Jurassic Park with Sean Fennessey

God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg makes 1993’s Jurassic Park and changes movie history. The Big Picture’s Sean Fennessey joins us to talk about this totemic blockbuster, and we’re spending three hours talking about the bad boys of the Jurassic era (velociraptors), the bad boys of ILM (Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams and Mark Dippe), and the bad boy of movie scientists (Dr. Ian Malcolm). Note: this episode was recorded last fall, so some of the takes you’ll hear are a bit…frozen in amber. Yup, you guessed it. Hawk Tuah Talk again. Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh? 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?

  Welcome to Podrastic Cast. Great. I had to, had to do it.

• 1:46David Sims?

  You could have done the Goldblum. That's, that's what you didn't go for.

• 1:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50David Sims?

  You could have done a Goldblum.

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Well, it has been established on the show over the years that my Goldblum is particularly awful.

• 1:55David Sims?

  Oh, interesting. I'm trying to remember this.

• 1:57Griffin Newman?

  In my pantheon of bad impressions. Goldblum might be second only to Yarnold Schwarzenegger.

• 2:05David Sims?

  You're very bad at Yarnold Schwarzenegger.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  How's your Wayne Knight? Let me see. I'm gonna work on it.

• 2:10David Sims?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  Is Wayne Knight 100?

• 2:14Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to get, he's got a very particular rasp. That's hard to approximate.

• 2:19David Sims?

  He has, he's inimitable, I mean, which I guess is why Wayne Knight was Wayne Knight for the nineties.

• 2:24Griffin Newman?

  I should say, putting a pin in Wayne Knight's ginormous nineties.

• 2:28David Sims?

  I mean, just when it was like, you can't say, get me a Wayne Knight type. It's like, get me Wayne Knight or we're rewriting this character.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  I would argue Josh Mustel was in the mix there for the Wayne Knight part.

• 2:38Griffin Newman?

  He was, but fucking, I mean, the degree to which Wayne Knight Bigfooted him.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  He did, he did. He edged him right out.

• 2:45David Sims?

  Josh Mustel probably has like a voodoo doll of Wayne Knight.

• 2:47Griffin Newman?

  Josh Mustel had the nepo juice and he had a head start, right? He's in movies starting in the seventies.

• 2:53David Sims?

  Oh, man.

• 2:53Griffin Newman?

  And he's got an iconic dad and yet Wayne Knight just said like, come, come on, give me space.

• 2:58David Sims?

  I fucking forgot about Josh Mustel, man. And it is.

• 3:01Griffin Newman?

  We just watched fucking, uh, Jesus Christ Superstar.

• 3:04David Sims?

  That's right.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  Which he's great in.

• 3:06David Sims?

  He, he sure is. And then you just look and the nineties, the early nineties in his career. Sandler's using him. He's in City Slickers two. You're like, oh, he's in both City Slickers, obviously. Like, you know, this is great. And then you're seeing in the nineties, you're like, huh, it's kind of tapering off. And then the two thousands, it's like he was in two movies.

• 3:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:24David Sims?

  It's, it's, it's over.

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  Cause what happened?

• 3:26David Sims?

  I mean, I don't know. Wayne Knight, I guess just market corrected him to use an expression.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:32Griffin Newman?

  There's the story I love that, uh, when they were casting this movie and when they were planning it out, that Spielberg saw Basic Instinct.

• 3:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:40Griffin Newman?

  And this, the shot of Wayne Knight sweating profusely.

• 3:43David Sims?

  Yeah. The interrogation scene in which.

• 3:45Griffin Newman?

  In response to.

• 3:46David Sims?

  She uncrosses her legs. He is.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  What?

• 3:49David Sims?

  She does. You gotta, you gotta look closely.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  What, then what happens?

• 3:52Griffin Newman?

  This is why you gotta go 4K on Basic Instinct. Cause the first time I saw it on TV, I went, what is everyone getting so worked up about?

• 3:58David Sims?

  But he is, if, when you're looking at all the guys in that scene, he's the one where you're like, who is this fucking guy?

• 4:04Griffin Newman?

  And the story has always been that Spielberg watched it and went. T-Rex cut to that reaction shot? That's a blockbuster. That he was just like, that's exactly what we need is that guy's response. Which is funny, because the movie doesn't even really do that.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  No, he doesn't get that moment.

• 4:21Griffin Newman?

  Ends up being so different than that.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  He also, the only man truly focused on Wayne Knight in Basic Instinct. I mean, for that to be your takeaway.

• 4:28David Sims?

  Spielberg's like, sharing who?

• 4:30Griffin Newman?

  What vagina? Um, but he, yes, no, the idea that he like saw that one cutaway reaction shot. And it's like, we can build a blockbuster around that.

• 4:39David Sims?

  Spielberg magic, baby.

• 4:40Griffin Newman?

  But that's also fucking Wayne Knight magic.

• 4:42David Sims?

  Okay, but when we're talking about Jurassic Park and we should introduce our guest before we start.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  A Wayne Knight film, as far as I'm concerned, a Wayne Knight vehicle.

• 4:48David Sims?

  Thing it's not. Every single actor in this, when they are on screen, you're like, man, Samuel owns this fucking movie. And then like Sam Jackson's on screen, and you're like, I forgot that Sam Jackson has never been better than in Jurassic Park.

• 4:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 5:00David Sims?

  And then we cut to someone else, and I just feel the same way every single time.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  Not to, to crib like, uh, rewatchables terminology. But this is a hard movie to put through the rewatchables categories.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yes, I did it once and failed terribly.

• 5:14David Sims?

  Did you guys do a JP?

• 5:16Griffin Newman?

  But you're like, are there like 20 apex mountains in this movie?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Well, everyone is perfect, right? So it's one of the most perfectly cast movies of all time, plus one of the most consequential artistic movies of all time. Shoemaker and Brian Curtis, I did it. And I think we actually forgot to even say the name John Williams in the pod.

• 5:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  So like, if we were doing it today, it would be a nine hour episode.

• 5:35Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  But there's, there's, there's a lot to go through here.

• 5:37Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot to go through here.

• 5:38David Sims?

  This movie's good.

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  It is good.

• 5:40David Sims?

  It's really good.

• 5:42Griffin Newman?

  It is good. It is funny that like, I, I'm putting this forward as a theory, okay? 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. In each decade, Spielberg makes a movie that basically breaks Hollywood's brains trying to replicate it.

• 5:57David Sims?

  The definitive blockbuster. I mean, I guess Star Wars is the definitive blockbuster of the 70s. But Jaws, Raiders, Jurassic Park is what you're saying.

• 6:04Griffin Newman?

  We were talking about, we did, we did our Dune episode on David Lynch. I should just say quickly, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  David.

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who had massive success early on in their careers, say, making Jaws.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:17Griffin Newman?

  As their second or third film, debating on how you count it. Um, and we're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

• 6:27David Sims?

  Baby.

• 6:27Griffin Newman?

  They, sometimes they hook, baby. This is a mini-series on the films of Steven Spielberg, the early years. We're using early pretty liberally.

• 6:36David Sims?

  Spielberg Origins.

• 6:38Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg Origins.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  How many kids does he have when he makes this movie?

• 6:40Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 6:41David Sims?

  Let's find out.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Two?

• 6:43Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that's, I feel like, the most defining aspect of this film relative to the earlier Spielberg blockbusters is, this is now a father.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Protection is what's most important.

• 6:56Griffin Newman?

  This is a dad movie.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:58David Sims?

  I mean, it is, especially when you read the book, which I assume you have.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  I did on a beach on Long Island in the 1990s, and I thought hard about returning to it for this, and I just didn't have the time.

• 7:11David Sims?

  I assume, Griffin, that you have not.

• 7:12Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 7:13David Sims?

  Ben, did you ever read Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park?

• 7:16Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 7:16David Sims?

  A book that I had to hide under my bed because it was so scary.

• 7:20Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 7:21David Sims?

  I remember that very profoundly. Like, I read The Death of Dennis Nadyry in that book, which is very violent, and the book, much more violent than it is in the movie.

• 7:28Griffin Newman?

  He gets killed by Sharon Stone for trying it.

• 7:31David Sims?

  Honestly, that is something that Michael Crichton would write. We can talk about that in a second.

• 7:34Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about that.

• 7:35David Sims?

  But, and I did the thing, like, the joke in Friends of Joey putting The Shining in the freezer. Like, I put the book under my bed. I was like, I can't even have the book near me. I was so freaked out. Anyway, what was it? Oh, oh, the kid, yeah. There's not as much overwhelming, like, ah, these kids, we have to protect them in the book, that I'm like, the kids are more of an irritation.

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  Well, and that's the closest thing this movie has to, like, an emotional spine.

• 8:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:00Griffin Newman?

  Is Alan Grant's journey of learning to tolerate children. Starting the movie as a guy who's like, I could never have kids, and by the end is like, I get it.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:08David Sims?

  He learns how to tolerate children and use, like, seatbelts correctly and so on and so forth, right?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  It's not a very Spielbergian book.

• 8:16Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Sure, they're spectacle, but aside from that, man, it's a mean book.

• 8:20David Sims?

  It's, his books are fucking mean.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  The Crichton books are nasty.

• 8:23David Sims?

  I like Michael Crichton books as, like, fun things to read, but I recently reread Sphere, because I'm, I have twin babies, and I'm just reading a lot of books on my phone right now. Not a humble brag.

• 8:34Griffin Newman?

  Reading books on your phone?

• 8:36David Sims?

  That part.

• 8:36Griffin Newman?

  That takes good eyesight.

• 8:37David Sims?

  That's, that's a humble brag.

• 8:39Griffin Newman?

  How hard are you zooming in?

• 8:40David Sims?

  And Sphere is one of those books. Obviously, that was in a moment of his life where he could fucking write a book called, like, I Took a Shit, and his editor would be like, I can't wait to get this on every bookshelf in America.

• 8:52Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 8:53David Sims?

  But like, if you submitted Sphere to me, I would just immediately reply back like, do you have a problem with women? What did they do to you?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  I think I Took a Shit was the original title of Disclosure, as I recall.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  But talking about it not being a very Spielberg-y book, which I just have to take your word for here, it is one of the infamous parts of this movie of like, this is like, the most white-hot pitch to hit Hollywood, like, arguably ever.

• 9:19David Sims?

  He had two children, by the way, you're correct.

• 9:20Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 9:22David Sims?

  With Kate Capshaw.

• 9:23Griffin Newman?

  And they like, throw it out to all the studios as a jump ball, and every studio goes like, here's our pitch for what we would do with this text, and has their own director attached. Warner Brothers makes a play with Tim Burton, Columbia makes a play with Richard Donner, Fox makes a play with Joe Dante, and Universal and Steven Spielberg.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  I'm obsessed with this fact.

• 9:43David Sims?

  Amazing to think about all four versions.

• 9:45Griffin Newman?

  But all of them make sense in that way where you're like, here's the book as this like, median object, and then you could take it further in any one of these directions.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Okay. Wait, we all love this movie, right?

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:56David Sims?

  Yes, although, I'm gonna call Griffin out as not being a Jurassic Park superfan.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  It's not totemic for me in the way I think it is for the three of you. It is a movie I have certainly, over the years, grown to appreciate more and more and more.

• 10:07David Sims?

  You were never really a JP boy in the same way.

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  I wasn't a JP boy. I think that's the key distinction. It wasn't one of my movies growing up.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Do any of those other three sound better to you?

• 10:15David Sims?

  No. But, well, the Dante one is the one that kind of...

• 10:18Speaker 02

  It's very intriguing.

• 10:19David Sims?

  But, but it's, and I say this with due respect to Joe Dante, that is a fun, silly, trashy movie.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  You know what he did instead of this movie?

• 10:27David Sims?

  Was it Matt Nae?

• 10:28Griffin Newman?

  Which is one of his best movies.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Great movie, but so different in terms of scope and energy than what JP is.

• 10:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:35David Sims?

  Like, the Burton version of this movie does not appeal to me particularly. That's just kind of an interesting, like, well, what would that look like?

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:43David Sims?

  Donner would have made a slightly worse version of this movie, probably.

• 10:46Griffin Newman?

  Donner, I think, probably would have made the more Crichtney version, wouldn't have pulled it further into his own voice. Donner's the most...

• 10:52David Sims?

  Probably not.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  Sort of like, um...

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Hired hand?

• 10:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:56David Sims?

  But he, Donner grounds things in emotion.

• 10:58Griffin Newman?

  Expert, studio craftsman.

• 10:59David Sims?

  Exactly. He's a great studio filmmaker, he does spectacle just fine. It would probably be a...

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  He would have made the most Crichtney version.

• 11:05David Sims?

  A really fun movie.

• 11:06Griffin Newman?

  The Dante thing's interesting to me because I do, I have long contended... That in particular Jurassic world feels much more like a Dante homage than a Spielberg homage. In a lot of ways.

• 11:19David Sims?

  And yes, and it also is meaner than this movie is.

• 11:23Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 11:23David Sims?

  So.

• 11:24Griffin Newman?

  Which feels like a misread of Joe Dante's anarchic humor.

• 11:28David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 11:30Griffin Newman?

  Um, the Burton, I mean, like, talking about all the sliding doors here, Burton misses out on this. Then it's like, oh, fuck, but I would like to do a dinosaur thing. Then Warner Brothers gets the rights for Dinosaurs Attack, the TOPS Trading Card Series.

• 11:45David Sims?

  Right, and that's how he found Mars Attacks.

• 11:47Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, let's do both of these. And then after Jurassic comes out, he's like, I shouldn't fuck with dinosaurs. Let me just do Mars Attacks, which I think we all agree is like a better for the culture. That Spielberg makes.

• 11:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 11:59Griffin Newman?

  Jurassic and he makes Mars Attacks. It's better that Joe Dante makes Matinee and Spielberg makes Jurassic.

• 12:04David Sims?

  Joe Dante has made movies about critters run amok.

• 12:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:08David Sims?

  So like, yeah, I just wonder what his, but like, I just would love to see a Joe Dante Jurassic Park.

• 12:13Griffin Newman?

  Joe Dante would have.

• 12:14David Sims?

  Jurassic movie.

• 12:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:16David Sims?

  Like, what if Joe Dante had made Jurassic Park 3? You know what I mean?

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, that would have.

• 12:20David Sims?

  Where it's like, hey, you know, can you just play in the sandbox and make a silly fun movie? That's like not too, we don't have to worry too much about like getting this book right.

• 12:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:30David Sims?

  Cause like Jurassic Park 3, which is a movie we both like.

• 12:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:34David Sims?

  Is that, it's just, hey, Joe Johnson, you're good with creatures. You can do some action. Keep this movie fun and light and, you know, blockbuster.

• 12:40Griffin Newman?

  But Dante would have wanted to dig into the corporate element. He never would have made, um, uh, why am I fucking? What's Amber's character's name?

• 12:50David Sims?

  What's who's character's name?

• 12:51Griffin Newman?

  Richard Amber's character.

• 12:53David Sims?

  Uh, Hammond.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  Hammond. Thank you. He never would have made John Hammond cuddly.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Well.

• 12:57Griffin Newman?

  He would have made him funny.

• 12:58David Sims?

  John Hammond is a mean fucker in the book. Uh, he dies in the book, spoiler alert for the book, being eaten by compies who are not in this movie, but they're in the sequel.

• 13:07Griffin Newman?

  They're saving their stomach to eat Peter Stermer in the second film.

• 13:11David Sims?

  But as he's dying, he's thinking like, fucking kids fucked all this up. Like, he's mad about like the stupid kids that he brought to Jurassic Park.

• 13:19Griffin Newman?

  I think all the clamp shit in Gremlins 2 is in a way a vision of what he probably would have done with Jurassic.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  It's still ultimately like, when you look at the obvious inspiration for that character in Gremlins 2, Donald Trump, like, it's ultimately pretty benign, you know? Well, I said it. I said it. I said his name out loud on this podcast.

• 13:36Griffin Newman?

  But this is the key difference between, without calling out names, the director of Jurassic World and Gremlins 2, where you're like, the satire in Gremlins 2 feels pointed without feeling like nasty?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  The thing is, is I would argue that Jurassic Park is probably the hardest corporate satire slash, I don't know, finger pointing that Steven Spielberg's ever done.

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  I agree with that.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  And it's right on the precipice of him becoming a genuine Hollywood corporate titan.

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  100%. Fascinating that he would, I mean, he is John Hammond in this movie, is he not?

• 14:10Griffin Newman?

  Let's call it another thing. At this point in time, I've said some variation of this stat many times on this podcast, but he signs a deal when Universal decides to transition from backlot tour to like, full theme park, which obviously escalates with Jurassic, but when it's founded, it's like E.T. ride, Jaws ride, like, we're building this on the back of the Spielberg library. His deal is he gets, it's like 10% of all revenue every year in perpetuity, and they can't break the contract. So by the time he's making this movie and Universal's making the play for it, part of it is like, and then we can fucking put this in the parks.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Does he still own a piece of that?

• 14:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  So he's getting that Halloween Horror Nights money?

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I'm about to be there in like, a week.

• 14:53Griffin Newman?

  All of it. Every park, every country.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 14:56David Sims?

  It's like, we, so, okay, so here we are on this podcast. We, obviously, as we, I'm sure, discussed before.

• 15:01Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is Sean Fantasy.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 15:03Griffin Newman?

  The big picture.

• 15:03David Sims?

  Sean Fantasy, the king. King Sean.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  King Sean.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  I've changed my name to John Hammond.

• 15:10David Sims?

  You have a little walking stick.

• 15:13David Sims?

  We've talked about Steven Spielberg on this podcast before, his later part of his career, when he is a CEO, and then when he's sort of an emeritus exec who still like, gets that sweet, sweet Transformers money, but is mostly just like, I always wanted to make a musical, and I've always wanted to remake, you know, this.

• 15:28Griffin Newman?

  There've been a couple of these now with like, you know, it has happened only because of like, big figures entertainment also getting into product lines, where you have your like, Rihanna's with the Fenty and the fucking Jenners with makeup lines or whatever.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Sure, just karma.

• 15:42Griffin Newman?

  He, for a long time, was one of the only, like, Entertainment professionals who was also a billionaire. And it was because of all these deals that he's making money off anything connected to Men in Black, Transformers, things he didn't even direct.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:56Griffin Newman?

  Not to mention his own properties, not to mention Universal Studios deals, like all this shit.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  He leveraged something that very few filmmakers ever did, which is that everyone wanted him to make their movie.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  And so he would grab a piece of it, even if he had no intention of making it, so that he could produce it forever, which, you know, maybe only five people in the history of movies would be able to do that in the first place, but he did it at the highest level of capitalism.

• 16:19Griffin Newman?

  I would also argue that for a long time, for several decades, his name above a title as Steven Spielberg Presents, even if no one was tricked.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Steven Spielberg is associated with this movie in the vaguest way. People are like, oh, well, then must be pretty good, right?

• 16:32Griffin Newman?

  People weren't even being tricked in a like Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas way. They were just like, he's co-signed this? That's good enough for us.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  We were raised on that.

• 16:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Is he the first director's name you knew?

• 16:44David Sims?

  I mean.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Probably?

• 16:45David Sims?

  I think without a question, right?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:47David Sims?

  Like.

• 16:48Griffin Newman?

  Was the shorthand guy, is the guy you make jokes about. You have to like pull a name of a director that anyone knows. But also like in the 90s, like half of the shows on Saturday morning, like television, the cartoons are Steven Spielberg Presents.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  Animaniacs, Tiny Toons.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Oh, right.

• 17:08Griffin Newman?

  Like he had like 10.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 17:10David Sims?

  Crazy.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  There's a deeper guy could get into Toonsylvania, Prehysteria, but that's, we don't, that's a whole other episode.

• 17:17David Sims?

  So Jurassic Park, I just, your point, yes, I do, this is in a way, I'm looking at his later filmography, the most sort of nakedly spiteful about like capitalism and the, the, the sort of future of business.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  He never really does that.

• 17:34David Sims?

  I think, I think Ready Player One does that a lot.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  And I think that these two movies are capstones, right?

• 17:39David Sims?

  And I think Ready Player One, he is more like him at the other side of it, feeling a little jaded.

• 17:45Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 17:45David Sims?

  About what he half-begotten, you know, like.

• 17:49Griffin Newman?

  But it's also, right, yes.

• 17:50David Sims?

  The Mark Rylance character being like, I just wanted to entertain people. I'm really sleepy.

• 17:55Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 17:55David Sims?

  Can you go outside sometimes? I can't do his voice.

• 17:57Griffin Newman?

  You know, he doesn't say it that clearly. Even if you don't have an impression.

• 18:02David Sims?

  I want to go outside, baby. Like.

• 18:06Griffin Newman?

  Are you ready, Player One?

• 18:07Speaker 02

  People.

• 18:08David Sims?

  Criticize Ready Player One for like, oh god, they like, how dare this movie like invade The Shining and turn it into a video game level? And I'm like, I think Steven Spielberg is aware of what that's doing. Some people might disagree with me.

• 18:20Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, the characterization of like, you know, capitalist culture. I feel like this movie is inflating what he starts with Jaws. But Jaws is so micro, a town, a mayor, you know? It's not like a full, multi-layered corporation. It's not this idea of like spiting God and...

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Money is a big concern, but in that movie, it's more about preserving what already exists. And this is about growth, expansion, reimagining what our life is and what the lifestyle of entertainment can be. So like, they are definitely in conversation with each other, but this movie, even though Richard Anbro is so warm and grandfatherly.

• 19:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Everyone in the movie is like, what the fuck is your problem, dude?

• 19:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  What are you doing here? This is a horrible idea, except for, of course, the blood-sucking lawyer.

• 19:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. You know, who even, look, re-watching this, it's like, that character is far less two-dimensional than I remember him being.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Gennaro, yeah.

• 19:20Griffin Newman?

  Every time I'm watching it, I'm like, oh, he's like a real person. The last couple of moments are him being shitty to the kids, which gives you just enough leeway to want to see him be eaten.

• 19:30David Sims?

  You're right. It's sort of a bit of a permission structure for it to be okay that he dies. And Ariana Richards saying he left us is quite, it really cuts, you know, to the bone a little bit. Like, her shrieking that, you're like, Jesus, like, even though you're also like, there's a fucking T-Rex, like, what's he supposed to do?

• 19:47Griffin Newman?

  But like, can I, compare that to the, the...

• 19:50David Sims?

  The way Alan helps and all that.

• 19:53Griffin Newman?

  I was also gonna say, like, Bridezilla personal assistant in Jurassic World, where you're like, Gennaro's like a person. He's a human being.

• 20:00David Sims?

  Running away is a human reaction that is somewhat understandable.

• 20:05Griffin Newman?

  Here was my contention I set up and have failed to resolve with in the first 20 minutes of this episode. No, no, it's my fault. Please, I can't finish a thought.

• 20:15Griffin Newman?

  We did Dune on our David Lynch series, right?

• 20:18David Sims?

  That was a while ago.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yes. Excellent episode. John Hodgman. Get out of here. He really brought the heat. I love this show. Have I told you guys that?

• 20:24Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're too kind. You're, you're, big picture is my favorite show. David, what's your favorite show? Uh, The Low Post.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Rogan? Shapiro? Who are you guys?

• 20:36Griffin Newman?

  Producer Ben's Sleep Time Podcast.

• 20:39Griffin Newman?

  Shapiro.

• 20:40David Sims?

  It's, I'm sorry, it's a Talktua.

• 20:41Griffin Newman?

  It's added this one, Talktua.

• 20:42David Sims?

  I'm all in on Talktua.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Talktua is, we, we, we actually, we are pre-recording this podcast and we pre-recorded a podcast because my podcast partner had a child.

• 20:51David Sims?

  Yes.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  We're on the exact opposite end of that.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:54Griffin Newman?

  This is our first episode we've recorded in a while.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  You're coming back.

• 20:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  We're, we're off, you know, we're off together. But we recorded a pod a few months ago that has like, like an extended Hawk Tuah riff.

• 21:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Like literally 40 minutes on Hawk Tuah. And it's not coming out until December and you're like white knuckling like, is she, will she remain?

• 21:13Griffin Newman?

  I think it's gonna stay.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Will she be the vice president? You know, like what could happen here with Hawk Tuah?

• 21:17Griffin Newman?

  Have you guys seen the photos that Spirit Halloween, and this will be many, many months old by the time it's come out. Spirit Halloween has a Hawk Tuah end cap.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:25Griffin Newman?

  It's not just that there's a Hawk Tuah costume, there are like 10 different products.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Are you serious?

• 21:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 21:30David Sims?

  What is the costume?

• 21:31Griffin Newman?

  It is, are you ready? It is like.

• 21:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  It is like an auto mechanics jumpsuit and it's Hawk Tuah auto lubrication. Spit on that thing.

• 21:42David Sims?

  What?

• 21:43Griffin Newman?

  As like a logo. But then they also have like shirts and like fucking party like decorations.

• 21:49David Sims?

  Meeting where they were like, we have one day to get this to storage. Like, we don't have a lot of time.

• 21:54Griffin Newman?

  Because what's the costume?

• 21:55David Sims?

  It just has to have Hawk Tuah on it.

• 21:57Griffin Newman?

  Costume can't be her because she's kind of dressed generically. We have to create someone who exists in the Hawk Tuah universe.

• 22:03David Sims?

  That was figured out over lunch.

• 22:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:05David Sims?

  That was a quick little short meeting.

• 22:07Griffin Newman?

  That was figured out over like the water cooler.

• 22:10David Sims?

  Anyway, I assume we now work for her.

• 22:12Griffin Newman?

  We do.

• 22:12David Sims?

  Like by April, like she owns us.

• 22:14Griffin Newman?

  This is a Talktua production.

• 22:16David Sims?

  Um, how did we get to Hawk Tuah? Uh. Dune, you were talking about Dune.

• 22:19Griffin Newman?

  Dune.

• 22:20David Sims?

  Jesus, finish that thought, please.

• 22:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So I was like, that movie comes out the year after Return of the Jedi. And we were talking about how in the wake of Star Wars, there are very few attempts to make another Star Wars. They kind of don't start until later in the eighties. You have things like Zardoz and Krull and whatever. But people felt so intimidated by like, how do you build an entire universe like this? That even though Star Wars is obviously the most seismic film of that decade, like Jaws is the first like. Kind of classical blockbuster release. It sets the model and the marketing. And I do think that's the movie studios are trying to rip off more because it feels more attainable. Oh, get three good actors. You have one looming threat, you know, and not just the shitty Jaws sequels, but all the things like Orca and whatever.

• 23:06Griffin Newman?

  I just think that becomes more, even like the airplane movies are kind of trying to do something closer to Jaws, I would contend. And then like Raiders is absolutely something everyone's ripping off, even though E T is the bigger hit.

• 23:18David Sims?

  Right. But also Raiders, I feel like is them being like, I assume if you're an executive at Rival Studio, you're like, what the fuck? That's what people wanted?

• 23:26Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 23:27David Sims?

  They wanted like a rip roaring thirties like sand adventure. Like, I didn't see this coming. I was making a space laser play or whatever.

• 23:34Griffin Newman?

  But also that, that the breakthrough there is that thing Spielberg says of like, what if you made a movie that was only the good parts? Right? Like the start of the like theme park cinema kind of thing.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, my big contention about this movie that we're talking about is that it is, it is the end of something and the beginning of something. And the thing that it is the beginning of is still not over.

• 23:54Griffin Newman?

  I agree with that.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  And I don't know when it's going to end.

• 23:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  And maybe it will not end.

• 23:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  But whatever Jaws started, which is, I think you described very well, which is sort of like this collection of actors, this sort of high concept, often like creature or fear forward. Putting you through the eyes of a young child. You know, Spielberg invents a kind of American cinema. This movie is like the absolute apotheosis of blockbusterizing movies. And then because of digital created characters and figures, we're in like this, we're mired in the schmear. Like everything has just been a schmear in movies ever since this movie.

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  I think it's fascinating that like everyone else would try to chase him. And then every 10 years he'd come back and be like, I've come up with a new evolution of the thing. And you watch the response at the time and the things are becoming bigger and bigger hits, but critics are like, is he simplifying? Is he becoming more and more childlike? Is he becoming more populist?

• 24:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 24:49Griffin Newman?

  We missed the like fucking Robert Shaw speech from Jaws. Where did the subtlety go? And then like this very year, he bifurcates, right? It's this and Schindler. You're like fucking Jaws gets a best picture nomination, Raiders gets a best picture nomination. They don't have to nominate Jurassic because they're like, oh, he is split off into serious Spielberg. And entertainer Spielberg, and as we covered in our later Spielberg series that was done eight years ago.

• 25:14David Sims?

  Sure.

• 25:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he like has this weird split where anytime he tries to make a movie like this again, it kinda doesn't work. And his big tent poly movies tend to be the successful ones are the like Minority Report, War of the Worlds, like darker, haunted, like he can't go back to just pure joy like this without it feeling a little, I don't know, like he's trying to chase his youth.

• 25:35David Sims?

  Why do you think that is? Um, why do I think that he just like, not sours exactly, but curdles a little bit? Maybe because he did it better than anyone and how could you possibly follow? But then again, he did follow it up with the Lost World Jurassic Park and I feel like that's where he's like, you know what? Why am I trying to fucking do a better movie than Jurassic Park or whatever? Like, why am I trying to do that again? Like, what, what was I thinking?

• 26:00Griffin Newman?

  But that's the key difference. That's what this is the end of is like Spielberg is not really interested in chasing his own shadow in playing this game anymore. And then yet we are 30 years past, everyone's still trying to figure out how to make Jurassic Park again, both literally and like generally.

• 26:15David Sims?

  If you think about his career, right? Yes, you're right. This is the apex.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:19David Sims?

  Once again, he's created the, the decade defining blockbuster. But then he also, he finally looked inside. He gave us a personal, serious film that's also sweeping and epic. It's not the color purple or Empire of the Sun where it's like, why are you trying to make a serious movie?

• 26:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was the first time where everyone was like.

• 26:36David Sims?

  Reverse engineer a serious Oscar winner.

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 26:39David Sims?

  He gets his Oscar and then it's like, okay buddy, what do you want to do?

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:44David Sims?

  He follows it up with like, I'll do that again, Lost World and Amistad.

• 26:47Griffin Newman?

  He takes four years off and then just does the same year again.

• 26:50David Sims?

  Same thing and everyone's like, not that. And he's like, you're right, not that.

• 26:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 26:55David Sims?

  I'm gonna do shit that's interesting to me. It does feel like basically after this, after that, after Lost World Amistad, he's like, yeah, I'll just, you know, I'll follow the things that are interesting to me.

• 27:05Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. Which is the end of the thing, but then the start of the thing is everyone else trying to make this.

• 27:10David Sims?

  Right. But there's, I think there's a critical.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Thing that happens between Jurassic Park and The Lost World, which is, you know, he co-creates DreamWorks and launches the studio. He doesn't make The Lost World for DreamWorks. It's still a Universal movie.

• 27:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  But I think he's making another straight ahead blockbuster because he's like, I still gotta be Steven Spielberg.

• 27:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  For your gap, and then I still gotta hold on to this thing that is my iconography, my name above the title, like you were saying. And I don't know, I've never been a big Lost World person.

• 27:42Griffin Newman?

  No, it's a very flawed movie.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  I really don't think it's very good.

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  But I get why he did it.

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  We always say the same thing about it, which is, it is one of the best directed bad movies of all time.

• 27:52David Sims?

  Right. There's amazing set pieces in it. I kind of love the cast of it. I don't even hate the premise. I don't love the third act, but like, I don't hate the, you know, something has survived the sort of Wild Side Island that's not a park. Like, that's cool.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Good Arliss Howard. Enjoy his work in that film.

• 28:07Griffin Newman?

  Fucking great Arliss Howard. The posse throw in that film?

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:11David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  That's fine cut.

• 28:13David Sims?

  But we talked about that movie.

• 28:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:15David Sims?

  And like, it's funny because Temple of Doom is also him being like, well, of course I can do a sequel. This thing is made for a sequel. And then everyone's like, we don't like this.

• 28:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. The thing I would argue, he doesn't, he either doesn't know how to do again, or he gives up trying to do, is the Last Crusade, which is like, guys, I'm sorry, let me just give you a Spielberg right down the middle homerun kind of thing. And like, from this point on, he either is like, sort of, I don't know, he's not interested in repeating himself?

• 28:48David Sims?

  Not too interested. And it feels like when he does, not that Amistad is like him repeating himself exactly, but it's a little bit him trying to make another Tony historical epic. He stepped outside of his comfort zone again. It doesn't work in the same way.

• 29:04Griffin Newman?

  But BFG feels like the clearest example to me of like, that's him making a movie that he's like, Spielberg should make this, right?

• 29:10David Sims?

  And Crystal Skull.

• 29:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:12David Sims?

  And I defend Crystal Skull in some ways.

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:16David Sims?

  But obviously, I think he's probably dissatisfied with Crystal Skull.

• 29:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:21David Sims?

  And he feels like, they want, Lucas and Ford wanted me to do that, so I fucking did it.

• 29:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:27David Sims?

  And there you have it. That's what I wanted to make, and it didn't really like, go over.

• 29:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:31David Sims?

  And so when they're like, can we do another one? He's like, absolutely not. Like, I'm not, I'm done. Like, and that's him finally making that decision. Warhorse is the other one that kind of feels like they were like, how can you not make this movie?

• 29:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 29:43David Sims?

  Stevie, come on.

• 29:44Griffin Newman?

  But then he's-

• 29:45David Sims?

  But that movie's good.

• 29:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:47David Sims?

  Good.

• 29:47Griffin Newman?

  He's also-

• 29:48David Sims?

  Do you like Warhorse, Sean?

• 29:49Speaker 02

  I do not.

• 29:50David Sims?

  Yeah. It's not his best.

• 29:51Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 29:52David Sims?

  Some people get really mad at us for that episode where we mostly just dunk on how everyone wants to fuck the horse.

• 29:57Griffin Newman?

  We weren't dunking on it, we were celebrating. We're very-

• 30:00Speaker 02

  It's a hot horse.

• 30:00Griffin Newman?

  Sex positive. It's a hot horse. Everyone wants to fuck that horse.

• 30:04Griffin Newman?

  I just, I look at this movie and I'm like, this still feels like the text everyone is studying when they're trying to construct their blockbusters.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  But nothing feels like this movie.

• 30:13Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 30:13David Sims?

  I don't- No.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  I don't think you can copy it.

• 30:15Griffin Newman?

  This is my wildest take, and I don't know if you guys are immediately gonna push back on this or you're gonna get where I'm coming from. I, I watched this movie now and I'm sort of astonished by how quaint it feels in certain ways. Whereas at that time, this movie felt like as big as a movie could possibly be. And now our movies have gotten so overly complicated that when you're like, this movie has like 10 speaking roles. Like it has ensemble cast, but there are no like unnecessary characters.

• 30:44David Sims?

  It's, you're absolutely right. It's such a strange movie in that sense that it is epic.

• 30:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:50David Sims?

  And yet it's mostly set in like a couple of buildings, like sort of tucked away on this island.

• 30:57Griffin Newman?

  The modern version-

• 30:58David Sims?

  On an, in an empty, unopened, not ready yet, theme park with a skeleton staff. Right, yes.

• 31:04Griffin Newman?

  Like this, i- i- it looks expensive, it still looks great, but I'm just like, there is a focus to this that is the Spielberg like problem solving clarity. Like the thing that he is best at is knowing exactly what the audience needs to focus on at any moment. And cutting all the gristle and fat away from it to just like simplify the storytelling. In any modern version of this movie, and I'm not just talking about a modern Jurassic movie, but any movie like this today. Samuel Jackson's dialogue is spread across 10 characters.

• 31:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 31:33Griffin Newman?

  Right? And there is a clarity to the reason why we love Sam Jack in this movie and he makes such an impression is because it's one guy and that one guy is given the space to actually have like a personality and a feeling of like what this means to him emotionally versus like, you know, in the last Jurassic movie, like Caleb Heron, who's a very funny comedian, is like guy behind a computer for three lines.

• 31:56David Sims?

  I forgot about that.

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

  And he pops up and it's like, oh, this is fun. They cast a funny person in this movie. And then he disappears. And you're like, if you're gonna put him here, here's a distinctive person. Give him a lot to do.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  There's some really funny stuff in the last Jurassic movie and I, you know, on the big picture, I'm, I guess, known for not remembering what happens in any of the Jurassic world films or the chronology.

• 32:16Griffin Newman?

  Weird, because they're very memorable.

• 32:18David Sims?

  All the characters have names that we all know.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  I do remember in the most recent film, because there are so many characters.

• 32:23Griffin Newman?

  So many.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  There's a sequence where like all the characters need to get from like one station to another station without getting eaten by raptors. And it's like 18 people walking in a line because they've introduced so many people. I would argue that this movie, one, I completely agree with everything you said, just like David.

• 32:38Griffin Newman?

  And by the way, at that point in the film, that's us dealing with the skeleton crew. Like, they've whittled down the cast to only the 18 finalists.

• 32:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 32:46Griffin Newman?

  Justice Smith has been like sidelined.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I don't know if this is a good story choice or not, but the fact that so few people work at fucking Jurassic Park, it's like, it's a park full of dinosaurs and eight people work there. Like, what is going on here?

• 33:01David Sims?

  But I think that's- Right. Should we be like, that's bullshit, there would be more people? Or should we be like, no, this is a story about like essentially a startup.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  It's a startup, yes.

• 33:09David Sims?

  Where they're like, ah, yeah, I don't know, we kind of like, as Malcolm said, we kind of backed into like, oh, fuck, we can make dinosaurs be alive.

• 33:17Griffin Newman?

  But also, the cold open of this movie is like 10 characters, most of whom we don't see again, who like don't talk.

• 33:23David Sims?

  The movie does have the excuse of, there's a hurricane, everyone left. Like, there, when one imagines there are, there are more people that have left.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  I, that's the thing. I do wonder if that was almost a strategic choice on his part to be like, open with showing a full staff focusing on one specific area. To imply at normal times.

• 33:42David Sims?

  There's a little more going on.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  It does help the movie because it does reduce the number of people you need to remember and who is delivering the information.

• 33:49David Sims?

  It helps a book too, because in a book, like it really, you don't want to unwieldy a group.

• 33:53Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 33:54David Sims?

  Like, um, but I also think Crichton in writing this book is like, he's grinding his gears about like, you can't automate things. Like you can't just like, you know, create something like this and then just have a guy program a security system. Like, you know, he's got other gears he wants to grind.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Here's Crichton on the right side of the AI debate.

• 34:13David Sims?

  He is. I mean, Crichton is often on the right side of things, except for like, do women deserve to have a voice in society? And then he is dead wrong.

• 34:23David Sims?

  Because the whole thing with sphere is that the sphere brings your nightmares to life, right?

• 34:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 34:27David Sims?

  And like, it's like they find this, this weird alien.

• 34:29Griffin Newman?

  And his worst nightmare was Sharon Stone talking.

• 34:31David Sims?

  The things start to truly go bad when the lady goes into this sphere. Like that's when it's like, uh-oh.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  I'd like to circle back to disclosure.

• 34:39Griffin Newman?

  Please, please.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Just disclosure is a film.

• 34:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a great.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  A powerful woman rapes a man.

• 34:44David Sims?

  Correct. Disclosure is like him being like, okay, I've thought of, right, dinosaurs, spheres. What's my worst nightmare? A woman in the workplace.

• 34:53Griffin Newman?

  Science run amok.

• 34:56David Sims?

  The other thing about Michael Crichton is he's like forty feet tall.

• 35:01David Sims?

  My other favorite thing is that his estate, and they probably will sue me for saying this, so maybe we should, uh, you know, just put a little marker on this man.

• 35:08Griffin Newman?

  Keep it in double.

• 35:09David Sims?

  You know, made fuss about, uh, Noah Wiley's in a new hospital show.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:13David Sims?

  Right? Called like The Pit and it's set in Pittsburgh and it's like, it's basically just ER two. It's just like, Noah Wiley plays an ER doctor. Okay, get used to it. And Michael Crichton's estate is like, Michael Crichton created ER. So we get royalties from this too, because this is clearly just more ER. You can call it something else, but it's fucking more ER, right?

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Noah Wiley not allowed to play a doctor ever again.

• 35:33David Sims?

  And it's like, bitch, you were a spec pilot in the seventies that then got turned into a TV show. You don't get to just own hospital shows forever.

• 35:41Griffin Newman?

  Play devil's advocate for a second though.

• 35:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Griffin Newman?

  I am pretty certain that was explicitly.

• 35:46David Sims?

  It was going maybe to be an ER, like a sequel, right?

• 35:50Griffin Newman?

  I, I think it was explicitly developed as an ER sequel. And then at some point they went, oh, wait, how much would we have to pay the Crichton estate?

• 35:59David Sims?

  Well, probably not just the Crichton estate, but it's like, we reached out to Eric LaSalle. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, fucking Gloria Rubin, hey, you want to come back? And she's like, not for nothing.

• 36:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. The whole thing was just Wells and Wiley are back in the medical world. And I think at some point, they did make the decision of like, if we shift this 10 degrees, it's a new thing.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Does this mean that you can't play another intern?

• 36:23Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Without the Reitman family getting a bite at that apple? Like, really, what are we talking about here?

• 36:29David Sims?

  Yeah, or just a movie about draft.

• 36:31Griffin Newman?

  Rick the Intern: Afterlife?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  Like, think long and hard what you say here.

• 36:35Griffin Newman?

  No, I know. I know.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Because this affects your future payday.

• 36:37David Sims?

  I mean, Sean does a draft on his show every month. Do you think he owes?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 36:41David Sims?

  The Reitman estate?

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Call me Jason.

• 36:42Griffin Newman?

  I think if I went to Montecito Pictures and was like, I want to, I want to develop a Rick the Intern legacy sequel, he's now GM.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  He's running Island New Blar.

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then at some point, I like went to a different studio and was like, I have a pitch about a former assistant who then becomes a GM.

• 37:02David Sims?

  Okay, okay.

• 37:02Griffin Newman?

  But I had started the conversation properly first. That's the thing. I think if it was just like John Wells and Noah Wiley were like, you know, it'd be fun to just do a show and not have to pay the Crichton estate, then Crichton's lawsuit would be kind of bullshit. I think they were talking with everyone and then sort of went like, you know, we actually have abandoned this project and we have an entirely new idea.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  It's called The Pit, baby! Sherri Stringfield's still around? What's going on with her?

• 37:26David Sims?

  Oh, God, I love her so much. Dr. Lewis.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  She was great. What a great show that was.

• 37:31David Sims?

  ER is the greatest TV show of all time.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Oh, loved it.

• 37:34David Sims?

  Along with The X-Files and Gilmore Girls. Those are the, and The Simpsons, obviously. First 10 seasons.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Have you considered The Twilight Zone?

• 37:41David Sims?

  Twilight Zone's a good, good shout. I was gonna say like, I guess like The Sopranos or whatever.

• 37:45Griffin Newman?

  Mad Men. You've made the case recently that Mad Men's the best.

• 37:47David Sims?

  The Mad Men re-watch really...

• 37:49Speaker 02

  That actually is my favorite. I've said that before.

• 37:51David Sims?

  Yeah, that show really stands up fantastically.

• 37:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:54David Sims?

  Uh, but not as good, of course, as my favorite show, The Romanoffs.

• 38:00David Sims?

  Bring it back.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Did you finish it?

• 38:02David Sims?

  What if I'm like outside? No, I did not.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  I didn't finish it either.

• 38:04David Sims?

  Outside, Amazon being like, when Romanoff season two?

• 38:07Griffin Newman?

  I really just wish Matt Weiner would stick to movies. It's clearly where his voice plays the best. Are you here? You are here.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Where is he?

• 38:15David Sims?

  Great title.

• 38:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:16David Sims?

  Well, I have no idea where he is.

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:18David Sims?

  I, I mean, the Romanoffs is the last thing he did, and that was six years ago, seven years ago at this point. Anyway, Jurassic Park.

• 38:25Griffin Newman?

  Jurassic Park.

• 38:26David Sims?

  It's a film in 1993 that Steven Spielberg directed that was quite successful.

• 38:30Griffin Newman?

  It was the highest grossing film of all time for a period?

• 38:32David Sims?

  It was absolutely the highest grossing film of all time and was beaten by Titanic.

• 38:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:37David Sims?

  Yep. It beat, I think it took the record from E.T.

• 38:40Griffin Newman?

  That sounds right.

• 38:41David Sims?

  I think E.T. had been the reigning champ for essentially 10 years.

• 38:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:44David Sims?

  Like, I don't think anything beat E.T.

• 38:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're forgetting, I, I do believe in 97 earlier.

• 38:49David Sims?

  Star Wars would re-release and bump itself back up.

• 38:52Griffin Newman?

  Star Wars has six months of being number one again before Titanic is, is the iceberg to that film's dreams.

• 38:59David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, yeah, uh, Jurassic Park. And Sean likes it, and he selected it when he said we're doing Steven Spielberg.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  I did.

• 39:07David Sims?

  Kind of a risky choice.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  Was I the first claim? Like, did I, did I get first shot?

• 39:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:12David Sims?

  Probably.

• 39:12Griffin Newman?

  I, my memory of your, uh, your text was, uh, 50% of my personality is liking Jurassic Park.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, it is.

• 39:20Griffin Newman?

  Kind of have to do it. Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Well, and we were talking about Lynch.

• 39:24David Sims?

  Yep.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  And the other 50% might be liking David Lynch. So I was forced to choose, but honestly, I, I, I take full responsibility for my bad Jurassic Park podcast, however many years ago that was.

• 39:34David Sims?

  You chose wise.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  So I'm, I'm happy to be here with you doing this.

• 39:37Griffin Newman?

  How, how old were you when this movie came out?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  I was 11 years old.

• 39:40Griffin Newman?

  Kind of in the exact sweet spot.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  It changed my life. I've changed my life.

• 39:44David Sims?

  You were in the exact sweet spot.

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I actually don't know if there's a better age.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  And I, and I read the book before the movie and did the thing where I was like, whoa, this is not like the book at all. Like, probably the first, like, adult book that I ever read.

• 39:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  And it was such a sensation. I mean, it, it's extraordinary. Like, that book was in every store. It was in, like, sneaker stores. You know, you could buy it everywhere. Um. And still, the movie just took my breath away.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:08David Sims?

  But I'm with you. Yes, it was that one of those early things where I was like, I can tell you what's different about the book. Like, you know, like, oh, in fact, right, Hammond is kind of a jerk in the book. And Malcolm dies in the book and all that.

• 40:20Griffin Newman?

  But it's one of those things. Am I wrong about this? I mean, we have the dossier right here. But the movie was so fast-tracked off of the idea

• 40:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:28Griffin Newman?

  that they're making the movie at the time that the book is being published, basically.

• 40:32David Sims?

  Possibly.

• 40:32Griffin Newman?

  Like, I think they're adapting it off of the manuscript.

• 40:35David Sims?

  Yeah. Certainly, right. The rights were done and dusted before the book came out. Ben, did you see this film in theaters?

• 40:42Speaker 03

  I did.

• 40:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  You did?

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  How did it feel?

• 40:46Speaker 03

  I remember just being like, dinosaurs. They're alive. I can see them.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  It was mind-blowing.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  It was really, because I, as a kid, and I assume like, this is like, very much a boys' thing, but like, growing up, I was obsessed with dinosaurs.

• 41:03David Sims?

  My daughter is obsessed with dinosaurs.

• 41:04Griffin Newman?

  So it's not just a boy thing?

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Okay, sorry.

• 41:07David Sims?

  Dinosaurs are very, very cool when you're a kid.

• 41:08Griffin Newman?

  And in fact,

• 41:09Speaker 02

  It's a kid thing in general.

• 41:11Griffin Newman?

  David's daughter is particularly obsessed with one dinosaur. I don't know if you've heard about this. The good dinosaur?

• 41:15David Sims?

  She was briefly very obsessed with the good dinosaur.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  I've noticed you an increased number of logs of that film on Letterboxd.

• 41:21Griffin Newman?

  Well, David's just working on his book pitch.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  You should do a thirty-three and a third style, you know, monograph.

• 41:28Griffin Newman?

  It's called The Best Dinosaur.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Good dinosaurs and better dinosaurs.

• 41:33David Sims?

  That movie is such a baffling series of artistic choices.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Can I just say, one of the big things I really want to talk to you guys about is how this is actually the only good movie about dinosaurs. Which is just remarkable because of what Ben just said.

• 41:48Griffin Newman?

  I think such a good point.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Every kid loves dinosaurs.

• 41:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  This is the, maybe you like The Lost World? Sure, people will defend Jurassic Park 3. Obviously, the Jurassic World movies are huge. Let's just set aside the franchise for a second.

• 41:59David Sims?

  Set aside the franchise.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  This represents

• 42:02David Sims?

  I'm gonna, you know, I've got a list up. I'm just gonna yell some titles at you. Sixty-five recently.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Not a masterpiece.

• 42:09David Sims?

  It was like, Adam Driver goes back in time and he shoots dinosaurs. I was like, this is gonna be good, right? That movie is unfortunately a dud.

• 42:15Griffin Newman?

  Somehow not even a sixty-five out of one hundred?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Can I add one caveat before you continue to go through it, David? Godzilla is not a dinosaur.

• 42:22Griffin Newman?

  No, of course not.

• 42:23David Sims?

  No, no, no, no, no. Godzilla does not count.

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 42:26David Sims?

  The Flintstones, now, you know, the Flintstones, they use dinosaurs well in that movie.

• 42:32Griffin Newman?

  Dino's very good in it.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  If someone said, "Give me the list of the 10 best dinosaur movies," how many movies would you need to name before you got to the Flintstones?

• 42:40David Sims?

  Three? I'm struggling here. I'm on J, Journey to the Son of the Earth. I guess that has dinosaurs in it. I mean, the King Kong movies have tangential dinosaurs. I guess you could call those good, but they're not really about dinosaurs.

• 42:53Griffin Newman?

  But I do think, I think they make the 10, and dinosaurs aren't top billed.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  You could argue that dinosaurs are the most interesting thing in the history of this planet.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  There's a reason.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  We are fascinated by dinosaurs.

• 43:09David Sims?

  The two coolest things, and they're things that kids tend to be obsessed with, right, are that, what, right, one, dinosaurs once walked the earth.

• 43:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:17David Sims?

  Giant monster lizards were top of the heap. We didn't exist.

• 43:22Griffin Newman?

  Their bones are huge.

• 43:24David Sims?

  And we can find their bones.

• 43:25Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 43:26David Sims?

  Two is like, there are planets in the sky circling around us. One's red, one is yellow. Where you're just like, did a kid come up with this idea that there's just like a blue one and a red one?

• 43:37Griffin Newman?

  But so much of that is still speculative. Like, the planet stuff is still futuristic because we don't have, like, commercial travel to those planets. The dinosaur thing is so wild when you think about how overwhelming a concept it is, but it's presented to kids as like, and by the way, this is like done deal, settled matter, millions of years ago. They're not coming close to your front door.

• 43:56David Sims?

  Okay, there's like 1 million years B.C., right? There's like the sort of old kind of adventure.

• 44:01Griffin Newman?

  The original Lost World. Right.

• 44:04David Sims?

  Land of the Time for God is another one.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Right, Ray Harryhausen style, you know. But like, are those really, are those good movies? Like, they're certainly, they're memorable.

• 44:12David Sims?

  They're good, they're fun. It's fun to see the dinosaurs in them. That's what they got.

• 44:15Griffin Newman?

  I also don't think his best films are his dinosaur films.

• 44:18David Sims?

  No.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 44:19Griffin Newman?

  It's like Sinbad.

• 44:20David Sims?

  Sinbad, the adventure ones. Yeah. Transformers, when they have dinosaurs in them is pretty good.

• 44:27Griffin Newman?

  Well, those have done no bots in them.

• 44:29David Sims?

  And I mean, one of my favorite line reading of all of Transformers.

• 44:32Griffin Newman?

  Is Stanley Tucci is Merlin?

• 44:34David Sims?

  No, he's good too, but is, is the, when the dinos, when the fucking thing turns into a dinosaur the first time.

• 44:40Griffin Newman?

  You mean when, uh, Grimlock turns from robot mode into beast mode?

• 44:44David Sims?

  No idea what you're talking about. And Ken Watanabe, who is of course voicing a Samurai Transformer, which we forget about.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Not idea.

• 44:50Griffin Newman?

  Swift, what's his name?

• 44:51David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 44:52Griffin Newman?

  I think it's Swift. I think it's Autobot Swift.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Bushido, yeah.

• 44:55David Sims?

  Says, "I was expecting a giant car." That line always gets me.

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  That's good.

• 45:00David Sims?

  It's so funny.

• 45:01Griffin Newman?

  You know who's a good guy?

• 45:02David Sims?

  It's such a weird moment of self-awareness where I'm like, "The fucking Samurai bots is like, don't we turn into cars?"

• 45:09Griffin Newman?

  So close to his name. It's not Swift, but it's like that. Drift. Autobot Drift, maybe?

• 45:13David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Did you see Transformers 1?

• 45:16Griffin Newman?

  I haven't yet. I've been away.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I have no idea.

• 45:18Griffin Newman?

  You liked it, right?

• 45:19Speaker 02

  I did like it, yeah.

• 45:19Griffin Newman?

  Autobot Hound is not in it, right? That's my guy.

• 45:21David Sims?

  His character is named Drift. I have also not seen it, but I do like Josh Cooley, who made Toy Story 4.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  I thought he did a nice job of it. I really liked it. And it has one of the great, like, third act, like, it's all happening moments in recent movie history.

• 45:34David Sims?

  Is the second best dinosaur movie, um, The Land Before Time, the Don Blue film?

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That, that was going to be my take.

• 45:41David Sims?

  Is that probably like the second most iconic dinosaur movie in a way?

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  Here's what is really damning. Disney's dinosaur is a mortal lock for the top 10, and that movie is boring as hell.

• 45:51David Sims?

  Right, both, that's, and that's, I think, what Sean is talking about. It's like, there have been two bites at the giant CGI dinosaur movie apple. Both times you're like, "Well, that's a good idea."

• 46:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:00David Sims?

  This is perfect because dinosaurs are so hard to accomplish. This, do it animated. Both movies stink.

• 46:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  But isn't that just even more of a testimony to the amazing power of Jurassic Park? They were like, "We don't even, we can't do anything."

• 46:13Griffin Newman?

  So I won't harp on this because we covered it in our Lost World episode years and years ago, but I think the reason this movie is not as like a totemic and formative for me as it is for many in, in my generation, the generation before and after, is my parents are super overprotective, did not let me see this movie for years.

• 46:29David Sims?

  Oh, for years.

• 46:29Griffin Newman?

  I saw Lost World in theaters as my first Jurassic. And that blew my mind.

• 46:34David Sims?

  Oh, interesting.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:35Griffin Newman?

  And I think that movie having the impact of like, holy shit, I'm seeing dinosaurs on screen.

• 46:40David Sims?

  Yeah, you were like eight when that movie came out, probably.

• 46:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. It took that juice where I have that memory of seeing that and feeling like it was one of my first like kind of scary blockbusters I was allowed to see. And I had that holy shit, it's on a big screen. Where then later I came around to this. Yeah. And then I clearly was like, well, this is better. But I didn't have that sort of key emotional discovery.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  It makes sense. This is like Jurassic Park by comparison to The Lost World is just weirdly restrained and small. Which it doesn't, it didn't feel that when we were kids, but when you watch it now, like you were saying before, like, not only are there a few characters, but you're on an island, you don't even really fully understand the geography of where you are. Sometimes we go to a new place and we're like, what building is this? And how far away was it? And what, and oh, they reunited? You know, like the the mapping of the movie is actually a little bit confusing at times, but it all works out.

• 47:34Griffin Newman?

  I mean, there are a lot of Spielberg cheats in this, which he like openly talks about where it's like the spatially things change to benefit him in a sequence if he needs them to be. He will go against how things were previously established. But it's insane how quickly they get out of this movie.

• 47:50David Sims?

  It is. The premise of this movie is so massive.

• 47:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:55David Sims?

  And it's interesting that fundamentally, it's a movie about like, they take one ride on the ride.

• 48:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:00David Sims?

  It goes really wrong. They leave with two deaths.

• 48:04Griffin Newman?

  And the ride is a backlot tour. It's a slow trek.

• 48:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 48:08Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's a Six Flags Great Safari.

• 48:10David Sims?

  Three, three people die in this movie, right? Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson and um, Bob Peck.

• 48:16Griffin Newman?

  Ray Arnold.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  No, and Gennaro too.

• 48:18Griffin Newman?

  Gennaro.

• 48:18David Sims?

  Oh, the lawyer. Okay. So there's four deaths. The, the book has a couple more extra ones that they cut in this.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Plus that guy who gets eaten at the beginning of the movie.

• 48:25David Sims?

  Yeah, that guy. Yeah. I mean.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Whoever that is.

• 48:28David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Thank you for your word.

• 48:29David Sims?

  Raptor got him. But like. This isn't even a total like sort of slasher film of like only fucking Alan and the kids make it off. Or you know, it's like most of them leave being like, huh, that actually we shouldn't, we shouldn't do that. Like, you know, like a lesson learned, like, geez, that sucked.

• 48:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:47David Sims?

  And none of the main characters died and.

• 48:50Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, famously Ian Malcolm was supposed to die.

• 48:53David Sims?

  Yes, he dies in the book.

• 48:54Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, and was supposed to die in the script.

• 48:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 48:57Griffin Newman?

  Was originally in production, the plan was to have him die at the moment he gets trapped underneath some bamboo.

• 49:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 49:04Griffin Newman?

  And while filming, they were like, we're gonna fucking kick this guy out of the movie.

• 49:07David Sims?

  Crazy.

• 49:13Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 49:13David Sims?

  Yes. Mmm.

• 49:17David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 49:18Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 49:19David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 49:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 49:26David Sims?

  Okay.

• 49:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 49:31David Sims?

  Wow.

• 49:31Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 49:34David Sims?

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

• 49:40Griffin Newman?

  What movie 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 movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 49:53David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 49:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 50:00David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 50:01Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schonbrun, past and future guest.

• 50:04David Sims?

  Past and future guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, a great friend.

• 50:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 50:09David Sims?

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

• 50:15Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 50:15David Sims?

  You know, legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 50:18Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 50:19David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 50:21Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 50:21David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 50:24David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. It won the Queer Palmitan. 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, uh, this summer and now it's on movie.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 50:48David Sims?

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

• 50:52Griffin Newman?

  What happened? It's, 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.

• 51:04David Sims?

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

• 51:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 51:22David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 51:27Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 51:27David Sims?

  Yes?

• 51:28Griffin 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.

• 51:49David 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.

• 52:08Griffin 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.

• 52:24David 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 slash listen to Dracula.

• 52:59Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 53:00David Sims?

  Yes?

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 53:01David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 53:02Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 53:03David Sims?

  Ah.

• 53:04Griffin Newman?

  And you know what that means? The old stereotype about November.

• 53:07David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 53:08Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 53:10David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 53:11Griffin Newman?

  Packed schedule, questionable food choices, and somehow a social calendar that got way fuller than you planned. And I ain't talking about Sam Fuller. We're not covering him yet in the podcast.

• 53:20David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 53:22David Sims?

  I can't remember. Big red one. We could call it the Big Red Podcast.

• 53:25Griffin Newman?

  Listen, when things get complicated, not when life is easy and when you got time for a whole routine, right now, when everything is full and something has to give one scoop cold water every morning before anything else, as I like to say, scoop there it is.

• 53:39David Sims?

  You do like to say that every morning. You text me, scoop there it is. And that means I now know that you had your AG1.

• 53:45Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 53:46David Sims?

  Uh, but yeah, you're, I know you're, you're a daily AG1 user, and it's basically the, uh, the glue that holds your internal organs together at this point.

• 53:55Griffin Newman?

  It's not just marketing. AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials, not weekend a study.

• 54:02David Sims?

  Thank you for that voice.

• 54:03Griffin Newman?

  Four independent studies with key nutrient levels improved within three months of consistent use. This is the thing I like about AG1. They're not resting on their laurels. They constantly work to better themselves.

• 54:14David Sims?

  Um, yes, AG1, they've got now AG1 Pro.

• 54:19Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 54:19David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with a performance and recovery layer built in. So you got five grams of Cre vitalis, a premium German-made creatine monohydrate, and one of the most studied compounds in sports science, plus CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnosine for gut support.

• 54:38Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 54:38David Sims?

  Next Gen is the foundation. Pro adds what your body needs to recover.

• 54:42Griffin Newman?

  You might be having some big meals this November. AG1 is what you need to keep your gut in check. Keep things, as I like to put it, regular.

• 54:50David Sims?

  Yeah, so for a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/chek and get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/chek. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Belank Check sent you.

• 55:21David Sims?

  Okay, let me, I'm opening the dossier. Okay, Michael Crichton. He was a doctor, became a novelist. He's very tall, wrote ER.

• 55:28Griffin Newman?

  He was short, he became tall.

• 55:29David Sims?

  Didn't think women should talk too much. Okay. Wrote lots of books. 1980, he writes Congo. But, and sort of stops writing books for a bit and more turns to film.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Will ride for the film for the rest of my life. I insist Congo is good.

• 55:46David Sims?

  Congo is fun.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  I have seen it so many times and I know that it is wildly considered a huge, it's considered a huge misfire. I love it.

• 55:53Griffin Newman?

  It is my friend, one of my best friends, Alex Perlin, shout out Alex Perlin, who I know listens to the podcast, is a lawyer, is a public defender. Congo is his favorite movie of all time.

• 56:02David Sims?

  Probably shouldn't be revealing that. He might get disbarred.

• 56:04Griffin Newman?

  Impossible. His bachelor party was watching Congo.

• 56:08David Sims?

  Where?

• 56:09Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 56:10Griffin Newman?

  We went to Ample Hills. We had their ice cream making class and then we went back to his apartment and watched Congo on VHS.

• 56:17David Sims?

  That's a very wholesome bachelor party.

• 56:18Griffin Newman?

  He's a very wholesome man.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Can I just, just, I don't want to belabor this, but Congo, directed by Frank Marshall, written by John Patrick Shanley.

• 56:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:27David Sims?

  Who only writes normal movies.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Obsessive writing normal movies. Alan Daviou. Edited by Anvy Coats.

• 56:33Griffin Newman?

  Incredible cat. Like Laura Linney, Bruce Campbell, Ernie Hudson, Delroy Lindo.

• 56:39David Sims?

  Ernie Hudson is really fun in Congo.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Tim Curry, Harkimer Hamoka, you know?

• 56:43Griffin Newman?

  Delroy Lindo, like one of the best one scene performances. Anyway, the point is-

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Stop eating my sesame cake.

• 56:48Griffin Newman?

  He has made me really love Congo through his eyes.

• 56:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:53David Sims?

  But Crichton turns to making movies. He's made, he made some pretty good, Koma is a fun movie.

• 56:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:59David Sims?

  Great Train Robbery.

• 57:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:00David Sims?

  Never seen Looker or Run Away.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  No, those are both, uh-

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Tom Selleck?

• 57:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yeah.

• 57:05David Sims?

  Yeah, interesting. I, they're, ooh, Looker looks kinda cool.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Looker's good.

• 57:09David Sims?

  Ooh, looks could kill. Oh, it seems that this movie is about cosmetic surgery on women. I'm sure Michael Crichton had very normal feelings about that. But then in 1983, he thinks of this idea as a screenplay. He's like, I'm not gonna write a novel. I want to turn that into a movie.

• 57:30Griffin Newman?

  Let's also acknowledge, Westworld and Futureworld have already happened in the 70s. He's already set up this theme park that goes wrong thing.

• 57:39David Sims?

  And he said his approach to writing the story was initially about like the person doing the cloning in secret, and he couldn't find a way in, and he kind of put it aside. And then he was like, no, this needs to be about like the environment where people are interacting with dinosaurs, right? He didn't want to do it in like dinos in New York City.

• 57:57Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 57:58David Sims?

  He wanted it to be in like sort of the natural world. And then eventually, he's like, I'll write a book, like that, whatever, that's his way in. And he thinks about the theme park idea, which of course he had done with Westworld.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  Right. So he's incredibly prolific from the 60s through the 70s.

• 58:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  And then 1980 Congo, 1987 Sphere, 1990 Jurassic Park.

• 58:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:19Griffin Newman?

  He like slows way down.

• 58:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Griffin Newman?

  Some of this bumps up against the timeline as established in JJ's dossier, which I fully trust. I'm just going to repeat what I heard and try to make sense of it relative to this timeline as explained. I went to a very bizarre event some years ago that was a 92nd Street Y talk for the release of Michael Ovitz's book.

• 58:41David Sims?

  Sure.

• 58:41Griffin Newman?

  His memoirs. In conversation with Bill Murray, his favorite client he ever had, he decided to have moderate, even though Bill Murray is famously someone who has not had reps for 35 years.

• 58:51David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:52Griffin Newman?

  But Ovitz, I think, was his last rep he ever had. And Murray asked him at one point, like, what is your proudest accomplishment of your entire career? And he said, getting Jurassic Park out of Crichton. And he unpacked that to say like, Michael Crichton basically had writer's block for most of the 80s.

• 59:08David Sims?

  Which I believe is true. Yes. Yeah. At least novel re- block. Yes.

• 59:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And like could not get something figured out. It makes sense that Jurassic was something that had been floating around in different forms. But then this final breakthrough of like, he's figured out how to frame this story. And that the second, like, he says to Ovitz, here's the pitch, DNA dinosaur theme park, Michael Ovitz like rubs his hands together and goes to everyone and is like, I have the greatest project of all time incoming.

• 59:38David Sims?

  Spielberg, of course, crosses paths with Crichton on ER, which was conceived of as a film, and Spielberg helps pivot that thing to a TV show that was mildly successful. Being sarcastic, it was hugely successful.

• 59:51Griffin Newman?

  Later inspires The Pit, America's most successful TV show.

• 59:55David Sims?

  And that is, at one point, Crichton's like, "Yeah, I finished this book about dinosaurs. Jurassic Park, it's getting proof by publishers."

• 1:00:02Griffin Newman?

  He gets the early tip-off.

• 1:00:03David Sims?

  And Spielberg's like, "Uh, would love to read that. Dinosaurs, sounds cool." And now, Crichton claims that, uh, he basically was like, "I don't want to get into some bidding war. Like, if you want to make it, like, let's make it, but..."

• 1:00:19Griffin Newman?

  And Michael Ovitz said, "I would love to get into a bidding war. Let's make a bidding war start."

• 1:00:24David Sims?

  As we said, Warner Brothers, Tim Burton, Columbia, Richard Donner, Fox, Joe Dante, like, they, all these studios, uh, enter a bidding war for the rights to that movie. James Cameron also claims he tried to buy the rights.

• 1:00:36Griffin Newman?

  Makes sense.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Can, can, can I just pause you for one moment?

• 1:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  What would be the contemporary version of this bidding war?

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  It'd be like, okay, so are we trying to think of, like, filmmakers who are allied with, it's just like Villeneuve and WB, right? Or Villeneuve and legendary.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Chris Nolan and Universal.

• 1:00:50Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:00:51David Sims?

  Chris Nolan and now Universal. Tarantino and Sony, no.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Would watch it, sure.

• 1:00:57David Sims?

  No, okay, but like Villeneuve.

• 1:00:58Griffin Newman?

  But that's, your question is, who would be the people pitch for the project if Jurassic Park, the galleys were hitting?

• 1:01:04David Sims?

  Look, no, I love it. It's Villeneuve and WB. It's Nolan and Universal. Disney is like, I don't know, one of the fucking Contiki guys who made Maleficent 2?

• 1:01:13Griffin Newman?

  Who now also directed Tron?

• 1:01:15David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what, they keep being like, it's, it's one or two of them. I can't remember if they worked together or not, but like, they, it's those guys.

• 1:01:22Griffin Newman?

  I truly could not tell you if one guy has been making all those movies, they've been switching off.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Paramount would be like Kaczynski or something? I was gonna say Kaczynski for Apple, but, or Apple or whoever. Doing Tron, also, you know, that'll, that'll fit together.

• 1:01:34David Sims?

  Netflix is like, "Our new chatbot will be directing this film."

• 1:01:37Griffin Newman?

  It would have been Netflix putting forth Russos, but now I feel like the Russos have, well, I mean, fucking, The Avengers 5 and 6 being Agbo Productions is fascinating to me.

• 1:01:47David Sims?

  The fuck is Agbo again?

• 1:01:48Griffin Newman?

  Agbo is their production company that they were like, "Agbo." Because that was like a fucking name they used in their improv and sketch troupe in college that they found a funny last name and the-

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  Gun to your head.

• 1:02:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Avengers 5 and 6, will they be good?

• 1:02:04Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so. I mean, maybe I'll be wrong. I just think that they, I think it's, I, I think it's gotten unwieldy. I don't think there's any way to focus things back up. Um, but all I'm saying is-

• 1:02:18David Sims?

  There's ways, but I don't know if they'll pull it off.

• 1:02:20Griffin Newman?

  You know, their whole thing was, oh, we got funding. We're gonna be our own studio. Like, they were trying to almost do something closer to DreamWorks, making stuff for the streamers and whatever.

• 1:02:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  And going back and doing Avengers could be seen as some admission of failure. Oh, we gotta go back and play by someone else's rules. Part of the announcement of them coming back quietly was, these will be an agbo co-production, that Disney and Marvel were so desperate to get them back, that they're cutting the company in on it, which is kind of unfathomable.

• 1:02:47David Sims?

  And is a big thing to cut them in on.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  I will not defend any of the other things that they have worked on, but those things that they made with that company?

• 1:02:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  I like.

• 1:02:56David Sims?

  The Avengers films are successful and-

• 1:02:59Griffin Newman?

  I, I really like anything.

• 1:03:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, James Cameron, yes, uh, says, when he saw the film, he realized, I was not the person to make it. Mine would have been more like aliens with dinosaurs. Uh, dinosaurs are more for kids. Uh, he made a movie for kids. His sensibility was right. I think I would have been too nasty.

• 1:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18David Sims?

  Classic James Cameron, like weird, big dick, like backhanded compliment shit. But, uh, right, like James Cameron's always doing that.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  I'm too much of a big boy for this shit.

• 1:03:27David Sims?

  My favorite thing is how he correctly injected himself into the implosion of the submersible. He's like, yeah, I knew that fucking thing. Who cares? Fuck that guy.

• 1:03:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to think who the other people would be, though, that they like put forward. There aren't, yeah.

• 1:03:42David Sims?

  Oh, now? I just, Villeneuve, Nolan, those names are, are very obvious in terms of who wants to do a big scale thing. Uh, there's this guy Colin Trevorrow. I mean, he's a real, like, home run hitter.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Trevorrow.

• 1:03:52David Sims?

  It's Trevorrow, sorry. Um, anyway, uh-

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  Like borrow, you know, like borrow ideas from other people.

• 1:03:57Griffin Newman?

  Right, or like Subarrows.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59David Sims?

  Spielberg said he liked dinosaurs a lot. His favorite dinosaur movie?

• 1:04:04Griffin Newman?

  The good dinosaur. Oh, right, fucking timeline.

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  He's like, King Kong is certainly the, like, the T-Rex in King Kong is the, the, the cinematic dinosaur I remembered best. Uh, when I read the book, uh, the Crichton book, it flashed back to Jaws for me. I was a huge Ray Harryhausen fan. I always thought about, like- You know, making a movie like that, but he also said, I'm trying to make a good sequel to Jaws. It's shameless. I can tell you that now. He said that to The New Yorker in 1994.

• 1:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:04:30David Sims?

  That he is kind of admitting like, yeah, this is kind of in my continuum of like creature feature.

• 1:04:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:04:35David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:04:36Griffin Newman?

  And the cast is broader, but you do have the kind of core trifecta thing.

• 1:04:40David Sims?

  Yeah, 100%. Right, like three good character actor people.

• 1:04:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:04:45David Sims?

  Rather than like, you know, lunkheads.

• 1:04:48Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's one of the most fascinating sort of what ifs with this movie is when Universal spends a bunch of money to buy this for Spielberg. Their immediate thought is like, oh, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery is Hammond.

• 1:04:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:04:58Griffin Newman?

  Like, this should be the most all-star A-list movie possible. And Spielberg's like, shouldn't we spend the money on the dinosaurs? Like, just get good actors, which was basically the Jaws formula. Three people who are not obvious leads for a blockbuster. But I also think both of those movies, this movie and Jaws, have the thing that's also the core thing that has always made Star Trek work. A lot of the great like franchises, which is like, you basically have id ego, super ego.

• 1:05:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:25Griffin Newman?

  You have three fun characters that all represent the sort of corners of the psyche.

• 1:05:29David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:30Griffin Newman?

  In, in how to address a humongous problem.

• 1:05:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35David Sims?

  Big shark.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  There's a, there's a, there's a quote unquote casting what if that I think materially explodes that though.

• 1:05:40David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 1:05:41Griffin Newman?

  Which is?

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Kurt Russell.

• 1:05:43David Sims?

  He would be so fucking good.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  If it's Kurt Russell in the Sam Neill role, it's a totally different movie.

• 1:05:47David Sims?

  It is.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  And I think, and I love Sam Neill in this movie.

• 1:05:51Griffin Newman?

  I did too.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Maybe better. Because Kurt Russell on an adventure, there's not anything better in movies.

• 1:05:56David Sims?

  That's a very fun movie. I just think that this movie is really special because of Sam Neill, because that's, it's such a curve ball.

• 1:06:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:03David Sims?

  To have that guy in that position in the movie.

• 1:06:06Griffin Newman?

  That's.

• 1:06:07David Sims?

  Like this guy where you're like, huh, I'm rooting for this guy?

• 1:06:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:10David Sims?

  It's not like he's tremendously unlikable.

• 1:06:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:06:13David Sims?

  Sam Neill's a good actor. He's got a, a good presence, but you are like, wait, this is the hero? Is this kind of like, you know, kind of, he's kind of introverted, like, you know, like, I don't really want to talk to people or like.

• 1:06:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:28David Sims?

  And not in like some squirrely like Newt Scamander way, just in a sort of like.

• 1:06:33Griffin Newman?

  Don't get me started on Newt.

• 1:06:36David Sims?

  Because like with Newt's commander, who I think about a lot, I'm like, this movie is setting itself the immense challenge of like someone who doesn't want the camera to be pointed at.

• 1:06:44Griffin Newman?

  Can't make eye contact with people.

• 1:06:45David Sims?

  Can't look at anyone.

• 1:06:47Griffin Newman?

  He's hiding in his coat at all times.

• 1:06:48David Sims?

  And like, oh, what an interesting challenge to have someone, the most unpersonable guy, like be the hero.

• 1:06:53Griffin Newman?

  I think Kurt Russell in the Dante version.

• 1:06:56David Sims?

  Come on, guys.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would be fun.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  Like, that's harmonizing, right?

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  Don't move!

• 1:07:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. I think Russell would have been a little too winky in this, in a way that would have been fun if this was the version we had. I'd be like, he's great in this. But there's something about the like earnestness of Sam Neill, of him not being the kind of guy who you're used to existing in this kind of movie, him being a little bit like cold and thorny.

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  This is like, but this is Tombstone breakdown Eric Kurt Russell.

• 1:07:22Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  He's very serious at this time. He's really good at this time.

• 1:07:26Griffin Newman?

  But I think, I, I agree with you. I agree with you. Do you not think if you put him in this movie with Spielberg and you're like, you're reacting to dinosaurs, he starts to go a little Jack Burton?

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  He might, he might. And it's a different movie, and I think everything David just said is bang on. Like, Sam Neill makes the movie totally unique and unusual, and his evolution as a character is a big part of why you get emotionally connected to the movie. But I just see Kurt Russell, and I'm like, damn, he's like taming dinosaurs? I want to see that. I want to see that today.

• 1:07:56Griffin Newman?

  I mean, he put him in like fucking Jurassic Park free.

• 1:07:59David Sims?

  By the way, the third thing Alan does, apart from learn how to put on a seatbelt and learn how to connect with children, is he fucking fends off the most direct assault on his girlfriend by the sexiest man who ever lived, right? Ian Malcolm is like suddenly training his fucking missile sights on Laura Dern, and Sam Neill's like waving him off.

• 1:08:17Griffin Newman?

  This is one of those rare examples of a performance that is like so parodied, so impersonated, so memed, and you watch the real thing and you're like, the real thing is bigger than anyone else's interpretation of it.

• 1:08:30David Sims?

  It's a very big performance.

• 1:08:31Griffin Newman?

  It's astonishing.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  It's so clear that Steven Spielberg wants to fuck Jeff Goldblum, the way he films him in this movie.

• 1:08:37David Sims?

  I mean, with the light behind him, yes. Yeah. It's so funny that they eat their Chilean sea bags in what seems to be like a black box theater with like perfect spotlights illuminating all of them. It's such a weird setting. This viewing, I've really actually took in that scene, and like, it's, it's bonkers. It's bonkers because a lot of Jurassic Park is set in like an office with. Right, with computers and like, right, a kind of chintzy Disneyworldy kind of, yeah. And then that one scene Spielberg was clearly like, no, let's wipe the shit out of this dining room scene.

• 1:09:09Griffin Newman?

  It's so funny, because it's, of course, this is Dean Conde, the great Dean Conde.

• 1:09:12David Sims?

  Brilliant. Collaborative John Carpenter as well as.

• 1:09:15Griffin Newman?

  The Wicket T, uh, what's Wicket's last name? My joke is that Dean Conde looks like an Ewok. Uh, but, um, he's, he's doing the fucking pools of light thing that Spielberg's gonna like, take to the ends of the earth with Yanush.

• 1:09:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:09:32Griffin Newman?

  And Schindler's the first Yanush man?

• 1:09:34David Sims?

  This is the handoff, of course. This is when Yanush is gonna take over after this one.

• 1:09:38Griffin Newman?

  I mean, all of the sort of like, correct decisions of Spielberg reads this book. He's like, oh, this character feels a little bit like Brundle from The Fly. Cast Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum's like, I've kind of done this before. Wouldn't it be funny to play this against type, this guy's a rock star?

• 1:09:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:53Griffin Newman?

  And they're like, oh, that would be fun. This is the guy who'll give you the color in the first 40 minutes of the movie, and then he dies. And then they're like, we cannot kill this guy off.

• 1:10:01David Sims?

  He is really being introduced as someone you're like, oh, I'm excited for this kind of jerk to die. Right, like, he's so high on his own supply.

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  The 30 minutes of him just aggressively trying to bed Laura Dern is the kind of plotting you do when you're like, and by the way, this guy's gonna be dead in two minutes. We're going heavy on him right now?

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Drops of water on the hand. In that sequence, you're like, it's about to be curtains for Dr. Ian Malcolm.

• 1:10:21Griffin Newman?

  And there's something about the way he plays him, it's the weird magic of Jeff Goldblum, where you're like, this guy's a creep and I kind of have no problems with it. Where he's just like, in any other setup, everyone is rooting for this guy to be kicked out of the movie.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  He's the only character, though, who's written with any panache. Like, none of the other characters' lines of dialogue

• 1:10:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  have personality. They're machines to push the story forward.

• 1:10:45Griffin Newman?

  The judgment on Goldblum's part, and who knows how much of it was motivated by ego and him being like, I want to be cool. But there's a story sense here that is very smart of like, everyone else is just kind of doing their job. And Hammond, who's the only other guy who's sort of getting some joy out of it, is trying very hard to do this avuncular Disney thing. You do need someone who's like, got swagger.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, he pulls it off. He's. On Fire.

• 1:11:08Griffin Newman?

  He's on fire.

• 1:11:10David Sims?

  In an incredibly impressive and obviously iconic performance.

• 1:11:13Griffin Newman?

  David, on your spreadsheet, do you have any acting nominations for this movie?

• 1:11:17David Sims?

  I was literally Griffin having the same thought.

• 1:11:20Griffin Newman?

  I was watching this being like, I bet David gives this one supporting actor nomination and I'm trying to figure out who he would pick.

• 1:11:25David Sims?

  I have Jeff Goldblum.

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:11:26David Sims?

  Yeah. Ralph Fiennes, Schindler's List, Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, Tom and the Jonners, The Fugitive, Val Kilmer, Tombstone, Bing, Kingsley Schindler's List. It's a pretty, pretty, pretty good.

• 1:11:35Griffin Newman?

  Five.

• 1:11:36David Sims?

  Yeah, pretty, it's pretty boring, but pretty good.

• 1:11:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38David Sims?

  Um, 1993, man, great year for movies.

• 1:11:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42David Sims?

  Piano, Age of Innocence, Groundhog Day, Schindler's List, Naked.

• 1:11:46Griffin Newman?

  Sam Neill.

• 1:11:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Griffin Newman?

  An incredible year for Steven Spielberg.

• 1:11:49David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:11:50Griffin Newman?

  Laura Dern, this is only three years after Wild at Heart.

• 1:11:54David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  Which we've covered semi recently.

• 1:11:56David Sims?

  Yeah, and she's only what, like, uh, she's very, she's quite young, 25 or something.

• 1:12:01Griffin Newman?

  25 in this movie? Yeah. You want that, someone who started out as a child star, really started acting in her teen years, is then sort of like a young adult star. The shift to this movie, you're like, oh, this is an adult person.

• 1:12:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Like, from this movie on, Laura Dern is permanently 45 years old, right?

• 1:12:17David Sims?

  Because of how they style her, and now her style is so cool, but I think at the time, she's trying to, they're trying to style her older.

• 1:12:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:24David Sims?

  Right? Like, she's got this kind of, like, professional, sort of workman-like, you know, thing going on with the khakis and the...

• 1:12:30Griffin Newman?

  She has the gravitas. I'm saying she like, she pulls it off. How many movies do we see like this where you introduce a 25-year-old and the movie says, like, this is the smartest scientist in the world, and you're like, this is a child, straight off the CW.

• 1:12:41David Sims?

  This is Hawk to, uh, come on. She's not a paleobotanist or whatever the hell, like...

• 1:12:46Griffin Newman?

  If the timeline was shifted nine months, Haley Walsh would be in Jurassic City, right? If that happened nine months earlier, Jurassic City filmed nine months later.

• 1:12:55David Sims?

  Is that what the movie's called?

• 1:12:56Griffin Newman?

  No, now it's called something dumb. It was, Jurassic City was the working title, now it's called, like, Jurassic World Revival.

• 1:13:04David Sims?

  It's so fucking funny that they were like, we're gonna make a Jurassic Park movie. And you're like, you are? And you're like, yeah, we, we, we fucking made it. It's got Scar Joe, it's probably fine. It's coming out tomorrow. Yeah. Anyway, Jurassic Park, go ahead.

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  Laura Dern is fif- only 57?

• 1:13:18Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing, because...

• 1:13:19David Sims?

  She started out very young.

• 1:13:20Griffin Newman?

  And she's so young in this movie.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  She's very foxy in this movie. I don't know if you'd say she's an absolutely fucking mega babe.

• 1:13:27David Sims?

  She is incredibly attractive. Have you seen the meme about how she, she sits down?

• 1:13:30Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:13:30David Sims?

  Where she goes like...

• 1:13:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes, at the table in the dining room.

• 1:13:34David Sims?

  Very, very interesting choice. All right, back to this dossier. Okay, Michael Crichton.

• 1:13:38Griffin Newman?

  But another incredibly bizarre choice for this film.

• 1:13:41David Sims?

  Michael Crichton, we're on the script.

• 1:13:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay, we're on the script.

• 1:13:44David Sims?

  Spielberg's like to Crichton, like, "Write me a script. It won't be the shooting script or anything, but can you please just take the first pass at turning this into a movie?" Crichton agrees. Then Malia Scotch Marmo, who co-wrote on Hook but doesn't get a credit on it,

• 1:13:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:13:56David Sims?

  comes aboard. She says her big contribution was fleshing out Ellie Sattler and the kids.

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:14:03David Sims?

  And then David Koep, who had written Death Becomes Her for Zemeckis, uh, is brought on board. And he is the one who's like, "We need to have this Grant character have more of an arc and it should be, um, the kid thing."

• 1:14:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21David Sims?

  Because that is not present in the books. In the books, Alan Grant has no problem with the kids. Like, he's not like, "Oh, these fucking kids."

• 1:14:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  That is them going from like, "He kinda has a chip on his shoulder about children for whatever reason," to "He loves these two kids," is David Koep's big idea.

• 1:14:34Griffin Newman?

  Not to do endless comparison point here, but it is astonishing how relatively understated his arc is compared to, say, Jurassic World, in which characters keep on calling up Bryce Dallas Howard on the phone and saying, "When are you gonna stop focusing on your job and have kids?"

• 1:14:48David Sims?

  Why do you keep running this dinosaur park when you could give birth?

• 1:14:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like, it's one of the things I find most fascinating about this movie is every time I watch it, I have a different interpretation of Sattler and Grant's relationship.

• 1:15:02David Sims?

  What is it right now?

• 1:15:03Griffin Newman?

  Right now, I think they have-

• 1:15:05David Sims?

  Hand stuff only.

• 1:15:06Griffin Newman?

  No, I think they have slept together intermittently a number of times and have never been fully committed, but have never had a conversation about whether or not they're committed.

• 1:15:13David Sims?

  That is how I take it, is that they are romantically involved because they work in this bizarre field where all you do is like sit in a trailer in the Mojave Desert or whatever, scraping bones.

• 1:15:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23David Sims?

  And he's handsome and she's beautiful. Scraping bones. Scraping, and so they do a little bone scraping. But yeah, like, he's too emotionally stunted to be like, "Would you like to like get married or you know?"

• 1:15:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. She's dating a much older guy who is emotionally much younger than her.

• 1:15:36David Sims?

  Who's intellectually very impressive and was like, "What if dinosaurs were birds?" And everyone's like, "Wow."

• 1:15:41Griffin Newman?

  And is what I, I think is the nuanced version of this is like, that it's not like she's like, "Why won't you settle down and have kids with me?" The idea of kids sort of represents like, "When is this guy gonna like-"

• 1:15:53David Sims?

  Grow up a little bit.

• 1:15:54Griffin Newman?

  "Diversify?"

• 1:15:54David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55David Sims?

  Um, and it takes Malcolm being like, I marry a new woman every year and she just jumped to the top of my list for Grant to be like, uh, uh, hello.

• 1:16:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05David Sims?

  You know, he doesn't even like, say like, we are dating.

• 1:16:08Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:16:08David Sims?

  He's just like, yeah. When Malcolm's like, are you two? And he's like, yeah. And like, that's about as much as he can describe it.

• 1:16:15Griffin Newman?

  Right, exactly.

• 1:16:16David Sims?

  Right. He can't go further than that.

• 1:16:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:16:18David Sims?

  Because it's a PG movie, PG. It is a PG movie, which is insane. Or is it PG 13?

• 1:16:22Griffin Newman?

  I think it has to be PG 13.

• 1:16:24David Sims?

  Yeah, it might be PG 13. It's PG 13. In Britain, it was PG.

• 1:16:27Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:16:28David Sims?

  I remember that. And in the United Kingdom of Don't You Dare. And it was a little surprising. It's because this movie is very intense.

• 1:16:35Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 1:16:35David Sims?

  And it has a severed arm in it.

• 1:16:37Griffin Newman?

  Let's also just, to the point of that conversation, call out, not the rating, but the, uh, the, the relationship dynamics. Goldblum and Dern date for a while after this movie? Like, the scenes you're watching have the juice of, this is actually working?

• 1:16:53David Sims?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  The, the hand, the water on the hands. I'm like, they're about to fuck.

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Like, they are, they are moments from fucking.

• 1:17:00Griffin Newman?

  They call cut, both of them are going to the same trailer.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  She's giving him none of, she's giving Samuel none of what she's giving Jeff Goldblum in this movie.

• 1:17:07David Sims?

  With Samuel, it's more of a like, oh, Alan, you sweetie pie.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Goldblum just looks so fucking hot.

• 1:17:13David Sims?

  He does.

• 1:17:14Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:17:15David Sims?

  It's crazy.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  The shot of him with his shirt open and he's laid up and he's greased up. It's cra- what? It's like professional wrestling or something.

• 1:17:22David Sims?

  There are people in 1993, because like, in 1993, I, I saw this film in theaters, I was young. And then I see Independence Day when I'm 10, right? And I'm like, yeah, well, Jeff Goldblum is like a movie star from movies that I see. I know that. But there must have been so many people going to see this movie being like, wait, the sort of squarely guy from like fucking Buckaroo Banzai and the Big Chill and the Fly is like now like Earth's hottest man?

• 1:17:43Griffin Newman?

  I, I have a very distinct memory of my father after.

• 1:17:47David Sims?

  I'm sure your father was activated by this.

• 1:17:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Lost World's opening weekend, when it had the biggest opening weekend of all time. Uh, or maybe when it was at the end of its run. But on, during its box office run, saying to me, you ever think about how weird it is that Jeff Goldblum's in three of the highest grossing movies of all time? He was like, that's just weird.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  Um, and then. Jurassic Park, Independence Day in nine months.

• 1:18:09David Sims?

  Holy man.

• 1:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Holy man. Holy man was huge. People forget that.

• 1:18:13David Sims?

  So Kep says his approach was, yeah, throwing out details. He was like, the minute characters started talking about their personal lives, you don't care. You're like, I want to see dinosaurs, right?

• 1:18:22Griffin Newman?

  One of those funny little tidbits that like BD Wong is one of like five solo cards. He's on the billing of the poster and it's because they cast him while they were still adapting it. And his character is so big in the book that they were like, well, he'll be the fifth lead. And then it ends up being one scene, but the contract was locked down.

• 1:18:40David Sims?

  And like the other thing about Jurassic Park is that like it's, it's not really a fast paced movie. As much as Kep is saying, like I simplified, I took things out. The movie has an incredible amount of setup to the point of now I love the first 45 minutes Jurassic Park. I love to like luxuriate in it.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:58David Sims?

  But if I'm watching it for the first time, I'm probably like, can, can we get to the dinosaur antics?

• 1:19:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04David Sims?

  And now you watch it and you're like, this movie is explaining every single fucking thing to you that you need to know for the last half of this movie to be perfect.

• 1:19:11Griffin Newman?

  It's inception shit, except it's the thing that makes Spielberg the king is he knows how to do this in a way that doesn't sound like an info dump.

• 1:19:18David Sims?

  Yes. And also in Inception in act three, he's like, uh, three other rules I forgot to mention.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  But like this is such.

• 1:19:25David Sims?

  Here's how limbo actually works.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  I mean, you guys know where I stand on that whole situation. Yeah, it's just a movie that does not make sense. Unlike Mr. DNA, who does a wonderful job of making us understand in clear terms, what is at play in the film Jurassic Park?

• 1:19:40Griffin Newman?

  But that's perfect Spielberg magic where he's like making a joke out of the fact that he needs to stop the movie for four minutes and explain the science.

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  Using Greg Burson's voice, who is like a legendary animated voice actor.

• 1:19:51Griffin Newman?

  The animation itself is great.

• 1:19:52David Sims?

  It was Spielberg's idea.

• 1:19:54Griffin Newman?

  This is what it would be in this reality. This is how to make it palatable to the audience.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  You're on tour. It's like you're at the park on tour. It's a brilliant idea.

• 1:20:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:02David Sims?

  Laura Dern says she was making a film called Wild at Heart, which we discussed on this podcast not that long ago. And she told Nick Cage, who she had just worked with on Wild at Heart, they want to put me on the phone with Steven Spielberg for like a dinosaur movie.

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  So it's like a straight jump, basically.

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Which makes sense, right? Like, and Nick Cage says, and I love this, you're doing a. Dinosaur movie? No one can ever say no to a dinosaur movie. And she's like, what? And he's like, it is the dream of my life to do a dinosaur movie. It makes so much sense that Nick Cage in 1990 was like, if you don't fucking get this movie, I'm gonna put on a blonde wig and say I'm Laura Dern.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Has, I mean, this is fascinating because Cage also at this point in time is kind of stuck dead between Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant.

• 1:20:41David Sims?

  He could be Malcolm. He could be Grant. He could kind of do either.

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

  Kind of, he's not right.

• 1:20:48David Sims?

  The energy the movie arrives at, for sure.

• 1:20:49Griffin Newman?

  But has he ever gotten to act with a dinosaur?

• 1:20:52David Sims?

  Surely.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Well, he did pay $276,000 for a dinosaur skull.

• 1:20:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's gotten to live with a dinosaur.

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:20:59Griffin Newman?

  He has dinosaur skulls in his pool.

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  Where is your dinosaur skull here in this wonderful studio?

• 1:21:04David Sims?

  Fucking question.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  Where is it?

• 1:21:06David Sims?

  I'm still looking for it.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Can we budget for a dino bone?

• 1:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Now that we've done this episode, it could be a business expense.

• 1:21:11David Sims?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  Write it off.

• 1:21:14Griffin Newman?

  Are you looking up if Cage has ever been in a movie with a dinosaur?

• 1:21:17David Sims?

  Oh, I wasn't. I'm sorry. I can if you want.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  I don't believe he has.

• 1:21:19Griffin Newman?

  That's kind of crazy if he's, yeah.

• 1:21:21David Sims?

  Yeah, he should. Okay. Uh, William Hurt turned down Ellen Grant in one of the more insane decisions of his life, possibly.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  He could play Ellen Grant.

• 1:21:31David Sims?

  Like, he makes sense.

• 1:21:32Griffin Newman?

  I would also contend, like, he's 10% colder.

• 1:21:35David Sims?

  I agree.

• 1:21:36Griffin Newman?

  Than Sam Neill.

• 1:21:37David Sims?

  But like, at the time, that's a very logical choice, right? Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were both deemed too expensive.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:44David Sims?

  Because this movie was, the budget's going elsewhere, folks, right? And Neil is brought in last minute. Neil says, like, you know, he was going to a job and was basically told, like, Steven Spielberg needs to talk to you in like half an hour.

• 1:21:56Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:56David Sims?

  And two days later, he had the part. And three weeks later, he's in Hawaii, like, making Jurassic Park.

• 1:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01David Sims?

  Um, Jeff Goldblum.

• 1:22:03Griffin Newman?

  I assume mostly being cast off of, like, Dead Calm?

• 1:22:05David Sims?

  Yeah, I, he was a guy.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Huge possession fan.

• 1:22:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:10David Sims?

  Maybe not possession, but like the Omen movie.

• 1:22:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm like, what?

• 1:22:13David Sims?

  Which is bad, but he's, you know, kind of what makes it interesting.

• 1:22:16Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying Dead Calm just because it was a little bit of a crossover. It was sort of the timing lines up. Like, what was the, what is he?

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  I think it's that and Red October, maybe.

• 1:22:24Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:24David Sims?

  He's a face, right?

• 1:22:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26David Sims?

  Yeah, no, it's interesting, though. It's like. I don't know why he had juice.

• 1:22:30Griffin Newman?

  A certain amount of this run up. He's tremendously good in the fucking Carpenter movies. And, uh, and piano, obviously is the same year as this. Like, it's, it's one of those perfect storm moments where he just fully transcends.

• 1:22:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:45Griffin Newman?

  Um, but yeah, he's, he's a very odd choice for this.

• 1:22:50David Sims?

  Um, Goldblum, Janet Hirschenstein, who cast this movie, read the book and was like, I'm seeing a Jeff Goldblum for this role. Now, Jim Carrey read for the part and they really liked his, like, audition.

• 1:23:02Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  And that is another fascinating fork in the road to imagine. But, uh, Goldblum was pretty much always their first choice. And, uh, Stephen, at one point during the meeting, said to Goldblum, like, there is some sort of idea of maybe we just merge the Alan and Ian characters into one character. Like, why do we have these two leads?

• 1:23:20Griffin Newman?

  Like, thinking out loud.

• 1:23:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:21Griffin Newman?

  And Goldblum fights for his job.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Don't do that. Like, that's a bad idea. I know what to do for this character.

• 1:23:27Griffin Newman?

  Make him different.

• 1:23:27David Sims?

  Like, you know, don't make me just like the hero of this movie. Cause one of the problems with Lost World is he has to be the hero.

• 1:23:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:23:32David Sims?

  And he has to, like, deliver lines of dialogue, you know, like, that are just explaining shit about what's going on with dinosaurs. And you're like, that's not what he's here for. He needs to be the chaos element.

• 1:23:41Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Yeah.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  I think he might be maybe one of the best bad boy scientists in all of movies.

• 1:23:48Griffin Newman?

  I mean, put forth a competitor. Like, who even comes close? Who's the rival for that throne?

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 1:23:56Griffin Newman?

  This is basically him defining that as the type that everyone else tries to figure out how to put in their movie.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  I mean, Dr. Frankenstein, he was kind of a bad boy scientist.

• 1:24:04Griffin Newman?

  This is true. Dr. Evil. It's kind of a bad.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  That's a good one. Yeah. Doctor Strangelove. He was kind of a bad boy scientist.

• 1:24:10David Sims?

  What about Doctor Strange?

• 1:24:11Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that in?

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  Doctor Strange, certainly.

• 1:24:13Griffin Newman?

  In London, a city that David Sims once lived in.

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  True.

• 1:24:17Griffin Newman?

  There is about to open a staged adaptation of Doctor Strangelove, adapted by Armando Iannucci, starring Steve Coogan.

• 1:24:25Speaker 02

  Yep. I was made aware of this by our friend, Tim Simons.

• 1:24:27Griffin Newman?

  That is kind of wild.

• 1:24:29David Sims?

  Sounds fun.

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  We covered, you were our guest on that.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  I was.

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  I wish them all the best. That's a huge swing.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  Should, uh, should not be touched. Strangelove.

• 1:24:37David Sims?

  Probably.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  It is a, it is a moment in time movie that should not be touched.

• 1:24:40Griffin Newman?

  If anyone were to try to touch it in a different medium and format, those two guys working together make a ton of sense, but it is, it is certainly a huge, huge swing.

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  Did you guys see the franchise yet? Have you?

• 1:24:49Griffin Newman?

  I've not watched the franchise.

• 1:24:49David Sims?

  No, is that?

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:24:51David Sims?

  Yeah. The whole, it's either swings or, you know, he hits or misses. Like, it's. Yeah.

• 1:24:56Griffin Newman?

  I hope they let him do a third TV show that has a very expensive premise.

• 1:25:03Griffin Newman?

  Rather than just like offices.

• 1:25:05David Sims?

  Yeah, so Jon Hammond is a more straightforwardly greedy character in the book. Spielberg is like, can you make him a little more like sort of Steven Spielberg-y? Like he's dreaming of a utopia and it's literally his grasp. Right, very Disney-esque. I think Richard Attenborough is brilliant casting.

• 1:25:21Griffin Newman?

  I think it's incredible.

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 1:25:22David Sims?

  He is obviously being cast sort of as a guy that Spielberg probably looks up to some extent. Like in Gandhi Beat.

• 1:25:29Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, that's my interesting part. Is you like, think about them probably spending that award season.

• 1:25:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:36Griffin Newman?

  Crossing paths over and over again. Obviously, the gauntlet of like fucking awards campaigning was not what it was back then.

• 1:25:41David Sims?

  Sure, but nonetheless, he's the young gun and Richard Attenborough's the old pro. Richard Attenborough's a great actor, you know, who then becomes a incredibly medium director.

• 1:25:50Griffin Newman?

  But at this point, he had not acted in a long time.

• 1:25:52David Sims?

  Probably not.

• 1:25:54Griffin Newman?

  Am I wrong? And I think he's- He has a sort of second wind after this.

• 1:25:56David Sims?

  I think he's great casting because he's got the, you know, Santa Claus energy that was then immediately, literally turned into a Santa Claus movie the next year. But there's, there is an element to him where you're like, this guy is tricky. Or like, there is a little darkness to him.

• 1:26:12Speaker 02

  The Brighton Rock, Tenyrington Place, like there's, there's something sinister about him.

• 1:26:17Griffin Newman?

  I also think it's that classic like film director thing where like, all great film directors are kind of manipulators. There's a little bit of like sweet talking, saying different things to different people to get what you want.

• 1:26:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:28Speaker 02

  You're right, though. It's been, it had been 14 years since he had acted in a movie when he became-

• 1:26:32Griffin Newman?

  What was his last?

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  It was The Human Factor, the late Otto Prendergast movie, yeah.

• 1:26:36David Sims?

  You know, he's really good in the movie and the movie's ultimate take, yes, is like, he's a great showman and he just wanted to put on a show and he really just didn't know what he was doing, right? He didn't know what he was thinking, putting live fucking dinosaurs in the same place as people.

• 1:26:50Griffin Newman?

  Which basically feels like the entire entertainment industry is now run by Jon Hammond's, who don't know what they're doing.

• 1:26:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  Aren't thinking about the consequences.

• 1:26:56David Sims?

  Right, or they're just, yeah, I mean, and well, there's so many jokes I could do. But, uh, like- I do think this is like a movie about like late capitalism, right? You're whatever, like that, like, I'm not sure Spielberg is saying that when he's writing the script, but this is a movie about like the end stage of capitalism where like, well, we have the money to do this, so why wouldn't we do it? It'll make money. And it's like, because you have no control over this whatsoever.

• 1:27:22Griffin Newman?

  But also like weaponized monetized perma adolescence. Like, this is one of the movies that starts to create the world that we all are guilty of living in, of just like constantly being obsessed with the things that we grew up with.

• 1:27:35David Sims?

  It's like the fucking Edmund Hillary, isn't it? You know, whoever said, uh, like, why do you climb Everest? Because it's there.

• 1:27:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:27:41David Sims?

  Right? It's like, why, why would you make dinosaurs? Well, we can. Someone else is gonna do it if we don't do it. Let's do it.

• 1:27:47Griffin Newman?

  But also, isn't that what every kid has dreamed of? Like, shouldn't I spend all of science, technology, all, all of the, the financial capital in the world to make little boys' dreams come true? I wanna come, I wanna be on the record. I think we should make dinosaurs.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  I wanted to have this conversation.

• 1:28:01Griffin Newman?

  I kinda think we should.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  The, the critical dynamic of the movie is at that dinner table scene, which is so beautifully lit.

• 1:28:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Dr. Ian Malcolm keeps pushing on Hammond and saying, you know, you spent so much time thinking about whether you could, you didn't think about whether you should.

• 1:28:16David Sims?

  Iconic speech.

• 1:28:17Speaker 02

  And, and, and obviously Ian Malcolm is, is the seer of this film and he understands from the moment that he gets there, this is a bad idea.

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  And that's, the book has the dragon spirals, which is like him.

• 1:28:28Griffin Newman?

  The dragon spirals?

• 1:28:29David Sims?

  Like a dragon spiral, I swear I've talked about it before, um, on this podcast, but it's like, a dragon curve, sorry, is what it's called. It's like, if you just make, draw a line and then you draw a left and then a right, you know, like you keep, eventually you make these shapes that you would never see coming. This is like fundamental chaos theory shit, where it's like, you cannot predict where this is going.

• 1:28:51Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  And like the first chapter, you just see a little curve and by the later chapters, there's a little picture of a dragon spiral, because the idea is it's like, they never foresaw X, Y, Z.

• 1:28:59Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:29:00David Sims?

  But so that's what Ian Malcolm is putting forward.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  We're, we're not chaos theorists, we're not DNA geneticists.

• 1:29:06David Sims?

  Well, I, I dabble.

• 1:29:07Speaker 02

  You consider yourself a philosopher of chaos.

• 1:29:09David Sims?

  Honestly, that is true.

• 1:29:10Griffin Newman?

  He's not Professor Crispy, he is Professor Chaos.

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  Should we, should we make, Ben wants to make dinosaurs. Like, I think we should make dinosaurs. Yes.

• 1:29:19Griffin Newman?

  I don't think we should. And this has always been my contention is-

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  What could go wrong?

• 1:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Talk about how few good dinosaur films there are, right?

• 1:29:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Griffin Newman?

  It is the struggle every one of these sequels has had is like, this is the ultimate one movie concept where you want to believe that all the characters walk away from it and have learned their lesson.

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:36Griffin Newman?

  And society at large learns their lesson. I'm a big defender of the Terminator franchise constantly repeating the same mistakes.

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:44Griffin Newman?

  Cause I think that speaks to something more fundamental, which is like the abstract idea of technology helping us. You could keep falling into different traps with that. The dinosaur thing is so specific that we're supposed to believe that every four years, someone else is like, I think I know how to do it right, though.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  It's really funny in Jurassic World when they're like, let's do a pterodactyl.

• 1:30:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:04Speaker 02

  What could go wrong?

• 1:30:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 02

  That's the dumbest idea in the history of time.

• 1:30:07David Sims?

  Right. The thing where it's like, build a net, I guess, around the whole park?

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  Force field, yeah.

• 1:30:12David Sims?

  Um, no, we should not be making dinosaurs, but if you do want to make dinosaurs, please do make it on fucking Isla Nublar, far away from me.

• 1:30:20Griffin Newman?

  What if they're small, though?

• 1:30:22David Sims?

  Then we could-

• 1:30:23Griffin Newman?

  And now you're talking about prehistoria.

• 1:30:26Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 1:30:27Griffin Newman?

  So the Charles Band Full Moon production where it was little stop motion dinosaur. You know what I'm talking about, the prehistoria?

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:30:32Griffin Newman?

  Franchise, yeah. With the kid from last Action Hero.

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  The hero- Film series you might enjoy.

• 1:30:38David Sims?

  The villain of this movie is Wayne Knight, Dennis Nedry, who is just like this, I mean, again, as written by Michael Crichton, this kind of like slovenly disgusting person, right? Like, Crichton is clearly so kind of like, ugh. But he's also, it's like, he just doesn't have enough money. Richard Attenborough keeps sort of alluding to like, personal choices that led him into-

• 1:30:56Griffin Newman?

  Which I love.

• 1:30:57David Sims?

  We don't know what that is. What do we think it is?

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  But also, there's the thing with the-

• 1:31:03David Sims?

  He sabotages the park because he needs money.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  So he'll have enough money for new glasses. That's the funniest part. When he's sliding down the mountain.

• 1:31:09Griffin Newman?

  Getting the guy to pick up the tab, right?

• 1:31:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:31:12Griffin Newman?

  For his high, where he's like, don't skimp out the way Hammond has.

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  That's how this happened in the first.

• 1:31:16Griffin Newman?

  There's, there's a dual pronged thing of like, Nedry's bad with money, but also Hammond's maybe underpaying everybody.

• 1:31:22David Sims?

  I wrote this take on the Atlantic years ago, but the hero of the- Movie is Ray Arnold, Samuel L. Jackson's character, who is just fucking doing his job.

• 1:31:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30David Sims?

  He is someone who could do this version of a job anywhere.

• 1:31:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:33David Sims?

  His job is running a large sort of organization, security system park, right?

• 1:31:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38David Sims?

  He could do it at Disney World, he could do it in a non-entertainment function. He got the fucking dinosaur park, right? Like, that's the job he ended up getting.

• 1:31:46Griffin Newman?

  He's also doing it humanistically. This is what I'm talking about, his character working. It's like every decision you're watching filter through a human face with thoughts and feelings.

• 1:31:54David Sims?

  There is no-

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  Well, filtered through the end of a cigarette.

• 1:31:57Griffin Newman?

  That's true.

• 1:31:57David Sims?

  It's a perfect performance. There is no line from him in this movie, Ray Arnold, that's like, but isn't it cool that like, I run the fucking T-Rex pet? He doesn't give a shit about that. And then late in the movie, Ian is like, hey, man, can you go to the other end of the park and fucking turn the lights on? Cause we turned them off. And he's like, yeah, sure, I'll get my jacket. And then he dies off screen and like-

• 1:32:19Griffin Newman?

  Right, which I believe there was a full written sequence. And it like, this is another thing that makes this movie so different from all modern blockbusters. Is Spielberg still had to deal with limitations.

• 1:32:29David Sims?

  Right, there was like a storm and it messed with things.

• 1:32:31Griffin Newman?

  But they were just like, we're not giving you extra days.

• 1:32:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Griffin Newman?

  That scene is cut, figure out which scene you want to cut.

• 1:32:36David Sims?

  And obviously we just see his hand, but there's such a tragedy to like, yeah, man, he was literally just here to make all of the things run in this absurd, stupid enterprise.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  I love that solution, though, to just have the hand land on a larger shoulder. Cause it's pure like Universal monster movie, you know, where you're just like, oh, my God.

• 1:32:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  Which the movie is, you know, you were saying that it is and it isn't, but it is a movie that he watched on TV when he was seven. Like, that's clearly what he's going for here.

• 1:33:04Griffin Newman?

  Three or four things burned into his brain forever and haunted him for the rest of his life. Uh, Pulp Fiction is the year after this.

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  Correct, it is.

• 1:33:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, Sam Jack is so good in this.

• 1:33:15David Sims?

  He's amazing, yep.

• 1:33:16Griffin Newman?

  It does-

• 1:33:16David Sims?

  But this is still in his pure character actor mode before Pulp Fiction-

• 1:33:20Griffin Newman?

  He'll do anything.

• 1:33:20Speaker 02

  Coming off jungle fever, yeah.

• 1:33:22Griffin Newman?

  Right, as much as he's had a few kind of like splashy performances, this is still, this guy's versatile. He's just, he's like a five-tool player actor, he'll do whatever you ask him to do.

• 1:33:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:33:31Griffin Newman?

  The next year, he's codified into Samuel L. Jackson.

• 1:33:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:34Griffin Newman?

  And anyone who is hiring him wants a little bit of that. Even if he's playing against type, you want some of that. Like, this is the last moment when he can sort of play this role the way he does.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  He never worked with Spielberg again, right?

• 1:33:47Griffin Newman?

  Which is fascinating.

• 1:33:48David Sims?

  Yeah, he should work with Spielberg again, like, right now. Like, why not, right?

• 1:33:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:53David Sims?

  And it is one of those things where everyone's like, Samuel L. Jackson, the highest grossing star of all time. Like, Jurassic Park is just like a fucking footnote on that list.

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02David Sims?

  Anyway.

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  He doesn't swear. It's weird.

• 1:34:04Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm saying.

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  He says but, okay.

• 1:34:07Griffin Newman?

  He's like a very buttoned down, tired, you know?

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  Like, focused.

• 1:34:12David Sims?

  It's like how Jeremy Piven was bald before he had hair. Like, Samuel Jackson looks older in this movie than he does in later movies of the 90s.

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's the opposite, Piven. He's got hair in this.

• 1:34:21David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess he has a little hair. But you know what I mean? Like, you know, he hasn't, like, kind of clammed up, you know, till, like, anyway. Uh, some of the other casting decisions, Ariana Richards, she's told this story a lot, but like, they just brought her in office and they would just scream, please. And her scream was the only one who woke up Steven Spielberg's wife from the couch.

• 1:34:38Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:34:39David Sims?

  Uh, Joe Mazzello, uh, who had screen tested for Hook and was a little too young for it. He's just got such a sweet face.

• 1:34:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I've always, uh, really liked him.

• 1:34:48David Sims?

  I do too. Like, now as a grown up actor, he's still got just that sweet face.

• 1:34:52Griffin Newman?

  But he, off of this, this is like Kubrick sees this and is like, here's the guy I can make AI with. And this is when Spielberg starts getting involved in AI, is all on the promise of like, Mazzello's my robot.

• 1:35:03David Sims?

  Um, Wayne Knight, as you said, Spielberg says he watched Basic Instinct, waited for the credit stroll and wrote down the name Wayne Knight. He was basically like, what's the name of that guy?

• 1:35:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Can we just, like, step through the Wayne Knight 90s very quickly?

• 1:35:15David Sims?

  Please.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Cause even just the fact that he is like ping ponging between Mad About You and Seinfeld.

• 1:35:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:22Griffin Newman?

  That he's jumping between two NBC sitcoms that are like within the top 10, or not Mad About You, I'm sorry, third from the sun.

• 1:35:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  But like two huge sitcoms without getting tied down to like series regular contracts.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  And your beloved Toon Silvania.

• 1:35:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, which he's great on. He plays Igor.

• 1:35:37David Sims?

  He does.

• 1:35:37Griffin Newman?

  He closes out the decade with Toy Story 2, probably the greatest villain in cinematic history.

• 1:35:42David Sims?

  He's really good in Toy Story 2, even though it's basically just like, yeah, can you do good Wayne Knight? Like, you know, that guy?

• 1:35:47Griffin Newman?

  But that's the thing, like, from this point on, they're just sort of like, I think this is the movie that makes everyone realize they should be using him as a voice actor.

• 1:35:54David Sims?

  Right, right. He's got a great voice.

• 1:35:56Griffin Newman?

  You like, yeah, like.

• 1:35:57David Sims?

  He's amazing in JFK.

• 1:35:59Griffin Newman?

  JFK, Basic Instinct, like Dead Again, Jurassic Park. I mean, I'm skipping over some other things that don't really matter.

• 1:36:05David Sims?

  Space Jam, I think, is where most kids from that time remember him.

• 1:36:09Griffin Newman?

  To Die For, then it's like, right, he's in Hercules as a voice.

• 1:36:13David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:36:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he's in Tarzan as a voice. He's the villain in Toy Story 2. Like, that's just triumphant.

• 1:36:20David Sims?

  He was the, um, voice of the zoot suit in My Favorite Martian.

• 1:36:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course he was.

• 1:36:24David Sims?

  Remember that?

• 1:36:25Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:36:25David Sims?

  Do you remember that? I don't know if I ever saw My Favorite Martian. It's not good.

• 1:36:29Griffin Newman?

  That was my birthday movie.

• 1:36:30David Sims?

  Really?

• 1:36:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Unfortunately. That was when no movies came out in February that were worth a damn.

• 1:36:35David Sims?

  Rat Race?

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:36David Sims?

  He's fun in Rat Race?

• 1:36:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yes. What does he play in Rat Race again?

• 1:36:42David Sims?

  Can't remember. Oh. Jeff Daniels is the lead of My Favorite Martian?

• 1:36:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and Christopher Lloyd.

• 1:36:46David Sims?

  Got to see this.

• 1:36:47Griffin Newman?

  Elizabeth Hurley. It's not good. Um, I think he hits Rowan Atkinson with his car in Rat Race.

• 1:36:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:54Griffin Newman?

  I think that's his role.

• 1:36:55David Sims?

  Like you do.

• 1:36:57David Sims?

  Uh, so Dennis, uh, he plays Dennis Century. Anyway, okay. Uh, they filmed the, uh, movie in, uh, Hawaii. Uh, they wrapped 12 days ahead of their 82 days shooting schedule.

• 1:37:08Griffin Newman?

  Despite them fighting, like, horrible, uh, weather conditions.

• 1:37:12David Sims?

  Right, insane, yeah, exactly.

• 1:37:14Griffin Newman?

  They were using, like, the prop helicopters to actually get people off the island to safety. They lost the set.

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:37:20Griffin Newman?

  Like, yeah.

• 1:37:21David Sims?

  Um, film is budgeted around $65 million. People claim it actually went way over. We'll never know because who cares? Like, it made fucking billion dollars, basically.

• 1:37:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:37:30David Sims?

  Um, uh, Spielberg had gone way over budget and schedule on Hook, and I think was, like, really intent on, like, I am not doing that again.

• 1:37:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39David Sims?

  Um, and, uh...

• 1:37:43David Sims?

  Every action sequence had been storyboarded like two years before. And Spielberg says that's why we didn't go over, you know, over schedule.

• 1:37:49Griffin Newman?

  For sure.

• 1:37:50David Sims?

  Like, we were just like really on top of all that stuff. And obviously, the big sort of behind the scenes story with Jurassic Park is the blending of classic animatronics and CGI, brand new CGI technology.

• 1:38:04Griffin Newman?

  What was supposed to be animatronics and GoMotion, Phil Tippett's proprietary stop-motion process.

• 1:38:11David Sims?

  Right. And instead, Phil Tippett, um, fuck, I was gonna make a joke about his Poker Face episode, but then I forgot what happens in it.

• 1:38:19David Sims?

  Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

• 1:38:20Griffin Newman?

  They build a bus that they have to scan to get the eye contact of.

• 1:38:23David Sims?

  Don't remember.

• 1:38:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  Excited for season two.

• 1:38:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. No, Phil Tippett, who had created GoMotion, which, uh, like Ed 209 and, um, The Tauntaun and Empire Strikes Back and, uh, had sort of figured out this evolved form of the Harryhausen craft that also involved like, uh, motion blur, uh, allowing you to photograph stop motion in a way that more seamlessly allowed it to integrate with live action elements. That was the plan. Stan Winston will build these full body things for closeups, for heads, whatever. And then Tippett will do all of this. And I think they were using ILM for some amount of pre-viz.

• 1:38:59David Sims?

  Yeah, a little bit of CGI is gonna blend in there, but that's it. And Dennis Mirren is like, I think we can just fucking make dinosaurs now.

• 1:39:06Griffin Newman?

  There are the two guys, Spaz Williams, brother of Harland Williams, creator of Puppy Dog Pounce. And the other guy's name is Mark AZ Dippy, who later goes on to direct Ben Spawn.

• 1:39:18David Sims?

  Cool. And he did a perfect job.

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  They're the bad boys.

• 1:39:21David Sims?

  And it holds up beautifully.

• 1:39:23Griffin Newman?

  They're the bad boys of ILM.

• 1:39:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:25Griffin Newman?

  The, uh, the Kazdin ILM, uh, mini-series on Disney Plus, if that hasn't already been Zaz-laved off the service, is incredibly good and gets into this in depth. But these two guys were like, we think we can fucking crack the code.

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  Have you seen Jurassic Punk? Do you know about this?

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:39:40Speaker 02

  It's a documentary about Steve Williams.

• 1:39:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:39:43Speaker 02

  And it chronicles, from his perspective.

• 1:39:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:47Speaker 02

  Everything that transpires as ILM is starting to make waves. And you know, Mark and Steve are, you know, Dennis Mirren won a lot of Academy Awards, but they are largely credited with effectively like. I don't want to say inventing, but executing what becomes the template for all digitally animated figures in movies.

• 1:40:04Griffin Newman?

  Dennis Martin, like, co-signed, he backed them up.

• 1:40:06Speaker 02

  He supports them, he like builds this system for them at ILM.

• 1:40:09Griffin Newman?

  But they made all the breakthroughs.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  And Jurassic Punks, you know, Steve Williams has had a remarkable flame out in his life. It's like kind of a sad story, but.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  Both him and Dippy now have just gone on to make shitty animated films.

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:40:20David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 1:40:20Griffin Newman?

  Like, Dippy directed the fucking Pete Davidson Marmaduke movie.

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  Yes, and they talk about that a little bit in the documentary, and it's very sad, but.

• 1:40:27David Sims?

  Right, not even the theatrical Marmaduke, the other one.

• 1:40:31Griffin Newman?

  No, and, and, and did like four direct-to-video Garfield movies.

• 1:40:35David Sims?

  Garfield Gets Real, Garfield's Fun Fest, Garfield's Pet Force.

• 1:40:38Griffin Newman?

  And, and Williams did The Wild, which is like one of the most forgotten films of the 2000s.

• 1:40:43David Sims?

  Do you think when they were talking to each other, though, Mark Azie Dippy was just like, what I really want to do is not reel Leguizamo in. Just get that guy on the hook and then let go. All right, sorry.

• 1:40:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  I just think this is like, one of, this is part of the reason why I'm like, this is the beginning of something. Because these two guys come up with this idea, they convince their boss that, that he should pitch it to Steven Spielberg, and his boss effectively pitches it to Steven Spielberg, which then more or less sidelines two of the most significant creators of on-screen effects in the previous 25 years in movies.

• 1:41:14David Sims?

  Tippett and.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Uh, and Tippett and Winston, yeah.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is the peak of Winston's work.

• 1:41:18David Sims?

  Tippett famously is the one who said, I think I'm extinct, and they put that in the movie.

• 1:41:20Griffin Newman?

  And has talked about, I mean, there's an incredible documentary about him as well, but he basically had like a full-on existential crisis about this. Spielberg saw that he was spiraling and basically was like, well, you know what? But they don't really know how to animate.

• 1:41:33David Sims?

  Right, made him the choreographer.

• 1:41:34Griffin Newman?

  Right, they don't understand performance yet, so you, it became, the stop motion was used basically as pre-vis for them to recreate in CG, which kept him employed, and then he just pivoted to like, I guess I gotta learn computers.

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  I particularly like what Spielberg tells the animators, which is that.

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Tippet understands how dinosaurs move.

• 1:41:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  Which is like, no one does. Like, we don't know for sure. Like, this is just, we hope this is how dinosaurs move.

• 1:42:01Griffin Newman?

  I also, here's what I contend. You watch Tippet's work and you're like, yeah, this guy does understand how dinosaurs move.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  It feels that way.

• 1:42:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm not even talking about this film, but you're like, watch Empire Strikes Back and you're like, fuck, he understands how a tauntaun moves. So you're like, tauntaun's not a thing.

• 1:42:13David Sims?

  You're 100% right.

• 1:42:14Griffin Newman?

  He made it up, but you see.

• 1:42:15David Sims?

  He makes the movements feel realistic for the body we're seeing, right? This like oddly shaped thing we're seeing.

• 1:42:22Griffin Newman?

  And when people talk about like, why is Jurassic Park still more effective as a special effects movie than most films we see today 30 plus years later? I think the answer is that you have this melding of crafts, that you have like Winston at the top of his game, Tippet at the top of his game, and Ilya Lem like starting to push through something new. And those three concentrations meeting in the middle, synthesized to like a really strong language of performance for how the dinosaurs move.

• 1:42:45Speaker 02

  One, one thing that I want to say about this rewatching the movie.

• 1:42:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Speaker 02

  In 4K.

• 1:42:50David Sims?

  I also watched it in 4K.

• 1:42:51Speaker 02

  The daylight sequences.

• 1:42:52Griffin Newman?

  Look bad.

• 1:42:52Speaker 02

  Don't look good.

• 1:42:53Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  The, the nighttime sequences.

• 1:42:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:55Speaker 02

  Look incredible.

• 1:42:56David Sims?

  The CG specifically.

• 1:42:58Speaker 02

  And I would argue that.

• 1:42:59David Sims?

  Especially Neil going.

• 1:43:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:43:00David Sims?

  To the brachiosaurus where he's kind of gesturing at clearly nothing.

• 1:43:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:43:04David Sims?

  It's like, yeah, right.

• 1:43:04Griffin Newman?

  Cause like the anima-

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  But that's the inverse of most movies now.

• 1:43:06Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:43:07Speaker 02

  Things in the, in the dark now look terrible.

• 1:43:09Griffin Newman?

  Terrible.

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  The lighting is horrendous and the digital rendering is awful. In the day, actually, like when you're watching a Marvel movie, you're like, oh, these, these guys are fighting.

• 1:43:16Griffin Newman?

  That's the best.

• 1:43:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're fighting. And it's a fascinating inversion of what we expect.

• 1:43:20David Sims?

  And you always are told like, oh, why does everything look dark and bad? And like, oh, it's CG shit. And you're like, but that's not what I was raised learning. I was raised learning like Star Wars looked best against the black of space. And it was harder for them to do Hoth and stuff. I know that's pre-CG.

• 1:43:33Griffin Newman?

  And I think it was like Williams and Tippi went to Spielberg and were like, it's gonna look better if you do like night. It's gonna look better if you have rain, if we can have this deflection. Like, they all strategized together. But there's such intentionality to how those sequences are organized. But I do think when you see the sick triceratops on the ground and this incredible full body animatronic, that's like a jaw dropper.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  It works completely.

• 1:43:56David Sims?

  All of the animatronics are so good.

• 1:43:57Griffin Newman?

  It's the most magical moment of the early daylight section, but then when you get to like nighttime raptors and T-Rex, the CGI becomes like extraordinary.

• 1:44:04David Sims?

  But like, they built a gigantic hydraulic T-Rex, obviously, that is so cool. They built raptor suits that people are inside of.

• 1:44:12Griffin Newman?

  Right, they're using every technique.

• 1:44:14David Sims?

  The Dilophosaurus is this amazing creation, like, that's just the rig of it in the car with the frill, like, is so cool. It's, like you say, it's just, it's, everyone's at the top of their game. It's kinda like Total Recall. We talk about that with Total Recall 2. Where you're like, this is the peak of this kind of, like, effect.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:33David Sims?

  That soon will be dying, like, this are practical effects.

• 1:44:35Griffin Newman?

  There's a shot that I never processed fully, that just kinda knocked me out watching it this time, where it's one of the shots in the T-Rex nighttime barrier sequence, where it starts with the animatronic head, like, kind of coming right up to the window, and then pulls away, and then within the same shot without an edit, it transitions to being a CGI T-Rex. Like, he knows the blind spot that allows him to basically do the Texas switch between the two, and you buy them being the same creature?

• 1:45:05Speaker 02

  Spielwork. That guy's good.

• 1:45:07David Sims?

  And obviously, famously, he finished editing this film, but post was not done. They had to do lots of effects, and he just starts doing Schindler's List and would, like, color correct this movie at night.

• 1:45:16Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:45:17David Sims?

  Over satellite or whatever.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of said that's one of the things that helped him from, like, totally falling into the depths of depression during Schindler, that there was some kind of balance.

• 1:45:27David Sims?

  And then he goes to John Williams, and John Williams is just like, "Yeah, I can crank out some bullshit for you."

• 1:45:32Griffin Newman?

  He literally starts out this theme.

• 1:45:35David Sims?

  I think the music, so, obviously, John Williams's music is most important to Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, right?

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  Indiana Jones.

• 1:45:44David Sims?

  And Indiana Jones, right?

• 1:45:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:46David Sims?

  And this one, in some ways, this theme is kind of incongruous with this movie.

• 1:45:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:45:51David Sims?

  Because it is this triumphant theme for a closed shitty theme park that goes wrong at the first death.

• 1:45:58Griffin Newman?

  But that's why it's important, because, like, the theme is, like, this is the projection of what Hemmings thought this would be, the majesty of it.

• 1:46:05David Sims?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:46:05Griffin Newman?

  You watch the T-Rex sequence, which I feel like people agree is, like, the high point of the movie, right? It's like, the most kind of, yeah. There is no music in that entire sequence.

• 1:46:14David Sims?

  Of course not. It's all the roaring.

• 1:46:15Griffin Newman?

  Silence.

• 1:46:15David Sims?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:16Griffin Newman?

  Like, there aren't even really, like, that many instances of Williams doing, like, a tension theme in this movie. It is like...

• 1:46:23David Sims?

  But, yeah, definitely not what I think of.

• 1:46:25Griffin Newman?

  They're sort of like, this is the Jurassic Park entrance gates music.

• 1:46:29Speaker 02

  But the movie is, it does have, we're getting to the island, we're leaving the island. Triumph is essential for both of those things. So it's a very unusual score for him. It's very, very brass forward, very trumpet forward, which is not something you usually, it's not as symphonic as a lot of his scores usually are. And it does seem like it's like taking the piss, I guess, a little bit. I don't know if, did they have a conversation about that? Was he just like, here's what I got for you. Good luck? Like, I'd like to know a little bit more about how they landed on this style. It's very unusual.

• 1:47:01Griffin Newman?

  It certainly sounds like that's what the last 20 years of their relationship has been. I don't know when that starts, where Spielberg's like, I just trust you.

• 1:47:08David Sims?

  I think it's a little bit of that. I mean, I think he wanted to convey a sense of awe, clearly, right? And wonder, which he can do in space. Oh, Superman is the other one. Those are the five, those are the five where you're like, like, I mean, the whole thing I think with John Williams with Superman as well is when Brian Singer does Superman Returns, he's like, I'm just doing the John Williams music again. Like, I don't want a new score.

• 1:47:33Griffin Newman?

  I would contend that it's not one of his best scores, but like in terms of-

• 1:47:37Speaker 02

  Catch Me If You Can?

• 1:47:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, that is one of his best scores.

• 1:47:40Speaker 02

  That is one of his best scores, yeah.

• 1:47:41Griffin Newman?

  What I was gonna say is like, Home Alone might be the movie-

• 1:47:44David Sims?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:47:45Griffin Newman?

  Where his score adds a full star.

• 1:47:47Speaker 02

  It does. It's so weird.

• 1:47:50Griffin Newman?

  It is the most transformative.

• 1:47:51David Sims?

  That's another one where they're like, so this movie is about a little fucking eight-year-old beating the shit out of Joe Pesci with, like, Pesci with metal.

• 1:47:57Griffin Newman?

  If that movie doesn't have that score, it doesn't work.

• 1:47:59David Sims?

  He's like, shall I conjure Christmas on a crisp December night, like, for you perfectly? So a tear freezes on your cheek?

• 1:48:07Griffin Newman?

  Powerful musical embodiment.

• 1:48:09David Sims?

  You realize that he's just like shooting marbles at a criminal.

• 1:48:12Griffin Newman?

  But this is what I'm saying. If it doesn't have that score, that movie's a disaster.

• 1:48:15David Sims?

  You're right.

• 1:48:17Griffin Newman?

  And E.T. is like a masterpiece, even if it doesn't have a single second of music.

• 1:48:21David Sims?

  Oh, E.T. I forgot about E.T. What's the matter with me? That's more important than any of the other ones, except for Jaws. Jaws is the most important, or Star Wars.

• 1:48:31Speaker 02

  The craziest thing about his career is that he was making film and TV scores for 17 years before Jaws.

• 1:48:36David Sims?

  Yes. And then Jaws, he's just like, doo doo, you know? And Spielberg's like, I'm paying you a salary. What is this?

• 1:48:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  And he's like, no, it'll be good. And then George Lucas is like, you're the doo doo guy, right? Can you do like, maybe just like, bring back Aaron Copland for my sci-fi movie? And he's like, yeah, sure, my fucking sleep.

• 1:48:52Speaker 02

  Also JFK.

• 1:48:53David Sims?

  Oh, such a good score.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 1:48:56David Sims?

  But that's the whole thing about- We had this conversation, Griffin, when he got that Indiana Jones and the Clock of Bullshit store.

• 1:49:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  You know, he got the Oscar nom, and I'm like, oh, the Oscars are so lazy, and they put that on, and I was like, this is an 11 out of 10. Absolutely amazing shit.

• 1:49:12Griffin Newman?

  I know there was a lot of, sort of, autopsying of the, the underperformance of the men gold-

• 1:49:19David Sims?

  Jurassic Park and the Circle of Nonsense.

• 1:49:20Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say-

• 1:49:21David Sims?

  Indiana Jones, sorry, and the Circle of Nonsense.

• 1:49:23Griffin Newman?

  I, I think calling it Indiana Jones and the Clock of Bullshit might have been where they went wrong. That might have been a thing that turned off audiences.

• 1:49:31Speaker 02

  Can I be honest?

• 1:49:32Griffin Newman?

  Indiana Jones and the Clock of Bullshit, David.

• 1:49:34David Sims?

  I need to be honest.

• 1:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Five comedy points.

• 1:49:35Speaker 02

  I, I liked it.

• 1:49:36David Sims?

  You liked Dial of Destiny?

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  I liked it.

• 1:49:38Griffin Newman?

  I don't really care for it.

• 1:49:39David Sims?

  I'm gonna get back to it soon, but I did not love it.

• 1:49:42Speaker 02

  I think it has flaws.

• 1:49:43Griffin Newman?

  I like sections of it, and these sections I don't like turn me off so hard, even more so than Crystal Skull, which is also a movie I like sections of.

• 1:49:52David Sims?

  I, I basically love Crystal Skull. And I think Crystal Skull really, on re-watch, really eats Dial of Destiny's lunch.

• 1:49:59Griffin Newman?

  I agree with that.

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  A lot of choices are made that I think are interesting, and Dial of Destiny is light on choices. The thing I like about Dial of Destiny is the last act, where there are finally some choices.

• 1:50:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I wish the last act was like the second act.

• 1:50:10David Sims?

  Yeah, and maybe the first act.

• 1:50:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just think the last act is, like, as bold a thing as you can do in a movie like that.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  The last act's really interesting, and then, but I think when we have, like, Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a fucking casino with him, I'm just like, this is like from Solo.

• 1:50:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:24David Sims?

  You know, this is just like knockoff, like, right, like, just like Rent a Disney movie from recently.

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  Basically a five-act movie, right? The first act I don't give a shit about at all, and in fact, creeps me out.

• 1:50:35David Sims?

  What's the first thing?

• 1:50:36Griffin Newman?

  The, like, deep fake D-H, which lasted 25 minutes.

• 1:50:39David Sims?

  I don't like that, it's too long, for sure.

• 1:50:41Griffin Newman?

  Then the New York section I like.

• 1:50:42David Sims?

  I like old Indy, like, but it's a little sad.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  My note was I just wanted him to stay at the Battle of Syracuse.

• 1:50:48Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:50:49Speaker 02

  I didn't want him to come back. If he had stayed and he was like, I want to live inside of history, I would have loved that.

• 1:50:54David Sims?

  No, no, I don't push back on him staying, I push back on him dying. I didn't want him to die, but I, him staying is kind of an interesting choice, although- Then what do we, it's like there's some pottery and he's just kinda sitting there like, like, actually.

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  I just see it. I just need to see him like, you know, who is the great Roman figure that he's with at the time?

• 1:51:11Griffin Newman?

  I wish the movie opened in New York, didn't have the flashback and started time traveling like an hour in.

• 1:51:17Speaker 02

  The horse thing though is incredible. That sequence is great when he gets on the horse and is racing through the subway.

• 1:51:22Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna have to rewatch it. That's the New York section I like.

• 1:51:24Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to rewatch it. I think it's pretty good. People are really, really hard on that movie and they're not hard on much worse Drake in my opinion.

• 1:51:30Griffin Newman?

  I like New York and I like ancient Rome and everything else kind of is for the birds.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  We, by the time this comes out, A Complete Unknown will have come out. On this very day, a new Complete Unknown trailer came out and I almost threw up watching it.

• 1:51:43David Sims?

  I haven't watched the trailer, but I saw, I saw the reactions.

• 1:51:47Griffin Newman?

  This is how I feel every time there's a new Toy Story movie. Like, don't fucking play with me.

• 1:51:51Speaker 02

  This is disgusting to me. That's how I felt watching it.

• 1:51:54Griffin Newman?

  I went to see The Substance with my mother, which was a very fascinating experience. Yep. And she turned to me during the Complete Unknown trailer and just went, he doesn't have the arrogance. That was her take on Timmy.

• 1:52:06Speaker 02

  Too winsome.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  Which has been sticking with me. He doesn't have the arrogance.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  New trailer tries to sell that hard. I'm not sure it gets there.

• 1:52:12Griffin Newman?

  Anyway, by the time this episode comes out, Timothy Chalamet is probably one best actor.

• 1:52:15Speaker 02

  That's probably true.

• 1:52:18David Sims?

  If Timmy, he's not gonna, so thank God. He won't do it.

• 1:52:21Griffin Newman?

  But make your prediction. What were you about to say?

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  No, it just, it would be crazy if like another music biopic performance in a shit ass movie wins and then people are like, what happened there?

• 1:52:31Griffin Newman?

  That's why I wouldn't bet against it.

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  Yeah, seriously.

• 1:52:38Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:52:39David Sims?

  Yeah?

• 1:52:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:52:56David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:52:57Griffin 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 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.

• 1:53:20David 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.

• 1:53:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:53:41David Sims?

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

• 1:53:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:44David 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.

• 1:53:51Griffin 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.

• 1:54:05David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:54:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:54:10David Sims?

  Yeah, the 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.

• 1:54:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:54:41Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:54:41David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:54:42Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:54:44David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:54:45Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing like an impression of a red carpet correspondent asking who you're wearing right now.

• 1:54:49David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:54:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well, what a Quince, Quincy dense.

• 1:54:57David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip dense sweater.

• 1:55:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:55:01David Sims?

  It's a sort of a brown. Would you agree?

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's like, maybe like a, what would you, a chocolate?

• 1:55:06David Sims?

  Sure. I have been seated next to people wearing this item of clothing and they have brushed against me, not to brag, and gone like, so soft.

• 1:55:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, a soft boy. But listen, the best pieces in your closet are the ones that you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where I'm shopping for myself and everyone on my list.

• 1:55:31David Sims?

  Quince does rock. It's got high quality staples made with these premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere.

• 1:55:37Griffin Newman?

  14 karat gold?

• 1:55:40David Sims?

  Italian leather.

• 1:55:42Griffin Newman?

  Mamma mia.

• 1:55:43David Sims?

  All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. These cashmere sweaters, like the one I'm wearing, start at just $60. Lineup doesn't stop there. You've got premium down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories, everything your loved ones need to stay warm and look put together all season long.

• 1:56:02Griffin Newman?

  And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 1:56:15David Sims?

  So yeah, obviously I'm wearing Quince sweater right now. I've got Quince bedding at home. Ooh, they've got Christmas stockings.

• 1:56:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:56:23David Sims?

  They got tree skirts. Garlands, if you want to go Christmas mode.

• 1:56:27Griffin Newman?

  Your tree deserves to be dressed in Quince as well. And when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think fine jewelry, leather bags, the aforementioned hotel quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. If you want to give the gift of quality this holiday season, download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's a year. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Ding dong. 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.

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• 1:57:18David Sims?

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• 1:57:47David Sims?

  Okay, let's talk about the film.

• 1:57:49Griffin Newman?

  This movie opens with a very Jaws-like sequence, right? The sort of, you're not seeing the dinosaurs.

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  A sequence you kind of always forget.

• 1:57:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:56David Sims?

  I would say, even as someone who's seen this movie 1 million times, you always forget it opens with creepy music.

• 1:58:02Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  Uh, over these kind of ominous titles. And then this, right, this kind of like monster, monster sequence.

• 1:58:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:09Griffin Newman?

  Characters we're largely not gonna see ever again. It's silence and faces and roars and brutality. Yeah.

• 1:58:16David Sims?

  Do we need this?

• 1:58:19Griffin Newman?

  I do think it's helped to set the world in the way we were saying of like.

• 1:58:24David Sims?

  The movie takes so long to get to the action.

• 1:58:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:58:26David Sims?

  Not in a complaining way. It just does.

• 1:58:29Speaker 02

  You need a little action up front.

• 1:58:30David Sims?

  So maybe you just need a little kind of activation at the start.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  Such, such a cliché structure now.

• 1:58:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:36Speaker 02

  This thing, this like little tease of the world we're going to go to with some violence.

• 1:58:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  That maybe it just feels more rote in the aftermath.

• 1:58:44Griffin Newman?

  I think here's what specifically helps, what the sequence helps with in the rest of the film. One, setting up that we're not gonna see as much staff later. We're not gonna see all the different departments.

• 1:58:55David Sims?

  Right, they're setting up why they need in safety inspection and like experts, right? I guess that's the sort of, right?

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  I also think talking about the cynicism of this movie. There's something very pointed in like it opening with a death that is never commented on again. Right? That the movie starts to be like, oh, and Hammond's grandchildren are in danger. For the first time, he's starting to question the morality of what he's built.

• 1:59:18Speaker 02

  It's a good note. That makes sense.

• 1:59:19Griffin Newman?

  There has been this sort of rounding error in setting up this park of like, how many fucking guys have died just trying to transport these dinosaurs?

• 1:59:26David Sims?

  Right, just like literally figuring out the basics of like, what do we keep them in?

• 1:59:30Griffin Newman?

  Right, I think there's a, there's a helpful extrapolation in watching this sequence and being able to then copy paste in your mind like, so this has probably happened 100 times. This is happening simultaneously across different parts of the park every day.

• 1:59:41David Sims?

  This is also just a point that the movie is sort of makes and then has to just, and then we don't worry about it because everything goes wrong. But like, this would be largely bad, right? The, the park experience, they're nowhere near like figuring out how it works.

• 1:59:55Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:59:56David Sims?

  Because it seems to be basically like, okay, you see some brachiosauruses or something, right? The sort of. They're, they're, they're easier to see because they're chill, right? But then the T-Rex experience is basically like drive by this paddock that's probably like a fucking thousand acres. Maybe we drop a goat over there and we'll see some trees rustle. Like what, what's the plan?

• 2:00:14Speaker 02

  Well, as a frequent attendee of the zoo.

• 2:00:18David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:00:18Speaker 02

  With my young child.

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:20Speaker 02

  This is kind of what it's like to go to the zoo.

• 2:00:22David Sims?

  It's like.

• 2:00:22Speaker 02

  Where you're like, you go to the tiger cage and they're like, I got tigers are sleeping. Sorry, come back next time. There'll be another forty dollars. You know, like that's kind of how they do it.

• 2:00:29Griffin Newman?

  Gotta become a zoo member.

• 2:00:30Speaker 02

  I am a member, actually, but yeah. What's that?

• 2:00:33Griffin Newman?

  No, that, the suggestion of like, oh, fuck, I think I saw one.

• 2:00:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. Exactly.

• 2:00:37David Sims?

  I guess you're right.

• 2:00:37Speaker 02

  Keeps you on the line.

• 2:00:38David Sims?

  It's just like, you're not gonna, how are you ever gonna see the raptors? They're like hunting animals that like hide in the fucking grass.

• 2:00:46Griffin Newman?

  It's what you just said. They haven't really thought this through yet. They're still like field testing.

• 2:00:51David Sims?

  And don't get me started on Jurassic World inventing an invisible dinosaur. You want to see the dinosaur? What is the thinking there, my friends? Why would you make it invisible?

• 2:01:03Griffin Newman?

  It is wild.

• 2:01:04Speaker 02

  Because they can, David.

• 2:01:07David Sims?

  And of course, I always cite Dan Harmon's rant about in that movie, Chris Pratt saying like, so you invented like a new kind of dinosaur that turns invisible and is crazy? Seems like a bad idea. And just Harmon being like, if someone has to say that out loud, your movie is fundamentally fucked up. Like, we know, you don't need someone to say that. And this movie has the way better version of it, which is like Malcolm being like, you're grappling with forces you don't understand. Like, you know, that's, he crystallizes in a much more interesting way.

• 2:01:34Griffin Newman?

  But also that Hammond's like, the thing is the wonder is that we all like get to be close to and possibly touch these things that have always felt mythological. But as you said, the thing that's so compelling to children is this was real. Like from a young age, you're starting to have these like mythologies popped of like, well, that's like fantasy.

• 2:01:51David Sims?

  There's no tooth fairy.

• 2:01:52Griffin Newman?

  This is like fairy tales. And then you get older and then, right, all these things are eliminated. But you're like dinosaurs are the one thing that feel magical to you as a child and remain real, even though you don't get to make contact with them? It feels like Hammond's like, oh, there's some degree of like, people want to feel the danger. But they even talk about they've built in this thing of what is it? The fucking lyceum, like the thing they don't have in their DNA strand that can deactivate the dinosaurs if they get off the island.

• 2:02:18David Sims?

  Uh, that is, yes, that's true. They need a particular enzyme that they only get from the park and they'll die. But like-

• 2:02:24Griffin Newman?

  Versus the Jurassic World movies are like, we have to make these more dangerous. How do we make them deadlier? You're like, the takeaway from this would be, these people still are on this like quixotic quest to figure out how to tame dinosaurs and they think if we neuter them a little bit more, they'll be safe.

• 2:02:38David Sims?

  We can control it. I mean, right.

• 2:02:39Griffin Newman?

  Why would you make-

• 2:02:40David Sims?

  Jurassic Park is a movie about, right, science, thinking it can control nature and it can't. Jurassic World is a movie about like-

• 2:02:47Griffin Newman?

  Franchise expansion.

• 2:02:47David Sims?

  Legacy sequels are out of control and right, like every sequel has to be more-

• 2:02:50Griffin Newman?

  How to make a visible T-Rex with knife teeth.

• 2:02:54David Sims?

  I mean, so, yes, so we began with, uh, right, the, the raptor sequence where we don't see a raptor, we just see death and chaos.

• 2:03:02Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:02David Sims?

  And so, okay, let's meet Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler.

• 2:03:06Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:03:07David Sims?

  Paleontologists who are out on a dig. How do we get to know Alan Grant? How about he's just like an absolute demon to this like kid who-

• 2:03:16Griffin Newman?

  The snarky little kid.

• 2:03:18David Sims?

  -who poos velociraptors for being small.

• 2:03:20Griffin Newman?

  That's one of my least favorite fucking online fan theories.

• 2:03:23David Sims?

  Oh, that he like turned out to be Chris Pratt?

• 2:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:27David Sims?

  How do we let these things into our life?

• 2:03:29Griffin Newman?

  I know. Whoever posted that originally, I hope, is, uh, in Guantanamo.

• 2:03:35David Sims?

  Now, this movie, obviously, and the book, made velociraptors famous.

• 2:03:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:03:39David Sims?

  Velociraptors are actually smaller-

• 2:03:41Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:42David Sims?

  -than they were depicted in the movie. They're more like, kind of turkey sized.

• 2:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:03:46David Sims?

  Uh, and it's Deianicus, I believe, not-

• 2:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:03:49David Sims?

  Correct me if I'm wrong, that would be more like this big, uh, sort of pack hunting animal, I guess. But I think, also, I think like-

• 2:03:55Griffin Newman?

  It makes them the coolest dinosaurs in a way. They definitely weren't before the 90s.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  This is like, their fame, obviously, there's a fucking basketball team called the Raptors because of this movie, right?

• 2:04:04Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:04:05David Sims?

  Um, every kid our age grew up being like, number one coolest dinosaurs, the velociraptor.

• 2:04:09Griffin Newman?

  Right, which is them doing the math of like, we need to have dinosaurs who can walk through doors. We need dinosaurs who are the exact right size to be a little bigger than kids.

• 2:04:18David Sims?

  Well, and also like, let's, this movie is just like, can we make Alien for eight year olds?

• 2:04:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:04:22David Sims?

  Because like, that's what the velociraptor is, where you're just like, a perfect killing machine that has no feelings. Whereas the T-Rex is a hero in the movie, basically, right?

• 2:04:31Speaker 02

  Do we think they overstate the power of the raptor?

• 2:04:35David Sims?

  Like, in the Alan scene where he's talking about, like, you know, then they're fucking closing in.

• 2:04:39Griffin Newman?

  But isn't that basically PR of them being like, people are going into this movie, they don't know shit about raptors? We need Alan Grant's instructional at the beginning of the movie to be telling you how deadly a raptor is, so you have that in your back pocket?

• 2:04:51Speaker 02

  That's what I mean, like, are they, relative to what we actually believe is true of raptors? Do they make them more of a killing machine?

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they made them into xenomorphs, yeah.

• 2:05:01David Sims?

  Um, but I do think it works in the movie because anytime someone is outside in the last act of the movie, you are scared.

• 2:05:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:05:08David Sims?

  And that sequence where Ellie, you know, where, um, uh, the hunter guy, fuck what the hunter guy's name, uh?

• 2:05:13Griffin Newman?

  Muldoon.

• 2:05:13David Sims?

  Muldoon, is like, we're being hunted, Bob Peck. And she just runs, and Spielberg, we're just, you know, and she does the thing where she swings from the tree, and you're like, she's got five seconds, you believe it, right? Before, like, a raptor's just gonna take her out.

• 2:05:25Griffin Newman?

  But it's, it's the fucking classic Spielberg shit of just like, don't introduce pieces onto the chessboard too early. Don't introduce anything that is irrelevant, you know, like, you set up the idea of the raptor that is just sort of seems like a toss-off of, like, showing how bad this guy is with kids.

• 2:05:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:05:45Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, no, the last act of this movie is gonna be the raptors, they can be indoors.

• 2:05:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:05:50Griffin Newman?

  They can be anywhere, they're fast, they're small, yeah.

• 2:05:53David Sims?

  But also the raptors, it's like, they're just true villains that you can't root for, and the T-Rex is kind of a hero that you love in this movie, right?

• 2:06:02Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  Like, he gets the victory in the movie, he takes down the raptors, they don't get any victory, they don't take down shit.

• 2:06:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:06:07David Sims?

  They don't kill one fucking dinosaur in this movie.

• 2:06:09Griffin Newman?

  That is.

• 2:06:09Speaker 02

  All the little bends of the world are like, T-Rex, man, fucking T-Rex is the man.

• 2:06:13Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:06:14David Sims?

  And like-

• 2:06:15Speaker 02

  He's huge, he's got a big ass jaw.

• 2:06:18David Sims?

  His roar is the coolest, like, bit of sound design in the movie, obviously.

• 2:06:22Griffin Newman?

  We should say she.

• 2:06:23David Sims?

  She.

• 2:06:23Griffin Newman?

  She.

• 2:06:25David Sims?

  Yeah, well, they're all women, right?

• 2:06:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:27David Sims?

  This is a.

• 2:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Although some of them are, some of them are flip flopping with that frog DNA.

• 2:06:31David Sims?

  That's what's going on, right?

• 2:06:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32David Sims?

  They're making eggs.

• 2:06:33Griffin Newman?

  Um.

• 2:06:34David Sims?

  Life finds a way, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:06:35Speaker 02

  That happened pretty quick, didn't it?

• 2:06:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  Wouldn't you think evolutionarily?

• 2:06:38David Sims?

  We don't know.

• 2:06:39Speaker 02

  That would have taken a little bit more time?

• 2:06:40David Sims?

  How long this has all been going on?

• 2:06:42Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:06:42David Sims?

  I think if you dive deep on that.

• 2:06:44Griffin Newman?

  I think R and D was, was pretty intense and drawn out on Jurassic Park.

• 2:06:48Speaker 02

  Five years, 25 years? How long are we talking here?

• 2:06:50Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 2:06:51David Sims?

  It's a good question.

• 2:06:52Speaker 02

  They made dinosaurs.

• 2:06:53Griffin Newman?

  I think between five and 10 is my guess.

• 2:06:55Speaker 02

  Five and 10, okay.

• 2:06:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Like, I think these dinosaurs have been on this land in some form for multiple years before our characters are visiting.

• 2:07:03Speaker 02

  So this is an important part of this story. Obviously, the Gennaro character is introduced because he's there to really check up on behalf of the investors as to how this is all going.

• 2:07:12Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  But it's like, we're good. Like, they, they made the dinosaurs. Like, the investors should be nervous if they can't make the dinosaurs.

• 2:07:19Griffin Newman?

  But Gennaro doesn't know that.

• 2:07:20Speaker 02

  It's like, we're good to go.

• 2:07:21Griffin Newman?

  Right? Isn't the idea that Gennaro is like?

• 2:07:23David Sims?

  He doesn't know that.

• 2:07:23Speaker 02

  Well, why is he, why is Hammond not telling anyone that they've got hundreds of dinosaurs on this island?

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:07:29David Sims?

  Look, these are all fair notes. And I think the best way to think about it is because he's afraid of corporate, like, plundering, right? Like, because he's afraid of what will happen, that someone will be like, wait, he actually, the crazy guy did it?

• 2:07:40Speaker 02

  You think there's, there's like lots of NDAs here for all the employees of I L A New York?

• 2:07:44Griffin Newman?

  I mean, you have to fill in blanks here, but that, like, Hammond is coming off of a Disney World level success where he, dare I say it, has blank check status? Where he's going around to people and he's like, hey, here's my new project, you can buy in, I don't tell you anything about it. Like, he's going like Mike Lee rules. I need investors, there's no script, I pick the cast.

• 2:08:05David Sims?

  He does kind of look like Mike Lee.

• 2:08:07Griffin Newman?

  And you get to see it when the cut is done. Mike Lee would have been great as John Hammond.

• 2:08:11Speaker 02

  Well, he's a little grouchy.

• 2:08:12David Sims?

  Yeah, I think they would have had a grouchy, a bit more closer to the book, possibly.

• 2:08:15Griffin Newman?

  But that's my read, is that, like, he has had some series of successes that are so undeniable that he goes and pitches a blind project? That's like, it's gonna take 10 years, I need this amount of money, you have this percentage, I don't tell you what it is until it's done. And Gennaro is the first guy on behalf of all these investors who is seeing the thing. Not just seeing it, but for the first time being like, that's what the concept is?

• 2:08:36Speaker 02

  Isn't it weird that? All of our P T Barnum figures are just into tech and politics now and they're into making shit that we like that's fun.

• 2:08:43David Sims?

  And like tweeting sucks. They're just like, the best thing you can do as a rich guy is to fucking use your phone.

• 2:08:48Griffin Newman?

  This is why fucking Megalopolis is a benevolent act.

• 2:08:51David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:08:51Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm like, this is what our weird rich men used to do.

• 2:08:55David Sims?

  Right. Gaze into my mind.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:58David Sims?

  And you're like, whoa, okay.

• 2:09:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm like, whether or not you like it is irrelevant. This is like the best way people can spend money.

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  Your mind is full of John Voight's boner?

• 2:09:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You love Hudson Yards?

• 2:09:12Griffin Newman?

  This is my big take is Megalopolis is about Francis Ford Coppola.

• 2:09:15David Sims?

  He's taking a stroll. The vessel.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  These sons of b- he responded to Hudson Yards the way Gennaro looked at it. So. At Jurassic Park.

• 2:09:24David Sims?

  So, uh, yes, everyone is brought to Jurassic Park, but really we only see Grant and Ellie getting the pitch. Like the kids show up, uh, out of nowhere. Ian shows up basically out of nowhere and Gennaro, you know? And, um, they get the hard sell and they love it. They see the Brachiosaurus. They're amazed. It's the most famous Spielberg face of all time, right? Is, is the two of them seeing the dinosaur.

• 2:09:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. It gives you several consecutive her, him physically turning her head.

• 2:09:50David Sims?

  Brilliant.

• 2:09:50Griffin Newman?

  You already have a little bit of like, she's calling out the, the plant life.

• 2:09:54David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:09:55Griffin Newman?

  Is this incompatible?

• 2:09:56David Sims?

  Right. You just got this cause it looks cool.

• 2:09:58Griffin Newman?

  Questions that start to be like.

• 2:10:00Speaker 02

  Maybe I'm a dumb movie watcher, but I think it was literally this time around where I realized she was a paleobotanist.

• 2:10:06David Sims?

  She's a paleobotanist.

• 2:10:07Speaker 02

  I was like, paleontologist, just like this other guy, but that's not what she's there for the plant.

• 2:10:10Griffin Newman?

  She's all about that plant life.

• 2:10:11David Sims?

  Which I guess they're also creating, by the way, they don't even get into how they're.

• 2:10:14Speaker 02

  Well, she talks about the different.

• 2:10:16Griffin Newman?

  It's extinct plants.

• 2:10:17David Sims?

  But like where, how are they doing that?

• 2:10:18Speaker 02

  Good point.

• 2:10:19David Sims?

  Cool.

• 2:10:19Speaker 02

  Where's Mr. DNA for that one?

• 2:10:21Griffin Newman?

  Plant DNA.

• 2:10:23David Sims?

  Yeah. See a mosquito and I'm like, all right, fine. A mosquito. Um.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  The mosquito thing, when I did finally see this movie at whatever age as a child on TV or VHS after Lost World, the sap thing I was like, holy, cause I just saw Lost World on its own. And I was like, I'm just taking this as a given. They brought dinosaurs back. I didn't know what the answer was. The sap thing, I was just like, this is the smartest movie solve I've ever seen. And I still kind of feel that way 30 years later.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  It is Crichton's idea, right? I mean, Crichton completely came up with that.

• 2:10:51Griffin Newman?

  That's the trillion dollar.

• 2:10:52David Sims?

  It's Crichton taking real science and combining it with pseudoscience, which is like what he would do.

• 2:10:57Griffin Newman?

  But it's perfect.

• 2:10:58David Sims?

  And it's really clever.

• 2:10:58Griffin Newman?

  Perfect like pulp logic.

• 2:11:00David Sims?

  Taking an idea and then bridging it with essentially fantasy. Cause I think this is like. It's like, there's no DNA that old that you could ever find.

• 2:11:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:11:08David Sims?

  You could find old DNA, but not 65 million years, that's ludicrous. And even if you did, right, you can't just then be like, boo.

• 2:11:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:16David Sims?

  Boing, you know, and then like it turns into all the DNA or whatever it is the idea is like, but.

• 2:11:20Griffin Newman?

  Missing pieces, just some frog in there.

• 2:11:23David Sims?

  It doesn't matter. The DNA sequence in the movie, the mystery, that you're just like, yep. This can happen right now.

• 2:11:29Griffin Newman?

  And I love that it's like.

• 2:11:30David Sims?

  I completely buy this.

• 2:11:31Griffin Newman?

  The carousel of progress, you're the rotating audience, seeing the glimpses of these different like offices.

• 2:11:37David Sims?

  And then, I mean, I love them interrupting the ride. Like them being, you know, Attenborough being like, do you get it? Do you get it? And then at a certain point they're like, wait a fucking second. Are those G-Rex eggs? Like, how do I get this bar off of me?

• 2:11:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:11:51David Sims?

  And.

• 2:11:51Griffin Newman?

  Which is what I think they all play very well is if you've devoted your life to these studies and then you find out like, wait a second, this guy's been doing this shit for eight years in private.

• 2:12:01David Sims?

  Some asshole just has like a grow light.

• 2:12:04Griffin Newman?

  They have like a logo and uniforms.

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  Like this has just been happening?

• 2:12:12Griffin Newman?

  The merch is already on shelves.

• 2:12:14Speaker 02

  Is there, what, I mean, is there anything like that happening right now in the world?

• 2:12:17Griffin Newman?

  This is, I mean, I think this is what is part of what makes this premise so compelling that none of the sequels can replicate. Is the discovery, David and I talk a lot about Men in Black.

• 2:12:28Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:12:28Griffin Newman?

  As another franchise we're obsessed with, where none of the sequels can overcome the problem of the reveal of the first time someone finds out.

• 2:12:36Speaker 02

  You're in for.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

  Holy shit, this has been going on the whole time.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  I mean, Men in Black is a 97 minute movie where the first hour is like, let's explain what the Men in Black are. And then they're like, and now one sequence and we're done. Bye bye.

• 2:12:46Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:12:46David Sims?

  Like, and you're like, I'm perfectly satisfied.

• 2:12:48Griffin Newman?

  But anytime you can build a movie premise around, hey, you, the average civilian had no idea this has been going on for years. It's like.

• 2:12:57Speaker 02

  That's JFK for me, guys. That's how I felt watching JFK. I was like, so the paramilitary forces of the United States of America have been pushed.

• 2:13:03Griffin Newman?

  It's an amazing what if premise.

• 2:13:05Speaker 03

  The graphic design is like, I think, so important to the movie.

• 2:13:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:13:10Speaker 03

  It's so good.

• 2:13:12Griffin Newman?

  But this is the like Spielberg, like fucking universal consultant way where it's like you would buy. Whereas I think a lot of movies like this, I'm like, that wouldn't be successful.

• 2:13:21Speaker 02

  So the book cover, it's not because that the logo is from the film. It's not from, the books eventually start using the logo.

• 2:13:27David Sims?

  No, but the original book cover was just this.

• 2:13:30Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:13:30David Sims?

  Which is, the silhouette is there.

• 2:13:32Griffin Newman?

  It's already compelling.

• 2:13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looked good. It looked good. I don't.

• 2:13:35Griffin Newman?

  But every element of like the font, the logo, it's all so evocative. I love when you get to the merch store, you have that panning shot of the merch store.

• 2:13:45Speaker 03

  Well, of course you would.

• 2:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course I, I love that. But all the dinosaurs are brightly colored. Where there's that sense of like, well, kids don't want to buy the realistic looking ones.

• 2:13:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:13:53Griffin Newman?

  The T-Rex has to be purple.

• 2:13:56David Sims?

  So they are shown the park, they are impressed, and then they all sit down and are like, this is disgusting. You have essentially defied the laws of God.

• 2:14:06Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:06David Sims?

  Like, what are you doing here? And also, there seem to be only like six employees. Is anyone like watching the store, essentially? And when you have lines like, Muldoon being like, I told you to put fucking locks on the car. You're like, nobody thought to put locks on the car in the theme park? Like, but you kind of buy it as this is kind of like a half-assed operation in some ways because it's all been about making the dinosaurs. We'll figure out the rest later, right?

• 2:14:31Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:14:32Speaker 02

  I, I once helped launch a startup. It's extremely hard and there's a lot of things that you forget about. It's not easy to just think of everything and especially when you're making dinosaurs.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:14:43Speaker 02

  You gotta think of a lot of stuff.

• 2:14:44David Sims?

  And that's, I mean, launching The Ringer was as hard as cloning dinosaurs from Amber, right?

• 2:14:49Speaker 02

  And now we are dinosaurs.

• 2:14:50Griffin Newman?

  But did you ever?

• 2:14:51Speaker 02

  It all worked out perfectly.

• 2:14:52Griffin Newman?

  Did you ever in the process consider whether or not you should?

• 2:14:56Speaker 02

  I think about it every day now, actually.

• 2:15:00David Sims?

  As you build a video, video-ready podcast studios or whatever, yes.

• 2:15:05Speaker 02

  A paddock of sorts.

• 2:15:06Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:15:07Speaker 02

  So interspersed with this, we do have the scene where Dennis Nedry meets with a character that will later be played by Campbell Scott.

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  Right?

• 2:15:15Griffin Newman?

  And in this film, it's played by a convicted sex offender?

• 2:15:18David Sims?

  Oh, really?

• 2:15:19Griffin Newman?

  That's why he doesn't come back. He-

• 2:15:20David Sims?

  I don't think that's the only reason why he doesn't come back. He doesn't make a huge impression.

• 2:15:24Griffin Newman?

  I'd argue that's the main reason.

• 2:15:26David Sims?

  Well, I'm just, I imagine they were like, let's get a big shot actor here. But yeah, Cameron Thor.

• 2:15:30Griffin Newman?

  But also, we legally can't bring this guy to set?

• 2:15:32David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:15:33Griffin Newman?

  Bad story.

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  Uh, but yes.

• 2:15:35Griffin Newman?

  But yes, he's introduced earlier than Ian Malcolm, than the kids.

• 2:15:39David Sims?

  Yeah, like the, the sort of, this is the wrench in the works.

• 2:15:43Griffin Newman?

  This is all the fucking Spielberg shit where he just has such a good innate sense of like, what order audiences need to process information in.

• 2:15:51David Sims?

  This place is dangerous.

• 2:15:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53David Sims?

  Alan Grant is not good with kids.

• 2:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:56David Sims?

  Dinosaurs exist.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  But also, like Nedry's gonna die at the halfway point.

• 2:15:59David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:16:00Griffin Newman?

  So we need to introduce him early.

• 2:16:02David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:16:02Griffin Newman?

  You can't just introduce him when the characters would meet him for the first time. You have to start developing this, laying track for this. Yeah.

• 2:16:08David Sims?

  Um, Wayne Knight is phenomenal in the scene with Dodgson. Him saying Dodgson's here, so funny.

• 2:16:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:14David Sims?

  Him tackling at the, uh, the spray can is so good. Because that's how I would react to that, where I would just be like, what is this James Bond ass shit you made? For this like act of subterfuge where I'm basically just putting some embryos in a freezer. But no, it's this like adorable, like it works, you know, him putting the foam on the, uh-

• 2:16:34Griffin Newman?

  You're dead on though, Sean, where like, I saw Space Jam with my dad and my brother, and I was like, holy shit. People can be like that?

• 2:16:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Like, I was just like, to me, it was like I had just seen a T-Rex in real life. I was like, Wayne Knight, my dad's like, he's in a ton of stuff.

• 2:16:49David Sims?

  He's a human cartoon. Do you think Barbasol paid to get their name on the can? Or they asked?

• 2:16:56Griffin Newman?

  So.

• 2:16:56David Sims?

  Okay. It's just like, it's so huge for Barbasol.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Huge.

• 2:16:59Speaker 02

  It's a, it's an interesting question. That was my shaving cream of choice circa this time.

• 2:17:05David Sims?

  Because-

• 2:17:05Speaker 02

  On Halloween.

• 2:17:06Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:17:06Speaker 02

  You know, where we were sort of all shaving creaming each other in the local neighborhood. And then the parents were like, that's gonna wipe the paint off of my house. Don't put that on my house.

• 2:17:15Griffin Newman?

  I imagine it's like the E.T. Reese's Pieces thing, where M&M's was like, we don't want E.T. eating M&M's. He looks ugly. And then Reese's Pieces laughed all the way to the bank. Like, if they go to Gillette, Gillette's like, what, you're, you're fucking smuggling DNA inside our can? We don't want that association. Like Barbasol's kind of like, a little bit more of an old timey brand. They're not hip.

• 2:17:36David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:17:37Griffin Newman?

  And they get the bump from this.

• 2:17:38David Sims?

  I just feel like it speaks well of them, that their product still works with embryos inside of it. Um, and then it's really just what it's one night, the rest of the movie, right? It's like Nedry fucks up the park in the evening. I think another bit of brilliant Wayne Nightery is had his like seething arrogance when he's sitting there at his console and he's like, no one could do what I have done. Two million lines of code or whatever. And then his pathetic performance is like, I'm just not going out to go into the vending machine to, uh, yeah, don't, don't mind if some things turn off and I'll see you guys later.

• 2:18:12Speaker 03

  I'm being very normal right now, just like, sure you guys know, I'm normal.

• 2:18:17David Sims?

  This is why I hate this man. I wish him to stop speaking.

• 2:18:20Griffin Newman?

  He's, the hubris is hitting like a day too early.

• 2:18:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:24Griffin Newman?

  He should start feeling this cocky after he sold the embryos.

• 2:18:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:18:28Griffin Newman?

  But he's already just sort of like, I'm the master of the universe.

• 2:18:31Speaker 03

  But to get out and do what he needs to do, he needs to shut down the security in the entire park?

• 2:18:36David Sims?

  Eh, just gonna have to go with it.

• 2:18:38Speaker 03

  There's just no way to get out? You can just like turn off one door?

• 2:18:40David Sims?

  You'd think he could just turn off one door.

• 2:18:42Speaker 03

  This is a dinosaur park.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  This is the hubris. He's not thinking through things clearly. He's just convinced that he can pull it off.

• 2:18:47Speaker 03

  What is his like, if it were to go successfully, how is he supposed to hand it off to the guy at the boat and then get back to his desk in 18 minutes?

• 2:18:57David Sims?

  He's not, he's not getting on the boat, right? He's just making a handoff to the boat.

• 2:19:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:02David Sims?

  And I guess he then gets a million and a half, right? That's the number.

• 2:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:07David Sims?

  It's like a good amount of money, but it's like.

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  He should have asked for a lot more.

• 2:19:11David Sims?

  Right. It's probably worth billions as corporate.

• 2:19:14Speaker 03

  World-class corporate espionage too, like a huge, I don't know if it's illegal in Costa Rica, but I mean, isn't he going to prison for like?

• 2:19:20David Sims?

  Probably. I mean, but also isn't what they're doing illegal? Like this is the other question.

• 2:19:25Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is why I asked, uh, if, uh, who, who was on your supporting actor ballot? Cause like.

• 2:19:31David Sims?

  Yeah, there's an argument for Knight.

• 2:19:32Griffin Newman?

  The huge choice and the obvious choice and the undeniable choice in a lot of ways. Wayne Knight is so fucking effective in this movie. And in a way where you're just like, if he's 10 degrees smaller, it's not popping in the same way. And if he's 10 degrees bigger, it like unbalances the whole film.

• 2:19:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:19:49Griffin Newman?

  It might even be a matter of like two degrees in either direction and he's off. And you're right, he plays the balance, all the arcs of like.

• 2:19:56David Sims?

  You're just, he probably only has, whatever, 10 minutes in the movie. It's, it's just a really, it's a Dion Waiters-esque performance. I'm just gonna keep doing rewatchable's terminology. But everyone in this movie is Dion Waiters-ing it up, right? Even BD Wong, sure, he really just gets the one scene, right?

• 2:20:15Griffin Newman?

  Fucking nails.

• 2:20:16David Sims?

  That scene is so powerful. He makes a huge impression. He makes a huge impression because you're like, this is a, this seems like a good person.

• 2:20:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:20:24David Sims?

  And he seems to be almost just kind of doing this out of love. Like the hatching scene is this like lovely scene.

• 2:20:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:20:30David Sims?

  Right? And, right, and it's just, you're like, this is, this is a huge mistake. And of course, the best part being they have hatched a velociraptor.

• 2:20:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  Where they're like, so what is this cute little thing? And it's like God's perfect killing machine. And we're gonna start feeding it so it gets big.

• 2:20:46Griffin Newman?

  He makes such a huge impression that Trevorrow decides to make him the Emperor Palpatine? Obi-Wan Kenobi of his trilogy?

• 2:20:52David Sims?

  I think.

• 2:20:53Griffin Newman?

  They can't decide which one it is, they keep going back and forth.

• 2:20:55David Sims?

  I think it's partly that BD Wong sort of just had such a long impressive career, right? Like, and like, so by the time the Legacy sequels come around, it's like, that's a, that's a fucking vein to tap. Bring back BD Wong, right?

• 2:21:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, I think, I think the other part of it, I think there's some, just sort of hard math of it, of like, okay, we bring back one Legacy character.

• 2:21:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:21:15Griffin Newman?

  Like Malcolm Sattler and, and Grant all did sequels. Uh, Attenborough's dead, right? Like Nedry's dead canonically within the film.

• 2:21:25David Sims?

  As is Sam Jackson.

• 2:21:26Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:21:27David Sims?

  The kids, like, no one's gonna recognize, yeah.

• 2:21:29Griffin Newman?

  You're like, by default, I guess BD Wong is the most powerful person to bring back.

• 2:21:33David Sims?

  You're right. Like, and then of course, then they brought back the real stars, Locusts.

• 2:21:40Griffin Newman?

  Love those locusts.

• 2:21:41David Sims?

  Love those locusts. Uh, yeah, and, uh, but you know, the film is perfectly structured, in my opinion, in that you are getting all of this explanation in the middle of Spielberg In Wonder, the Triceratops, the Brachyosaurs, the egg hatching and all that.

• 2:21:54Griffin Newman?

  It's the balance. He's just got like such a good like eye on the, on the clock of like, without feeling schematic of like, okay, every 10 minutes, there has to be awe.

• 2:22:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't feel as like diagrammed as that.

• 2:22:06David Sims?

  Right. Which again, not to keep bringing up the fucking Jurassic world, but those movies had that problem. The classic MCU thing of just like, yep, it's been 20 minutes. Time for, time for an action sequence.

• 2:22:15Griffin Newman?

  But also just the feeling of like, why is it from Ken in this movie? Like, what are we accomplishing by including his character? He gets killed off and you're just like, I, this felt like a waste of time.

• 2:22:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:24Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't really add anything to the narrative. Those movies are setting up so many things where you're like, I don't know if this is seeding for future films, or these are the vestiges of a previous draft or what?

• 2:22:35David Sims?

  Well, that's a lot of.

• 2:22:35Griffin Newman?

  And this movie, it's, what you said, Cap came in and was just like, fucking focus it, narrow it down.

• 2:22:41David Sims?

  And what I love about, so the, everything pops off while they are on the T-Rex tour.

• 2:22:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:46David Sims?

  And I love that everyone is on the T-Rex tour. They are all awed by the majesty of the science. They are not that interested in the park.

• 2:22:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:22:55David Sims?

  Right? Like, they're actually here to evaluate a theme park, right, in a way? And he's like, take the ride, and the ride sucks. And they're all just sitting in the car, and the movie's energy is starting to be like, what's gonna, you know, are we gonna get to something?

• 2:23:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:07David Sims?

  Right? Like, it's perfectly timed within the structure of the movie for them to finally, for shit to get real.

• 2:23:14Griffin Newman?

  The perfect storm of all these elements colliding at the same time, namely, a storm happening at the same time that Nedry is pulling his shit.

• 2:23:21Speaker 02

  It's everyone on the beach at Amity Island. That's what it is. We're walking on the beach, we know something's gonna happen.

• 2:23:26David Sims?

  Yes. And the T-Rex shows up, and it is the most like, consequentially, like, it's just like, the expectations for the T-Rex could not be higher in this movie, and the movie like, surpasses them by so much.

• 2:23:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:40David Sims?

  Is that right?

• 2:23:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:41Speaker 02

  I, I, I was convulsing in my chair at 11 years old. I, I couldn't believe how cool it was.

• 2:23:46David Sims?

  Is there anything like that since Jurassic Park?

• 2:23:50David Sims?

  I'm fucking serious.

• 2:23:52Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I'm thinking deeply.

• 2:23:53Speaker 02

  Avatar legitimately, when I, the first time, I've told this story many times before. The first time I saw Avatar.

• 2:23:57David Sims?

  I mean, hell yeah, Avatar.

• 2:23:58Speaker 02

  At the Lincoln Center AMC. And I, my jaw was on the floor.

• 2:24:02Griffin Newman?

  Look.

• 2:24:02Speaker 02

  On the floor.

• 2:24:03Griffin Newman?

  We, we stay in Avatar in this house. We love Avatar. I don't think there's.

• 2:24:08David Sims?

  There's not one thing in Avatar.

• 2:24:10Griffin Newman?

  It's not the one thing.

• 2:24:11David Sims?

  I mean, as much as I have respect for the mighty Akron.

• 2:24:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:24:13David Sims?

  Of course, and Taruk Mekto.

• 2:24:15Speaker 02

  I think as soon as we get into that first night sequence.

• 2:24:18David Sims?

  I'm, look, I fucking love it.

• 2:24:19Speaker 02

  You know, on Pandora.

• 2:24:21David Sims?

  Like Titanic is similar.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  You don't saw Avatar.

• 2:24:24David Sims?

  Like Titanic, when to me, the most, like, the most, like, I can't believe I'm seeing this moment in Titanic is the water coming through the dome.

• 2:24:31Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:24:32David Sims?

  Where you're just like, that's real water.

• 2:24:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:24:35David Sims?

  Like, those people are being drowned in 1 billion gallons of water.

• 2:24:38Griffin Newman?

  But I, yes, I agree with you that like.

• 2:24:41David Sims?

  Lord of the Rings is sort of like, maybe the Balrog, but like, there's not quite anything like this.

• 2:24:46Speaker 02

  Great movie moment, but it doesn't feel the same.

• 2:24:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:48Griffin Newman?

  It's the one, and what's incredible about it is they basically pulled off the awe-inspiring, positive, romantic version of this moment with the reveal of the Brachiosaurus. And like nailed that. And then for the second time, like 45 minutes later, they do the inverse of that, which is like, what is the ultimate terror? I, I don't, I don't think there's.

• 2:25:09David Sims?

  He's so majestic.

• 2:25:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:25:11David Sims?

  She, she's so majestic, the T-Rex.

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:25:14David Sims?

  And yet, in the entire sequence, you're also just like, this is completely out of control. This is an animal.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  Right? Like, and the way it behaves is so perfect, where it's just, where it bites the underside of the car, right? Like, it's like, you know, like, things like that, where you're just like, right, this is, they have no control over this.

• 2:25:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:25:29David Sims?

  Like, it's just rampaging around like any animal would. It looks like a puppy in a way.

• 2:25:33Speaker 02

  Wasn't there, wasn't one of the key T-Rex facts that I learned as a kid, that they have small brains? That they're not smart, that there are smart dinosaurs in this world, but T-Rexes, while great killers are not intelligent?

• 2:25:44David Sims?

  I think there's tons of debate over this now, but at the time, that's what we were told.

• 2:25:49Speaker 02

  That's what we learned.

• 2:25:49David Sims?

  That they were stupid.

• 2:25:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:51Speaker 02

  So that, that animal instinct that you're talking about, where like, it's actually not good at hunting down all of this raw flesh that has been served up to it.

• 2:25:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's what's scary about it too, is you're like, you can't pathologize this thing.

• 2:26:03David Sims?

  Right, right. But you kinda love it. The Raptors, you're like, I'm terrified of those things. Get them out of here. Shoot them in the head. Which is why world making the choice of like, they're our friends now. Was kind of a bold one in a way, but then it's also just kind of annoying to me.

• 2:26:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:17David Sims?

  Cause I just want them to be the xenomorph. Like if there's ever the fucking alien movie where there's, there's someone who's like, I have tamed an alien. I'm gonna be so mad.

• 2:26:25Griffin Newman?

  It's, I would say it is inevitable.

• 2:26:27David Sims?

  It feels inevitable, right? One day there'll be some, it'll do the Walking Dead thing if someone's got an alien on a chain.

• 2:26:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:26:34David Sims?

  Romulus, yea or nay? Didn't see, I had twins, bro.

• 2:26:38Griffin Newman?

  I give, I, I give it an okay. I put it right in the middle. I had a good time while watching it.

• 2:26:43David Sims?

  I'm a soft yea.

• 2:26:44Griffin Newman?

  I'm a, I'm a soft yea. The softest of yays possibly.

• 2:26:48Speaker 03

  I did not. I don't even have a good excuse. I just was kinda like, I'll get to it.

• 2:26:53David Sims?

  There's some Ben stuff in it, for sure.

• 2:26:54Griffin Newman?

  There's some real Ben stuff.

• 2:26:55David Sims?

  It's gooey. It's gotta be gooey.

• 2:26:57Speaker 03

  I'm sure there's chains.

• 2:26:58David Sims?

  I mean, if Fede Alvarez like remade Kate and Leopold, it would be like full of goo. Like it'd be like, where'd all this goo come from? He's like, I had to help it.

• 2:27:05Griffin Newman?

  If you remade Sleepless in Seattle, it would be full of goo.

• 2:27:07David Sims?

  Really dark in this chamber. Oh, boy.

• 2:27:11Speaker 03

  I kinda love how Jurassic Park is a little gross.

• 2:27:14David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:27:14Speaker 03

  Very gross. I like how it's sweaty.

• 2:27:16David Sims?

  Sweaty, rainy, gooey, slimy.

• 2:27:18Speaker 03

  Snotty.

• 2:27:19Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say dinosaurs sneezing on kids.

• 2:27:21David Sims?

  Big, big poop diamonds, you know?

• 2:27:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Even that is just like, it's a movie that goes out of its way to not blarp its characters, to take back in old terminar terminology, right?

• 2:27:34David Sims?

  I mean, this movie is no Lost in Space, to be clear.

• 2:27:36Griffin Newman?

  Of course. But you gotta like split up the crew into a couple little smaller teams. I'm just like, she needs to stay and focus on the poop. Is such a good way to split her off, to be able to have splinter units that doesn't feel like the movie's disregarding her.

• 2:27:51David Sims?

  No, I think she has, I mean, I've heard that complaint that she has less of an arc. But obviously Alan's is really the only arc because Malcolm gets pseudo killed off.

• 2:28:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:01David Sims?

  I mean, the movie doesn't actually kill him off, but it's sort of like, okay, bye, Ian.

• 2:28:04Speaker 02

  He just gets to be the vocal.

• 2:28:05David Sims?

  Right. He's just like, I was right.

• 2:28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  She's the one who's like going out and actually facing shit. Like she in a lot of ways is the most conventional action hero of the movie. Because Malcolm's laid up for the second half and Grant's primary thing is keeping the kids safe. She's like going out and solving shit.

• 2:28:21Speaker 02

  Her limp is burned into my mind, you know, her dragging her leg, running towards Sam Neill.

• 2:28:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:26David Sims?

  I mean, and during doing that face that she does in every David Lynch movie, the sort of strained face like, uh, is perfect. Uh, the stuff with Alan and the kids, I feel like at the time critics were like warm, but not in love with this movie. Right. It's part of their like, I saw Hook, this guy is cooked, man. He can't help with this.

• 2:28:43Griffin Newman?

  That's everyone was like, this is better than Hook, but like he's, he's, uh, he's been domesticated. He'll never make a movie as nasty as Jaws again. Raiders has like more grit and edge.

• 2:28:54David Sims?

  Hundred percent. Even E T has this sort of darker energy to it, even though it's about kids and stuff. And like, I watch this stuff now and the stuff with the kids, I think is very, very effective.

• 2:29:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:05David Sims?

  Because the kids are not really annoying.

• 2:29:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:09David Sims?

  Ariana Richards does a great scream.

• 2:29:10Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:29:11David Sims?

  Um, and like, yes, okay, it's a little annoying when she says it's a eunuch system. I mean, it's an awesome moment. It's like a meme now.

• 2:29:17Speaker 02

  Very hacker forward film. Yes.

• 2:29:20David Sims?

  Funny at the moment where you're like, oh, they're giving her something to do. Great. Um, but like, uh, Mizello saying he threw up.

• 2:29:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:27David Sims?

  Is always gets me because there's a T Rex. He doesn't need to explain why he threw up.

• 2:29:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:33David Sims?

  But it's such a vulnerable kid thing to do. He's embarrassed.

• 2:29:37Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean.

• 2:29:37David Sims?

  And like Alan being like, that's fine. It's okay. Like it's such a, it's like a moment you would have it like a daycare. But it's like after a T Rex knocked a Jeep over a cliff.

• 2:29:46Griffin Newman?

  I talk a lot about the time I spent with my little cousin, who I love, he's a great kid. And it was just startling to watch this movie and be like, man, they really nailed this age group.

• 2:29:55Speaker 02

  Right, what that kid is like.

• 2:29:56Griffin Newman?

  When I hang out with him and he just wants to tell me facts that he's just learned, or ask me questions about the facts he hasn't got an answer to yet.

• 2:30:02Speaker 02

  So real.

• 2:30:03Griffin Newman?

  You know, like, we have a shared interest. Do you know what I know about dinosaurs and what do you know about dinosaurs that I don't know?

• 2:30:08Speaker 02

  My nephew Jack is the exact same way. He loves dinosaurs and every time I see him, here's my new favorite. Here are the things I know about it.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  That's just gonna be a golden era for me as a dad because I have so much useless shit in my.

• 2:30:20Griffin Newman?

  Why do you think I like hanging out with this nine year old?

• 2:30:22David Sims?

  I know why you're very, you're very good with children.

• 2:30:24Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, who's Doctor Doom?

• 2:30:25David Sims?

  Here we go, baby.

• 2:30:29David Sims?

  But I think the stuff with the kid mostly, kids mostly works and it's also not a huge part of the movie. You have the tree sequence, which is nice.

• 2:30:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:36David Sims?

  And you have the fence sequence, which is, you know, intense.

• 2:30:39Speaker 02

  Scary.

• 2:30:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:40Speaker 02

  The other thing too, I think related to the critics' point that you were making is historically critics, who are often older, usually in the back half of their life, if they are of some stature in the culture, are terrible on horror. And this is a horror movie. You know, it has all the hallmarks of a horror movie structurally, all the big scare moments. It is a very high-minded, science fiction adventure movie.

• 2:31:03David Sims?

  And it's a roller coaster movie.

• 2:31:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but at its heart, it's horror. And middle-aged critics stink on horror. They almost always do. I'm very conscious of this as I get into that phase of my life, because you've lost a kind of essence of what appeals to young people who love to feel this way. And this is a movie made for young people to feel, make them excited and make them understand, like, the way you felt when you were six, when you discovered dinosaurs, that you could still have that when you're 60 and Jon Hamm and it's like a brilliant fusion. So I don't, I tend to not take criticism of deep genre very seriously, no matter when it's come around.

• 2:31:37David Sims?

  I mean, unless you're looking in like Fangoria or whatever, you know, like where there were appreciators of genre as it came, right? Like, yeah, no, I mean, Pauline Kael, like, loved Spielberg, we'll talk about it earlier.

• 2:31:50Griffin Newman?

  Was one of his earliest champions.

• 2:31:51David Sims?

  And then like when Raiders comes out, she's like, he's become this fucking machine guy. Like, I hate. This shit, this is just the theme park now. And there's no, it's so funny to read her Raiders review where she's just like, there's no exhilaration in it. And you're like, it's Raiders at the log.

• 2:32:05Griffin Newman?

  It's built for exhilaration.

• 2:32:06David Sims?

  The most exhilarating ride of the year.

• 2:32:08Speaker 02

  Are you out of your mind, Paul?

• 2:32:10Griffin Newman?

  Even though you see those reviews from the time of Raiders, they had to like fucking nominate for best picture. They were like, we can't deny this, right?

• 2:32:16David Sims?

  Whereas this time, they could because of Schindler's List.

• 2:32:19Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  If there isn't Schindler's List, do they have to nominate this movie?

• 2:32:22Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 2:32:23David Sims?

  Great question.

• 2:32:23Griffin Newman?

  I would contend.

• 2:32:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:32:25Griffin Newman?

  In the way that like, there were the sort of undeniable, like Beauty and the Beast, you know, where you're just like, you know what? This is a seismic enough moment in film culture. And like, the, the audience has made their, their opinion heard. I do think that's gets nominated for best picture if Schindler isn't in the same year. And the Academy is like, great, Spielberg has made this easy for us.

• 2:32:44David Sims?

  You know what?

• 2:32:45Griffin Newman?

  We get to split him in half.

• 2:32:46David Sims?

  Let me throw the question to the two of you and Ben can answer it too. And we'll talk about Schindler's List next week on Blank Check, obviously. Do you have this over Schindler? You're doing a 1993 top 10, you're a critic. Do your top 10, I mean, obviously you can also just do your Spielberg list.

• 2:33:00Speaker 02

  How old a critic am I?

• 2:33:01David Sims?

  You know, your Sean fantasy, right? Now I'm saying like, do a 1993 list for me.

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  I like this film more than Schindler's List.

• 2:33:06David Sims?

  So do I.

• 2:33:06Speaker 02

  I certainly understand the magnitude and importance of Schindler's List. Not just a Spielberg, but to the history of, you know, to world history.

• 2:33:14Griffin Newman?

  This is one of the most watchable movies ever made and Schindler is a movie you have to prep yourself for.

• 2:33:18David Sims?

  Well, I'm gonna argue on that episode, one of the things about Schindler's List that's kind of crazy is how fucking watchable it is.

• 2:33:24Griffin Newman?

  I agree, but it is a movie that you have to be like, okay, I'm ready.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  No, you're not just gonna be like, should we do, should we do 45 minutes of Schindler? Or like, yeah, no, no, for sure.

• 2:33:33Speaker 02

  The interesting thing about that Oscar question, whether this movie would be nominated, is that this is the year that The Fugitive was nominated.

• 2:33:39David Sims?

  A hundred percent.

• 2:33:40Speaker 02

  That is the same exact thing you're talking about. Where it's like, this is pure Hollywood entertainment and it's so good, we cannot not recognize it.

• 2:33:48David Sims?

  Right, how do we not recognize just the most robust kind of Hollywood filmmaking?

• 2:33:51Griffin Newman?

  But like Butterfly Effect, if Schindler comes out the following year, then I think Jurassic gets Fugitive's nom in that slot.

• 2:33:57Speaker 02

  I fully agree.

• 2:33:58Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 2:33:59David Sims?

  I think so.

• 2:33:59Griffin Newman?

  I think, I mean, we'll get to our final rankings. I think I put Schindler above this, but I put ET and Jaws and maybe Close Encounters as well above Schindler.

• 2:34:10Speaker 02

  I would agree that those movies are above Jurassic Park for me in the sort of like faux objective point of view. It's impossible for me to disentangle my relationship to movies with Jurassic Park. It's impossible.

• 2:34:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:34:23David Sims?

  But I think I do have Raiders and Jaws over Jurassic. Yes.

• 2:34:28Speaker 02

  Jaws, yes, Raiders, no.

• 2:34:29Griffin Newman?

  But I do think as time goes on.

• 2:34:30David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe you're right.

• 2:34:31Speaker 02

  For me, for me.

• 2:34:32David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. You know what? I'll redo my list.

• 2:34:35Speaker 02

  And we're not even talking about AI. Like, there's a.

• 2:34:37David Sims?

  AI is my number one.

• 2:34:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so, you know, we did this bifurcated thing where we covered everything from Lost World to, at that point, what was the other point? BFG? We've covered everything else that's come out since then as a catch-up episode. In that ranking, you put AI number one.

• 2:34:52David Sims?

  It's my number one.

• 2:34:52Griffin Newman?

  And I can't remember if I put AI number one or number two. I might have put Catch number one.

• 2:34:56David Sims?

  You love Catch.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  But I also saw AI again recently, was playing it phone form, and I'm like, this is my.

• 2:35:02David Sims?

  I've seen AI so many times. It was such a big movie for me as a teenager, which is why I'm weird and stupid.

• 2:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Huge for me.

• 2:35:08Speaker 03

  You put, you both put AI.

• 2:35:09Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:35:10Speaker 03

  At number one.

• 2:35:11Griffin Newman?

  I think, you know what the difference is? We both put AI at number one. I think you said AI is your favorite Spielberg, period.

• 2:35:16David Sims?

  It's my favorite Spielberg period. What did I have at number two, Ben?

• 2:35:18Speaker 03

  Minority Report, The Jett Spies, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Anne Griffin, your, is, number two is Catch Me If You Can.

• 2:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Then Bridge.

• 2:35:27Speaker 03

  Three, Bridge.

• 2:35:28Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:35:29Speaker 03

  Four, Tintin.

• 2:35:30Griffin Newman?

  That's my fucking guy. He's got a nose for a good story.

• 2:35:34David Sims?

  I now, Lincoln is only higher.

• 2:35:37Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:35:38David Sims?

  Lincoln is pure, pure drugs to me.

• 2:35:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:41David Sims?

  Just like, every time I watch that movie, I am like, this is fucking molten ecstasy. I love this so much. As Lincoln is like arguing with his wife over their dead son, I'm just like, yes!

• 2:35:53Griffin Newman?

  Our son is dead.

• 2:35:55David Sims?

  Get me a fourth blanket. It's cold in here.

• 2:35:58Speaker 02

  In 2022, after West Side Story, we did a top five Spielberg episode. And my top five was, it was me and Amanda and Joanna, and it was, five was Minority Report. Four was Raiders, three was Jurassic Park, two was AI, and one was Jaws.

• 2:36:14Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:36:15Speaker 02

  Amanda and Joanna both had Jurassic Park at number one.

• 2:36:18David Sims?

  I mean, I think that's

• 2:36:19Griffin Newman?

  That's long.

• 2:36:19David Sims?

  That's, it's, for our generation, it is the Spielberg movie.

• 2:36:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:25David Sims?

  Right?

• 2:36:25Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 2:36:25Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 2:36:26David Sims?

  For the millennials.

• 2:36:26Griffin Newman?

  That's the funny thing is you read the reviews.

• 2:36:28David Sims?

  I know you're sort of a cusp millennial.

• 2:36:30Speaker 02

  I'm still officially millennial, but I have some Gen X traits.

• 2:36:33Griffin Newman?

  You had elder statesmen, oh, excuse me, elder statesman critics like Pauline Kael.

• 2:36:38David Sims?

  Sure. Well, she's retired at this point, I think, yeah.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  I was saying, had discovered Spielberg as an adult and were commenting on the later periods of Spielberg's career as an adult, right?

• 2:36:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:36:47Griffin Newman?

  But the time this movie's coming out, you have a lot of critics who grew up on Jaws and are now going like, well, it's fun, but it's no Jaws.

• 2:36:54David Sims?

  Yeah, and they can feel the corporateness of this movie, right?

• 2:36:58Griffin Newman?

  And, yeah, they were like, this feels corporate, this feels diagram, this feels kind of broad.

• 2:37:02Speaker 02

  Didn't it break the record for the most corporate tie-ins?

• 2:37:05David Sims?

  Right, it's like, it's the beginning of, not the beginning, but it's, it's right at the middle, I guess, of all of them.

• 2:37:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:37:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:10Griffin Newman?

  This is sort of, this movie feels strategic.

• 2:37:12David Sims?

  This is an entire lifestyle experience, is this movie coming out this summer.

• 2:37:15Griffin Newman?

  Right, and their argument was, none of this has the stickiness in depth of Jaws, which works so well as a character piece in a drama. And I'm like, you could dress up as any of the nine human leads of Jurassic Park for Halloween and people would know who you are.

• 2:37:30David Sims?

  Now they would, you're right.

• 2:37:31Griffin Newman?

  Now they would, like, and the costuming is not, like, super broad, but you're like...

• 2:37:35David Sims?

  But you're right, like Hammond, Ellie.

• 2:37:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:38David Sims?

  Yeah, you...

• 2:37:39Griffin Newman?

  I've talked about this with the podcast, The Ride Guys, where we're like, there's all this Jurassic shit. It's wild they don't have people walking around dressed like Sam Neill, because people would lose their fucking minds.

• 2:37:48Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 2:37:48Griffin Newman?

  Just in the blue shirt.

• 2:37:49David Sims?

  And it's not that hard.

• 2:37:50Griffin Newman?

  No, it's very simple.

• 2:37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, just doing a Galaxy's Edge style thing, yeah, that would work.

• 2:37:54David Sims?

  Man, remember Bridges of Spies?

• 2:37:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, do you remember?

• 2:37:57David Sims?

  Absolute, absolute jack of a movie, so good.

• 2:38:00Griffin Newman?

  Unbelievable.

• 2:38:01David Sims?

  Do you like Bridges of Spies?

• 2:38:02Speaker 02

  Of course, I mean, he's, he doesn't make a lot of that movie. He is still

• 2:38:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:07Speaker 02

  as powerful as ever, in my opinion. West Side Story and Fableman's is, it's obscene how good those movies are for where he is in his life.

• 2:38:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it is just the thing too of, like, everyone talks about, I was watching fucking, top, what was that sound?

• 2:38:22David Sims?

  Don't know.

• 2:38:23Griffin Newman?

  That sounded like a ghost in the walls, did it not?

• 2:38:25David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:38:27Speaker 02

  Spielberg is listening.

• 2:38:28Griffin Newman?

  Was that a pipe thing?

• 2:38:29David Sims?

  Yeah, probably.

• 2:38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I don't know.

• 2:38:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:38:32David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:38:33Speaker 02

  Jon Hammond's spirit calling out to us, create once more.

• 2:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Uh, five comedy points.

• 2:38:43Speaker 05

  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.

• 2:39:08David Sims?

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

• 2:39:15Griffin Newman?

  I was watching a bunch of videos of Tom Hanks speaking at Oxford.

• 2:39:20David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:39:21Griffin Newman?

  This went viral a couple of years ago, maybe a year or two ago. I just went deep onto this and talking to students and asking questions and whatever. And he was talking about how much for him he is like a director, actor, and it's all about the different collaborations. And there are multiple people he's worked with multiple times. They have very different styles and he likes that flexibility and whatever. And they were like, what's it like working with Spielberg? And he was like, here's like the defining story of working with Spielberg is like on The Post, I had done like four movies with him already at that point or whatever. A lot of the other actors were really nervous about working with him. The script was so like word dense and so precise and accurate that we had to get it right. And the actors were like, Tom, can we please do a rehearsal and work on this? It was one of the scenes where like 10 of the primary actors

• 2:40:06Griffin Newman?

  in the Washington Post office are all like fighting back and forth and whatever. And he was like, sure, I'll be like sort of the team captain and I'll help run all of this. And they work it and they get it word perfect and they feel good about the rhythm because he's like, Steven expects you to just show up having done your work. He's not going to hold your hand. You got to show up prepared. And they get to set and Spielberg's like, you know, it might be interesting is if the shot is the man carrying the package with the Pentagon Papers and we track him over to the desk and he drops it off. And the entire thing, they had worked for like two days. None of them are in focus on camera at any point. He shot the entire sequence in one shot.

• 2:40:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:40:41Griffin Newman?

  None of them are ever in focus. And he's like, that's the thing with Spielberg is he is like the most incredible, like multi-dimensional problem solver of he's just like a genius. It's innate where he gets there and he's like, what's the most important thing? What is the thing I need to convey in this scene? Whether it's information or feeling.

• 2:40:59David Sims?

  Well, then also he just knows how to visually think about things.

• 2:41:02Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:41:03David Sims?

  In a very, very innovative way, like even at his advanced age. It's not like he's fucking Clint Eastwood, but he's an older man.

• 2:41:11Griffin Newman?

  But he's still kind of unparalleled at that.

• 2:41:13David Sims?

  There's so much verve to something like West Side Story, like, and like, it would just be so easy for him to phone some of these movies in. And sometimes he does, and it's called the BFG.

• 2:41:22Griffin Newman?

  For sure.

• 2:41:23David Sims?

  And most of the times he does not.

• 2:41:24Speaker 02

  Very rare, though, and, and you know, as I know you can attest, father of a hundred children. I'm the father of just one child. And I'm like, I need a sandwich and a nap most of the day.

• 2:41:36David Sims?

  Me need sleepy. Now, obviously, look, I had this conversation with my dear pal Caitlin about the Mets, about Lindor, after his daughter was born, was like playing baseball the next day. And she's like, that's crazy.

• 2:41:48Griffin Newman?

  He's an alien.

• 2:41:49David Sims?

  He's an alien, but I'm also like, yes, but of course he's also a wealthy athlete. He has a lot of help. He can get support for his family.

• 2:41:54Griffin Newman?

  You did the trap episode five days after your twins were born.

• 2:41:56David Sims?

  I did. That's a, that's a, that's breaking news.

• 2:41:58Griffin Newman?

  That should go into the Hall of Fame.

• 2:42:00David Sims?

  Uh, yes, that was, that was, but that was hard.

• 2:42:02Griffin Newman?

  That was hard.

• 2:42:03David Sims?

  But I sound okay on it.

• 2:42:04Speaker 02

  But you also had also been training for that episode for like six months, writing the profile.

• 2:42:09Griffin Newman?

  Your whole life.

• 2:42:10Speaker 02

  Most episodes don't get that level of preparation.

• 2:42:12David Sims?

  The stress of like, will I finish that article and see trap and all that stuff as my like, anyway.

• 2:42:20Griffin Newman?

  We knew trap was so close to fucking due date.

• 2:42:23David Sims?

  Really close.

• 2:42:24Speaker 02

  It's almost like you planned it.

• 2:42:25David Sims?

  Yeah. God, the butcher.

• 2:42:27Griffin Newman?

  Finish your point. I'm sorry.

• 2:42:28David Sims?

  I don't remember my point.

• 2:42:29Griffin Newman?

  He's a good dad. He was talking about Mets, the guy who played after the daughter.

• 2:42:32David Sims?

  No, no, no, I had, there's no point. I, we were just, I was just saying like Steven Spielberg has, he has the resources at least to be a parent with lots of support, one assumes.

• 2:42:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, totally.

• 2:42:43David Sims?

  Like, he's not going home and be, you know, changing every diaper. Maybe he is, maybe Spielberg can call me out.

• 2:42:48Speaker 02

  He's also just gotten more irons on the fire in his world than we do. You know, they'll have podcast people who are having a very calm, quiet experience in a quiet room. Like hundreds of people are reliant upon him every day.

• 2:43:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:02Griffin Newman?

  He like still kind of moves mountains with his every word.

• 2:43:05David Sims?

  It sure seems that way, and something like The Post is a movie, obviously that came together like immediately because Spielberg decided like, I think I'll do this right now. Like, right, like, some of his movies take a long time to get made.

• 2:43:16Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this post-Fableman's period.

• 2:43:18David Sims?

  Let's just do it.

• 2:43:19Griffin Newman?

  Or even, to a certain degree, post-West Side Story of like, him slowing way down.

• 2:43:23David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:43:23Griffin Newman?

  Taking long gaps now, he's finally committed to a new movie.

• 2:43:26David Sims?

  He's doing the David Kep movie, right?

• 2:43:28Griffin Newman?

  But that on paper sounds like a little bit more of a classical Spielberg movie.

• 2:43:32David Sims?

  It does kinda sound like him being like, you know, I didn't do an event movie for the 2020s yet.

• 2:43:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:43:37David Sims?

  Fuck it, why don't I?

• 2:43:39Speaker 02

  I could not be more excited.

• 2:43:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm thrilled.

• 2:43:41David Sims?

  Couldn't either, I mean, so for saying like, Jaws is that in the 70s?

• 2:43:45Griffin Newman?

  It's Josh O'Connor and...

• 2:43:47David Sims?

  Look, the guy casts like-

• 2:43:49Griffin Newman?

  Emily Blunt?

• 2:43:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Is it Emily, Emily Blunt, Joshua Con- oh my god, I mean, get out of here.

• 2:43:54Griffin Newman?

  There's someone else good in that. Oh, Coleman Domingo?

• 2:43:57Speaker 02

  Oh, keep going, this is wonderful.

• 2:43:59David Sims?

  The whole thing, if you're just-

• 2:44:00Griffin Newman?

  Sean Fennessey?

• 2:44:02David Sims?

  If you're just thinking of, uh, this kinda movie, right? So in the 70s, it's Jaws, in the 80s, it's Raiders, in the 90s, it's Jurassic Park.

• 2:44:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:10David Sims?

  Like, I'm not even mentioning Close Encounters or E.T., like, other gigantic, you know, but in the 2000s, is it Minority Report? Is that the closest, or is it War of the Worlds?

• 2:44:20Speaker 02

  I think it's actually Catch Me If You Can.

• 2:44:21David Sims?

  It's kind of, Legacy actually is Catch Me If You Can.

• 2:44:24Speaker 02

  Because that was a, it's not the same kind of genre thing that we're talking about, but it is in a way? It's kind of like a mouse hunt movie?

• 2:44:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:44:31Speaker 02

  And it was a huge hit.

• 2:44:34Griffin Newman?

  But it's a-

• 2:44:34David Sims?

  Sure, sure was.

• 2:44:35Griffin Newman?

  Huge hit. But that's the reason why we had this idea to just do the back half of Spielberg years ago, was like, his post-Oscar career is fascinating, and the choices he makes when he feels like he's been validated at the highest echelons, what does he have to prove anymore? And like, this notion in the early 2000s of, oh my god, Tom Cruise and Spielberg are gonna work together, that's gonna be the biggest movie of all time, the two ultimate crowd pleasers, and they make two movies that are like, dark and haunted.

• 2:45:05David Sims?

  Right, and- War of the Worlds did not underperform, but Minority Report kind of did.

• 2:45:10Griffin Newman?

  They both were hits, but like.

• 2:45:11David Sims?

  Minority Report is, in my opinion, like his second best movie ever. I love that movie to death.

• 2:45:16Griffin Newman?

  But like AI Minority Report, War of the Worlds on paper, like these classic Spielberg movie incoming.

• 2:45:21David Sims?

  Third best.

• 2:45:22Griffin Newman?

  All three movies rule, but it definitely felt like they were received a little bit like this is less fun than I thought it would be.

• 2:45:28David Sims?

  Yeah, 100%. Like, I mean, that's what's fascinating about this post 9/11 especially. Yeah.

• 2:45:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:32David Sims?

  He becomes tinged with darkness and by the time then he does Tintin and Warhorse and you're like, oh, he's sort of doing like more of an old, old boy adventure thing, but Warhorse is quite a sad movie.

• 2:45:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:43David Sims?

  Tintin is not.

• 2:45:44Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:45:44David Sims?

  And then when he does Ready Player One, that movie's a hit. Like, it was. It was an unambiguous hit. But it was kind of the first time it felt like eh, I think people are more interested in a different kind of product at this level now.

• 2:45:58Griffin Newman?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 2:45:59David Sims?

  Like that movie went over fine.

• 2:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:01David Sims?

  But by that point, it's like nah, people are seeing the superhero things and like that, that's now the sort of definitive version.

• 2:46:08Griffin Newman?

  And Spielberg and Lucas are doing interviews and saying like, hey, this whole thing's gotten out of control. The blockbusters are going to collapse. The studios are like cruising for bruising.

• 2:46:19David Sims?

  Right. And of course.

• 2:46:19Speaker 02

  He was right.

• 2:46:20Griffin Newman?

  He was right. You look at those quotes and they're insane where he's like, the problem is they make 200, like 10, 200 million dollars a year. And when three of those start bombing any year.

• 2:46:30David Sims?

  They're fucked.

• 2:46:31Griffin Newman?

  They're fucked. They can get away with one bombing per year.

• 2:46:33David Sims?

  But what you should do is, and again, I know this movie, this episode's coming out six months from now or whatever, but like what you should do is make a 200 million dollar courthouse musical.

• 2:46:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's money.

• 2:46:42Speaker 02

  I mean, it is the story of Warner Brothers in 2024.

• 2:46:45David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:46:46Speaker 02

  You know, this is the summer of Furiosa and Horizon and Joker. You know, Joker, Dofulia did.

• 2:46:51Griffin Newman?

  It's, they have, they had Beetlejuice, which was like an undeniable fucking home run for them. And made for like a reasonable budget. And then they made so few films. You look at like Furiosa being a thing that was largely funded by like, you know, Village Roadshow and like Australian film industry. And then like Horizon was a pickup for them. Trap was like a negative pickup for them. And then Joker was one of the only movies that they really put all their muscle behind and built themselves.

• 2:47:20David Sims?

  Yep. After mostly selling out on Joker, people forget that Warner Brothers divested itself of a lot of Joker because they didn't believe in that movie and then it made a billion dollars. Anyway, and so for Joker 2, they were all in and then it was a pile of dog shit. Nobody wanted to see.

• 2:47:33Griffin Newman?

  I want to tell the story quickly.

• 2:47:34David Sims?

  Okay. We should talk about the end of Jurassic Park.

• 2:47:36Griffin Newman?

  We should. This is a little link to the end of Jurassic Park. Talking about Spielberg being a next level problem solver. He's making this movie around like historic hurricanes.

• 2:47:44David Sims?

  Yes, crazy hurricanes.

• 2:47:45Griffin Newman?

  Hitting, right. They're losing days having to like evacuate. And I think at certain points, they lost sets entirely.

• 2:47:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:47:54Griffin Newman?

  And we're just like, well, I guess we just have to move on. We can't get any more days out of that location or whatever it was. But there's the story of him just trying to figure out how to get as much footage as he could. What's the latest point we can safely evacuate without wanting to put anyone's life in danger? I think being conscious of like, I can't be Jon Hammond, but how do I squeeze as much out of this safely? And so like, he's filming while sending Kathleen Kennedy to figure out how to get people off the island, onto a safer place. And she like finds her way to Honolulu, gets to the airport, is trying to find anyone who can transport the amount of people they still have. And she flags down a guy and is like, you, you have like a plane. Can you fly me out? Wait a second, you look familiar, don't you? And he was the fucking guy who played Jacque Lindsay.

• 2:48:39David Sims?

  Ah.

• 2:48:40Griffin Newman?

  In Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 2:48:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:42Griffin Newman?

  A man who was a real life pilot.

• 2:48:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:45Griffin Newman?

  Because they need him to fucking fly a plane on camera and then he gets two lines of dialogue.

• 2:48:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:49Griffin Newman?

  And he was like, oh yeah, no, of course I'll fly you out.

• 2:48:52David Sims?

  Lovely.

• 2:48:52Griffin Newman?

  You took care of me, Kathy.

• 2:48:53David Sims?

  Wow.

• 2:48:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's just crazy to think of like Jacque Lindsay flying out the entire cast of Jurassic Park 2 Safety, almost mirroring the end of this movie.

• 2:49:03David Sims?

  It feels like the end of the movie. Right.

• 2:49:04Speaker 02

  It's weird that a movie like this that is so clearly at the absolute center of culture would have an imperiled production. You'd think that they would have just built a new soundstage that could have replicated, you know?

• 2:49:16David Sims?

  But there was nothing like that.

• 2:49:17Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 2:49:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm watching this movie.

• 2:49:19David Sims?

  Like even Spielberg making a dinosaur movie, it's like, yeah, okay buddy, but try to keep the budget under 70 mil.

• 2:49:24Griffin Newman?

  I was thinking this while watching it where it's like, oh, this is like as big of a budget we give, but there are limits. You know, you read quotes and you're just like, no movie will ever cost $200 million. Was something people were saying in the early 2000s.

• 2:49:35David Sims?

  But like George Lucas being like, fuck it, I do Phantom Menace, basically self-funding it with merch sales. Like, that was, that's the beginning of like, okay, like, I guess people are writing blank checks to themselves.

• 2:49:46Griffin Newman?

  But, yeah, exactly. Like, this is still an era where the most powerful person in Hollywood, making the most like slam dunk blockbuster premise, and being like responsible with his days and his budget.

• 2:49:57David Sims?

  Is like, can I have Kurt Russell? And they're like, Kurt Russell's gonna cost a million dollars. Like, no.

• 2:50:02Griffin Newman?

  If you get Kurt Russell, you have to lose 20 shots of dinosaurs.

• 2:50:05David Sims?

  Yeah, right. We're, we're, we're cutting one of those raptors. Sorry, buddy.

• 2:50:08Griffin Newman?

  And if you lose a location or you lose days, then you're like, I guess we cut out like Samuel L. Jackson's death scene. And he's really smart about like, okay, what's the best, most effective way to make like a gift out of a mistake? How do you make it more impactful that you don't see him die? And that's revealed later. He's still working within like boxing himself into corners.

• 2:50:27David Sims?

  Yeah, or kitchen counters. Should we talk about raptors in the kitchen?

• 2:50:30Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:50:32David Sims?

  Uh, cool sequence.

• 2:50:34Griffin Newman?

  Here's a take I had.

• 2:50:38David Sims?

  I don't know, like, we have largely avoided this, but like, it is hard to talk about Jurassic Park in some ways, where you're like, the raptors in the kitchen is a really effective and terrifying sequence.

• 2:50:46Speaker 02

  I just find myself saying like, this was cool, like a lot of the time, watching it. This is the mirrored, you know, when she's hiding in the sliding doors and the mirrored shot, and where the raptor runs right into it. I'm just like, that's just cool. That's just a cool idea for a movie shot.

• 2:50:59David Sims?

  And falling over too is so perfect. You're like, the weird clumsiness of them is sort of terrifying in a way. And the way they're, you can hear their claws on the metal, where you're just like, again, you're like, this is wrong. A raptor shouldn't be in a kitchen, right? Raptors belong in 65 billion years ago.

• 2:51:15Griffin Newman?

  Well, excuse me, David, anyone can cook. Don't say a raptor shouldn't be in a kitchen.

• 2:51:20Speaker 02

  It's my gusto. Even just explaining, like, unless they can open doors, and then hard cut to a door handle opening, you know, like, the most dumb shit, but effective, emotionally engaging filmmaking. So brilliant.

• 2:51:33Griffin Newman?

  Here was a thought I had while watching it this time, and I don't mean to put the two franchises on the same level, or, or put any of those films on the level of this film in particular. But I was watching it and I was just like, this sort of like haunted house, like pressure cooker, the dinosaurs here, the persons here, hanging on the silence of, as you said, like the sounds of the claw tapping and the feel of like the pressure closing in.

• 2:51:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:51:59Griffin Newman?

  That is a thing that like, you know, Lost World nails in that one sequence dangling over the cliff, but it's the most supersized version of it. And it feels like the later films don't even try to really emulate, it's become an entirely different thing. I do think it's kind of the secret juice to the Quiet Place movies.

• 2:52:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:52:15Griffin Newman?

  Is they are the best modern evocations of what works so well in Jurassic of just like, typecast, good actors, you characterize them well, and it's just about like, you know how these creatures work? You put them in long, sort of like...

• 2:52:29David Sims?

  One of my big problems with that franchise, which I think is like, a solid, all of those movies are watchable.

• 2:52:34Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:52:35Speaker 02

  I like all, I'm a big defender of that series, in part because of what Griffin is saying.

• 2:52:38Griffin Newman?

  I don't think any of them are masterpieces, but that is why they work.

• 2:52:40David Sims?

  They're good because of the humans. I find the monsters boring and kind of boring to look at. I, I like how they work is fine.

• 2:52:47Griffin Newman?

  But they're also trying to do the same Jurassic Park thing of like, don't show them too much, like, show some restraint, don't answer too much.

• 2:52:54Speaker 02

  It's a good example of like, what a digitally created creature, its limitations. Because if there was a practical version of that creature in those movies, it actually would be more effective.

• 2:53:04David Sims?

  It would be way more effective. It would be so cool, and the fact that they can move supernaturally fast is lame.

• 2:53:10Speaker 02

  I agree, I agree.

• 2:53:11David Sims?

  Um, yeah.

• 2:53:15David Sims?

  Uh, sorry.

• 2:53:15Griffin Newman?

  What are you typing?

• 2:53:16David Sims?

  My wife's asking how it's going.

• 2:53:18Griffin Newman?

  Be nice.

• 2:53:21David Sims?

  Okay, um, we've mentioned it, but I feel like there's so many stories about this that's not in the dossier, that the decision to have the T-Rex re-enter.

• 2:53:31Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:53:32David Sims?

  And sort of quote unquote, have the hero moment.

• 2:53:34Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is Godzilla moment.

• 2:53:35David Sims?

  Later decision.

• 2:53:36Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:53:37David Sims?

  And is a brilliant one, right? Where it's like, how do we deal with the raptors? How do you kill? Cause like, if it just ends with them shooting raptors with shotguns.

• 2:53:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:53:43David Sims?

  That's kind of lame.

• 2:53:45Griffin Newman?

  What's smart is also you kind of show how meaningless this is.

• 2:53:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:49Griffin Newman?

  You're like, these, these mon- these dinosaurs had no specific ire for these humans.

• 2:53:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:53:54Griffin Newman?

  They're just sort of like out for blood. But, but this like, it feels, it finally clicked for me watching it this time, that it feels very Godzilla of like, you know, Godzilla starts out as like the most terrifying thing you could ever imagine happening to humanity.

• 2:54:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:54:09Griffin Newman?

  And then Godzilla exists as a franchise for decades that is introduce a new monster. And the only way to solve it is for Godzilla to kill that monster.

• 2:54:16David Sims?

  Yeah, it's that being like, come on.

• 2:54:18Griffin Newman?

  Is Godzilla our friend? No, Godzilla's still scary. We still can't control Godzilla. But if Godzilla can knock down Hidora, then we're fine with Godzilla.

• 2:54:28David Sims?

  I mean, I'm not that versed in the Godzilla movies. And I have the big Criterion booklet, uh, you know, thingy, right?

• 2:54:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:36Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful set.

• 2:54:37David Sims?

  Which is such a wonderful thing.

• 2:54:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:54:39David Sims?

  And as I slowly watch all of my discs, I'm like watching every disc that I've never seen before or barely remember, right? So I recently had to watch Rambo Last Blood.

• 2:54:47Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 2:54:47David Sims?

  Cause I bought like a Rambo box set. And have you seen Rambo Last Blood?

• 2:54:50Speaker 02

  Horrendous.

• 2:54:52David Sims?

  A truly like congressional inquiry level, like what the fuck happened here?

• 2:54:56Speaker 02

  Wildly racist.

• 2:54:57David Sims?

  So racist.

• 2:54:58Speaker 02

  Exceedingly unnecessarily violent.

• 2:55:01David Sims?

  Well, you're like, why does Rambo have to be so racist?

• 2:55:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, very, very confusing.

• 2:55:06David Sims?

  Like even though the earlier ones are sort of like somewhat paternalistic about like the people in other countries, this one's just like, no, Mexicans are scum.

• 2:55:16Griffin Newman?

  But also a franchise that was like built on how disillusioned he was with America.

• 2:55:20David Sims?

  Yeah, and then.

• 2:55:21Speaker 02

  Such a contained story, has nothing to do with going overseas and murdering people. It's just very strange.

• 2:55:26David Sims?

  Rambo four, Rambo, right, that one.

• 2:55:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:55:29David Sims?

  It's kind of bad, but like it's got like awesome throat ripping and shit. And you're like, yeah, this sucks, but like, who cares? Rambo five, you're like, this is like mean spirited, like this is horrible. Anyway, I will one day watch all the Godzillas. But my experience of Godzilla is only movies about how Godzilla is so scary. You know what I mean?

• 2:55:45Griffin Newman?

  This is why I'm making this analogy is.

• 2:55:47David Sims?

  You're right.

• 2:55:47Griffin Newman?

  In the later films where Godzilla has to defeat a greater threat.

• 2:55:51David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:55:52Griffin Newman?

  Part of what I think is so fascinating about Godzilla movies is that Godzilla still remains scary.

• 2:55:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:55:57Griffin Newman?

  That it's still like, okay, he's at least like, we, we share a common enemy.

• 2:56:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:56:04Griffin Newman?

  But we can't control this thing. And this thing's existence in our world is like terrifying.

• 2:56:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:56:08Griffin Newman?

  And I think Spielberg nails that moment of like, there is triumph in, oh my God, great. The T-Rex is solving our problems. It's distracting the velociraptors. We can literally just drive away.

• 2:56:18David Sims?

  That's their, that's their victory.

• 2:56:19Griffin Newman?

  That they're in a fucking room with a T-Rex.

• 2:56:21Speaker 02

  There's a difference though, like Godzilla is, while they share this sort of like man's misshapen creation. Origin story. Godzilla is like a vengeful god. Like he is out to take.

• 2:56:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:56:36Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, to take back what was rightfully his, you know, to get revenge for what he, what has been done to the world.

• 2:56:41David Sims?

  A representation of our worst, you know, creations.

• 2:56:44Speaker 02

  Manifestation.

• 2:56:44David Sims?

  Post-war, right?

• 2:56:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, T-Rex is just a fucking eating monster.

• 2:56:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:56:48Speaker 02

  It's just, I'm hungry, get out of my way.

• 2:56:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:51Speaker 02

  Which is way scarier. Like there's no intentionality other than like, I need food in my belly.

• 2:56:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:56Speaker 02

  So it is, it's very satisfying, I find, when the raptors are getting, get taken out. And shout out to that raptor that tried to jump on T-Rex's back.

• 2:57:03David Sims?

  He gakes, he gakes a real effort.

• 2:57:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. He took a shot at it. It's roasting into a skeleton.

• 2:57:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:09Speaker 02

  Uh, but the T-Rex is, it is a power unto itself.

• 2:57:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:57:14David Sims?

  Oh God, it's so good.

• 2:57:16Speaker 02

  And then the banner coming down.

• 2:57:17David Sims?

  The banner coming down.

• 2:57:18Speaker 02

  It's just like.

• 2:57:19David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah, fuck you. Just made you come.

• 2:57:22Griffin Newman?

  It's just like a moment.

• 2:57:24David Sims?

  Do that anytime.

• 2:57:25Griffin Newman?

  That he has the judgment to execute properly, where if anyone else did it, you'd be like, you're fucking gilding the lily here. And it's like, he just knows the right speed for the banner to fall, the timing of when it starts falling.

• 2:57:37David Sims?

  And of course, Williams' score being like, I've been here. Like, we've mostly been chilling, but like, don't, I'm, I can pop this score again. They get in the copter, Alan's sleeping.

• 2:57:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:46David Sims?

  Uh, and everyone's like, by the way, Hammond, hate your parks, zero out of 10, F minus. And he's like, agree, see you later.

• 2:57:52Griffin Newman?

  You end on Laura Dern quietly processing everything, looking at everyone.

• 2:57:56David Sims?

  Everyone walks.

• 2:57:57Griffin Newman?

  Digging, it's all on her face.

• 2:57:58David Sims?

  Everyone walks out so happy.

• 2:58:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:00David Sims?

  Who walks out of this movie unhappy?

• 2:58:01Griffin Newman?

  But like, this movie just settles itself. It's like, you know what they need to do? They need to leave the island. The second they're in the helicopter, two lines of dialogue, three maximum.

• 2:58:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:11Griffin Newman?

  And then it's just looks, there's no like, John Hammond, holding a press conference, announcing his apology to the world.

• 2:58:19Speaker 02

  What, remind me, what is, how does the book end? Isn't there like more about what they do to the island? Am I misremembering that?

• 2:58:26David Sims?

  The island like falls apart more significantly. Like, there's like a fire from what I, right? Like, it's like, the island is more powerfully destroyed and like Malcolm is still on it. And I think they like fucking napalm it or something. They like, they like blow it up.

• 2:58:40Speaker 02

  That they destroyed it.

• 2:58:40David Sims?

  And that's why you're like, Malcolm's dead. And that's why when then they told Crichton like, uh, write a sequel buddy, it better be called Jurassic Park 2 and it better have dinosaurs in it. He was like, I don't write sequels. And they were like, yes, you do. Like, they cock and shotgun.

• 2:58:55Speaker 02

  Here's a $5 million machine gun.

• 2:58:56David Sims?

  And they're like, by the way, Jeff Goldblum completely rocked in that movie, so he's the star of the next one. And he's like, I killed that character off. And they're like, undo it. And in the, in the sequel novel, he's just like, yeah, I didn't die. What?

• 2:59:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:07David Sims?

  Who cares?

• 2:59:08Speaker 02

  I survived the napalming.

• 2:59:09David Sims?

  I just dodged the napalm, I guess.

• 2:59:12David Sims?

  But the the novel also ends with some kind of like clever kind of movie-esque report of like, and then weird reports of like odd migrating animals in Costa Rica, like behaving unusually. And you're like, okay, and they don't do that here.

• 2:59:29Griffin Newman?

  This movie doesn't like feel the need to tie up any loose ends. It doesn't feel the need to set up new threads for sequels to pick on. It just ends because the humans have made it off the island. It's over. Like, which, by the way, Jaws does as well. Like, Jaws is just like The Shark's Dead. Movie over.

• 2:59:44David Sims?

  A hundred percent.

• 2:59:44Griffin Newman?

  We don't just show them getting back to land, hugging their wives.

• 2:59:47Speaker 02

  Both franchises inspired several unnecessary, often uninspired, sequels.

• 2:59:51Griffin Newman?

  So this, I think, is a fascinating quote from Premier Magazine, May 1997, when Lost World is coming out. Spielberg said, "I didn't think it was a perfect film, and it wasn't so close to my heart that I need to protect the integrity of a follow-up by preventing anyone else from doing one, which I certainly had the right to do. Among the films that I really think are good movies and that I've directed, it's not even in the top five. But there was such an outpouring of demand from the public, thousands and thousands of letters, and so after all those years of denying them the sequel to E.T., which he famously considered and developed."

• 3:00:23David Sims?

  And but was also like, I can't find a way into that. Right. Yeah.

• 3:00:27Griffin Newman?

  "I couldn't face the same nine-year-old now saying, 'Okay, so you're not gonna make a sequel to E.T. I understand how personal it was to you, so why are you not making the sequel Jurassic Park?'" And I had no answer to that. That because this movie was kind of just like pure exercise for him, he was like, "Well, there's nothing like sacred that I don't want to touch upon." The only other thing he sequelizes himself is Indiana Jones, which is designed to be a franchise. And part of Lucas, like, bringing him on was, "You have to commit to make three. I want these to be ongoing." But he steps away from Jaws. He, like, kills his own E.T. sequel. This is the only other time that he does it.

• 3:01:06Speaker 02

  Do some show lore for me right now. What is your version of The Lost World? What is the thing that you've thousands of letters about that people desperately want you to do?

• 3:01:14David Sims?

  Oh.

• 3:01:15Griffin Newman?

  Another performance review.

• 3:01:16David Sims?

  And you're like, eh, I guess, for the money?

• 3:01:17Griffin Newman?

  It's another performance review.

• 3:01:19David Sims?

  Oh, let's do one.

• 3:01:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:20David Sims?

  Of what?

• 3:01:21Griffin Newman?

  But it's, we haven't found the right thing. In the early days of the show, when we were doing, when we were purely a podcast about the Star Wars prequels. We started doing a thing called the performance review where we would go through every cast member and rate them pass or fail.

• 3:01:34David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:01:34Griffin Newman?

  To judge whether or not the acting was good in those movies. And then we did it again for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe on Patreon.

• 3:01:40David Sims?

  An episode where we fight with Chris Cather about The Last Jedi for an hour.

• 3:01:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:43David Sims?

  Yep. But we also find a very convincing Sebastian Stan look-alike on Reddit, uh, who does porn.

• 3:01:49Griffin Newman?

  The discoveries in those episodes are great.

• 3:01:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:01:51Griffin Newman?

  And people are often looking for, when will there be another thing they have covered in its entirety that feels well-suited for a performance review? We're also arguing about the performances of, like, the 80th credited actor is still interesting.

• 3:02:05David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:02:06Griffin Newman?

  And I don't know what it is.

• 3:02:07David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't know. Jurassic Park?

• 3:02:09Griffin Newman?

  Like, you could zoom out and do whole Jurassic franchise, but I don't, I-

• 3:02:13Speaker 02

  I mean, it's the Fast movies, is it not?

• 3:02:15Griffin Newman?

  Well, if, if we cover the Fast movies, I argue we almost have to do a performance review.

• 3:02:20David Sims?

  And it's so perfect for that, because there are a lot of, like, oh, I forgot about Cole Hauser. You know, I forgot about, like-

• 3:02:26Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:02:26David Sims?

  This, this guy who's only in a couple of them or whatever.

• 3:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:29David Sims?

  Um-

• 3:02:30Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that's the one I see people ask.

• 3:02:31David Sims?

  Hoops all on shorters, obviously, everyone's always demanding that one.

• 3:02:34Griffin Newman?

  That's our-

• 3:02:34Speaker 02

  Psychotic.

• 3:02:35Griffin Newman?

  That's our E.T. 2 night skies. That's the one that people think they want. And they're, they should be thanking us for never doing it.

• 3:02:41David Sims?

  What's that on the rewatchables? Cause you guys did Pulp Fiction. So what is it now?

• 3:02:46Speaker 02

  Probably Almost Famous, though for the CR-

• 3:02:49David Sims?

  You've never done Almost Famous?

• 3:02:51Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:02:51David Sims?

  Why?

• 3:02:52Speaker 02

  And Juliette Littman, who I've worked with for many, many years, has said if she is not included in that episode, she will immediately leave the company.

• 3:02:59David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 3:02:59Speaker 02

  If it's published.

• 3:03:00David Sims?

  Wow.

• 3:03:00Speaker 02

  So that's a bold threat that she's made. Uh, I don't know, there's probably a couple of other, Sicario for Chris.

• 3:03:07Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:03:08David Sims?

  Wow, you gotta do that.

• 3:03:09Speaker 02

  Chris, Chris is waiting for Sicario. He has not received it yet. He's waiting for his night vision goggles.

• 3:03:13Griffin Newman?

  But I'm wondering if there's, if, is there a movie that people have been waiting, like a singular film?

• 3:03:18Speaker 02

  From you guys?

• 3:03:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cause it's different with, like, the director prism, where people are like, I want this whole series.

• 3:03:24Speaker 02

  Lynch was a huge one. So what's the next huge one after that?

• 3:03:28Griffin Newman?

  PTA.

• 3:03:29David Sims?

  PTA.

• 3:03:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:31Speaker 02

  Wes.

• 3:03:31Griffin Newman?

  Right, there's the obvious tier of like PTA, Wes, Tarantino. Then there's the sort of personal, like, people want to hear David Goham on Peter Weir, me Goham on 70's alt man.

• 3:03:42David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:03:43Griffin Newman?

  Ben Goham on Ernest Dickerson.

• 3:03:45David Sims?

  Yeah, man, Bones.

• 3:03:46Griffin Newman?

  Bones, baby.

• 3:03:48David Sims?

  Uh.

• 3:03:49Speaker 02

  Bones back in the news here in October, you know? People are watching Bones again, they're digging it.

• 3:03:53Griffin Newman?

  Bones tober.

• 3:03:54David Sims?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:03:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03:54David Sims?

  No, it's just back.

• 3:03:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay, great, I love it.

• 3:03:57David Sims?

  Was it a porch movie, Bones?

• 3:03:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03:59Griffin Newman?

  Was it a porch movie? You think that thing was watching Doors? You think there was a fucking roof over Ben's head when he was watching Bones?

• 3:04:05David Sims?

  Man of Bones?

• 3:04:06Speaker 02

  I said, "Fetch me another blanket, I've got more Bones to watch."

• 3:04:11Griffin Newman?

  Uh, this movie was a very big hit.

• 3:04:13David Sims?

  It opened June 11th, 1993, fifty million dollars, which I think was a record at the time.

• 3:04:18Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:04:19David Sims?

  Uh, it grossed, well, wait a second, because I don't want to get fooled here by the re-releases or whatever. It grossed about three hundred and fifty million dollars.

• 3:04:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:27David Sims?

  Domestic. It's now at four fifteen and one bill worldwide.

• 3:04:32Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 3:04:32David Sims?

  I think it was slightly under for its original release.

• 3:04:35Griffin Newman?

  That was a big push in the 2010's, when they started re-releasing American blockbuster classics in 3D, was like, get these movies back in American theaters, but also foreign markets were not as developed.

• 3:04:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:04:49Griffin Newman?

  Titanic.

• 3:04:49David Sims?

  A ton of money in China.

• 3:04:51Griffin Newman?

  Right, never got to play in Asia, like, all these things.

• 3:04:53Speaker 02

  This is a version of the kind of hidden money of Hollywood, that there is, it's like, constantly churning up an extra fifty, seventy-five million dollars against these properties.

• 3:05:02Griffin Newman?

  They did the 20th anniversary Jurassic 3D, which by the way, I think that conversion is quite good, and the Jaws 3D conversion is also quite good. Unsurprisingly, the way that Spielberg just shoots and blocks and edits things, works pretty seamlessly in 3D, because he just builds that kind of depth into his compositions, and isn't frenetically, you know, cutting. In a way that would disorient you. That 3D re-release made like 40 million here and made like 400 million everywhere else.

• 3:05:30David Sims?

  Yes, it was just short of the domestic record. E.T. kept the domestic record at 359. But it beat it worldwide.

• 3:05:38Griffin Newman?

  Got it.

• 3:05:39David Sims?

  And Spielberg, as you say, does agree to do the sequel because he's almost like, I don't give a shit about Jurassic Park, which is kind of interesting.

• 3:05:48Griffin Newman?

  And I also think you're right that like in spending four years building DreamWorks, he needs the guarantor of like, I need to remind everyone that I'm Steven Spielberg before I go off and start making some weirder things.

• 3:05:58David Sims?

  I think Lost World is a very flawed movie, but it does have very effective sequences and some fun casting. I think Jurassic Park 3 is tons of fun, but disposable. I think all of the world movies are quite bad, but the J.A. Bayona one.

• 3:06:10Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me. Show some respect for our guest here. Thank you.

• 3:06:14David Sims?

  But the J.A. Bayona one has the only good idea really of all of them, which is the haunted house sequences sort of fun.

• 3:06:22Griffin Newman?

  It has sequences.

• 3:06:23Speaker 02

  I had J.A. on the big picture for that movie because I love to interview. I had Vede Alvarez on for Romulus because I love to interview filmmakers like that when they get put in the franchise chair. And I agree, like he brought the orphanage to Jurassic Park.

• 3:06:42David Sims?

  And that's just the one time where you're like, this is something.

• 3:06:44Speaker 02

  It's a take. He had a take. It's not totally effective, but there are things about that movie I like.

• 3:06:49Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think if they had hired J.A. Bayona to develop his own Jurassic movie from scratch, I probably would like that movie. That movie is torn between two poles of this weird franchise management of the idea of the sanctity of the Jurassic World trilogy and just letting a fun director make a fun dinosaur movie.

• 3:07:10Speaker 02

  Society of the Snow, that was good.

• 3:07:11David Sims?

  Dominion is like a completely insane film.

• 3:07:15Griffin Newman?

  Is almost like incoherent.

• 3:07:18David Sims?

  Dominion is so incoherent, it's sort of astonishing. Still made a billion dollars. Jurassic Park opened number one. What's number two, Griffin? Can you just tell me?

• 3:07:27Griffin Newman?

  In June 1993?

• 3:07:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:07:31Griffin Newman?

  What's number two? Is it a new release? Has it been out for a while?

• 3:07:35David Sims?

  Uh, it's been out for three weeks. It is a star-driven action film that is good.

• 3:07:40Griffin Newman?

  Is it Lethal Weapon 3?

• 3:07:41David Sims?

  No.

• 3:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:07:43David Sims?

  No, it's not.

• 3:07:43Griffin Newman?

  It's not The Fugitive?

• 3:07:45David Sims?

  Nope.

• 3:07:46Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Distributor, please?

• 3:07:48David Sims?

  Sony Columbia.

• 3:07:49Griffin Newman?

  Sony Columbia. Star-driven. Uh, it's not-

• 3:07:53David Sims?

  But high-concept, you know.

• 3:07:54Griffin Newman?

  In the line of fire?

• 3:07:55David Sims?

  Nope.

• 3:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Star-driven.

• 3:07:58David Sims?

  It's a big star.

• 3:07:59Griffin Newman?

  Uh, a sort of, a minted star? A recent star?

• 3:08:04David Sims?

  Minted star, kind of an aging star, but this is his last gasp, I think, of true, uh, A-list stardom. He makes some very fun action pictures in the early 90s before becoming a parody of himself. He was always a parody of himself, but truly-

• 3:08:17Griffin Newman?

  Is it Cliffhanger?

• 3:08:17David Sims?

  It's Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, the Renny Harland-

• 3:08:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I'd argue that's his last, like, A studio blockbuster.

• 3:08:27David Sims?

  Well, Demolition Man is the same year.

• 3:08:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh.

• 3:08:30David Sims?

  And I would agree, that's, that's the end of him being in fun, good movies, right?

• 3:08:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:35David Sims?

  Would you agree, Sean?

• 3:08:36Griffin Newman?

  You peep that Demolition Man arrow box that day, David?

• 3:08:38Speaker 02

  I have a soft spot for Walter Hill's A Bullet in the Head.

• 3:08:42Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 3:08:42David Sims?

  That's, uh, that's, that's later, but, uh, sure.

• 3:08:46Speaker 02

  Film I like. Uh, there are not a lot of films from the next 30 years of his career that I like.

• 3:08:51Griffin Newman?

  That's arguably him pivoting to being a bit of a B-movie star.

• 3:08:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:08:55Griffin Newman?

  After being like one of the most Titanic movie stars who could get anything made at any budget level.

• 3:09:01Speaker 02

  Cliffhanger, though. Excellent.

• 3:09:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:02Speaker 02

  Really, very enjoyable.

• 3:09:03Griffin Newman?

  Cliffhanger's very fun.

• 3:09:05David Sims?

  Uh, Cliffhanger and Demolition Man rock, and then, right, it's The Specialist, Judge Dredd, Assassins, Daylight, which is sort of okay. The other ones I just mentioned are not.

• 3:09:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:14David Sims?

  Copland is him being like, "What do you think?" And then-

• 3:09:17Griffin Newman?

  But then when he doesn't get an Oscar nomination, he's like, "Then, thank you, I won't try that." Right. That's a bad one.

• 3:09:22David Sims?

  And then he goes to, straight to DVD, and then he's back as Rambo. Jesus, talking a lot of Stallone. Okay, number three at the, uh, box office is a comedy.

• 3:09:30Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:09:31David Sims?

  A sort of an odd couple comedy.

• 3:09:36Griffin Newman?

  Is it house?

• 3:09:38David Sims?

  No.

• 3:09:39Griffin Newman?

  I was, I was putting out the one-

• 3:09:41Speaker 02

  House sitter?

• 3:09:41Griffin Newman?

  Why was I getting-

• 3:09:42David Sims?

  Neither, neither, nor sitter. No, um, it is, so it's not really, you know what, it's not really- Okay, okay.

• 3:09:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, so the hint was wrong. It's not really?

• 3:09:52David Sims?

  The thing about me calling it an odd couple comedy is it is that sort of. But you know what the movie is? Yes. It's the stars became a couple. And there's a very famous thing that happened involving them. That was sort of sanctioned eternally because they were a couple, but is now something you hear about and your jaw hits the floor. In the history of this show, this is one of the funniest movies to try to do.

• 3:10:17Speaker 02

  I know even.

• 3:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Can you restate what you just said?

• 3:10:20David Sims?

  So the two stars of this movie, I believe, became a couple, right? Did they start because of this movie? Okay. I'm not sure. Might have predated that, but yes, they were together. And one of the male star then did something, not for film, but he did something that was seen by people. Sort of a promotional act.

• 3:10:39David Sims?

  And it's something that you're not supposed to do. It was an offensive thing. Two huge stars at the time. But he kind of quote unquote, could do it back then because he was dating the woman here.

• 3:10:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:10:51David Sims?

  I think that's what, you know.

• 3:10:52Griffin Newman?

  What the fuck? Do you know what it is? It's not, it's not Hugh Grant or Eddie Murphy, no.

• 3:10:57David Sims?

  No. It's a TV star whose movie career was not nothing, but like he never quite was a movie star.

• 3:11:04Griffin Newman?

  He got permission because.

• 3:11:06David Sims?

  Permission is, to be clear, kind of strong because what he did is not good.

• 3:11:10Griffin Newman?

  I have solved it.

• 3:11:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:11:11Griffin Newman?

  The film is called Made in America.

• 3:11:13David Sims?

  That is correct.

• 3:11:13Griffin Newman?

  And you are speaking of Ted Danson's Friars Club.

• 3:11:16David Sims?

  In blackface.

• 3:11:18Griffin Newman?

  Speech.

• 3:11:19David Sims?

  Correct.

• 3:11:20Griffin Newman?

  To, to tribute his then girlfriend, Whoopi Goldberg, who he had left his wife who was in a coma for? Was that right? Didn't he have a wife who was gravely ill?

• 3:11:30David Sims?

  I'm not sure about that part, although it's possible. Yeah. It's just funny that.

• 3:11:36Griffin Newman?

  Everything about.

• 3:11:36David Sims?

  Ted Danson, I feel like is now just such a beloved celebrity, right? Like actor too, good actor, like really an iconic TV person. But his partnership with Mary Steenburgen is so beloved. And then like, if you go back, you're like, oh, some bumps in the road here.

• 3:11:53Griffin Newman?

  Those photos are astonishing of him in the full getup and Whoopi like clapping.

• 3:11:57David Sims?

  Like he was in like minstrel blackface. Like it wasn't just like they like. Tanned his skin or like he's like, it's a parody, I guess.

• 3:12:06Griffin Newman?

  It was not.

• 3:12:06David Sims?

  But when you see pictures of it, you're like, what the fuck is going on? This Ted Danson.

• 3:12:11Speaker 02

  This was not like a Kentucky Fairgrounds event in 1958. This is 1993 that this happened.

• 3:12:18Griffin Newman?

  He is just ending his run as the star of the most beloved sitcom in the world.

• 3:12:25Speaker 02

  Crazy thing that happened.

• 3:12:26Griffin Newman?

  Like 11 seasons of Triumph.

• 3:12:28David Sims?

  But now, now that's right. I was struggling with Made in America because Made in America is like, what is it? It's that like her.

• 3:12:33Griffin Newman?

  Made in America is that.

• 3:12:34David Sims?

  There's a DNA test and is she related to Ted Danson or?

• 3:12:37Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, it's Will Smith is her son.

• 3:12:40David Sims?

  Right, and Ted Danson was the sperm donor. Right, so it's sort of an odd couple comedy.

• 3:12:44Griffin Newman?

  And he's like a hookster used car salesman, is that right?

• 3:12:47David Sims?

  Yeah, he's like a, you know, oh my God, I got a cowboy hat. And she's like, what? I'm Whoopi Goldberg. This is, we're so different.

• 3:12:52Griffin Newman?

  He wants to meet his dad and then they meet and they don't get along and then they do fall in love.

• 3:12:57David Sims?

  I've never seen it.

• 3:12:58Griffin Newman?

  It's also, again, it's just.

• 3:12:59David Sims?

  It's a Richard Benjamin movie.

• 3:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Will Smith's first movie?

• 3:13:02David Sims?

  Is that so?

• 3:13:02Griffin Newman?

  It's certainly his first significant role.

• 3:13:04Speaker 02

  It gets after Six Degrees of Separation.

• 3:13:08Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 3:13:08David Sims?

  Maybe right before it. It's the same year.

• 3:13:11Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 3:13:11David Sims?

  Uh, I'm not sure which came out first. It's, it's right before it.

• 3:13:14Speaker 02

  Just a reminder, this film made a hundred million dollars at the box office.

• 3:13:17David Sims?

  Made in America made 104 million dollars worldwide.

• 3:13:21Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 3:13:21David Sims?

  Uh, 50 at least in America. And Richard Benjamin is one of those guys where it's like, Richard Benjamin made some big movies. Like he made hits. He made My Favorite Year. He made like Mermaids, right? But he also made like some true stinkers.

• 3:13:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Richard Benjamin's star of Westworld.

• 3:13:36David Sims?

  Star of Westworld, but also director of Marcy X.

• 3:13:39Speaker 02

  I enjoyed Milk Money.

• 3:13:40David Sims?

  Oh, I've never seen that.

• 3:13:42Speaker 02

  Where, uh, real classic hooker with a heart of gold formulation starring Melanie Griffith. And some young boys and Ed Harris.

• 3:13:48David Sims?

  Uh, charming film.

• 3:13:49Griffin Newman?

  Very good in Last of Sheila. Richard Benjamin.

• 3:13:53David Sims?

  Yeah, no, he's a good actor.

• 3:13:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, no. Married to one of my all time crushes, Paul Prentice.

• 3:13:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow.

• 3:13:59David Sims?

  So that's number three.

• 3:14:01Griffin Newman?

  That's a wild movie.

• 3:14:02David Sims?

  Yep, uh, number four at the box office is not a movie I am that familiar with. Uh, it is from Disney, but it is a grown up legal thriller.

• 3:14:12Griffin Newman?

  So was it a touchdown, a Hollywood Pictures release? What do we?

• 3:14:15David Sims?

  Uh, it looks like it was Hollywood Pictures and, uh, starring. Two, you know, real R-rated actors, you know what I mean?

• 3:14:24Speaker 02

  I've just seen this for the first time this year.

• 3:14:26David Sims?

  You know what this movie is?

• 3:14:27Speaker 02

  I do. I've seen it and there's a reason why I saw it, related to an episode that we did.

• 3:14:31David Sims?

  It's from a director who's quite a big deal.

• 3:14:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:14:36David Sims?

  To you, but also to Hollywood, a great director, but is also a director who made 1 billion movies. So sometimes it would make up. It's a Sidney Lumet movie.

• 3:14:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:14:45David Sims?

  You know what I mean by two actors where it's like, if they're in a movie, the movie is rated R, those two stars?

• 3:14:49Speaker 02

  A million percent.

• 3:14:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:14:50Griffin Newman?

  Is it?

• 3:14:51David Sims?

  They don't show up for PG.

• 3:14:52Griffin Newman?

  What's this movie called? Guilty as Sin?

• 3:14:54David Sims?

  Correct. Don Johnson and Rebecca DeMornay in Guilty as Sin, written by Larry Cohen. How is it?

• 3:15:02Speaker 02

  Uh, unworthy of the talent surrounding it.

• 3:15:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:15:05Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a real B movie.

• 3:15:06David Sims?

  And it's like in an era of 90s erotic thrillers and stuff, right?

• 3:15:11Speaker 02

  Also easily the schlockiest looking Lumet movie, very out of shape relative to what he normally did.

• 3:15:16Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 3:15:18David Sims?

  I love, you know, Don Johnson, absolute flames this year in Rebel Ridge. That guy is probably making my ballot. Well, have you seen Rebel Ridge?

• 3:15:27Griffin Newman?

  No, his last 10 years have quietly been on fire.

• 3:15:30David Sims?

  I feel like he's one of those guys where I'm, he's kind of like Brandon Nimmo, you will, where I'm just like, I don't want to hear a thing about who you vote for or why. I just want you to give fantastic, workman-like performances on screen as scumbags and villains.

• 3:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Reminded of the things I already know about you.

• 3:15:45David Sims?

  I love you so much in movies and I don't want to think about anything else. Thank you very much.

• 3:15:49Speaker 02

  He has very comfortably settled into, I'm just a shitheel in everything and it works every time.

• 3:15:54Griffin Newman?

  I feel like it kind of starts with Eastbound and Down, where you're like, who is Kenny's dad gonna be? And then the reveal, you're like, that's weirdly perfect.

• 3:16:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:16:01Griffin Newman?

  He's in on the joke and then he's just had this really good run since then. He's great in Knives Out.

• 3:16:07David Sims?

  Wow.

• 3:16:08Griffin Newman?

  You watched every Lumet for that episode?

• 3:16:10Speaker 02

  I did.

• 3:16:10Griffin Newman?

  What do you put at the absolute bottom?

• 3:16:15Speaker 02

  Uh, the, the last of the

• 3:16:19Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 3:16:19Speaker 02

  Blah blah blah hotshots with

• 3:16:21Griffin Newman?

  The last of the mobile hotshots.

• 3:16:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, with, uh, James Coburn.

• 3:16:23Griffin Newman?

  That's your dead last, okay.

• 3:16:24Speaker 02

  It's terrible.

• 3:16:24Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen that. I, I love

• 3:16:26Speaker 02

  Bye Bye Braverman is like not, is hard to watch.

• 3:16:29Griffin Newman?

  I have a lot of blind spots. I'm probably holding more against it because of like, uh, context. Gloria, for me, feels like the pit.

• 3:16:36Speaker 02

  It's so pointless.

• 3:16:37Griffin Newman?

  And like, why did you do this?

• 3:16:38Speaker 02

  So pointless. Yeah, he's got some real stinkers.

• 3:16:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but also like 10 of the greatest movies ever made.

• 3:16:44Speaker 02

  The top 10 is, is extraordinary.

• 3:16:44Griffin Newman?

  Incredible.

• 3:16:45David Sims?

  He made a lot of fucking movies. Uh, number five at the box office came up on our draft that we did recently with Sean. A comedy.

• 3:16:52Griffin Newman?

  Our president draft.

• 3:16:53David Sims?

  That's right.

• 3:16:54Griffin Newman?

  Is it the movie Dave?

• 3:16:55David Sims?

  It's the movie Dave.

• 3:16:56Griffin Newman?

  The best president movie ever made, in my opinion.

• 3:17:00David Sims?

  A very, very fun film that was a very solid hit. You've also got in the top 10, Menace to Society. I recently watched my Criterion 4K of that.

• 3:17:09Griffin Newman?

  Congratulations.

• 3:17:10David Sims?

  An incredibly impressive film that is so, so, so upsetting and dark. You've got Life with Mikey.

• 3:17:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's Michael J. Fox.

• 3:17:20David Sims?

  Michael J. Fox, right?

• 3:17:21Griffin Newman?

  As a child talent agent, David Krumholtz debut film.

• 3:17:23David Sims?

  Oh.

• 3:17:24Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show.

• 3:17:25David Sims?

  Uh, never seen. You've got Hot Shot Part Deux.

• 3:17:28Griffin Newman?

  I don't think that's the title. Do you want to take a second take on that?

• 3:17:32David Sims?

  Hot Shots, Hot, Hot Shots Part Deux.

• 3:17:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:35David Sims?

  Do you want me to do it like that?

• 3:17:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, if Ben's giving a thumbs up, I'm also giving it a thumbs up.

• 3:17:39David Sims?

  I, I've seen both Hot Shots movies, but not in a long time, and I cannot remember like which is which.

• 3:17:44Griffin Newman?

  I've seen Hot Shots Part Deux probably, uh, 15 times, and I think Hot Shots one time.

• 3:17:49David Sims?

  Hot Shots Part Deux is the one where he's got the chicken on the poster?

• 3:17:53Griffin Newman?

  It's the Rambo.

• 3:17:53David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 3:17:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:17:55David Sims?

  And Hot Shots one is more of like a Top Gun thing.

• 3:17:56Griffin Newman?

  Hot Shots one is like straight up Top Gun, and Hot Shots Part Deux is everything.

• 3:18:00David Sims?

  It's just action movies.

• 3:18:01Speaker 02

  This is the number one American film featuring the word "duh" in the title, and number two is Joker fully a duh.

• 3:18:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay, what was, what was the final domestic gross on Hot Shots Part Deux? And will Joker have outgrossed it by the time this episode comes out?

• 3:18:17David Sims?

  I think it will because the final gross is 38. And as much as Joker 2 is underperforming, it's underperforming in a, the Marvel sense.

• 3:18:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it opened at 37.

• 3:18:26David Sims?

  Right. Uh, number nine of the box office is another erotic thriller of some renown at this point, Sliver.

• 3:18:34Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:18:35David Sims?

  The William Friedkin, I'm sorry, that's the Philip Noyce movie. William Friedkin is Jade.

• 3:18:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:18:39David Sims?

  Jade is unhinged, Sliver is bad. That's what it's.

• 3:18:42Griffin Newman?

  Sliver is Billy Baldwin?

• 3:18:43David Sims?

  Yes, and a Joe Esterhaas script and then.

• 3:18:45Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:18:45David Sims?

  And Sliver is awful.

• 3:18:46Speaker 02

  I'm ready for a reclamation.

• 3:18:49David Sims?

  But like, everyone's reclaiming every piece of 90s erotica trash right now. And some of them, like Jade, you're like, Jade has juice? Jade is a flawed movie?

• 3:18:58Griffin Newman?

  Also inspires one of the greatest jokes in movie history.

• 3:19:00David Sims?

  Forty year old virgin.

• 3:19:01Griffin Newman?

  Be like David Caruso in Jade.

• 3:19:02David Sims?

  Caruso's amazing in Jade.

• 3:19:04Speaker 02

  Did you know that Sliver is based on an Ira Levin novel?

• 3:19:06David Sims?

  Yes, I did. And I recently watched Sliver. I do not know why. I cannot remember what I was thinking watching that movie, but it's.

• 3:19:13Speaker 02

  Doesn't it have a good idea about surveillance?

• 3:19:16David Sims?

  Yes, it's, uh, William Baldwin is the like head of the apartment building and he can like has cameras that look at people and like there's this sort of voyeurism thing going on.

• 3:19:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is a good idea.

• 3:19:26David Sims?

  Worked for The Dark Knight and Morgan Freeman, you know? It's good enough for him. No questions asked.

• 3:19:30Speaker 02

  Not good enough for Sliver?

• 3:19:31David Sims?

  Uh, helps him catch the Joker.

• 3:19:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. To go full circle back, talking about Jurassic being like the blockbuster that people are still trying to chase, I think the only three things since then that have similarly made Hollywood go like, how do we replicate that are The Dark Knight, Avengers and Endgame.

• 3:19:51David Sims?

  Uh, right, right, right.

• 3:19:54Griffin Newman?

  And in all cases, every time they tried to follow it, it like, danger.

• 3:19:58Speaker 02

  I, I, I think there are some caveats to that.

• 3:20:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:20:02Speaker 02

  I think Lord of the Rings, Avatar and Twilight are all so influential in particular ways. Maybe not quite the same where Jurassic Park just felt like it ate America for six weeks.

• 3:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:20:14Speaker 02

  But those three movies I always think of because there have been so many, you know, there is no Game of Thrones without Lord of the Rings. There is no.

• 3:20:20David Sims?

  Lord of the Rings is at the tippy top of influence for sure.

• 3:20:23Griffin Newman?

  But here's the other thing, outside of Avatar, all of those are adapting huge pre-existing material that has existed in the culture for decades, whether, whereas.

• 3:20:32David Sims?

  Avatar was adapting Frangoli, so that's pretty huge too.

• 3:20:35Griffin Newman?

  The fact that Jurassic Park is like, here's this book that came out, the movie's gonna be out in six months.

• 3:20:39David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 3:20:40Griffin Newman?

  Is very different.

• 3:20:41David Sims?

  Uh, speaking of adapting huge material, number 10 at the box office, of course, is Rocky Morton and Annapolis Jankels' great Super Mario Brothers, in which Bob Hoskins looks like he wants to die every minute he's on screen, and John Leguizamo is having fun.

• 3:20:53Griffin Newman?

  Isn't the story that John Leguizamo on set was like, you ever play the game? And Bob Hoskins was like, what game?

• 3:21:00David Sims?

  No, it's, it's better than that. Uh, the, the story on set is that they were all drinking heavily.

• 3:21:04Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:21:05David Sims?

  Is what Leguizamo and Hoskins say particularly. No, there's this amazing clip of Hoskins.

• 3:21:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:21:10David Sims?

  Being like, oh, I told my kids, you know, got Super Mario Brothers.

• 3:21:14Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 3:21:14David Sims?

  And my kids were like, oh, the game. And he's like, what game? And they showed me this game, and they see this guy going, big, big. And I was like, I play King Lear. What the fuck is that? And it's so funny.

• 3:21:24Griffin Newman?

  Did you get that box out?

• 3:21:26David Sims?

  Uh, no, should I? That movie is really so ingrained in my heart because I saw it as a kid and was just like, I love this. Which is so insane because obviously it does no effort at really adapting what those games are like.

• 3:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Look, our friend Patrick Wollens did a really good video that was like-

• 3:21:44David Sims?

  It's a hostile movie.

• 3:21:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let people make sloppy adaptations again.

• 3:21:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:21:48Griffin Newman?

  It was like, don't we have a certain romanticism for the era where people didn't care about the material?

• 3:21:53David Sims?

  Not just the era where they didn't care, but where studios were like, it better not resemble that video game in any way.

• 3:21:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:22:00David Sims?

  And they're like, yeah, no, we wanna do like a steampunk lizard movie. And they're like, sounds good.

• 3:22:04Griffin Newman?

  Buy a beloved thing and be like, now, obviously, this thing is for losers and virgins.

• 3:22:09David Sims?

  And Illumination.

• 3:22:10Griffin Newman?

  Don't make anything that resembles it.

• 3:22:11David Sims?

  Right, they're like, yeah, we need this movie to have gears and bombs and shit. And then like now Illumination makes Super Mario Brothers, and that movie basically is just like sucking your dick all day about like, don't you love fucking Toad? And I'm just like, I don't care about Toad.

• 3:22:24Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm dreading the day my daughter discovers Princess Peach. Like, it is fucking curtains, that day happens, it's gonna be Princess Peach all day, every

• 3:22:32David Sims?

  Yeah, cause Princess Peach is tough, cause you, you, like, I know they empower her now, and she's an adventurous character.

• 3:22:38Speaker 02

  Girl boss, Princess Peach.

• 3:22:39David Sims?

  She's wearing a pink ass dress. Her name is Princess Peach.

• 3:22:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:44David Sims?

  And she talks like this. Like, it's tough to kind of-

• 3:22:46Speaker 02

  She's the witch from The Witch, you know, and you tell her she's-

• 3:22:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:22:50David Sims?

  Oh, god.

• 3:22:51Speaker 02

  Furiosa is Princess Peach.

• 3:22:53David Sims?

  I do like, um, Super Mario Brothers, the movie. I do like it.

• 3:22:57Griffin Newman?

  That's a film I love.

• 3:22:58David Sims?

  I like it.

• 3:22:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:59David Sims?

  And Samantha Mathis is really hot in it.

• 3:23:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:03David Sims?

  And Dennis Hopper's having fun. Yeah, we're done. We're done. We did a long time on Jurassic Park.

• 3:23:07Speaker 03

  It was great. Hey, I want to shout out one thing at the end here.

• 3:23:10Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 3:23:11Speaker 03

  The video game on Sega Genesis.

• 3:23:13David Sims?

  Video game is fun.

• 3:23:14Speaker 02

  I don't think I played that. What was the, what was the idea?

• 3:23:17David Sims?

  It's a platformer, right? You know, it's a-

• 3:23:19Speaker 02

  Scroll? Side scroll?

• 3:23:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:23:21Griffin Newman?

  Side scroll.

• 3:23:22Speaker 03

  You could play as Dr. Grant or as a velociraptor.

• 3:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 3:23:27David Sims?

  What? Yes, that's right!

• 3:23:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:23:28Speaker 02

  What was your mission if you were a raptor? To eat kids?

• 3:23:32Speaker 03

  I think you were just basically fighting other dinosaurs.

• 3:23:35David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:23:36Speaker 03

  It, it pretty much was like the same character you could just swap out.

• 3:23:40David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:23:41Speaker 03

  Do you know what I'm saying? You would have different like fighting techniques or whatever.

• 3:23:44Speaker 02

  I always ask this when I talk about 90's games. Better or worse than the Simpsons arcade game?

• 3:23:50Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the best game ever made.

• 3:23:51Speaker 02

  That's, is that not the greatest experience you had as a kid playing an arcade game?

• 3:23:56Griffin Newman?

  I think it is.

• 3:23:56David Sims?

  But I had the Simpsons Bart versus the Evil Mutants game.

• 3:24:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:00David Sims?

  That is so fucking hard.

• 3:24:03Speaker 02

  I don't think I played that.

• 3:24:04David Sims?

  It's like if Super Cool Zingos was harder. Like, it's so difficult. And I must have played that first level a million times just because I was like, this is a Simpsons video game. I'm enjoying this.

• 3:24:13Speaker 02

  Was that on Genesis?

• 3:24:14David Sims?

  Uh, I think it was initially on like the Master System. Maybe I had it on a Game Gear.

• 3:24:19Griffin Newman?

  Can I talk about the toys for one minute?

• 3:24:20David Sims?

  Yep. And then we're done.

• 3:24:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, yeah, much like the bidding war for the rights to the movie itself. When the book went on the market, everyone was fighting for the toys and then they got the rights. And then they were like, wait, what did we just buy? What is proprietary? Anyone can make dinosaurs. You don't need a license for that.

• 3:24:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:24:37Griffin Newman?

  And is one of the smartest strategic branding things. Uh, Kenner and Hasbro held on to the license for like 25 years until eventually Mattel took it away in the Jurassic World sequels. But their big innovation was come up with a logo, which was the JP stamp. Do you remember this?

• 3:24:52David Sims?

  Yep.

• 3:24:53Griffin Newman?

  All the dinosaur toys had this logo that was like a J and a P combined. And the ads were all like, look for the JP to know it's a real Jurassic Park toy. They created this attitude of, yeah, sure, you could go to a museum and buy a fucking figure of a T-Rex. But if you don't have the JP stamp on the schoolyard, that's not the real thing. It was really, really smart, but also this movie was so fast-tracked that they started making the toys of the human characters without any reference material. So this is what Wayne Knight looked like?

• 3:25:23David Sims?

  Right. That's an icon. I know about that.

• 3:25:25Griffin Newman?

  That's my favorite example.

• 3:25:26David Sims?

  That he looks like an action man.

• 3:25:27Griffin Newman?

  All of them are really funny. And then like a year later, they went back around and made them look a little more accurate, but that's the best one.

• 3:25:32David Sims?

  Yeah. That's really funny.

• 3:25:36David Sims?

  Jurassic Park. Sean, thank you.

• 3:25:37Griffin Newman?

  Any final thoughts?

• 3:25:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:25:40Speaker 02

  I'm just, you know, I always feel blessed to be able to pop up to you guys.

• 3:25:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, come on.

• 3:25:43David Sims?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 3:25:44Speaker 02

  I really, everyone should obviously listen to the big picture and to the rewatchables.

• 3:25:50David Sims?

  Thanks.

• 3:25:50Griffin Newman?

  I set my clock to it. It stabilizes my week.

• 3:25:53Speaker 02

  I think, um, it's just a shame we're not on the same coast, you know?

• 3:25:57Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 3:25:57Speaker 02

  I feel like it's nice to be here. You've built a very special space.

• 3:26:00Griffin Newman?

  We like our space.

• 3:26:01Speaker 02

  I'd like to doff my cap to Ben for all the fine work he's done in crafting this space.

• 3:26:05Griffin Newman?

  Ben really is the homemaker.

• 3:26:06Speaker 02

  Some innovations in this performance style. You know, I've made a, I've made a pot or two in my time and not quite in this formulation that we're in right now. And now I'm going to take it back to me, to the great city of Los Angeles and say, hey, at Blank Check Productions, they're, they might be on to something.

• 3:26:22Griffin Newman?

  We will, because we'll post pictures sometimes of us recording. People are like, why are the dust so far apart? I've always imagined, most photos I've seen a podcast where everyone's crammed around one table. And that's what we always were back in the day when we were at other studios and other networks. And then coming out of the pandemic, we recorded in Ben's living room.

• 3:26:39David Sims?

  And we were sort of far apart.

• 3:26:40Griffin Newman?

  Where we had to like assemble and disassemble equipment very quickly. And our, our beloved editors started giving you notes and being like, you know what? If you moved further apart, if you went to these corners, if you had furniture relative to this, it was sort of a, a long exploratory process that landed on Ben realizing this works, right?

• 3:27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:27:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:02Speaker 02

  It's fantastic. Uh, what a pleasure. Jurassic Park.

• 3:27:05Griffin Newman?

  Jurassic Park.

• 3:27:06Speaker 02

  Does it get any better? Is it better or worse to do a, just a truly five-star masterpiece?

• 3:27:10David Sims?

  I think the best episodes are like Rollerball. Like I think, I think the episode to do that's most fun as a guest is usually just some absolute dog shit.

• 3:27:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:18David Sims?

  But Jurassic Park is fun to talk about.

• 3:27:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:20David Sims?

  Like, like, I think if you were doing. Raiders, that'll be hard. Who's doing Raiders?

• 3:27:26Griffin Newman?

  Uh, well, let's not say it in case something changes.

• 3:27:28Speaker 02

  I know who wants to do it.

• 3:27:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:27:30Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'll come back for like Quintet.

• 3:27:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what you want to do. You want to put your name down for Quintet?

• 3:27:35David Sims?

  The chess one?

• 3:27:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:36David Sims?

  Yeah, I've never seen that.

• 3:27:37Griffin Newman?

  Arctic human chess.

• 3:27:39Speaker 02

  So you still get to do Paul Newman, which I love.

• 3:27:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:42Speaker 02

  And then just the fiasco of fiascos from my favorite.

• 3:27:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, no, that's a great call.

• 3:27:47David Sims?

  Paul Newman did like three fiascos with Altman, but that's the number one.

• 3:27:49Griffin Newman?

  He did two. He did Buffalo Bill and Quintet back to back.

• 3:27:52David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 3:27:53Griffin Newman?

  And on paper, it's like, oh, how cool. Paul Newman knows that he should work with Robert Altman.

• 3:27:57Speaker 02

  Anti-Western and like sci-fi concept movie and it's like.

• 3:28:01Griffin Newman?

  Arguably his two worst films.

• 3:28:02Speaker 02

  Could be.

• 3:28:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:03Speaker 02

  Could be.

• 3:28:04David Sims?

  Buffalo Bill's really boring. I've seen that one.

• 3:28:05Speaker 02

  It is so boring.

• 3:28:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You know what's really boring?

• 3:28:08Speaker 02

  Quintet.

• 3:28:08Griffin Newman?

  Quintet.

• 3:28:10Speaker 02

  I'm imagining the riffs and the bits in the Quintet.

• 3:28:12Griffin Newman?

  Quintet, Quintet, I'm calling it Quintet. Is, that should be the thing that children are writing us letters demanding we do.

• 3:28:21David Sims?

  Well, now Sean will be on it, so.

• 3:28:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay, great.

• 3:28:24David Sims?

  Don't have to do the credits, Griff.

• 3:28:25Griffin Newman?

  I know, no, I know. I wasn't gonna do that. I was gonna say something different. Thank you for being here, Sean.

• 3:28:29Speaker 02

  Thanks, guys.

• 3:28:30Griffin Newman?

  Tune in next week for Schindler's List and a movie that will hopefully be easy enough to talk about.

• 3:28:34David Sims?

  I think so. We're gonna have a guest who feels very strongly about that movie and has a lot to say.

• 3:28:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:39David Sims?

  And is a friend of ours.

• 3:28:40Griffin Newman?

  Okay. And as always, we were so preoccupied, wondering if we could make this episode over three hours, we didn't consider whether or not we should make this episode over three hours.

• 3:28:50Speaker 02

  I agree with that.

• 3:28:56Speaker 02

  Wait, where's Marie?

• 3:28:58David Sims?

  You want her here? Just like in a box?

• 3:28:59Speaker 02

  I've not, I've not met Marie.

• 3:29:01David Sims?

  You should meet Marie.

• 3:29:02Griffin Newman?

  You should meet Marie.

• 3:29:03Speaker 02

  What the hell? I think I was sitting in the same row as her at the screen of Queer that I was at. She was definitely. And I was gonna say something.

• 3:29:09Griffin Newman?

  So, wait, this is interesting. Talk about our listeners, assuming we're all crowded around one small table.

• 3:29:14Speaker 02

  Marie has like a job.

• 3:29:14Griffin Newman?

  You listen to the show and think that Marie's just in the corner of the episode?

• 3:29:17Speaker 02

  I don't happen.

• 3:29:18Griffin Newman?

  Even though she doesn't talk?

• 3:29:19Speaker 02

  I.

• 3:29:19Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes it happens.

• 3:29:20Speaker 02

  I love Marie episodes. Marie episodes, I, I eagerly look forward to them. So I was hoping she would be sitting in the room.

• 3:29:28David Sims?

  Uh, next time, let's, let's get Marie in here for you. I don't know, or let's all hang out.

• 3:29:33Speaker 02

  I'm getting on a plane now, so it's not possible.

• 3:29:35David Sims?

  You have your, you literally have your bags.

• 3:29:36Speaker 02

  I brought my bags.

• 3:29:37Griffin Newman?

  You brought your bags.

• 3:29:37David Sims?

  You're going to JFK?

• 3:29:38Speaker 02

  I am.

• 3:29:39Griffin Newman?

  You're taking the helicopter?

• 3:29:40Speaker 02

  You're gonna have to explain to me what's the best way to get there from here, so.

• 3:29:44Speaker 06

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain 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 for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 3:30:29Speaker 06

  Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.