Here

We apologize in advance if you had a profound emotional experience with the new Robert Zemeckis joint - HERE felt like more of a “Here?? What???? Why?” to us. Dinosaurs, Benjamin Franklin’s cuck son, a man dying from laughter, a horny couple who invent the LA-Z Boy, airplane man (who does NOT die from airplane), and the double whammy of the Black Lives Matter movement and Covid all come together to create a strange boomer diorama that misses much of the quotidian beauty of Richard McGuire’s graphic novel. Will Bobby Z. ever make a good movie again? Griffin’s not feeling bullish on the prospects. The Box Office Game is Sponsored by Regal Cinemas: Sign up for Regal Unlimited today https://regmovies.onelink.me/4207629222/i0jhkoha and get 10% off your 3 month subscription when using code BLANKCHECK Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah. Hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was live streamed 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 spread master 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.

• 1:38Griffin Newman?

  This was our studio. We podcasted here.

• 1:43David Sims?

  Good job.

• 1:44Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Tom Hanks's voice has gotten so interesting.

• 1:47David Sims?

  Oh, please. This is more interesting than the movie.

• 1:49Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:50David Sims?

  Uh, anything we can talk about that's not, no, I'm joking. I'm joking. How's his voice gotten? He's got a, he's got a distinctive voice, I would say, right? Sort of a famous voice.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:59David Sims?

  So I see Jace's going.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Buzz, I'm gonna go absolutely. Berserk.

• 2:05David Sims?

  And then this one time he said that life was like a, I don't know, package or something.

• 2:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he said, life is like a box of chocolates.

• 2:14David Sims?

  No, he's got a distinct voice, but you're saying it's it's gotten a little more gravelly. What are you saying?

• 2:18Griffin Newman?

  He's entered some sort of like, like there is a

• 2:25Griffin Newman?

  elder statesman, Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, like bottom to his voice. I feel like he now has this like quiet resonance that is unsurprising. That comes not just with age and people's voices lowering pitch, but also that sense of just like security.

• 2:43David Sims?

  Experience.

• 2:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I feel like whenever he's doing press tour, he's doing classic Tom. It's the best thing about a new Tom Hanks movie coming out.

• 2:50David Sims?

  Oh, my God. He's out on the talk shows.

• 2:53Griffin Newman?

  And he's goes and he's telling the stories and whatever. And then like I start to clock it in Toy Story four. Where I was like, oh, he's playing like a more contemplative Woody. And now Woody sounds old and I feel like Toy Story four, great movie. Tim Allen sounds old in the Toy Story films now in a way where you're like, this guy's maybe just done some damage to his voice.

• 3:15David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like he's like, Woody, come on. Like he's just kind of, whereas like Tom Hanks is like settling into something that I cannot approximate because I'm a stupid child.

• 3:23David Sims?

  Different voices, right?

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  But it like hit me watching here. That it's one of the things that immediately for me started to rub me the wrong way. Beyond the eeriness of the D aging or the his posture, any of that stuff. I'm like, the voice that is coming out of him as a 20 year old is a man who's lived through shit. And when you get to the end of the movie and he's able to sit with that voice and play it. I'm like, what a fucking incredible instrument. And Wes Anderson has talked about this as well. Who he used so fucking well.

• 3:53David Sims?

  City and incredible performance.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  And is in the next movie as well.

• 3:56David Sims?

  What's the next movie called again?

• 3:57Griffin Newman?

  The financia scheme?

• 3:58David Sims?

  The way.

• 3:59Griffin Newman?

  I believe it's called the financia scheme. Am I wrong about this?

• 4:04David Sims?

  Uh, no, it's called the Phoenician scheme.

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 4:07David Sims?

  Phoenician. I was like, what's this word he's saying? No, Phoenician, the Phoenician scheme. With, uh, Tom Hanks and. My Michael Sarah's in this.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  Michael Sarah.

• 4:16David Sims?

  Benedict Cumberbatch?

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  Are the two leads.

• 4:19David Sims?

  Um, Benicio del Toro.

• 4:21Griffin Newman?

  By all accounts, and then I believe there's a young girl who is the third lead of the film. Yeah. And then I just, I love that Hanks is being added to the stock company. And Wes Anderson in an interview talked about how like, the way he used him in Asteroid City was really kind of like him entering full elder Jimmy Stewart level, like this guy represents some idea of America. There is like an unflashy, just sort of like solidity to him now that it just like emanates out of his pores. That is, in my eyes, one of the interesting things that here has to work with. I don't totally know what they do with it, but in trying to do a shitty impression of him to start out this episode, it just made me think about.

• 5:05David Sims?

  About it.

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:06David Sims?

  Um.

• 5:07Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is a blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 5:10David Sims?

  I'm David. I was just thinking about when Wes Anderson won an Oscar like last year for the Henry Sugar movie.

• 5:18Griffin Newman?

  Didn't show up.

• 5:19David Sims?

  Didn't show up and.

• 5:20Griffin Newman?

  Cool as hell.

• 5:21David Sims?

  There wasn't much of a, like, sort of, it was just kind of like, uh, except for him, whoever it was.

• 5:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:28David Sims?

  Do we know who accepted?

• 5:29Griffin Newman?

  I totally forgot.

• 5:30David Sims?

  I'll look it up.

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:31David Sims?

  And that just kind of happened and he made those, that the, the, those shorts for Netflix that in my opinion should just be one film that I can watch.

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 5:40David Sims?

  Maybe it is now.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 5:41David Sims?

  Check.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so. I think it still isn't. Maybe I'm wrong. Uh, but also just did that in the same year that he released one of his better feature films.

• 5:48David Sims?

  In my opinion, it's right. The best things he's ever done.

• 5:51Griffin Newman?

  That basically goose egg from every goddamn awards body.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Yeah. Anyway, love that movie.

• 5:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:58David Sims?

  More mixed on today's movie. Here we are on Blank Check.

• 6:03Griffin Newman?

  We're here.

• 6:03David Sims?

  Griffin and David. We're here.

• 6:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 6:05David Sims?

  And you know, joy and hope and loss and loss and love and life happen here.

• 6:11Griffin Newman?

  Here.

• 6:12David Sims?

  At the Czech Republic card, our studios. But also in this, uh, 104 ish minute.

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:19David Sims?

  Movie that Robert Zemeckis has made for us.

• 6:21Griffin Newman?

  In 2020, Robert Zemeckis won our March Madness competition.

• 6:25David Sims?

  Oh.

• 6:27Griffin Newman?

  I just, I'm gonna, I just need to say the things.

• 6:30David Sims?

  Yeah, no, you're not wrong.

• 6:31Griffin Newman?

  I believe that series was called Pod to the Future Cast.

• 6:34David Sims?

  Was it really?

• 6:35Griffin Newman?

  I, I mean, that's as best I can remember. You might be surprised to hear that a lot of that year.

• 6:40David Sims?

  No, it was called Podcast Away. But I think you like complained a bunch how it should have been called like, you know, shit out of a butt.

• 6:49Griffin Newman?

  No, what I said was buzz. I said Pod to the Future Cast. You're right. It was called Podcast Away.

• 6:57David Sims?

  Podcast Away. Um, but we did, uh, cover the films of Robert Zemeckis on this podcast where we cover the filmographies of directors in 2020. We did do that. And since then, Mr. Zemeckis has blessed us with two additional feature films.

• 7:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Now, some people love this movie.

• 7:16David Sims?

  Pinocchio. Remember that one?

• 7:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:19David Sims?

  How was Tom Hanks' voice doing in that movie?

• 7:25David Sims?

  I love Tom Hanks. I think he's a great actor. I think he takes a lot of risks.

• 7:30Griffin Newman?

  I, that's.

• 7:31David Sims?

  You know, as like.

• 7:32Griffin Newman?

  That's exactly what I like about him. I was texting with a couple of friends about like, is here gonna hurt Tom Hanks? And I'm like, I think Hanks is bulletproof at this point. I think he's an American.

• 7:42David Sims?

  He could make a lot of shitty movies. It doesn't really matter.

• 7:45Griffin Newman?

  For the rest of his life. I even think like bankability doesn't really affect him at this point.

• 7:49David Sims?

  Yeah, people will turn out for the ones they wanna see.

• 7:52Griffin Newman?

  Totally. Yeah. And he like will always.

• 7:54David Sims?

  Man Called Otto made money.

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  It did. That's the thing. Like some of his marginal ones quietly do really well. Like I think Greyhound is like the most watched thing in the history of Apple still maybe. Yep. Ben's looking on with recognition at these things that came out, happened, were.

• 8:10David Sims?

  Remember when he was like, eh, he what? Remember that Elvis? Remember?

• 8:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a big hit.

• 8:17David Sims?

  Sure. Not only a big hit.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:18David Sims?

  But a absolutely daring performance. Like maybe not one that worked for everyone, but it's not like he was like, yeah, should put some makeup on me. And I'll be like, hey, I'm Colonel Parker. Like not make a fucking effort. But he's like, no, I've cut a whole fucking thing.

• 8:32Griffin Newman?

  This is an interesting point. I wanna say there's almost been a bifurcation of Hanks, right? Hanks had this legendary, for a while he had.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  The most, the longest run of consistent hundred million dollar grosses of any movie star.

• 8:46David Sims?

  Uh, he famously in the nineties, yes.

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. I think there's like a 12 to 13 film run without exception, you know? And like that run is starting after like things like the fucking that thing you do counting against him or whatever, which it shouldn't, right? It's just like a quick.

• 9:04David Sims?

  He made a lot of hits.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  And, and that was an era where we think of like a kind of like golden age movie star career, where it's like, if Tom Hanks is the star, the American public shows up. Material that feels difficult, tough, uncommercial. He single-handedly gets butts in seats. Times have changed. I would contend there is no star who would be able to turn something like Road to Perdition into a summer blockbuster.

• 9:30David Sims?

  Sure.

• 9:30Griffin Newman?

  Single-handedly.

• 9:31David Sims?

  No, probably not.

• 9:32Griffin Newman?

  In the way that he could. And since then, I would say there has almost been this bifurcation of Hanks where it's like, he does commercial things.

• 9:40David Sims?

  You're, you're, um, Robert Langdon movies, right?

• 9:44Griffin Newman?

  You know, like to a certain degree, Otto is like, this is just like, kind of straight down the middle, you know, across the plate. Greyhound was meant to be that and then ended up going to streaming.

• 9:52David Sims?

  Not a bad movie.

• 9:53Griffin Newman?

  And then, as you said, he tries really daring shit. It feels like in a certain way, him being freed up from every movie needing to be a blockbuster allows him to be like, I want to use my cloud to get Cloud Atlas made. And if Cloud Atlas is a hit, that'll be great. And if not, I don't care.

• 10:07David Sims?

  Happy I made it.

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  I can survive it, right? Uh, Elvis feels like the one example of him in a big commercial movie, doing an insane thing.

• 10:16David Sims?

  But like, it's funny that Elvis and Pinocchio were the same year because they're two, let's slap a bunch of makeup on Tom Hanks and he's going to do a voice and like, it'll be crazy. Kind of Cloud Atlas vibes. And in Elvis, that performance certainly did not work for everyone, but he's doing something.

• 10:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 10:30David Sims?

  And if Pinocchio, it felt like one minute before he started filming, he had it on his phone. And he was like, how does your brother talk? Uh, yeah, kind of like that. Okay. Uh, Pinocchio, what's up with you? You're like, that was it.

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's interesting that his work with Robert Zemeckis has now started to feel his most autopiloting.

• 10:49David Sims?

  So how many films has Tom Hanks made? So we're talking about Robert Zemeckis, a new film called Here.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:54David Sims?

  Here.

• 10:55Griffin Newman?

  Her.

• 10:55David Sims?

  Uh, and they have made, you're seeing five films together. So those films are Forrest Gump. Heard of it, Ben?

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  Yep. Cast Away.

• 11:03David Sims?

  Cast Away, great movie. Better than Forrest Gump.

• 11:06Griffin Newman?

  A hard agree. The Polar Express.

• 11:08David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 11:11David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 11:12Griffin Newman?

  Pinocchio.

• 11:13David Sims?

  Not looking good.

• 11:13Griffin Newman?

  Pinocchio here.

• 11:14David Sims?

  Oh, fuck. Jesus.

• 11:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I'm not forgetting one, am I?

• 11:18David Sims?

  Uh, no.

• 11:19Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 11:20David Sims?

  No, you're not.

• 11:21Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 11:22David Sims?

  No. No, you're not. What's it? Okay. In between the gulf of Polar Express and Pinocchio, which is almost 20 years.

• 11:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 11:34David Sims?

  Is there a Zemeckis movie he could have popped up in that he would have been? I mean, like, so like, obviously you're Beowulf, Christmas Carol. You know, no, forget that, right? I mean, sure, he could do those, but like, he already did.

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  There's a version of Hanks doing Flight that makes sense.

• 11:50David Sims?

  Interesting, but obviously you don't really want to lose the Denzel performance there.

• 11:54Griffin Newman?

  I, I think Denzel is the best person who could have possibly played that role. There is a Hanks version of it that makes sense. And of course, people tend to conflate Flight and Sully.

• 12:02David Sims?

  They do, uh, but one landing, well, both landing successful. The Sully landing definitely less dramatic. Nobody rolled it.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Do you know this, in fact?

• 12:12David Sims?

  What's that?

• 12:12Griffin Newman?

  Then the movie Flight, he rolled it.

• 12:14David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:15Griffin Newman?

  What's his name in that film? Skip Skippington?

• 12:18Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't he have?

• 12:18David Sims?

  Flight, Flittington. His name's a whip.

• 12:21Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 12:23David Sims?

  I think Whip is a nickname, but yeah.

• 12:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, what a fucking name.

• 12:26David Sims?

  The Walk, I mean, Hanks, I guess, could have been a guy who's like, hey, get down.

• 12:34Griffin Newman?

  He wouldn't fit in Allied.

• 12:36David Sims?

  He wouldn't really fit in Allied again unless it was in some supporting role. In Marwin, he couldn't. He's kind of too old for it, but there's a time when he would be interesting in that.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  10 years earlier, he would have been the Marwin guy.

• 12:46David Sims?

  In the, in the witches, he could have been Tucci, I guess, if that's something anyone wanted.

• 12:52Griffin Newman?

  By the way, here's another interesting thing about Hanks, that he'll like, not feel the need to be the guy in the movie anymore. He will let himself sometimes be a stock company player.

• 13:01David Sims?

  It's just almost more interesting.

• 13:03Griffin Newman?

  Those feel too big for him. You're like, if he was the Ben Kingsley part in The Walk, it would destabilize the movie.

• 13:09David Sims?

  But it feels interesting that he makes, uh, three very successful films of Robert Zemeckis. I don't think the Polar Express is good, but these are all successful films.

• 13:17Griffin Newman?

  Blockbusters.

• 13:18David Sims?

  Big hits.

• 13:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:19David Sims?

  Gets Oscar nominations for two of them and wins one for one of them. I think it was for Polar Express. I'd have to check.

• 13:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:26David Sims?

  And then like 18 years later or whatever, Zemeckis is like, hey, you want to fucking be Geppetto? And fucking this Pinocchio horseshit that's going on Disney plus.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  I would contend the least existent work either of them has ever done.

• 13:42David Sims?

  Right. And he's like, yeah, sure. And then Zemeckis after that is like, okay, do you also want to be in a reunion with Robin Wright? In a much, you know, bigger sort of pitch of a movie.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember how excited we were when this was announced?

• 13:56David Sims?

  Of course, that it's not him phoning it in.

• 13:59Griffin Newman?

  The original deadline story, but it was like, Robert Zemeckis is making a $50 million adult drama starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Once again, written by Eric Roth, that spans centuries and takes place in one house.

• 14:14David Sims?

  And I was.

• 14:14Griffin Newman?

  Fascinating. That sounds like exactly what I want my man to do.

• 14:19David Sims?

  Uh, and here it is. And some people like this movie.

• 14:22Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 14:22David Sims?

  Um, but I'm going to warn everyone.

• 14:24Griffin Newman?

  We did not.

• 14:26David Sims?

  That it didn't work.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  We had a very, I, I think we had a pretty profoundly negative experience watching.

• 14:31David Sims?

  Now, I would say, and we don't want to get too much into the events of the world because what a bummer it is.

• 14:36Griffin Newman?

  But it must be said.

• 14:37David Sims?

  We did watch this the day after election day. Maybe we weren't in a great mood.

• 14:41Griffin Newman?

  No, we went to see it with Marie, who is not on this episode.

• 14:43David Sims?

  But who we love and who always cheers me up.

• 14:45Griffin Newman?

  Of course, one of our favorite people, a dear member of our family, but she in text was like, guys, what if this movie hits us so hard?

• 14:54David Sims?

  Sure. Right. What if we are in a kind of like vulnerable place?

• 14:57Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, ready for.

• 14:58David Sims?

  Boomer heart screen pulling.

• 15:00Griffin Newman?

  For distinct possibility. I, I want to love this movie. Right? And we'll zoom out from this in a second, but I want to love this movie. I was so prepared for distinct possibility where I'm like, this thing might just poke me in the bruise and totally break me and be some catharsis point. And this episode might just be me offering qualifiers of like, you know what? I don't know if this movie works, but it made me cry a bunch and maybe I'm just in that day, you know?

• 15:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like it instead had the opposite thing where you and I were sitting there and we were just like, today of all days, I have no patience for this.

• 15:31David Sims?

  Truly kind of was like, it felt like a family member kind of trying to sit me down and be like, but let me tell you about like that sort of broken promise of the post war. And I'm like, I don't care.

• 15:42Griffin Newman?

  I was like, this is literally the last thing I need on my plate.

• 15:46David Sims?

  You're telling me you had a nice living room? That sounds great.

• 15:48Griffin Newman?

  Ben, you saw this film Horizon Style two days before us, I think.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 15:53Griffin Newman?

  And by Horizon Style, I mean in a theater with no one else.

• 15:56David Sims?

  What was the movie theater you saw this in, Producer Ben?

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Village East.

• 15:59Griffin Newman?

  One of our favorites.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Screens in New York City.

• 16:02David Sims?

  Not only did you see it alone in a theater, you saw it alone in a gigantic, it's like a former synagogue or something. It's this.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  Looks like an opera.

• 16:09David Sims?

  Temple of cinema.

• 16:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:10David Sims?

  Where we've seen like hateful eight on 70 mil or what, you know, like these kind of cool movie experiences.

• 16:17Griffin Newman?

  You're sitting in like a balcony and the whole theater is empty. Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yep. I went to a 930 screening.

• 16:24Griffin Newman?

  On a Monday night, like right after it came out. It wasn't like you going to see Horizon in like Astoria at midnight on a Wednesday, right? It was like, you saw it on its fourth day of release.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:37Griffin Newman?

  At a late evening time, but like not late, late.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  No, it's, it was surprising. It was really surprising that I was the only one there.

• 16:47Griffin Newman?

  Marie got to the theater, I think at the exact moment our showtime was supposed to start at the Alamo.

• 16:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 16:55Griffin Newman?

  12:45.

• 16:56David Sims?

  Uh, it was supposed to start like the, the movie, like obviously it's the, the ads and stuff, but still. And the door was closed, right?

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  Marie texts us, guys.

• 17:04David Sims?

  To be opened.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  I got here at 12:46 and it was roped off. They had to open the theater just for me. And then you and I both got there in the following five minutes. Then one other guy walked in and then a woman walked in, I want to say like 15 minutes into the movie. It was basically the five of us watching here, the earliest showtime. That Brooklyn had to offer the morning after election day. Now, here's here, here, here.

• 17:31David Sims?

  And I got a lot to say about this film.

• 17:33Griffin Newman?

  I do think it's interesting to talk about, and I apologize to everyone who had a profound emotional experience for this film and is going to be really frustrated with hearing us shit on it. And I want to make it clear, it gives me no pleasure. I so badly wanted to like this thing. And to this point, I think I can say this, our friend Esther Zuckerman saw this like months ago.

• 17:53David Sims?

  Sure.

• 17:54Griffin Newman?

  And you sent me screen grabs of her over text telling you.

• 17:59David Sims?

  Explaining the movie, not like spoiling things, but just sort of like laying out for me what the movie is.

• 18:05Griffin Newman?

  And we'll, we'll talk about the book. I know I'm putting like 80,000 pins on the board, but for a while it was like, what is this movie? Like, what is this going to be? And the book doesn't feel, there are a lot of different ways you could adapt it, right? So I'm just like, I have no conception of what this is going to be. And then Esther sends this text, having just seen it being like, holy shit, guys, I saw it here. And she's like, the whole movie is approximating one shot from one angle, the corner of a house. It starts with dinosaurs. Tom Hanks ages like 70 years, like all this shit. And she's like, it's bad. And you and I are texting each other and going like, this shit sounds incredible. And Esther's going like, guys, no, you have to believe me, it's bad.

• 18:47Griffin Newman?

  And you and I kept saying, I refuse to believe that isn't good. Everything she's saying to try to convince us it doesn't work. I cannot imagine the reality in which I don't find that so compelling.

• 18:59David Sims?

  Like she was describing like a Michael Haneke movie or something. I was just like, what? You're telling me he's made something daring?

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:07David Sims?

  Um, how could, right? How could this at least not be interesting? And Esther's like, it doesn't really.

• 19:12Griffin Newman?

  It just doesn't work. And I was just like, look. I, I, how am I gonna disagree with Esther on this? Our tastes usually align, but she just must be off the mark here. Then I saw the first trailer and I was like, oh, it, it's got this. And at this point, it is like, it is my cilantro. I feel like at this point, I basically have the same like guttural, physical reaction to late stage Zomakas by and large, that a lot of our listeners have with M. Night Shyamalan and a lot of culture at large, where they listen to our Shyamalan episodes and they're like, how could these guys-

• 19:48David Sims?

  These people are high, right? They're just in another dimension.

• 19:51Griffin Newman?

  Of course, it's obviously bad. It just doesn't work. Where I like see the here trailer and it's the same way I felt when I saw the Marwin trailer after I'd been so excited at the idea of him adapting that documentary. You know, where I, and the same with The Walk, where I'm just like, this look that I described in text to you yesterday as looking like a bowl of plastic fruit, where everything is just like too shiny and controlled and feels hollow and has like no weight spatially, you know, this like meticulous approximation of things where I'm like, why not just shoot it? And every performance feels like way too bright and overstated. Every line of dialogue, super didactic and Sylvester is going ham.

• 20:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 20:35Griffin Newman?

  And I'm just like, immediately my teeth hurt. Immediately, I see the here trailer and I'm like, fuck. This is the version of this movie that doesn't work for me. And even still, I'm getting texts from friends being like, looks like your boy Bobby Z is shit in the bed again.

• 20:48David Sims?

  Here, interesting. Oh, no, okay, right, yeah, yeah.

• 20:51Griffin Newman?

  Just from the trailer.

• 20:51David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  They're like, this looks like a disaster. And I'm like, I, I believe, I believe. And they're like, have you heard good things? I'm like, no, I've only heard bad things. At this point, more people have messaged me who have seen the movie and are like, it doesn't work. And I'm like, I really kind of believe in this. And I think in the last two weeks, I finally got broken down where I was starting to dread it, just because I'd started to hear such overwhelmingly negative stuff.

• 21:16Griffin Newman?

  Now it feels like defenders have popped up.

• 21:19David Sims?

  There's a lot of, I think my letterbox for here, oh yeah, I'm sounding like Woody just got asked to, you know, give a doll his voice box.

• 21:27Griffin Newman?

  Buzz!

• 21:28David Sims?

  Uh, my letterbox friends are mixed to positive, I would say on here.

• 21:33Griffin Newman?

  No, we walked out of the theater, you checked the letterbox and you were like, oh, all, most of my mutuals seemed to like it.

• 21:38David Sims?

  Our friend Sean Fantasy, uh, is a fan and I think defended it on his show and had a take that I was like, that's an interesting take Sean. Unfortunately, I was not engaged by the film whatsoever.

• 21:53Griffin Newman?

  Can I just read this quickly? The deadline story announcing the film and it was presented as like buzzy package hits market, right?

• 22:00David Sims?

  Simon Kinberg to, uh, write and produce a Star Wars trilogy for Disney. That, that's what it says.

• 22:06Griffin Newman?

  It is happening again.

• 22:08David Sims?

  What, they just have to keep finding like, kind of less and less impressive names. No offense to Simon Kinberg to roll. It's like Jay Roach, like, like who, who is it gonna be next?

• 22:19Griffin Newman?

  I want to say once again, no offense to Simon Kinberg.

• 22:21David Sims?

  Or Jay Roach.

• 22:22Griffin Newman?

  But there is a real, like, we are stuck in it, like, toxic time loop thing of like, it is 2024.

• 22:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 22:29Griffin Newman?

  Donald Trump has been elected president and Disney confidently announces a new trilogy.

• 22:33David Sims?

  The trilogy, it's coming. We're gonna complete or have a new Star Wars trilogy. Who's in charge of it? You know, one of the fucking guys who does franchise shit who's around, he's available.

• 22:44Griffin Newman?

  The hubris of them. I'm sorry, I know we're going for.

• 22:47David Sims?

  Taika Waititi.

• 22:49Griffin Newman?

  But look, these are the standalones. Is the, am I?

• 22:51David Sims?

  Damon Lindelof will be cooking something up for us.

• 22:54Griffin Newman?

  Am I wrong in thinking this is the third time they have announced that someone is going to create?

• 22:59David Sims?

  A trilogy. So it's Ryan Johnson was the first.

• 23:02Griffin Newman?

  Then Benioff and Weiss.

• 23:03David Sims?

  Then Benioff and Weiss.

• 23:03Griffin Newman?

  And now Kinberg.

• 23:05David Sims?

  God, how about Benioff and Weiss?

• 23:06Griffin Newman?

  But I'm like, three times now they've been like, look, I know you guys have been haranguing us for failing to make one Star Wars movie in six years. Or whatever it's been, five years.

• 23:15David Sims?

  I don't, you know.

• 23:16Griffin Newman?

  But we confidently are gonna make three more.

• 23:19David Sims?

  Anyway, what is the deadline story about here say?

• 23:22Griffin Newman?

  I was just trying to remember how they described it in the original story, right? Based on McGuire's graphic novel, here is described as a breathtaking and revolutionary odyssey through time and memory. The innovative story is centered around a place in New England where from wilderness and then later a home, love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations. Do you remember how exciting it was to read that? And you're just like, what, what is this even? Um, let's just forefront it.

• 23:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Griffin Newman?

  I think you and I both conceptually are so in the bag for what this movie is trying to do.

• 24:03David Sims?

  Sure.

• 24:03Griffin Newman?

  I think it like visually, cinematically, uh, um, uh, even like thematically. Like you described the elements of this movie to me, much like Esther did. And I'm like, I'm going to like this. I hear people like Fennessy and Amy Nicholson, our friends, whose tastes I respect immensely, describe the experience they had watching the movie. And I'm like, what you just described to me sounds like exactly what I want to get out of this. And I think you and I just both felt that the emotional execution of this movie is so disastrous.

• 24:37David Sims?

  I would say yes.

• 24:39Griffin Newman?

  On top of the over cranking of the, the sort of like Zemeckis sugary visuals. And like, I, you know, the way I feel about late period Silvestri scores is I think how you often feel about Thomas Newman, where I'm just like, can you please cool it down?

• 24:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Griffin Newman?

  You don't need to play every.

• 25:01David Sims?

  I, but I do need to, I needed some clarification on certain things like, you know, what the airplane guy died of and, you know, whether or not anything was up with Robin Wright's memory. That, that was not, that was very, very subtle stuff. And I couldn't really like grab on Ben smiling. Yeah. He, he, he picked up on my clues. I couldn't, I'm not that kind of an intelligent viewer.

• 25:21Griffin Newman?

  This is the kind of thing that emotionally alien hits me more than anything else in a movie. Is basically this feeling of a movie having no faith in its audience and needing to have everyone directly state and then restate three more times, every single thing that's going on. Where I'm just like, I find it so distancing, even when the film is trying to depict.

• 25:48Griffin Newman?

  Things that I should find emotionally accessible and universal and poignant, you know, like you could describe scenes of this movie to me and make them sound like they were. And the problem is, as the film is dramatized, it feels like the characters are describing the scenes they are living through.

• 26:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 26:07Griffin Newman?

  In real.

• 26:09David Sims?

  Way too much, way too much. Is it, um, the, I already said this to you guys off mic, but the, the, the, oh hello, live show joke, that the police, that's who you are. Wait, wait, well, ladies on the phone, you know, that kind of dialogue is like, so my thing is, is just over and over again, what people are saying in the room.

• 26:28Griffin Newman?

  Recent bit that I rewatched last night on Seth Meyers, where he said, I've read the script for the Saturday Night movie, and I want to read, do a dramatic reading of one of the scenes. It was not really the script from Saturday Night.

• 26:41David Sims?

  Of course.

• 26:42Griffin Newman?

  A movie where I had slightly similar issues, although I do think it's better than here.

• 26:45David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 26:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh, where he's like, here's a scene from the movie Saturday Night. Lorne Michaels hails a cab. Hello, excuse me. My name is Lorne Michaels. Will you please take me to 30 Rock? I have to do a new show. It's called Saturday Night. Cabbie, that'll never work. Lorne Michaels, shut up, you stupid fucking cabbie. It's going to be so successful and good at sketch comedy. And like, Saturday Night is, feels deeply nuanced in the way the characters define and introduce themselves in relation to here. And which, let's just say, is adapted from a book that I think is like a staggering work.

• 27:25David Sims?

  Anytime I've mentioned that I'm doing an episode on this film to my friends, a couple of people have asked, I'm like, here. And they're like, don't know what that is. And I'm like, it's this movie with Tom Hanks. It's like in theaters now. Sony was releasing it wide. And they're like, yeah, no, I don't know what you're talking about. And I'm like, it's like set from one perspective. And they're like, oh, like that comic book? And I'm like, yes, the one called Here that you clearly read?

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:46David Sims?

  And yet you're not even aware of this movie?

• 27:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:49David Sims?

  And they're like, oh, that comic was really good. I'm like, well.

• 27:53Griffin Newman?

  And, and I'm not going to do a like, I, I'm, I'm going to try my hardest, but it really isn't my feeling. A, to avoid doing a persnickety Griffin, here's what the book did right. And why did they change any of this shit? Because I think the book is a profound work, but it is.

• 28:07David Sims?

  It's not like a one to one thing. You can't turn it into a movie.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  No, in fact, it is, it is a, a work perfect for dramatic reinterpretation.

• 28:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 28:16Griffin Newman?

  I think like the movie should be trying to do its own thing.

• 28:22Griffin Newman?

  I I just kind of feel like it got the equation wrong of what it should have kept from the book.

• 28:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 28:28Griffin Newman?

  And what it should have dropped. But let's just say Richard McGuire, who's a deeply fascinating guy.

• 28:37Griffin Newman?

  Is like one of these guys who has just had. An incredibly varied career across several fields. Was like an eighties East Village art scene guy. He was in a band. Have you ever heard of Liquid Liquid Band?

• 28:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

  Like eighties art rock band. He was the bassist in that band.

• 28:58David Sims?

  Probably best known because their bassline from a song.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

  Called Cavern.

• 29:03David Sims?

  Cavern was used in the the famous song White Lines.

• 29:06Griffin Newman?

  Dun dun dun dun dun.

• 29:07David Sims?

  You know, the.

• 29:07Griffin Newman?

  Dun dun dun dun dun dun.

• 29:09David Sims?

  The the the famous rap song from the eighties about how coke is bad.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:13David Sims?

  Don't do coke.

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  I I did a little digging on this.

• 29:17David Sims?

  I won't.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  Liquid Liquid was on a very small indie label.

• 29:21David Sims?

  I don't know. Hey, you should do it. No, David, I don't want to. I think you should give it a shot right now. This episode's.

• 29:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, why not? If not on the here episode, then when?

• 29:32David Sims?

  What happened on the here episode? They started doing cocaine?

• 29:36Griffin Newman?

  Doing lines.

• 29:37David Sims?

  Okay, Richard, Richard McGuire, yes, sort of eighties art house art scene guy was in Liquid Liquid.

• 29:42Griffin Newman?

  This out, this thing I didn't know digging in, right? Liquid Liquid released a couple of APs on a very small label. White Lines comes out is a big hit song. They're immediately like, that sounds exactly like the fucking bassline. From Cavern. Which this is the guy who wrote this book is the guy who wrote that bassline and performed it, right? Like the thing that is their legacy. This small record label sues. I believe it was Sugar Hill Records released it.

• 30:09David Sims?

  You're correct.

• 30:09Griffin Newman?

  And gets involved in a years long legal battle that ends up bankrupting them. Sugar Hill ends up declaring bankruptcy to get out of paying the penalties. And Liquid Liquid's label went under from the cost of the legal expenses and both labels went under as a result of this and like no one got paid because of it.

• 30:30David Sims?

  Wow.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  Kind of just like an interesting, almost dare I say gumpian, wow, this guy has like had these weird moments in different fields, cross culture, whatever, right? He does a six page strip called Here that is published in Raw, the infamous comics magazine.

• 30:48David Sims?

  That he expanded, right? That then turned into a bigger.

• 30:51Griffin Newman?

  That's in 1989. The book is not published until 2014.

• 30:55David Sims?

  Well, it took him a while.

• 30:56Griffin Newman?

  The book is an entirely different thing. So like here is very much like six pages of identical panels, black and white, very simple line style. And it's just this idea of what if you saw the passage of time moving backwards and forwards and fragmented all from one corner, right? And then the, the book doesn't like repurpose that specific strip. It's like 25 years later. He was like, is there a fuller work to be done with this kind of idea and conceit? The book is incredible. The book is also almost in a way reads more like an installation piece.

• 31:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 31:35Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 31:36David Sims?

  And this movie feels like theater.

• 31:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 31:40David Sims?

  I guess is the sort of like way to excuse its creakiness.

• 31:45Griffin Newman?

  Which I'm like, I'm on board to excuse that.

• 31:47David Sims?

  Not saying the theater is creaky, but it feels like a sort of, you know,

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  But this is exactly.

• 31:51David Sims?

  Bar towny.

• 31:52Griffin Newman?

  What I'm saying about like this being a work that should be flexible for reinterpretation into different mediums, right? Because like here, the book is really making the most of being a book in a Scott MacLeod kind of like, what are the unique things you can only do in the format of comics way?

• 32:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 32:10Griffin Newman?

  And it has the sort of like.

• 32:12David Sims?

  Understanding comics.

• 32:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. The Chris Ware, like, is this a uniquely good format for showing the passage of time and dilation and perspective and things like that? But then there's also like.

• 32:23David Sims?

  He's pulling something out.

• 32:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm pulling the book out. It's like this beautiful, like. Deeply colorful.

• 32:31David Sims?

  Yeah, the colors are so cool.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And you have these sort of like.

• 32:34David Sims?

  Oh, is that character yelling because he's hard of hearing in one here?

• 32:37Griffin Newman?

  We'll get to it. Um, the bulk, the, the, basically all the emotional thrust of the movie are not in the book at all. There are certain incredibly specific scenes, moments, lines that are adapted one to one. Um, uh, the scene in which someone has a heart attack laughing at a joke.

• 32:57Griffin Newman?

  That is.

• 32:57David Sims?

  Not a scene that worked for me in the movie.

• 32:59Griffin Newman?

  I would agree.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Upsetting.

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:01David Sims?

  Yeah, kind of, but also just stupid.

• 33:04Griffin Newman?

  Weirdly, a lot of the Benjamin Franklin, Jason stuff, basically all of that is in here.

• 33:09David Sims?

  Okay, that makes sense that because it was kind of like, what a specific thing to include, right?

• 33:13Griffin Newman?

  Lazy boy couple, fully invented for the movie. Pilot and his wife, fully invented for his movie.

• 33:19David Sims?

  I'm shaking my head.

• 33:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:20David Sims?

  And I like the lazy boy couple.

• 33:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Uh, uh, modern black couple dealing with the struggles of America, fully invented for this.

• 33:27David Sims?

  Not surprised to hear that.

• 33:29Griffin Newman?

  Um, there are, uh, things that are then placed into the Paul Bettany, Kelly Riley, Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, sort of family generation story that are scenes that are in the book, but those characters don't exist as like through lines. So like the scene of like, uh, calling someone unseen to tell them dad took a fall. He broke his hip. He's going to have to move in and live in our couch. And then the argument where he's yelling at him over and over again, the dad's hearing is too bad. And he's like, I'm just joking. I was kidding you. Like there are things like that. But especially within the art style, there's not like, oh, I'm mostly watching this through the perspective of one guy changing.

• 34:10Griffin Newman?

  The book is really good at just kind of giving you abstracted fragments, which I would love to see the version of this that is just like full conceptual, almost installation piece film art, right?

• 34:23David Sims?

  But that's not getting a $50 million Sony budget.

• 34:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm also super into the idea of trying to do a more kind of like emotional spine, more conventional narrative.

• 34:37Griffin Newman?

  Solid character through line to hang your hat on version of the story because you can do that.

• 34:43David Sims?

  And have it be multi-generational, right? Zero in on that aspect.

• 34:47Griffin Newman?

  But the book isn't doing that. And even the way he draws people, like it is sometimes hard to tell if the characters you're seeing are characters you've seen before, rather than just tracking like, oh, 1947, he seems to be showing a guy in a similar outfit, right? But the characters aren't specific. The book really feels voyeuristic in a way that is interesting.

• 35:07David Sims?

  Did you jack it to it?

• 35:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 35:08David Sims?

  Wow. Crazy. Ben didn't like me saying that.

• 35:12Griffin Newman?

  It's like elliptical where you're like not getting a lot of context.

• 35:17David Sims?

  Oh, that does sound pretty hot.

• 35:19Griffin Newman?

  The kind of thing that gets me rock hard.

• 35:21David Sims?

  I, what I like is like voyeurship, but it has to be elliptical and without a lot of context.

• 35:30Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 35:30David Sims?

  Yes.

• 35:31Griffin Newman?

  I think it's time we say bonjour to Mubi.

• 35:33David Sims?

  Hello.

• 35:34Griffin Newman?

  No, no, say bonjour.

• 35:35David Sims?

  Bonjour.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  Because Mubi is a global film company, bringing great cinema to the world and to you, curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked always. And I got a very specific suggestion of something exciting on Mubi right now.

• 35:49David Sims?

  Making Marie Antoinette.

• 35:51Griffin Newman?

  Eleanor Coppola's final film, yes.

• 35:53David Sims?

  In 2005, Eleanor Coppola filmed her daughter, Sofia, directing Marie Antoinette at the palace in Versailles. The first production that was ever granted access to that palace. And for two decades, this footage has gone unseen.

• 36:06Griffin Newman?

  No longer.

• 36:07David Sims?

  Yes. Obviously Eleanor Coppola passed away, but in fulfillment of her mother's wishes, the footage has become a film of its own through the help of Sofia Coppola. And it follows the making of this movie. Melina Canararo's incredible costume work, what it took for Sofia to direct such a big thing at the age of 34 and being watched by her own mother, intimate look at the creative process, right?

• 36:30Griffin Newman?

  Across generations.

• 36:32David Sims?

  Obviously Eleanor Coppola made Hearts of Darkness about the making of Apocalypse Now.

• 36:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:37David Sims?

  You know, this was, this was something she was very good at.

• 36:39Griffin Newman?

  A less chaotic production.

• 36:41David Sims?

  It is streaming on movie from November 6th. You can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. You're going to see all kinds of great stuff.

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  All hand packed always.

• 36:55David Sims?

  Um, but yeah, you know, all their cool movies right now and get miasma and.

• 36:59Griffin Newman?

  We love miasma.

• 37:00David Sims?

  That Garth Jennings Pope movie I want to see.

• 37:02Griffin Newman?

  Oh, that's exciting.

• 37:03David Sims?

  Documentary about the band Pope. Yeah. Anyway, so movie.com slash blank check.

• 37:08Griffin Newman?

  Movie.

• 37:15Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 37:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 37:16Griffin 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.

• 37:37David 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, uh, 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.

• 37:56Griffin 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.

• 38:12David 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, uh, now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com slash listen to Dracula.

• 38:47Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 38:48David Sims?

  Yes?

• 38:48Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 38:49David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 38:50Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 38:51David Sims?

  Ah!

• 38:52Griffin Newman?

  And you know what that means, the old stereotype about November.

• 38:55David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 38:56Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 38:58David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 38:59Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:07David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 39:09Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 39:10David Sims?

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

• 39:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:27David Sims?

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

• 39:33Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 39:34David Sims?

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

• 39:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:50David Sims?

  Thank you for that voice.

• 39:51Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:02David Sims?

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

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 40:08David Sims?

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

• 40:26Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 40:26David Sims?

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

• 40:30Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:38David Sims?

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

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  Can I just show you, and I'll just describe quickly, what is quietly one of my favorite spreads in the book?

• 41:14David Sims?

  And then let's move on from the book.

• 41:15Griffin Newman?

  I know, I know, but I just, I think it's important to talk about a little bit. I'm not going to compare everything one to one. This is a two-page spread that is basically just a collection, and it's, you know, a visual device he uses in the film that's really interesting, where you have this main one static shot from this one angle, but then within that, like, kind of comic book panels will appear, very like Engle, Hulk glimpses into other images. So he'll sort of be like, primarily, this scene is about the couple in the twenties, but then here is a small rectangle of where Tom Hanks in 1974 would be in the same space, right? It feels like in the movie, they mostly use it as like transitions, or doing like very

• 41:57Griffin Newman?

  blunt one-to-ones of like, here's a woman giving birth, and then now here's a square next to her of an indigenous woman giving birth hundreds of years ago. And you're like, okay, I'm just seeing the same action two times. To just remind me, like, do you realize other people gave birth? This is a two-page spread that is basically shattered into a ton of little boxes with the years next to them of just things being dropped or broken, right? It's like, here's like, two wine glasses, here's a plate, here's like a framed painting falling off a wall, and it's just like, here's every time something has fallen and crashed on the ground within this plot of land, basically.

• 42:39Griffin Newman?

  And then the other thing happening in this box, in this spread, the only other, the only text outside of the years is just every insult someone has said in this house, but disembodied from people.

• 42:51David Sims?

  These are such fun ideas.

• 42:52Griffin Newman?

  Weirdo.

• 42:52David Sims?

  They're in the movie, right?

• 42:53Griffin Newman?

  Duskin, nerd, square, shithead, no, none of it. Where you're just like, oh, this is the thing that's kind of profound, is to think of like, these things that are sort of meaningless, oh, across different years, what are the different words you use to insult someone? You know, and like, what are the different kind of small incidental damages? These are like innocuous insults and like life's little indignities of like, ah, goddammit, I dropped this, that start to feel more important versus this movie wants to keep showing us incredibly important things and telling us how important they are. And the thing that I think like accumulates extreme profundity in the book is you just not really understanding more about the lives you're seeing in a certain way, that you're

• 43:38Griffin Newman?

  getting these little glimpses and the span of it is so wide and goes into like the fucking far off future.

• 43:45David Sims?

  Yeah, which is cool.

• 43:46Griffin Newman?

  It's scope is insane.

• 43:47David Sims?

  It would be cool if the house came like a rocket ship.

• 43:50Griffin Newman?

  There's, there's a stretch that is like at some point in a thousand years in the future, where it's like a teacher basically giving instructional on weird objects that our ancestors used to use. And they're using like holograms to explain what a key and a wallet and a waffle were. And you're like, this shit rules, right? But also just contrasted with like, in the original six page strip, there's this recurring thing, or I guess it happens in the book of just like, it feels like the more I clean, the messier things get. And you're seeing the same woman repeating that over and over to herself across decades as she just cleans up different areas of the house.

• 44:31Griffin Newman?

  Um, I, Zemeckis and Eric Roth make the choice to basically be like, there are like six main narrative threads, maybe less, four, five?

• 44:41David Sims?

  There's really just one though, like there is a main narrative in this film.

• 44:45Griffin Newman?

  That is 60% of the movie, 70%.

• 44:47David Sims?

  Right, that isn't really present for the first little chunk and then it's present for the rest.

• 44:52Griffin Newman?

  It starts with-

• 44:52David Sims?

  And then there's a few other, right, sort of D plots that are really just one thing. You know what I mean?

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  That feel like side gags.

• 45:00David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying. It's like the pilot guy, the lazy boy guy, um, the black family, the indigenous, um, people, like a couple, sort of, right? And Benjamin and William Franklin.

• 45:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:12David Sims?

  These are just things we check in with where it's like, there's really just sort of one thing going on here and there's not like a big sweeping thing.

• 45:18Griffin Newman?

  They almost feel like the equivalent of like Rear Window where there's like very vague characterization of what the other neighbors are doing that Jimmy Stewart's spying on, you know?

• 45:28David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 45:29Griffin Newman?

  Each person has like one thing.

• 45:30David Sims?

  Right, they have a thing.

• 45:31Griffin Newman?

  This lady exercises a lot. And you're like, yeah, right. They're just sort of there. They're like, kind of like window dressing, you know? This movie is mostly zoomed in on this idea of basically a cursed house. What feels like

• 45:45David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  Psychologically, the equivalent of like the Poltergeist house.

• 45:50David Sims?

  I don't know about this.

• 45:51Griffin Newman?

  Well, it just feels like everyone-

• 45:52David Sims?

  Lazy boy guy did great.

• 45:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 45:54David Sims?

  He had a hot wife.

• 45:55Griffin Newman?

  I guess it's-

• 45:56David Sims?

  Invented a lazy boy and fucked her in it. And then he sold it and was rich. It seems to be his entire story.

• 46:02Griffin Newman?

  It's really just the Bethany Hanks lineage.

• 46:05David Sims?

  Well, no, the airplane guy definitely had a couple ironies thrown his way. Um.

• 46:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, like here's, here's a great example of how this movie is dramatized, right?

• 46:14David Sims?

  And I guess William Franklin kind of showed his ass on like, we're never going to liberate ourselves from the British.

• 46:21Griffin Newman?

  A guy walks-

• 46:22David Sims?

  Wrong.

• 46:22Griffin Newman?

  A guy walks into a house, dressed like a cartoon drawing of an old timey pilot, right? He's got like a scarf, have a goggle on.

• 46:30David Sims?

  Ah, my goggles and gloves came today. And the important thing about planes is you need to fuel them or whatever.

• 46:35Griffin Newman?

  He looks like Snoopy fighting the red dragon.

• 46:36David Sims?

  Biggles, yeah.

• 46:37Griffin Newman?

  And he like walks into this one static frame and goes like, ah, thank God. I think you literally see his helmet arrive, don't you?

• 46:45David Sims?

  You're seeing his goggles and gloves arrive, yes. His, his flight gear.

• 46:49Griffin Newman?

  Finally, my flight gear.

• 46:50David Sims?

  Shipped it in from Europe.

• 46:51Griffin Newman?

  I can put it on before I go fly my plane.

• 46:53David Sims?

  These people are practically should be saying like, it's 1916 after all. Like they, it's almost that level.

• 46:59Griffin Newman?

  His wife, Michelle Dockery is like, oh, you and your plane stuff? Are you talking about the plane stuff again? You know, I hate that dreaded plane. And then their child daughter walks in and is like, hello, I'm your child daughter. I would love to be in the plane. And the mom is like, I hate the idea of you being in the plane. Don't get in the plane. It's gonna kill you.

• 47:16David Sims?

  You'll die in the plane. Oh, no. Only people who don't know how to fly planes die in planes.

• 47:20Griffin Newman?

  Then maybe that scene repeats three more times.

• 47:22David Sims?

  Literally like over, I took her in the plane. I wish you wouldn't take her in the plane.

• 47:26Griffin Newman?

  Plane's gonna kill you. It keeps happening and you're like, is this going anywhere? And then at one point they just cut to-

• 47:32David Sims?

  He's in a fucking cast.

• 47:33Griffin Newman?

  They're doing the funeral in their home. And there are two guys standing in the back and they're like, surprise, it's an open casket. Why are you surprised? Well, usually when a plane crashes, the body is so mangled, you can't leave the casket open. Oh, you didn't hear? He didn't die of a plane crash.

• 47:47David Sims?

  Turns face to reveal they have old timey flu mask on.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Now, did yours screening have a foghorn at that moment?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Cause I felt like that was out of place.

• 47:59Griffin Newman?

  I'm not really exaggerating how blunt the dialogue is.

• 48:03David Sims?

  It's truly that. And I guess if you can walk in with that, maybe you can more be on this movie's level and I could not walk in with that.

• 48:10Griffin Newman?

  Love a lot of stuff that people think is like weird and stilted and overly stylized. And like unrecognizable from human behavior. But I'm like, in this type of movie where you're gonna be jumping around so much. And the movie's trying to make something profound out of like these little moments and these connections and these echoes, you know? It just like, it, it, it pushes me off so hard.

• 48:37David Sims?

  There's also, it's like anytime I felt like I was kind of engaging with this idea, as you say, of the kind of the vanished promise of the post-war era, right? And like you can own your home and it's like, yeah, they get to own this fucking home. We only see one bit of it, but seems fine. But it's a home filled with faded dreams and, you know, hitting up against, you know, sort of not, you know, like a low ceiling, right? And depression and families divorcing and whatever, right? That's interesting. But then it would be like Tom Hanks's like smooth ass face. And I would be like, fuck this. Or Paul Bettany being like, gee, Wilikers, what are you talking about?

• 49:18David Sims?

  Like, and I would just be taken all the way out of like, beginning to engage with the emotions of the movie.

• 49:23Griffin Newman?

  The, the book is so good at engaging with like silence and space and allowing you to draw a connection.

• 49:30David Sims?

  In Paul Bettany's voice.

• 49:32Griffin Newman?

  This movie is yelling. If this movie, I, I, not to reduce it to simple math. If this movie had 40% less dialogue, I probably would like it 60% more. You know, like if some of these scenes just played out in body language, I'm not saying I'd immediately love this movie, but there's something about it hitting you over the fucking head with everything that I just like could not get past. And not to relate everything to Shyamalan, right? But I'm like, Shyamalan's weird, stilted, like bizarre, heightened tone, performance, style, dialogue, all that stuff. I'm like, that works for me because Shyamalan is trying to make an uneasy world.

• 50:16David Sims?

  He is, and also he's making a propulsive films is another thing he's got going for him is he makes thrillers.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  They're like plotty movies that need to like truck along and characters say stuff bluntly, but the movies are also about how everyone's insane versus this movie being like, you know, just the quiet moments of everyday life of simple Americans. And instead it's like, dad, I made one mistake. I got my girlfriend pregnant on this couch.

• 50:40David Sims?

  How could you do that?

• 50:42Griffin Newman?

  You didn't take her upstairs? Why'd you fuck her on the couch? Because if I took her upstairs, it would be out of frame. Dad, you know where the-

• 50:48David Sims?

  The ultimate horror, right? Of Robin Wright being like, can we please sell this house? And everyone just being like, not able to say like, but then the camera won't see us. If we moved over there.

• 51:02Griffin Newman?

  Robin Wright basically starts yelling, I don't want to be in this movie. Like not Robin Wright, the performer, the character is like, doesn't this feel like this setup isn't working out for us? And you started joking at certain points about things that were gonna have to, the movie would have to bend over backwards to justify why they were happening in the corner of the living room where the couch is. And then most times we started to make a joke, the movie would then do that exact thing. Um, where you were like-

• 51:30David Sims?

  Multiple times.

• 51:31Griffin Newman?

  I made a joke about home birth.

• 51:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  And then her water breaks in the living room. And I was like, oh my God, are they not going to get her the fucking hospital?

• 51:38David Sims?

  Of course not. Why not just do it right there?

• 51:39Griffin Newman?

  Of course she's going to give birth on the couch.

• 51:41David Sims?

  Oh, well, let's get married. I know a great place for us to get married. The front of our living room.

• 51:47Griffin Newman?

  Of course, the funeral happens on the couch. Of course, it's a weird family tradition that they don't have dinner in the dining room. Thanksgiving happens in the-

• 51:55David Sims?

  You know, our crazy family tradition of eating sort of in the living room.

• 51:59Griffin Newman?

  And like, the book has the confidence to be like, there's power in the things you aren't seeing, that you're filling in the gaps, the spaces between these moments you're seeing. And in fact, we're not showing you the biggest moments, right? And the movie is like, well, obviously what you want to see are all the biggest moments. And you want characters to explain why the moments are all happening in this one corner. Here.

• 52:22David Sims?

  Ben, did you like here?

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Um, not really.

• 52:25David Sims?

  Didn't care for it?

• 52:26Speaker 03

  And I want to add that my perspective.

• 52:31David Sims?

  Was looking kind of at a window, kind of like.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Well, I realized, yeah, I realized the whole time I was only looking like out of the corner of my eye, which really, you know, affected my viewing of the movie.

• 52:43David Sims?

  What was your?

• 52:43Speaker 03

  No, I grew up in an old house that's been in my family for a really long time. So I feel like bringing that, I would be so.

• 52:50David Sims?

  It should be able to get you.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  It should be, I should be so on board for it. But I just found myself spacing out, thinking about my own, just like, like, family narrative with the house that I grew up in.

• 53:03David Sims?

  Yeah. I was, and I was just thinking about like groceries I had to buy and shit like that. What about this?

• 53:08Griffin Newman?

  We should also mention, we saw it at Alamo.

• 53:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Griffin Newman?

  They had to open the doors to let Marie in.

• 53:13David Sims?

  Forgot to drop the check.

• 53:15Griffin Newman?

  They forgot to drop the check.

• 53:16David Sims?

  It'd be funny if our waiter was just asleep on the floor. That's why he didn't forget.

• 53:20Griffin Newman?

  We had to track down a manager. And they were like, you guys were in the theater? We were like, yeah. They were like, what do you order? Like a lot of stuff.

• 53:28David Sims?

  We were like, I truly wanted it to be like, we saw here. And they're like, I have no record of a movie called Here ever being shown at the fucking Alamo.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  They're like, they're like, here?

• 53:39David Sims?

  Who was on first?

• 53:41Griffin Newman?

  Like, it just, it felt like we were not supposed to be seeing.

• 53:44David Sims?

  What about interesting release strategy? Zemeckis is like franchises, everyone loves them. So November, we'll release Here, Living Room Cut. And then in like February, you can see the kitchen. Janu-, you know, May, we'll go upstairs.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  Other rooms.

• 54:01David Sims?

  Yes. Same movie, different perspective every time.

• 54:06Griffin Newman?

  Here, so is upstairs.

• 54:07David Sims?

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

• 54:09Speaker 03

  Hearing the movie take place downstairs.

• 54:11David Sims?

  I told you, I break that.

• 54:13Griffin Newman?

  Cause apparently nothing has ever happened in any other room in this house.

• 54:16David Sims?

  When Paul Bettany is laid up on the couch as an older, you know, when he's near death.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  And we should mention, he has a drinking problem.

• 54:24David Sims?

  What? He seemed fine to me.

• 54:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the movie would have mentioned that. And shown it.

• 54:29David Sims?

  He might have had a hearing thing going on. I'm not sure.

• 54:31Griffin Newman?

  No, once again.

• 54:32David Sims?

  Like, wait, where it's like, oh, yeah, my dad's staying with me on the couch. I'm like, your wife left you.

• 54:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:37David Sims?

  Your kid's in college. This is a two floor house. There's not a spare bedroom for this motherfucker.

• 54:43Griffin Newman?

  But also that's.

• 54:44David Sims?

  He's got to sleep on the fucking couch.

• 54:45Griffin Newman?

  As I said, that is one of the things, the only things from the main plot of this movie that is one to one in the book. But in the book, that is just a fragment of a life where you don't ask other questions.

• 54:55David Sims?

  I'm gonna ban you.

• 54:57Griffin Newman?

  The book. Hour with these characters up until this point, you're like, well, I'm, I'm into the logic loops of this.

• 55:05David Sims?

  Is there, I mean, maybe people like this movie. Some people like this movie. So I guess there is a good version of this movie and it's the one they saw. But is there this argument of like, okay, Eminem, the rapper, right? In his early career. And this is true of like comedians and this is true of music. I think of rap musicians and comedians, especially with this, right? When they emerge and they're telling a story about themselves and the community they're in, right? And like how hard their life is. Maybe your comedians are like, yeah. And then like, you start to get famous and rich. And then you kind of live in a, you know, fancy place or whatever. And then comedians come out and they're like, still trying to do material or Eminem's like, here's my 14th record. About like my perspective on the world. And you're kind of like, I think you don't have that interesting a perspective on the world anymore, buddy.

• 55:50Griffin Newman?

  Is that Zemeckis now?

• 55:51David Sims?

  Like, is Zemeckis like, I need to tell another story about like post-war America.

• 55:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 55:56David Sims?

  And it's just kind of like, Bobby, you kind of have done that.

• 56:00Griffin Newman?

  Let's zoom out to general Bobby talk.

• 56:01David Sims?

  Forrest Gump or whatever the fuck. Like, I don't love that movie, but like, you know, you did that. Do you have more on this now? Now that you're this many years removed from like, even like having any idea of what a real person's life is like? Because this is like a fake idea of a real person's like tough life, right? Like I was sort of like a middle class life that, you know, they muddle through and they don't make, you know, the right choices and shit, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right. Like, oh, he wants to be an artist. He turns out to be an insurance salesman and, you know.

• 56:31Griffin Newman?

  He makes the choice to prioritize what he thinks he needs to do to support his family and lives with a resentment of it. And everyone gets.

• 56:38David Sims?

  A quiet resentment.

• 56:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And there's this feeling of this thing that I do think is poignant in idea. And is, once again, Zemeckis and Roth's creation entirely, right? A thematic thing they're creating just for this film. And it's not to syndicate a series of thoughts that Fantasy has undoubtedly shared on his own podcast at this point. But like, his take is that this movie is about the sort of like death of the middle class across the last, you know, 70 years of America. And how like, you know, structurally, we, we have put up roadblocks against the original belief that every generation wants their children to have a better life than they had.

• 57:21Griffin Newman?

  And basically it started becoming a destructive pattern of like people trapping the future generations in a worse version of what they had to live through.

• 57:29David Sims?

  But their kid figures it out.

• 57:31Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And the movie's trying to do this thing of like, you know, life keeps getting in the way.

• 57:36David Sims?

  Sure.

• 57:37Griffin Newman?

  If, if we, we don't have the money to fix the roof, you know?

• 57:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 57:42Griffin Newman?

  Because now this new complication has happened. Dad fell down, or she got into law school. Isn't that great? But we're gonna have to pinch pennies. Or whatever it is, this feeling of like their lives. I think that, by the way, the first 10 minutes of Up dramatizes perfectly.

• 57:57David Sims?

  Move along, move along. No, no. It's another movie I don't like.

• 58:01Griffin Newman?

  I don't like it either.

• 58:02David Sims?

  Keep going, keep going.

• 58:04Griffin Newman?

  That is the thing the movie does well. And does in 10 minutes that this movie is trying to do the whole time of like this life of postponed dreams. Right?

• 58:13David Sims?

  I guess so. It bothers me in Up too.

• 58:15Griffin Newman?

  You and I agree on Up.

• 58:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 58:17Griffin Newman?

  Fine, Lark. But I, I, for whatever reason, couldn't sleep and rewatch that sequence recently. And it was just like, this is a marvel of construction.

• 58:25David Sims?

  Whatever. We're not talking about Up.

• 58:27Griffin Newman?

  We're not. But I, I'm like, this is just this very protracted, you're watching an hour devoted to, we'll get to that eventually. At someday, I'll pick up painting again. We'll go on a trip. We'll fix the house. We'll move out. We'll go somewhere else.

• 58:40David Sims?

  And it, it's a little moving that.

• 58:44David Sims?

  To me, or like, and it should have been more moving in a way, but like, that like, he's like, yeah, you know, it didn't fucking work out, right? And but we tried to be good parents and right. And I provided and like, you know, we did our best sort of. And it's like, there is, there is a win to that.

• 59:01Griffin Newman?

  There were a couple of scenes towards the end that started to get to me where I was like, I, I'm starting to feel a pulse. There's the Robin Wright birthday scene where she's trying to just give a nice sort of like birthday post. And she just surprises herself getting more emotional than she thought she would about what her life has turned out to be.

• 59:22David Sims?

  It's sort of the scene in Boyhood when Patricia Arquette suddenly sort of melts down out of nowhere. And it's powerful in Boyhood.

• 59:30Griffin Newman?

  Robin Wright, a favorite of mine, that is one of, that's maybe the first scene in the movie where I felt like the movie slowed down enough to have a character speak in emotional terms rather than describing their situation, right? And gave her the room to like, play that. And then there is, I felt some emotionality, some genuine emotionality in the sort of like Hank's recognizing, I fucked this up. I need to let her go, right? Their marriage sort of like slowly drifts apart. And it never becomes clear if they're fully divorced, but they're sort of separated or whatever it is, you know? But they both kind of like come to a piece of like, it, this didn't work out for us without us hating each other or demonizing each other. But all of this is also cut with 30 minutes devoted to scenes that end with Robin Wright

• 1:00:15Griffin Newman?

  or start with Robin Wright going, the weirdest thing just happened. I forgot something. Isn't that strange? I remember that I forgot anyway, moving on.

• 1:00:22David Sims?

  And the foghorn comes back.

• 1:00:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And you're like, when is she gonna get dementia? I'm not looking forward to this.

• 1:00:28David Sims?

  I guess the movie moves fast in a way, like you're saying, in that it can't sit in any scene like that too long, I guess.

• 1:00:34Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:00:35David Sims?

  So you're not subjected to that.

• 1:00:36Griffin Newman?

  But the early signs of dementia seem to be spread out over the course of a decade before suddenly the movie is just like,

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  She's,

• 1:00:43Griffin Newman?

  she remembers nothing.

• 1:00:44David Sims?

  Doesn't remember much about her, her life anymore, which is sad.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:47David Sims?

  So then she remembers the one thing and it's a little bit moving and I was slightly touched by it. I cannot,

• 1:00:52Griffin Newman?

  I feel the same way.

• 1:00:53David Sims?

  Even though I sort of was like, oh, that's, that's why that was there and,

• 1:00:57Griffin Newman?

  But I do think there's like, weirdly, the theme of what, Bobby Z is trying to make this movie about feels like the opposite of what you were saying of I don't know how to relate to ordinary people like he is invested in this idea of this being a movie about ordinary people who often are kind of ignored, right? Like people who are just kind of slowly scraping by and existing. There is a very like base level sort of ground, simple humanity to this movie that on paper should work. And what I feel like Zemeckis keeps butting up against is this like guy who was an incredible communicator for a while.

• 1:01:41Griffin Newman?

  I've been listening to a lot of like the podcasts he's done in the last couple of weeks to promote this film. He did a WTF episode that was fascinating in how unrevealing it was. He did an episode of Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz that was more interesting, I would say, got more out of him by only trying to engage him on the work rather than Maren trying to engage with him as a person.

• 1:02:02David Sims?

  Right. Maren's like, hey, what's your deal, man? And Zemeckis is like, I sit here.

• 1:02:05Griffin Newman?

  But on WTF, Zemeckis said a thing about how like, I view myself as someone who makes, I think he said, commercial entertainment or mainstream entertainment, right?

• 1:02:16David Sims?

  That's true.

• 1:02:17Griffin Newman?

  And Maren was like, when you were in film school though, like, didn't you like, you didn't have a phase where you like, wanted to make Godard films? And he was like, no, this was always the kind of movie I liked and what I wanted to make. It is what made him, I think, so skillful for so long, similar to Spielberg, where it's like, the love he has for the best examples of this is so genuine and it feels like he is making them to the top of his intelligence. And for a stretch there, he just had the math figured out on how to communicate complicated things to wide audiences in a way that felt universal. He could communicate them visually, narratively, dramatically, what have you, right? But all these things we've talked about of like, Back to the Future is an insane pitch for a movie.

• 1:03:01Griffin Newman?

  There's a reason every studio turned it down. I don't want to make your family comedy about a guy trying to not fuck his mom, right? Everyone said that. And he was proven right, that he knew the exact right way to pitch that movie to make it work. Roger Rabbit shouldn't work. You read about what the original book was, the changes he made, the technology that no one thought would be possible. You're totally, it's just like, he fucking nailed it. Cast Away is a movie that feels experimental. When you step back from it and go like, in 2000 to make a movie with the biggest star, that is like an hour and a half of him just being silent and sad and lonely and not really talking is insane, you know? And he just knew the right amount to do. Forrest Gump, of course, is this like

• 1:03:44Griffin Newman?

  kind of key film that it feels like now, the latter half of his career is him trying to replicate more than any of his earlier films. Where it's like, he took this weird, complicated text and found a way to synthesize it into something that was very palatable and very broad. And in a way that makes some people revolted. What is this like saccharine, stupid nonsense? And other people, it's just like, this thing fucking hits. And it feels like he has gotten back to a state of really wanting to do Forrest Gump again. I know how to just streamline this thing and hit the emotional beats hard and give it the moments of triumph and the swelling score, but just came out of it.

• 1:04:17David Sims?

  I don't know. It's like, it's like there's music playing.

• 1:04:21Griffin Newman?

  It's like there's music?

• 1:04:22David Sims?

  There is music playing. Apparently, the Robin Hood score has been playing on my computer for lord knows how long. Like on Spotify.

• 1:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Score or the Kevin Reynolds?

• 1:04:33David Sims?

  No, the Mark, yes, Streitfeld Ridley Scott Robin Hood score.

• 1:04:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, that one?

• 1:04:38David Sims?

  Yeah. I think my guess is that Spotify has been running for hours.

• 1:04:41Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:04:41David Sims?

  Playing random music. And that's what it's settled on. Anyway.

• 1:04:50Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:04:50David Sims?

  Yeah?

• 1:04:50Griffin 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?

• 1:05:07David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:05:09Griffin 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.

• 1:05:31David Sims?

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

• 1:05:43Griffin 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.

• 1:05:52David Sims?

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

• 1:05:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:55David 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.

• 1:06:02Griffin 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.

• 1:06:16David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:06:18Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:21David 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.

• 1:06:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:52Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 1:06:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:06:53Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:06:55David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:06:56Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:07:03Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well, what a coincidence, coincidence.

• 1:07:08David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip sweater.

• 1:07:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:07:12David Sims?

  It's a sort of a brown, would you agree?

• 1:07:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:18David Sims?

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

• 1:07:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:42David Sims?

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

• 1:07:49Griffin Newman?

  Like you're wearing red.

• 1:07:49David Sims?

  14 karat gold.

• 1:07:52David Sims?

  Italian leather.

• 1:07:53Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:07:54David Sims?

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

• 1:08:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:08:27David Sims?

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

• 1:08:33Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:08:34David Sims?

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

• 1:08:38Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

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• 1:09:28Speaker 05

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• 1:09:39Speaker 04

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• 1:09:58Griffin Newman?

  It feels like he is so frozen into his instincts from like the mid 90s of what you need to do to make something work for an audience. And I think audiences have evolved a tremendous amount. I think like people do not need to see what used to be parodied as the conventional Hollywood version of a story, right? I think we talk a lot on this show about like, when we get frustrated of popular entertainment, feeling like it's not doing the bare minimum work to hit the emotional beats, or like craft a compelling like narrative arc, because it feels like movies are so into trying to be a step ahead

• 1:10:43Griffin Newman?

  of the audience and subvert expectations and not go into cliche, because people are too savvy, like people know too much. People are exposed to a wider amount, you know? It's part of things not like us not living in, um, an omni culture anymore in terms of like media, where it's like everyone just finds their own shit. Like all these things that used to be niche or mainstream, and people can ride with shit. It doesn't mean everyone's gonna like everything and everything's gonna be a hit. But I think a lot of the feeling of like, you gotta sand this down and make it the most easily digestible version of the thing, is a thing that like Zemeckis is still holding on to that is basically gone. And it feels like he's made a couple of these movies now. Like

• 1:11:27Griffin Newman?

  I put Walk Marwien in this, particularly in this category, where it's like, he's starting out with a really interesting work, right? A documentary, a real life story, a book, you know? And then he's like, well, obviously you gotta do the Hollywood version of it. And it feels like the changes he's making are not like dumb studio notes. It feels like it's he's himself doing the kind of notes a studio would give in the 90s. In the name of, well, I'm trying to make the broadest version of this. And then all three of them come out and people are like, who gives a shit? Fuck you. This movie's for no one.

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  Yeah, I think, and I think the

• 1:12:00Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, there are people who like all three of those films, but all three colossal bombs.

• 1:12:04David Sims?

  Big bombs. I, I think the audience for a movie like here is also gone.

• 1:12:08Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:12:09David Sims?

  Ish, right? Like that kind of older audience.

• 1:12:11Griffin Newman?

  But to that point, it's like

• 1:12:12David Sims?

  The nineties is gone.

• 1:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Then why are you trying to make the version of here that has to function like a blockbuster?

• 1:12:17David Sims?

  Because he's Eminem making the 16,000, this is what I'm saying, where he's like, well, I'm just gonna do what I do.

• 1:12:22Griffin Newman?

  But I, okay, so here's

• 1:12:23David Sims?

  He's not really gonna evolve. How old is Robert Zemeckis? How old do you think he is? How old do you think he is?

• 1:12:27Griffin Newman?

  I think he's 72.

• 1:12:28David Sims?

  You, you are right. That is exactly his age.

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  Hey, crazy.

• 1:12:32Griffin Newman?

  I knew he was just a little bit younger than Spielberg.

• 1:12:35David Sims?

  And Spielberg is someone who consciously tries to evolve and do new things and still is Steven Spielberg. And he's always gonna be Steven Spielberg and

• 1:12:43Griffin Newman?

  So you're saying the, the Eminem, the standup comic thing, like, what does he have to say is he's so out of touch with reality, right? I think what's interesting to me is we lived through the moment that was exciting of like, oh shit, Robert Zemeckis is making Flight. Like, there was the feeling, it was like an earthquake of like, he's dropping the mocap shit? For a while, it felt like he might be doing this for the rest of time. As like, public interest just crashes on each successive movie, he seems pot committed to this thing. Then like Disney pulls out the like rug underneath him and is like, get the fuck out of here. These are done. And then it's suddenly like, Robert Zemeckis has like attached himself to this blacklist script.

• 1:13:27Griffin Newman?

  He's gonna make like a $30 million R-rated drama starring Denzel. Who's like willing to waive his quote on this.

• 1:13:36David Sims?

  Right, cuz why not?

• 1:13:37Griffin Newman?

  Because the material's so exciting to him. I like that movie less than a lot of people, but I'm like, certainly now, in retrospect, I wanna give it almost another full star just for being like, I can't believe he made that at that moment. It is a hit. It gets Oscar nominations. It is well liked. I like Allied much more than most people, but to me, I'm like, that's him in the same vein of what I want him to be doing, which Like those both feel like him making R rated adult movies. That's sort of in a way that's a little bit similar to Spielberg, right? These guys start out their career as like whiz kid geniuses, making like popcorn entertainment for the masses. And then they get older and they start to be rueful of the adult genres that they maybe helped push to the side.

• 1:14:22Griffin Newman?

  And Spielberg has moved to this vein of like making a lot of the movies that people don't make anymore. Versus trying to all the time make classic Spielberg blockbusters. And I was like encouraged by Flight and Allied being like him trying to make something that's sort of like a new Hollywood character piece, you know? Or like a classic golden age, like war drama, you know? I know The Walk happens in between Flight and Allied, is that correct? And then the run of the other ones we've said, right?

• 1:14:53David Sims?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:54Griffin Newman?

  Allied and Flight feel like the two scripts to me that have the least to do with Robert Zemeckis as a person. As much as we have talked about him being a little inscrutable of like, what's going on in this guy's head? And you see peaks of his worldview in a way that I think are unintentional in some of his material. Allied and Flight feel very far off from everything we know about this guy. And it just feels like him reading a script and being like, this is a ripping yarn. I'm gonna make this, I'll hire movie star, right? Versus like The Walk, Pinocchio, Marwin, here, and I forgetting one other.

• 1:15:30David Sims?

  No, I think that's it.

• 1:15:32Griffin Newman?

  Uh, The Witches.

• 1:15:33David Sims?

  Jesus, forget that one. Don't worry about it. Don't talk about it.

• 1:15:36Griffin Newman?

  And in fact, doesn't really fit into what I'm saying here. Those four feel like movies that are weirdly revealing impersonal for him. There's so much about like guys trying to control their universe.

• 1:15:46David Sims?

  Yeah, I think that's why Marwin is good. The Walk is not very good because it's stupid, but some people like it.

• 1:15:53Griffin Newman?

  They're stories we tell ourselves, they're entertainers. They're all the sort of like puppet masters, Zemeckis thing.

• 1:15:59David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:00Griffin Newman?

  This feels like a movie that's about like him now being like in his seventies and looking at how America's changed over time, right? As a guy who came from like a truly like lower class midwestern upbringing.

• 1:16:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh, or no, he was a Chicago.

• 1:16:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17David Sims?

  I, I, I gotta be honest with you. I just don't want to fucking analyze Robert Zemeckis' brain that bad anymore. It's sort of bringing me back to that hateful mini series that was largely good.

• 1:16:27Griffin Newman?

  But it's just in 2020.

• 1:16:29David Sims?

  It ends with a lot of us being like, okay, all right. Yeah.

• 1:16:33Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm basically like, I think the four films of his I like the least are the last four films he made.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:41David Sims?

  Uh, let me look at my Zemeckis list. You're probably right.

• 1:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Like I, I think my least favorite films of his, you like Marwan a lot more than me. I think my least four favorite films of his are here, not, not in order. Here, The Witches, Pinocchio and Marwan.

• 1:16:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:57Griffin Newman?

  And the fifth I'd put in there is Christmas Carol, which is probably my dead bottom.

• 1:17:01David Sims?

  Yeah, I have Christmas Carol, uh, near the bottom and Pinocchio is bottom. That just like, doesn't exist.

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  I mean, which is also.

• 1:17:08David Sims?

  Which is doesn't exist.

• 1:17:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:17:09David Sims?

  Christmas Carol is bad. Here is bad. Polar Express is bad. Walk is bad. That's kind of, that's my bottom. Right.

• 1:17:16Griffin Newman?

  These are movies that make me just feel numb.

• 1:17:18David Sims?

  The next tier up for me are movies of his that I like, which are like Flight, Allied, What Lies Beneath, Bad Wolf, Marwan.

• 1:17:24Griffin Newman?

  Movies that are not wholly successful, but have enough going on.

• 1:17:28David Sims?

  Uh.

• 1:17:29Griffin Newman?

  Polar Express, I, I think drives both of us crazy, but at least as an interesting object, which is more you can, than you can say for like Pinocchio or witches. You're like, this is unpleasant and boring.

• 1:17:40David Sims?

  I, my problem with Flight and Allied, both movies that are much more successful, like you say, is that they're both too long. They both feel indulgent at times. Like, you know what I mean? Like you wish he was making 100 minute, like actual old school Hollywood movies.

• 1:17:56Griffin Newman?

  And it's also like. At this point, we didn't know how fucking good we had it.

• 1:17:59David Sims?

  No, that's the thing.

• 1:18:00Griffin Newman?

  And you wish he had stayed in that vein.

• 1:18:02David Sims?

  That's the thing.

• 1:18:04Griffin Newman?

  Where like, you know, these stories of like, uh, Warner Brothers wanted him to do The Flash so badly. And he was like, I hate superhero movies. I hate these tent poles. That's not what I want to do. You see the films he's made instead and you're like, he should have just done The Flash. Who gives a shit? You know, it's not like we're missing out on more interesting work from him not trying to get stuck in like franchise silo bullshit.

• 1:18:28David Sims?

  I would be more, I would be interested to see his The Flash, but not because I think that would be a great movie.

• 1:18:36Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:18:36David Sims?

  Just because it's kind of like, yeah, what would, what would a guy like him do with a like junky cinematic universe movie? Cause like I liked what Raimi did with Doctor Strange.

• 1:18:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm like, if they're like.

• 1:18:47David Sims?

  Would I rather you do something else? Maybe.

• 1:18:48Griffin Newman?

  Three sequences in The Flash that had Zemeckis verve in them in a way that like multiverse of madness has, would I be like, maybe this is like the best version of what we can do with grandpa before we put him out to pasture, before we put him on the fold out couch in the living room? He on WTF.

• 1:19:06David Sims?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 1:19:07Griffin Newman?

  Maren was like, so I know you love all the tech and the de-aging and the mocap and everything. You read this book, you must go, oh, wow, this is great. I can do it with all the technology.

• 1:19:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:19:18Griffin Newman?

  The way we all pathologize them.

• 1:19:20David Sims?

  And he's like, huh? No.

• 1:19:21Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:19:21David Sims?

  What do you? Yeah, okay.

• 1:19:22Griffin Newman?

  And he said it in a way where earnestly, it genuinely felt not that he's lying to us, but that he's lying to himself, where he just said very directly, I actually don't think that way. I just like, look for material I respond to, and it's all about story for me. And then I get into problem solving of how technology is going to help do it. But we talk about, and it's become the narrative on him, that it feels like he looks for projects that feel like they could be a tech demo so often as a problem. And he was just like, no, I don't, I don't really do that. Uh, where I'm like, I think a lot of the pipeline problem with Zemeckis might just be his, uh, lack of honesty with himself at this point.

• 1:20:03David Sims?

  Yeah, which is fine. Like, or well, or lack of honesty with people on podcasts that he appears on at least.

• 1:20:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you know, he's got this thing that is great, that we all love, that he negotiated his contracts for Back to the Future with Bob Gale and Steven Spielberg, where they have kill rights on anything and everything. And every time there's something of like, when are they going to fucking remake Back to the Future? It's like, no, they're not going to, because it's ironclad, unbreakable contracts that they can't do it until all three of them die, like 10 years after. The kind of contract they don't do anymore. Ghostbusters had a similar contract. And then when Harold Ramus died, they just backed up Brink's trucks and they went like, hey, Bill Murray, you want to own a golf course? Sign away your, your rights, right? The Back to the Future one, the three of them have just held on to it. And it's like a good thing. And um It is a good thing.

• 1:20:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Josh Horowitz asked him about this and he's like, it'll never happen over my dead body. I'll make sure of it. It's sacred. We protect it. There's no need to extend the legacy, this and that. And then in the same interview, Horowitz asked him, is there any genre you haven't done that you'd like to do? And he's like, yeah, I'd love to do a musical. And Horowitz is like, you should do a musical. And he's like, well, I pitched Universal the other day. I want to make a movie of the Back to the Future stage show. God. And I'm like, here's, there, there it is. There's the whole disconnect. This guy knows that for everyone's sake, it's better that we never touch Back to the Future again. And yet he's within the same hour saying, yeah, do the thing the producers did. I'm like, oh, that notorious boondoggle where the producers is a great movie.

• 1:21:38Griffin Newman?

  And then the play is a fucking smash success and then the movie is an inexplicable disaster. And he wants to do that. And I'm like, you know what? I would rather someone else make some shitty Back to the Future remake than watch you try to direct a adaptation of the stage musical. Robert Zemeckis is now the guy I trust least to make any Back to the Future thing. In the same way that now he's saying like, well, Roger Rabbit 2 will never happen because Disney's scared of Jessica's boobs. And I'm like, here's my guess. I'm guessing Roger Rabbit 2 will never happen because every time you've gone in and pitched something to them, your pitch is insane. And maybe he talks about boobs too much. I'm sure he talks about boobs too much. I'm sure that's one of the sticking points.

• 1:22:22Griffin Newman?

  But Horowitz in the same interview was like, I know you had a script. And he was like, we had a script. It was great. Everyone loved it. And I'm like, you know, your judgment on scripts, take it with a grain of salt, right? And he's like, uh, yeah, well, you know, but Disney doesn't want to move because they're scared of Jessica and they put a trench coat on her, whatever the fuck he said, right? And Horowitz was like, well, now of course, uh, Bob Hoskins has died. And he said, well, but you know, that actually wouldn't have been a problem because the way we had the script, it was set many years later. And Eddie was in it as a ghost. So we were gonna have Bob play the ghost. So I guess we could just write him out or maybe we could just CGI. And I'm like, What the fuck are you talking about, buddy? Stop all of this.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like, this guy has made several of the few movies I think are truly perfect in the annals of like Hollywood history. And yet I now feel like he is a child holding lit firecrackers. And I'm like, we have to take them away from him.

• 1:23:25David Sims?

  Can I ask, how did he do as far as tech demo?

• 1:23:30Griffin Newman?

  On this, I think it looks bad.

• 1:23:32David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't think it looks very good. The de-aging didn't look much better to me than other sort of more brief de-aging I've seen in like Marvel movies and shit where you're already kind of, or the Indiana Jones movie.

• 1:23:43Griffin Newman?

  No, and Amy.

• 1:23:44David Sims?

  Where you're like, I can tell this is fake.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:23:46David Sims?

  So it takes me out of it. Sorry.

• 1:23:47Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Chris McQuarrie said when they did tests on de-aging Tom Cruise for Mission Impossible, and he's like, the best test I saw, you're still thinking the whole time, wow, that's pretty good. And I'm like, that's the whole digital de-aging thing in a nutshell for me. Even the times I've seen it done the best, I'm thinking the whole time, wow, that looks pretty good, which is immediately distancing you from the story. And Amy Nicholson makes her whole take of like, this movie works better if you think of it as like, like, like an experimental theater piece, right? Which is how I want to engage with this. And I had the thought, not to try to solve this movie, but as I'm watching it, I'm sort of like, man, there may be a thousand different versions of this movie that would work for me. And even

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  a thousand different versions of the core elements on this specific version. And I'm like, if this movie is Tom Hanks, Kelly Riley, Paul Bettany, and Robin Wright play almost everyone, I think I like it more, you know?

• 1:24:47David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't like that. I don't think you should make this case. I'm gonna, no, no, go ahead. I don't care.

• 1:24:55Griffin Newman?

  I almost think the weird, stagey, like, overdramatized nature of it is more palatable if you're like, it's Tom Hanks with a cane being like, and you're repeating the same actors playing very broad versions of people in a like, cloud atlas event. I don't think that movie, I'm not saying I've solved it, it's a masterpiece now, but I'm like, that better sells the like. Well, this thing is not meant to be taken literally. Or if the set is like more fucking Dogville-y or like anything, you know, where I'm like, this movie is like trying to be grounded reality and also recognizes no reality I have ever seen in my life.

• 1:25:33David Sims?

  But if it's that, then it's that's then it's a movie about like the Tom Hanks's who've lived throughout society. And it's like, no, this movie's trying to be about like, in one place, there have been all kinds of people. Now, the movie wanted to put Tom Hanks in blackface and Native American face and dinosaur face.

• 1:25:49Griffin Newman?

  It's why I said almost all.

• 1:25:50David Sims?

  Yeah, but then it's like you're busting your.

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  Okay, so I had kind of an.

• 1:25:55David Sims?

  As much as it'd be funny if Tom Hanks had a big mustache and was like, I love airplanes. I won't die in one. Anyway, what?

• 1:26:01Speaker 03

  Uh, I had an idea that I wanted to pitch because I felt like the dinosaur stuff for me was interesting.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he also breezes past it. I'm like, when I hear from Esther, like this movie starts with the dinosaurs. I'm like, holy shit. Is he gonna pull some castaway shit where there's like 20 minutes before a human talks in this film?

• 1:26:24Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:26:25Griffin Newman?

  You know, and the movie does not really go chronologically. It sort of roughly does in the Hanks timeline, but it's otherwise jumping all around. But it does basically start with what feels like a short movie you watch in a room at a museum before you enter the real exhibit that is like sped up of just a bunch of shit happening.

• 1:26:42Speaker 03

  There's totally a version of that, right? Of like, really trying to show this era, right? Within this like closed little box. But I think the other successful part of this is just family as a theme, right? So for me, I'm watching The Dinosaur Report and I'm like, what if it was like a family?

• 1:27:02David Sims?

  Was there would there be a baby?

• 1:27:04Speaker 03

  Maybe there'd be a baby.

• 1:27:06Griffin Newman?

  What does he feel about his father?

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  And I.

• 1:27:08Griffin Newman?

  Relative to his mother.

• 1:27:13Griffin Newman?

  I'm curious if he has.

• 1:27:17David Sims?

  I feel like.

• 1:27:18Griffin Newman?

  Any opinions on who is or is not the mama?

• 1:27:21David Sims?

  I'm just throwing this out there.

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  He might say something like, not the mama?

• 1:27:25Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:27:26David Sims?

  Is that really the number one thing that show had to throw down the fucking plates? Was like, and the baby says, not the mama. And everyone's like, we're gonna remember that. And they're like, we have some other stuff too. And everyone's like, no, we're sticking with just remembering that. Honestly, not the mama. That's our one takeaway.

• 1:27:44Griffin Newman?

  I had an argument, I don't want to call it an argument, but a disagreement with our friend, John Hodgman, the other day, where he was like, oh, yeah, that weird failed one season show. And I'm like, my man, that show ran for five years.

• 1:27:57David Sims?

  I believe four, but yeah.

• 1:27:59Griffin Newman?

  I think, I think it was like.

• 1:28:00David Sims?

  It got spread out over, it's four seasons, maybe over five years.

• 1:28:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And he was like, that is impossible. And I'm like, that show was seen as a failure because it was so expensive and it didn't run as long as The Simpsons, but that thing did, like, they produced many, many, many episodes of it.

• 1:28:16David Sims?

  And they had built all this stuff, but you know, they had to get some, you know, fucking use out of it.

• 1:28:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That show was deeply bizarre. I went down a rabbit hole when we were doing Twin Peaks, season one, where I was going back and forth between.

• 1:28:28David Sims?

  Jesus.

• 1:28:29Griffin Newman?

  Twin Peaks and dinosaurs.

• 1:28:30David Sims?

  Like, all we fucking remember is not the mama.

• 1:28:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  We don't really remember anything else.

• 1:28:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but you know why? Because every other thing on that show, there's, okay, so there's like 20% of that show that is like insane proprietary dinosaur culture mythology, where you're like, what is this? There's a holiday where you throw your mother-in-law into a cliff?

• 1:28:50Griffin Newman?

  And that stuff is fascinating. And then the other 80% of it feels like a parody of a parody of a 50's sitcom, where you're like, Earl Sinclair comes home, drops off his lunchbox and goes like, honey, I'm home.

• 1:29:02David Sims?

  I mean, that was the joke.

• 1:29:03Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, is that that they were too lazy and they settled on the first draft? Or are they mocking the tropes in a way that kind of feels like what here is getting out of like, maybe culturally, things repeat themselves. Even the dinosaurs would complain about their wives haranguing them with the, the rolling pin in the kitchen.

• 1:29:20David Sims?

  Oh, he said, I'm the baby gotta love me. He also would say that.

• 1:29:23Griffin Newman?

  That was his song. That was his hit single.

• 1:29:25David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:29:26Griffin Newman?

  That we're talking about his music.

• 1:29:28David Sims?

  Not the mama.

• 1:29:30Griffin Newman?

  And much like Eminem, he hasn't really put out relevant work in a while. I feel like he's sort of lost touch with his roots. When he was a baby, things felt very raw to him. He had a lot of things to write songs about. And now he's just rapping about his mansion and shit.

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  Verizon knows that holiday math can be complicated.

• 1:29:49Speaker 05

  Okay, let's see. We got the four kids, four gifts each, six teacher gifts? Wait, oh, what did we get? And Sandy and the dogs. Oh, can't forget the dogs.

• 1:30:00Speaker 04

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• 1:30:19Griffin Newman?

  I just, I felt, and I know some people love this movie, and I wish I was with them.

• 1:30:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Griffin Newman?

  I did have the thought, watching this, to quote our finest film critic, Ben Hozle. I think the guy needs to get spaced. Like, I think we need to space his ass.

• 1:30:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:38Griffin Newman?

  And here's another, here's an incredibly mean thought I'm gonna share. I thought there might be no filmmaker we have covered on the show that I feel more confident will never make a movie I like again. And that includes the filmmakers we have covered who are dead. I could sooner see myself being excited about a new Nora Ephron film than a new Zemeckis. I would love to be proven wrong. I'd love to see him swerve back. But I just don't feel good about any of it. And I'm just like, I don't even really, I find it hard to see the glimmers of the way, like, I'm never gonna fucking quit Timber. And even in his

• 1:31:21Griffin Newman?

  most dire movies, as our listeners have heard way too much, I'll be like, but that 10% in a corner of an idea.

• 1:31:28David Sims?

  But also, Tim Burton makes. Entertainment. And I do feel like Zemeckis is forgetting a little bit how to make entertainment.

• 1:31:37Griffin Newman?

  This is my thing, though. It's like he's stuck in this weird space where I'm like, all my problems with here come from him trying to make it too entertaining.

• 1:31:44David Sims?

  I, I don't think that's it. It's not entertaining.

• 1:31:47Griffin Newman?

  Him making the version of the movie that is like.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  But you're talking about like an abstract movie, but I'm saying like, he just can't write people or he and Eric Roth. Like, you know, it's like.

• 1:31:57Griffin Newman?

  We sit there with Murray.

• 1:31:58David Sims?

  They're just such paint by number creatures, all these people, like.

• 1:32:02Griffin Newman?

  Four minutes in, she turns to us and says, Eric Roth wrote this?

• 1:32:08David Sims?

  Well, actually, she said David Koep wrote this. And we were like.

• 1:32:10Griffin Newman?

  I was trying to be kind to her. Yeah.

• 1:32:13David Sims?

  But, you know, a well-known screenwriter wrote this.

• 1:32:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. And the people are talking like this. And then the end credits, it says screenplay by.

• 1:32:20David Sims?

  Eric Roth and Robert.

• 1:32:21Griffin Newman?

  And all three of us went, oh, well, that's okay.

• 1:32:24David Sims?

  Wow, it's a little different.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  And look, I refuse to believe that the film we're seeing on screen is not the aftermath of a heavy Bob pass.

• 1:32:33David Sims?

  I think so, because Eric Roth is, is, it's not like Eric Roth only writes smash hits, but he's a pretty reliable screenplay credit. This is honestly, yeah, kind of his first cruddy screenplay credit since it sort of depends where you fall in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

• 1:32:54Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 1:32:54David Sims?

  Which he wrote.

• 1:32:55Griffin Newman?

  Once again, like I would be thrilled to see Zemeckis deliver an Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at this point.

• 1:33:03David Sims?

  I guess Mank, you can kind of, you know, he didn't really write that, but he sort of, but like Mank is way more successful, obviously, than anything we're talking about right now.

• 1:33:10Griffin Newman?

  There's no thing he's ever had a credit on where people talk like this. Is that fair to say as a huge sweeping statement?

• 1:33:17David Sims?

  Yes. And beyond that, it's just like, I like, again, this idea, but the emotion, the interiority of like the guy paints. How do we, how can we tell he's a painter? Well, he paints in the living room. He's always trying to capture the.

• 1:33:33Griffin Newman?

  Honey, I'm staying up late. I'm trying to get what the moon looks like.

• 1:33:36David Sims?

  And like the scene where he, he shows his baby the moon, actually a sweet, Hanks can really make that work, you know, like, but.

• 1:33:46David Sims?

  You know, your sense of the guy is an artist or his artistic feeling is just that he had some painting that he did in the room. And then there's a scene where he like takes the painting and puts it in a box and he's like, I'm gonna be a salesman. Like, it's just the fucking, you know,

• 1:34:00Griffin Newman?

  Right. I mean, your text, I just have it here, was, "The deal with me is my dad is Ben Franklin." And then you wrote, "What all the dialogue in that movie sounded like?" And I'm like, yeah.

• 1:34:11David Sims?

  And then there's like, right, 14 scenes of people being like, you know, Dad, you used to be a painter.

• 1:34:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16David Sims?

  Remember you wanted to go to art school? And he's like, "Yeah, well, I'm not doing that. I look like big right now, by the way. Anyway, I'll see you later."

• 1:34:23Griffin Newman?

  Which, by the way, the Franklin stuff is basically one-to-one in the book, except they maybe never say Ben Franklin. And you're like, that's so much better when you're reading it and you're like, oh, that's Ben Franklin's son. That's supposed to be, it's like the thing I say all the time. It's the old fucking axiom of like, give the audience one-on-one and let them put it together and they'll love you forever. Right? Isn't that Billy Wilder line, I think? But this like belief of like, audiences like it if you make them do a little work. You get to feel smart, that you're like putting the pieces together. And more than anything, it makes you engage in a film. And when movies are like yelling shit at you, you know, like, I feel like the substance of film we, have you seen it?

• 1:35:04David Sims?

  Still haven't seen it.

• 1:35:05Griffin Newman?

  A film that I think people were arguing about, like, it's so broad, it's so like, it hits this point over the head until it's dull, you know? And I think a lot of people who dislike that movie are just like, no one talks like this. The emotions are so extreme, it's so out of whack. Have you seen it, Ben? The difference for me is, A, that movie goes in plot directions you could not expect, right? Which keeps you locked in, even if it keeps doing so in a very broad, unnuanced way.

• 1:35:30David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:31Griffin Newman?

  And the second thing is, it is largely a visceral experience.

• 1:35:34David Sims?

  Right. And I saw her first movie, and that's a, that's a very heightened genre, you know, thing. And it's much more forgivable.

• 1:35:42Griffin Newman?

  There are many films that I like that people don't like, where my argument is like, I don't care about subtlety. Subtlety's overrated, right? And I don't want to sound like I'm just being persnickety about here because it's broad. But I think the way in which it is broad is actually anathema to what it is trying to do.

• 1:36:00Speaker 03

  For me.

• 1:36:01David Sims?

  There was this rock, you know, and people would go near the rock, the Native Americans.

• 1:36:06Speaker 03

  At one point I described it to someone as having the depth of a postcard.

• 1:36:11David Sims?

  That's fucking right. Cause I called it a boomer diorama on Letterboxd and like, it's the same kind of thing where it's like.

• 1:36:17Griffin Newman?

  I said horrendous.

• 1:36:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:19Griffin Newman?

  That's pretty good.

• 1:36:20David Sims?

  I was, I was, I was into that.

• 1:36:22Speaker 03

  But yeah, it's like, it's just like, yeah, uh, thinking of you. The trip's been great. Anyway, bye.

• 1:36:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's like empty platitudes. I, I, um, right, right. It has the emotionality of a Hallmark card. The whole movie, that is a great way to put it, is like, it's like my, my condolences for your loss. And you're like, well, it doesn't really mean anything if it's on a piece of paper that you bought at a Rite Aid 10 minutes ago, that has a crying cartoon cat next to it.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  The, the like, um, glue is still wet when I opened the envelope.

• 1:36:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, look, I appreciate the gesture. This of course resembles the idea of an emotion.

• 1:37:03Griffin Newman?

  I understand the intent of what was trying to be communicated here. This does not make me feel anything.

• 1:37:12David Sims?

  The lazy boy guys, we gotta talk around, they're so horny.

• 1:37:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. This is probably the thread of the movie I liked the most because it was the least important, if that makes sense. Like there's something nice about it being just kind of like free of serious incident or drama.

• 1:37:25David Sims?

  Right. Cause it's like, it's not like this movie is about everyone who ever lived in this location. Cause it's basically like, once there were dinosaurs. All right, moving on.

• 1:37:31Griffin Newman?

  It, it does not go beyond its range.

• 1:37:33David Sims?

  Right. Then let's zip, you know, hundreds of millions of years. And it's like, okay. Native American, this was sort of an important Lenape burial site. Okay. Moving on. Also Ben Franklin's cocks on, all right, moving on. And then, cause that, that's like the 1760s or whatever. And then we basically jump ahead to the early 20th century with flying guy. So like, we're not seeing like whatever colonial family lived there or whatever, even though everyone says like, oh, it's a whole colonial house.

• 1:38:01Griffin Newman?

  Get a glimpse of someone being like, I think I might build a house here, but like.

• 1:38:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:38:06Griffin Newman?

  It, it mostly sticks to, as we said, the like five or six threads that. They're all basically set up within the first 15 minutes of the movie.

• 1:38:12David Sims?

  Apart from the, the couple of things I just mentioned, they're all 20, 21st century.

• 1:38:16Griffin Newman?

  There's not like a sense of discovery of like, I have no idea where this is going to go next. You're like, we're going to keep returning to the things we've established, you know? And like the Lenape characters, you're not really seeing anything of meaning with them. It's like, you'll see Robin Wright and Tom Hanks hold hands and then a little box will come up in frame and be like, you know, that other people used to hold hands too. Very close to the same spot, just in fact, one foot away. And you're like, okay.

• 1:38:43David Sims?

  The only problem I had with the lazy boy, and I've, maybe I shouldn't have this problem, is that it doesn't connect to anything and never really comes up. Like no one even, I was expecting like an annoying line of like, Tom Hanks to Robin Wright being like, you know, you know, I found out like the inventor of the lazy boy, lived in this house. Isn't that crazy?

• 1:39:00Griffin Newman?

  Well, also I think this movie has.

• 1:39:02David Sims?

  I looked up, by the way, the lazy boy was not invented by this guy. He was invented by some brothers in Michigan.

• 1:39:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, weird. It wasn't, I'm looking here on Wikipedia. It wasn't invented in the one house.

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  This movie trains your expectations in a way where I'm watching this lazy boy plotline, which to be clear is just, a, a pinup model.

• 1:39:21David Sims?

  Right. A sort of Betty Page kind of lady, right? Or but pre-war, but you know, you know, that kind of thing.

• 1:39:27Griffin Newman?

  It's like a 30s version of According to Jim where it's like schlub with hot.

• 1:39:31David Sims?

  Right. A fun husky guy.

• 1:39:33Griffin Newman?

  Who's like, look, I made the ultimate recliner chair. And then they're like, holy shit, this thing is magical.

• 1:39:38David Sims?

  And the plot just doesn't change. It's just they continue to be horny for each other.

• 1:39:42Griffin Newman?

  And everyone keeps going like, that is in fact a good.

• 1:39:44David Sims?

  Still works, by the way, goes down, it goes up.

• 1:39:46Griffin Newman?

  That is a good invention. And at one point you see a guy come in and he's like, I'm going to sell a lot of these. And I think you're basically done.

• 1:39:51David Sims?

  That's it. And then there's literally like a radio broadcast of like Pearl Harbor. And you're like, oh, okay. So did he go to war? And they're like, yeah, we're not checking in with you again.

• 1:40:00Griffin Newman?

  This movie conditioned me to be like, oh God, I'm going to hate it when, the lazy boy guy gets polio, you know, or like fucking scarlet fever. I'm like, what terrible fate is going to befall the lazy boy guy? And you're like, nothing. Movie could maybe use more of this, of just like things that happen, people, the spread, the range of humanity, you know?

• 1:40:20David Sims?

  Yes. Cause I guess the next, well, we don't know who's in between lazy boy and, uh, deaf Paul Bettany.

• 1:40:25Griffin Newman?

  Adolf Hitler lived there for two years. When you're just trying out some ideas.

• 1:40:29David Sims?

  I had the thought about European audiences trying to engage with this movie where like, people live in like cities that go back like thousands of years.

• 1:40:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  Like, and, and it's like this movie, like it's dinosaur 1900s. It's like, it's like. Don't forget Ben Franklin's Cocks.

• 1:40:47Griffin Newman?

  But this is, this is another thing that should make this movie interesting, that you're like, the microcosm of American history is so small that it basically could all be contained within a house by and large, you know? Like there, there's stuff there.

• 1:41:06David Sims?

  There really is.

• 1:41:06Griffin Newman?

  That I want to engage with.

• 1:41:09David Sims?

  Ben Franklin's Cocks on, I wanted to say it one more time.

• 1:41:11Griffin Newman?

  I saw some behind the scenes photos and I was genuinely surprised to see that they actually built this set. Where I was watching it and the film has such an uncanny sheen to it that I was like, Jesus Christ, Zemeckis couldn't even put up four walls. I was so convinced even as like characters walk from one side of the room to the other, it felt very weightless.

• 1:41:31David Sims?

  Um, I agree with you. Did they build it like fully? Are there elements that are?

• 1:41:38Griffin Newman?

  That's what I was starting to guess while watching it. Like, okay, I know this wasn't shot in the volume, but maybe they only had a couple pieces and then everything else.

• 1:41:47David Sims?

  I guess it makes sense that you have to kind of build.

• 1:41:49Griffin Newman?

  I saw some pictures of Bobby sitting, looking over the script with Robin and Tom, sitting on the fucking mantel place. I'm like, the room looks fully constructed.

• 1:41:58David Sims?

  Okay, but the card table that they brought up for Thanksgiving, that was CGI?

• 1:42:01Griffin Newman?

  This is my thing.

• 1:42:02David Sims?

  I'm like, oh, you know grandma's famous card table.

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  Why is this falling apart visually? Why am I not believing characters taking steps on this floor?

• 1:42:10David Sims?

  Because they look too shiny.

• 1:42:12Griffin Newman?

  They do, but like the wall looks too shiny.

• 1:42:15David Sims?

  And also there's two scenes that are, um, bizarre in the same way because they involve one, a baby and two, Tony Way's character, I think that's the actor's name, right? Falling down.

• 1:42:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:42:28David Sims?

  And the fall is clearly CGI assisted rather than them doing a stunt, obviously with the baby.

• 1:42:33Griffin Newman?

  It's supposed to be a vaguely funny, vaguely alarming moment of a baby accidentally falling to the floor. And it feels, you're expecting the baby to bounce off the floor like they're in a bounce castle.

• 1:42:42David Sims?

  It's very strange and like moments like that again, completely take you out of the movie. And it's like disastrous.

• 1:42:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's, there's the sort of like lingering moment. There's a scene in which an archaeologist, a historian comes into the house and sees Kelly Riley and is like, "Hey, we're working an archaeological project. We're historians. We think that this house might be like an important burial site."

• 1:43:05David Sims?

  That seems kind of, who's that actor?

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. He looks very familiar.

• 1:43:09David Sims?

  Now you're looking, I'm gonna try and see if I can figure him out.

• 1:43:11Griffin Newman?

  This is also because of the way this film is shot. Most characters are, are very far away from the camera.

• 1:43:16David Sims?

  Yeah, and then sometimes they kind of walk close for a second.

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  Like, we were watching, being like, is that Noah Wiley? I, I also, yeah, I just in compositionally, like, this is a movie that should live or die on interesting blocking.

• 1:43:29David Sims?

  And instead.

• 1:43:30Griffin Newman?

  It just kind of feels like paper dolls placed in the least interesting positions. But that moment, you're like, where is this going? And it doesn't really go anywhere, right? Because of the weird tone of performance in this movie and them wearing like fake mustaches and like 70s wigs or whatever they're wearing to show that they're like hippie historians. I was like, the tone of this is so strange. Are they gonna turn out to be like Manson family people who are pretending to be historians to like rob them? And they're like two younger research assistants who have nervous energy. And I'm like, what's going on with them? And then Kelly Riley and the main guy, Clear, and they have this moment where the two young people are sitting on the couch. And he goes like, "Oh, you have a fuzzy thing on your face." And she goes like, "Oh, you found my imperfection." And it cuts away.

• 1:44:16Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, what was that? And then you're like, oh, that's like one moment of understated human behavior in a movie that has not trained you to be able to receive that kind of thing, at least for me. Like a scene that isn't someone explaining something, telegraphing it clearly. And that is like from the book verbatim.

• 1:44:37David Sims?

  Oh, interesting. Right. Well, so that's why they got that interesting thing.

• 1:44:41Griffin Newman?

  And like fuels at odds with what the movie is.

• 1:44:44David Sims?

  That actor's name is Jonathan Aris. He's just in a zillion things, like so many things. It's too much to get into, but you've seen him in something. Rogue One, The Martian, All the Money in the World, a bunch of TV.

• 1:44:58Griffin Newman?

  I didn't like this and it bummed me out.

• 1:45:00David Sims?

  Clearly. Uh, I also didn't like it and would have rather seen a movie like Jordan number two or something, right? Like where I'm like, oh, I want to catch that.

• 1:45:08Griffin Newman?

  Your line was I, I was more in the mood to watch a movie about cars that turn into dinosaurs.

• 1:45:13David Sims?

  Yeah, that would also rock. Just like some nonsense instead of this kind of thudding.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, David, I have great news for you.

• 1:45:19David Sims?

  What's up?

• 1:45:20Griffin Newman?

  Red One in theaters nationwide this weekend. If you want some dumb nonsense, my friend, here comes a hardy.

• 1:45:26David Sims?

  I'm kind of annoyed that the reaction to that movie now that it's come out is just people coming like, yeah, it's bad. What can I tell you? It's not like, whoa, like a historic disaster. They're just like, yeah, shitty. The end.

• 1:45:37Griffin Newman?

  I was ready for it to be the worst thing that happened in America this week. And unfortunately, I think the release of Red One's only going to be number two.

• 1:45:43David Sims?

  Well, there you go. We just played the box office game. I don't know, man.

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I think we've done plenty on it. I, I don't really like, we could maybe talk about the performances, but I don't really think it's worth it.

• 1:45:58Griffin Newman?

  Look, we did a lot of Hank's talk upfront, right? And I like, liked the swing of him wanting to do something like this because it does feel kind of experimental and the movie tries to get a lot of mileage out of him just being a steady hand. Robin Wright was the one person I found kind of affecting.

• 1:46:15David Sims?

  She's a great actor.

• 1:46:15Griffin Newman?

  She cuts through. She's a great actor. And the movie finally kind of gets at something once in the last like 20 or 30 minutes, it starts to focus on her a little more.

• 1:46:23David Sims?

  But just a little bit.

• 1:46:24Griffin Newman?

  But up until that point, she's basically just a nagging, what if, like, she's not very.

• 1:46:29David Sims?

  Can we leave? No.

• 1:46:31Griffin Newman?

  Up until that point, and then the movie starts to like swing its perspective a little more to like, this woman had like hopes and dreams. She wanted to balance books. Wasn't that her dream?

• 1:46:41David Sims?

  No, that's Kelly Riley.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right.

• 1:46:43David Sims?

  She was like, I would have been a great bookkeeper. I don't know what Robin Wright wanted to do. I honestly forgot if she had a dream.

• 1:46:49Griffin Newman?

  I think she had a thing.

• 1:46:51Speaker 03

  She went to Paris.

• 1:46:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's later. She says, I'm gonna save up my pennies so that every year I can go to Paris again with my daughter, just girl time, but also visit a different country every year.

• 1:47:03David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:47:04Griffin Newman?

  And their daughter, their ultimate masterpiece. Yeah. You want to talk about Benny for a second?

• 1:47:07David Sims?

  Maybe it's just an actor I really love, but I think he's laying it on a little thick in this one.

• 1:47:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I almost wonder if he is, if he's got the right approach.

• 1:47:19David Sims?

  Sure. Just yelling to the back of the audience. I mean, I don't know. I didn't like his.

• 1:47:24Griffin Newman?

  Performance works and it's out of sync with what everyone else is doing, but also it does kind of feel like everyone is sort of like dog paddling, just trying to find a ledge in this movie.

• 1:47:34David Sims?

  I think Hanks and Wright do their best. I don't know what an actor is supposed to do with this material, honestly.

• 1:47:41Griffin Newman?

  We should mention Leslie Zemeckis is in this, playing the woman who agrees that Benjamin Franklin sucks in a bustier. And then their daughter, who we recently found out his name is Zaza Zemeckis.

• 1:47:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. God bless.

• 1:47:53Griffin Newman?

  Really? Yes, is Hanks's daughter in the film during their teen years. But Zaza Zemeckis.

• 1:47:59David Sims?

  A Walkman addict in the film.

• 1:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Uh, something that I just totally did not pick up on, and that's probably because I deeply checked out from the film.

• 1:48:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they're in the house.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  Right. Okay.

• 1:48:11Griffin Newman?

  That's right.

• 1:48:11Speaker 03

  No, the housekeeper. I just didn't even pick up.

• 1:48:14David Sims?

  Uh, wait, I'm sorry. Yeah, we do have to mention that I do think, right, the most embarrassing, clunky things in the movie are in that storyline. The black family who, I mean, I, you know, I love the actress Nikki Amuka Bird.

• 1:48:29Griffin Newman?

  She's incredible.

• 1:48:29David Sims?

  Who's the mom, who's a great British actress, but like.

• 1:48:31Griffin Newman?

  Recent, uh, Shyamalan rep company player, knock at the cabin and all.

• 1:48:35David Sims?

  Right. But they just have zilch to do. And that really feels like Zemeckis trying to just be like, and it's crazy how like, you know, Black Lives Matter and COVID, like are things that happened later in history, recent history.

• 1:48:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:51David Sims?

  And it just kind of gets like squished into that. Very brief plotline.

• 1:48:56Griffin Newman?

  Look, here's, here's the whole experience we had of watching the movie in a nutshell. Okay. Cut to housekeeper. She's spraying a bottle at a flower, right? And then you see her like pause and then she like.

• 1:49:09David Sims?

  And I truly thought she was gonna huff it.

• 1:49:12Griffin Newman?

  She smells the bottle.

• 1:49:13David Sims?

  That would have been interesting.

• 1:49:14Griffin Newman?

  And we're like, what's this moment? And then we see that she's wearing a face mask, but it's hanging off of one ear, right? Like she's taken it off. And we know this is the most recent timeline. Then she leans into the flower and Marie goes.

• 1:49:27David Sims?

  Yeah, we all go.

• 1:49:29Griffin Newman?

  She lost her smell because of COVID. We, Marie says that, oh God, she lost her smell because of COVID. And the second Marie finishes saying it, she basically turns to the camera, the character and goes, I can't smell. And we're like, yeah, we got, we got it.

• 1:49:46David Sims?

  Um, and then she dies off screen, which also we didn't need to happen because I feel like just, just pick one thing like you don't have to hit it on us over and over again for us to get the point. Um, but I thought that was bad.

• 1:49:57Speaker 03

  Were on Ed Sullivan.

• 1:49:59Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  And it was kind of a pivotal moment.

• 1:50:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:03David Sims?

  Uh, this movie came out November 1st, Griffin, on, uh, 2600 screens.

• 1:50:07Griffin Newman?

  Hey, we should mention the box office game is brought to you by our friends at Regal. And here's the thing, you join the Regal Crown Club, you accumulate those points. You can get upgrades on concessions. As we've said before, as I said in previous episodes, they got a site where you can usually spend points to buy weird movie tchotchkes, the kind of stuff I love. But also you can upgrade to Regal Unlimited, which is an incredible deal. If you're someone who likes to go see movies on a regular basis, promo code blank check.

• 1:50:34Speaker 03

  Code blank check, 10% off your first three months.

• 1:50:38Griffin Newman?

  Three months.

• 1:50:39David Sims?

  November 1st, 2024. This film opened on 2600 screens, uh, $4.8 million. It's not a successful film.

• 1:50:47Griffin Newman?

  No, uh, some of the release day jockings started to make us think, is Sony confident about this movie? Cause it was like, oh, they're pushing it up. They were gonna stagger it. They're going wide.

• 1:50:59David Sims?

  And it just wasn't at any festivals, really. I think it premiered at AFI, but you know, um, and it has not done well and will, I'm sure vanish from theaters immediately. No, it's number one.

• 1:51:10Griffin Newman?

  The number one movie in America is called Venom, colon, The Last Dance.

• 1:51:15David Sims?

  That's right, Griffin. A film, uh, we've both seen. I thought it was not very good.

• 1:51:20Griffin Newman?

  You saw it too.

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  Saw it with Alex.

• 1:51:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's not very good.

• 1:51:22David Sims?

  No.

• 1:51:23Griffin Newman?

  It's got, it's got a couple things.

• 1:51:26David Sims?

  It does, but then it also like so much of it is set in a lab. And I'm just like, why isn't this about? Like Venom being silly.

• 1:51:33Griffin Newman?

  I would say like every single thing that happens with Chouetel Hajiya four and Juno Temple, two actors I love, is so radically uninteresting. Just the most boilerplate shoe leather explaining plotty shit seemingly to set up spinoffs or sequels or whatever, where I'm just like, no one is buying a ticket for this. Show like Venom giving Eddie a wedgie. Like, that's what we're all paying for.

• 1:52:00David Sims?

  It's so stupid.

• 1:52:02Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, that's like the thing they should have learned from the first movie? Is like, oh, no one cares about like the lab.

• 1:52:09David Sims?

  It's symbiote drama or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:52:11Griffin Newman?

  I don't think the second movie is like, perfect either, but it at least had the right idea of just like, just do the crazy shit. I don't think any of those three films really work.

• 1:52:21David Sims?

  No, I think the first one actually is the most successful and that's not a great thing.

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  I think the second one is my favorite, but all.

• 1:52:28David Sims?

  One is incoherent.

• 1:52:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but I think that's maybe the best approach to a Venom movie.

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  I think the first one is best because Tom Hardy talking to himself is the best stuff in those movies. Cause Tom Hardy gives so much of a shit. And the second one, I just, it's like a lot of like carnage yelling and CGI action that's really shitty and like.

• 1:52:46Griffin Newman?

  The problem is, the first movie was like, a mistake.

• 1:52:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:52:50Griffin Newman?

  Where it's like, they're trying-

• 1:52:51David Sims?

  It's not a good movie.

• 1:52:52Griffin Newman?

  Trying to make a normal movie and Tom Hardy is hijacking and doing something weird and the tension of watching him work against it, very similar to like, the Captain Jack Sparrow feeling when those Pirates movies started, right? Of like, holy shit, this is like crazy, that he's doing this within the machinery of this kind of thing. And then you get to the sequels and you're like, well, if the movies are being designed to let Captain Jack Sparrow do his thing, then that tension is gone, the electricity is gone. And I feel like the Venom movie similarly could not figure out, if we know now that people like the weird Tom Hardy shit, then what is the movie in relation to what he's doing?

• 1:53:28David Sims?

  I don't know, but the best shit in that movie is when he's in Vegas being silly.

• 1:53:31Griffin Newman?

  Of course, that's all we're paying for. And Let Them Be Carnage is, or, what's it called? Fuck, Let Their Be Carnage?

• 1:53:38David Sims?

  Let Them Be Carnage.

• 1:53:39Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that one is, what if we built the whole movie out of the weird shit and it's too much? And then this one is like, what's, how do we do some of the fucking plot shit? They just stop, whatever.

• 1:53:51David Sims?

  Number two to the box office-

• 1:53:52Griffin Newman?

  No Madame Web.

• 1:53:53David Sims?

  An animated film.

• 1:53:54Griffin Newman?

  The Wild Robot.

• 1:53:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:55Griffin Newman?

  Still have not seen.

• 1:53:56David Sims?

  Think it's pretty good.

• 1:53:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm going to take my little cousin's, Venom: The Last Dance got prioritized. Uh, my nine-year-old cousin, little George, found Venom boring, which is probably the most damning review I have heard of any movie all year.

• 1:54:09David Sims?

  Uh, number three to the box office, a horror sequel?

• 1:54:12Griffin Newman?

  Small Two?

• 1:54:13David Sims?

  Small Two. Heard mixed things, some people really like it, some kind of meh.

• 1:54:17Griffin Newman?

  Underperforming is certainly, would be a very profitable film.

• 1:54:20David Sims?

  Yeah, but not maybe the breakout they hoped for.

• 1:54:22Griffin Newman?

  We've been, uh, last decade or so, there's been like, sequel growth on the horror breakouts usually, and this one is, is dropping.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  Yeah, I think making it so long was maybe an interesting choice, or maybe it's just you're not catching people off guard.

• 1:54:37Griffin Newman?

  It's another thing Fennessey has talked about recently on Big Pick, that is, there's been a interesting year of studio horror, largely underperforming and indie horror growing.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, oh, like movies that cost less than a million are making 10 million and that's exciting.

• 1:54:54David Sims?

  Right, like Terrifier, obviously.

• 1:54:56Griffin Newman?

  But movies that cost like 20 that used to always reliably make 60 are now ending up at like 30.

• 1:55:01David Sims?

  Yeah, they're your, your night swims. Number four with box office is Conclave.

• 1:55:06Griffin Newman?

  A fun time at the movies.

• 1:55:07David Sims?

  Very enjoyable film, and I think I want to say on mic, Tucci's Touch Returns.

• 1:55:12Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:55:13David Sims?

  Kind of the first movie where Tucci doing his thing really.

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  He's doing his thing.

• 1:55:17David Sims?

  Worked for me.

• 1:55:17Griffin Newman?

  God, are we happy to have it back.

• 1:55:19David Sims?

  Very happy in a little bit. Yeah. So really happy for that. Conclave fun here, not fun. Have you seen We Live in Time?

• 1:55:27Griffin Newman?

  I have. I did not care for it.

• 1:55:28David Sims?

  Some people like that one.

• 1:55:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:30David Sims?

  Haven't seen it. Terrifier three.

• 1:55:31Griffin Newman?

  Is another movie that felt a little, uh, overstated for me at times.

• 1:55:38Griffin Newman?

  It's not as extreme as here, but I had a little bit of the same problem of like, I want this movie to breathe a little more. There is such power to just letting Pugh and Garfield play off each other that the movies like focus on the most extreme scenes, be they like extreme sadness or like the most overstated version of charm started to feel a little suffocated, suffocating to me.

• 1:56:04David Sims?

  Beetlejuice, Anora, which is doing very well. Yeah, you know, there's good movies out there and I'm seeing some of them.

• 1:56:13Griffin Newman?

  Beetlejuice, uh, an insane success.

• 1:56:16David Sims?

  Huge hit. Yeah.

• 1:56:17Griffin Newman?

  Especially in a year. Where Warner Brothers has seemingly shown an allergy to releasing films successfully.

• 1:56:24David Sims?

  Released its ass to the public largely.

• 1:56:28Griffin Newman?

  I was saying to you that it like, that's the only movie they haven't mangled. And then you reminded me that the first three months of the year.

• 1:56:34David Sims?

  They were crushing it.

• 1:56:35Griffin Newman?

  They had Dune, they had fucking Godzilla versus Kong, and I want to say they had one other one that did okay.

• 1:56:40David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:56:40Griffin Newman?

  But like two genuine blockbusters and then it's just been a series of like sideshow Bob stepping on rakes.

• 1:56:47David Sims?

  Essentially, yes. Their other hit that you're forgetting is, I guess that's it.

• 1:56:53Griffin Newman?

  I mean, they've mangled Twister overseas.

• 1:56:56David Sims?

  No, no, the rest of it is, you know, Furiosa, underperforming Joker, obviously.

• 1:57:00Griffin Newman?

  Horizon.

• 1:57:02David Sims?

  Horizon, that was a really, you know, Trap did fine. Pretty good, actually, 42.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:57:08David Sims?

  But like, and they might have hoped for more like a 60, right?

• 1:57:11Griffin Newman?

  Especially for the start of their.

• 1:57:12David Sims?

  Yeah, their relationship.

• 1:57:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:57:14David Sims?

  Relationship. But he's still, honestly, Trap actually did alright.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Dura Number Two, they're seemingly.

• 1:57:19David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, this is the litany of their mistakes.

• 1:57:22Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Clint should make one final movie about how Zaslav tried to railroad the release of Dura Number Two. He almost now needs to make a movie about Zaslav railroading him. And he should play Zaslav.

• 1:57:32David Sims?

  Here's Bad. I hope, I kind of hope like you, Zemeckis like, takes a while off and like, doesn't do something.

• 1:57:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:40David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, if he wants to make something, fine, but it better not be fucking Back to the Future, the musical, or whatever.

• 1:57:47Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy. I mean, I know they've announced a closing date on Back to the Future. There are two Robert Zemeckis musicals currently running on Broadway.

• 1:57:55David Sims?

  The Beatles running on Broadway right now? I mean, that's a, that's a.

• 1:57:57Griffin Newman?

  Death Becomes Her, just open.

• 1:57:59David Sims?

  Concert, yeah. I haven't heard the most amazing things about either, but they do exist.

• 1:58:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:04David Sims?

  It makes sense that those stuff he used to make would translate to a musical.

• 1:58:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it just underlines how much this guy used to be tapped in and has made things that survived, if not even grown, versus him continuing to put out stuff that it just does not connect in a large way. Even if they have their defenders, you know?

• 1:58:24David Sims?

  Make a movie about how hard it is to be a rich director. Maybe that's more interesting.

• 1:58:27Griffin Newman?

  Maybe that's it. Here's a crazy stat I'm gonna throw out. And obviously, the asterisk here is two of them went straight to streaming. I think the combined box office totals domestically of all of his films since Flight.

• 1:58:39David Sims?

  Probably don't add up to Flight.

• 1:58:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Like Flight made 90?

• 1:58:43David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, cuz it's like 10, 40, 10, 6.

• 1:58:48Griffin Newman?

  Ally did 40?

• 1:58:50David Sims?

  Yeah, like, Walk and Marvin did 10. Here won't probably even make it to 10. Maybe it'll make it to 10. I don't know. Pretty rough.

• 1:58:56Griffin Newman?

  Pretty rough.

• 1:58:57David Sims?

  Yep. He's just pooping out black hats, basically.

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  My man?

• 1:59:02David Sims?

  Is pooping up black cats left and right.

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  Tune next week for.

• 1:59:07David Sims?

  Oh, our longest episode ever.

• 1:59:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So don't. You know what? Maybe this one's a little shorter. Next week's really long.

• 1:59:13David Sims?

  Mohawk Drive.

• 1:59:14Griffin Newman?

  Leslie Headland. I think it's a great episode of.

• 1:59:16David Sims?

  I think so. It's all over the place.

• 1:59:18Griffin Newman?

  On topic conversation.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:59:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, it stems in directions, but it's all connected. Yeah. Uh, back to, back to Lynch. Yeah.

• 1:59:24David Sims?

  Back to David Lynch as we barrel towards the end of Twin Peaks and such like, things like that.

• 1:59:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Uh, and on, on Patreon, of course, we're, we're doing Andrew Lloyd Webber. We're talking about, uh, musicals barreling towards, uh, Cats, a Cats Christmas. Uh, and.

• 1:59:41Speaker 03

  In one day's time, our Burger Report episode will be released.

• 1:59:45Griffin Newman?

  Okay. And just two quick notes, cause this is a, a, a current episode being recorded on a quick turnaround. So we can talk to more relevant, present things. Apple, great company that's never done anything wrong, instituted new policies, uh, that, uh, have added a surcharge if you are subscribing for Patreon memberships through their app on any device. So we just want to alert all of our listeners, anyone who is thinking about joining the Patreon, had a membership that they're going to resume later, we strongly encourage everyone to use a browser.

• 2:00:22Speaker 03

  And avoid that added surcharge.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's, it's a charge that cannot be avoided. It does not go to us. It goes straight to Apple. And, uh, just, yeah, just know that you'll save money. If you open a browser window and type in www.patreon.com slash blank check rather than using the app. And to that end, we should mention that we recently have activated a new feature of gift memberships.

• 2:00:46Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 2:00:47Griffin Newman?

  For blank check special features.

• 2:00:49Speaker 03

  So if there's any, uh, blank check fan out there, you know, who you want to maybe gift, or someone just in your life who's a fan of movies and perhaps maybe get a kick out of checking out our commentaries or other offerings. Um, there's a link in the description. Uh, it's really easy, um, to sign up and gift someone, uh, membership. They offer somewhere between one month to one year. So yeah, check it out.

• 2:01:19Griffin Newman?

  And as always.

• 2:01:20Speaker 03

  We podcasted here.