in my defense, the reason I did not bring this up is I had put a note in my head to bring something up in the episode that I, I did forget to bring up. But for me, it is the, the larger issue above the sex scarf. She sits up in bed. She's got the scarf on, untied, kind of like thrown backwards, right? And there's the classic kind of romantic comedy studio film L-shaped bed sheet.

• 19:34David Sims?

  Right. The, the lady's got the sheet over the boobs.

• 19:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, they fall back in bed.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 19:40Griffin Newman?

  Right? And like the guy, the bed sheets are down to his navel and the woman, the bed sheet's like up to her neck. She sits up.

• 19:48Griffin Newman?

  And not just as the shape of the bed sheet remained L shaped while she's sitting up and he's lying down, but it's like the bed sheet is held across her back, like there's a strap in it. The bed sheet looks like a tube top and I could not stop marveling at that, which I thought was the most like conservative thing I had ever seen in a post sex screenshot. I didn't even notice the scarf. The scarf was secondary for me.

• 20:12David Sims?

  Wow. Well, it's a movie that rewards, you know, 30 to 40 viewings and it's gonna need them if it's gonna be black head of the box office.

• 20:20Griffin Newman?

  They were doing a promotion, widely advertised, two for one tickets for Ella McKay and the weekend of two for one tickets, it made like $50,000. I, I, I don't want to overstate the importance of this podcast or the reach of this podcast, but the weekend box office numbers came in and I did say to David, this is the first time in history, I really wish there was exit polling to find out what percentage of opening weekend ticket buyers were blankies, because it truly might be 50%.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  I went, I went like the Thursday night, like seven o'clock LMCK opening screening in Manhattan and there was like a huge crowd of Blank Check fans. And I even, I was in the concessions line with a guy wearing the desk t-shirt and I said, I said, cool shirt. And he said, thanks.

• 21:11David Sims?

  That's awesome.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  You know, oh, hey, you're the woman of Blank Check.

• 21:14David Sims?

  Who is the woman?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  But, you know.

• 21:17David Sims?

  How is Barbie formed? Remember that old name?

• 21:20Griffin Newman?

  It just felt like it was such a historically bad opening weekend.

• 21:24David Sims?

  Here's my gag, that there's a tick taker and then like a tumbleweed comes up and the ticker goes like, hey, and the tumbleweed gives out a ticket and then blows into the LMCK screening. That'd be good, right?

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  I just feel, it's anecdotal.

• 21:35David Sims?

  Screen 18?

• 21:36Griffin Newman?

  But the amount of texts I got from friends and listeners of the show who like saw it within 36 hours of release. And then also our Reddit was exploding. And I was just like, when we cover new release blockbusters, it doesn't feel like there's this much of a, we have to go support this movie immediately thing.

• 21:55David Sims?

  Ella McKay. Well, it's made 4 million domestic, 524 international. Now it was gonna make $400 million in France, but then they canceled that release.

• 22:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh, how much did it make in the UAE? I sent you the stat the other day.

• 22:12David Sims?

  Current UAE breakdown.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  $10?

• 22:14David Sims?

  Can't see. Oh, rest of world. I know, I know. $20,000.

• 22:19Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 22:21David Sims?

  $20,000 in the UAE. Pretty good.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I just seeing this news that James Wan gave some interview where he said he wants to take over directing the Avatar franchise.

• 22:30David Sims?

  But I mean, like, I more feels like they said, like, well, you're from the Australian subcontinent. He's like, I'll take a crack at it, mate.

• 22:37Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this.

• 22:37David Sims?

  That's what he talks like.

• 22:38Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the only people, if James Cameron announced, I'm, I'm stepping back. I'm handing it off.

• 22:44David Sims?

  Do they have any relationship?

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm just saying that's one of the only people where I wouldn't immediately go red alert.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Do you know what the connection is?

• 22:51David Sims?

  What's that?

• 22:52Speaker 02

  In the canon of Entourage, James Cameron directed the Aquaman film.

• 22:58Griffin Newman?

  This is true. They both know from CGI water.

• 23:00David Sims?

  Yep. That is so true. And of course, we see a clip of Aquaman in Entourage that I think about all the time where Benny Chase is like in a tux and he like runs down a dock and he's like taking the tux off.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  What if, what if I like get really into rewatching Entourage in 2026?

• 23:16David Sims?

  A couple of people have told me they're doing that. And I'm like, Entourage belongs where it is.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  I don't know. Let's bring it back.

• 23:23David Sims?

  Nope.

• 23:23Griffin Newman?

  Belongs where it is on HBO Max, ready for the watching. This was the, oh, I was gonna say this about the Chevy Chase doc. I read that interview. I was like, gotta watch this fucking thing. Pull up HBO Max. Not on there. And I'm like, isn't there a CNN doc? And CNN owns Warner Media? Apparently I have to say up for CNN watch. And then I like sign up and it's like, you don't have the, the right tier to watch it.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  What?

• 23:47Griffin Newman?

  I spent an hour figuring out how to watch this fucking.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  They really, I think they just don't want anyone to see it.

• 23:53Griffin Newman?

  We live in hell. Now, Nick Weiger of Doughboys, friend of the podcast, just by chance, within the last couple of hours, texted us, watched is this thing on and no other choice back to back yesterday. And it's kind of amazing, both technically qualify as quote, movies, end quote.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 24:12David Sims?

  Well, it's just like.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  That one is, you know, great and the other one isn't. And it's crazy to compare them.

• 24:18David Sims?

  Well, I mean. You know, the one is sort of very, this is, we're talking about Park Chan Wook's No Other Choice.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  These two new released movies were kicking off the year with to settle the balance before we start our first proper mini series of 2026.

• 24:29David Sims?

  And it's kind of a movie where like, he makes like six camera moves. You can't believe, how did he even pull that off?

• 24:34Griffin Newman?

  The narrative complexity of it, like the thematic depth of it.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  I would say Park Chan Wook is the Michael Jordan of crossed assault.

• 24:47David Sims?

  Who's the woman?

• 24:48Griffin Newman?

  This is why it's important for women to speak. And I know people are constantly questioning our choice to do that. But we're gonna stand by it. We think it's important.

• 24:57David Sims?

  No other choice.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  I just want to let listeners know that I did pitch opening this episode introducing the show myself because I killed Ben and Griffin and David off so I could just be the only host of Blank Shot.

• 25:14David Sims?

  But would you admit to that?

• 25:16Griffin Newman?

  How would we?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Well, no. Okay. So I was trying to think like, what would I, all right. So I think David killed Griffin, then went missing.

• 25:28Griffin Newman?

  David went missing?

• 25:29David Sims?

  I went missing. I like buried myself in the sand, just like a fucking nap.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Then went missing. And then, and then Ben died under mysterious circumstances.

• 25:40David Sims?

  Right. Okay. It would be like that, kind of like, it's weird. All the people around you keep like having these weird deaths.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  But all of the, you know, there, there's like a neat and tidy explanation for everything.

• 25:48David Sims?

  The joke about like the guy who's friends with people in Final Destination, who's like, like talking, he's like, yeah, I don't know. And then my, my friend, like a bucket landed in a toaster and it popped a knife into, you know, like where it's like, it's weird. This keeps happening to everyone.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  You know what's great about Final Destination? That monologue would end with that guy getting killed.

• 26:06David Sims?

  A train runs him over. Yeah, sure.

• 26:17Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 26:18David Sims?

  Yes.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 26:21David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 26:23Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 26:24David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 26:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 26:30David Sims?

  Okay.

• 26:31Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 26:35David Sims?

  Wow.

• 26:36Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 26:38David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up while you tell the great listeners about the great stuff on MUBI.

• 26:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what MUBI does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 26:56David Sims?

  Yes.

• 26:57Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 26:58David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 26:59Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 27:05David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 27:06Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 27:09David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest.

• 27:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:13David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 27:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:15David Sims?

  This movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 27:19Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 27:20David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 27:22Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 27:24David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 27:25Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 27:26David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 27:27Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 27:28David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Palmitcan. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like, it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on MUBI.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 27:52David Sims?

  Yes, and you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 27:57Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 27:59Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 28:09David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on MUBI and you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/blankcheck. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 28:32Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 28:33David Sims?

  Yes?

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:37David Sims?

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

• 28:43Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 28:44David Sims?

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

• 28:52Griffin 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.

• 29:01David 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.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals, and checkout fast, 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.

• 29:55Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 29:55David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 29:56Griffin Newman?

  It's not cuffing season for me, it's hosi season for me. And this year, that meant finally upgrading my new mattress from Lisa.

• 30:03David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 30:04Griffin 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.

• 30:12David Sims?

  Yeah, I have a Lisa too. They've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

• 30:18Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:18David Sims?

  Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. They've got eco-friendly materials.

• 30:25Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you hear eco-friendly and you go, "Oh, but I'm gonna sacrifice comfort."

• 30:28David Sims?

  No!

• 30:29Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 30:30David 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 and the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 31:19Griffin Newman?

  To finish introducing this podcast, it's a podcast about filmographies. Directors do a massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Three years ago now, Park Chan Wook won our March Madness competition. I think an incredibly cool fucking win. It was one of my favorite living filmmakers and someone I transparently don't think I personally ever would have had the courage to be like, we can put this guy on main feed.

• 31:48David Sims?

  I don't think, he is the rare, often our March Madness winner will be someone where like, right, that makes sense. That's a big name. That's someone. And he was, you know, he was in our international series. So obviously the, the choices were a little different, but he wouldn't have been in my top five of like, I think this guy's gonna win.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  We had, he beat out like, didn't he beat out Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson?

• 32:09David Sims?

  He beat Steve McQueen, Peter Jackson, Peter Weir, well, and Guillermo del Toro, and then Bong Joon Ho, of course, by one vote.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  By one vote, which was, that was really, that was really fun.

• 32:19Griffin Newman?

  And we remind you all that every vote matters, but going into that, Bong felt like, well, he'll probably steamroll, you know?

• 32:25David Sims?

  Bong certainly felt like a big one. Again, those legacy guys like PJ or, or I want, I rewatched another hot take. I rewatched those Lords of the Rings because I do it every Christmas with my wife.

• 32:36Griffin Newman?

  Your holiday, Middle Earth, yeah.

• 32:37David Sims?

  You gotta do that Peter Jackson series sometime.

• 32:40Griffin Newman?

  I agree, my friend.

• 32:41David Sims?

  I know we keep saying like, oh, could he make another movie? I just, you know?

• 32:45Speaker 03

  I also rewatched all three.

• 32:49David Sims?

  The fucking Ents, man. They're talking ass trees.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Ents rule.

• 32:53David Sims?

  They are pretty good.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:54David Sims?

  They're.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  I like how the one guy's on fire and then he's like.

• 32:56David Sims?

  Then he's, oh.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  One of the best moments. He takes a little bath. It's just so funny that Saruman is like, I've thought of everything, except maybe that if I cut down some trees, the trees will march on my tower. Can I say it? Yes. I think Saruman is funny. I know he's not woke. Oh, you, but he pushes boundaries? I just, I, have you seen his like Kill Tony set? He was really good. He came out with like the floating orb. Uh huh. Keep going with this bit. It had an eye in it and then it turned into like a dick. Um, 2023 was our Park Chan Wook series.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that is, oh my God.

• 33:33Griffin Newman?

  Two and a half years ago. Yeah. And we did him in the summer too. So it was, uh, yeah, yeah. It's been a little while, but I, I thought that was Been a little while. A great series, a rewarding series.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Really, really great series. I, I really enjoyed going through his filmography, uh, you know, along with the podcast. Cause I'd only seen like old boy and the handmaiden.

• 33:53Griffin Newman?

  This is also, knock on wood, a guy who is in the prime of his career, the prime of his life. What is most exciting for me is now this moment where for the first time, we get to do a follow-up new release, Park Chan Wook, something we will hopefully get to do many, many more times over the next couple of years. Certainly seems like the guy's working. Uh, and this movie, I think fucking rules. Marie, Ben and I went to a screening about two months ago. And then I went a second time, uh, over the weekend, right before recording to refresh myself on it. Cause it's a naughty film and, uh, I know you just saw it again, Marie as well.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I went last night.

• 34:29Griffin Newman?

  It jumped way up for me. The first time watching it, I, like I do with a lot of park movies. I spend the first half at least going, where is this going? I'm not, not enjoying this, but I'm struggling to like prioritize the threads and understand what this is all building towards. And then it gets to the end and I'm like, holy fucking shit. I see it all now. And then watching it the second time, knowing everything from the beginning, I just thought this thing is like a fucking, uh, it's a knockout. It's a knockout in my opinion. I think Handmaid will probably forever be my favorite film of his. But I think this is quite possibly my number two now, and it's in serious contention for my number one on the year. And I, I, I think it's like a masterpiece. What was your second viewing like, Marie?

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Uh, I too, you know, uh, enjoyed it more on rewatch because I was less concerned with like, I guess the structure of it and wondering how like. Okay, he killed this person. Now I'm waiting like, how or how is that aspect of the film going to pace itself out?

• 35:32Griffin Newman?

  It does some interesting wrong footing, too, that the first time can throw you a little off balance.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  And I think that he has, there is like, he has a sense of humor. But there, I think some of his films deal with more like shocking or upsetting things in them. And so sometimes what I think, I didn't know this movie was going to be as goofy.

• 36:00Griffin Newman?

  I'm a cyborg, but that's okay.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  It was.

• 36:03Griffin Newman?

  I think is his closest thing to an out and out comedy and does seem to be the film that Americans have seen the least of his oof. And I would say after that, this is like his second most overtly funny movie. It's like an insane tonal juggling act movie where he's constantly keeping three different balls in the air simultaneously and switching which tones he's mashing out.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  And you know, what's, what's interesting is like the first, the first viewing, I wasn't expecting it to be as silly as it was. And then I think I kind of was stuck on that. The second time, while I do think I laughed more than anyone else in my audience, like I was surprised that the other people watching the movie with me weren't connecting with the comedy as much. But I actually was a lot sadder this viewing because I thought about what is like, what was lost by these men not having solidarity with one another?

• 37:04Speaker 02

  And how not having solidarity with your like, your peers is what has led us to the world that we live in.

• 37:14Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think like at almost all moments, this film is simultaneously operating as like. A, a social statement tragedy, a like farcical comedy and like a screw turning thriller, which is insane. And it's not even doing like tone management, switching off between those. It is like within each scene, you're choosing which one you're almost prioritizing in, in your read. I also felt like I saw it with like a sold out Saturday night crowd, which was just very exciting to see this movie doing well at the screening I was at. I saw it at the, the Alamo downtown Brooklyn. But you know, I felt like Neon has had this crazy year where it now

• 37:58Griffin Newman?

  looks quite possible, if not probable, that they're going to get all five best foreign film nominations.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  I wouldn't be surprised if this one missed.

• 38:07Griffin Newman?

  This is, I was gonna say, this feels like the least secure of them. And also people now think that at least two or three of those will probably get into best picture as well.

• 38:16David Sims?

  I think they're gonna get three best picture nominations.

• 38:19Griffin Newman?

  Sentimental value.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Secret agent.

• 38:21Griffin Newman?

  It was just an accident, secret agent.

• 38:22David Sims?

  That's right.

• 38:23Griffin Newman?

  And then people are now assuming Serat is in fourth place and no other choices in fifth place for international film.

• 38:29David Sims?

  Yeah, it's funny. Serat is, uh, is clicking more. I would assume that may, yeah, maybe one of those misses for like Sound of Falling or there's, you know, there's some sort of like prestigious voice of Henry Shabb.

• 38:42Griffin Newman?

  The President's Cake is a movie I liked a lot. Yeah.

• 38:44David Sims?

  Oh, The President's Cake?

• 38:45Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen it?

• 38:46David Sims?

  No.

• 38:46Griffin Newman?

  Tasty.

• 38:47David Sims?

  I know it's from Iraq.

• 38:48Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 38:48David Sims?

  I don't know anything else about it.

• 38:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:50David Sims?

  It's not about the orange buffoon, is it?

• 38:52Griffin Newman?

  It is not.

• 38:52David Sims?

  Okay. It's about Saddam Hussein. What?

• 38:56Griffin Newman?

  The beret wearing buffoon. Um, no, it's quite a good film. I liked a lot. Highly encourage people to check it out.

• 39:02David Sims?

  When did you check that one out?

• 39:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, went to a screening a month or two ago.

• 39:06David Sims?

  Wow.

• 39:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Did you get the Neon screeners?

• 39:08David Sims?

  Yeah, I get it every year. I get their beloved box.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, David Ehrlich will not let me borrow the Serat screener.

• 39:14David Sims?

  Why?

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Because.

• 39:16David Sims?

  Cranking it to surround.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  No, because he's like, you're not allowed to watch that at home.

• 39:22David Sims?

  Why? What? Cause it's like, the thing about Serat, which is another.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  You have to be in a full theater and the, the noise needs to be really loud. I'm like, bro.

• 39:31David Sims?

  Gatekeeper.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Stop it.

• 39:35David Sims?

  Oh, okay. But so he's saying like, is the music? I mean, I guess so. Cause like the people are like, wow, Serat's really intense and gnarly. And I watched it and I'm like, well, yeah, intense and gnarly things happen in Serat, but that's a very like, sort of absurd.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  I don't think it's like, I don't think it's like Avatar where like, if I watch it on my TV.

• 39:56David Sims?

  You can watch it however you like.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 39:58David Sims?

  I certainly do not agree with it.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 39:59David Sims?

  If you want my Neon box.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Thank, that was kind of the, yes, the, I just want to watch Serat.

• 40:03Griffin Newman?

  The point I'm trying to make here.

• 40:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:06Griffin Newman?

  When this film was announced, I feel like fairly early in 2025, this is happening. Neon is partnered, right?

• 40:13David Sims?

  And we will talk about how, we can briefly talk about how, you know, this is a, a part-time work project that has long gestated. And he would keep saying like, that's one of my future things. I want to do that.

• 40:23Griffin Newman?

  It has been 15 years of him saying, this is my potential masterpiece. Like not Babe Ruth calling a shot, but he's just like, I have located this book that to me feels like the vehicle for me to make my grand statement about everything that animates me.

• 40:39David Sims?

  He has called it a lifetime project. He's said it could be his masterpiece.

• 40:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:43David Sims?

  I mean, yeah. So yes, long, long gestating.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  So it was like announced, this is finally fucking happening. Neon is on board. It's going to get a significant American distribution, presumably because they're co-financing and not buying it after the fact. And it's going to play festivals this year. And we were just like, holy shit, this fucking thing is happening.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Well, according to Wikipedia, the poor man's J J Burch, this was supposed to be in English.

• 41:10Griffin Newman?

  We'll get into all of that.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:11Griffin Newman?

  But that was part of it.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 41:12Griffin Newman?

  The part of the announcement was it's happening and he's decided to make it a Korean film.

• 41:17David Sims?

  Obviously this film is based on a Donald Westlake novel called The Axe, which is a American.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  You say obviously, and I did not know that until last night.

• 41:27Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 41:28David Sims?

  Well, I know because I've read many a dossier by J.J. Burchard, dossier maker.

• 41:32Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the rich man's Wikipedia?

• 41:35David Sims?

  When we did the Park Chan Wook series in which he talked about this as a potential. There's the book and you may not also know that, of course, that book had prior.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  By Costa Gravas.

• 41:44David Sims?

  Twenty years ago. As Le Couper.

• 41:48Griffin Newman?

  Which is French for.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  The Axe.

• 41:50Griffin Newman?

  The Axe.

• 41:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 41:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 41:51David Sims?

  Couperie.

• 41:53Griffin Newman?

  And Costa Gravas' widow and one of his sons is are credited as producers on this movie because they still held rights. All three are different. I've not been able to track down the French movie. There seems to be no way to watch this film, even with VPNs. I could not figure out a way to watch it anywhere. It has only ever been released in an out of print Blu-ray Costa Gravas, volume two box set.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  They don't got this shit on Cartaga?

• 42:18Griffin Newman?

  No, it's like insane. I couldn't find it anywhere. If anyone has a link, please let me know. But yes, this has been a long in the works thing. It's announced Neon's on board. It's happening. It's going to come out in 2025. Then it plays Venice. I feel like got a really strong initial burst of excitement.

• 42:35David Sims?

  It got a very, I feel, very strong reputation.

• 42:38Griffin Newman?

  Even going into the festival, there was this feeling of like Park is kind of one of those filmmakers where you could see it just being his moment. Here is a parasite kind of crossover moment. Here's a guy who's had films that have like connected here in the States before. And is this the year that an increasingly international academy puts their arms around him and starts taking him seriously as a major filmmaker? And then it like, didn't win any of the major awards of Venice. And then it has kind of felt like this movie was on ice between the beginning of September and its release at the very end of December. And from the moment I saw it, I was like, on its face, this feels like the most commercial and accessible of the movies Neon has.

• 43:19David Sims?

  And look, it got three indie spirit. Oh, no, no Gotham not.

• 43:23Griffin Newman?

  It got two Golden Globes for picture and actor.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did pretty. I thought that was.

• 43:26Griffin Newman?

  Nominations.

• 43:27David Sims?

  But it did. Gotham, so because it's a comedy.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Cause it's a comedy.

• 43:30David Sims?

  Right, right. So there you go.

• 43:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I just, I just think it's like.

• 43:35David Sims?

  Okay, so I'm just gonna push back a little bit.

• 43:36Griffin Newman?

  Weekend.

• 43:37David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, I think this movie is very long. It takes kind of a, it's got like such a killer premise, literally.

• 43:46Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:47David Sims?

  But it takes a long time to actually start executing, literally.

• 43:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:51David Sims?

  On that premise. And it's got the tonal switching and all that. That I actually think audiences can handle. And other Korean movies have broken through that also have that kind of.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  I've seen people compare this to Parasite in terms of subject matter and tone.

• 44:07David Sims?

  A little simplistic.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  I agree, but I do, you know.

• 44:10Griffin Newman?

  They are filmmakers who are very closely tied or close friends have come up together. There is a part of me that imagines, uh, knowing that this is a book he wanted to adapt for so long, that he sees Bong making Parasite and he's like, is it finally time for me to make this? You know, there are similarities in the material. Did it help motivate him to be like, fuck, I gotta prioritize this. But they feel like very different films dealing with similar themes.

• 44:37David Sims?

  Yeah, no, sure. Um, but I've had it multiple people text me saying like, I liked it. Had a little, had a little bit of a hard time cracking into it, like whatever, like, you know, I've definitely gotten some vibes from people of like, yeah. And that is not quite how I felt. I had a great time watching it. I was very engaged. I thought it was funny. It hasn't, it didn't quite stick with me. Where do I have it on my list? You know, I have it in kind of like the twenties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like twenties, teens, kind of close to like Serat.

• 45:12David Sims?

  It is.

• 45:12Griffin Newman?

  My question truly is like, is it two or number?

• 45:15David Sims?

  Four star movie to me.

• 45:17Griffin Newman?

  One.

• 45:17David Sims?

  Yeah, no, you're, you have it right at the top there.

• 45:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:21David Sims?

  And I was more just like.

• 45:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, my first watch, I had it like five or six and now it's moved up to like three, two, one.

• 45:27David Sims?

  I was recently at the Criterion Office. You were too, but.

• 45:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's say we.

• 45:31David Sims?

  Well, no, cause you were a poco late.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  What are we talking?

• 45:36David Sims?

  Well, I had a meeting at Criterion with Griffin.

• 45:38Griffin Newman?

  We had a meeting at Criterion and you were waiting for me. That's a better way.

• 45:42David Sims?

  Yeah, well, you were 20 minutes late. Um, but.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  You were 20 minutes late to your Criterion meeting?

• 45:46Griffin Newman?

  It was 15. It was 15.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  You were 15. Wow.

• 45:50Griffin Newman?

  A lot of things were going on. It was in a chaotic week.

• 45:53David Sims?

  And as I walk into the lobby of their building, like not even the offices, Lee Byung-hung is just there, like checking in at the desk, like signing, you know, like, like you have to in a Manhattan office building, just like on your name here and a signature.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  I love how multiple times in the movie, people are like, you know, you're really good looking.

• 46:12David Sims?

  He is just a shiny motherfucker. You're just like, whoa, like, you know, he's such a movie star.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Considering the character you're playing, how good looking you are.

• 46:21Griffin Newman?

  Kind of frames it as like, is it a little past tense? The guy has aged unbelievably. When we did our.

• 46:28David Sims?

  Obviously, he, he's all the way back in joint security or he's worked with.

• 46:31Griffin Newman?

  When we did that episode, it boggled my fucking mind where I was like, this guy's 15 years older than I think he is. You know, like, how could he have been in this movie this early? And he's just starting to show age in a kind of Paul Rudd way where he still looks great, but you're like, the guy no longer looks 35 forever.

• 46:50David Sims?

  He's, he's a, right.

• 46:51Griffin Newman?

  And I.

• 46:52David Sims?

  He's a mid 50s guy.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  He's 55.

• 46:54David Sims?

  Exactly. Man.

• 46:55Griffin Newman?

  I think the movie weaponizes it so perfectly and such an incredible choice, I think it makes is that they give him like a weirdly, just a little bit to a natural dye job, that it's not that they dye out his grays. It's that he's got that aging guy thing where he starts putting colors in that would never be in hair.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. His hair is like, there's some times when the sun shines on his hair. It's a little light brown. Yeah.

• 47:17David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 47:18Griffin Newman?

  And, and like this guy being like, do I have a mustache or not? Like you can start to feel the crisis of him being like, are my looks gone in five years? Are these the last years of me being able to use that as a tool in my life?

• 47:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 47:31Griffin Newman?

  But he is an astonishingly handsome man.

• 47:33David Sims?

  And I think it's a really good performance.

• 47:35Griffin Newman?

  I think it's tremendous performance.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  He's got so many good facial reactions during the sequence when he is like, you know, in the stalking out the

• 47:49Speaker 02

  gummo, bummo, goo bummo.

• 47:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  The first guy he kills and his wife.

• 47:54Griffin Newman?

  The record collector.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:55Griffin Newman?

  The analog man.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  All of the, the snakes and stuff. And, you know, it's just so, he's funny.

• 48:01David Sims?

  It's that thing I associate with a lot of Korean cinema, especially where like, you know, you see these actors in these movies that cross over. And you're like, God, this is such an incredible, like. This guy's like, I, you know, I see this guy, I've seen this guy in like five movies in my life, but he's always so dramatic and interesting.

• 48:16Griffin Newman?

  Of course, he was Storm Shadow.

• 48:18David Sims?

  He was, and Lievion.

• 48:19Griffin Newman?

  And G.I. Joe, Rise of Cobra, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a performance that swept the nation.

• 48:25David Sims?

  And he's in Terminator: Genesis.

• 48:28Griffin Newman?

  He's the T-1000. And was he also in? No.

• 48:33Griffin Newman?

  He was not Magnificent Seven?

• 48:34David Sims?

  He is.

• 48:35Griffin Newman?

  He is, okay. He was one of the seven.

• 48:36David Sims?

  Yep.

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:37David Sims?

  You know, yes.

• 48:38Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen that.

• 48:38David Sims?

  I know. But then you like, look at their, and it's like, yeah, but also they do like, a bunch of like, crazy comedies. And like, you know, in their native country, they're doing all this stuff that would never translate.

• 48:47Griffin Newman?

  He's a bit of a Mads Mikkelsen type, where like, he has been in many major American studio films, basically always hired to do the exact same thing. And then you're like, oh, in his home country, he does everything. In his home country, he is like, the most versatile, powerful movie star. And we always kind of hire him to be a kind of stealthy. Is he also in Red 2?

• 49:08David Sims?

  Let's see. Yes.

• 49:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 49:10David Sims?

  Red 2.

• 49:10Griffin Newman?

  So he had like, five big-

• 49:12David Sims?

  He did a bunch of action movies in Hollywood.

• 49:14Griffin Newman?

  But it was always kind of being icy intense action guy.

• 49:18David Sims?

  Definitely often, I feel like not being handed even much dialogue. Just like, right, because that's what Storm Shadow is just like.

• 49:23Griffin Newman?

  Slick, cool, deadly presence.

• 49:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 49:26Griffin Newman?

  Supporting character.

• 49:28David Sims?

  But yeah, I feel like he's such a comedic talent. And this spotlights that in all kinds of fun ways.

• 49:36Griffin Newman?

  Even just the way he plays his tooth problem in this movie, a thing I relate to deeply, as someone who spent a year of his life tangled in fucking dental nightmares. And he plays it almost in like, a pantomimey way. They like, establish this visual language of him tapping the side of his mouth to try to relieve the pain at like, his back jaw. That feels like how you would illustrate in a pamphlet at a dentist's office, what tooth pain looks like.

• 50:06Griffin Newman?

  But it makes it so easy then to have any scene get heightened by him starting to tap the jaw and be like, oh, right. And that's also part of it. This can be a recurring visual.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Speaking of tapping.

• 50:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  They do the tapping as a psychological exercise in the beginning of the movie.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Have you done that in therapy?

• 50:24Griffin Newman?

  I've done versions of that. Yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Marie and I share a therapist. We're very close.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  So I sometimes will do that.

• 50:32Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I don't do the head one.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Oh, I do the head one.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

  Which they do in this movie. There's a forehead tapping. That's a centering.

• 50:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  That you see this movie has, shows both alcoholic recovery groups and also unemployment recovery groups.

• 50:46David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 50:46Griffin Newman?

  That are so twinned and almost overlapping and intertwined. But yes, there's a forehead tapping. That's a centering. And then there's a jaw tapping. That's a sort of like redistribution of focus and pain. I don't know how that's showing up on mic, Ben. I apologize. Now that we're all tapping.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

• 51:05Griffin Newman?

  But I just, I love anytime a movie can do that where it's just like, oh, there's now this really clean sort of physical gesture that can just as shorthand in a scene add another layer.

• 51:17David Sims?

  So let's talk about them.

• 51:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Donald Westlake publishes The Axe in 1997.

• 51:22David Sims?

  Yes. Westlake, you know, gigantic like crime.

• 51:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:27David Sims?

  Writer has like hundreds of books. He's the Richard Stark guy? Is that? Yeah.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which is Spencer.

• 51:35David Sims?

  Dispense the Parker series.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry. Not Spencer Parker. Yes.

• 51:39David Sims?

  But you know, he wrote a bunch of other, you know, heroes and he's, I'm not a crime fiction guy. It's always such a deep world, but I know the name, obviously. So The Axe comes out in 1997. Guy at a paper company is laid off, looks for employment for 18 months and starts to hunt down the people who could take the job that he thinks should be his.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Donald Westlake wrote Point Blank.

• 52:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes. Right. Cause that's also part of the Parker series.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  I'm.

• 52:08Griffin Newman?

  The Parker books have been adapted so many times, but half the times they're adapted as Parker books and half the times they're spun out to be different things. So like, what they're the Play Dirty, the recent Shane Black Amazon movie, which I. Regrettably, still haven't watched is a Parker adaptation. But then there was a Taylor Hackford, Jennifer Lopez, fucking, uh, Statham Parker.

• 52:32David Sims?

  Yeah, called Parker.

• 52:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. Anyway.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  He wrote the screenplay for The Grifters, but did not write a book. Like, cause I think that's a original. No, it's a Jim Thompson book that he adapted.

• 52:44Griffin Newman?

  It's published in 97. It's adapted by Costas Gravis.

• 52:48David Sims?

  Costas Gravis.

• 52:49Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, I apologize. About eight years later, and then Park gets to it like 20 years after that. The decision to keep it in paper.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 52:58Griffin Newman?

  With the passage of time. It is one of those things that like, that just pays off so greatly that you're like, in 1997, there's not as much of an existential threat to paper. And paper is the perfect thing for me because it's not like, oh, this is a technology that's going to be completely replaced.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Well, is that true though? Because like 97 is like the beginning of like the internet and email.

• 53:22David Sims?

  It is, but we're still very far away. I mean, people are reading books and newspapers and all that still.

• 53:28Griffin Newman?

  I just think that like.

• 53:28David Sims?

  There's no iPad yet.

• 53:30Griffin Newman?

  Paper will never not exist.

• 53:32David Sims?

  Yeah, we do.

• 53:32Griffin Newman?

  I do feel like it will always exist, but it's the perfect industry because you're like, it's only going to shrink. It will never shrink to zero. It's never going to be nothing, but it's clearly on the downturn.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  Have you guys thought about like what your like AI proof job would be?

• 53:51David Sims?

  Wait, what does that mean? Like I'm looking at AI copy and.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  No, like what? No, like what job? Because.

• 53:58David Sims?

  Oh, oh, AI proof.

• 54:00Griffin Newman?

  My, my answer.

• 54:01David Sims?

  Like I'm a plumber and no AI can fucking figure that out.

• 54:03Griffin Newman?

  My answer is just keeping this podcast sloppy and unstructured enough that AI can't do it.

• 54:10David Sims?

  Can't do it. Can't get this sloppy.

• 54:12Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'll see some of these other AI podcasts and they're good. And people try to, they try to do the AI blank check and they're like, these guys are so unprofessional. There's no way to replicate this.

• 54:21David Sims?

  You mean, you'll see like an AI replica of a podcast?

• 54:24Griffin Newman?

  People have done AI Joe Rogan with dead people and it's like 99.9%.

• 54:30David Sims?

  Well, cause isn't that because Joe Rogan is most just going like, yeah.

• 54:33Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 54:33David Sims?

  Like he's not really.

• 54:35Griffin Newman?

  But here's what like AI can't figure out. Which episode will talk about Becker for 20 minutes?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 54:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to make this show AI proof in that way.

• 54:45David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 54:46Griffin Newman?

  Who thought we talk about the floor in the belly of the Stranger Things creature?

• 54:49David Sims?

  Why does it have it? It should be like a stomach.

• 54:52Griffin Newman?

  It's a strange thing.

• 54:54David Sims?

  With like a lake of acid.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  But I think they're like trying to switch things up on you.

• 54:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  In a strange way.

• 55:00Griffin Newman?

  That would be pretty normal if it was a stomach lake of acid. Even circling back to the belly. That's another thing that AI wouldn't do. AI would be like clearly put that tangent to bed. You're actually talking about the movie in question now. Uh, no, if, uh, if AI.

• 55:17David Sims?

  I might be, I might like AI actually. We should bring in it's gonna shut him up.

• 55:20Griffin Newman?

  Jesus Christ. Suddenly this show is hosted by AI and David's happy because it has a quote ready to go.

• 55:26David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 55:27Griffin Newman?

  It starts at nine minutes.

• 55:30David Sims?

  It right, it obeys the clock. No, I would never, I decry AI.

• 55:35Griffin Newman?

  Look, it's heightened and it's more extreme, but watching Blue Moon, I did have a couple of moments where I was like, it's kind of like the Griffin and David dynamic, the working relationship with Lorenz and Hart.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 55:46David Sims?

  Oh, so you're interesting. Are you?

• 55:49Griffin Newman?

  I'm the, I'm the little guy. What do you think?

• 55:52David Sims?

  You, you said Lorenz and Hart, but that's.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  No, it's Lorenz.

• 55:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  Rogers and Hart.

• 55:57Griffin Newman?

  Lorenz and Rogers.

• 55:58David Sims?

  I am, I, I am Richard Rogers, I suppose, in that, in that scenario. In that you're coming up and you're like, big idea. Okay, what if we, and I'm like, mm hmm, mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, maybe we could also not do that.

• 56:10Griffin Newman?

  This is my interest got very empathetically is like.

• 56:12David Sims?

  Fucking incredible.

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  Will you actually commit to a schedule?

• 56:15Speaker 02

  I would say.

• 56:16Griffin Newman?

  I was like, yeah, but. Got some blackjack.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  You know what, Griffin? I will. I will say you're, you're, you're not as, you're not as toxic.

• 56:24Griffin Newman?

  I said it's a more extreme version. I think that character is both more toxic and less functional than I am.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Like an alcohol problem.

• 56:31Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I don't.

• 56:33David Sims?

  Yeah, no, and you don't like, you're not like relentlessly talking shit to anyone who listened.

• 56:38Griffin Newman?

  No, I also got like five inches on Lorenz Hart.

• 56:41David Sims?

  You do?

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:42David Sims?

  If nobody else.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Cause he was like under, he was under five feet.

• 56:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:46David Sims?

  Was he really?

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like he was like medically

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  The movie rules.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Really short. Like he wasn't just normal.

• 56:52David Sims?

  He was around five foot tall, which is a

• 56:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:54David Sims?

  Tavito size.

• 56:55Griffin Newman?

  I could, I could fucking dunk on that guy.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could.

• 56:58Griffin Newman?

  Especially because in the movie makes this very clear. He had this weird medical condition where he couldn't move in place. He could only take steps if he's being filmed from the shoulders up.

• 57:09David Sims?

  Well, people are like, I can't believe they cast Hawk. He's too tall for it. I'm like, well, there's not a lot of people who are that short. Like, I guess, are we getting Tavito?

• 57:18Griffin Newman?

  Lil Kim.

• 57:19David Sims?

  I mean, it's funny to imagine, but you can't put Tavito at a bar because then I'm just thinking of It's Always Sunny.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so true.

• 57:25David Sims?

  And why does the Mind Flayer's stomach look like a floor? Why isn't it? You know what I mean?

• 57:30Griffin Newman?

  Ben, have you seen Blue Moon? No. So it's

• 57:32David Sims?

  Ben, I think you'd like it.

• 57:33Griffin Newman?

  You'd love it.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  I would be really I would be really interested in Nellie's take on it because it's very much about show people. And the, it takes place at the after party for the opening night of Oklahoma.

• 57:47Griffin Newman?

  Is Ben Hammerstein or is he? No, Ben is Bobby Canavale.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 57:52David Sims?

  So who's Hammerstein? Hammerstein is whoever I kick your ass on and replace you with someone good. Who we got?

• 57:57Griffin Newman?

  Hammerstein's the Mets podcast. Good luck with that.

• 58:01David Sims?

  God, I don't, I don't think you've listened to my Mets podcast, but not a highly structured hour, I would say.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  And I am

• 58:06David Sims?

  I would not, I would not call that my Oklahoma.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  And I'm Margaret Qualley because I'm the woman.

• 58:13David Sims?

  Yeah, you're, you're a woman.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  I am a woman.

• 58:15David Sims?

  When you show up and one's like, how's woman?

• 58:17Griffin Newman?

  How is woman?

• 58:17David Sims?

  Who is woman?

• 58:18Griffin Newman?

  Who is woman?

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Just before we move on from this.

• 58:22David Sims?

  From the movie?

• 58:23Speaker 02

  No, from, from what would your AI job be? Because I actually spent a lot of time

• 58:27David Sims?

  Job.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  My AI proof job. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and I would get into mortuary services.

• 58:35Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 58:35Speaker 02

  I actually thought about this during COVID.

• 58:37Griffin Newman?

  Like embalming or just like helping organize the funeral as an event?

• 58:42Speaker 02

  All of it.

• 58:42David Sims?

  So you're gonna have a big house.

• 58:44Griffin Newman?

  You'd be pumping like the green juice into the bodies and shit.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  There will, I would do the makeup.

• 58:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  But like there are, there are always dead people. So this to me feels like that is a job that there will always be room for. You know, with

• 58:56David Sims?

  I hear you. I mean, but what if it's just a robot that does it?

• 58:59Griffin Newman?

  You say that-

• 58:59Speaker 02

  A robot won't, because they're too, they're, it's too-

• 59:02David Sims?

  This is what they, they always say, oh, a robot won't do it. Well, maybe it will.

• 59:05Griffin Newman?

  Marie, you say there'll always be death, but I'm friends with a certain tech billionaire who keeps injecting young penis blood into his face and has promised me that he will never die.

• 59:14David Sims?

  And he has so many stats about how many erections he gets. And he has all of them to show you.

• 59:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm good friends with that guy.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  Oh my God, this episode is already-

• 59:23David Sims?

  It's just so funny that you look at pictures of him before he decided to cheat death and it's like, oh, it's a regular person. Then he looks like Boo from Super Mario, but he's just the whitest ghost you've ever seen.

• 59:34Griffin Newman?

  Did you see that clip of he did some interview recently and the interviewer goes, true or false? You will die someday. And he goes, fall.

• 59:43David Sims?

  How do you feel about it?

• 59:44Griffin Newman?

  There's that hesitation of how slowly he tries to be like, no, but he can't say it confidently.

• 59:49David Sims?

  For those who may not know who the fuck you're talking about.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  He's my good friend.

• 59:53David Sims?

  Me included. Who, who is this?

• 59:54Speaker 02

  His name's Brian Johnson.

• 59:56Griffin Newman?

  He's some fucking tech monster.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  He's a guy, I don't know what, I don't think he's even affiliated with any sort of like noteworthy website.

• 1:00:04Griffin Newman?

  He started some company that sold for a billion dollars that we've never heard of.

• 1:00:07David Sims?

  So Ben, here's a guy, looks like a normal sort of tech guy to you, right?

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Created like the semicolon on the keyboard or whatever.

• 1:00:13David Sims?

  Okay, well, what if I told you he's done so much cheating death work and spinning his blood and whatever, that now he looks like this hottie?

• 1:00:20Griffin Newman?

  Oh God.

• 1:00:20David Sims?

  Wow, wow, wow, wow.

• 1:00:22Griffin Newman?

  He's like, I'm trying to be the first person to not die and not age. And one of his things is he's got like a teen son or like a 20 something son and he does like daily blood transfusions of the young blood. And he's like, this is one of the ways.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Griffin Newman?

  Like he's just got all these weird treatments he does and he just like the fucking poison tech bro brain people will be like, look at how, can you believe this guy is 55? And I'm like, he doesn't look 25.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  So he-

• 1:00:49Griffin Newman?

  Which is what you're arguing.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  He's not even-

• 1:00:51Griffin Newman?

  He just looks like a different species now.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  So this is what's fucking crazy. He's not even 50. He's 48.

• 1:00:58Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  And he-

• 1:00:59David Sims?

  You know what, he's like fucking guy, person Prometheus.

• 1:01:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Lee Hong Kong looks younger-

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Than this fucking dude.

• 1:01:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And that guy's murdering people.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:01:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary, Capturing Bigfoot.

• 1:01:24David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:24Griffin Newman?

  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?

• 1:01:35David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:01:36Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 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.

• 1:01:59David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows, of 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.

• 1:02:11Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:02:19David Sims?

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

• 1:02:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:02:23David 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.

• 1:02:30Griffin 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.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:02:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:02:47David 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.

• 1:03:04Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:03:20Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:03:20David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:03:21Griffin 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.

• 1:03:42David 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.

• 1:04:01Griffin 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.

• 1:04:17David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Eschery and a spatial dolby Atmos sound 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/listen to Dracula.

• 1:04:52Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:04:52David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:04:53Griffin Newman?

  People cut the cord. Means the death of the repeat, the rerun. But where do repeats still exist? In your closet.

• 1:05:02David Sims?

  Ah, the sweater that goes with everything, Griffin. The tea you somehow always reach for first?

• 1:05:07Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's, we know the feeling.

• 1:05:09David Sims?

  Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. That's what Quince does best.

• 1:05:12Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:05:13David Sims?

  This is true for me. I will say I go to Quince. I buy a thing like a polo shirt, a sweater, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I like that. Guess I'll get a bunch more because now that's what I'm gonna put on.

• 1:05:23Griffin Newman?

  Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day.

• 1:05:38David Sims?

  Love it. They got those 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Those start at just $60.

• 1:05:42Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:05:43David Sims?

  Giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without that luxury price tag. And look, it's starting to get chillier. You're gonna need layers, right? How about you just do Quince for every layer, huh?

• 1:05:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:05:58Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:05:59David Sims?

  What?

• 1:05:59Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:06:01David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:06:02Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:06:04David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:06:05Griffin Newman?

  Yep, that's me. David, I like these. They're just clean. They're comfortable. They got the right amount of pockets.

• 1:06:11David Sims?

  Wow. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know. It was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:06:39Griffin Newman?

  No other choice.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  No other choice.

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  So it's a, yeah, so Park Chan Wook, the great Korean director Park Chan Wook, as far back as 2009, says, I want to remake the act. I want to, or I want to, you know, adapt the novel.

• 1:06:52Griffin Newman?

  The book feels much more kind of like capital S satire. And it's more kind of like American corporate rat race thinking. And also, as you called out, Marie, in the very setup, it's like this guy goes through 18 months of unemployment and is just like, fuck, nothing's working. I guess I go to murder. And it feels a little bit like a sort of Doctor Strangelove-esque heightening of an anxiety, if that makes sense, versus this movie that is sort of about how short a walk it is for someone to start justifying those things.

• 1:07:26David Sims?

  I feel like this movie also is probably, you know, is, I mean, it is definitely about the crisis of AI a little bit, like, you know, it's sort of woven in a little, a little thin, you know, like, but the end of the movie, the robots.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:07:39David Sims?

  Like, I certainly was thinking about, and the crisis of whatever, I'm not, I cannot speak to Korea's current economic situation, but knowing the economic situation of most countries, I'm guessing it's tenuous. And that there's like, you know, sort of employment crises.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  There's also like a decline in unions and employee protections. And this sort of, this, this attitude, which.

• 1:08:02David Sims?

  Korea's unemployment is like record high.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  That is very much, I feel like it's an American thing of the sort of like every man for himself.

• 1:08:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Sort of ethos.

• 1:08:11David Sims?

  Capitalism.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Which is now spreading outside of America to other countries that used to be more community based.

• 1:08:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think it's about AI, but I think the ending certainly hammers at home. I, I think the larger thing it's about, which all these things are tendrils of, is this sort of like, point of no return, too far down the road, path we have put ourselves on to like, self inflicted redundancy.

• 1:08:38David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:08:38Griffin Newman?

  Sure. And, and like being like, have we, are we outmoding ourselves? Are we making ourselves obsolescent as a species? And also I think this extension of, he, for a long time, thought he wanted this to be his like big American debut. I think, cause he was like, this is a book about America and specifically like the American idea of capitalism and corporate culture and endless growth and all these sorts of things. He hires Don McKellar, who is Canadian, but is an English speaker, to write it for him. And then he gets offered Stoker. And Stoker is suddenly served on a plate. Here's a Hollywood movie. Here's big stars attached. He goes and does that. And then he goes through years of like, well, should I do this? Should I do that?

• 1:09:23Griffin Newman?

  And he keeps it on the kind of back burner. He and McKellar end up doing the, the sympathizer together. There was a story that I, I feel like, uh, got a lot of traction, whatever months ago, that both of them were like kicked out of the W G. And if you read just the headline, the sympathizer was the HBO show that Robert Dine Jr. Was on that kind of came and went despite getting some Emmy nominations. The two of them wrote it together every episode and Park directed the first two, I think. And it was sort of framed as if they had scabbed during the writer's strike. When in fact, and it speaks to the murkiness of all these things, what they had done was in editing while the strike was happening and production had finished, made certain narrative changes in the edit.

• 1:10:08David Sims?

  Yeah, no, it felt like a little, the WGA's panel ruled that they had not.

• 1:10:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. But the headline about the original accusation was louder than when they were sort of absolved of it, if that makes sense. It was all just sort of like weird corporate like stupid stupidness of like, the way you're defining writing is wrong.

• 1:10:28David Sims?

  It's all about what constitutes, quote, writing services. DGA does not think what they were doing is writing. The WGA does. WJ trial committee recommended a censure. The board decided to expel them. Unsure why. Everyone was a little baffled.

• 1:10:44Griffin Newman?

  An incredibly stupid thing. I just wanted to acknowledge quickly.

• 1:10:47David Sims?

  But I mean, maybe.

• 1:10:48Griffin Newman?

  But as you said, for years, it was always this like, well, does he want to make another Korean film before he makes this big Hollywood film? He wants no other choice to be a Hollywood film. Does he then need stars? Does he then need financing? What scale does he want it to be? And then there was this sudden announcement of like, he's doing it as a Korean film. He's reteaming with the star of his first movie ever, or I should say his breakthrough film.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, not his first.

• 1:11:10Griffin Newman?

  I forgot the two movies that we clumped together. And and it's happening right now, which was just a really fucking exciting announcement. And it does feel like one of these movies where you're like, unlike certain directors' dream projects that they sort of stew on for 20 plus years. And when it ends up coming out, you're like, fuck, is it a little overcooked now? Did they miss the window? You sort of feel like if he had made this any earlier, it wasn't gonna be ready. This movie kind of had to meet the moment, which I think is, as we're saying, that there's this notion of. Did we finally sell other countries on the success of our societal system? On the functionality and the value of-

• 1:11:55David Sims?

  Of capitalism. We're talking about capitalism, baby.

• 1:11:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  Individualism.

• 1:11:59Griffin Newman?

  Rugged individualism. Just in time for like us to start like collapsing.

• 1:12:03David Sims?

  What?

• 1:12:04Griffin Newman?

  And everyone else to look around and be like, why did you fucking trick us into this?

• 1:12:07David Sims?

  We're doing great. Things are good.

• 1:12:09Griffin Newman?

  It's, I think it's more impactful to not have this movie be set in America and have it set in a place where like the movie starts with him being fired because an American company has bought his South Korean company. And the whole thing is like, so like our whole sense of like tradition and civilization, we basically allowed to be transformed by this Western way of thinking that is now crumbling on us as well. Like it's, we've handed everything over to these sort of self-appointed geniuses in like finance and technology. And now we're all just kind of like placing ourselves on a conveyor belt to be chopped up for bits.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  I would like though to, I don't want, maybe complicate or add more like shading to that thesis is I do think that outside of like a nationalistic point of view, I do think there's a lot in the film about like masculinity and the like need to sort of present this image of masculinity that doesn't feel necessarily like American to me. I think it's a universal idea of masculinity that um-

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Yes, I think this movie is very much about a crisis of masculinity and how it relates to being employed, you know, and being the breadwinner and all that.

• 1:13:30Griffin Newman?

  It's the idea of, I think a larger emphasis on a sociological level and a psychological level of your identity is your career. And to a secondary degree, your, your identity is sort of like what you do with the spoils of your career, right?

• 1:13:51Griffin Newman?

  You like, you are what you do and what you make from that funnels into the second aspect of who you want to be, whether it's you define yourself by, look, I'm a provider with a family, with a nice house and a beautiful wife, or like the final guy he has to go to, whose wife leaves him, but is like, but I always wanted a house like this.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  I thought I'd be having barbecue every night.

• 1:14:13Griffin Newman?

  I want a pit like this, you know, he wants to be on Instagram showing all his hobbies.

• 1:14:16David Sims?

  Did that, did you have any notes on?

• 1:14:18Griffin Newman?

  I thought it was interesting. I mean, it speaks to him being a little green, a little novice and a little bit of a.

• 1:14:22David Sims?

  New viewers, new listeners should know, not viewers.

• 1:14:25Griffin Newman?

  He's a barbecue tourist.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  That, that Griffin is apparently a really experienced pit master. I've never actually seen him run a pit.

• 1:14:30Griffin Newman?

  He's buying for optics rather than for function, I would say, which is you get into a, I mean, look, this is, this is the problem of social media, barbecuing, you know?

• 1:14:39David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:39Griffin Newman?

  Is it's like, what's gonna look good?

• 1:14:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:14:42Griffin Newman?

  Versus what's gonna taste good, which I, for me, I just care about. The look on my friends' faces when I serve them my delicious cue.

• 1:14:52Griffin Newman?

  That's the only thing I care about. And it's actually, it's actually the only thing I've ever cared about.

• 1:14:57Speaker 02

  I do, I do.

• 1:14:58David Sims?

  Which just makes sense because you're always serving us barbecue because you consider us good friends.

• 1:15:02Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  And we're always going over.

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  Yeah. I've been to Griffin's house so many times.

• 1:15:07Griffin Newman?

  I love having guests.

• 1:15:08David Sims?

  Zero, zero.

• 1:15:11Griffin Newman?

  Because this is a real slow cook.

• 1:15:14David Sims?

  Yeah, that's why we can't come over.

• 1:15:16Griffin Newman?

  The brisket I'm working on right now, I'm still, it's been a couple of years.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  Also, the apartment is just.

• 1:15:21David Sims?

  Five degrees.

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  It's just a cloud of smoke.

• 1:15:23Griffin Newman?

  It's really hard to even see in there.

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  I will say that this, like, South Koreans, they have a barbecue culture of their own, which feels distinct from the American barbecue tradition, which Griffin is an expert in.

• 1:15:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes. No, I, I love Korean barbecue, but I would not profess to, to understanding. I, I'm just an enjoyer. In that case, I'm, I'm just a consumer. I, I agree with you. And I think it's sort of this feeling of like, how, how do you define the value of a man in a society that basically has evolved past the core skills of what a man should be doing, you know, like this, the kind of, this is the general like masculinity in crisis stuff of like, men feel like they're pointless now.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, and the whole, even the fucking title, No Other Choice, which I like, I made this list of things that I liked in every movie that I saw, which I think is.

• 1:16:17David Sims?

  I read it and I thought it was great.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  Thanks, David. I think it's a really fun exercise and more people should do it. But I love how many different times char- different characters utter that they had no other choice in a situation. I think, and I could be wrong here, I think everyone who says it is a man.

• 1:16:36David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  There is a difference in like flexibility between the way women are presented and men are presented in the film. Whereas like the, the wife in this movie is like, well, here, I'm, this is the situation that we're in and I'm going to adapt to it. And she is very proactive. She gets a job. She change, she is willing to change immediately in order to, you know, help her family and adapt.

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  Tell her what's going on because that is more uncomfortable to him than, you know, having a, yeah, having a proper conversation. He'd rather murder.

• 1:17:11Griffin Newman?

  It is one of my favorite things in this movie and one that the second viewing really unfolded for me. Not falling for its misdirect, right? I feel like roughly the first half of this movie, it's putting you in his headspace of the ultimate stakes here are she will leave him. He's gonna get cocked. She's gonna fuck someone else. The second he doesn't have a good career, she's gonna leave him for someone bad.

• 1:17:38David Sims?

  And the nice house and the, yes.

• 1:17:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which a lot of these movies do operate this way.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  They, she, they introduce like a potential love interest for her.

• 1:17:47Griffin Newman?

  Immediately.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  Immediately.

• 1:17:48Griffin Newman?

  Like he's on the phone with her, telling her that he lost the job. And then the dentist walks over to her on the tennis court and here's this handsome guy standing above her. And you feel like the movie is telling you, uh oh, clock is ticking, like he has to prove his worth. And it ends up to be a complete red herring, right? Like that is never really at risk in the movie. And in fact, the only thing that even potentially puts it at risk is his lack of transparency with her.

• 1:18:12David Sims?

  His behavior, right? Which starts to just look like he's having an affair or whatever, because he's so suspicious. If he had just realized that she's, you know, she's not the volleyball player that she used to be. But she's still a whole person.

• 1:18:26Griffin Newman?

  If we've learned one lesson.

• 1:18:27David Sims?

  If he would just talk to balls about marriage.

• 1:18:30Griffin Newman?

  From the films of 2025, it is, guys, stop taking photos of your wife from behind. Take photos of them from the front.

• 1:18:40David Sims?

  Faces.

• 1:18:41Griffin Newman?

  No one wants to see their back, despite how impressive the spike is. Show me the face.

• 1:18:46David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:18:47Griffin Newman?

  I tried to keep track on the second viewing of every time no other choice is said. And I think I got the complete list in my head. Marie, you were saying right before record, it's not a direct translation.

• 1:18:57David Sims?

  The, the title is sort of transliterated, uh, literally as it cannot be helped. Now, I don't understand the nuances of the Korean language well enough to know if that's just like, whatever, how that sounds literally, I don't know.

• 1:19:11Griffin Newman?

  My analysis, the through line of every time it is said by someone is the lie they are telling themselves. They are convincing themselves it is why they are going through the trouble of saying it out loud. They have to convince themselves that what they're about to do.

• 1:19:27David Sims?

  The, possibly a terrible thing that they're about to do.

• 1:19:30Griffin Newman?

  Is, is in fact.

• 1:19:31David Sims?

  It's, this is the only option.

• 1:19:32Griffin Newman?

  There's no other choice.

• 1:19:33David Sims?

  There's no other choice.

• 1:19:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. In every case, there is many other choices they could make at that moment.

• 1:19:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:19:37Griffin Newman?

  The first time it is said, this movie opens, here's this guy.

• 1:19:40David Sims?

  Mansu.

• 1:19:41Griffin Newman?

  Two kids, two dogs, beautiful house, beautiful wife, works at a paper company.

• 1:19:46David Sims?

  Yep, under my phone.

• 1:19:48Griffin Newman?

  They've been bought out by a larger American company.

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Do you think it would have been an easier sell?

• 1:19:55David Sims?

  Oscar.

• 1:19:56Griffin Newman?

  If they called this movie The Paper?

• 1:19:58David Sims?

  Yeah, they should have called it that. They should have called it that. The Paper Now, Leon Peacock. That's the name of the film.

• 1:20:03Griffin Newman?

  The American bosses want the senior employees.

• 1:20:07David Sims?

  Meredith.

• 1:20:07Griffin Newman?

  To create the list of potential redundancies. Creed, first to go.

• 1:20:12David Sims?

  Creed's gotta go.

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Creepy vibes. Meredith, a drunk.

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:20:15Griffin Newman?

  A partier.

• 1:20:16David Sims?

  Wow, she's crazy.

• 1:20:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Angela.

• 1:20:19David Sims?

  God, she's such a tight ass.

• 1:20:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:23Griffin Newman?

  He has this big moral grandstanding speech.

• 1:20:27Griffin Newman?

  To his underlings. I refuse to do that. That's not the character of this place. It's not the history of this place. I'm gonna go to that American, but these fat American cats and I'm gonna tell them what for and I'm gonna explain to them why they cannot do this and I refuse to do this. He gets half a sentence out before the American guy goes, sorry, there's no other choice, closes the door on him and then he finds out that he is fired. Right? So it's like this big stance he was taking up, I'm not gonna be this kind of guy is irrelevant. He doesn't get the chance to try to prove what he thinks he needs to prove to himself. Then he's out the door. The second time no other choice is said is Fumo, the first guy who ends up dying.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Mr. Analog.

• 1:21:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Who says, why, why can't you get a job in another field? And he says something like, I'm a paper man. There's no other choice. I cannot do anything but work in paper.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Fulfills him.

• 1:21:19Griffin Newman?

  It is my life. It is intertwined with my sense of self so inexplicably. The third time he says it is when he's, we're obviously going deep in a spoiler territory here, about to kill the shoe salesman and he's doing the tapping on his forehead. It's the first time that he's really gonna just unequivocally murder somebody and he's telling himself it's what he has to do. And then I think the fourth time is the guy with the house at the end is talking about stealing a competitor's product and their process in order to survive.

• 1:21:49Speaker 03

  And I think we should just spell out, but why is there no other choice? He's, he's like whittling down the candidates that he has deemed who will, who will be a better suited for the one position.

• 1:22:01David Sims?

  There's one open job.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  No, the job isn't even open. He needs to kill.

• 1:22:08David Sims?

  Yes, he needs to kill everyone ahead of him in terms of like, kind of a job score.

• 1:22:12Griffin Newman?

  And then kill the guy who's currently holding that job.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  No, so it's, it's like, let's say I want. David Sims' job at The Atlantic. So I'm, I can kill David Sims and then I'll be hired, right? Wrong, because I'm going to be competing with thousands of other people for that job.

• 1:22:32Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's also another problem, which is David has signed up for Project Phoenix, an experimental initiative in which his consciousness is being backed up onto a Navi avatar.

• 1:22:43David Sims?

  That's right.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  And if you murder him, a taller David Sims will arrive. It's a potent mix.

• 1:22:52David Sims?

  He says it in the first avatar.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, he doesn't say it in the second one.

• 1:22:55David Sims?

  You said, he says it's the first.

• 1:22:57Griffin Newman?

  I think he says it in the second.

• 1:22:58David Sims?

  I think he repeats it in the second, possibly as a callback, but he says it the first time. I just rewatched Avatar one, because, you know, I like to have a good time and party.

• 1:23:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:09Griffin Newman?

  I'm imagining David with a party hat and a noisemaker watching Avatar one alone.

• 1:23:13David Sims?

  Having a great time over here.

• 1:23:14Griffin Newman?

  His wife comes out, what are you doing?

• 1:23:16David Sims?

  Watching fucking Avatar, having a good time, party animal.

• 1:23:21Griffin Newman?

  And throwing confetti into the air.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  I'm a cool dude.

• 1:23:24Griffin Newman?

  Happy New Year.

• 1:23:26David Sims?

  And it's when Jake is saying to Quaritch, like,

• 1:23:32Griffin Newman?

  Recon.

• 1:23:33David Sims?

  So, you know, this is the situation I've, I've gotten kind of taken in by, you know, you know, and like, and I'm going to rush, and he's like, oh, a marine in an avatar body.

• 1:23:43Griffin Newman?

  That's a potent mix. He does say it in the second one as well. I'm going to figure out when it is. He loses this job and there's this immediate clocking. And this is one of those things that makes it a little bit hard to track the movie on the first go. It introduces like 15 primary characters in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie. The vast majority of whom our main character hasn't actually met yet.

• 1:24:09David Sims?

  And might not really matter for a while.

• 1:24:11Griffin Newman?

  Some of them you don't circle back to until 90 minutes later. So they're front loading so much kind of like landscape information, because this guy basically immediately surveys the, the sort of paper industry landscape in Korea. And there's this feeling of. Like, all these companies are getting bought by larger, older, American companies or Japanese companies. They're being consolidated, they're being folded, they're being merged. Like, the number of jobs is just constantly being cut in half. And all these companies are using technology to also then further eliminate jobs. And so he's like, trying to do the math on basically, how do I get on one of the last lifeboats off the Titanic?

• 1:24:53Griffin Newman?

  It is part of, for me, the like, supreme kind of satirical greatness of this movie. Is that like, all of his machinations are for something that might barely last. What are you laughing at, Murray? Did you just send us something?

• 1:25:09Griffin Newman?

  Murray just sent us a tweet. I'm sorry, a zit. Okay. This is from the Avatar Wikia, which I've been spending a lot of time on. I find it really funny that because of Avatar, the Last Airbender, the domain name is like, James Cameron's AvatarTheWikiya.com. Wrong aliases. Cupcake, lady, baby, sugar, witch. I'm sorry, cupcake, lady, baby, and sugar are all credited to Recom Corage. Witch credited to Nate Tierney.

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  And bitch.

• 1:25:42Griffin Newman?

  Credit to Kidding.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I just feel like it's, it's kind of how I feel about myself, you know?

• 1:25:48David Sims?

  I'm a witch.

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  I'm a cupcake, I'm a lady, I'm a sugar.

• 1:25:52Griffin Newman?

  I'm a sugar, I'm a witch.

• 1:25:54David Sims?

  I think there's this sort of satirical thing at the heart of No Other Choice, of him thinking like, "Right, if I can just kill everyone off and kill this guy, I'll get his job." It's like, that, there won't be any jobs. Like you're saying, like, the jobs are just all gonna go.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  It's an inevitability.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  You can't keep killing people. They'll just keep getting rid of jobs. They don't want to hire you, or employ you, or employ anyone.

• 1:26:18Griffin Newman?

  But symptomatic.

• 1:26:19David Sims?

  They're sick of humans.

• 1:26:20Griffin Newman?

  Symptomatic of a larger issue that's just like, this guy goes like... If the 20 years I've spent in this one industry.

• 1:26:28David Sims?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Then who am I? My entire sense of self is gone and then I assume my wife's gonna fuck a younger guy.

• 1:26:34David Sims?

  And I'm like.

• 1:26:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna lose my house.

• 1:26:36David Sims?

  I'm gonna look in the mirror, cuz I see a handsome guy. But yes, no, of course, it's his sense of self's been devastated, but like the Donald West like thing strikes me as more like it's a corporate satire, dog eat dog world. You do have to, and I feel like Park Chan Wook's arriving at this like, yeah, that even that's not really gonna work for him. And all these guys want is to have absurd houses filled with champagne and cigars and whiskey and fucking hot tubs and like all, and just to live the most absurd like kind of excess. And look, that's what I want. That's why I do this shitty podcast, to collect your money so I can build my mansion.

• 1:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me.

• 1:27:13David Sims?

  What? The podcast. Ben, cut all that out.

• 1:27:15Griffin Newman?

  The podcast is shitty only so that AI can't replicate it.

• 1:27:19David Sims?

  We're outfoxing it.

• 1:27:21Griffin Newman?

  Anything you think is bad about this show is just future proof.

• 1:27:24David Sims?

  That's what Donald Trump does as our president. He's so shitty. And all his decisions make no sense, so no one can think what he's doing next.

• 1:27:30Griffin Newman?

  He knows that the Democratic Party is gonna run a language learning model against him. Anyway.

• 1:27:36David Sims?

  2026 is going good.

• 1:27:38Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 1:27:38David Sims?

  Got Mayor Zouran in there.

• 1:27:41Griffin Newman?

  Here's a detail.

• 1:27:42David Sims?

  That's good.

• 1:27:42Griffin Newman?

  Here's it's great. He's gonna do our League of Their Own episode.

• 1:27:48Griffin Newman?

  The other thing I was.

• 1:27:49David Sims?

  He's more of a soccer guy.

• 1:27:50Griffin Newman?

  Another thing I was tracking on the second watch. Yes, Griffin. The ways pigs are invoked and when. Right? And this association with them being like the lowest class, the thing you wanna avoid being when his uses derogatory term, when it's spoken of a people's past of needing to work with pigs. And his father, who is spoken of sparingly, there's sort of the one big scene where he talks to his son later, who was a pig farmer. And this sense of like, I was born into a class that I have spent my entire life trying to pull myself out of, right? And he has built this big house that is very nice and modern.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  Well, he didn't build, it was his family's home.

• 1:28:32Griffin Newman?

  But they talk about how-

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  But he like added the greenhouse and fixed it up.

• 1:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Right, cuz there's, there's the moment, he loses the job. Immediately, the wife is like, let's just do fucking hard math. What has to go? I don't take dance lessons anymore. I don't take tennis lessons anymore.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  And we're getting rid of Netflix.

• 1:28:47Griffin Newman?

  We're getting rid of Netflix. We're scaling back all this shit, right? They have this-

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  How expensive is Korean Netflix, by the way? Those fucking-

• 1:28:53Griffin Newman?

  Five thousand dollars.

• 1:28:54David Sims?

  That's like, that's-

• 1:28:56Griffin Newman?

  And that's with ads.

• 1:28:57David Sims?

  That's a line item for him.

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  I, the streaming services are too expensive.

• 1:29:02David Sims?

  They're getting pricey. Well, this is how they get you. They make you sign up and then they're like, hey, it's, it's going up. And you're like, oh, how much? And they're like, I don't know. And you're like, what? And they're like, twenty dollars. Is that twenty eight dollars? Yeah, technically twenty eight dollars.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  I should like, I, I need, this is my new New Year's resolution. I gotta unsubscribe.

• 1:29:22Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  From a lot of these things.

• 1:29:25Speaker 03

  Marie, do not promote unsubscribing on the pod.

• 1:29:28Speaker 02

  Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to consciously uncouple. Okay. From, I think Paramount Plus, it's like about time. I just-

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna hang the pickaxe up? You're gonna stop scaling the mountain?

• 1:29:41Speaker 02

  I-

• 1:29:41Speaker 03

  Did you reach the summit?

• 1:29:43David Sims?

  Picard's up there and SpongeBob?

• 1:29:46Griffin Newman?

  Did you freeze to death? They showed you Picard, SpongeBob and Cartman standing next to each other. What more do you need? And also-

• 1:29:55David Sims?

  Cartman?

• 1:29:56Griffin Newman?

  Maybe like a fifth tier dud.

• 1:29:58David Sims?

  What are you doing here, Cartman? I don't know, that's what Picard would say, right?

• 1:30:02Griffin Newman?

  And John Taffer's like, I'm shutting this up.

• 1:30:08Griffin Newman?

  No rescue needed.

• 1:30:09David Sims?

  I, you know what I subscribe to is MGM plus.

• 1:30:12Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 1:30:13David Sims?

  Deep movie library.

• 1:30:14Griffin Newman?

  I'm going to dial nine one.

• 1:30:16Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:30:19Griffin Newman?

  That is.

• 1:30:20David Sims?

  Hey, man, I had to get, I had to get through winter break somehow.

• 1:30:23Griffin Newman?

  That is a red alert situation.

• 1:30:25David Sims?

  They got a great movie library.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  So many like weird fucked up like Amazon Prime add-ons that like I use once.

• 1:30:32David Sims?

  Where it's like.

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  Like broad. Broadway world. I have like four different like brick box services.

• 1:30:38Griffin Newman?

  Hello, Governor plus.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  I have, I have something called like.

• 1:30:41David Sims?

  Hello, Governor ad free.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  It's either called like Bad Moon or Blue Moon or something. That's like, I signed up to watch some like Jean Roland exploitation movies.

• 1:30:51Griffin Newman?

  Blue Moon is Lorenz's heart streaming service where he just bitches you about all the other streaming service.

• 1:30:55David Sims?

  He just appears at a bar smoking. He's like, and another thing.

• 1:31:00Griffin Newman?

  Netflix is such a slut.

• 1:31:04David Sims?

  No, it is funny when you're like, oh, I wonder, can I watch like, you know, you know, the chamber of flying death, you know, and you look up, it's like, yeah, it's actually available. I'm like, shit feels.

• 1:31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. So.

• 1:31:16Griffin Newman?

  That's my fucking heavy chest stuff thing. I'm like, why am I not signed up for anything that one of you wants?

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  I just gotta get rid of all this shit. I'm keeping Shudder on Amazon and that's it.

• 1:31:25David Sims?

  Really good service.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  Shudder is a good service.

• 1:31:27David Sims?

  You know, but I watched Love Story, which Griff, we've talked about this because Love Story is one of the most financially successful films ever made, right? Big phenomenon, early seventies, but weepy. And we had a brief, we were like, it's not very good. Like, I've never seen it. It was a hit. Is it good? It's on MGM plus. I was like, I'm gonna fucking watch it. Two stars sucked.

• 1:31:49David Sims?

  But you know, at least I've knocked that one off. You happy for me?

• 1:31:52Griffin Newman?

  I'm, no, I'm thrilled.

• 1:31:53David Sims?

  I watched Inherit the Wind. I'd never seen it.

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  This is what you did over.

• 1:31:56David Sims?

  No, because it's like one of those kind of homeworky movies that like.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  They showed it to us in school.

• 1:32:00Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I think if you had stayed in school in the United States of America, you would have seen.

• 1:32:04David Sims?

  I would have seen Spencer Tracy's sweaty shoulders. He's got some sweat.

• 1:32:09Griffin Newman?

  What's his name? J. Fred Muggs, the monkey?

• 1:32:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Griffin Newman?

  He's one of my favorite actors.

• 1:32:12David Sims?

  He's on there.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  I, I have to, you know, give you a little bit of shit. You watched Love Story and inherit the wind instead of Saving Silverman this break?

• 1:32:22David Sims?

  What the fuck? Right. Why would I want to watch those?

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  You have one job.

• 1:32:26David Sims?

  Oscar nominated film.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  You said on whatever episode, we talked about Saving Silverman, that you would fucking watch Saving Silverman over break. I'll do it right now. I'll watch it right now.

• 1:32:35Griffin Newman?

  In the time since we said that, I watched Saving Silverman again.

• 1:32:40David Sims?

  Yeah. And again, you're calling the police on me.

• 1:32:44Griffin Newman?

  I called the police and they were like, here is a medal.

• 1:32:47David Sims?

  It sounds like the kind of thing the police would do.

• 1:32:49Griffin Newman?

  Here's a key to the city. Eric Adams shook my hand.

• 1:32:53David Sims?

  Oh yeah. Look at that there. Look at that there. Time is flying. No other choice, Greg.

• 1:32:58Griffin Newman?

  No other choice. His wife says, we need to cut the budget down. We need to cut down the streaming services. Their youngest daughter.

• 1:33:04Speaker 02

  We need to sell the house.

• 1:33:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And he's like, we can't.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:07Griffin Newman?

  There are too many mouths to feed. We gotta get rid of the dogs. The grandparents take the dogs. It is sort of just like.

• 1:33:12David Sims?

  Even though they're like allergic.

• 1:33:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But it's this kind of emotional core to the movie of like, if we get the dogs back, it will feel like everything is right in the world again. The second we can afford dog food. And there's this thing where the kids' names are Ree1 and G1.

• 1:33:26Speaker 02

  Ree1 and C1. And then the dogs are Ree2 and C2.

• 1:33:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So they named the dogs like nicknamed versions of the children. And the wife is like brass tacks. We gotta just like focus down. But the big thing is their daughter is seemingly a cello prodigy. The daughter who barely communicates with them, who seems sort of specked for me.

• 1:33:48David Sims?

  She's like neurodivergent in some way. And it's like, the cello is the only way she seems to be able to express herself.

• 1:33:53Griffin Newman?

  She rarely talks. She draws these complicated, multicolored symbols. Uh, and they never, they'll see her practice, like her fingering of the instrument on like a table, on other objects, but she never plays in front of them. She has this expensive tutor and the tutor is like, your daughter is too good for me.

• 1:34:10David Sims?

  Right. You need to get like an even more expensive tutor or whatever.

• 1:34:14Griffin Newman?

  And basically says to them, like, you don't understand. She is like superhuman. She is once in a generational talent. You need to up her training. She is someone who will play in like the National Symphony or whatever. And they're like, we're. Going off of this woman is this like a con? She says that the cello she's playing isn't expensive enough. She needs to get a better cello to practice on.

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  Musical instruments are so fucking expensive.

• 1:34:35Griffin Newman?

  We don't even hear it. And there was this notion of like, here's this guy who prides himself on how much he was able to like, climb the ladder of class from his father. And yet they look at their daughter as like, she's the only way we continue to move up. We have to bank everything on her. And so they cut all of this down, right? And there's a scene where a couple comes to go look at their house.

• 1:35:00David Sims?

  And their house is like uniquely designed. It's like a very special seeming house.

• 1:35:05Speaker 02

  I love the house.

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  It's so, yeah. So like modern, but still like tasteful, not gaudy. I loved it.

• 1:35:12Griffin Newman?

  The real estate agent says like, isn't this place impressive? And it used to be such a dump, what they've done with it. And they're really talking about how this is his family home, but it used to be run down. It felt haunted.

• 1:35:23Speaker 02

  It was a pig farm. His dad committed suicide there.

• 1:35:26Griffin Newman?

  But then they also say that he had this larger pig farm that they sold because he didn't want to be seen as a pig farmer after his father died. And they now live on a house that is partially the land that he had the pig farm for. And the real estate agent or.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  I thought it was, I thought it was the pigs all got sick and then the father killed himself.

• 1:35:47Speaker 03

  That sounds right.

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:48David Sims?

  There was some sort of pig bite.

• 1:35:49Speaker 02

  So it wasn't like he sold the pig. It wasn't like the pig farm was at the top of its game.

• 1:35:53Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying that after the father died.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Griffin Newman?

  There's this throwaway line where they're like, if he had held on to the land that the pig farm was in, he'd be so rich right now, which I thought was really interesting.

• 1:36:06David Sims?

  Right. Like if he had only just, yeah, given himself over to, yeah, no, I get that.

• 1:36:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. But you get the sense that's like, I don't want to be fucking associated with pigs. That was my father. That is what I'm working past. And they're like, if you just still were renting that land out to other people, you'd be set for generations. Um, and this, this guy makes a pass at the wife. And there's this sort of like, we're not fucking renting the house. So now we're like doubled down on, we're not selling it. We're not renting it. We're staying here. We're getting the dogs back. She's getting the better cello teacher. This lifestyle creep has affected them where they now like cannot figure out how to scale down their lives. And all the families you're seeing here are like absolutely driven insane by keeping up with the Joneses to some degree.

• 1:36:52David Sims?

  Right. Right. They're all competing with each other in like an invisible competition.

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

  You cannot move down the ladder. You fight so hard to get where you are. You cannot move down the ladder.

• 1:37:01David Sims?

  And I do think Korean society is very stratified.

• 1:37:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:04David Sims?

  Even more so than some places or whatever. And a lot of their movies seem to be about, you know, class.

• 1:37:08Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm. He gets the hot tip of the company that he should be working at. He goes and gets on his knees and begs outside the bathroom. These higher ups.

• 1:37:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:17Griffin Newman?

  Who are just like, this is embarrassing.

• 1:37:19David Sims?

  It's moon paper, right?

• 1:37:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:21David Sims?

  Is the, is the rival.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  And they've cracked the Japanese market.

• 1:37:24Griffin Newman?

  That's the big thing.

• 1:37:25David Sims?

  And this is when he, he consider, he, this is where he has the kind of spontaneous after, after the humiliation. Like, should I throw the fucking potted plant on this guy? Right? Like where, you know?

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  The moon paper man.

• 1:37:37Griffin Newman?

  I think I love about this.

• 1:37:38David Sims?

  Where I thought the movie was like, okay, we're going into like murder satire mode.

• 1:37:43Speaker 02

  I'm like, he's just gonna keep killing people one by one.

• 1:37:45Griffin Newman?

  The movie doesn't do the thing of having the scene where he's sort of like out loud explains his thinking of how he gets from point A to point B of justifying murder. Right? It's sort of like, he has this embarrassment. The guy tells him to go to a bar. He's drinking apple juice because he's a recovering alcoholic. He's like looking up these guys on social media. And then he's just so angry at this guy that he like impulsively gets up on a rooftop, is ready to throw a potted plant at him. And then he like takes a step back and starts to formulate like, wait a second.

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  Well, doesn't he get the idea from his wife?

• 1:38:18Griffin Newman?

  His wife calls him.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  No, they're like laying, they're cuddling on the couch together. They're looking at like the guy's social media. He's showing her the guy's Instagram. And then she's like, oh, man, if only, you know, he could get struck by lightning. You could have his job. And then he, the look flashes across his face.

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  But there is kind of the, the chancy, like he has the potted plant of like, could I just do this?

• 1:38:41Griffin Newman?

  Like. There's also the moment when he's on the rooftop where he's looking at the shut down paper factory. Like he starts to formulate, like, what if I create a fake job? Identify who the other people are who would be in the running for any job like this that would open up. So that if the job opens up, I have eliminated all the competition. And then I need to figure out how to get that job to open up. And so he starts this triangulation of like, he calls these guys up, he gets a burner phone. He gets resumes. He buys a model gun because he has his father's like framed and cased a gun as a military veteran. He swaps it out. So he has a real gun that no one's ever gonna

• 1:39:23Griffin Newman?

  notice. He puts a plastic gun in the case and he identifies all the core skills of the other guys. He's basically like, there are five other guys at my level with my history who would be competitive for this.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  They're all winners of pulp man of the year.

• 1:39:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then he like, kind of does the math circling, like, what do they have over me? I may be third in line. How do I get here?

• 1:39:48Speaker 02

  The thing that I love is that it's not just paper. They all are in charge of specialty paper. So they are even super specialized within an already specialized like industry.

• 1:40:02Griffin Newman?

  You will have these moments where guys will like grab a piece of paper and go, oh, fuck, that's good. You know, like they're like impressed with the recipe.

• 1:40:11David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. With the kind of.

• 1:40:12Speaker 02

  There's that moment where Gomo and his wife are like reminiscing about when they first met. Not gummo, bummo, whatever.

• 1:40:20Griffin Newman?

  Gubummo.

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  Gubummo. Where he's, he's like, she remembers that he touched her lips and were like, they're as soft as this type, this brand of paper. And then he was like, you said that it, you're that, that's like, you said the wrong name. It's actually this brand. And then he cuts to Lee Byung-hung, like watching them eavesdropping on this conversation, touching his own lips, thinking about the paper and being like, yeah, that paper is really fucking soft.

• 1:40:44Griffin Newman?

  He feels like a guy who fell into this and wanted to define himself by understanding the field as thoroughly as he could, right? In the industry and the product versus like Goo Bamo is like a fetishist and like a zealot and it like speaks to-

• 1:41:00David Sims?

  And it speaks to his record, all his collecting, all his like fetishization of-

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  He gets this resume that's like, you don't understand, it's like a way of life for me. You know, like I consider the materials of everything in my home. I only listen to analog-

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  I am analog only.

• 1:41:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. And here is this guy who's got this wife who he just like will not acknowledge that he is so caught up-

• 1:41:20David Sims?

  Who's hot.

• 1:41:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  And he ain't hot.

• 1:41:23Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:41:23David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 1:41:24Griffin Newman?

  And I like that they're, the flashback to their meet cute is like, this guy is still kind of not focused, but it's charming enough when he's young. And then when he's older and he's gone to seed-

• 1:41:38David Sims?

  I mean, it's our fucking future.

• 1:41:39Griffin Newman?

  And he's drinking. Yes.

• 1:41:40David Sims?

  I mean, it's me, it ain't gonna be cute, age 55. I'm like, oh, this Radiant set came in of this like fucking seventies Hong Kong movie. I'm like putting on a giant-

• 1:41:52Griffin Newman?

  That's what the group text is for.

• 1:41:53David Sims?

  I know.

• 1:41:53Griffin Newman?

  It's a safe space.

• 1:41:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:55Griffin Newman?

  But yes, she's just like, fuck me. And he's like, paper is the only thing that has ever mattered.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  Well, she's also, he's, she's also like, why don't, you're passionate about other things besides paper. Why don't you open a cafe where, like a music themed cafe? Because that's something that would do well. Like my father would invest in it. Like, like this is a great option.

• 1:42:16Griffin Newman?

  And once again, it is the first time no other choice is said in the movie.

• 1:42:19Speaker 02

  He's like, I have no other choice.

• 1:42:20Griffin Newman?

  I am a paper man.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  I am a paper man. I can't just pivot like that, you know? And then I love when Lee Byung-hung actually goes to kill him.

• 1:42:31Griffin Newman?

  Well, he observes them having like a picnic where she's coming on to him so hard and trying to go down memory lane and he just is like not with it.

• 1:42:38Speaker 02

  And only wants to eat his chicken.

• 1:42:40Griffin Newman?

  They're eating fried chicken and then Lee Byung-hung gets bit by a snake and she has to come like rescue him and give him the wrong advice. And you're like, oh, so this is the tone of this movie. It's going to be a thing in which like it's really hard to kill him. He keeps fucking it up.

• 1:42:54David Sims?

  Right, right, right. That we're now in like full slapstick mode.

• 1:42:57Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  That picnic looked really uncomfortable, even before the snake.

• 1:43:00Speaker 02

  I liked their, I liked their box though. Their little picnic box and the chicken-

• 1:43:04Griffin Newman?

  But they're in like the Blair Witch Woods.

• 1:43:06David Sims?

  Yeah, it's just like they picked a kind of weird location.

• 1:43:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  Have you guys-

• 1:43:10Griffin Newman?

  It's like a lot of sticks.

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  I'm assuming no one here has ever been bitten by a snake.

• 1:43:13David Sims?

  Oh, no, no.

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:43:14David Sims?

  I thought you were gonna ask if I've been to Korea. I'd love to go. I have not been, but I don't, I don't like snakes, I gotta say. As a northeastern person, you know, northeast America, like where they're less of a thing. And you know, there's other parts of the world and country where they're just like, oh yeah, there's snakes. I would be like, no, there's no, we, that's not allowed.

• 1:43:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:33David Sims?

  Just like poison ropes that just slither around and they can be fast.

• 1:43:37Griffin Newman?

  That slither around's a pretty good phrase.

• 1:43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:40David Sims?

  The fuck?

• 1:43:41Speaker 02

  I used to be very anti snake and then I saw Zootopia 2.

• 1:43:45David Sims?

  Of course, you met Gary De Snake.

• 1:43:46Speaker 02

  I met Gary De Snake and now I feel like I was, you know, my, my former prejudices have washed away.

• 1:43:53David Sims?

  I was very charmed by Gary.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  I love Gary. His grandma, Agnes De Snake.

• 1:43:59Griffin Newman?

  We need to start asking more questions about the weather walls.

• 1:44:01David Sims?

  Yeah. What's up with those? Who built them? The Lynx, I assume.

• 1:44:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's debatable. I like that, uh, well, no, I won't say.

• 1:44:10David Sims?

  No, what? Come on.

• 1:44:12Griffin Newman?

  It's just very funny to me that like David Strathern is one of the main villains in that movie.

• 1:44:16David Sims?

  He's good at it.

• 1:44:17Griffin Newman?

  He's very good at it, but it's such an undisputed voice to have Strathern doing like a very like-

• 1:44:22David Sims?

  Like unctuous, mean.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  I didn't know that was him until the final credits.

• 1:44:26Griffin Newman?

  I spent the whole movie trying to figure out who it was.

• 1:44:28Speaker 02

  I was like, I don't recognize this.

• 1:44:29David Sims?

  I, I, with Zootopia, uh, two and with the original, but going into two, I know, I was like, I know there will be a charming end credits sequence set to a bumpin' Shakira song. In which I will see all of the voices labeled clearly while they all do a dance.

• 1:44:46Griffin Newman?

  Character does a dance next to their name.

• 1:44:47David Sims?

  The villains will be imprisoned watching the concert on TV and I'll see their names too.

• 1:44:51Griffin Newman?

  And they like point to the credit.

• 1:44:53David Sims?

  And I was satisfied.

• 1:44:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55David Sims?

  Got exactly what I wanted.

• 1:44:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:58David Sims?

  I enjoyed the hell out of Zootopia 2.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I liked it.

• 1:45:01David Sims?

  Yeah, Griffin's a little more measured.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  I, yeah.

• 1:45:03Griffin Newman?

  I liked it. Uh, I thought it was fun.

• 1:45:15Speaker 04

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market. Love the crown molding. Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile. Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet. No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen. No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you. Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 1:45:40David Sims?

  Get Verizon FiOS, because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:45:52David Sims?

  Where do we leave off?

• 1:45:53Griffin Newman?

  So he has this like total fumble, right? And you're like, okay, this is gonna be in the line of the kind of classic thing we often talk about that like-

• 1:46:01David Sims?

  Like a snake bite and not being able to-

• 1:46:04Griffin Newman?

  We've talked about on this show, because a lot of these times, a lot of times when big directors make these, these end up being their greatest follies, the sort of like pitch black mainstream murder comedy that tends to turn audiences way off. And it feels like this is what this is gonna be down to when he goes back to actually do the thing in a scene that is like such a pure distillation of like, the Park Chan Wook is the only filmmaker on the planet who would conceive of the scene this way. He goes back in a full suit, wearing four gloves over the gun being wrapped in sarandar.

• 1:46:39Speaker 02

  Not just gloves, they're like oven mitts.

• 1:46:41Griffin Newman?

  But like an increasing size-

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:46:44Griffin Newman?

  To go in and murder this guy who's in his like record room, like fucking drunk off his ass, blasting Korean pop music. His wife is cheating on him with a guy who's got a tarantula tattoo? What's the tattoo?

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  I don't remember.

• 1:46:59Griffin Newman?

  But this is the whole thing he's trying to balance is like, he tries to stop, he goes to try to kill the guy, he walks in on the wife-

• 1:47:06David Sims?

  He realizes he's-

• 1:47:06Griffin Newman?

  Fucking the young dude.

• 1:47:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:08Griffin Newman?

  And then he's sort of like, I need to block him from discovering them, but then he fucks up.

• 1:47:13David Sims?

  But then he's like, I, okay, go ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:15Griffin Newman?

  He calls and says, there's a job interview, can you come meet me? Because he sees him going home.

• 1:47:20David Sims?

  This is what I'm talking about, this movie, it's a little exhausting. This whole sequence is a good example.

• 1:47:25Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, well, then I gotta go change. Then he walks and sees the wife. The wife doesn't know that he's seen him. He's in a despondent state. And then he's like, I guess I gotta go kill him now. So he goes in while he's in the stupor and he's so drunk and doesn't understand what's going on and thinks that he's the guy his wife is fucking. They're yelling at each other over the record player at full volume. So the scene is all happening with like subtitles, but I have to imagine even in the Korean version, it's subtitled because you wouldn't be able to make out what they're saying.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  So just a, there were like two little, I guess you could call them Easter eggs that I pulled up from my second viewing. The first is that I listened to the soundtrack on my walk over here. That song that's playing is called Red Pepper Dragonfly. But it's notable because the fake company that he invents to get all of these applications is called Red Pepper Paper.

• 1:48:26David Sims?

  Yeah, because of the.

• 1:48:27Speaker 02

  Because of the potted plant. Yes. So I thought that was cute. My other Easter egg is that in the scene where they go to the dance party where they all have costumes, there's a couple that's dressed as like an NFL player and a cheerleader. And the name on the back of the NFL player's jersey is Boucher. And it's the colors of the team in the Waterboy.

• 1:48:53Griffin Newman?

  It's a Bobby Boucher cosplay?

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  That is my reading of the fact.

• 1:49:01Speaker 02

  It's an orange, blue and white football jersey.

• 1:49:04Griffin Newman?

  Park love Adam.

• 1:49:06David Sims?

  Well, I was about to say, is Waterboy like a really, you know, big movie in, in Korea somehow?

• 1:49:13Speaker 02

  It just introduced a lot of questions.

• 1:49:15David Sims?

  I will say someone else on threads noted the a blink and you'll miss it reference to the Waterboy.

• 1:49:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:49:22David Sims?

  So maybe, maybe this is true. Maybe we're all, you know, crazy. I don't.

• 1:49:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Interesting. He, he has this confrontation with the guy where the guy thinks this is the guy cucking him. Uh, then the wife-

• 1:49:34David Sims?

  We ought to also shout out though, in the sequence where he has, I don't know, seven different gloves on?

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  I think it's at least four.

• 1:49:41David Sims?

  It's so funny.

• 1:49:42Griffin Newman?

  To reveal the gun.

• 1:49:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:44Griffin Newman?

  Cause the guy at first is like, why are you pointing an oven man at me?

• 1:49:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:47Griffin Newman?

  And then his wife comes-

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Do you like to bake? You like to bake, motherfucker?

• 1:49:52Griffin Newman?

  His wife comes in and thinks that he's just like a home invader, takes the paper trophy that-

• 1:49:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, Pulp Man of the Year trophy, yeah.

• 1:49:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And his rain knocking over the head and then recognizes that he's the snake bite guy. And like, all three of them are yelling at each other and no one understands what's going on. It's like such a perfect, and the music doesn't stop. And then they all start inflicting violence on each other. He like shoots him by mistake because the wife hits him with the trophy, which like causes him to like pull the trigger, but it's not a lethal shot.

• 1:50:24David Sims?

  No, the wife kills him, right?

• 1:50:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then she takes the gun away and then shoots him out of like anger of, and says something to the effect of like, "I wasn't angry at you. I don't hate you because you lost your job. I hate you because you gave up trying," or something like that. This sort of core thing of like, uh, Lieberhand doesn't understand what the actual threat to his existence is, which is like absolutely unraveling, like this guy, right? That all three guys he murders are kind of like ghosts of Christmas future versions of best and worst case scenarios of how he can handle his current situation. But here you have this first death down that he's not totally responsible for. There's a lot of misunderstanding and because the

• 1:51:07Griffin Newman?

  fact that she's the one who delivers the lethal gunshots, it's like she's now covering up the crime for him in a way that helps him. So he's kind of gotten away from this one scot-free, which means the second killing is super surprising because it is just like incredibly cruel and vicious. What were you gonna say, David?

• 1:51:27David Sims?

  No, I was, I was, the second killing, that's exactly what I was. You know, I think I had that sort of, that after the first murder, that one, like, okay, am I watching a very high slap sticky-

• 1:51:40David Sims?

  Black comedy where every death will be this convoluted.

• 1:51:44Griffin Newman?

  This kind of accidental.

• 1:51:45David Sims?

  Emotional Rube Goldberg-y, well, he keeps not being sure, but then like a fucking bunch of Final Destination shit happens to, and, and yes, and then I feel like Park is like, no, no, no, that's not quite it because the next death is the opposite. It's sort of like you have to look a man in the face and shoot.

• 1:52:03Speaker 02

  Well, I actually, when I said that my second time watching the movie, I felt sadder. I did like, they really, he really hammers home the like, personal connection with the second guy. And that's pretty devastating when he ends up killing him. But I did like, for every other paper man in this movie, you do recognize that these guys all would probably be friends.

• 1:52:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:52:29Speaker 02

  And would be stronger together.

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:52:32Speaker 02

  If they weren't competing with each other.

• 1:52:34Griffin Newman?

  The shoe sales.

• 1:52:34David Sims?

  Maybe they start their own business.

• 1:52:36Speaker 02

  Exactly. But instead of like, you know, have, you know, teaming up together, they're, they're competing with each other in a way that is, you know, ultimately super destructive.

• 1:52:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Well, so he, he goes to this guy who has taken a job at a shoe store.

• 1:52:52David Sims?

  Right. And he's done with, or he's at least trying to move on or whatever.

• 1:52:56Griffin Newman?

  He has taken pride in a shoe salesman job that he is trying to do to the best of his abilities. You feel this guy being a little bit desperate and there's a sort of dangled out that he's gotten the call about this fake job that Lee Byung-hun has set up. And he says something to the extent of like, I'm unemployed, but I'm looking to get back into the paper industry. That to a certain extent, even though he has regular employment now, it doesn't feel like he has a career. He won't feel like he's actually employed again until he's got a paper job. But this guy is doing the hard work of like, you know what? I just have to go out and get a job and support my family. And he starts talking, his daughter comes to the store to borrow money. He talks about what it's like to raise

• 1:53:40Griffin Newman?

  a young daughter. You're like, this guy is fucking locked in as a parent. He seems locked in in his marriage. Like his life is not easy, but he is showing up and doing what he can one day at a time. And Lee Byung-hun has this moment where he starts talking to him like a therapist. He in sensing that this guy has a very similar setup to him, starts talking about his difficulty with his daughter, how she doesn't talk, how expensive the cello lessons are. And you're like, this guy, he should fucking hold close, has his like tightest ally in the world. And in that moment, it's like, I want the last moments of empathy from this guy before I decide to kill him. Like, it doesn't change his path, which is so fucking upsetting.

• 1:54:25David Sims?

  Yes, this is the sort of dark turn point of the movie. We're out of silliness.

• 1:54:30Speaker 02

  But it is also another, like, when the gun does go off, it is not as like intentional.

• 1:54:39Griffin Newman?

  No, in the exact moment, but he's like-

• 1:54:43Speaker 02

  No, he's like resolved to do it, but again, it's not-

• 1:54:45Griffin Newman?

  Set up a trap on the side of the road.

• 1:54:46Speaker 02

  He's not like cold bloodedly shooting him in the face.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  No, and he's panicking and he's like dry heaving on the side of the road and he's like tapping the forehead. That's when he's saying, no other choice to, I gotta go through with this. Of like, this is the moment I become like unequivocally a murderer. What's been going on the side plot here, of course, is that like, the wife gets, you think, kind of propositioned by this hot young dentist who's clearly trying to like make a play for her. But in fact, she's just getting a fucking dental assistant job. One of the women from her like sort of class of mothers and wives comes as a patient and is sort of like, looking down on her as like, I didn't know you were a nurse now, you know, and she's just fucking taking it. Like, she's just like, this is what I gotta do.

• 1:55:31David Sims?

  She is not, uh, having the male crisis.

• 1:55:34Griffin Newman?

  She's like, they were in the same dance class together. Are you gonna come to the show? I can't because I can't afford the classes anymore. You should still come to the show. It's totally fine. And everyone thinks this dentist is so fucking hot. And you're like, well, clearly there's this looming threat of the dentist is gonna fuck the wife. And it amounts to, after he kills this guy on the side of the road, he like pulls over to a phone booth, calls the kids at home, and they're like, mom's gonna be so fucking angry at you. And he's like, why? Realizes the dance show is that night. So he like rushes home, puts on the costume, which looks like a naval captain, like an American or British naval captain.

• 1:56:10Speaker 02

  Giving Horatio Hornblower, in my opinion.

• 1:56:13Griffin Newman?

  Goes to this dance show-

• 1:56:14Speaker 02

  Our favorite guy.

• 1:56:15Griffin Newman?

  Sees her dressed as a Native American woman, dancing with the dentist, who's dressed as a Native American man, and like spirals out.

• 1:56:24Griffin Newman?

  And goes home, she gets home, he's like ransacked her closet. He's taken all her bras and panties out. He's like, you're wearing the good panties. That means that you're fucking him.

• 1:56:36Speaker 02

  You love to fucking cars.

• 1:56:37Griffin Newman?

  Smell them.

• 1:56:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:38Griffin Newman?

  She's like, are you drinking again? You start kind of unraveling how much work this guy has done. That his drinking problem used to be major, that his emotional mood swings used to be like dangerous.

• 1:56:50Speaker 02

  He was abusive to his stepson.

• 1:56:52Griffin Newman?

  That his wife was a single mother. He meets her, he takes the son on as his own. The son was young enough that he doesn't even know that it's not his biological father. They have this conversation of, didn't we say that we'd always tell him when he's 16? And he's like, he thinks I'm his dad. I'm his dad. I've been here the whole time. What reason is there to even change his reality? The wife brings up in this scene that he, in his drunken days, beat the son in a sort of show of favoritism towards his biological daughter in like super unprocessed, like incredibly terrifying emotional distortion. And like they're suddenly hashing everything out. And she like comes clean with him, basically of like, I'm not fucking anyone else.

• 1:57:36Griffin Newman?

  You're clearly in crisis. Something's fucking going on. Let me know so I can help you. Like it is, why are you pushing me away? I'm ready to serve alongside you in the war our family's engaged in. You just gotta tell me what to do.

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  He's such a fool. I mean, he thinks he should fucking murder people.

• 1:57:57Griffin Newman?

  But from that moment on, they're totally aligned. Except he's always giving her like 85 to 90%. He's trying, it feels like to give her the plausible deniability of the worst stuff.

• 1:58:10David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:58:10Griffin Newman?

  Well, also like

• 1:58:11David Sims?

  There's some logic to it.

• 1:58:12Griffin Newman?

  Towing just up to the line of like, you gotta talk to this person. You gotta distract from this. You find out that their teenage son throughout this has been like running a scam with his friend who's dad owns an electronics store.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  It's the same guy who's gonna buy their home.

• 1:58:27Griffin Newman?

  Who makes the pass at the wife. Um, and they've been stealing iPhones to get caught by the cops. And they're like, we're fucking ruined. If our son is sent to jail, if we're like tarred and feathered in our community from this.

• 1:58:43Speaker 03

  But also, the cops show up the, the day after

• 1:58:48Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:58:48Speaker 03

  he has buried the second person he has murdered.

• 1:58:52Speaker 02

  After bonsai-ing him instead of

• 1:58:55Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  Which I thought was so cool.

• 1:58:56Griffin Newman?

  It's so good.

• 1:58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he brings him into the greenhouse. He's ready with like a chainsaw to just like hack him to bits. The son sees what he thinks is a glimmer of, of human flesh, right? It happens in that one? Yes. Which is also part of when they bust the son and they go up to his little hiding space where they find all the iPhones. He finds a pack of cigarettes and he goes to the son and he's like, here, while your mom's not looking, take this back. And the son's like, I quit. Don't worry about it. Throw it out. And he goes like, you throw it out. You're good with me. It's your decision. And then the next thing we see is the son on the rooftop smoking. You do get the sense he would have let the dad throw out the cigarettes and would have been so ashamed that he might have tried to avoid smoking after that.

• 1:59:37Griffin Newman?

  But his dad gave him the like, it's cool. Like us men have to stick together. We're in the secret club kind of speech. And then only because he's on the roof smoking, does he see his dad carrying in a body? And I, I hate in movies like this where a character sees something way too clearly. And then the movie tries to sell us this, they're not sure.

• 1:59:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:59:57Speaker 02

  I think there is plausible deniability.

• 2:00:00Griffin Newman?

  The shot is so good because he's put these tarps up in the greenhouse. You only kind of see a foot. It's a second before it moves. And you could fully believe like, was I wrong about what I thought I was seeing?

• 2:00:11Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, we all slaughter pigs in our greenhouses sort of late into the, the night.

• 2:00:16Griffin Newman?

  Especially when they're like, our family is defined by the fact that we got out of that pig shit.

• 2:00:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:00:21David Sims?

  He is a pit master. He does kill his own animals.

• 2:00:24Griffin Newman?

  But I, I like how much the line they're selling the son goes against everything he would know about his family. Which is like, well, you know, my father went crazy with a pig disease and then we sold the land. And like disassociated our family from that like lower class field altogether.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  But yes, they blackmail the guy because they know he's having affairs. The wife takes a bra off to try to seduce him. They're like doing like a two-pronged attack at the same time.

• 2:00:53David Sims?

  We should mention, of course, also his tooth is hurting more and more as the it's kind of like the Joaquin Phoenix is getting more and more COVID or the I like movies with that where you're kind of like the whole time you're like, and his tooth hurts more. He's not dealing with the fucking tooth.

• 2:01:08Griffin Newman?

  But this is what I was saying earlier.

• 2:01:09David Sims?

  I know, I know, I know.

• 2:01:10Griffin Newman?

  Anytime he taps, you're like, oh, right, that too.

• 2:01:13David Sims?

  Because.

• 2:01:14Griffin Newman?

  It's Tom Hanks with the cold and British spies. I agree with you. I always love this as a device.

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  And so when he has the big showdown with Sean Chol, I think is, you know, the guy in the fancy house where he just gets drunk and pulls his tooth out. It does feel like, yes, we've been building to like this kind of grand gagnol, this insanity, like, yes, I found that very funny.

• 2:01:39Speaker 02

  On first viewing, I averted my eyes during that.

• 2:01:44David Sims?

  Tooth stuff's a little gross.

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  It's a little gross, but this time I watched it and I felt really proud of myself.

• 2:01:49David Sims?

  I'm proud of you.

• 2:01:50Speaker 02

  Look at you, Marie.

• 2:01:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:51Speaker 02

  You got a strong stomach.

• 2:01:53Griffin Newman?

  Where's the woman who hid inside her coat watching Skin of Mary?

• 2:01:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. She's, she's, she's dead.

• 2:01:58Griffin Newman?

  We left her in the past.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:00Griffin Newman?

  We bonsai'd her.

• 2:02:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Griffin Newman?

  I want to shout out the Boiler Maker shot where they show inside the cup with the shot like coming down. The best beer has ever looked on screen.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 2:02:10Griffin Newman?

  I agree. And, and this movie is like, everyone's worried about him falling off the wagon. You need it to look that good. And once again, he taps his forehead and goes, no other choice. He is convinced himself after this whole scam was, I'm going to make him do rounds and rounds of shots with me, but I actually have a bowl here and I pour my shots out into the bowl, so I'm not getting drunk at all. But he is, and then once the guy makes the Boiler Maker, he's like, I guess there's no way to fake this. And I'm like, it would be harder to fake this, but he's pretty quick to surrender. It looks so good. The sound of the pouring is so good. I just want to bring up it because the tree is important. They say like, let's just bury all the iPhones. So we can just settle this. If we return to the store, to the police, or whatever it is,

• 2:02:55Griffin Newman?

  it makes this more of like an open case.

• 2:02:57Speaker 02

  One, one quick more thing before burying is there's the scene where the mom

• 2:03:03Speaker 02

  tries to barter with the like lecherous other dad.

• 2:03:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, they're both bartering at the same time. She's trying to use his attraction to her. And then he comes in and just tries to like fucking scare him.

• 2:03:16Speaker 02

  And she's like, kind of turned on by that.

• 2:03:19Griffin Newman?

  That she has the power and that she feels like involved in, we need to do whatever it takes to, to get ahead, to stay alive. But they bury the phones under the tree. He's going to butcher the guy with a chainsaw. He can't do it. He keeps on like crying and hyperventilating and puking. So then he just bonsai's him, buries him under the phones. Like part of the thinking is no one's going to dig because this is already a secret plot of a crime that we're covering up.

• 2:03:50Speaker 03

  And now digging doesn't always have to be shameful. It can be celebratory.

• 2:03:54Griffin Newman?

  No, but it does fall into your well-established theory, Ben. If you're digging at night, nothing good is happening.

• 2:04:00Speaker 02

  Nothing good has ever come from digging at night.

• 2:04:01Griffin Newman?

  The sun has set and you're digging. It's time to think about what you're doing, for sure. So he goes to the final house of the guy who's the Instagrammer.

• 2:04:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, the like guy that start, that he almost dropped the potted plant on, the guy that kind of started this sort of wave of jealousy and why don't I have this job?

• 2:04:18Griffin Newman?

  Who he clearly views as kind of like a silly dilettante, like a hype beast. I'm better than this guy.

• 2:04:23Speaker 02

  He's never won pulp man of the year.

• 2:04:25Griffin Newman?

  He's not.

• 2:04:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:26Griffin Newman?

  Thanks, Jarvis Cocker. That's a really, really good question. He has this sort of like tricking the guy, getting into drunk that turns into a bonding, this moment where the guy talks about how overwhelmed he is by his job and he can't handle all of it. That's the thing. You're shooting for this position, buddy, you know? Right. A, the position sucks and B, he's like, oh, well, maybe you convince them to hire another person. Right. Maybe you need help. Maybe I don't have to kill you. Maybe you get me hired. You know, but then, you know, he chokes to death, chokes him to death. He doesn't, he doesn't go for that. He gets him super fucking drunk, then he, he wants to stage it. Right.

• 2:05:08Griffin Newman?

  Where it's believable that this guy who sort of like- Got shitfaced and choked on his own vomit. Right. He had a wife who left him because all of his sort of like self-created mythology of wanting to be, must like Justin Timberlake, a man of the woods, you know, work in the pit. Like the entire thing he's selling on Instagram is like-

• 2:05:30Speaker 03

  He has like a big truck.

• 2:05:31Griffin Newman?

  It's an aspirational, I want to be this type of guy that his wife was like, I hate living in the country. I hate this. Like everything about this sucks. And you get the sense that he just like, let her walk away. You know, uh, cause he wouldn't surrender this shit. And like, right. Here's the guy who just like, lost it all to retain all the things that Lee Byung-hung thinks he needs to keep. But what if you, you have all of that alone? Um, and yeah, he like, uh, buries him in the dirt. Then like wraps a Saran Wrap around his mouth after he's already started puking from alcohol poisoning. Then puts a funnel in his mouth and puts a bunch of pork in it.

• 2:06:15Griffin Newman?

  And then pours more liquor over the pork. Yeah. To get him to basically choke to death on his own vomit. Yeah. It's a little nasty. Uh, his wife calls while he is doing this. Yeah. He tries to like FaceTime with her. His mouth is bleeding and swelling because he's just pulled his own tooth out. He has. And he is, and he is drunk. He is drunk now. Which is a problem. Yeah. And he's sort of saying to his wife, like, I just need you to trust that this is almost over. This is the path and we're almost done. Exactly. I'm not showing you what's happening, but everything that's happening right now looks suspicious on your end. And I just need you to trust me. At the same moment that she has successfully killed her son's, uh, concerns. Right. The paranoia.

• 2:06:57Speaker 03

  Because she's figured out.

• 2:06:58Griffin Newman?

  She, she's figured out.

• 2:06:59Speaker 03

  The body is in the backyard.

• 2:07:01Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't want to believe. She starts digging and like, there's a great shot. It's another great, like just the right amount where she's digging down. Hoping that she's not gonna find a body down there. But she needs to know for certain. And you get to the moment where there's like dirt over an object, but only a thin layer. And she touches it and is just kind of like, okay. And then starts putting the dirt back on top. There's not a moment where she like pushes dirt away and you see a person's face.

• 2:07:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:29Griffin Newman?

  You know, like it's, she's constantly trying to be like, how do I maintain 1% denial of what's going on here? But then comes up with the story for the son. She thinks the son bought it. She wants to-

• 2:07:40Speaker 02

  It does such an interesting thing with the like cross cutting. Well, the swing, but also just there's like a cross cutting between like the wife and the son having that conversation, but in two different places. And it keeps cutting between those things. But it looks like they're watching each other from afar. There's like, and then it also cuts to Lee Byung-hung, like digging a ditch and burying the guy at the country house. I think it like could be very disorienting, but instead I found it like, I don't know, fucking cool.

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  There's-

• 2:08:19Speaker 02

  There are like a million things that he does in this movie that I think-

• 2:08:22David Sims?

  I truly did not know how he did some of them.

• 2:08:25Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff that like, the first time I was like, why am I getting confused by this? And then I watched it the second time and I'm like, oh, there's sequences in the first like act of the movie, where he is going from like, basically within like sort of a montage, a present tense conversation that is then like flipping back to flashbacks to have set up how things got to this place? And like hypothetical flash forwards? Or his visions of the people he's talking about? Where you're moving within like time and space like so quickly? To kind of communicate things to the audience, rather than the character's own knowledge or perspective? And he has the moment where there's like this hallucinatory connection of the son.

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it being like in the bonsai tree.

• 2:09:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:09:11Speaker 02

  Or it's not a bonsai tree. It's like a apple tree or whatever in the-

• 2:09:15Griffin Newman?

  Which he buys from the rooftop when he's gonna murder the other guy that he's placed now in his greenhouse. And it's like he's talking to his son at this small scale. But yeah, no, he's just like, I did what I had to do. The cops who came to the front door after the iPhone store break in. When he's ready to be like, they got me. And it's like unrelated thing happens to be the next morning. They circle back. I want to say slightly earlier.

• 2:09:41David Sims?

  They come in a few times.

• 2:09:43Griffin Newman?

  They noticed that there's this weird pattern of these two guys who are both in the paper industry.

• 2:09:49Griffin Newman?

  There's the one, there's the main kind of partners.

• 2:09:52Speaker 02

  There's the detectives working on the missing papermen cases.

• 2:09:55Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, sorry. The paperman detectives are like, we've noticed that these two guys who both work in the paper industry died. Isn't that a little suspicious? And he says something like, or they don't say died. They go, these two guys have gone missing. And he goes, that's scary that both of them have died. And they go, why did you say died? And he says like, well, the way things are in the world today, if you hear someone goes missing, unfortunately, it probably means they're dead. They immediately buy that. It almost endears him to them. Where they're like, this guy gets how it works.

• 2:10:26David Sims?

  It's a tough world.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  It's a tough world.

• 2:10:28David Sims?

  Deal with it.

• 2:10:28Griffin Newman?

  And their conclusion is just like, looks like someone's targeting papermen. You should keep your head on a swivel.

• 2:10:33David Sims?

  Right. And then at the end, they come to him and they're like, yeah, it was the lady, you know? And she implicated that the guy she shot, you know, a ra, I can't say the name. I'm bad with the names. Right. But like.

• 2:10:45Griffin Newman?

  The woman, the wife of the first.

• 2:10:47David Sims?

  The wife of the first murder victim implicates him as the gun owner, right?

• 2:10:52Griffin Newman?

  Implicated her husband.

• 2:10:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:10:54Speaker 02

  And that he.

• 2:10:54Griffin Newman?

  Murdered the second guy.

• 2:10:56Speaker 02

  Murdered the second guy.

• 2:10:57Griffin Newman?

  Because they find this connection that there was an attempted merger between two companies that those two guys were trying to negotiate together. That went awry, that obviously Lee Byung-hun knew nothing about.

• 2:11:08David Sims?

  Like that's plausible enough reason for them to present each other.

• 2:11:11Griffin Newman?

  Conspiracy. And then so one murked the other one.

• 2:11:14David Sims?

  But the wife.

• 2:11:15Speaker 03

  She is the one who's killed her husband and has buried him.

• 2:11:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:19Speaker 03

  So she's covering her own ass in a way too that benefits.

• 2:11:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:11:24Speaker 03

  There's enough mutually assured destruction.

• 2:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Accidental, but suddenly everything fits together perfectly. And they're like, you're so lucky that he didn't get to you next.

• 2:11:34Speaker 03

  And damn it, don't we love it when everything works out?

• 2:11:37Griffin Newman?

  This is what's great is it's like, here is a classic Ben, everything works out, right?

• 2:11:42Speaker 02

  He had a crazy plan and it all worked out.

• 2:11:45Griffin Newman?

  He goes in for the meeting and this is my favorite kind of movie ending. Anytime a movie can successfully stick this kind of landing, I'm fucking hooting and hollering in the theater. He goes in for the interview. They're like, so it's our new warehouse. It's a new, interesting thing. It's a dark warehouse. And they were like, what do you mean? And they're like, well, we can save X number of dollars a month by keeping the lights off.

• 2:12:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  Because it's.

• 2:12:10David Sims?

  All machines anyway, they don't need lights.

• 2:12:11Griffin Newman?

  They don't need lights, machines don't need lights. And then he's like, it's all machines. And they're like, yeah, you would just be the one person overseeing the machines.

• 2:12:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:19Griffin Newman?

  So the first order of business would have to be you laying off a ton of people. You don't mind, do you? And he's like, no other choice. Makes perfect sense. And then we see this guy who is just feels so triumphant. He is falling to his knees and like laughing in celebration.

• 2:12:34David Sims?

  He gets the.

• 2:12:35Griffin Newman?

  I've won, I've made it.

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  The, the, the dog's back and the, you know, the, the, the daughter's going to be better. You know, like everything's going to work out.

• 2:12:42Speaker 02

  Plays cello in front of her family members.

• 2:12:44Griffin Newman?

  Even better than they thought.

• 2:12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:46Griffin Newman?

  They realize the symbol she's been doing is her way of writing music notes. She's a genius. It's like all there. And he grew his mustache back and he's comfortable, right? And you're like, here he is just being like, I fucking did it. I won. And you're like, you're in a giant dead warehouse with the lights being turned off. You have earplugs in because like you're constantly surrounded by just like. So you're just like in silence, in isolation all day with the lights off. I love that this is like you're seeing him his first day on the job. You see him have to like jump around to avoid being run over by three separate machines. You're like the rest of this guy's life, for as long as this job exists before they also decide

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  he's not necessary, is trying to make sure machines don't kill him by accident. They go like, the industry's changed, no more tapping on paper, which one of the first things you see at the beginning, he's got his little wooden stick. You tap the paper to make sure it's all good, right?

• 2:13:46David Sims?

  And he shows up on the That's so crucial.

• 2:13:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:13:49David Sims?

  It's part of the magic of paper making.

• 2:13:51Griffin Newman?

  And instead, they got this like fucking Tony Stark arm that's like, and it has a laser and it cuts the sheets. And he shows up on that first day with his little wooden stick and he's tapping it just to be like, it's good to be back.

• 2:14:03Speaker 02

  Fucking little iPad where he like, has to like turn on like different segments of like, it's a good life. It's so pathetic.

• 2:14:11Griffin Newman?

  You're just like, how long does this fucking last? And, and for what?

• 2:14:16David Sims?

  So what do you mean? He has Netflix back.

• 2:14:17Griffin Newman?

  He has Netflix.

• 2:14:18Speaker 02

  He's got Netflix.

• 2:14:18David Sims?

  He can see the floor of the beast, the mind flayer.

• 2:14:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it ends with him hugging his family, them deciding that they're never going to move because they planted the tree and that's an investment in the future. But also it's like, they got a fucking, they got a dead body in a bunch of houses.

• 2:14:36David Sims?

  They don't need anyone doing remodeling.

• 2:14:38Speaker 02

  Now that the dogs are back, they're starting to dig it up.

• 2:14:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:14:41Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. She panics that they're sniffing at the tree.

• 2:14:44Speaker 02

  But it also, I feel like they're, you know, she, she will never feel the same way about her husband.

• 2:14:49Griffin Newman?

  We are a family, like a giant tree.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  That's the tree, right? There's a big poster for this movie.

• 2:14:53Speaker 02

  And what is the line? Like we, like fertilizer is made from the most rotten, disgusting things like that. You know, we use feces and piss and dead animals to make our, you know, plants grow.

• 2:15:05David Sims?

  Pay for it. David Harbour? Winona Ryder's still there, right?

• 2:15:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, thank God.

• 2:15:11David Sims?

  Phew.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  Well, they're all, they're all out.

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  Maya Hawke?

• 2:15:15Griffin Newman?

  It's all over. Yeah.

• 2:15:18Speaker 02

  No other choice.

• 2:15:20Griffin Newman?

  I love it.

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  Barb.

• 2:15:22Speaker 02

  Stranger Things or No Other Choice?

• 2:15:24Griffin Newman?

  I love No Other Choice. I have never seen. A second of an episode of Stranger Things outside of clips being played in the context of other things.

• 2:15:32David Sims?

  The one I showed you just now where the guy had a floor.

• 2:15:34Griffin Newman?

  That's the longest clip I've seen. I feel like I've only seen Stranger Things in the context of people like cutting to like, of course Netflix is big as heck.

• 2:15:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:15:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:15:45David Sims?

  Kids going like rolling dice.

• 2:15:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:47David Sims?

  Did I do Christmas? Griffin.

• 2:15:49Griffin Newman?

  This had a good opening weekend.

• 2:15:51David Sims?

  Very strong.

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  I will say this.

• 2:15:52David Sims?

  Very limited release.

• 2:15:54Griffin Newman?

  How much we were talking about.

• 2:15:55David Sims?

  Six hundred fifty thousand dollars.

• 2:15:56Griffin Newman?

  Neon.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  One screen.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  Embarrassment of riches with their international slate this year.

• 2:16:03David Sims?

  It also made like 20 plus mil in Korea.

• 2:16:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a big hit. Yeah, but it it basically opened in in one weekend and limited release with a crazy per screen average. It is outgrossed, I think, Secret Agent. Serat has basically not gotten a release. It's done half of what sentimental value has done in like three months. Like, it does seem to be a breakout. Who knows if it will continue to grow?

• 2:16:25David Sims?

  I think that the, you know, Korean and Japanese films like, you know, younger audiences are a little more plugged into those cultures like they're they're like, you know, whatever. Instead of like, hey, you want to see fucking this like Bergman knockoff? I mean, I like, but you know what I'm saying? The kids are maybe they're rushing to it. I don't know. It's about the difference between plays.

• 2:16:46Speaker 02

  Elle Fanning did wear that shirt that said Yoko Nishida Summer.

• 2:16:49David Sims?

  Yeah, we love that.

• 2:16:50Speaker 02

  That was.

• 2:16:51David Sims?

  No, wasn't it like? Dua Lipa did that or someone?

• 2:16:54Speaker 02

  No, it was Elle Fanning. I think she wore it at Cannes.

• 2:16:56Griffin Newman?

  I think that's right.

• 2:16:57David Sims?

  No, I'm sure you're right.

• 2:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Elle Fanning had a good year.

• 2:16:59Speaker 02

  She did.

• 2:17:00David Sims?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 2:17:01Griffin Newman?

  I think she's really, really good in sentimental value.

• 2:17:04David Sims?

  Charli XCX also.

• 2:17:06Speaker 02

  Well, she had her thing at like Coachella where she had like Sean Price Williams summer.

• 2:17:11David Sims?

  She had Yoko Nishida Summer.

• 2:17:12Griffin Newman?

  Charli XCX is following David on Letterboxd.

• 2:17:15David Sims?

  Charli XCX is, yes, that's right.

• 2:17:17Speaker 02

  Your close personal friend.

• 2:17:18David Sims?

  There's no DMs, so I can simply.

• 2:17:21Griffin Newman?

  Comment on the review.

• 2:17:22Speaker 02

  We should have her on.

• 2:17:23David Sims?

  I could do that. Absolutely. I hear her movie's pretty good. I mean, I maybe I shouldn't turn.

• 2:17:27Speaker 02

  Oh, The Moment? Yeah.

• 2:17:29Griffin Newman?

  This isn't the moment to say that, yeah.

• 2:17:30Speaker 02

  I'll see it.

• 2:17:31Griffin Newman?

  But no other choice to open to like one point.

• 2:17:34David Sims?

  Well, it's made, it's limited release was on one screen. It's currently made $2 million in two weeks of release. So it's doing pretty good. It's not in the top 10, but in the top 10, number one is a film that we liked and covered on this podcast. Griff?

• 2:17:48Griffin Newman?

  It is called Avatar, Fire and Ash.

• 2:17:51David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:17:52Griffin Newman?

  I've now seen it twice. I saw it 40x.

• 2:17:54Speaker 02

  Same. Oh, how was the 40x?

• 2:17:56Griffin Newman?

  Wonderful.

• 2:17:56Speaker 02

  What did they do for the space drug segment?

• 2:18:00Griffin Newman?

  Just kind of like a kickback.

• 2:18:01Speaker 02

  But there was no like fog.

• 2:18:03David Sims?

  Like a random person on Twitter tweeted like, saw Avatar without a bra. Don't do that.

• 2:18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:08David Sims?

  And everyone's like quoting to be what ended in her section. She's like, I saw it in 40x.

• 2:18:13Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought. I thought that it was because.

• 2:18:17David Sims?

  The movie just like blows your clothes.

• 2:18:19Speaker 02

  I thought it was because she was so horny because of her.

• 2:18:22David Sims?

  No, it's just, I think the 40x was Jocelyn.

• 2:18:25Griffin Newman?

  Wow. I thought, I mean, once again, that's the only 40x movie you've ever seen is Avatar.

• 2:18:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:30Griffin Newman?

  The re-release.

• 2:18:30David Sims?

  That was enough for me.

• 2:18:31Speaker 02

  Still have never seen any 40x.

• 2:18:33Griffin Newman?

  I think those movies, especially because they're long, they, they keep a pretty strong control of the dial on the 40x.

• 2:18:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:40Griffin Newman?

  So it's not to.

• 2:18:41David Sims?

  They're not going to exhaust you.

• 2:18:41Griffin Newman?

  Completely burn you out.

• 2:18:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:18:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:44Speaker 02

  But they do, they do get your nips hard.

• 2:18:46Griffin Newman?

  They do.

• 2:18:47David Sims?

  Yeah, apparently it's made a billion dollars so far.

• 2:18:50Speaker 02

  A bu bu bu bu.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  I know it's only January 5th and like, I mean, I think everyone knows the film is a success. I've seen some people being like, is it just big? And I'm like, guys, it's made a billion dollars and it's January.

• 2:19:02Griffin Newman?

  We are in an interesting position where it's like, the movie is going to end up somewhere between 1.5 and $2 billion.

• 2:19:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:19:10Griffin Newman?

  If it ends up at two, no one can say shit, even if there's a drop off.

• 2:19:14David Sims?

  I don't think anyone can say shit in any scenario.

• 2:19:17Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you, but it's like, we're possibly getting to the first time ever that a movie makes 1.5 billion dollars and people go, is that good enough? You can just feel it already happening, which it's like, I, I don't, I don't know.

• 2:19:31David Sims?

  Well.

• 2:19:31Griffin Newman?

  Nothing makes sense.

• 2:19:32David Sims?

  It's a hit.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  It's a hit and it's a fucking awesome movie. And I'll say a lot of my little gripes were resolved on the second watch. There's still stuff, I think, there are a couple of things that hold it back from like true five star greatness, in my opinion, but I think it's, it's an excellent movie and a ripper on thrill, right?

• 2:19:48David Sims?

  I'm sure the box office carried distinct.

• 2:19:50Griffin Newman?

  It jumped up.

• 2:19:51David Sims?

  It did.

• 2:19:52Griffin Newman?

  In like.

• 2:19:52David Sims?

  Family films at Christmas.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Five.

• 2:19:54David Sims?

  Week five, that's right.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  And it went up 20%.

• 2:19:57David Sims?

  Uh, 34% my friend. Pretty good.

• 2:20:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so the two highest grossing domestic films of 2025 at this point are a Minecraft movie and Lilo and Stitch. Lilo and Stitch ended like $200,000 behind Minecraft, but both are obviously done theatrically. Zootopia is now at 350.

• 2:20:18David Sims?

  365.

• 2:20:20Griffin Newman?

  And Fire and Ash is currently at two.

• 2:20:24David Sims?

  Uh, Fire and Ash is at, uh, two, something, uh, 220. No, no, no domestically, it's at 305.

• 2:20:30Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:20:31David Sims?

  Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:32Griffin Newman?

  So 423 is the thing to cross.

• 2:20:34David Sims?

  Great, let's do it. Get Lilo out of there.

• 2:20:36Griffin Newman?

  And if, if Avatar can make it to 500, then I think everyone stops fucking complaining. But yeah.

• 2:20:42David Sims?

  Anyone complaining.

• 2:20:43Griffin Newman?

  I would just love to get Lilo and Minecraft both knocked down a little bit.

• 2:20:46David Sims?

  Number three, the box office is.

• 2:20:49Griffin Newman?

  The Housemaid?

• 2:20:49David Sims?

  Nope. Marty Supreme.

• 2:20:51Griffin Newman?

  Oh, there, uh, yeah.

• 2:20:52David Sims?

  Marty Supreme is number three. The Housemaid is number four. The Housemaid quietly is going to make $200 million worldwide and at least 130 domestic. Just a big old hit because people like to go see movies. Uh, Marty Supreme, similarly, uh, or let's say 24 thinking making a Josh Safdie World War, post-war table tennis. Why did this movie need to cost 70 million? Why do you need to talk to me?

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  I don't know, maybe because they shot it in fucking New York City with a bunch of real extras.

• 2:21:23David Sims?

  It's got like 200 extras.

• 2:21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, don't.

• 2:21:25David Sims?

  Characters.

• 2:21:26Speaker 02

  No one actually understands how much movies cost.

• 2:21:28Griffin Newman?

  And, and, and what costs money in making a movie? I think we've now gotten tricked into only understanding certain actor salaries. And the idea that CGI is expensive. And if a movie doesn't have a lot of apparent surface level CGI, people are like, why the fuck did that cost more than $5 million?

• 2:21:46David Sims?

  Didn't they just shoot their set for table tennis plays? Come on.

• 2:21:49Griffin Newman?

  It's the same with one battle after another where people are like, owners say it cost this much. And they're like, he filmed it in California.

• 2:21:55David Sims?

  Well, beyond.

• 2:21:55Griffin Newman?

  That, that is half of that.

• 2:21:57David Sims?

  Sure, but beyond that, I mean, one battle has so much fucking elaborate shit going on. Jesus Christ.

• 2:22:03Speaker 02

  So does Marty Supreme.

• 2:22:05David Sims?

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  I know. I'm just saying, but like, these people are like, why do these movies?

• 2:22:08David Sims?

  We gotta stop getting mad at Twitter.

• 2:22:09Griffin Newman?

  Most of that movie's New York.

• 2:22:10David Sims?

  Great movie, great movie.

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Just be happy this film wasn't shot in like a green screen in Bulgaria.

• 2:22:14David Sims?

  Number five at the box office, best film of 2025. It's a huge hit. People love it. Everyone's talking about it. It's a new this week.

• 2:22:21Griffin Newman?

  It's David?

• 2:22:22David Sims?

  No, it's Anaconda.

• 2:22:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:22:25David Sims?

  Which is made $45 million domestic, almost 100 worldwide. It is chugging along basically on the back of its stars.

• 2:22:33Griffin Newman?

  They're saying that movie has a $45 million production budget, which I don't quite understand.

• 2:22:38David Sims?

  I think it has some very aggressive tax credits.

• 2:22:40Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:22:40David Sims?

  From the, from Big Snake.

• 2:22:43Griffin Newman?

  From Gary?

• 2:22:45Griffin Newman?

  I'm also like, did they, did they get Jack Black and Paul Rudd to do like fucking Blumhouse deals where they're getting like 20% of first dollar?

• 2:22:53David Sims?

  Maybe. Yeah. So Anaconda is out there. Haven't seen it. I won't see it till I see The Quest for the Blood Orchard, or whatever it's called. I have to.

• 2:23:00Speaker 02

  The Blood Orchard?

• 2:23:01David Sims?

  That's the last sequel to Anaconda. Okay. I can't be going out of order on these.

• 2:23:06Griffin Newman?

  There are also like three direct to video sequels.

• 2:23:08David Sims?

  I gotta watch those.

• 2:23:08Griffin Newman?

  We gotta watch them all. And of course, they're our next Patreon series. Um, you and I just keep saying like, if they had just been like Christmas Day, here's a movie. It's Jack Black.

• 2:23:18David Sims?

  It's called Guys.

• 2:23:19Griffin Newman?

  And Paul Rudd. It's called Guys.

• 2:23:21David Sims?

  They live in a fucking house.

• 2:23:23Griffin Newman?

  It takes place in a.

• 2:23:23David Sims?

  They go out.

• 2:23:24Griffin Newman?

  And they drink beers and they fart one time.

• 2:23:28David Sims?

  It's truly like, I'm Switch in the fucking Matrix. So they're like, comedies are back. And I'm like, not like this.

• 2:23:35Griffin Newman?

  Not like this. But truly like

• 2:23:37David Sims?

  Showing her the Anaconda trip.

• 2:23:38Griffin Newman?

  Show us two comedy stars we love in a movie called Guys.

• 2:23:42David Sims?

  They don't have to pick up any guns.

• 2:23:44Griffin Newman?

  Two comedy stars who have not been able to make just a kind of pure grown up comedy in a decade have been stuck in CGI shit and we still love them. And you're like, what if we promise you they're really funny in this? We'd be like, yes. And then the pitch for Anaconda is like, what?

• 2:24:01David Sims?

  They were kids when Anaconda came out. I'm like, let me stop you right there. No, they weren't. I was alive when it came out.

• 2:24:08Griffin Newman?

  Anaconda came out after Clueless. The fuck are you talking about?

• 2:24:14David Sims?

  Oh, boy. Number six, the box office, of course, is my film that I made in my image. David, I hope you all enjoyed it.

• 2:24:20Griffin Newman?

  Damn.

• 2:24:21Speaker 02

  Speaking of, speaking of Reddit, do you guys got the movie theater employee subreddit surfed?

• 2:24:27Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 2:24:28David Sims?

  Uh, no. So what do they say?

• 2:24:30Speaker 02

  It is a fa- it is fascinating, but I was reading some thread where they were talking about like, so like which, which crowd is the worst of all of the Chris? The movie, the movie theater employee subreddit, they all agreed that the David crowds were by far the worst.

• 2:24:47Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow. They say that the

• 2:24:49David Sims?

  Cause they all brought slings with rocks.

• 2:24:52Griffin Newman?

  I, I did notice this, that they all say the church group crowds tend to be the most entitled.

• 2:24:57David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 2:24:57Griffin Newman?

  I, I started reading the subreddit because of Minecraft and Chicken Jockey and everyone being like,

• 2:25:03David Sims?

  being like, what is happening?

• 2:25:04Griffin Newman?

  Sharing the war stories. And it's been interesting since then to see them talk about like which movies are a problem. And also for them, they're like frustrated by Hollywood scheduling where they're like for six weeks, no one's been coming in.

• 2:25:18David Sims?

  For a while.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  And then like three big movies the same weekend and we're all just gonna have to work like 20 hours.

• 2:25:23David Sims?

  What can I tell you? I mean, it's a thing about Avatar where, you know, this movie's doing well. It's not, you know, and you're like, oh, the comp wise, it's a little below Way of Water. And then you look at Way of Water and you're like, damn, it was the only thing out there when that came. And like, this is a more, I mean, there's great stuff in theaters like David and Anaconda. You know?

• 2:25:38Griffin Newman?

  But no.

• 2:25:39David Sims?

  No, but there's Housemaid.

• 2:25:40Griffin Newman?

  There was a great stat, which was like, the weekend that Way of Water opened, the like combined top 10 box office that weekend was like 90% Way of Water.

• 2:25:51David Sims?

  Right. It was, yeah, it was the only game in town.

• 2:25:53Griffin Newman?

  Versus Fire and Ash had like, Four movies performing above $20 million?

• 2:25:58David Sims?

  It was the first time it happened in years.

• 2:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Avatar, of course, had the like first weekend to itself, second weekend Sherlock Holmes and Squeak will come out. That was at the time, the biggest weekend of all time where you had like multiple movies, but it's generally better if multiple things are doing well.

• 2:26:15David Sims?

  We love product such as the SpongeBob movie, Search for SquarePants.

• 2:26:18Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate example, I've been saying this for fucking months. Why didn't they release that in September? October? There was a

• 2:26:23David Sims?

  That's a dumb movie to release.

• 2:26:25Griffin Newman?

  There was no family film for months. They would have gotten such easy, automatic money.

• 2:26:29David Sims?

  The number of parents who have texted me over this winter break, I guess I'll go see SpongeBob. I'm like, you would have been doing that.

• 2:26:36Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:26:37David Sims?

  In right when there was no movie.

• 2:26:38Griffin Newman?

  Instead, it's competing with like seeing Zootopia for the second.

• 2:26:41David Sims?

  Well, and kids love songs on glue, which is number eight.

• 2:26:43Speaker 02

  I, I went to the last Nighthawk trivia of the year.

• 2:26:47Griffin Newman?

  Congratulations.

• 2:26:48Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:26:49Griffin Newman?

  Shout out Shane Kevin again.

• 2:26:50Speaker 02

  Shout out again.

• 2:26:51Griffin Newman?

  The best trivia night in New York City.

• 2:26:54Speaker 02

  There was a question that was, what is the subtitle of the new SpongeBob movie?

• 2:26:59Griffin Newman?

  SpongeBob titles are so annoying.

• 2:27:01Speaker 02

  We did not get it right.

• 2:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:03Speaker 02

  I have watched that fucking Ice Spice video.

• 2:27:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:06Speaker 02

  Like 20 times.

• 2:27:07Griffin Newman?

  Here's what's annoying.

• 2:27:08Speaker 02

  And I still didn't know that this.

• 2:27:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:27:10Speaker 02

  No, I'm not.

• 2:27:11Griffin Newman?

  The first one is called the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. And then

• 2:27:16David Sims?

  Clean.

• 2:27:17Griffin Newman?

  Over a decade later, the second one is called the SpongeBob movie Sponge.

• 2:27:23Speaker 02

  Out of water.

• 2:27:24Griffin Newman?

  Of water.

• 2:27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:25Griffin Newman?

  The third one is called the SpongeBob movie Sponge on the Run? And the fourth one is called the SpongeBob movie Search for SquarePants. But at some point, they just decide the titling structure is this, the SpongeBob movie, drop SquarePants, and then the subtitle always reuses Sponge or SquarePants.

• 2:27:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. The fact that they reused SquarePants really threw me for a loop.

• 2:27:50Griffin Newman?

  So murky. There are no numbers. I hate it. I still have not seen the fourth and I, I like SpongeBob.

• 2:27:56David Sims?

  And I saw the trailer.

• 2:27:57Griffin Newman?

  Defend the movie.

• 2:27:57David Sims?

  In front of Zootopia 2, expecting my daughter to like it. She didn't like that there was a pirate in it.

• 2:28:01Griffin Newman?

  I think the first two movies are both

• 2:28:02David Sims?

  Thought it was scary.

• 2:28:03Griffin Newman?

  Quite excellent. And the third movie, which was planned for theatrical and went straight to Paramount Plus, I think is quite stinky.

• 2:28:09David Sims?

  Ah.

• 2:28:10Griffin Newman?

  And so I've been a little dubious about this one.

• 2:28:12David Sims?

  There's everyone sort of mixed on this one.

• 2:28:13Griffin Newman?

  I also, I hate that they, they fucking jumped to CGI. The first one is all 2D. The second one is 90% hand drawn and then the final set pieces, they come out of water and they're CGI in our world. And then three and four are just entirely CG.

• 2:28:30David Sims?

  Mr. Krabs, he's there.

• 2:28:31Griffin Newman?

  He's great. Mr. Krabs is so great.

• 2:28:33David Sims?

  Number eight, Song Song Blue. Haven't seen it. Griff's a big fan.

• 2:28:36Griffin Newman?

  I enjoyed it a lot. Kate Hudson is pretty good in it and it's pretty nice to see her deliver. Beyond pretty good. She's, she's very good.

• 2:28:44Speaker 02

  Shout out to Eddie Vedder.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. The guy who plays Eddie Vedder is not as good.

• 2:28:48Speaker 02

  Real Eddie Vedder rules.

• 2:28:50David Sims?

  John Beckwith. Wow. Calling him out.

• 2:28:54David Sims?

  Belushi's in this?

• 2:28:56Griffin Newman?

  No. Oh, Jim? Yes.

• 2:28:59David Sims?

  John's not in that one.

• 2:29:01Griffin Newman?

  I thought you were asking if someone plays John Belushi in the movie like Eddie Vedder. No, Jim is in it. Jim is giving quite a large performance.

• 2:29:10Speaker 02

  I don't know why I thought that was so funny.

• 2:29:12Griffin Newman?

  I don't either.

• 2:29:13David Sims?

  It was funny.

• 2:29:14Griffin Newman?

  Michael Imperiali is in it and he's a delight.

• 2:29:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:17Griffin Newman?

  It's got good people in it.

• 2:29:18David Sims?

  Number nine at the box office.

• 2:29:19Griffin Newman?

  Kate Hudson's really good.

• 2:29:20David Sims?

  Uh, is Griffin's favorite film of the year, Wicked for Good.

• 2:29:23Griffin Newman?

  I, it took me a while to catch up with that one. I saw it finally in anticipation of us doing our Patreon episode on it. I, I like, I cannot get over how bad they fumbled that.

• 2:29:36David Sims?

  It's a bit of a, it's a bit of a tough.

• 2:29:37Speaker 02

  I'm excited to watch it.

• 2:29:38Griffin Newman?

  It was a bad idea to begin with.

• 2:29:40Speaker 02

  I still haven't seen it. I, um, I would like to be on the.

• 2:29:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:44Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Insist. You, you will be.

• 2:29:47David Sims?

  You'll get me through that.

• 2:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Your mind will be blown. Cause we were like.

• 2:29:51David Sims?

  Pile of shit.

• 2:29:51Griffin Newman?

  Danger ahead. Bad idea to split them up.

• 2:29:54David Sims?

  Well, good idea and bad idea.

• 2:29:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29:56David Sims?

  First movie really benefited from it.

• 2:29:58Griffin Newman?

  They fucked it up so much worse than I anticipated.

• 2:30:00David Sims?

  It's that Simpsons gag where Homer's holding like all of his back.

• 2:30:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:05David Sims?

  You know, and like the front looks.

• 2:30:06Griffin Newman?

  Truly. Yeah.

• 2:30:07David Sims?

  Uh, number 10 at the box office, Griffin's favorite film of the year, Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

• 2:30:11Griffin Newman?

  I did watch the first Five Nights at Freddy's.

• 2:30:13David Sims?

  Here it's not so good.

• 2:30:14Griffin Newman?

  For the first time.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  And?

• 2:30:16Griffin Newman?

  It's not good.

• 2:30:17David Sims?

  I hear this one's really bad.

• 2:30:18Griffin Newman?

  Excited to watch two now.

• 2:30:20David Sims?

  This one cleared 120 domestic despite, I don't think I've seen one positive reaction to this film. Like even the like brain dead teenagers seeing it are like kinda disappointing.

• 2:30:31Griffin Newman?

  I have heard it is barely legible.

• 2:30:35Griffin Newman?

  The lore of those movies is so strange.

• 2:30:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:38Griffin Newman?

  The lore of, I guess, the whole Freddy verse.

• 2:30:40David Sims?

  But you know what? Directed by a woman, Emma Tammy.

• 2:30:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she did both of them.

• 2:30:44David Sims?

  So there you go.

• 2:30:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:45David Sims?

  We support ladies.

• 2:30:47Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:30:47David Sims?

  Making films.

• 2:30:48Griffin Newman?

  Mayor.

• 2:30:49Speaker 02

  Mayor, me.

• 2:30:49David Sims?

  Mayor.

• 2:30:50Speaker 02

  Woman.

• 2:30:50David Sims?

  Of Easttown over here. And we got Hamnet, Noah, The Choice, Eternity, a film I find people have been very like sort of mixed positive on. I watched it and I was like, I don't like this at all.

• 2:31:02Griffin Newman?

  I, the trailer made my teeth hurt. I kept seeing the trailer for months and I was really turned off.

• 2:31:07David Sims?

  I could not vibe with Miles Teller. He was, to me, a terrible casting decision for like this kind of like, I'm an ordinary Joe, like, you know, like, and then Callum Turner as the sort of one who got away. I was like, so insane. It was a reel where I was like, are there no men? Do we not have like charming men? Where are the men?

• 2:31:27Speaker 02

  Wait, you don't like Callum Turner?

• 2:31:29David Sims?

  No.

• 2:31:30Speaker 02

  So you don't want him to be the next James Bond?

• 2:31:31David Sims?

  No, fuck off. I mean, look, I'll give the guy, you know, if he's James Bond, like, I'll give him a shot to convince me or whatever, but I am not convinced.

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  I don't get him at all.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  No.

• 2:31:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:31:42Griffin Newman?

  I don't think he's a bad actor, but I just like, I do not get it. He like bounces off.

• 2:31:46Speaker 02

  Do you guys know how he met Dua Lipa?

• 2:31:48Griffin Newman?

  No, how? Did he follow her on Letterboxd?

• 2:31:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:31:53Griffin Newman?

  Is he like a king poster?

• 2:31:55Speaker 02

  I think they met, they met through friends.

• 2:31:57Griffin Newman?

  He like?

• 2:31:57David Sims?

  Wow, so far I'm gripped.

• 2:31:59Speaker 02

  And then, no, get this, they both found out they were reading the same book.

• 2:32:02Griffin Newman?

  What book?

• 2:32:04Speaker 02

  It was like a book, the book that, you know what? You guys are being assholes.

• 2:32:08David Sims?

  What was the book?

• 2:32:10Speaker 02

  What is the book that won like the, what is like the big prize for American literature?

• 2:32:14David Sims?

  The National Book Award?

• 2:32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:16Griffin Newman?

  The Booker Prize?

• 2:32:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, what won the, what won the National Book Award last year?

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  I'll find out for you.

• 2:32:21Speaker 02

  All right.

• 2:32:21David Sims?

  I'll get right on that.

• 2:32:22Griffin Newman?

  Trust.

• 2:32:24Speaker 02

  Yes, trust.

• 2:32:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:32:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:32:25David Sims?

  I heard none, yes.

• 2:32:27Speaker 02

  Yes, so they both were reading Trust. They saw that they had, they each had the books on them. And then they realized that they were at the same part in the book. And he said, well, at least we're starting off on the right page.

• 2:32:43David Sims?

  I'm Dua Lipa. I'm like, remove this man.

• 2:32:45Speaker 02

  No, I love it. I think it's so cute.

• 2:32:49David Sims?

  She's so pretty.

• 2:32:50Speaker 02

  They're both really hot. And I-

• 2:32:52David Sims?

  I don't see it.

• 2:32:53Speaker 02

  Okay, you know what? Fine. He's not for you. He's for me.

• 2:32:57David Sims?

  I guess so. I mean, well, apparently he's for Dua Lipa.

• 2:33:00Speaker 02

  And I like Dua Lipa.

• 2:33:01David Sims?

  I like her too.

• 2:33:03Speaker 02

  No, I said I'm like her.

• 2:33:04David Sims?

  Oh, you're like-

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  We're both women.

• 2:33:06David Sims?

  You like Dua Lipa are women.

• 2:33:08Speaker 03

  What's the Dua Lipa song?

• 2:33:10Speaker 02

  The song? She's got multiple them.

• 2:33:12Speaker 03

  She's a talented singer.

• 2:33:15Speaker 02

  Well, she's got the one from the Barbie movie that's like, dance, dance.

• 2:33:17Speaker 03

  I like that one.

• 2:33:19David Sims?

  My daughter, my daughter fucking loves that song. She loves that song.

• 2:33:23Griffin Newman?

  That's the best Barbie song.

• 2:33:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:25Griffin Newman?

  That's the one that should have won the Oscar.

• 2:33:27Speaker 03

  It's a solid pop song.

• 2:33:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. She's got a lot of solid pop songs.

• 2:33:30Speaker 03

  I just, I know, it's like, I know of her, but I, I just feel like-

• 2:33:34David Sims?

  Levitating?

• 2:33:35Speaker 02

  Levitating is really bouncy. The album that she released during COVID is like, no skips, pure like disco-y pop bops. Her most recent album, kind of a flop.

• 2:33:49Speaker 02

  But she's, I like her. I think she's very unproblematic.

• 2:33:52David Sims?

  She's from West Hampstead.

• 2:33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:54David Sims?

  Not that far from where I grew up.

• 2:33:55Speaker 02

  She went to, when I went to Hampstead Heath, I walked by a-

• 2:33:59David Sims?

  She went to Parliament Hill?

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  I, I walked by a school and I was like, ooh, what cool, what cool kids go to this, this school? Cause I saw some like kids outside like smoking cigs and looking hot. And I'm like, oh, Dua Lipa went there.

• 2:34:10Griffin Newman?

  David, I was, sorry, no, finish your thought.

• 2:34:13David Sims?

  The thing with Parliament Hill-

• 2:34:14Griffin Newman?

  I'm just eager to tell you something.

• 2:34:15David Sims?

  Okay, fine. It's a sort of consortium with four schools, Ackland Burley, William Ellis, and the Saint Union. My brother went to Ackland Burley, so he was in the, anyway, what was your?

• 2:34:24Griffin Newman?

  I was working, I did this little part of film shoot that will go unnamed. And there were-

• 2:34:30Speaker 02

  Draft day two.

• 2:34:31Griffin Newman?

  Draft day two. Always be drafting. Uh, there were several British actors working on it and they were like making small talk about like, where do you live in London? And one of them said, uh, I'm, I'm in Islington.

• 2:34:45David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:34:45Griffin Newman?

  And the, the strength it took.

• 2:34:48David Sims?

  To not say dislington.

• 2:34:49Griffin Newman?

  To just literally close my throat so the words couldn't jump out.

• 2:34:53David Sims?

  I lived there from 95 to 97. That's a very, it's a very fancy place to live these days.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:34:58David Sims?

  Cool neighborhood.

• 2:34:59Griffin Newman?

  You made it hip? You gentrified it?

• 2:35:00David Sims?

  I did. I think I moved in as what, what? Well, I was just gonna ask, what episode did that come up on? Fucking totter. Oh God, don't listen to that one if you've never heard of this inside.

• 2:35:10Griffin Newman?

  Dislington!

• 2:35:11David Sims?

  Dislington. I bring up Islington. I'd get, it's a, I don't even know. Is it just that it's sound? It's a funny word, Islington. The whole thing, it's where Tony Blair was lived and the fucking day he got elected prime minister. So that's 97. So we probably lived there for two years. You know, in England, when you get elected, you just move the day that it happens. Like there's no transition.

• 2:35:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:35:33David Sims?

  And I remember my mom being like.

• 2:35:34Griffin Newman?

  They kick you out.

• 2:35:35David Sims?

  You know, and it'd been 17 years of Tory rule. It was this big deal. Like Labour won. Tony Blair, you know, mixed, mixed record, but uh, you know, this is the big, oh, he got elected. Yay. My mom was like, we're fucking going. Like, let's go watch him move. And I, and I got, I shoved my way to the front because I was a kid. So they let me like go to the front to watch him.

• 2:35:53Speaker 02

  So you watched him?

• 2:35:53David Sims?

  I watched them like, like, you know, wave to ever all the, the crowds.

• 2:35:56Speaker 02

  Was he like carrying boxes?

• 2:35:58David Sims?

  Yeah, it was suitcases and Sherry was there, all his kids.

• 2:36:01Griffin Newman?

  Big ears? He had big ears?

• 2:36:03David Sims?

  Big ears. Sticky out of ears. That's his like, yeah.

• 2:36:05Speaker 02

  Wait, so you lived in England when like the Spice Girls were like?

• 2:36:08David Sims?

  I lived in England when the Spice Girls were happening. Yes. And I had, I had this.

• 2:36:12Griffin Newman?

  I can't even imagine.

• 2:36:12David Sims?

  VHS tape. Uh, and when like Britpop was happening. I mean.

• 2:36:16Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I know, but I, oh, David, I'm familiar, but I really Spice Girls are.

• 2:36:22David Sims?

  I had, so I had this VHS tape, uh, that was sort of like a behind the scenes Spice Girls thing. It was, it came with the first album, like it was.

• 2:36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:30David Sims?

  That I watched over and over again. It was just like talking head interviews with them. It was like the most slapped together.

• 2:36:35Speaker 02

  It was yours.

• 2:36:36David Sims?

  Scary.

• 2:36:36Speaker 02

  You were scary?

• 2:36:37David Sims?

  Obviously.

• 2:36:38Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna guess sporty.

• 2:36:40David Sims?

  Uh, I always looks.

• 2:36:42Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I was gonna say ginger.

• 2:36:43Griffin Newman?

  No, I was ginger.

• 2:36:45Speaker 02

  You were ginger. I thought you were a baby.

• 2:36:47Speaker 03

  I was ginger on main. I was, I was a little bit too ginger.

• 2:36:51Speaker 02

  I always insisted on playing, like, we would like roleplay Spice Girls. Yeah. And I always insisted on being baby.

• 2:36:59David Sims?

  Yeah. Okay. I'm, to be clear, I was saying I had a crush on Spice.

• 2:37:02Speaker 02

  That's what I was saying too. I know, I know.

• 2:37:04David Sims?

  We didn't so much roleplay.

• 2:37:05Speaker 02

  No, I, I know, but everyone has like their favorite Spice Girl. Mine was baby, but people would be like, but you have brown hair. You have to be posh.

• 2:37:11Griffin Newman?

  The girl, the girls at my school would roleplay Spice Girls and I would roleplay being the manager. I was like, who's the guy? They must have a manager.

• 2:37:19Speaker 02

  You're Richard Grant?

• 2:37:20Griffin Newman?

  I would like pretend to like, it was before the movie came out, but I'd be like, oh, get your microphones.

• 2:37:26David Sims?

  No, I was a big, I was a big scary fan. You know, Scary got a lot of guff. You know, people were mean to, I'm sorry, sorry. Sporty got a lot of guff and people were mean to Mel C. And I always, I think even as a kid, I felt bad about, I didn't like that, you know?

• 2:37:37Speaker 02

  Why were they mean to Mel C?

• 2:37:39David Sims?

  She was ugly, like, you know.

• 2:37:41Speaker 02

  But she's not. She also had the best voice out of anyone in the group.

• 2:37:43David Sims?

  She was the best singer and dancer. I, I'm just, I'm talking about.

• 2:37:47Griffin Newman?

  Solo hit?

• 2:37:48Speaker 02

  I turn to you.

• 2:37:50David Sims?

  She had some, she had some bangers.

• 2:37:53Griffin Newman?

  That song was so big though.

• 2:37:54David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. Mel B and Mel C, I feel like both released like a couple of records that charted.

• 2:38:00Speaker 02

  Isn't it crazy that Mel B had a baby with Eddie Murphy?

• 2:38:03Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy.

• 2:38:04David Sims?

  And he, she had to like fucking chase him.

• 2:38:06Griffin Newman?

  Eddie Murphy was like, I swear to God, that's not my baby. Prove it. And she was like, here. Her baby was like doing the laugh and sticking bananas in her.

• 2:38:16David Sims?

  Jerry had like a genuine solo hit, but it was while the Spice Girls were, it was after she'd left while.

• 2:38:21Speaker 02

  I don't think it was, I don't think it was a US hit though.

• 2:38:24David Sims?

  No, but in Britain, it was like a solid seller and Victoria did like the one release and everyone was like, okay. And she was like, you know what? I know. Forget it. Forget it. I won't, I won't, I won't try that again.

• 2:38:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm so glad we got Spice Girls talking to our manager.

• 2:38:36David Sims?

  I was very obsessed with the Spice Girls.

• 2:38:38Griffin Newman?

  They're rich and I guess.

• 2:38:38David Sims?

  And I was, you know, obsessed with Oasis and.

• 2:38:41Speaker 02

  Dennis holding up his pulp man of the year award.

• 2:38:43Speaker 03

  Yes, of course. No, Spotify was gracious enough to send us a bunch of junk.

• 2:38:49David Sims?

  Excuse me, a bunch of worthwhile merchandise.

• 2:38:52Griffin Newman?

  They sent over a water bottle with an included MagSafe stand.

• 2:38:56Speaker 03

  Well, right. Cause I, and it has our, the name of the show branded on it, which is cool, but it had a, like a manual.

• 2:39:04Griffin Newman?

  And we were like, why?

• 2:39:05Speaker 02

  It's a water bottle.

• 2:39:06Speaker 03

  Put liquid in and sip. Like what the fuck is it gonna say?

• 2:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Put water in mouth, swallow.

• 2:39:14Speaker 03

  Don't spill on body.

• 2:39:16Griffin Newman?

  No, it has like a mag safe like ring at the top of the bottle. And I was like, oh, is it like a water bottle that charges your phone? No, you can just tilt it up to get like a good selfie angle.

• 2:39:25Speaker 03

  To make content with.

• 2:39:26Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:39:27Speaker 03

  It also then included.

• 2:39:28Griffin Newman?

  I love Sling in town.

• 2:39:29Speaker 03

  A trophy that has my name on it for some reason. And it says, uh, the Crate Digger Wrapped Awards 2025.

• 2:39:38Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 2:39:39Speaker 03

  I have no idea.

• 2:39:41Griffin Newman?

  We don't know.

• 2:39:42Speaker 03

  Who knows?

• 2:39:43Griffin Newman?

  We don't know.

• 2:39:43David Sims?

  AI is probably just doing this without you telling anyone.

• 2:39:47Speaker 03

  But I do want to just share.

• 2:39:48David Sims?

  Sending packages.

• 2:39:49Speaker 03

  Having previously worked for Spotify for a couple of years, I had pitched a show. Cause you know, Spotify at this point, I feel like there's maybe a couple of ringer shows that still do this format, music and talk.

• 2:40:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:02Speaker 03

  Where they're, you know, able to play a full song.

• 2:40:05Griffin Newman?

  Kind of classic radio.

• 2:40:05Speaker 03

  Spotify, why not?

• 2:40:07Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 2:40:07Speaker 03

  Take advantage. I pitched a show called Crate Digger.

• 2:40:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:40:12Speaker 02

  Wait.

• 2:40:12Griffin Newman?

  So then that must be.

• 2:40:13David Sims?

  That must be related to that.

• 2:40:14Speaker 03

  It's definitely not because I heard on the Seth Meyers and Lonely Island podcast.

• 2:40:19Speaker 02

  That they also got a Crate Digger award?

• 2:40:21Speaker 03

  Also got a random award with Crate Digger.

• 2:40:24Speaker 02

  What the fuck?

• 2:40:25Griffin Newman?

  Crate Digger?

• 2:40:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:40:26Griffin Newman?

  It's also interesting that the award is addressed only to you.

• 2:40:30Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 2:40:31Griffin Newman?

  I gotta go.

• 2:40:32Speaker 02

  It has Digger in it.

• 2:40:34Speaker 03

  Someone gets to the bottom of this.

• 2:40:35Griffin Newman?

  Coming to theaters 2026. Interrupted. I also love that I was like, hey, just double checking. They only sent one water bottle. And you guys were like, yeah, you can have it. The water bottle says, the inscription is blank check with Griffin and David. So the water bottle acknowledges that at least two people do the podcast.

• 2:40:53Speaker 02

  Things you guys will share, you know?

• 2:40:55Griffin Newman?

  That'd be cute.

• 2:40:56Speaker 03

  You've seen.

• 2:40:57Griffin Newman?

  Two straws.

• 2:40:57Speaker 03

  Have you seen Ann Lee yet, Griff?

• 2:40:59Griffin Newman?

  No, Ann Lee's my next view.

• 2:41:00Speaker 02

  I thought.

• 2:41:01Speaker 03

  The plague?

• 2:41:02Griffin Newman?

  No, that's also on my to see list. I've been doing some hyper ketchup. I was behind for a little while because of, uh.

• 2:41:07Speaker 02

  Plague on watch, but I don't like going to IFC Center.

• 2:41:11Speaker 03

  Why not?

• 2:41:11Griffin Newman?

  David's got the plague.

• 2:41:12Speaker 02

  Cause they don't, yeah, they don't have like a lobby. It's a lot of NYU students.

• 2:41:16Griffin Newman?

  You like the lobby.

• 2:41:17Speaker 02

  I just don't fuck with it. I'm sorry.

• 2:41:18David Sims?

  4:00 in the morning.

• 2:41:19Speaker 02

  I work.

• 2:41:22Griffin Newman?

  It is nice that IFC does tend to do really early screenings. Like, sometimes you can sneak in like a fucking 9:30 a.m. at IFC, especially for movies that have been out for a while.

• 2:41:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that means I have to commute at peak commute time into Manhattan.

• 2:41:34Griffin Newman?

  The Plague. I need to see Testament of Ann Lee. I need to see, uh, Resurrection. I need to see The Jarmush. I need to see The Voice of Han Rujab. Those are my major ones, I feel like, that I'm trying to knock out.

• 2:41:49David Sims?

  I have yet to see The Jarmush, uh, or Resurrection. Those are kind of my only two big remaining ones.

• 2:41:55Griffin Newman?

  You got a moosh.

• 2:41:56Speaker 02

  I think I'm gonna stop watching movies.

• 2:41:58Griffin Newman?

  No. They're, they're arguably the only good thing we have left.

• 2:42:03Speaker 02

  I don't know. It's like a big commitment.

• 2:42:05Griffin Newman?

  You can, you can redefine your rules.

• 2:42:07Speaker 02

  Do you know what I did all break?

• 2:42:09Griffin Newman?

  Slept?

• 2:42:10David Sims?

  It's not gonna be a good answer. You watched that fucking hockey blowjob show?

• 2:42:13Speaker 02

  I watched, I watched the hockey blowjob show.

• 2:42:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It is funny they called it that.

• 2:42:17Speaker 02

  You don't see any penis in the fucking show.

• 2:42:21David Sims?

  It's all busting suggestions.

• 2:42:23Griffin Newman?

  That's the terrible thing.

• 2:42:24Speaker 02

  And, uh,

• 2:42:26Griffin Newman?

  Now, that's the terrible thing.

• 2:42:27Speaker 02

  I played The Sims.

• 2:42:29David Sims?

  Marie?

• 2:42:30Speaker 02

  Which is the sign.

• 2:42:31Griffin Newman?

  Maybe we should take this off, Mike, but are you depressed?

• 2:42:33David Sims?

  Definitely gotta wrap up.

• 2:42:36David Sims?

  Take us out, Chris.

• 2:42:37Griffin Newman?

  Hey, next week?

• 2:42:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:39Griffin Newman?

  Starting a new mini-series.

• 2:42:40David Sims?

  I've been playing a lot of Civ 6, by the way, so no judgment here. Yeah.

• 2:42:44Speaker 02

  Is that what you call your, or you're, I guess you're The Sims 5? Your family?

• 2:42:47David Sims?

  No, Civ 6, Civilization 6.

• 2:42:48Speaker 02

  I thought you said Sims 6.

• 2:42:50David Sims?

  Another video game that is old and there's no-

• 2:42:52Speaker 02

  But I'm like, you know what? You're this, you're literally The Sims. That's why you don't play it.

• 2:42:56David Sims?

  We are The Sims. I certainly do not need to imitate being at home on my computer. That's not an experience that I'm longing for.

• 2:43:08David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 2:43:10Speaker 03

  What, what, what is a Griffin? You got a rueful smile.

• 2:43:13Griffin Newman?

  A rueful smile. The developers who made my beloved dearly departed Disney Infinity, a game I was obsessed with 10 years ago, in which all Disney IP was mashed together, have a new game that's been a giant flop called Funko Fusion.

• 2:43:27Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 2:43:28Griffin Newman?

  In which everything is mashed together through Funko and Funko Pops, but they only have access to Universal. So it's the weirdest collection of things. It is Wicked, Scott Pilgrim, Hot Fuzz, The Thing, Jurassic World only, I want to say, Back to the Future, He-Man is in there, uh, The Umbrella Academy, and maybe one other thing I'm forgetting. Anyway, that's the terrible video game I'm playing right now.

• 2:43:53David Sims?

  Wow.

• 2:43:54Griffin Newman?

  I'm a little Funko Pop and I collect coins.

• 2:43:56Speaker 03

  I certainly hate these two.

• 2:43:58David Sims?

  I fucking rules. I've cracked away at Hades 2. Good times.

• 2:44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I never was able to beat Hades 1, but I do just enjoy.

• 2:44:05David Sims?

  You just get in there, muck up some skulls.

• 2:44:07Speaker 03

  Having a little fun, learning a little bit about Greek mythology.

• 2:44:11David Sims?

  Learn a little, learn a little bit, exactly, about these hot gods and goddesses. Yeah, goodbye. We'll see you next week. Rat Catcher.

• 2:44:18Griffin Newman?

  Lynn Ramsey kicking off our five week, six week Lynn Ramsey mini-series. Five week Lynn Ramsey mini-series from my favorite filmmakers on the planet.

• 2:44:27David Sims?

  Turn your subtitles on for Rat Catcher.

• 2:44:30Griffin Newman?

  Heavy accents.

• 2:44:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:31Griffin Newman?

  Followed by Peter Weir.

• 2:44:33David Sims?

  After that, but we'll do five weeks of Lynn Ramsey and we will do Sam Raimi's new film as well.

• 2:44:37Griffin Newman?

  People were so like, we had the episode where we were like, and our next mini-series is Lynn Ramsey, we tricked you. You all thought we were doing Peter Weir next? We recorded that and then we started teasing Lynn Ramsey. So by the time it came out, everyone knew it was Lynn Ramsey. And then we're like, you fucking idiots.

• 2:44:53David Sims?

  Peter Weir all along.

• 2:44:55Speaker 03

  Over on the Patreon, actually, on this date, our episode on The Wiz was released.

• 2:45:02David Sims?

  Good, good. Honestly, a fun episode, a cool movie.

• 2:45:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:06David Sims?

  It's got, it's got, you know, little foibles, but cool movie.

• 2:45:08Griffin Newman?

  No, I think a great episode and, um, you know, it was tough with like the holidays and breaks and everything that my therapist was off duty. So the whiz episode got to function as kind of an on mic therapy session.

• 2:45:21Speaker 02

  Oh, I can't wait.

• 2:45:22Griffin Newman?

  We dig a lot into my childhood and why do I like this movie so much? There were some discoveries made. Nothing sensational.

• 2:45:29David Sims?

  No, it's not like a, a, yeah, right. Like a wrenching.

• 2:45:31Griffin Newman?

  But there was a real, why did you watch this 40 times and cry? Kind of thing going on.

• 2:45:36Speaker 03

  For that kind of bonus content and so much more, please, you know, sign up for blank check special features, $5 a month, or if you want an ad free, we got an ad free tier, $10 a month.

• 2:45:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And listen to Critical Darlings. Critical Darlings, which I should mention, uh, is, is the only thing that happens on our main feed that will not be going on to the ad free tier on Patreon for a number of reasons that are too complex to get into with our partnership with Vulture. I understand if you are supporting this show and, and paying for the premium of the clean feed, a thing I value above all else. I totally get it and I apologize for the annoyance. It would be appreciated if you could support Critical Darlings by just downloading that one episode every Thursday. That's what I do with shows that I cherry pick. I don't subscribe. I go over to the feed and I just hit the save button and I just keep those episodes. That's what I'm doing. I understand your frustration.

• 2:46:30David Sims?

  Don't, don't ask me. I don't care.

• 2:46:32Griffin Newman?

  I'm not asking you for anything.

• 2:46:33Speaker 02

  Do we have any more things we need to apologize for?

• 2:46:35David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 2:46:35Speaker 03

  And sorry for the audio cues that take you in and out of the ad breaks. I'm so sorry.

• 2:46:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry we do this thing that's supposed to be.

• 2:46:43Speaker 03

  Charring for you, even though so many other shows do it.

• 2:46:47David Sims?

  I'm gonna go.

• 2:46:47Speaker 03

  But hey, you know, my bad.

• 2:46:51David Sims?

  Festivus delayed grievances getting aired.

• 2:46:53Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry that this podcast is about movies. Movies are problematic. Bad people have made movies before. Film used to be projected on nitrate prints, those caught on fire, those would cause accidents.

• 2:47:07Speaker 02

  I'm sorry that I called out my parents for getting Wyclef Jean and Will.i.am confused when I got Vic Mensa and Vince Staples confused.

• 2:47:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes, sorry for AT Aliens, AT Aliens, which we called Alt Aliens, the OutKast album that we all profess to love and didn't know how to pronounce. We are white. It's just like, it goes.

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, we're white.

• 2:47:32Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry. I apologize for it every day. I'll keep apologizing for it. I assure you, I'm not proud of it.

• 2:47:39Speaker 03

  Hey, we're human.

• 2:47:40Griffin Newman?

  We make mistakes. Always seems like other, only other people get the breaks.

• 2:47:46Speaker 03

  It's like, what do you friggin' want from me?

• 2:47:47Speaker 02

  Are we gonna keep all of this in the episode?

• 2:47:49Griffin Newman?

  This is all absolutely in the episode.

• 2:47:51Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm a friggin' guy. I'm making a mistake. Come on.

• 2:47:55Griffin Newman?

  This guy is great, and I'm promising you that he's gonna be a big part of the show in 2026. Thank you all for listening. And as always, we're sorry.

• 2:48:07Griffin Newman?

  We're so sorry.

• 2:48:16Speaker 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 Bardy 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 and the great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly 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,

• 2:48:57Speaker 03

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.