Burn After Reading with Fran Hoepfner

What did we learn, Palmer? That 2008’s Burn After Reading is pretty freakin’ hilarious, sir. Our Fran (Hoepfner, not McDormand) joins us this week to talk about Joel and Ethan Coen’s madcap dark comedy about a bunch of morons living in the DC area. The way John Malkovich says “mem-waah”... George Clooney’s homemade dildo chair…Brad Pitt’s stupid face right before getting murked…it all adds up to a splendid tapestry of silliness. Listen, laugh, and maybe you can fit in a run afterwards. Read Fran at Vulture https://www.vulture.com/author/fran-hoepfner/ Subscribe to Fran Magazine https://franmagazine.substack.com/ 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?

  Osborne Cox, I thought you might be worried about the security of your podcast. It's hard to do an impression of him doing the tough guy voice.

• 1:52David Sims?

  Can you do an impression of him at any other time? He's, he does have a specific delivery in this that is really well worked out.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  I love Taron Killam. He did his Pitt impression on SNL for years that I never understood.

• 2:05David Sims?

  You'd like, you didn't get what he was going for?

• 2:07Griffin Newman?

  I'd be like, I don't understand what this is.

• 2:08David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  Where you go like, eh.

• 2:11David Sims?

  Do you remember that?

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I do. I mean, I guess, yeah, I guess there was a, yeah, yeah. But Pitt's kind of hard to do.

• 2:17David Sims?

  These files.

• 2:18Griffin Newman?

  No, I can't do it.

• 2:19David Sims?

  It's not bad.

• 2:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22David Sims?

  It's like the, he's got the little draw. I hmm.

• 2:27Griffin Newman?

  But he's also got a little bit of like Bill and Ted in him.

• 2:30David Sims?

  Like Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Where he's stoned at the, where he's high on acid at the end. And he's talking Austin Butler and he's like, yeah, it wasn't that, you know, I wish I could do that.

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it wasn't that. But that's when it gets more gravel.

• 2:44David Sims?

  He's got the, yeah. Wait, but it always feels like he's got that gum in his mouth, which I know is like, that's his tic. Like, but yeah, but not in this so much.

• 2:52Griffin Newman?

  No, he's, he's clear.

• 2:53David Sims?

  He's doing something in this.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  He's clearing this. I mean, this is, I couldn't quite make it work, but the other thing I wanted to do for the quote was, I really want to just take some time and focus on my pukka.

• 3:04David Sims?

  That's good. I think that's good.

• 3:06Griffin Newman?

  But I thought, I thought it wouldn't, I need to tee it up in that way. My pukka. This is what we're here doing today. We're recording our pukka.

• 3:13David Sims?

  I think that doing Clooney in this would be impressive.

• 3:16Griffin Newman?

  I was.

• 3:17David Sims?

  Because he also has a very specific thing going on right in this one.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Everywhere you look in this movie, someone is doing something completely insane.

• 3:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. This is a movie built out of incredible performances that are really hard to define. I think this is like Clooney's single most underrated performance.

• 3:32David Sims?

  I do too, just because I think everyone was sort of focused more on Pitt maybe, and even Malkovich.

• 3:39Griffin Newman?

  Everyone, yeah, everyone over him.

• 3:41David Sims?

  And, and he's, he'd already worked at the Coens and all that, but like, he's so fun. His parts are the parts that make me laugh the most, just as pure, like, I can't believe what I'm watching.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  It is the most fascinating. This movie is now, what, it's 17 years old?

• 3:54David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  From the moment I saw this, his first scene, him taking the cheese and asking about, you know, his acid reflux and like motor mouth.

• 4:03David Sims?

  Yeah, all that stuff.

• 4:04Griffin Newman?

  I was just like, oh my God, he's playing such a specific guy in this. He has pinned such a specific type of person. And yet I lack the words to describe this kind of person.

• 4:13David Sims?

  But it is, yeah.

• 4:14Griffin Newman?

  And in 17 years, I've gotten no closer to describing it other than the kind of guy Clooney plays in Burn After Reading.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Totally. It's like a completely undefinable type, but I think it's easy to latch on to Pitt and to Malkovich because we can kind of see like that archetype.

• 4:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Clooney character is an archetype of something that.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a one of one, and yet it feels like recognizable and universal.

• 4:36David Sims?

  Well, I would, he's the only character in this movie. Yes, I'm just looking down the list to make sure that I think I would kind of enjoy hanging with, because everyone in the movie kind of enjoys hanging with him. He's kind of an easy hang.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  He wants to go to restaurants.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Yeah, he, he's sort of like, I'll just take you on a date. You'll enjoy the movie. He'll, he'll fuck you and then he'll be like, I'll see you later. You know, like, it's just like.

• 4:57Griffin Newman?

  That's not what he says. Come on. What he says is maybe my favorite running joke of the movie. You cut to woman in bed, him coming out of the bathroom, fully clothed, checked his watch. I think I can get a run in.

• 5:10Griffin Newman?

  They do variations on that, I think, five times.

• 5:12David Sims?

  And I feel like, I mean, Malkovich doesn't like him, I guess, because Malkovich doesn't like anybody.

• 5:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:17David Sims?

  But everyone else is kind of like, eh, he's all right.

• 5:19Griffin Newman?

  And even.

• 5:20David Sims?

  I mean, I guess, yeah, Tilda's getting sick. I don't know.

• 5:22Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like Elizabeth Marvel and Tilda both have utter contempt for him and yet cannot deny him.

• 5:28David Sims?

  Right. They can't deny that he's again, kind of fun guy to have around.

• 5:32Griffin Newman?

  Fun guy to have.

• 5:32David Sims?

  He's like, sort of high, low self esteem, like, like he's very confident, but he also kind of knows that he's like, you know, just a whatever. Does that make sense? I don't know. Everyone else in this movie kind of thinks they're high status and isn't.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Well, he's like false modest. He's so proud of the fact that he hasn't fired his gun.

• 5:51David Sims?

  He hasn't discharged his weapon. Right.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  That's something to talk about with your, with your psychiatrist.

• 5:56David Sims?

  I don't have a psychiatrist.

• 5:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But he says it so aggressively. It's maybe the most aggressive he is in the entire movie. I don't have a psychiatrist.

• 6:03David Sims?

  He's just, it's also like, I wonder, I mean, maybe this will be in the dossier. I don't know much about the production of this movie, but obviously they know Clooney. And I wonder if they bring him the script, if they're like, is there someone you want to do? Or if they're like, we really like this one for you.

• 6:17Griffin Newman?

  It's a good question. Well, because the other.

• 6:18David Sims?

  He could do other things here. Yeah.

• 6:20Griffin Newman?

  The other thing was that their fabled idiots trilogy, right? Where they do a brother and, and Talbot Quilty pretty close together. And then they'd always said the third one's going to be hail Caesar. What hail Caesar was changed a bunch of times, but it was always this notion of we like the idea of Clooney as a pompous actor. At the time it was doing Julius Caesar, I think. And then this came out and people were like, so is that the end of the idiot trilogy? Is this its own kind of thing? It wasn't part of their original plan with him. His look in this is so good, too. The beard.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Oh, I love when he has a beard.

• 6:53Griffin Newman?

  The heavy tan and the little fucking chain around his neck.

• 6:57David Sims?

  Maybe I'm telling on myself because I know obviously his character in this is a fool. But I'm like, I'm just like, it's kind of hot. Would go on park date with Harry Ferrer.

• 7:05Griffin Newman?

  It's important to the movie.

• 7:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  Right? I also think there's.

• 7:10David Sims?

  And he's not judgy of Frances McDormand. Like, he wants to fuck the high-profile DC ladies, but he's also like, I'll go on a date with her. She seems fun.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Well, and he's like supportive of her surgeries. It isn't like you need them or something.

• 7:22Griffin Newman?

  No, he's crazy about her and she's like, it's, I mean, she's the only person it feels like he actually connects to intellectually.

• 7:29David Sims?

  The best joke in Burn After Reading, and then we should introduce the podcast, in my opinion, is just Richard Jenkins being like, I used to be a Greek Orthodox priest and then not explaining what happened.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  I completely forgotten that.

• 7:43David Sims?

  I also kind of forget about it and then every time I'm like, right? They just glide past it.

• 7:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I mean, he's like the only solo card actor who is not on the poster called out in the trailer. He's like the secret whatever seventh lead of this movie. You had not rewatched this in a while?

• 8:03David Sims?

  No, I mean, I've probably seen this movie like four times. Like, it's not a big movie for me.

• 8:08Griffin Newman?

  It's one you're sort of.

• 8:08David Sims?

  I am, and I, I, I always like have a perfectly good time watching it, but find it doesn't like move me. But I had forgotten about Jenkins.

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  You texted Jenkins is on fire in this thing. And I called out 2008 is Step Brothers, his first Oscar nomination for The Visitor and this. He was just like firing in all cylinders.

• 8:32David Sims?

  You pointed it out and you're right. I just want to point out. And yeah, the Step Brothers, yeah, those three. And he also was a voice in The Tale of Despereaux.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  He must have been great in that.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Probably is. I want to shout out how horrendous his 2010 was.

• 8:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, give it to me.

• 8:46David Sims?

  I mean, and I love Richard Jenkins and I bet you he's good in all these movies.

• 8:49Griffin Newman?

  But these were sort of his post Oscar cash in jobs?

• 8:53David Sims?

  Maybe, but I think it's also right. It's like post, like higher visibility where like he just suddenly is in like five movies a year.

• 8:59Griffin Newman?

  It was that character director moment that sometimes happens where the storm brews and you get your Oscar nomination and everyone goes like, thank you for your service. We haven't given you the respect you deserve for too long. Now we're going to throw everything at you. Is Hall Pass in the grouping?

• 9:14David Sims?

  The Hall Pass was 2011 along into his 2011 is Friends with Benefits, Hall Pass, The Rum Diary. I feel like, you know, whatever.

• 9:24Griffin Newman?

  He is phenomenal in Hall Pass.

• 9:26David Sims?

  I know. You're a big fan of him in Hall. You've, you've mentioned this before.

• 9:29Griffin Newman?

  Hall Pass.

• 9:30David Sims?

  His 2010 is Happy, Thank You More, Please Relax, Guest.

• 9:34Griffin Newman?

  A movie that won the Nobel Peace Prize?

• 9:36David Sims?

  I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saluting you. I just, I just knew it would, it would activate you. Happy, Thank You More, Please.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  Actually, the worst movie title of all time. Actually, the number one.

• 9:45David Sims?

  Possibly. Dear John, Eat, Pray, Love. Who's he in that?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  I don't remember.

• 9:50David Sims?

  See, like, I bought you a plane ticket, Julia.

• 9:52Griffin Newman?

  Something like that. Dear John, I want to say he plays, uh, Chang Tatum's dad with dementia?

• 10:00David Sims?

  That's, uh, correct. I mean, he plays Channing Tatum's dad, it's, it looks like. Uh, Norman, not the one you think with Richard Gere that was like, okay.

• 10:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 10:10David Sims?

  Some other fucking shit with Emily Van Camp.

• 10:12Griffin Newman?

  Oh, how dare he.

• 10:13David Sims?

  And then I will say one thing that he is good in, which is the Matt Reeves Let Me In remake.

• 10:18Griffin Newman?

  He's really good in that.

• 10:19David Sims?

  That's, that's the one saving grace.

• 10:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:21David Sims?

  Just, it's just tough that he followed this up with fucking Radner and, you know.

• 10:25Griffin Newman?

  It's rough.

• 10:25David Sims?

  Eat, Pray, Love and shit.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Can I say something about his 2008?

• 10:28Griffin Newman?

  You can say anything you want about his 2008.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  I was applying to college that fall, including his. Alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University. And so in 2008, to be visiting Illinois Wesleyan University, they were like, you guys know Richard Jenkins?

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  He went here.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:43David Sims?

  They were like, we just got to.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  They were like, putting him on the brochure.

• 10:47Griffin Newman?

  He was the mascot. They had a guy come out in a big Jenkins foam costume with those sad eyes.

• 10:52David Sims?

  I will say, he is the most like Midwest Illinois theater guy. It's like if you were just like, ChatGPT, create like a respected Midwestern theater actor who came out of Illinois. It's like Richard Jenkins just materializes.

• 11:05Griffin Newman?

  Is there a greater like no nonsense, do the work actor than Richard Jenkins?

• 11:10David Sims?

  He, I mean, it's, it's an estimable history of guys like that. Obviously, there's always been guys like that. And he just has been that guy or was that guy for 25 years. Now he's sort of slowing down.

• 11:21Griffin Newman?

  I, this movie gets accused of being their meanest film. And even sometimes that's.

• 11:26David Sims?

  That's my problem with it.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  This is what I was gonna say.

• 11:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  Many people who love the Coens throw it out as like, that's the one that gets too mean and too judgy for me. And other people go, I love it. It's their meanest film.

• 11:36David Sims?

  Right, of course. So pitch black.

• 11:38Griffin Newman?

  Which is sort of my take on it, but I think Jenkins is kind of the key to this movie. Like he is the moral center of the film.

• 11:46David Sims?

  He's, he's a tough hang. Like, I'm not sure I'd want to hang out with him.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  I used to feel so bad for him in this movie and now I actually kind of don't at all.

• 11:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you've grown up, you've matured, you understand his value.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  I only root for Elizabeth Marvel now.

• 11:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes, well, she's.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  But her life is fine.

• 12:01Griffin Newman?

  She's killing it.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:03Griffin Newman?

  But, but yes, that moment of, God, this guy's whole fucking backstory that the movie isn't even gonna get into. Greek Orthodox priest.

• 12:12David Sims?

  So funny.

• 12:13Griffin Newman?

  In Chevy Chase.

• 12:13David Sims?

  It's so.

• 12:14Griffin Newman?

  And what she says, she goes, that's a pretty cushy job.

• 12:16David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:18David Sims?

  Locks into like, I could be married to a Greek Orthodox priest. That'd be a good life.

• 12:21Griffin Newman?

  She says, that's a good position.

• 12:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 12:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:24David Sims?

  Yeah. What's our podcast?

• 12:26Griffin Newman?

  Our podcast is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 12:30David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 12:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they burn, baby. This is a main series on the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. It's called Pod Country for Old Casts.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Um, that's so true.

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  Today we're talking about burn after reading, pot after casting. Pukka.

• 12:54David Sims?

  Elizabeth Marvel, uh, this morning, uh, so Griff, I, I did something you might appreciate. Oh, who's our guest?

• 13:00Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is Elizabeth Marvel. She's a marvel of this world.

• 13:04David Sims?

  Marvel.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today. Look, I don't, I don't need to say who our guest is today because you're, if you're one of the millions of people tuning in for the first time in over a year, it's because the ultimate blockbuster champ has returned to the ship.

• 13:19David Sims?

  The, the, the Fran signal has been lit in the sky.

• 13:22Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate spike in listenership. The great Fran Hoepfner, Fran Magazine.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 13:28Griffin Newman?

  And New York Magazine and many other outlets. Yes.

• 13:30David Sims?

  So many things I want to say. Hi Fran.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 13:33David Sims?

  Did you listen like me to every Spike Lee podcast appearance he did for Highest to Lowest? And start to grow comforted sort of in like a lullaby way of the like sort of six like phrases or anecdotes he would trot out every time?

• 13:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Dean Lee.

• 13:47David Sims?

  You know, I think of it as more of a reimagining, you know, great jazz musician like the way he was. It was great.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  He has some of the-

• 13:53David Sims?

  I really appreciate-

• 13:54Griffin Newman?

  Greatest speaking rhythms.

• 13:56David Sims?

  Yes.

• 13:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. His story about seeing centers in IMAX.

• 14:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 14:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 14:02David Sims?

  Now this, yeah, I wasn't even supposed to be in LA. That's what he kept like, that was-

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  Imagine that, I get the call.

• 14:07David Sims?

  I'm like, wow, Spike Lee in LA, the craziest person to me.

• 14:10Griffin Newman?

  He's a New Yorker. I didn't listen to everyone, but I listened to quite a few. Did you listen to most of them?

• 14:15David Sims?

  I listened to-

• 14:16Griffin Newman?

  This feels like a beat you were, you would be covering.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I actually was not on this beat at all.

• 14:19Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 14:20David Sims?

  You were sort of mid on Highest to Lowest.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  I was mid on Highest to Lowest.

• 14:23Griffin Newman?

  You were sort of middle to-

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Middle to lowest.

• 14:25David Sims?

  Middle to middle low. This is Fran's ninth episode.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 14:31David Sims?

  You're close to 10.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  10 year anniversary?

• 14:33David Sims?

  It is the decade of dreams.

• 14:34Griffin Newman?

  It's been a decade of dreams. Public Enemies.

• 14:36David Sims?

  Well, that's his, that's her third episode.

• 14:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm not going to go in order, but I'm going to try to knock them out.

• 14:40David Sims?

  Sure.

• 14:41Griffin Newman?

  There was a Twin Peaks, Aliens with a dollar sign. Was that the first one?

• 14:46David Sims?

  That was.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  Blockbuster episode. Our biggest episode at that point in time. Um.

• 14:53David Sims?

  Slow it down. Let's keep going. Yeah, great. I got three out of nine. Fuck. All right. The holiday, which I think is often cited as our best. People, people will cite it as the funniest. Very much a sort of platonic blank check episode, I would say.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  It was so fun.

• 15:07David Sims?

  Uh, great mouse detective. Of course. Bright star. Of course. Lolita. Of course. And the girl with the dragon tattoo. Girl who does computers. Girl on computer. I Griffin made a letter boxed list of every thing I own on physical media on desk. Um, I had never, I had tried to do it before and had never like finished it. I was like, I'm going to finish it. I'm going to put a note for every single one with the format is to avoid ever fucking doubling up. Well, cause I occasionally mistakenly, yeah. I will do the same thing. And then I give them to usually Amos to fans. Talk about real embarrassing champagne problems. Yes, seriously. Um, so I make a big list and I'm also like, and that will, then I can just fade watched or I can filter and see what haven't I watched, right?

• 15:52David Sims?

  And I sort of have a vague idea, but I wanted just to look at it. Do it. I go, show me what I just seen. And I know I've seen everything like on the shelf. It's mostly stuff in the piles, right? But then there is one thing on the shelf I haven't watched. Jason Bourne, the fifth Bourne movie. You had never seen. No, because. Part of the box? Yeah, I have the box. I have the stupid steel box. You didn't, you got the steel box, not the, the backpack, right? No, I didn't get a fucking. There was a collector's edition backpack. No, no. The five movies packaged in a backpack with a flashlight and a caravan or whatever. Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  That's useful stuff.

• 16:24David Sims?

  Absolutely. That's true.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  The fifth one is where he comes back. It's not Renner.

• 16:28David Sims?

  It's not. It's the one post Renner where Damon and Greengrass are like, Tony Gilroy, step aside. And then they just shake the camera at you for two hours while Alicia Vikander like browses the internet. Jones, cause I don't know about that. Yeah. Tommy Lee Jones is just there being like, so I'm Albert Finney or whatever. I'm just like, whatever that guy is this time. Brian Cox. Does that movie suck ass? It sucks ass. It's so interesting because I really like pretty much all the other Bourne movies. And you're like, wow, this is kind of doing all the same stuff and yet is really bad. It's funny how it's like, you know, there is something. You had to do something right. Like you couldn't just have these elements.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  We talk about Damon a lot in the True Grid episode coming up soon.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  I love that movie.

• 17:07Griffin Newman?

  He's a great film.

• 17:09David Sims?

  Great film, great performance.

• 17:10Griffin Newman?

  And then he has a really bad run after that. And you can tell the moment where he and Greengrass sign up for Jason Bourne after it felt like they had walked away was like, fuck, we need a hit.

• 17:19David Sims?

  And it was a hit. It made money.

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  But the other thing is, The Martian comes out like eight months before it does. And you're like, he wouldn't have made this movie after The Martian came.

• 17:30David Sims?

  He probably didn't need to like jump off buildings in Greece like for a while.

• 17:34Griffin Newman?

  But he was in like post Great Wall panic.

• 17:36David Sims?

  Uh, totally, totally, totally. And the reason I thought about this is just that Elizabeth Marvel is in The Bourne Legacy. Uh, and I love that she's in that movie and I'm a big fan of that movie. I think it's very good and underrated. And I love to shout out that she hand to hand fights Jeremy Renner in it.

• 17:52Griffin Newman?

  That.

• 17:52David Sims?

  People don't talk about how Elizabeth Marvel and Jeremy Renner fight in that movie.

• 17:56Griffin Newman?

  Completely forgot that happened.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  I still haven't seen that one.

• 17:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's the only one I've seen.

• 18:00David Sims?

  It's really good.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  I'm waiting. Well, I just did the trilogy for the first time over Thanksgiving last year.

• 18:04David Sims?

  Of course.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  So I'm giving myself some breathing, breathing room.

• 18:07David Sims?

  You shouldn't because Bourne Legacy is set between the second and third movies. And it's like really like weirdly inside the continuity.

• 18:15Griffin Newman?

  This is the whole thing, five timers.

• 18:16David Sims?

  It's not like we're rebooting. Yeah, Griffith's brought this up.

• 18:19Griffin Newman?

  I didn't see the Damon movies and then the Renner one comes out and I'm like, maybe this is a clean entry point. And it is the most like mid quilly, deep in the weeds shit possible. And I could not make heads or tails of it.

• 18:29David Sims?

  Also, once you watch them all, it is Tony Gilroy going to war with Paul Greengrass. That series is con, is those two at war.

• 18:36Griffin Newman?

  It's much like the Hotel Transylvania.

• 18:38David Sims?

  Correct.

• 18:38Griffin Newman?

  Franchise.

• 18:38David Sims?

  Double auteurs.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  The trilogy.

• 18:40David Sims?

  Fighting.

• 18:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:41David Sims?

  And it is, in my opinion, Gilroy being like, the action does not need to be shaky. Look at my nice, clean action. And you watch it and you're like, yeah, this is better. Tony Gilroy is right.

• 18:51Griffin Newman?

  But narratively, maybe that movie.

• 18:53David Sims?

  I like that movie, but you know, I mean, it's, it's an odd duck for sure.

• 18:57Griffin Newman?

  It's an odd duck. Burn after, I mean, look, Lovecraft is kind of-

• 19:01David Sims?

  Burn after reading.

• 19:02Griffin Newman?

  Is one of the things it feels like this movie is sort of riffing on. The, the thing I remember hearing right before I saw it in some interview with the Coens was onset, our motto was, what would Tony Scott do? That that was the prism through which we ran most decisions. And it doesn't feel like they're one to one doing like a fucking hot shots version of a Tony Scott movie.

• 19:23David Sims?

  It's such a fast movie with so many twists and turns and like, yeah, yeah.

• 19:28Griffin Newman?

  I, I like that they're not like actually actively aping the visual language of late period Tony Scott or Greengrass or any of those guys, but it definitely feels like a movie that is infused with that. In the sort of, in the rhythms, in the sort of like intensity of what they're presenting.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  And I think these characters live in a world where Tony Scott films also are. Like they are processing what's happening to them in a very like narrative way.

• 19:53Griffin Newman?

  It is one of my favorite types of comedy. It is why I love this movie so deeply is it is a comedy largely based around characters having the wrong notion of what movie they are in. Right? That like, if you actually untangle this movie and it's what's so great about the ending, you're like, what's actually happening is so different than what's happening in everyone's minds. And it's not just a misunderstanding, which a lot of Coen movies are based on. It is based on their inflated sense of self and importance.

• 20:22David Sims?

  Right. It, it, the, the initial and driving thing is Osborne Cox, uh, Malkovich. Thinking his life story is interesting and his like secrets, you know, he holds like real, and it's probably, I mean, we never see what his memoir really are.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  Snippets, yeah.

• 20:39David Sims?

  Right. But it's probably mostly him just talking about random shit no one would care about.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  I sort of think it would be interesting.

• 20:44David Sims?

  Well.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  I mean, maybe that's just me.

• 20:46Griffin Newman?

  If he did the audio.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  If he did the audio.

• 20:48Griffin Newman?

  If he did the audio book. I mean, not only does he think it's important, but he's even talking to his like senile father about how he is worried it might be too incendiary, right?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:58Griffin Newman?

  Like this notion of like, you might see me as unpatriotic, but I think this story needs to be told. And then multiple important offices look at the material and go like, this is nothing.

• 21:11David Sims?

  Drivel, like not important.

• 21:13Griffin Newman?

  Level three clearance.

• 21:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  We're taking you off the Balkans desk.

• 21:23Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 21:23David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 21:31David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 21:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 21:40David Sims?

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

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:46David Sims?

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

• 21:53Griffin Newman?

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

• 21:57David Sims?

  No.

• 21:57Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 21:58David Sims?

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

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 22:46David Sims?

  Yes.

• 22:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 22:50David Sims?

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

• 22:56Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 22:57David Sims?

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

• 23:04Griffin Newman?

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

• 23:13David Sims?

  Uh, got stocking stuffers, maybe. The sickest luxury items.

• 23:17Griffin Newman?

  Cookware to kicks, toys to high tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop.

• 23:27David Sims?

  At once. Okay. That's shop.com. You can just go click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 23:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 24:05David Sims?

  Burn After Reading. I saw this film in theaters. I was living in 2008. It's just the year of Sims in New York with no friends. My friend was the Regal Union Square, where I saw, I think I told you all of those Richard Jenkins movies in 2000. Like, Richard Jenkins was there for me in the Regal Union Square.

• 24:23Griffin Newman?

  You had a Richard Jenkins Regal Union Square punch card?

• 24:26David Sims?

  I really did.

• 24:27Griffin Newman?

  And when you showed up for Burn After Reading, they gave you a hope.

• 24:29David Sims?

  Yeah, they gave me some grandpa glasses and like, I was hyped for this movie, obviously, because I love the Coen Brothers and they had just won Best Picture. And I saw it and I didn't like it very much.

• 24:41Griffin Newman?

  At the time, you didn't like it.

• 24:42David Sims?

  At the time. And I have sort of grown to appreciate it, but I still, I, it is the one where I'm just kind of like, ew, like when I'm watching it.

• 24:53Griffin Newman?

  Here, here's the arc of this movie for me. I loved No Country so much, as we talked about last week. The trailer for this movie was really fucking good.

• 25:05David Sims?

  And it was everywhere.

• 25:06Griffin Newman?

  And it was everywhere.

• 25:07David Sims?

  Yeah. The whole pit is in this movie thing was also like front and center, like, yeah.

• 25:12Griffin Newman?

  And we'll talk about, I've been talking about all series.

• 25:13David Sims?

  He's in this movie and he's doing a thing.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  Everyone forgets how successful this movie was.

• 25:17David Sims?

  He was successful.

• 25:18Griffin Newman?

  They sold it as a mainstream movie. It opened number one at the box office. It made a lot of money. It was like a mainstream play in a way that very few of their movies were. And a lot of it's coming off the heat of No Country and also the kind of like tenure cycle of Lebowski becoming like so totemic and huge. But the ads were everywhere. People were really amped for it. And then it comes out, it does really well opening weekend and almost immediately the response is like, from critics, eh, maybe this is lesser Coens, it's more of a lark. And from general public, like, what is this? This is not what they were selling in the ads.

• 25:53David Sims?

  And, yeah, did it get?

• 25:56Griffin Newman?

  They got a WGA nomination for best screenplay. BAFTA nominated Pitt and Swinton in supporting. And the Globes nominated McDormand for best actress.

• 26:08David Sims?

  We have to also toss it a screenplay nod. Globes nominated for picture and actress.

• 26:13Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 26:15Griffin Newman?

  And BAFTA give it screenplay. Yeah, but that was, that was it. Got zero Oscar nominations. I probably saw it about a week into release. And was like, ah, people have cooled my expectations a little after being so amped. Saw it immediately was like, this thing's a fucking masterpiece. It fucking rules. And I, I watched this movie like every couple of years. I've seen it many, many, many times.

• 26:35David Sims?

  Many, many, many, many.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  I think I saw it opening weekend.

• 26:38David Sims?

  Yes, Fran, you were a little younger than I.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  In high school and I went with my friends, including my crush. And we all went to go see this, like everyone I knew was seeing this movie and we were 17 years old. And I don't think this was like the first R rated movie I saw in theater.

• 26:54David Sims?

  But it probably is an early one.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Very formative one of being like, I'm driving myself to the movies to see this R rated movie.

• 27:00Griffin Newman?

  A focus features release.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  And that's when I learned to love focus features.

• 27:04David Sims?

  That's when you learn to settle down when it goes.

• 27:11Griffin Newman?

  I remember saying to my dad, isn't this like kind of crazy that Burn After Readings opening number one with like $20 million? And he was like, I mean, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in it.

• 27:20David Sims?

  Yeah, man.

• 27:20Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, I had not thought about it that simply. And the trailer just had funny moments and good spots. Yeah.

• 27:26David Sims?

  It's also reunites Clooney and Tilda Swinton. And this time they get in bed together right after Michael Clayton.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Michael Clayton and Karen Crowder, of course.

• 27:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:35David Sims?

  Yeah. Never think about that.

• 27:36Griffin Newman?

  You never think about it.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I was thinking about it the whole time.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  I said, there they are. I said, that's Karen Crowder. Well, I love Karen Crowder.

• 27:43Griffin Newman?

  Every time I watch.

• 27:44David Sims?

  Do you think Karen Crowder got a bad rap? Do you think Trump should try to pardon her?

• 27:48Griffin Newman?

  She did nothing wrong. He's gonna move her to-

• 27:50David Sims?

  She was just keeping her company afloat.

• 27:52Griffin Newman?

  A cushier prison.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  I think we should check in with her.

• 27:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we should check in with her. Do you, do you ever wonder if the, the tragic events of Michael Clayton could have been avoided if they just hopped in the sack earlier? That all this fighting between the two of them was really just tension that was going unspoken?

• 28:06David Sims?

  Is Michael Clayton capable of getting an erection? My guess is no. That man has the weight of a thousand worlds on him.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  He's so sleepy.

• 28:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 28:14Griffin Newman?

  This is a good point.

• 28:15David Sims?

  Like, that is, I love that movie. It is not a very horny movie.

• 28:18Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 28:18David Sims?

  Sex is not really present in Michael Clayton. No one's thinking about it.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 28:22David Sims?

  I mean, when Pollock's on screen, I'm thinking about it.

• 28:24Griffin Newman?

  There's so much with his ex-wife.

• 28:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 28:26Griffin Newman?

  And you get the sense that like, this fell apart because this guy just cannot be present.

• 28:30David Sims?

  Like remotely.

• 28:31Griffin Newman?

  And now he has no interest in any women whatsoever.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Until he met Karen Crowder.

• 28:37Griffin Newman?

  Until he met Karen Crowder. If they had just been able to work through. Uh, look, a little bit of sad news. Producer Ben Hozley has COVID.

• 28:45David Sims?

  He does. He'll be alright.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  He, he'll be alright, but unfortunately, he's missing from this episode. Here's some great news.

• 28:51David Sims?

  Happy news.

• 28:52Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show, jumping in heroically, producer Ben Frisch.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 28:57Griffin Newman?

  Filling in the seats. You were saying this is one of your favorite Coens.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Oh, absolutely.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. Is it, I, I like that it's a Virginia movie.

• 29:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 29:07Speaker 04

  It's a, uh, I'm from southeastern Virginia, but, um, I grew up with, uh, the kids of a lot of spooks.

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Because I'm from Williamsburg.

• 29:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  Where, uh, the farm is.

• 29:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Which is Camp Perry, which is a CIA training center.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  They talk about it in movies a lot.

• 29:24David Sims?

  I feel like, isn't that where like fucking The Recruit is set? My favorite Colin Farrell movie?

• 29:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's your number one favorite Colin Farrell movie, right?

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  I have not seen The Recruit.

• 29:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 29:33David Sims?

  Well, I'm gonna look it up. Carry on.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Um, kind of a boring place to set a, a series, I think. Uh, but Williamsburg, I mean. Um, but I love that this movie looks like Virginia, it looks like DC. Um, and I just think it's so funny.

• 29:52Griffin Newman?

  Do you wanna know-

• 29:53Speaker 04

  The cast is incredible.

• 29:53Griffin Newman?

  Do you wanna know one of the craziest things about this movie? It was almost exclusively, if not entirely, shot in New York City.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  Really?

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Like over here.

• 30:01Griffin Newman?

  That the Coens were like, I don't have to- Can we figure out how to film this at home?

• 30:06David Sims?

  Which is funny because it's like a, it's a movie about DC.

• 30:10Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 30:11David Sims?

  Think they would wanna like, whatever, but I don't know. Shooting in DC can be a pain in the ass.

• 30:15Griffin Newman?

  And I, I don't know if No Country was just such a tough production. And so often, so many times on this podcast, when the production starts with that, you're like, and that's why the movie's bad. They got too lazy, right? They didn't care enough to go to the place and now they're like shooting in the wrong place.

• 30:29David Sims?

  And it doesn't read right. They did a little bit of Georgetown location stuff to get the streets.

• 30:34Griffin Newman?

  It is, the vast majority is like Brooklyn.

• 30:37David Sims?

  Yeah, no, it was shot in Brooklyn Heights.

• 30:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:39David Sims?

  Uh, you know what? I'll open the dust.

• 30:40Griffin Newman?

  But yet it does feel like it kinda gets it right, right? Like, I remember the first time seeing it when they go to see, uh, the romantic comedy, the Dermot Mulroney movie. That is now the dearly departed 23rd and 8th movie theater.

• 30:53David Sims?

  Clearview Chelsea.

• 30:54Griffin Newman?

  The Clearview Chelsea. And I was like, huh, why would they film that there if the rest of the movie is in Virginia? And then I looked it up and it's like, oh, the whole thing.

• 31:03David Sims?

  It was the bow tie after it was the Clearview. You know the theater I'm talking about?

• 31:08Speaker 02

  There's the other Chelsea one, though.

• 31:09David Sims?

  The other Chelsea?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Maybe I'm thinking of this one.

• 31:11Griffin Newman?

  I think you're thinking this one.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Same one.

• 31:12Griffin Newman?

  It went through multiple names.

• 31:13David Sims?

  We saw a movie there, I think, the first time we ever met.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:16Griffin Newman?

  You met seeing a movie there?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  I knew it as Sinoplis Chelsea.

• 31:20David Sims?

  Oh, that's right in between.

• 31:21Griffin Newman?

  Final form.

• 31:22David Sims?

  Oh, no, it was after, right?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

• 31:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was also United Artists at one point.

• 31:26David Sims?

  We got egg salad at Murray's.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Yup.

• 31:29David Sims?

  Sorry. Sorry, girl.

• 31:30Griffin Newman?

  Apology accepted.

• 31:30David Sims?

  It was like 10 years ago. What movie did we see?

• 31:34Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 31:35David Sims?

  Okay. Don't worry about it. Um, and The Recruit is indeed set in the farm. Roger Donaldson's The Recruit, which is just like Pacino's like, ah, you gotta be a recruit. Um, this film, Burn After Reading.

• 31:48Griffin Newman?

  I do think it speaks to how well they nailed this, though, that you're from there and it was passing your sniff test versus like half of the fucking Amy Heckerling movies we covered, where you're just like, this is Vancouver.

• 32:03David Sims?

  Sorry, it's just, yes.

• 32:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, what's going on, David? Something very exciting just happened on your laptop?

• 32:11David Sims?

  We can cut this out if we don't want to include it, but we're trying to, we pay our guests and we're trying to fill in some backlogs because we got a new person who's in charge of like, you know, payouts and all this stuff. And she very wisely has sent out like, you know, hey, hey.

• 32:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, checking back.

• 32:26David Sims?

  And this is the third person, this one was Carolyn Crankie, who's texting me being like, this is a phishing scam.

• 32:30Griffin Newman?

  I have gotten a couple of these too. People think that it's now a phishing scam.

• 32:34David Sims?

  Take our money.

• 32:36Griffin Newman?

  Can you send your payment information so we can pay you?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  I didn't even think that for a second.

• 32:39Griffin Newman?

  For an episode a year ago. I've got, I've got a couple of those pens.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  I'm so screwed.

• 32:42David Sims?

  For you, it was a phishing scam.

• 32:44Griffin Newman?

  It was, actually.

• 32:44David Sims?

  Everyone else, no.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  What?

• 32:45Griffin Newman?

  We made a phishing scam just for you.

• 32:47David Sims?

  Uh, okay, so Burn After Reading.

• 32:51Griffin Newman?

  Fascinating thing is that this is, no, what were you gonna say?

• 32:54David Sims?

  I was gonna start the dossier, so you go ahead.

• 32:56Griffin Newman?

  You seem to be struggling for the sense.

• 32:57David Sims?

  No, no, I was just getting the tab open.

• 32:59Griffin Newman?

  We're doing great. We're doing great.

• 33:00David Sims?

  We're doing amazing.

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

  This is really good. We're paying back people from two years ago.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  I can't wait to get money.

• 33:06Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be really.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  I'm gonna start spending like crazy.

• 33:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Cause I just know money's coming.

• 33:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and it's 50,000 per episode now.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:12David Sims?

  That's actually not true, I want to clarify. Uh, it's time for me to say this one last time, says JJ, and he's saying it, of course, one last time because he's probably knows he's gonna get fired. Right. Uh, Burn After Reading, 13th Coen Brothers movie, was written during a flurry, unprecedented flurry of activity, uh, where they got, uh, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, and Burn After Reading, kind of all kind of going at the same time.

• 33:35Griffin Newman?

  That is what I was gonna say, that this is a fascinating post, like, you know, it's a, it's a post-victory lap, uh, No Country movie.

• 33:44David Sims?

  But it's not.

• 33:45Griffin Newman?

  And yet, no.

• 33:45David Sims?

  Both Burn and Serious Men have been funded and set up before they won Best Picture.

• 33:50Griffin Newman?

  At their lowest moment, post Ladykillers, they write these three movies together and get them made three in a row.

• 33:55David Sims?

  The true blank check is True Grip.

• 33:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:59David Sims?

  That's them being like, more money please, we want to do this properly, and we want to adapt a book that was already adapted into an Oscar-winning film. And Scott Rudin is like, why? And they're like, we want to. And he's like, okay, well, well, go get the rights.

• 34:11Griffin Newman?

  I want to say-

• 34:12David Sims?

  And he said it that chill.

• 34:12Griffin Newman?

  He said it that way, yeah. And, and string cheese firmly in hand. I, I want to say, and I'm sure we can verify this or reject this in the dossier, that this movie had finished filming by the time they win the Oscars.

• 34:25David Sims?

  Uh, yes, and then I guess-

• 34:27Griffin Newman?

  Comes out like six months after that.

• 34:28David Sims?

  Or they said they had shot most of it-

• 34:30Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 34:31David Sims?

  Before they won the Oscars, and maybe it was right near the end.

• 34:33Griffin Newman?

  But this is like, right, it gets to be the movie after the win, even though it was in no way actually made as the movie after the win.

• 34:43David Sims?

  So Burn After Reading emerges from the Coens desiring to work not just with one actor, a bunch of different actors.

• 34:52Griffin Newman?

  Mission accomplished.

• 34:53David Sims?

  These parts were basically all written for the actors who play them. So Brad Pitt, George Clooney, this is answering my question from earlier, Frances McDormand, they knew her?

• 35:01Griffin Newman?

  They did, they had an in.

• 35:03David Sims?

  Uh, John Malkovich and Richard Jenkins were all basically purpose-built, uh, you know, in this, in this script.

• 35:09Griffin Newman?

  Swinton surprisingly is the one they hadn't written it for, and I've never been able to find who they did write it for.

• 35:14David Sims?

  If anyone, they were probably like, eh, we'll figure it out. It's just always so funny when like, it just happened with the new one Joel Coen is making with Josh O'Connor, where they're like, it found its female lead, uh, Frances McDormand? Who's that?

• 35:33Griffin Newman?

  James Gunn has added Jennifer Holland to the supporting cast of New Project? Does this need to be its own deadline?

• 35:41David Sims?

  What's that, Flanagan's, uh, why Pete Siegel?

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  No disrespect.

• 35:45David Sims?

  No, no, it's fine.

• 35:46Griffin Newman?

  When you, when you post the news item as if it's like, after a long search, yeah.

• 35:51David Sims?

  So McDormand, Clooney and Jenkins obviously are, uh, Coens favorites who they were keen to work with again. Pitt, basically, they had been working with together to try and make To the White Sea happen for quite a long time, so they have a relationship there. And I think with Malkovich, they were just, I mean correctly, like, I think we could really have fun with that guy.

• 36:11Griffin Newman?

  This is my favorite Malkovich performance, and it absolutely feels like a kid on Christmas morning getting the toy they've been dreaming of for months.

• 36:19David Sims?

  It's really outstanding.

• 36:21Griffin Newman?

  Unwrapping it quickly and being like, oh my God, look at all the things we can do with this. They just, you can tell that they're just like, what are the funniest things that come out of his mouth? What are the funniest outfits we can put him in?

• 36:33David Sims?

  Uh, totally. And just like how to tap into his kind of seeding energy.

• 36:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it's my favorite performance of his.

• 36:40David Sims?

  That's crazy to me, but he, I, but it's very funny.

• 36:43Griffin Newman?

  I think he is so transcendentally good in this.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's really good.

• 36:47David Sims?

  He's good.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Is my favorite? I don't think so.

• 36:50David Sims?

  And my favorite performance of his is obviously the Vinnie Fedici sketch where he's like, I don't talk like that. And Hater starts doing him perfectly.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I miss Vinnie Fedici.

• 36:59David Sims?

  I do too.

• 37:00Griffin Newman?

  There was also Hater's, um, uh, Weekend Update where he was Malkovich. And it was after the Madoff scandal and Malkovich had gotten fleeced by Madoff.

• 37:11David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  In real life?

• 37:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 37:14Griffin Newman?

  And he keeps doing this thing of like, how do you feel about it? And he's like, I feel fine. And he's like, you're not going to get upset. And he's like, I know what you expect me to do. You expect me to launch suddenly into a hyper articulate, angry jag, but I'm not gonna do that. And then they just keep trying to egg him on until he explodes.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  I saw him live once.

• 37:36Griffin Newman?

  Malkovich?

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:37Griffin Newman?

  Doing what?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  In Chicago.

• 37:39David Sims?

  Son poetry.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Well, close.

• 37:41David Sims?

  Uh, in like a Steppenwolf thing?

• 37:43Speaker 02

  No, with the symphony.

• 37:45David Sims?

  Was he at the Bean?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  There is, um, well, it was very close to the Bean.

• 37:48David Sims?

  Damn it, Frank keeps responding sincerely to my jag.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  I'm not letting, I'm not letting you get one in here.

• 37:53David Sims?

  My jag's at the Windy City!

• 37:54Speaker 02

  I'm not letting you get one in here. Um, there's an Aaron Copland piece called A Lincoln Portrait that is like music with just excerpts from Lincoln and Malkovich did the Lincoln excerpts, but they didn't announce ahead of time.

• 38:06David Sims?

  Wow, that's fun.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Who it was gonna be.

• 38:09Griffin Newman?

  So it was just him?

• 38:09Speaker 02

  It was just like Lincoln portrait with guests. And so I went with my mom.

• 38:13Griffin Newman?

  Four, seven years ago.

• 38:14David Sims?

  And then he did Lincoln Park after that?

• 38:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Crawling in my skin.

• 38:21Griffin Newman?

  Good. It was pretty good.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  It was crazy. It was crazy to see him.

• 38:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I, I can't imagine. He's one of those guys. I mean, he's so fascinating because he talks about like, acting is easy. I don't understand these people. I show up, I say words, they pay me money. A dog could do it. And like, sometimes when people like Brando would say that, you're like, you're like trying to hide the scent of the process. You're trying to act like you don't care. Malkovich, I genuinely believe to some degree, it just flows out of him.

• 38:52David Sims?

  I guess so. It must. I mean, it's interesting. I wonder what his process is like.

• 38:56Griffin Newman?

  He talks about it as if he does not internalize stuff at all.

• 38:59David Sims?

  Cause it's cause like Joan Allen, Gary Sinise, Glenn Headley, like the classic Stephen Wolf people. You think about those as like really sort of like awful actors who wanted to do new stuff with this, you know? And like, is Malkovich right? Just this like alien they found where they were like, oh God, we gotta get this guy.

• 39:15Griffin Newman?

  Like, in some degree, like I do get the vibe that like, obviously he has a very unique energy and way of speaking. And he has incredible emotional access, right? Like Malkovich doesn't become Malkovich if he isn't able to tap into that anger so quickly and viscerally. But he, when he talks about it, it's just like, I just learned the script and I do line readings.

• 39:36David Sims?

  I like him.

• 39:37Griffin Newman?

  I love him.

• 39:38David Sims?

  When was I first exposed to Malkovich?

• 39:40Griffin Newman?

  Great question. Con Air? Cyrus the Virus?

• 39:43David Sims?

  I guess it was that run. I guess it was that mid nineties him as a

• 39:46Griffin Newman?

  In the line of fire.

• 39:47David Sims?

  Villain guy. I guess that's when I'm like, cause like, I feel like the first time I really cared deeply about him was being John Malkovich, obviously.

• 39:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 39:54David Sims?

  For a whole generation, it becomes something different because of that.

• 39:58Griffin Newman?

  I knew who he was by the time that being John Malkovich came out.

• 40:01David Sims?

  I did too.

• 40:01Griffin Newman?

  I didn't understand why the movie was about him. I remember my parents having to explain to me like sort of what he represents culturally. That him, just the idea of why he was a funny guy to build that around.

• 40:16Griffin Newman?

  Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  I was trying to figure out the first thing I saw him in.

• 40:20Griffin Newman?

  And I'm gonna guess for you, it was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  That's what it was.

• 40:25Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:27David Sims?

  That makes sense, actually.

• 40:28Griffin Newman?

  He is a pretty good one scene performance.

• 40:30David Sims?

  What is he doing that? I don't remember.

• 40:31Griffin Newman?

  He plays a leader of an alien race who's like a rival of, I don't know the books.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  He's barely in.

• 40:37David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, he's got the glasses.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  I think we're the two.

• 40:40Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Never Aragon.

• 40:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Looms large in my home.

• 40:44Griffin Newman?

  Loom large in the world.

• 40:46David Sims?

  Aragon is a great example of our age difference where it's like, I was way too old for that dragon teen shit.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  I never read it.

• 40:53David Sims?

  But you were just the right age, like for it to have been right at your age group.

• 40:57Griffin Newman?

  But look, here's a perfect example. I feel like the way Malkovich talks about his approach to acting is that he doesn't do anything differently on Aragon versus.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 41:08Griffin Newman?

  Burn After Read.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  But I also think they're the same level of real to him.

• 41:10Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. That's part of it. I think he's just on a wavelength where he can just read it and be like, yes, I feel this. Go. Put up the costume on my body, you know?

• 41:19Speaker 02

  You know who I think is kind of like this also?

• 41:21Griffin Newman?

  Who?

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Mark Strong.

• 41:23Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 41:24David Sims?

  I was just, what was Mark Strong on standby for? Fuck, what was I just reading about?

• 41:30Griffin Newman?

  He was on standby for?

• 41:31David Sims?

  Like, there was some.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Like a flight?

• 41:34David Sims?

  Yeah, he was on standby for a flight and he just wouldn't get, he couldn't get a seat.

• 41:38Griffin Newman?

  He was hoping to get upgraded to first?

• 41:40David Sims?

  There was some role that I was just reading about that like, you know, it was definitively played, you know, well by some great actor. I cannot remember.

• 41:51Griffin Newman?

  And like, he was the backup.

• 41:53David Sims?

  He was the backup because they almost couldn't get this guy. Now I can't.

• 41:57Griffin Newman?

  He does feel like he has become Hollywood's number one second choice.

• 42:00David Sims?

  Because he's always good.

• 42:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But it always feels like, huh, did you offer to someone else first who said no, and you realized you could save money in the budget, but also he will not get out of the park?

• 42:12David Sims?

  Someone will tell me what I'm talking about.

• 42:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 42:14David Sims?

  But I always liked Mark Strong.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  He's gonna be Oedipus. Oh, he's in Oedipus?

• 42:18Griffin Newman?

  With Leslie Manville.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  The sexy Oedipus? This time it's sexy.

• 42:21Griffin Newman?

  This time sexy.

• 42:22David Sims?

  So they're, just for the listener, they're staging Oedipus to play.

• 42:27Griffin Newman?

  Blockbuster run in the West End.

• 42:28David Sims?

  By your transparence here. Yes. But there's, so there's posters around New York telling you to buy tickets to it. And it has, what's the fucking tagline? It's really hilarious.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  It's like blank as a motherfucker or something.

• 42:42David Sims?

  Like, right, like, truth is about where I'm like, uh huh, the truth of that Oedipus. Like, just the idea of taking a thousands year old Greek tragedy and being like, you'll never guess the twist. Is just so funny to me.

• 42:56David Sims?

  But I would like to see it.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  They should, oh, I want to see it so bad.

• 42:59Griffin Newman?

  Lean in full, like, argyle on Oedipus.

• 43:02David Sims?

  Right, right, exactly.

• 43:03Griffin Newman?

  Don't let the motherfucker out of the bag.

• 43:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 43:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:06David Sims?

  Argyle.

• 43:07Griffin Newman?

  Argyle.

• 43:07David Sims?

  And Mark Strong was in Kingsman.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  He's really good in Kingsman.

• 43:11David Sims?

  And then he blows up in the second one.

• 43:12Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:13Griffin Newman?

  Maybe he's in Orgyle? No, because they're in the same universe.

• 43:17David Sims?

  As we all know, it was very clearly explained

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 43:21David Sims?

  At the end of Orgyle, that they're sort of in the same universe in some way or other.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Once I learned Orgyle's two hours and 20 minutes, I said, that's not happening.

• 43:28David Sims?

  Orgyle do be long.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  Biggest spoiler warning block of all time. Alert, alert, alert. The end of Orgyle is the real Orgyle showing up and being like, eh, I'm a Kingsman now.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  No.

• 43:40Griffin Newman?

  In a flashback.

• 43:41David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 43:42Griffin Newman?

  Kind of. Kind of.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  I just know Dua Lipa guns down Ariana DeBose. And I said, that's crazy.

• 43:49David Sims?

  That sounds.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  But it's like, at that level, I'm like, wow, crazy.

• 43:52Griffin Newman?

  I think that is the first 45 seconds of the movie.

• 43:55David Sims?

  Yeah. So the Coens are making Burn After Reading. This is, I think, one of the ultimate, the Coens just being like, I don't know, we just wrote it, who cares? Like, in all the interviews, because they're like, hey, we wanted to work with these actors, so we wrote to them. It's a spy movie, we'd never done one before. Honestly, it could have been a dog movie or an outer space movie. Funny to imagine them just being like, let's do a dog movie. Movie with a dog.

• 44:18Griffin Newman?

  It's also funny to say that when this movie does feel so angry, like it feels very pointed in their disdain for many of these people.

• 44:27David Sims?

  Totally. Joel says, it didn't really turn out as a spy movie, obviously, he is correct. The original idea was one, it's not really meant to be a comment on Washington, it's just about these characters.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 44:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 44:40David Sims?

  This is the whole thing where I'm just like, stop, everyone stop interviewing them.

• 44:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like, cause this movie isn't political as much as it is like exposing a deep, deep cynicism for our political system.

• 44:51David Sims?

  For like, middle-class bureaucrats who like, sort of run our country, I get, you know, like Joel, here's a better quote from him, the quote I was reading from earlier, he literally in the middle of it says, sorry, I lost my train of thought or something. So I'm going to go with this one.

• 45:05Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 45:05David Sims?

  The story is about middle-aged people, all of whom are undergoing professional, personal and sexual crises, touching on matters of national security, that's what makes it a Washington tale. But they had, years and years ago, apparently tried to do an adaptation of Advice and Consent, the sort of, uh, political drama from the sixties. So like, I guess they had sort of thought about a political movie before, that's like a more of a real political movie. But then they also say like, yeah, it's our version of like a Tony Scott movie or a Jason Bourne movie without the explosions. And Joel also says, a seven days in May sort of thing. No, it's not. What? That's like set in the White House. Doesn't matter.

• 45:43David Sims?

  Um, but they, I think fundamentally, Griffin, this is speaking to sort of what you're saying, are like, it's a Hitchcockian, like MacGuffin movie, there's nothing at the center. Like, it's all just people being motivated by nothing. And that's what amuses them the most.

• 45:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 46:00David Sims?

  They're all circling a thing they think exists, but doesn't exist.

• 46:04Griffin Newman?

  This is a real, the ending is the conceit movie. And like, I, I compare this almost to, uh, Inherent Vice.

• 46:13Griffin Newman?

  Which the first time I saw it, I was like so angered by, right? And you get, you get to a final scene where like Martin Donovan kind of unravels the movie and both explains and refuses to explain what's been going on and makes it clear how little the character is actually understood.

• 46:30David Sims?

  Right, Tenet.

• 46:31Griffin Newman?

  Right, and that, Tenet, open doors. Uh, i- i- in that moment, the movie basically says like, you're kind of a fucking moron if you were trying to make sense of this film up until this point, which the first time I saw it, I found very antagonistic, right?

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yes, me too.

• 46:45Griffin Newman?

  I have seen it many, many times now. It is a movie that has grown on me and once I now just submit to it and I'm like, the story does not matter, I enjoy it as a supreme hangout movie. I think what is great about Burn After Reading for me and its construction is it doesn't feel overly complicated. You can watch it and be like, I think I kind of get what's going on. I'm curious to see how it comes together.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Griffin Newman?

  And then at the end, when they go like, actually, if you zoom out, none of this really matters, it doesn't feel like a deflation of what happened up until that point. It feels like the ending is the conceit, this is the thesis of the movie, here's our point we're hammering.

• 47:18David Sims?

  The best thing in the movie is the ending, obviously.

• 47:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:21David Sims?

  Like, that's the thing everyone remembers best, even though there's lots of other memorable stuff.

• 47:26Griffin Newman?

  But it somehow inflates the movie rather than deflates it, whereas I think often these kinds of endings of-

• 47:31David Sims?

  Right, of like, hey, you know what? Turns out this is all bullshit.

• 47:34Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Well, the movie's not mad at you for caring.

• 47:36Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  And it's actually sort of exposing how little these guys care is kind of the point. But like, you care the right amount, maybe.

• 47:44David Sims?

  I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but J.K. Simmons is right in this movie.

• 47:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:48David Sims?

  All his like thought, like decision making is basically correct, where he's like, no, no, no, get rid of that, deal with that, yeah, pay her, I don't care, like where he's just like, let's just make this not messy anymore.

• 48:00Griffin Newman?

  But there's also, there's a deep cynicism to how-

• 48:02David Sims?

  Yes, of course, because he's like hearing people died and he's like, ugh, well.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Or he's like, that's why he's covered.

• 48:06David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and yet, right, I think this is what they're really drilling on, in on is like, at the end of the day, these are like weird bureaucratic middle management jobs, like these things, it's a thing I find very interesting about this movie, especially at a time of just like peak- Political conspiracy theory culture, right? Is I think one of the main like ideas behind this movie is just like, all of this is so much less organized than anyone wants to believe it is in both directions. Right? Whether you take comfort in that or you have deep fear of that, even when insidious things are happening, they are most often just sloppy, messy, completely out of control, just like it's just idiots stumbling around.

• 48:50David Sims?

  Now, they claim this is not a political movie and all that. They will admit that Frances McDormand's character is very inspired by Linda Tripp. Mostly in that Linda Tripp wanted a bunch of cosmetic surgeries, which was sort of like an under like current to a lot of Linda Tripp's behavior during the Lewinsky scandal in terms of Linda Tripp wanting money or trying to figure out how to get monetized things or whatever. And so they kind of like decided to put Linda Tripp, you know, in a new context. So that's one of those things where I'm like, okay, so yeah, you guys aren't just like being a co- who cares if it's setting Washington? Like, I'm like, no, you're making fun of like these kinds of Washington.

• 49:30David Sims?

  It's how to gadfly like lower section of, you know, like the government kind of people, right? Like, I don't know.

• 49:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I also think, look.

• 49:40David Sims?

  Obviously, she doesn't work for the government. She works at a gym, but she's in DC.

• 49:43Griffin Newman?

  But she's very obsessed with, with power and stature, as we said. Right, right. Those people in Hollywood would laugh me out of town.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, to like some DC stuff, like, it's like, why would you live there if you don't work for the government? And it's because of like an obsession with the culture of government to some degree, I think.

• 50:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and it like translates on to like a Greek Orthodox priest and Chevy Chase. It's just the idea of like, um, uh, power through osmosis, some level of status, uh, by proximity that she's clearly drawn to. Uh, one of these people who's caught in this like absolute catch 22 of being miserable about being single, but being so like ruthless in her strategizing of what she wants a relationship to be and how she thinks she could be appealing to that type of person versus having it exist on any organic emotional level. Um, just her like disregarding of other people while also being terrified that other

• 50:41Griffin Newman?

  people are gonna disregard her. Um, and I, I think, you know, a lot of the complaints of people who think that this movie just pushes like one step too mean is, is this movie really, really judgmental of this character? And because she is not someone who actually operates a real lever of power, is it like a misplaced cruelty? And I think it's like the fact that they cast Frances is very telling. And the fact that the movie keeps going like, you don't need these surgeries, you know, that it is not like, I think there's an argument the movie is shaming the idea of caring about that kind of thing. Sure. Which is a whole larger messier cultural conversation about body form modification

• 51:23Griffin Newman?

  and what have you. But, but I think it's more about like a misplaced sense of what is missing in this character's life that unifies almost all of the characters in this movie, right? This sense of like, here's how I want to be seen. Here's how I see myself. Here's how obsessed I am with the idea of my position and what I need to do to maintain that or to continue to reassert that.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, and also because in Frances has become so, I'm going to the Oscars with no makeup and like, which I think was not always the case. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• 51:57David Sims?

  I think, no, I think that's what makes sure.

• 51:58Griffin Newman?

  No, but I, I think she is like, in that very rare group of actresses in like her age class, I think of, uh, Annette Bening feels very similar to me.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Nyad.

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  Nyad, where they're just like, we want to play women our own age.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:14Griffin Newman?

  You know, like, we are not trying to look 40 forever. We're not trying to look 20 forever.

• 52:20David Sims?

  I, yeah, look, the thing about Frances McDormand, she's very funny in this.

• 52:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:24David Sims?

  She's playing a Coens character. It's a mean, it's, the movie is not, right, is not fond of this character.

• 52:30Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 52:31David Sims?

  Uh, it's, I think. There's a mild understanding of her pathology, I guess. Um, but it's like, you know, it's a pretty mean.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  But it's mean, meanest. To her of at least all the other women.

• 52:44David Sims?

  I would, yes, but she does remind me of other stupid sort of, you know, Cohen's characters with silly motivations. Like, it's not like I'm like, this is the first time they've ever had a character that you're basically like, oh, my God, you know, like, at their motivations.

• 53:02Griffin Newman?

  There's, there's kind of a level playing field. And there's also the comparison of like, the two other significant female characters in this movie, both refer to each other as like, ice queen bitches.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're higher. I mean, they're way higher status than her, too.

• 53:14Griffin Newman?

  They're way higher status than her.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  They have the ability to like, fall back on money.

• 53:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Or other comforts that she doesn't have.

• 53:22Griffin Newman?

  I think I saw people like, in our Reddit, litigating this, right? This like recurring thing of like, this discussion point of do the Cohens hate their characters? Are they judgmental, this and that? And I saw someone put, I think, very well, which is like, no, the key is that they actually like, love these idiots. And I think that is big, right? I think that very often, they have like, an absolute adoration for their silliest characters. That for me, like, really, you can feel in the DNA of their films. And I think she is in that vein, where they, the movie thinks she is very silly, but also does like, actually consider her emotional inner life, in a way that it does not as

• 54:05Griffin Newman?

  much with the bureaucratic characters. I think the mere fact that it's like, trying to explore her like, internal struggle. But it's also why Jenkins is like, the moral center of this movie, because he's the only guy where he's just like, can't everyone just like, sort of try to figure out how to be okay with themselves?

• 54:21David Sims?

  Uh, totally.

• 54:22Griffin Newman?

  And keeps trying to talk to her directly, and she just doesn't listen to him. And this is one of those movies where like, none of the events of this movie happens, if like, six direct conversations happen. If like, six conversations where people can just actually say what's going on, and express themselves intelligently, like, with emotional intelligence, all of the incidents basically are preventable.

• 54:44David Sims?

  Has this Ewok always been on my desk?

• 54:45Griffin Newman?

  I placed it there recently. David's gotten really back into Ewoks and little Ewok butts.

• 54:49David Sims?

  We do have, we do have some Ewok butt discussion coming up on the show. Have you ever thought about how they have little furry butts?

• 54:55Griffin Newman?

  David won't stop saying this.

• 54:56David Sims?

  Okay.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  It's fine. I don't really think about Star Wars.

• 55:00Griffin Newman?

  He thinks about it all the time.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  The creatures.

• 55:02David Sims?

  I had taken a good, long break thinking about it and then thought about it again.

• 55:07Griffin Newman?

  He rewatched Return of the Jedi and he texts us, do you ever think about how the Ewoks have little furry bugs? And now I hear that like three times a week from him.

• 55:15David Sims?

  I don't think it's that often.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  I guess he knows not to text me about that.

• 55:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm not complaining, but it's coming up a lot.

• 55:19David Sims?

  Yeah, he texts you about something else.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm really into pine martins lately.

• 55:23Griffin Newman?

  Pine martins are cool.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  They're pretty cute. They're like.

• 55:26David Sims?

  They're sort of a cousin of like, you know, a ferret. Yeah, exactly.

• 55:30Griffin Newman?

  Pine martins.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're all over my reels.

• 55:32David Sims?

  I feel like.

• 55:33Griffin Newman?

  Spelled how it sounds?

• 55:34David Sims?

  Martin, like with an E.

• 55:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 55:37David Sims?

  I feel like one of the, um, his dark materials characters, uh, demons is a pine martin.

• 55:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 55:43David Sims?

  Right?

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a Scottish. I think he becomes one permanently.

• 55:49Griffin Newman?

  I like these guys.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  There's a Scottish woman who feeds pine martins on Instagram.

• 55:53David Sims?

  You and Emma.

• 55:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, her name's Tilda Swinton.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:55David Sims?

  You, Emma and I.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  You know, you never really see her, so it could be. She gives them honey and whole eggs, which I'm like, well, I guess you wouldn't like that, but I think that's a great diet.

• 56:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I liked the first part.

• 56:07David Sims?

  Yeah, um, right. Is, uh, yeah, not Scottish, um, but has Scottish ancestry, ancestry, I believe. Right? Maybe she is sort of Scottish.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Tilda?

• 56:15Griffin Newman?

  I think she's kind of Scottish.

• 56:16David Sims?

  She's like half Scottish, maybe.

• 56:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Well, she lives there.

• 56:18David Sims?

  She's from London, but, but yeah, maybe she lives there now.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Matilda Swinton.

• 56:22David Sims?

  Uh, is that her?

• 56:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:24David Sims?

  I've never thought about it.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, because in the.

• 56:26David Sims?

  Of course.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  In the Joanna Hogg short, she's credited as Matilda Swinton.

• 56:31David Sims?

  Can she like make books move around with her mind?

• 56:35Griffin Newman?

  As long as Miss Honey supports her emotionally, uh, it's like Topher Grace.

• 56:40David Sims?

  Christopher.

• 56:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, his name's Christopher and you're like, oh, right. Yeah.

• 56:42David Sims?

  That one, I think, I guess I knew, I, you know, just honestly, I haven't been thinking much about him lately. What's he doing?

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Remember when he was in two movies at Cannes?

• 56:50David Sims?

  Nope.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  Black Landsman?

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Yep, and Under the Silver Lake. What a crazy year.

• 56:55Griffin Newman?

  He had kind of like a swing back and then he's.

• 56:57David Sims?

  I mean, he's in Flight Risk this year, a movie that he is in the entirety of it.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 57:02David Sims?

  It's not like a thing where you're like, oh, Topher swung in for 20 minutes. It's like, no, they're all in that fucking plane.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  Don't get me going on.

• 57:08David Sims?

  He's yap yap yap.

• 57:09Griffin Newman?

  A bigger role than Mark Wahlberg in Flight Risk.

• 57:12David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  That thing is depressing.

• 57:14David Sims?

  It sucks. I was so mad about that movie.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  It should have been like fun stuff.

• 57:20David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  But it's not even that.

• 57:21David Sims?

  Guiltily admire Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson.

• 57:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but he is kind of in a way. Yeah.

• 57:28David Sims?

  Uh, Mel Gibson's action filmmaking. Instead, I was like, this is weird and annoying. Well, you're smiling at me.

• 57:33Griffin Newman?

  No, have I ever told this story that I, I had my, my screen test for The Tech? Uh, this was fucking 10 years ago, nine, nine years ago, and I, I cared so much about it. And I left and I went to my agent's office in LA and I was just like, I really think that went the best it possibly could have gone. I think anything I could possibly do to convince him to give me the part, I did the best performance I could have given. And I really feel good. And if I don't get it at this point, it was just out of my hands and I was never going to get it. And he went, that's great. I'm so happy you feel that way. And I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  And I have even better news. Topher Grace just passed is like a sentence that lives in my head and in for me where I was like.

• 58:14David Sims?

  Sliver in your mind.

• 58:15Griffin Newman?

  Oh, so that whole time I was in there, at any moment Topher Grace could have emailed and said, sure, why not?

• 58:21David Sims?

  Topher Grace is like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, holding his thumb out like this.

• 58:25Griffin Newman?

  It is just a perfect snapshot of what it feels like to be a young actor.

• 58:28David Sims?

  Strange.

• 58:29Griffin Newman?

  Right. Where you're like, I'm fighting so hard. And they're like, some guy hasn't checked his inbox in three days. And if he's bored, he says yes and the part's his.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:37David Sims?

  All right.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  But he had to go to Cannes.

• 58:38David Sims?

  I want to end run through the dossier just to, so we can talk about the movie. Um, so, uh, basically the way the Coens work is they send the script to Eric Felner and those kinds of people, you know, their producers.

• 58:52David Sims?

  And I assume they're basically like, we can get some actors.

• 58:55Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:55David Sims?

  And everyone's kind of like, great, well, let's do it. It probably will cost a reasonable amount of money.

• 59:00Griffin Newman?

  Budget of this movie was 20, 30?

• 59:02David Sims?

  Yeah, I think that's about right.

• 59:04Griffin Newman?

  They get everyone to like, basically work for scale or certainly well below their quotes. But at this point, if they're going to work in title and they have like a $20 million film, where they tell you they can get six actors attached, working tells like, we don't even need to read the script. Whatever you guys want.

• 59:20David Sims?

  Um, Tilda, as you mentioned, that one character they hadn't written for anyone, they said.

• 59:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 59:25David Sims?

  And they just cast it with Tilda Swinton, a good actor.

• 59:28Griffin Newman?

  Matilda Swinton, just a correct dude.

• 59:29David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, apparently at the end of the shoot, Clooney touch, touchingly and willing, wistfully, sorry. According to Swinton said, maybe one day we'll make a film together where we say one nice thing to each other.

• 59:42Griffin Newman?

  I like that.

• 59:43David Sims?

  Need to.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  Um, have, they haven't.

• 59:46David Sims?

  I don't know that they've worked together since because George Clooney's been too obsessed with climbing the mountain of mediocrity.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  She didn't jump in the boat, right?

• 59:54Speaker 02

  She's in Hell Caesar, but I don't think they interact.

• 59:56Griffin Newman?

  They don't.

• 59:57David Sims?

  They don't because she's, she's just interacts with till, uh, with Brolin.

• 1:00:01Griffin Newman?

  And interacts, interacts with Alden a bunch. She talks about him a lot. I mean, the whole plot of that movie is her threatening to expose him.

• 1:00:09David Sims?

  Right, but they don't, he doesn't, he's really with the communist mostly.

• 1:00:12Griffin Newman?

  But it continues the tradition of they're not saying nice words about each other the entire movie. They're both talking poorly.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  Jake Kelly, is she? No. I'm missing Jake Kelly to be here right now.

• 1:00:21Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:00:21David Sims?

  You're gonna see it.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, what am I gonna do? Nazi Jake Kelly?

• 1:00:24Griffin Newman?

  And it's the only time.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  A movie I'm gonna love?

• 1:00:26David Sims?

  I also heard the line was crazy.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  I heard that too.

• 1:00:29David Sims?

  Um, um, Tilda Swinton, uh, yeah, enjoys making this movie. The Coons told the actors to embrace their inner knuckleheads. Uh, basically, if this is not part of the idiot trilogy, fine, but it is basically about all idiots.

• 1:00:45Griffin Newman?

  There's that Clooney.

• 1:00:45David Sims?

  It's oops, all idiots.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. There's that Clooney story we always bring up where Spielberg was watching him work on the set of ER and comes out from behind the monitor and goes like, if you could ever figure out how to stop shaking your damn head, you'd be a movie star. I noticed that in this movie, he never stopped shaking his head. It's like the bad tic that he's been trained out of, he knows makes him look dumb. And he reinstutes it with like a vengeance in this.

• 1:01:11David Sims?

  Really doing it and he's really, it's well deployed. Pitt was, I mean, so like Clooney and Malkovich are like, yeah, yeah, we get it. I get it. Like, big dumb idiot. I get it. Pitt is a little, I guess, taken aback that they're like, we wrote this part for you. This, this guy's a numbskull. Like, you know, like, I mean, it must be, you know, but they go into, I guess, a wardrobe fitting with his hair like that. And they just, I don't know. You know, they just decide to, because the hair is very crucial.

• 1:01:38Griffin Newman?

  The story I'd always heard was that they found some earlier commercial he had done at the beginning of his acting.

• 1:01:43David Sims?

  He'd done this commercial with his hair like that. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago.

• 1:01:47Griffin Newman?

  Right. That it was sort of, it wasn't like a prank on him, but it was the equivalent of like his, like, The Rock with the turtleneck and the fanny pack photo. They found like the silliest look publicly available from his early twenties and said, like, can we dress you like this? Which I think is a big part of it is like Pitt is playing this guy like he's 25.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  Well, yes, but he's 40.

• 1:02:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Which is why that character is so awesome.

• 1:02:10Griffin Newman?

  It's the key to the character.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:02:13David Sims?

  Clooney grew the beard. He thought they would fit the part. So he just showed up.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18David Sims?

  Frances McDormand, this is from Ethan. This is a good quote from Ethan. It's fun to write for Fran, not you. Because you know, she's good. It's not fun to show the script to her once it's written because she yells at you.

• 1:02:31David Sims?

  As Joel puts it, you've been writing it for another month, a number of months and she'll go, this is it? But we usually work through that. Frances McDormand, quote, "In my first scene, the description said, close up on a woman's ass, pale, bare, middle aged. Why should one even read on? Why would one even consider the job?"

• 1:02:50Griffin Newman?

  Funny.

• 1:02:50David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. She cracks me up.

• 1:02:52David Sims?

  So yeah, she cracks me up too. They did almost entirely shoot the film in New York. Clooney was working on another NYC based project. Don't know what, Leatherheads maybe?

• 1:03:04Griffin Newman?

  Possibly.

• 1:03:05David Sims?

  I don't, I don't.

• 1:03:05Griffin Newman?

  2008?

• 1:03:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 1:03:10Griffin Newman?

  But that was in theory, the reason why they worked around that?

• 1:03:13David Sims?

  I, yes.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  Up in the air? No, that's not New York, is it?

• 1:03:17David Sims?

  That's all over.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're in the air.

• 1:03:19David Sims?

  He's up in the air often.

• 1:03:21Griffin Newman?

  In plane.

• 1:03:23David Sims?

  It's weird that the working title for that film was called Up in the Plane and nobody, nobody liked it. Malkovich said the first scene he did was the phone call with Brad and Francis that you quoted for your opening of the podcast. He was rehearsing a play in Paris, which is like the most John Malkovich thing to be.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  He's in France, why?

• 1:03:41David Sims?

  Imagine if you're like the CIA and we're like, we have to catch Malkovich. It's like, okay, first, let's go to every play rehearsal in Paris. Let's see if he's there.

• 1:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't he primarily live in France because of taxes? I believe he's one of those guys.

• 1:03:53David Sims?

  He's very much one of those guys.

• 1:03:54Griffin Newman?

  He owns a chateau.

• 1:03:56David Sims?

  That's the whole thing where he's like, I own a chateau in Paris for artistic reasons. Also, I pay no taxes.

• 1:04:01Griffin Newman?

  Also, I designed my blazers here. You know, he has like a clothing line.

• 1:04:05David Sims?

  But he's like Michael Jackson. You could say any pretentious thing about him and I would believe you.

• 1:04:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:04:10David Sims?

  Like that he has a, you know, a brand of cheese.

• 1:04:13Griffin Newman?

  He makes his own jellies.

• 1:04:14David Sims?

  Yes. So he said he did the phone call in his apartment in, in his Paris screaming at the top of his lungs.

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  That's funny. So obviously didn't shoot his side of it, but was truly on the other end of the phone. Okay.

• 1:04:27David Sims?

  Roger Deakins was busy shooting Revolutionary Road.

• 1:04:32Griffin Newman?

  David's favorite movie.

• 1:04:35David Sims?

  So this film was shot by Chivo.

• 1:04:37Griffin Newman?

  This breaks the streak of

• 1:04:38David Sims?

  Yes, very long streak.

• 1:04:40Griffin Newman?

  10 consecutive Deakins movies, maybe something close?

• 1:04:42David Sims?

  Because Sonnenfeld does the first three, so the subsequent eight had been Deakins. But yeah, Deakins is having his time wasted by Sam Mendes, another unfortunately likely place for him to be. I'll say it.

• 1:04:53Griffin Newman?

  Chivo fucking crushes this.

• 1:04:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Griffin Newman?

  I like that he's not reinventing the wheel, but he's also not just copying Deakins.

• 1:05:00David Sims?

  Yeah, for sure. What's Chivo done lately?

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  I was just looking at that. Amsterdam.

• 1:05:05Griffin Newman?

  Who was I talking about this with? I thought this was an on mic conversation.

• 1:05:11David Sims?

  He really stopped working.

• 1:05:12Griffin Newman?

  Chivo, yes.

• 1:05:13David Sims?

  I mean, he's shooting the new Inarita movie.

• 1:05:15Griffin Newman?

  Which is in the can.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  But he didn't do Bardo.

• 1:05:17Griffin Newman?

  He didn't.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  Kind of crazy.

• 1:05:18Griffin Newman?

  He did a fucking disclosure, but I think he only did half the season because it went on so long.

• 1:05:24David Sims?

  You mean disclaimer?

• 1:05:25Griffin Newman?

  That's what I mean.

• 1:05:26David Sims?

  Disclosure is

• 1:05:27Griffin Newman?

  The Coran series. But he

• 1:05:29David Sims?

  He did do that, you're right.

• 1:05:30Griffin Newman?

  He won three Oscars in a row.

• 1:05:31David Sims?

  He sure did.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  And since then, he has one released feature film.

• 1:05:40Griffin Newman?

  Am I correct about that? I think Amsterdam is the only one.

• 1:05:42David Sims?

  2022 Amsterdam.

• 1:05:44Griffin Newman?

  And then like half of a TV season and a handful of like short films and music videos.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  It is always funny when it's like, oh, we couldn't get Lubezki, so we got Darius Kanji. Like where these guys have to slum it with one of the eight other great cinematographers working.

• 1:05:56Griffin Newman?

  Sure, kinda like a Mark Strong situation.

• 1:05:58David Sims?

  Right. Um, they, uh, yeah, uh, Lubezki though had a great time making this movie. Said, uh, they have a very close relationship. Ethan was saying in many ways, they're complete opposites. They both do amazing things, approaching things in such different directions. Great. Thank you, Chivo. One thing that they built for this movie, um, was the sex machine.

• 1:06:18Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest props.

• 1:06:19David Sims?

  The George Clooney sex machine. Uh, they had, uh, seen it, something like this at the Museum of Sex in New York City. My, uh, old office, the Atlantic used to be right by the Museum of Sex in New York City, uh, which is on 23rd and Madison. And, uh, they said to George Clooney, apparently like, if you want to go see it, like 23rd and Madison. And George Clooney was like, the last thing I need is to be coming out of the Museum of Sex with you guys.

• 1:06:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm George Clooney.

• 1:06:44David Sims?

  Um, and then a big part of this movie I do feel is Carver Will Scour. All percussion, right? Like big drums, big like, just like the most sobriety and like bombast possible for like the stupidest fucking shit.

• 1:06:57Griffin Newman?

  And yet I would say there's an emotional theme in this movie that is like one of his sadder themes. In a, in a canon of very sad Coen Brothers like motifs.

• 1:07:10David Sims?

  Classical Fran, do you have any thoughts on, um, Carter Burwell's scores in general, uh, or this one? My man does break out like those oboes and clarinets.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think this film has a great score. I like Carter a lot of not like a ton of his more recent stuff. Which is starting to get, I mean, some of these guys who have been around forever, it does start to feel like playing the hits. Um, but I love his score for Catherine Called Birdie. I mean, the.

• 1:07:38David Sims?

  Oh yeah, that is a nice.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  The True Grit, he did True Grit. Yes. That's, I mean, that like I bought on CD. And I listen to all the time. It's incredible.

• 1:07:48Griffin Newman?

  I do feel like the Coens are really good at a kind of. Pushing him each time so that he didn't get stuck in a rut that I, I agree with you. Most legendary composers start to like play the hits a little more.

• 1:08:02David Sims?

  They have their thing, yeah.

• 1:08:02Griffin Newman?

  And since they have slowed down, he's maybe become a little bit repetitive. I think there was enough of a swing and difference from their movies. And it also felt like they would ask him for different things. He can't reuse Fargo tricks on this, you know?

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:08:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  I think, I don't think about the score a lot, I have to admit.

• 1:08:22Griffin Newman?

  I, I really like it.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  But it works, yeah.

• 1:08:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I, there's like, what I like would colloquially call the loneliness theme in this movie. That feels like a very kind of like slowed down piano based melodic version of the intensity of the drums. And this kind of like spiral into sadness that's especially played in all the like dating scenes and the sleeping around scenes that I find very effective. Um, and then the rest of it, yeah, it's like a parody of the kind of score that Crimson Tide would have.

• 1:08:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:56Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:08:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Griffin 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?

• 1:09:14David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:09:15Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:09:38David 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.

• 1:09:50Griffin 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.

• 1:09:59David Sims?

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

• 1:10:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:02David 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.

• 1:10:09Griffin 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.

• 1:10:23David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:10:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:28David Sims?

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

• 1:10:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:59Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:11:00David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:11:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:11:21David Sims?

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

• 1:11:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:11:57David Sims?

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

• 1:12:31Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:12:32David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:12:32Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:12:36David Sims?

  When I was younger,

• 1:12:37Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:38David Sims?

  I really would have benefited from a bank that did not charge me fees anytime I did anything, basically, which is, I feel like, what I was always dealing with.

• 1:12:46Griffin Newman?

  Chime. That's where Chime comes in. Chime.

• 1:12:50David Sims?

  They're changing the way people bank. They're not like traditional banks who charge fees and get keep perks and rewards. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees and no minimum balance fees. Okay?

• 1:13:03Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee-free. We love it.

• 1:13:05David Sims?

  You're gonna get 5% cash back on a Chime card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries.

• 1:13:10Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:13:11David Sims?

  Uh, all while building credit through regular everyday spending with no credit check. And you can grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. And if you're ever in a pinch, SpotMe lets you overdraft up to $200 fee-free.

• 1:13:25Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free?

• 1:13:26David Sims?

  So, join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/blank-check. That is chime.com/blank-check. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes.

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 1:14:00David Sims?

  How do we go through the plot of this film?

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  Here is what happens in this movie in basic, right?

• 1:14:06David Sims?

  Try.

• 1:14:07Griffin Newman?

  Osborne Cox is fired primarily because he's a drunk, but also, you gather, because no one likes working with him.

• 1:14:13David Sims?

  He's annoying and he's a drunk and he yells at everybody. And he's got this kind of whole John Malkovich thing.

• 1:14:17Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's married to a very high-status woman who, one of the funnier reveals in this movie is that she's actually a pediatrician. Very late in the film, you realize- It's one of the best jokes. I haven't known what she does. I assume she's also in this world. And instead, she's yelling at a kid to open his mouth. Uh, that the two high-status ice queen wives both work in children's fields. He decides he's gonna, uh, kind of rattle the world by, uh, writing his memoir.

• 1:14:46Griffin Newman?

  His big expose of his time as a spook. Unfortunately, in finding out that he has lost his job, his wife, Tilda, decides it's time to finally file for divorce. She tries to take financial documents off his computer. When she does so, she also gets his memoir, which is placed on a CD-ROM that is in the gym bag of the aide, the divorce lawyer, who then leaves it at the gym, where it's discovered by

• 1:15:12David Sims?

  Frances McDormand's character, whose name is, well, that's

• 1:15:15Griffin Newman?

  Manolo.

• 1:15:16David Sims?

  That's fine.

• 1:15:16Griffin Newman?

  He found it on the floor. Hands it over to the other three.

• 1:15:18David Sims?

  Linda Litsky is Frances and Brad Pitt's character is called Chad.

• 1:15:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:15:23David Sims?

  Jenkins is, of course, Ted.

• 1:15:24Griffin Newman?

  She desperately wants multiple procedures. They're actually separate procedures.

• 1:15:28David Sims?

  They're separate procedures.

• 1:15:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That her

• 1:15:31David Sims?

  It's kind of like face, boob, butt, maybe sort of eyes, right? Yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Rhinoplasty, they say.

• 1:15:38David Sims?

  Who's that guy playing the plastic surgeon?

• 1:15:39Griffin Newman?

  Jeffrey Demont.

• 1:15:40David Sims?

  He's the best.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  He's so funny.

• 1:15:41David Sims?

  I love him.

• 1:15:42Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest.

• 1:15:42David Sims?

  Right. It's Jeffrey Demont, of course.

• 1:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And it's a great Coens move where most of that sequence, you're getting extreme closeups on her eyes or on the parts of her body. But a lot of it is uninterrupted oner of Jeffrey Demont. And you just get to watch. It's a thing the Coens do that I love.

• 1:15:56David Sims?

  You're watching him manipulate her beautifully.

• 1:15:58Griffin Newman?

  Beautifully.

• 1:15:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:15:59Griffin Newman?

  But also, like, the, what you get when you stay on one actor and let the other side of the conversation be off-camera dialogue, is you get to watch all the little touches that like an expert character actor puts into a scene like that without cutting away for the tiny little moments. It's so good. But yes, she has four procedures she wants to get that will not be approved by her Mickey Mouse HMO.

• 1:16:23David Sims?

  Right. It is funny that she, I guess you're supposed to be like, she just went and scheduled all this shit and was like, I assume my gym's health insurance covers like $400,000 worth of plastic.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  I think her logic is totally sound. She has a public-facing job where she has to look fit.

• 1:16:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Why would the company not take control of that?

• 1:16:45Griffin Newman?

  They sense an opportunity that they can use what they think is high-level government secrets to blackmail and get the money for the procedures.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  Good Samaritan tax.

• 1:16:55David Sims?

  Do you want to see the

• 1:16:55Griffin Newman?

  They begin trying to blackmail Osborne Cox.

• 1:16:57David Sims?

  The first image from Gor's, uh, Verbinski's movie that's coming out next year. This looks

• 1:17:03Griffin Newman?

  I may be going to see this movie this weekend.

• 1:17:05David Sims?

  Oh, really?

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:17:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm very excited.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I'm very excited. Gore's back, baby.

• 1:17:10David Sims?

  I hope so.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  Good.

• 1:17:11Griffin Newman?

  Gore's back. Um, yes. The other wrinkles in this are, uh, Tullis Swinton is already having an affair with George Clooney. Uh, who, what? He was previously, what was his shift in position?

• 1:17:25David Sims?

  Wait, wait.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  He was in private?

• 1:17:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:17:27David Sims?

  Who, who are we talking about?

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  Private protection. He's always like in PP, private protection.

• 1:17:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  And now he's working for a guy in the treasury.

• 1:17:33David Sims?

  Right. He was a US marshal, then he was, yeah.

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  And he carries a gun.

• 1:17:37David Sims?

  Yeah. He carries a gun, but he's never discharged.

• 1:17:38Griffin Newman?

  Tullis Swinton's been having an affair with him.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  He's been dating everyone.

• 1:17:42Griffin Newman?

  He's been dating everyone.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  And he's married.

• 1:17:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I get the sense that she's been kind of his focused side piece. And the second she's getting divorced.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Griffin Newman?

  And is starting to push the idea of like, then you should also get divorced. Now he needs to start like expanding his range. I don't think he's ever been hyper focused, but it does feel like he goes back out there in a big way. Once she's maybe going to be looking for something more serious. So he starts, uh, sleeping with Frances McDormand. Uh, are there any primary characters we haven't looped in here? No, that's all the main people.

• 1:18:13David Sims?

  Yeah, it's not that many people.

• 1:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  Hijinks and sue.

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  Hijinks and sue.

• 1:18:21David Sims?

  But yeah, I guess you need to know that like Frances McDormand goes on internet dates because she's looking for a partner. Whereas Harry Farah is just like a serial philanderer who just, he's always having sex with people.

• 1:18:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes. These kind of like intellectual superiors who are weirdly drawn to him, almost in kind of like.

• 1:18:40David Sims?

  He's like a puppy.

• 1:18:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And it feels like there's almost a little bit of a sexual charge in how much they can high status him and he won't push back.

• 1:18:47David Sims?

  Right. He's, he's, I guess a little subby, but he is also working on a sex chair.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, and he has such a good runner about the floors. I forgot about that. He's, he's always asking what a floor is made of or guessing.

• 1:18:58Griffin Newman?

  You know, it's so good. Kind of like detail obsessed guy who always wants to ask these tiny follow up questions.

• 1:19:04David Sims?

  In Oh Brother Clooney's thing is the hair and in Tower of Cruelty it's teeth. And in this, I mean, it's sort of the allergy thing where the, his throat, I guess.

• 1:19:13Griffin Newman?

  Acid reflux.

• 1:19:14David Sims?

  But the floor thing is right there with it. It's sort of like the weird hyper fixation.

• 1:19:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:19:19David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:19:20Griffin Newman?

  That this, right. He seems to be, you have to imagine he's a pretty proficient love maker.

• 1:19:25David Sims?

  Yeah, I think he's probably really good. He just, this is what I'm saying. He seems like a fun hang.

• 1:19:29Griffin Newman?

  But, but like.

• 1:19:30David Sims?

  Go see the shitty movie with him.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  The movie make me, the movie make me think.

• 1:19:34David Sims?

  Make me think.

• 1:19:34Griffin Newman?

  The movie make me think.

• 1:19:36David Sims?

  Movie make me think sometimes.

• 1:19:38Griffin Newman?

  And in the end, movie make me think. Um, the movie makes me think that he is probably a bit of a jackrabbit in the sack. And yet, the second he's done, he jumps out of bed, gets dressed and goes, I should run this off.

• 1:19:51David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  That there's something kind of like Energizer Bunny about him. The scene where he calls Elizabeth Marvel in the car after spoiler, he has shot Brad Pitt to death. Uh, and he's just like spiraling out of control. And you're like, oh, this guy is just like so much like uninhibited forward motion. And anything causing him to stop and be introspective is like an absolute crisis for him. And, and that's like, oh, this is the cornerstone of his relationship with his wife. At some point, she clearly was into the idea of petting his head and making him feel better.

• 1:20:26Speaker 02

  And now she does that for children.

• 1:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  Who are interested in government.

• 1:20:30Griffin Newman?

  And also big burly men grab her shoulders as she has affairs with them. Right. He's, she's also preparing to file for divorce from him. So there are divorce lawyer toadies following him around in black cars, which makes him think that he's part of some larger conspiracy. What were you gonna say, David?

• 1:20:47David Sims?

  Brad Pitt's character in this film is like the positive sunny version of John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. He is like a low status, but high opinion of his own intellect fool. Who keeps having the like a bad idea about like how to write, drive the plot.

• 1:21:06Griffin Newman?

  And I know how to do this.

• 1:21:07David Sims?

  Obviously Goodman is like, this is a fake, you know, hostage situation. And we're just gonna give him a dummy. And right. And Brad Pitt is like, oh, he found like weird like security secrets. We should just blackmail them. They'll probably just pay us like a reward.

• 1:21:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, and especially that, like they arrange the meeting and Malkovich is like, let me explain to you, fuck off. Right. And then even when that makes Pitt angrier and makes McDormand even angrier and they push back. Malkovich is just annoyed. It feels like at no point is he ever considering giving them money.

• 1:21:36David Sims?

  No, not at all.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  And part of it's like philosophical, right? Part of it is like logistical. And there's also the just like, this isn't how this works. You don't get to do this. And he knows that he is so much this guy's intellectual superior that he thinks he can logic him out of even attempting to do this stupid thing that he's in over his head on.

• 1:21:58David Sims?

  What was Pitt doing right around now?

• 1:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Well, Benjamin Button's the same here.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. He is the line read of the movie to me.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  Which is?

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  When she's scrolling on the dating website and is like, oh, he works for like the state department or whatever. And he goes, oh, that's cool. It's so good. I like, I like have to wind it back every time I see this movie.

• 1:22:18David Sims?

  The key image of this film is his smiling, as the British would say, gormless face in the one second before his brains are blown out.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  This is like the first time I didn't cover my eyes for that.

• 1:22:30David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  Cause I had not seen this.

• 1:22:32David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  In a while.

• 1:22:33David Sims?

  And you knew something bad was gonna happen when you're watching it.

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm so squeamish, but now I'm sort of like, whatever.

• 1:22:38David Sims?

  It's so funny.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  I'd only ever seen the still of him smiling, but never in actual just the movie. It's so funny.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  The way you're watching his brain work and Pitt does play it very, very well of like, where he's like, okay, I gotta hide. And then he's like, maybe if I just come out smiling.

• 1:22:54David Sims?

  Tell he thinks that's gonna work.

• 1:22:55Griffin Newman?

  You have this like extended, expertly crafted, no country-esque, like post quickening.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  Oh, I'm trying to steal something.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you're stuck in the closet with him, seeing the POV and you're like, fuck, how is he gonna get out of this? And yes, as you said, the split second decision of, if I smile really big, will it disarm this entire situation? There are like 15 things in this movie you wanna refer to as obviously the funniest thing in this movie, but that might truly be the funniest thing in the movie.

• 1:23:25David Sims?

  I suppose you're right that there's, I mean, I already said that the funniest thing was Jenkins being an Orthodox priest.

• 1:23:30Griffin Newman?

  And the reveal of the sex chair.

• 1:23:33Griffin Newman?

  They're just like.

• 1:23:33David Sims?

  The sex chair is like a classic Coen's thing though, right? Where like they built up to something and then you, it's like the most ludicrous, stupid thing you ever saw.

• 1:23:40Griffin Newman?

  And then her being thrilled.

• 1:23:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:41Griffin Newman?

  By the ingenuity of it.

• 1:23:43David Sims?

  But it's like, it's a serious man with like Jefferson airplane or whatever. You know, it's like.

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  I almost think him destroying it is way funnier than the reveal, but I guess you, obviously you need that.

• 1:23:51Griffin Newman?

  When he takes the bat to the dildo specifically, he's hitting every other part of the chair. And then you see him, this is the thing, there are all these moments, like what you're saying with Brad Pitt, where you're like, they somehow build such a specific enough character that you can see the gears in their brain turning in a millisecond of what they think they're accomplishing. And he goes like, well, it's not really broken unless I hit the dildo. And then he's just hitting a hard aluminum bat to a rubber dick, which does nothing.

• 1:24:20David Sims?

  Now, given how prominent dildos are in driveway dolls, is this an Ethan Cohen fixation that we're getting the first sort of glimpse of?

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps.

• 1:24:30David Sims?

  Yes, it's just funny.

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps. No, it's just the wonkiness of the chair, how basic it is, the squeakiness, the sound effect on it.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  Well, and it's like the floors thing of like, he saw this and was like, I can figure this out. This is for me to determine and do it cheaply.

• 1:24:50Griffin Newman?

  He was so offended when he saw the price they were asking for. I can build this for a hundred all in and then he qualifies, except for the dildo that was great.

• 1:24:56David Sims?

  He can't build rubber yet. Like, he hasn't figured that out.

• 1:24:59Speaker 02

  But it's not like money is tight for him.

• 1:25:02Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:25:02David Sims?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  But it's the principle.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  Which defines most of the characters in this film.

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:25:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Their idea of their principles that they have to maintain a line on.

• 1:25:13David Sims?

  So as everything's going wrong, we have this brilliant idea to check in with people who are like in charge of monitoring crises of intelligence in America.

• 1:25:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes. David Raski, Rashi, I always say his name wrong.

• 1:25:26David Sims?

  I honestly don't know how you say his name. I used to, for a long time, I was like, David Rash, of course. But no, it's Rashi, I believe, is how you say it. And he's an esteemed theater actor. He's been in a billion movies.

• 1:25:41Griffin Newman?

  Sledgehammer, which was a espionage parody show in the 80s.

• 1:25:47David Sims?

  I do feel like he was already so famous and he's so funny and like in the loop and stuff. I know.

• 1:25:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I know him from.

• 1:25:53David Sims?

  But then like Succession did turn all those sort of middle-aged character actors into celebrities of a new sort, including him. But he's very funny and he really plays all this shit perfectly because Simmons, J.K. Simmons is obviously like, what, what, what? And like every time J.K. Simmons is like, fucking send him to Venezuela. He's like, of course, yes. You know, like, like the way his personality is basically like, I assumed you would say that and I will be taking care of that.

• 1:26:17Griffin Newman?

  He's so funny. It's such a good double act between the two of them. I also think it's such funny meta casting of like, the Coens obviously love J.K. Simmons, have worked with him up until this point. In 2008, if you're putting J.K. Simmons behind a desk as the boss, everyone's thinking J. Jonah Jameson, right? Even if he looks totally different. So the movie makes you think like, oh, he's gonna come in, deliver the bad news, and J.K. Simmons is gonna like blow his top. He's gonna lose it. And to just have the no sell of him being like, ugh.

• 1:26:46David Sims?

  The Russians?

• 1:26:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47David Sims?

  Like the three time he checks like the-

• 1:26:49Griffin Newman?

  Just never mind, never mind.

• 1:26:51David Sims?

  You know? Is this his third Cohen's or second?

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  Ladykillers?

• 1:26:55David Sims?

  Ladykillers, this, I feel like there's a third I'm forgetting.

• 1:26:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he's in True Grip and a voice cameo, but that's-

• 1:27:00David Sims?

  Maybe that's all I'm thinking of.

• 1:27:01Griffin Newman?

  Isn't there another one?

• 1:27:02David Sims?

  Isn't there another one?

• 1:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Getting the movies we've covered on this podcast point check.

• 1:27:08David Sims?

  J K Simmons in-

• 1:27:10Griffin Newman?

  Just kidding Simmons.

• 1:27:12David Sims?

  Just kidding Simmons. What does J K stand for? Jonathan Kimball.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well.

• 1:27:16David Sims?

  I did not murder her.

• 1:27:20David Sims?

  You like that?

• 1:27:21Griffin Newman?

  That got me.

• 1:27:22David Sims?

  Um, let's see. I just, I just feel like there's one other and I'm gonna find it, but you guys keep talking about whatever.

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  He's the Eminem.

• 1:27:31Griffin Newman?

  He's the Eminem.

• 1:27:31David Sims?

  He is yellow Eminem, of course.

• 1:27:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. Cause it was originally John Goodman and John Lovitz. For the first year of the commercial campaign.

• 1:27:40David Sims?

  Oh, I thought you were about to say in Burn After Reading, like there was Goodman and Lovitz in the CIA scenes.

• 1:27:45Griffin Newman?

  That also would work.

• 1:27:46David Sims?

  Be kind of funny.

• 1:27:47Speaker 02

  That's something I'd like to see.

• 1:27:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:48Griffin Newman?

  Lovitz was originally red Eminem. Goodman was originally yellow Eminem.

• 1:27:51David Sims?

  I don't think I, I, I don't think I ever thought about it.

• 1:27:53Griffin Newman?

  And then I think after a year, they were just like, these guys want movie star salaries.

• 1:27:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Griffin Newman?

  To continue playing these roles in an era where that was not the expenditure, uh, they were willing to put in. And so it's Billy West and J K Simmons are the like downgrade sound alikes. And now it has been so funny to watch J K Simmons hold on to the role with an iron grip for 30 years, well past being an Oscar winner.

• 1:28:19David Sims?

  Um, I don't find a third one. So I guess it is just those three, uh, you know, True Grip, obviously being a tiny voice cameo.

• 1:28:27David Sims?

  What else do you guys want to talk about? Burn After Reading? Come on. Come on. This is your favorite movie of all time.

• 1:28:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a horny ass movie.

• 1:28:33David Sims?

  True.

• 1:28:33Griffin Newman?

  I think you're right at picking at, this is maybe a little bit of the Ethan side of things coming through.

• 1:28:39David Sims?

  I'm not mad about it. It's just funny.

• 1:28:40Griffin Newman?

  It is, it is one of the things that is startling about the two Ethan Trisha Cook movies.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  I mean, I haven't seen them.

• 1:28:47David Sims?

  You haven't seen either?

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  Nah.

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  I'd be very curious to hear your opinions.

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  They don't interest me at all. Um, I'm sure I'll get to them.

• 1:28:55David Sims?

  They have a lot of dildos. I mean, Drive Away Dolls.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:28:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  That's not really-

• 1:28:59David Sims?

  I know. I'm not saying that that should interest you. It's just Drive Away Dolls has like multiple sort of visual jokes built around it. The entire plot is built around it.

• 1:29:05Griffin Newman?

  They are so outwardly horny while also treating its sex in a goofier way than almost any movie I've ever seen.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  That's like, I don't like.

• 1:29:14Griffin Newman?

  It's odd. And like Burn After Reading.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  Not to be sex negative, but.

• 1:29:18Griffin Newman?

  But Burn After Reading has like a version of that more so than the way sex is depicted in any of their other films.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  Sure, but they're not sexy filmmakers.

• 1:29:26Griffin Newman?

  They're not.

• 1:29:27David Sims?

  They, they mostly are going to be having a little bit of fun and sort of like giggling.

• 1:29:32Griffin Newman?

  And even in a movie where people, attractive people are having sex with each other, the only act of sex I think you actually see in the film is Frances McDormand's Terrible Date.

• 1:29:43David Sims?

  Yeah, that's really.

• 1:29:44Griffin Newman?

  Which is one of the more depressing sex scenes.

• 1:29:46David Sims?

  Yeah, that's really top. Whoever that guy is, he rocks. He's like trying not to touch her. It feels like he's sort of like, you know, like sort of doing press ups where he's got like his hands on the bed so he won't touch her.

• 1:29:57Griffin Newman?

  And he's got this like consternated facial expression.

• 1:30:00David Sims?

  It's great stuff.

• 1:30:01Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 1:30:01David Sims?

  What's the fake movie called?

• 1:30:03Griffin Newman?

  Get Down from the Tree.

• 1:30:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:05Speaker 02

  Coming Up Daisies? No, Something Daisy.

• 1:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I gotta look it up.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  I love Dermot.

• 1:30:10Griffin Newman?

  He's so good. Claire Danes is, is on the poster with him after they ended up together in, uh, Family Stone.

• 1:30:16Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:30:16Griffin Newman?

  But you don't actually see Claire Danes in the movie.

• 1:30:18David Sims?

  Up Daisy.

• 1:30:19Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  Coming Up Daisy.

• 1:30:21Griffin Newman?

  Um, but I just love.

• 1:30:22David Sims?

  Claire Danes is the female.

• 1:30:23Griffin Newman?

  That quick series of, we've seen Brad Pitt weigh in on the dates. She like kind of, like through gritted teeth is like, I guess he's fine, but she has such disdain for all these guys she's getting, right? And this dating service and all of this, then meets up with him, is immediately disappointed seeing him in person, even beyond her settled expectations. I think his only line of dialogue is when he self identifies in the park. And then you cut to like dinner, silent, movie, he's not laughing.

• 1:30:55David Sims?

  She's laughing, he's not.

• 1:30:56Griffin Newman?

  Sex, he's like in his own universe, not connected to her, not speaking.

• 1:31:02Griffin Newman?

  Which I, I think is like, one of the areas in which I contend this movie kind of has affection for her. Is like, you don't put that scene in unless you want the contrast of her and Clooney actually have a connection. That like one of the central tragedies of this movie, obviously you wish you would just listen to fucking Richard Jenkins, who's right there, right?

• 1:31:23David Sims?

  Well, right. I mean, the triumph of this movie is she gets what she wants. She does, I guess. Everyone is dead.

• 1:31:30Griffin Newman?

  She wins, though.

• 1:31:31David Sims?

  But Richard Jenkins.

• 1:31:32Speaker 02

  Clooney's in Venezuela.

• 1:31:33David Sims?

  Clooney's not dead. He's in Venezuela. Richard Jenkins has been hatcheted.

• 1:31:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37David Sims?

  And Brad Pitt has been shot in the head. So she doesn't really have any friends.

• 1:31:41Griffin Newman?

  Right. Osborne Cox is in a coma.

• 1:31:43David Sims?

  Osborne Cox is in a coma. Not that they ever had much of a connection. Uh, I guess Silda Swinton's doing okay.

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  They could link.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  Silda Swinton would hate her.

• 1:31:53David Sims?

  Oh, yeah? You think she'd find her a little ghost?

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  I think she'd be negative. Um, I also love, there's that brief scene where she's talking to the woman at the gym that she's giving the tour to.

• 1:32:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  Who's like, oh yeah, my friends got hooked up with guys on that. And it's sort of like, okay, so it's obviously working for some people.

• 1:32:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right, right. But I also, I think it's like, it's not that she's being too picky. It's that she's like trying to exert too much control on the abstract idea of what she wants her love life to be.

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  Sort of a classic dating app thing.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:32:27David Sims?

  What's the app called? I mean, it's a website.

• 1:32:30Speaker 02

  Something DC.

• 1:32:31David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  Um. Meet Me DC or something.

• 1:32:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, you say the, the thing of like Pitt thinking, being a kind of more benevolent Walter, or at least a friendlier Walter. His move in the scene in the car, and I guess he does it over the phone as well, but certainly in the car scene, where he clearly thinks that Cox is going to be rattled by him knowing his name. And so he just keeps repeating it with increased intensity, as if just saying it is going to make him go like, oh shit. And anytime Malkovich kind of like traps him in a logic corner, he just resets to, well, Osborne Cox.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Appearances can be deceptive.

• 1:33:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:33:17David Sims?

  The way he.

• 1:33:18Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so, Osborne Cox. He just keeps starting and ending sentences with it. The thing is Osborne Cox.

• 1:33:25David Sims?

  The way he's so startled by getting hit.

• 1:33:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:28David Sims?

  And then he goes into the car, you know, Frances McGurk picks him up and she's like, where's the money? And he's like, uh, and she's like, what, what happened? He's like, he hit me. It's really good.

• 1:33:37Griffin Newman?

  You think that's a Schwinn is the only thing that makes him break his act. And then his like absolute panic, not of being punched, but at like, that thing is only back there with a kryptonite lock. You can break through that thing with a big pen.

• 1:33:50David Sims?

  It's a very, it's, yeah, it is funny to look at Pitt at that moment where it's like the year before is Ocean's 13, Jesse James. This year is Benjamin Button. The year after is Inglourious Basterds. There's funny stuff in all those performances, except for Jesse James. It's not a very funny movie. That's pretty serious.

• 1:34:09Griffin Newman?

  He's got funny stuff in it.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he's light.

• 1:34:11David Sims?

  Right. But like, those are very serious movies, by and large, not so much Ocean's 13, I guess, where he's like playing pretty tough guys, right? Like, by and large. And then like, in the middle of that, he just, he has this. And then he had Tree of, he had like a break, and then Tree of Life, Moneyball. And it was like, fuck Pitt. And then it's kind of like, forget it for a while. I mean, obviously, his personal life disintegrates.

• 1:34:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:34:36David Sims?

  Remember that one? I mean, yeah, War Machine is way later. I mean, it's sort of like, it's Allied and stuff that you can kind of debate, and Griffin loves to debate Allied, of course.

• 1:34:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49David Sims?

  Fury, like that, you know, where it's sort of like, he plays super stoic, like World War Z, Fury, Allied, you know what I mean? Where it's like, I don't like those performances that much. I don't like, they, none, none of those performances register that hard for me.

• 1:35:01Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen World War Z, but that feels like an ultimate example of him

• 1:35:05David Sims?

  I mean, it's just.

• 1:35:05Griffin Newman?

  being like, do I

• 1:35:06David Sims?

  We gotta get the zombies.

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Do I need a Jason Bourne, right?

• 1:35:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:35:10Griffin Newman?

  That he had been pushing himself so hard for a decade plus to do unconventional stuff, work with interesting people, get more like sophisticated movies made at a higher budget level, that he clearly was like, do I need a tent pole to like, reset my foreign value? And clearly tried to make that movie something more interesting, and then everything fell apart.

• 1:35:30David Sims?

  Which sort of was a hit and worked anyway.

• 1:35:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then I think at the moment that his fucking life spirals out of control, and he clearly like, hits a fucking wall. He seemed to respond with panic of like, do I need to make more conventional movie star moves now? Like, now there's been this run of like, F1 and money, the fucking bullet train, I almost said money train, and what have you, that

• 1:35:55Speaker 02

  It was a money train.

• 1:35:56Griffin Newman?

  Right. That despite the fact that the guy's now in his like, late 50s?

• 1:35:59David Sims?

  You're right. And wolves, don't forget wolves.

• 1:36:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. Those are all like panic moves of.

• 1:36:04David Sims?

  A little bit. I mean, he's, yeah, sixty one. He's sixty one.

• 1:36:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:08David Sims?

  I mean, the thing that he's good in is Babylon. I think it's a really good performance, but you know, that movie.

• 1:36:14Griffin Newman?

  But like outlier in the run, we're talking about him showing up, supporting role, doing something that's kind of self reflexive versus these other ones where he's like playing into the Brad Pitt coolness, which I think he wants to just like sell the narrative as much as possible of like, remember what we all like about Brad Pitt, you know?

• 1:36:32David Sims?

  I there's, yes, it's calculated.

• 1:36:34Griffin Newman?

  My big complaint about F1, where I, I feel like I've heard a lot of people be like, why isn't he awesome in this? This feels so similar and set up to Moneyball and yet like it's not activated in the same way. Is that like in all of his best performance, there is like the coiled anger that he is clearly trying to suppress in F1, that he doesn't want the sense of darkness in F1. So F1, he's basically playing the Moneyball character, except without any demons. And even when he talks about.

• 1:37:02David Sims?

  He's got demons in F1.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  I have a different read, I think.

• 1:37:05Griffin Newman?

  The big emotional scene where he reveals his demons is like, yeah, well, you know, I blew it.

• 1:37:10David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, F1 is a little trifling. I like that movie is just fun to watch, but yeah.

• 1:37:15Griffin Newman?

  But he's removing the core of his character, which is any sense of like tortured, you know, the stuff that he does want people thinking about.

• 1:37:21Speaker 02

  He's like sleepy in that movie. He's a little cowboy. He's old cowboy coming back, but there's no, yeah, there's no rage.

• 1:37:29David Sims?

  The thing about F1 that is both were, you know, frustrating, but also you can't deny it. Where it's like, he's just like, yeah, I can still do this by the way. And the audience reaction was like, yeah, we enjoyed that. And the world's reaction was like, here's money. It was one of those things where it's like, yeah, now he can make movies on that scale for another five years.

• 1:37:44Griffin Newman?

  Kind of autopilot.

• 1:37:45David Sims?

  Cause he proved it does sort of financially work out. Fran, what's your take?

• 1:37:49Speaker 02

  That was my take. It's like, it's like Western. Um, old cowboy comes into new town and shows them how to do everything old fashioned. You know, get off your phone millennials type movie.

• 1:37:59Griffin Newman?

  I think it's sleepy because he's like removed what is actually his battery as a performer, like his kind of like special move. And I, I think you compare it to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is similarly like this guy is like the ultimate fun chiller cowboy, but is like stuff's happening.

• 1:38:15David Sims?

  Well, but also in Once Upon a Time, he's playing a really scary person.

• 1:38:18Griffin Newman?

  That's the whole thing. He wants eighteen thousand miles away from F1.

• 1:38:23David Sims?

  And Brad Pitt seems kinda scary, like, you know, and you know.

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  You know who's so good in F1?

• 1:38:29David Sims?

  Uh, Javier Bardem. Yeah.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. When he goes, not yet, not yet.

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  That is one of those just.

• 1:38:36Speaker 02

  We're all talking about Ruben from.

• 1:38:38Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's talking about Ruben.

• 1:38:39Speaker 02

  I've been talking about him all year.

• 1:38:40Griffin Newman?

  It's Ruben's world, we're just living in it.

• 1:38:43David Sims?

  That is just, he just can do whatever and I will lap it up like a dog lapping up.

• 1:38:51Griffin Newman?

  Has he become a wins he bad?

• 1:38:54David Sims?

  Has he ever not been?

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  Like I didn't.

• 1:38:57David Sims?

  I mean, I guess I know what you mean in terms of like, you're like, he's like, I'll be in Lala Crocodile and kind of start some Oscar.

• 1:39:04Griffin Newman?

  Well, Lala Crocodile is like maybe one of his five best performances.

• 1:39:08David Sims?

  I'm saying where he's like, I'm gonna do Lala Crocodile and you're like, why? And he's like, oh, I don't know. Maybe check it out. Actually, right? You know what I mean?

• 1:39:14Speaker 02

  But he's in your balloons.

• 1:39:16David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, the only thing against it, I mean, obviously June, in June, one, you know, he pops up at the, you know, he's sort of peppered in and you're like, oh, sure, Bardem, he makes sense in this. And then in June two, he's like, I'm funny in this. And you're like, you are funny in this in a very serious movie.

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Do you like him in Skyfall? I feel like that's the, I love him too.

• 1:39:36David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:39:37Speaker 02

  Some people hate that performance.

• 1:39:38David Sims?

  Who? Where?

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  People.

• 1:39:40David Sims?

  Where are they?

• 1:39:41Speaker 02

  I don't know. I love it.

• 1:39:42David Sims?

  That performance is like magnificent.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it's.

• 1:39:44David Sims?

  Yeah. And that performance is like, I think so tapped into that movie is so like, it's the anniversary of James Bond. We're doing like a.

• 1:39:52Griffin Newman?

  We have to reclaim some of the things.

• 1:39:54David Sims?

  You know, right.

• 1:39:55Griffin Newman?

  Deemed previously too silly for the Craig era.

• 1:39:58David Sims?

  Right. A little bit. I mean, the whole push and pull of the Craig movies is they're like, can we do a little bit more silly and Craig's just like, just a little bit.

• 1:40:05Griffin Newman?

  But Bardem is striking the absolute perfect balance.

• 1:40:08David Sims?

  That's why it's good. And he's like, I'm going to play all the James Bond villains and I'm going to get at the core of all of them, which is they all kind of wanted to fuck him. And like, that's what so the push and pull of that and Skyfall is just so.

• 1:40:18Griffin Newman?

  I, I think he's fantastic in that. The two I haven't seen are, uh, Live Action Little Mermaid and Salazar's Revenge.

• 1:40:26David Sims?

  There is, there is no defense of live action.

• 1:40:28Griffin Newman?

  That's what I was gonna say.

• 1:40:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Griffin Newman?

  Those are the only two.

• 1:40:30Speaker 02

  Captain Salazar.

• 1:40:31Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, are those actually just?

• 1:40:33Speaker 02

  Really like.

• 1:40:33David Sims?

  Salazar's Revenge, he's trying.

• 1:40:35Griffin Newman?

  He's trying.

• 1:40:36David Sims?

  There's just nothing there.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  Little Mermaid's autopilot, though.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  I forgot he's in Little Mermaid.

• 1:40:40David Sims?

  I can't tell you a single thing about that movie. I saw it.

• 1:40:43Griffin Newman?

  Big dad nipples?

• 1:40:44David Sims?

  Yeah, well, that's just, that's apparently a thing I said.

• 1:40:46Griffin Newman?

  When we did our episode on the animated Little Mermaid, David said something to the effect of, you know how King Triton has big dad nipples?

• 1:40:55Speaker 02

  Sure, I guess I know exactly what you're talking about.

• 1:40:57David Sims?

  Cartoon, I said.

• 1:40:58Griffin Newman?

  In the cartoon.

• 1:40:59Speaker 02

  And you're like, does Javier Bardem have them in the movie?

• 1:41:01David Sims?

  Yeah, right, does he have those pepperonis? And I think he doesn't.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Those Papa pepperonis.

• 1:41:06David Sims?

  It's just so funny when he's like, I did it some, because my children would like to see that movie. And I'm like, your kids don't want to fucking see that movie.

• 1:41:12Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:41:12David Sims?

  They don't want to see you play King Triton. They want to see some other shit.

• 1:41:15Griffin Newman?

  You know, they want to watch.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Send your balloons.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  They want to watch animated Little Mermaid.

• 1:41:18David Sims?

  Probably, exactly.

• 1:41:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:20David Sims?

  Uh, but he is late, of late, kind of crushing it. I would love to see what he does next.

• 1:41:26Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I mean, counter to everything we're saying, Pitt like finds a different motor in this that is incredibly fun and is not tied to any darkness whatsoever. Like this is a guy who does not consider darkness. It is incredible how thoroughly he like nails this guy's entire worldview.

• 1:41:43David Sims?

  Uh, yes.

• 1:41:43Griffin Newman?

  As you said, as embodied with.

• 1:41:45David Sims?

  And he's only, he's probably only in it for 10 or 15 minutes. Like, everyone is just.

• 1:41:49Speaker 02

  Well, and any darkness in the movie really upsets him. He's like a clown. He feels it all like so purely when he's yelled at.

• 1:41:56Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. I mean, and it's like, it's what, uh, makes this character worthy of judgment is like, if the documents were as important as they think they are, what they're doing is actually very fucked up. I'm not even saying.

• 1:42:14David Sims?

  You mean what McDormand and Pitt are doing?

• 1:42:15Griffin Newman?

  In an unpatriotic way, right?

• 1:42:17David Sims?

  It's just kind of insane because they only, they're like, let's threaten him. That didn't work? What is the address of Russia here? Like, let's just go present this to Russia.

• 1:42:27Griffin Newman?

  They're out of their depth and the files are like a nothing burger.

• 1:42:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Griffin Newman?

  But in their mind, they could be handing over nuclear codes, you know, which is just like, if your sense of like self-importance is more important than like global safety.

• 1:42:43Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't reflect super well on your moral balance.

• 1:42:46David Sims?

  Oleg Krupa, very, very funny. The guy who plays the Russian guy. Love him. Yes, friends?

• 1:42:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Another line reading I love where he goes, so you're not ideological? Where he basically just calls them out for having no feeling whatsoever about what they're doing. There's nothing at stake for you?

• 1:43:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:06David Sims?

  Jenkins, who, this is, this is his third Coens, right? He's in

• 1:43:12Griffin Newman?

  Intolerable.

• 1:43:13David Sims?

  No country, sorry, Men who Wasn't There.

• 1:43:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:16David Sims?

  Intolerable.

• 1:43:16Griffin Newman?

  That sounds right. Yeah.

• 1:43:17David Sims?

  And he is desperately sad.

• 1:43:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:23David Sims?

  In the film. Also is, I would assume his gym is just like in total shambles because two of its highest level employees are basically never there.

• 1:43:33David Sims?

  Would, but I don't know if there's much more to say about him, except that like, of course he gets killed with a hatchet trying to steal shit for a girl he has a crush on.

• 1:43:42Griffin Newman?

  He's not there. Representing hard bodies.

• 1:43:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:45Griffin Newman?

  Basically, her, his final words are, she's not a moron. Right? Like, he then says, no, no, as Jenkins, as comes towards him.

• 1:43:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:55Griffin Newman?

  But like, all this character wants to do is defend McDormand's honor. You are a special person. Why don't you see that in yourself?

• 1:44:06David Sims?

  You are worthy of love. Surgery and from, you know, whatever.

• 1:44:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:44:10David Sims?

  Bad boyfriend.

• 1:44:11Griffin Newman?

  That's the root of it. It's like, you are worthy of love and she thinks she is not and that she could not possibly be unless she is, she gets these multiple procedures done, right?

• 1:44:21David Sims?

  Yeah. Do you think she's happy after this movie? I hope so.

• 1:44:27Griffin Newman?

  Possibly. I do, I was, no, I was gonna say, Usain Pitt's only in like 10 to 15 minutes of the movie. He enters pretty late because McDormand doesn't come in until like 15. I think he comes in around like 25 minutes. A thing I like about this movie is it does have a kind of like relay race narrative structure where the lead is constantly changing. Who's pulling you forward in the story? Without it being like a traffic-esque, here are multiple timelines.

• 1:44:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Griffin Newman?

  Kind of thing.

• 1:44:56David Sims?

  McDormand is probably the closest thing to a true lead.

• 1:44:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:00David Sims?

  Clooney is top build and he's sort of the lead, but Clooney's also kind of like second fiddle to everyone he's in a scene with.

• 1:45:06Griffin Newman?

  That's what I'm saying. Like each scene has a lead.

• 1:45:09David Sims?

  No, I know what you're saying.

• 1:45:09Griffin Newman?

  And then very often the scenes are grouped together and you're like, for these like six minutes, you're, you're riding it through them.

• 1:45:15David Sims?

  It is the one Coen Brothers movie where I, I do kind of buy that they're like, yeah, we just kept writing. Like, we thought what other funny shit could happen. And then we thought what other funny shit could happen. And we were just thinking of what cool actors could play what crazy parts. And like, you know, we've sort of fit it all together. It does, the relay thing that you're saying, it does have that energy. Yeah.

• 1:45:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. It has an economy too, which is great. It's not overstaying its welcome. It's not hitting any beats too hard.

• 1:45:41David Sims?

  It is a gorgeous 96 minutes long.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  A worse movie would have way more pit because they'd be like, oh, he's so funny.

• 1:45:47David Sims?

  Crushing. We gotta, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:49Speaker 02

  That performance stays so good in part because there's so little of it.

• 1:45:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yes. I also, I, I just like that. I think what is interrogating the sort of anger in this movie is we're saying is like, uh, is, is there a fundamental problem in modern government structures where this becomes a position of like social capital versus the idea of these people being like public servants? Like, is this like part and parcel with why our government is constantly failing its people? You know, that this idea of like it's, it's status more than anything else? That all these people are so concerned primarily with their like wine and cheese parties and like who's zooming who and who's got what desk

• 1:46:36Griffin Newman?

  and what book they're going to be able to write on the other end of it? Versus any of these people actually seeming to care about what they do?

• 1:46:44Speaker 02

  Their ideology is just themselves.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. And even like Cox, who, you know, he, he is the lead for like the first 10 minutes of the movie when we're really sitting with him, has this sad moment where he's talking to his like completely psychologically gone father. Uh, and even when he's starting to dictate his memoir, where he, um, is talking about who he thought he was gonna be, right? That he wanted to be one of Moreau's boys and he wanted to like kind of shake.

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  We were young and there was nothing we could not do.

• 1:47:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And he's like, you know, and it's not what you would have done dad, but, but it's different today than it was when you, you know, this idea that he like entered it too late and he used to be idealistic about it. But yet all he wants to do is just like, Have people view him as important? That's all an extension of that versus any idea of like, this is what I believe. I used to believe I could do for the people. I also just want to call out, the memoir bit is exactly how my mother talks. She's now made a paywalled Patreon appearance on our Die Hard with a Vengeance episode.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  That's true, briefly, yes, yes.

• 1:47:54Griffin Newman?

  And I forget what the version of it was, but I called it out, but my mother, who is French, but speaks with like a pretty mid-Atlantic accent, will just fall into like, and what genre would you say the movie was?

• 1:48:08David Sims?

  Well, your mother has French heritage.

• 1:48:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, as I said, but she doesn't, she doesn't speak with any French inflections. And then if she is using a word that is part of the American vernacular, but has French origins, she pronounces it so hard.

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 1:48:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's great for her.

• 1:48:28David Sims?

  Before we begin to wrap up,

• 1:48:30Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48:30David Sims?

  You wanted to talk about the theater of the new year, and I don't want to forget about that.

• 1:48:34Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, I just think that this is something that Blank Check listeners should be aware of and would probably like.

• 1:48:40Griffin Newman?

  And was vaguely around the same time.

• 1:48:41David Sims?

  It was in sort of 2005. It was a sound play created by Carter Burwell, correct? And the Coen Brothers.

• 1:48:50Speaker 04

  Coen Brothers, Charlie Kaufman.

• 1:48:52Griffin Newman?

  But Carter Burwell was the one who sort of brought both of them in. I think it was his idea to begin with.

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  He does the music for both.

• 1:48:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:48:59Speaker 04

  For both of them. Well, actually, there were three. It's a little confusing. So there were a few performances of this. The main ones of which there is a recording, I think this is in the New York performance, is two sound plays. They're basically radio plays that were performed on a stage.

• 1:49:15Griffin Newman?

  But like with live foley work and sort of the idea to do a throwback to an earlier 20th century form. Yeah.

• 1:49:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, the first one is called Saw Bones by the Coen Brothers, which is about a frontier veterinarian television show that is sort of one perspective. And then there's a woman, like a housewife, who watches the show, who falls in love with a traveling salesman and her husband, who's like in a fire watchtower. And then the second play is the Charlie Kaufman play called Hope Leaves the Theater, which I think is among his best work.

• 1:49:53Griffin Newman?

  Now.

• 1:49:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:55David Sims?

  Pardon me for talking fairy tales as a schoolhooper. This Charlie Kaufman play, I'm told that it broke the fourth wall somewhat.

• 1:50:01Speaker 04

  It did.

• 1:50:01David Sims?

  Stepped out of its own reality.

• 1:50:03Speaker 04

  And it makes, one of the running jokes in it, which I think is very funny, is that Charlie Kaufman has died and this, this play was the last thing that he wrote.

• 1:50:12David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:50:12Speaker 04

  And so you have Meryl Streep like tearfully onstage, breaking character.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  Eulogizing, yeah.

• 1:50:17Speaker 04

  To talk about how this was the last thing he wrote.

• 1:50:19David Sims?

  And.

• 1:50:19Griffin Newman?

  Am I mistaken for thinking that Anomalisa came out of a later iteration of Theater for the New Year?

• 1:50:26Speaker 04

  Yes, correct. That has never been recorded.

• 1:50:28David Sims?

  Right. Play sawed bones.

• 1:50:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:30David Sims?

  Was replaced with Anomalisa in LA when they staged it in LA.

• 1:50:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:36David Sims?

  Which was.

• 1:50:36Griffin Newman?

  It was a 30 minute version and then in.

• 1:50:38David Sims?

  But it had Phyllis, Newton and Jennifer Jason-Leigh. So it had the cast of the eventual movie.

• 1:50:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. And in Charlie Kaufman's frustration of not being able to get another movie made after Frank or Francis fell apart so many times, Dino Samotopoulos, who had started his stop motion studio was like, what if you adapt that? Anomalisa was supposed to be just a 30 minute short at first. And then they went to Kickstarter and raised enough to make it a feature. Uh, very, very, very cool shout out. Those things are absolutely worth listening to.

• 1:51:07Speaker 04

  100,000%. You, Meryl Streep sings in it.

• 1:51:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Also just, I mean, all the kind of Coen Brothers miscellaneous stuff, we keep on sort of scanning around for like, is there something interesting to scrap together to do a bonus episode on Patreon? And none of it really feels episode worthy. But of the stuff we're not covering, I, I would almost recommend that most strongly.

• 1:51:28David Sims?

  And so is it listenable? Like is, can you find it?

• 1:51:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, it pops up on YouTube every so often. Uh, I'm not sure. I haven't checked today if it's, you can find it there. It was only broadcast on Sirius like once.

• 1:51:39Griffin Newman?

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:51:40Speaker 04

  But there are MP3s of it.

• 1:51:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's, it's around. Oh, you already downloaded it in the time between asking?

• 1:51:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:51:47Griffin Newman?

  Um, but so many of like the, the theater projects and whatever are like Ethan solo things. The fact that this is one of the only Joel and Ethan co-written things for a different medium is interesting in and of itself. David's biting his neck.

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  I mean, I do that all the time. It's been something I've been doing since I was a very little boy. Pediatrician told me a long time ago that it was no different from any other self-harming behavior and I really should look into it. Still doing it 39 years.

• 1:52:13Speaker 02

  Was your pediatrician, um, Tilda Swinton from this movie?

• 1:52:16David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, he, he said it in a nice way, but he was like, you're aware of like what self harm is, right? That's what you're doing to yourself. Cause I like tear the cuticles up and stuff. And he was like, he was like the sort of the psychological principle of what's happening. It's the same basic thing. And I was like, okay.

• 1:52:29Griffin Newman?

  What age were you?

• 1:52:30David Sims?

  That was probably like a teenager.

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  It, it is fascinating that you remember this verbatim.

• 1:52:35David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:52:36Griffin Newman?

  Unpacked it so quickly and still do it.

• 1:52:39David Sims?

  There's been like a couple of times in my life that I've successfully kicked nail biting for like a longer than like whatever, a few days. And then something will make me anxious and I will start unconsciously doing it. Thank you. I mean, I've gotten married and like maintained a career. Two things my mother told me would be really at risk if I kept biting my nails.

• 1:53:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:02David Sims?

  So take that, mom. I take it back. I gotta buy her 4K, but I know where I'm going.

• 1:53:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:11David Sims?

  It's a great chance to put it.

• 1:53:12Griffin Newman?

  Uh, as you said, this movie didn't have much Oscar juice. It gets the SAG nomination, but that's very much a classic SAG. Hey, it turns out that six of the top qualifying movies aren't eligible, or not SAG, I'm sorry, WGA. Uh, there, there are always a couple of weird WGA nominations because other things were disqualified. Uh, per their specific rules. Uh, BAFTA went through it more hardly, but Pitt in supporting, which kind of would have been the obvious play. Is overshadowed by Benjamin Button the same year.

• 1:53:42David Sims?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:42Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Tilda had just won.

• 1:53:45David Sims?

  Yes. Sort of a bad Oscar year after an incredible one.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:49David Sims?

  And it's kind of a like, um, what is it? 99? Where you're like, what a great movie year. And then you look at the Oscars and you're like, why did the Oscars not understand that?

• 1:54:00Griffin Newman?

  I, look, I.

• 1:54:00David Sims?

  And 2008 is a sort of similar one where you're like, I mean, there are some decent nominations, but obviously it's the one that leads to the multiple.

• 1:54:06Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I will never miss an opportunity to say that. It is the year that breaks the Academy Award.

• 1:54:10David Sims?

  Where they're like, you guys aren't gonna fucking, I mean, but it's not just Dark Knight and Wally, which are obviously the big two.

• 1:54:16Griffin Newman?

  I put Gran Torino in there as well. I think all three of those movies.

• 1:54:19David Sims?

  Right. Big hits that audiences were like, we liked that. And the Oscars are like Frost and Nixon. You understand me?

• 1:54:26Griffin Newman?

  Here comes the slap.

• 1:54:27David Sims?

  They talked to each other.

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. I like Frost Nixon.

• 1:54:30David Sims?

  Wow. Have you seen it recently?

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  It stinks. And I like Peter Morgan. I'm a slut for that stuff.

• 1:54:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:37David Sims?

  But it's not very good.

• 1:54:38Speaker 02

  Um, I'm just reading over these nominations. Ooh, you know what's in here? Revenge, ever seen that?

• 1:54:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:44Griffin Newman?

  That movie's good.

• 1:54:45Speaker 02

  That movie's good. That's actually crazy. That got a best foreign language.

• 1:54:47David Sims?

  I was gonna say that was a foreign film.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  That was one of those like, oh weird, they nominated something cool.

• 1:54:51David Sims?

  Once in a while, they'll sneak a Cooley in there.

• 1:54:54Griffin Newman?

  They've overhauled the, the whole process and now I think it's a slightly better field. But certainly like before 2015, if something that actually was kind of awesome got in, it was astonishing.

• 1:55:04David Sims?

  I think you had to like be 95 to vote for that category back then. You know what I mean? Like it obviously is most, I'm joking, but like because you had to watch all the movies, it was all retirees.

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  My, my memory is that in order to vote in that category, you had to attend screenings and check in that were marathons. So it did have to be retirees because it was like Monday through Friday. You're going to have to show up at the academy and watch five foreign language films in a row. And check in to prove you've seen all of them before you vote and anyone who was busy wouldn't do that.

• 1:55:40David Sims?

  Right. Shall we play the box office game? Are there any other things we want to talk about before I do?

• 1:55:45Griffin Newman?

  This movie makes me laugh really hard. I think it's really fun.

• 1:55:48David Sims?

  Francis?

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  You know who's great in just one single scene is the guy serving George Clooney with the divorce papers. He tackles in the street.

• 1:55:56David Sims?

  That guy's great. I mean, he was, he's the Ugly Betty guy. What's his name?

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  I couldn't remember who he was.

• 1:56:00David Sims?

  Um, I mean, I

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  I meant to look it up while watching and then forgot.

• 1:56:03David Sims?

  He's in a bunch of other stuff.

• 1:56:04Griffin Newman?

  Wait, the guy, the guy who serves the papers at the bar or the guy in the Kevin Sussman?

• 1:56:09David Sims?

  Kevin Sussman is the guy I'm thinking of.

• 1:56:10Griffin Newman?

  What's his, the name of the firm he keeps talking?

• 1:56:13David Sims?

  I don't know, but it's just funny how mean he is.

• 1:56:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:19Griffin Newman?

  He's phenomenal. I think of him as the wet hot guy, of course.

• 1:56:21David Sims?

  Also great in wet.

• 1:56:22Griffin Newman?

  Who can control the weather with his hands.

• 1:56:23Speaker 02

  Oh my God, of course.

• 1:56:24David Sims?

  I mean, he's in a million things.

• 1:56:26Griffin Newman?

  Um, and then has made like eight trillion dollars from Big Bang Theory. I think now is the star of a Big Bang spinoff.

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  I saw Young Sheldon once on the street.

• 1:56:35Griffin Newman?

  Really? How is he looking? What age?

• 1:56:39Speaker 02

  Youngish.

• 1:56:40Griffin Newman?

  Youngish. This was the problem. That's why the show's not on the air anymore.

• 1:56:44David Sims?

  I will say, I saw Life of Chuck. It's not like Tremblay's bad in it.

• 1:56:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:49David Sims?

  But I do think I'm like, can Tremblay, I think I need him to wait a few more years. I want Andy fully adult Tremblay.

• 1:56:56Speaker 02

  They bury Tremblay.

• 1:56:57David Sims?

  They do.

• 1:56:57Speaker 02

  In that movie. I went to that to see Tremblay. He's buried.

• 1:57:01David Sims?

  You've got your like Tremblay penance.

• 1:57:03Griffin Newman?

  They sold me a Tremblay picture and here I am waiting until the last two minutes.

• 1:57:07David Sims?

  You know, that movie, honestly, whatever they would sell you on it, you'd probably end up being disappointed because it's got so much shit going on.

• 1:57:14Griffin Newman?

  That was a real challenge to market and yet I think they may be settled on only the worst approaches possible.

• 1:57:19David Sims?

  But it's like Tom Hiddleston's gonna hoof it up in this movie.

• 1:57:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a Hiddleston soft shoe picture and you're like, boy, are you gonna be really confused for the first 45 minutes of this movie?

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  And then very happy and then confused.

• 1:57:32Griffin Newman?

  And then back to confused.

• 1:57:35Speaker 02

  Ooh, but you know who's so good? Lillard.

• 1:57:38Griffin Newman?

  Lillard is phenomenal in that thing. Talk about a great one scene performance.

• 1:57:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:43Griffin Newman?

  Like a real journey. The kind of performance that feels like it's a Coens thing of just like letting an actor you're very familiar with, but you've never seen get this kind of runway. Go on a full journey and show you an entire life within one scene. Uh, the other guy I like, he's a two seener in this, but uh, Tulles Swin's divorce lawyer.

• 1:58:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:58:01Griffin Newman?

  Who loves the kind of excitement of the idea that he's not in the Beltway, but he's adjacent to it.

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:08Griffin Newman?

  And the comings and goings. Yeah, you can be a spy too. And then what's the thing where he brags about who his wife saw out at dinner?

• 1:58:16David Sims?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 1:58:18Griffin Newman?

  He's a really good performance. Anyway.

• 1:58:19David Sims?

  Uh, the, the, also the book, um, the children's book, the, the TV sequence, that's very old fashioned Coen Brothers. Like Bruce Campbell should probably be in that. Okay. Uh, the film made. 60 domestic, 168 worldwide. The worldwide number really does feel like you're kind of George Clooney, Brad Pitt number of like, it does not matter what the movie is.

• 1:58:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:58:39David Sims?

  Back then, they are gonna just get you something.

• 1:58:41Griffin Newman?

  But this movie had good marketing materials.

• 1:58:44David Sims?

  It did.

• 1:58:45Griffin Newman?

  It wasn't a total hide the ball, but it was a kind of like reconfigure the elements in a way that is a lot easier to digest.

• 1:58:51David Sims?

  It's funny though, that they did not go for like, I mean, the classic poster was that red poster, the sort of cartoony with-

• 1:58:56Griffin Newman?

  Without their faces.

• 1:58:57David Sims?

  Without, with no, no floating heads.

• 1:58:59Griffin Newman?

  It's like a Saul Bassey, but giant yellow star names. And then, right, the faces only come in on like the, the home video release.

• 1:59:06David Sims?

  Number one at the box office on September 12th, 2008.

• 1:59:11Griffin Newman?

  Never forget.

• 1:59:12David Sims?

  Opening to $19 million. What do you think?

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  This is number two, so.

• 1:59:16David Sims?

  One. It is number one.

• 1:59:18Griffin Newman?

  Burn After Reading is one.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Number one.

• 1:59:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:21David Sims?

  Number two to four are also all new movies. This is a four new movies top five.

• 1:59:27Griffin Newman?

  I think it's the other thing that made it surprising that this performed so well. It was not an uncompetitive weekend and it tripled its opening weekend.

• 1:59:33David Sims?

  But it is that early September, slightly more fallow feel before the big Oscar movies are coming. The other three movies are just like three really different offerings, I will say. So number two at the box office is, um, it's, it's a work from a director who would produce one to two new movies a year. And it's a, it's in his dramatic vein rather than his comedic.

• 1:59:57Griffin Newman?

  Okay. You do one to two movies a year. Okay. So it's a Tyler Perry.

• 2:00:00David Sims?

  Tyler Perry, but it's not a Madea.

• 2:00:02Griffin Newman?

  But he would have-

• 2:00:03David Sims?

  It's a non-Madea.

• 2:00:04Griffin Newman?

  He would have his weekends that he staked out. And I'm sure they thought he was gonna own this weekend. He was a September guy and a February guy.

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 2:00:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. So this is, this is a dramatic one and it's not a Madea?

• 2:00:15David Sims?

  It's not a Madea, but Tyler Perry is in it.

• 2:00:18Griffin Newman?

  Is it?

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  Among the ensemble.

• 2:00:20Griffin Newman?

  So it's not, I could do bad all by myself?

• 2:00:22David Sims?

  It is not about doing bad all by yourself. Although Burn After Reading could be called that.

• 2:00:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. All these characters have the capacity to do bad all by themselves. They don't even need anyone else to help them. Uh, Tyler Perry is in the ensemble. It's not Dan's Little Girls, it's not Good Deeds.

• 2:00:39David Sims?

  It's neither of those.

• 2:00:40Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 2:00:43David Sims?

  And Good Deeds, of course, he, it was sort of like a Good Will Hunting situation. He was a guy called Deeds who was good.

• 2:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's not, why did I get married to?

• 2:00:50David Sims?

  No.

• 2:00:51Griffin Newman?

  And it's not the first one.

• 2:00:52David Sims?

  It's not that. This is fun now.

• 2:00:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it is. It is.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  Ben might have a guess.

• 2:00:57Griffin Newman?

  Okay, he's in the ensemble, Ben.

• 2:00:58David Sims?

  Ben, I was gonna guess, why did I get married to? Nope. No, no.

• 2:01:02Griffin Newman?

  Uh, can you tell me who the first billed person is? Well, let's give it away maybe.

• 2:01:06David Sims?

  Alfred Woodard.

• 2:01:08Griffin Newman?

  Is it the family that prays?

• 2:01:09David Sims?

  The family that prays. And now you think this.

• 2:01:14Griffin Newman?

  P R A Y, moving on.

• 2:01:16David Sims?

  No.

• 2:01:16Griffin Newman?

  Subject closed. What? P R E Y S?

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  I've never seen it, but I think it's sort of like it. It's an upstairs downstairs, kind of like there's like a rich family and a poorer family and there's.

• 2:01:26Griffin Newman?

  And it's two different religious families. It's Kathy Bates and Alfred Woodard is the two matriarchs.

• 2:01:30David Sims?

  Those are the.

• 2:01:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:32David Sims?

  Uh, Sanaa Lathan, Kitty Strickland, Cole Hauser. I bet you he gives a really, really measured performance.

• 2:01:38Griffin Newman?

  Playing a good guy.

• 2:01:39David Sims?

  Right. Rockman Dunbar, who I always enjoy.

• 2:01:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's cool.

• 2:01:42David Sims?

  Uh, Traggy P. Henson's in it. Making seventeen million dollars, a very sort of standard Tyler Perry non-Madiea opening. Uh, they probably shot it in point five days and made it for two dollars.

• 2:01:54Griffin Newman?

  They somehow shot it, shot it in negative time?

• 2:01:56David Sims?

  Exactly. It was like celery. You get, you gain calories. Somehow Kathy Bates' schedule opened up making that movie. I don't know. I don't know, guys.

• 2:02:06Griffin Newman?

  No, good stuff.

• 2:02:06David Sims?

  Number three at the box office is, um, a movie that is completely forgotten, except it has become a catchphrase on the Lonely Island podcast.

• 2:02:14Griffin Newman?

  Right, just kept.

• 2:02:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:17David Sims?

  Just the, in my opinion, one of the funniest things De Niro and Pacino ever did. Where they were like, it's so cool how we're in Godfather and Don't Interact, Godfather two, and then we're in Heat and we interact for one scene. What if we did a movie where we're in it together all the time and it sucked? What if it was dog shit? It's just bad. Yeah. They were, I bet you they literally just like went to a bucket of scripts. So we're like, just anything with two men in it. Let's get something out of here. To go like Coppola, man. Yes. John Avnet. Avnet. You're like, just wait, wait for the Irishman. Just wait for the Irishman.

• 2:02:48Speaker 02

  I don't know anything about this movie.

• 2:02:49David Sims?

  It's like they're both cops. Yeah. In the New York Police Department. Hmm. And someone's going out there killing criminals. Yeah. And leaving poems by their mouths. Oh, no. So, but it's like the vigilante that they're hunting sort of seems to be on the right side of the law in a way. Righteous law. I've never seen it. It's a righteous kill.

• 2:03:12David Sims?

  I've never seen it. I am sure one of them is doing it. I'm just not sure which. But Andy Samberg has a running bit since this movie came out of saying righteous kill instead of righteous. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, righteous, righteous kill.

• 2:03:26David Sims?

  And now he's popularized it on the podcast. It's sort of a runner, how they talk about, he tried to make it happen for 20 years. Now it actually has. And now it actually has. So you didn't see Righteous Kill?

• 2:03:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:03:38David Sims?

  You're busy seeing porn after reading.

• 2:03:40Speaker 02

  I was in, this came out in the heart of marching band season so that I could go see a movie.

• 2:03:46David Sims?

  What was your instrument?

• 2:03:48Speaker 02

  Percussion, of course.

• 2:03:49David Sims?

  I don't, I actually don't.

• 2:03:50Speaker 02

  You don't know this?

• 2:03:51David Sims?

  Totally sure that I knew that.

• 2:03:52Speaker 02

  I played vibraphone, actually. So I wasn't marching. I was like posted on the 50 yard line. But yeah, but we had like a really robust pit percussion where there were like 20 of us. It was like five marimbos, four vibraphones, two xylophones, a timpani.

• 2:04:08David Sims?

  Crazy.

• 2:04:08Speaker 02

  It's a huge thing in the Midwest.

• 2:04:10David Sims?

  I know, I know. And it's cool to watch.

• 2:04:12Speaker 02

  They have people like roll stepping on treadmills in their free time.

• 2:04:16David Sims?

  What was your school called?

• 2:04:19David Sims?

  What was like, what was the school?

• 2:04:20Speaker 02

  Prospect. Prospect High School?

• 2:04:22David Sims?

  Cool.

• 2:04:23Speaker 02

  I'm sort of doxing myself, I suppose.

• 2:04:24David Sims?

  Oh, we can cut that out if you don't want to.

• 2:04:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:04:27David Sims?

  People know where you went.

• 2:04:28Speaker 02

  Go Nights.

• 2:04:28David Sims?

  Uh, Go Nights. Um, number four at the box office, new this week. Not probably the least successful of these four films. Still made $50 million. Um, it's a remake of a masterpiece, uh, from the golden age of Hollywood.

• 2:04:46Griffin Newman?

  2000, is it the women?

• 2:04:47David Sims?

  It's the women.

• 2:04:48Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:04:49David Sims?

  Can you tell me who played the women in the women?

• 2:04:51Griffin Newman?

  Okay, can you tell me?

• 2:04:52David Sims?

  It's five women on the, on the, uh, post, obviously.

• 2:04:55Griffin Newman?

  How many do I have to fill?

• 2:04:56David Sims?

  Three of them are going, one of them is going phone.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I remember being one of the most.

• 2:05:01David Sims?

  One of them is going.

• 2:05:02Griffin Newman?

  Photoshopped posters. Okay. Eva Mendes.

• 2:05:05David Sims?

  Eva Mendes is there.

• 2:05:06Griffin Newman?

  Annette Bening.

• 2:05:07David Sims?

  She's there, she's on the phone.

• 2:05:08Griffin Newman?

  Debra Messing.

• 2:05:09David Sims?

  She's going.

• 2:05:10Griffin Newman?

  Meg Ryan.

• 2:05:11David Sims?

  She's going.

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  And the fifth one, there's one I'm forgetting.

• 2:05:15Speaker 02

  Oh, it's good.

• 2:05:16Griffin Newman?

  The fifth one's good? It's not just Gabeel, right?

• 2:05:18David Sims?

  No.

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  Give me a hint.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  Fish Mooney.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the biggest hint of all.

• 2:05:27David Sims?

  I just wanted to say it.

• 2:05:28Griffin Newman?

  Let me quickly put her name in my mouth.

• 2:05:33David Sims?

  Are you ready to sit down at the red table and announce who the fifth lead of the women was?

• 2:05:39Griffin Newman?

  Jada Pinkett Smith.

• 2:05:41David Sims?

  Film also has Bette Midler, Candace Berg, and Carrie Fisher, Clarice Leitron, Debbie Mazur, like Anna Gasteyer. Like, it was kind of like clearly going for that first wives' club, like, everybody come, have fun. And it just, I remember it being like, kind of annoying in that.

• 2:05:55Griffin Newman?

  It was a development hell movie for like 20 years to do an all-star, the women remake, and it ended up being made by the, isn't it the Murphy Brown?

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  Diane English, who is, you know, a legend in her own right, but, uh, I think by that point, no offense to her, was a little cooked.

• 2:06:10Griffin Newman?

  Um, offense taken.

• 2:06:11David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

• 2:06:14Speaker 02

  A woman is cooked? Like she should be cooking in the kitchen?

• 2:06:18Griffin Newman?

  You sound like the witch from Hansel and Gretel trying to cook a young woman.

• 2:06:23Griffin Newman?

  In an oven.

• 2:06:24David Sims?

  Trying to cook children?

• 2:06:26Griffin Newman?

  A young woman.

• 2:06:27David Sims?

  I love the new take on Hans and Gretel being, that was a young woman in STEM that you tried to cook. Gretel had all kinds of aspirations.

• 2:06:35Speaker 02

  That's probably how they're gonna do it next. Everything is so child and STEM.

• 2:06:39David Sims?

  It'll be so STEM heavy. Um, the woman, number four. Number five at the box office is a film that I think, uh, had just done like a one month run at number one for pretty much all of August.

• 2:06:52Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Tropic Thunder?

• 2:06:54David Sims?

  It's Tropic Thunder.

• 2:06:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:55David Sims?

  Which has made it to $102 million.

• 2:06:57Griffin Newman?

  Cause that dethroned, uh, Dark Knight, basically on a one month.

• 2:07:01David Sims?

  Dark Knight is at number seven. Number six is The House Bunny.

• 2:07:05Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:07:05David Sims?

  Uh, which was sort of like a solid hit.

• 2:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Slipper hit. Yeah.

• 2:07:07David Sims?

  Uh, number eight, dropping from, actually from number one. So I think Tropic Thunder jumped the week before to number eight is the Nicolas Cage film Bangkok Dangerous.

• 2:07:16Griffin Newman?

  Quite a poor film and also historically one of the lowest number ones of all time.

• 2:07:21David Sims?

  It was one of those like 4.8 million dollar number ones or whatever. Number nine is Traitor. Is that the Don Cheadle movie?

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Which is not bad.

• 2:07:29David Sims?

  Right? Never seen.

• 2:07:30Griffin Newman?

  Guy Pearce. Yeah. Based on an idea by Steve Martin.

• 2:07:34David Sims?

  Yes. Right.

• 2:07:35Griffin Newman?

  Weirdly.

• 2:07:36David Sims?

  Number 10 at the box office is the remake of Death Race, which is I think a Paul W. S. Anderson that I haven't seen.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it is a movie that fucking rules.

• 2:07:44David Sims?

  I gotta see that one sometime.

• 2:07:45Griffin Newman?

  It is so good. It's kind of Death Race, but it's more like twisted metal Mario Kart.

• 2:07:50David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, that sounds fun.

• 2:07:52Speaker 02

  Oh, I never saw his from earlier this year. Land of the.

• 2:07:55David Sims?

  I was not a fan of that one. I think he is getting, I, we gotta take the volume away from him.

• 2:08:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:01David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like, and a lot of these kind of mid budgety genre guys, I'm worried that they're gonna get lost in like CG.

• 2:08:06Griffin Newman?

  Death Race is super practical. A part of it is that they build like power ups onto the death race course. So it has like hitting mushrooms and shit. And Joan Allen plays like the prison warden who's like creating the death race.

• 2:08:19Speaker 02

  You are, you already had me and then you say Joan Allen is in the mix.

• 2:08:22David Sims?

  Wait, she has a scene. Can Joan Allen play kind of like a steely boss lady? Is that something that's in her repertoire?

• 2:08:28Griffin Newman?

  David, she has a scene where she's freaking out that like, oh my God, they're, they're beating the system. How is he doing this? Right? We're supposed to have them under control. And she says like 14 curses in a row. That feels like it was just a dare to see if they could get Joan Allen to say it. Yeah.

• 2:08:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:08:45Speaker 02

  This movie is set in New York in the year 2020.

• 2:08:48Griffin Newman?

  It rules.

• 2:08:49Speaker 02

  I wonder if anything else happened.

• 2:08:50Griffin Newman?

  It's also technically.

• 2:08:54Griffin Newman?

  It's also technically like a sequel to the original rather than a remake.

• 2:08:57David Sims?

  It's fun.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  It starts with the Frankenstein character, the karating character from the original.

• 2:09:03David Sims?

  Right. And Koopa Troopa is in it?

• 2:09:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  Cool. Uh, just to close out on Burn After Reading, it did premiere at, it was the opening film of the Venice Film Festival that year. Uh, and indeed it was a solid hit. Uh, it's listed budget is about 37 million.

• 2:09:17Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:09:18David Sims?

  But still, obviously was very successful. Um, and indeed, but as we noted, the reviews were a little mixed. And a little heavy on the, it's so sadistic.

• 2:09:29Griffin Newman?

  It's also just coming off of their fucking peak. And I think there's this like, uh, this back and forth, we've talked about many times now of like, the Coens make like a serious transcendent film. And then people are like, why are they doing a larky comedy now? There was a little bit of that, you know?

• 2:09:45David Sims?

  Um, next up, of course, for us is A Serious Man.

• 2:09:50Griffin Newman?

  What's that I hear in the distance?

• 2:09:55David Sims?

  Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

• 2:09:57Griffin Newman?

  Gates are being locked next week.

• 2:09:58David Sims?

  Marc Maron's on that, on the show next week.

• 2:10:00Griffin Newman?

  Marc Maron's on the show next week.

• 2:10:01David Sims?

  Fran knows this already, but she's excited.

• 2:10:04Speaker 02

  I love him so much.

• 2:10:06David Sims?

  I know.

• 2:10:06Speaker 02

  I'm disappointed that his show is, I can't even really talk about it. Cause I was sort of, I was a Maron hater and I came around.

• 2:10:14David Sims?

  I think a lot of people had a journey like that.

• 2:10:16Griffin Newman?

  It's part of the journey.

• 2:10:17David Sims?

  Or they're right. They like him and then they get a little sick of the show and then they rediscover it and they're like, you know what? Still fucks. Yeah.

• 2:10:22Griffin Newman?

  Did you see that he, I don't know if it was on WTF or on one of his like, but behind the, the paywall sort of like full ramble episodes talked about recording with us and was like, it was a long talk. It's a long episode.

• 2:10:35David Sims?

  Those guys go long.

• 2:10:36Griffin Newman?

  And then our Reddit was like losing their mind. And I had to be like, guys, his standard of long is very different than yours. We got a full episode out of him, but do not get angry.

• 2:10:45David Sims?

  Definitely a moment, probably around two hours into the show where he literally just says out loud, I think we're done, right?

• 2:10:51Griffin Newman?

  It was well under two hours.

• 2:10:52David Sims?

  It might've been under.

• 2:10:53Griffin Newman?

  And I worked to kind of filibuster it over maybe the two hour line.

• 2:10:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:56Speaker 02

  But I'm clearing my day.

• 2:10:58Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a really great episode. We get right into it.

• 2:11:01Speaker 02

  Good.

• 2:11:01Griffin Newman?

  And go deep into the talk.

• 2:11:03Speaker 02

  The perfect guest for that movie.

• 2:11:04Griffin Newman?

  It was, it was a long time coming and I'm glad.

• 2:11:07David Sims?

  It was really fun to have him on. I hope we can have him back on, honestly, cause he's got more time, right?

• 2:11:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, what else is he gonna do?

• 2:11:13David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:11:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, other than come on Blank Check?

• 2:11:15David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:11:17Griffin Newman?

  So yeah, tune in next week for that Fran. Anything you want to plug?

• 2:11:20David Sims?

  Yeah, Fran, what's up? You work at New York Magazine?

• 2:11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's my first time on here in a long time that I've not been begging for a job.

• 2:11:26David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:11:26Speaker 02

  Cause I have one.

• 2:11:27David Sims?

  You're crushing it.

• 2:11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:28David Sims?

  You're busy.

• 2:11:29Speaker 02

  I'm busy.

• 2:11:30David Sims?

  Go to dinner with me more often.

• 2:11:32Speaker 02

  I will once I get through the next month of my life.

• 2:11:34David Sims?

  You're also getting married.

• 2:11:35Speaker 02

  I'm also getting married in a matter of days ultimately.

• 2:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Congrats.

• 2:11:39Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. I'll plug Being in Love.

• 2:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, and my work for New York Magazine and Vulture and Fran Magazine.

• 2:11:49Griffin Newman?

  Still going strong.

• 2:11:50Speaker 02

  Going strong, still at it. And I'll plug Getting Eight Hours of Sleep, which hopefully I'll return to very soon.

• 2:11:56Griffin Newman?

  It's the best shit in the world.

• 2:11:58Speaker 02

  I think it's gonna change my life.

• 2:12:00Griffin Newman?

  It's unbelievable. I'm looking forward to the day where you have to Anna Wintour style announce your successor at Fran Magazine.

• 2:12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  Who is the like the future Nepo baby, the equivalent, the black label Nepo baby like Louis Mall and Candace Bergen's child that you will someday hand over Fran Magazine?

• 2:12:22Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 2:12:24Griffin Newman?

  Be the Nepo baby you want to see in the world. Can we, can we will one into existence now?

• 2:12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure they're at a very expensive preschool right now, but it's got, yeah, it's gotta be someone like 35 years younger than me. So maybe someone who doesn't totally exist yet.

• 2:12:37Griffin Newman?

  Maybe if like Michael Hanaka and Sydney Sweeney want to get on it.

• 2:12:41David Sims?

  Is Hanaka retired? What's up with him?

• 2:12:43Griffin Newman?

  He seems to be.

• 2:12:43David Sims?

  You gonna do one more?

• 2:12:44Griffin Newman?

  I think he's maybe retired.

• 2:12:45David Sims?

  He's 83.

• 2:12:46Griffin Newman?

  He's pretty old.

• 2:12:47David Sims?

  Sorry, I'm not trying to bum you out.

• 2:12:49Speaker 02

  No, it's, it's okay.

• 2:12:51David Sims?

  The White Ribbon too.

• 2:12:53Griffin Newman?

  Wait a second, I'm seeing here, Michael Hanaka.

• 2:12:56David Sims?

  Ninth Continent?

• 2:12:57Griffin Newman?

  Attached to Underworld Return of the Lycans? How great would it be if he's?

• 2:13:02David Sims?

  Hanaka circling Flash reboot. He's just circling it. He has a take.

• 2:13:09Griffin Newman?

  There really isn't like a cursed project like that anymore. Like for so long, we had like Crow reboot Suicide Squad two.

• 2:13:16David Sims?

  There'll be something eventually, but yeah.

• 2:13:18Griffin Newman?

  But is there? That's such a good point. Right? There's not the one like, hey, man, don't sign up for it.

• 2:13:23David Sims?

  We need a poisoned Chalice to return to Hollywood for like every director to be like,

• 2:13:28Griffin Newman?

  Chalice drought.

• 2:13:29David Sims?

  Can I figure this out?

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  We actually like work those things out of our system and how we need new ones.

• 2:13:34David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 2:13:35David Sims?

  But now it'll be like the Candy Land movie or whatever. It'll be some fucking board game.

• 2:13:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Michael Hanek is gonna do Hunger, Hunger Hippos.

• 2:13:41David Sims?

  Me? They're so hungry.

• 2:13:43Griffin Newman?

  Hippos are so hungry. Uh, thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Hey, thank you to Ben for jumping in. Thank you, Ben. Hosley back in, in full form next week. Feel better, Ben? Yeah. Uh, I hope ice cream tastes good again to you soon.

• 2:14:00David Sims?

  I'm sure he's always.

• 2:14:01Griffin Newman?

  And as always, now we can just focus on writing our memoir.

• 2:14:06David Sims?

  Memoir.

• 2:14:07Griffin Newman?

  I have to pee Griffin. I have to poop.

• 2:14:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm just gonna get out.

• 2:14:17Speaker 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 A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and The Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check special features, for exclusive

• 2:14:59Speaker 06

  franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

• 2:15:12David Sims?

  Someone just said, here's what I found.

• 2:15:15Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  I think that was Siri.

• 2:15:16Speaker 02

  A ghost?

• 2:15:17David Sims?

  Siri, that was Siri on the record computer.

• 2:15:20Griffin Newman?

  I thought Siri was about to correct my pronunciation.

• 2:15:22David Sims?

  Go away. I love you, but no.

• 2:15:25Griffin Newman?

  No, actually, I don't love Siri. Fuck off.

• 2:15:27David Sims?

  You know what? It's true. You know, if you say fuck off to Siri, she'll like reprimand you.

• 2:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:15:32David Sims?

  Like, has that ever happened to you where you like accidentally start Siri on your phone and be like, oh, fuck off? And then Siri goes like, I don't appreciate that. And I'm like, Jesus.

• 2:15:38Griffin Newman?

  No, here's what I do.

• 2:15:39David Sims?

  Enough going on.

• 2:15:40Griffin Newman?

  The second I buy a device, Siri off.

• 2:15:42David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Disabled. Have never used Siri once. I don't like her. I don't trust her.

• 2:15:46Speaker 02

  I'm not rude to her, but I don't want to speak to her.

• 2:15:48David Sims?

  Yeah, I just have her like do my taxes and stuff. I mostly don't use her.

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I don't ever do anything.

• 2:15:54David Sims?

  Siri, do my taxes. And I'm like, that's done.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  I don't like her.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  Siri is listening.

• 2:15:59Griffin Newman?

  What is she doing?

• 2:16:00David Sims?

  Go away, Siri. Siri, disable. Off.

• 2:16:03Griffin Newman?

  I think she's tricky and I think she's mean and I want to make it clear it's not that she's a woman. That's not my problem with her.

• 2:16:09David Sims?

  It's starting to feel like you have a problem with women with small, soft, soothing voices.

• 2:16:14Griffin Newman?

  I don't like all these questions she asks and it has nothing to do with her being a woman.

• 2:16:18Speaker 02

  Do you guys know anyone who has Siri as man? I recently.

• 2:16:22David Sims?

  You can do it, right?

• 2:16:24Speaker 02

  Heard someone who used their Siri as a man. And I was like, what the hell?

• 2:16:27David Sims?

  What if it was like Crocodile Dundee? Like, is there a way to make the voice something that I would be amused to hear?

• 2:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't Amazon Alexa do a bunch of that? You can do celebrity voices and right. If it was Crocodile Dundee, I'd turn it on.