Hook with Lin-Manuel Miranda

Everyone knows Captain Hook got swallowed by the crocodile at the end of Peter Pan. But what this movie presupposes is…maybe he didn’t? Let us go back to a time when the coolest thing a kid could have was a clubhouse that looked like a skatepark…when the worst thing a dad could do was own a cell phone…and when the craziest thing a filmmaker could do was agree to make a movie that started off as a child’s drawing. Lin-Manuel Miranda - most famous for starring as Captain Hook in his sixth grade production of Peter Pan - joins us on a trip to Neverland as we unpack Spielberg’s 1991 fantasia Hook. Bangarang, Blankies! And RIP Rufio. Check out Lin's Warriors Album https://www.warriorsalbum.com/ and the Hook Ultimate Edition Soundtrack Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around. Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10David Sims?

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

• 1:39David Sims?

  So you're in, no, what the hell?

• 1:40Griffin Newman?

  Your best, I said your best, Matt.

• 1:42David Sims?

  I don't have a good one. So your adventures are over.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Oh, no. The podcast. The podcast would be an awfully big adventure.

• 1:51David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Why aren't you Scottish?

• 1:53Griffin Newman?

  I don't know.

• 1:55David Sims?

  I'm not like, I'm not about to say that I did a great Maggie Smith.

• 1:58Griffin Newman?

  No, I did a terrible Robin Williams.

• 2:00David Sims?

  Oh, to podcast.

• 2:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I went, I went to gravelly too. I went a little.

• 2:04David Sims?

  But you're, you sound Scottish.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  Podcast.

• 2:07David Sims?

  You sound like from, you're from the mountains.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  Trying to find the, oh, oh.

• 2:11David Sims?

  To podcast. Now, he's tough to do.

• 2:13Griffin Newman?

  He's tough to do.

• 2:14David Sims?

  In that he's in him and like, you know, he has a specific thing.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this, I think I can do an adequate terrible impression of Robin Williams doing comedy runs, which is kind of what everyone can do. Drama Robin is a little harder to do.

• 2:28David Sims?

  Say it's not your fault.

• 2:30Griffin Newman?

  I don't know, David, just give me Johnny Bravo. Yeah, see, I'm going.

• 2:32David Sims?

  Huh, do the monkey with me.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It Neeson's on you every time. It Neeson's. Someone has called out that I basically only have three impressions.

• 2:40David Sims?

  Okay, so one of the three.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  And one third of them get drawn towards Neeson. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Neeson.

• 2:47David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember who the third one is.

• 2:49David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:49Griffin Newman?

  They're like, they're only three that he can actually do kind of well. And everyone else, he's trying to draw them closer to one of those three pillars. Oh, Verhoeven. Oh, my Verhoeven impression is. I think we both do Verhoeven. Which means we both do Goldmember.

• 3:04David Sims?

  It's just Goldmember.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, please. You know, we somehow didn't talk about the entire Oscar season. The invisible man would attack people.

• 3:12David Sims?

  Uh, what's that?

• 3:13Griffin Newman?

  The Oscar nominated director of The Substance. Her last name is the way that Goldmember says father. Coral, Coralie Farja. Farja. Farja.

• 3:24David Sims?

  Okay, yes, I didn't, I, I, yeah, I didn't know that.

• 3:26Griffin Newman?

  Isn't it weird that we spent the whole Oscar season not talking about Goldmember?

• 3:29David Sims?

  I don't think it's that weird that that never came up.

• 3:32Griffin Newman?

  I think it's weird.

• 3:32David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:33Griffin Newman?

  No, but Robert, Robin. It's a whole, there you go. See, I'm getting to, I don't know what's happening here.

• 3:40David Sims?

  You sound like, like a troll guarding like a gem in a mountain.

• 3:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, don't tell Jimmy Fallon, he's gonna put that in his SNL audition.

• 3:48David Sims?

  I don't, I don't get the reference.

• 3:49Griffin Newman?

  That's a very specific reference. Jimmy Fallon's SNL audition was him doing.

• 3:53David Sims?

  Lots of impressions.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  Troll, the Troll Company auditioning new celebrity mascots, spokespeople.

• 4:00David Sims?

  So that was his way to do a lot of impressions?

• 4:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then I went to see, when I was, I guess 12 or 13, The Strokes play at the Roseland Ballroom. And the opening act, an incredible concert to see at such a young age.

• 4:13David Sims?

  Although I saw The Strokes around that same time and they were truly like, they came out for 35 minutes and then they were like, we don't do fucking encore and just left. But carry on.

• 4:21Griffin Newman?

  This was the, this was the, is this a tour? They did a proper set.

• 4:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Griffin Newman?

  And I believe it was The Strokes, the Moni Suzuki, and the opening, opening act was Jimmy Fallon.

• 4:33David Sims?

  Wow.

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  I think this was before maybe Bathroom Wall had even come out.

• 4:36David Sims?

  But, but, but he's famous.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's very famous, but he hadn't done the album. So I want to say he didn't even do Idiot Boyfriend. And he did the trolls routine. And I was like, where did this come from?

• 4:48David Sims?

  Did people like it?

• 4:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Like, was that crowd into it? I'm just saying, doing comedy in front of a rock show can be.

• 4:55Griffin Newman?

  It was humongous. But then years later, I saw like in one of those SNL, like, I bet you wonder what their auditions were like. And I was like, that was his audition piece. And he's now going and doing it at fucking rock concerts. A thing that lives very large in my mind that for most people means nothing.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  That could be the name of this podcast.

• 5:12Griffin Newman?

  That.

• 5:15David Sims?

  Read us for filth.

• 5:16Griffin Newman?

  That could be the name of this podcast.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  That's why I like it so much.

• 5:19Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  We have a lot of similar detritus in our heads.

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  Detritus in the head is another name for this podcast.

• 5:26David Sims?

  Exactly. Just floating bits of garbage.

• 5:28Griffin Newman?

  Mental spring cleaning.

• 5:29David Sims?

  You know what I mean?

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  What is the actual name of this podcast?

• 5:32David Sims?

  Blank Check Griffin David.

• 5:33Griffin Newman?

  It's by, it's Blank Check with Griffin and David.

• 5:35David Sims?

  Yeah, I kind of.

• 5:36Griffin Newman?

  Put some respect on the articles.

• 5:38David Sims?

  All right. You're right.

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:39David Sims?

  Right. You're right.

• 5:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm Griffin.

• 5:40David Sims?

  I shouldn't rush it. I'm David.

• 5:42Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies and detritus in our heads.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:46Griffin Newman?

  Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby.

• 5:56David Sims?

  Yes. Do you ever think about how Robin Williams, Peter Banning, Peter Pan in Hook says that,

• 6:02Griffin Newman?

  Spoiler.

• 6:03David Sims?

  To live would be the great adventure, right? And Hook says to me, like, death is the only adventure he has left.

• 6:08Griffin Newman?

  Just interesting.

• 6:09David Sims?

  Peter Pan is such an interesting text.

• 6:11Griffin Newman?

  I'll get into it.

• 6:12David Sims?

  Like, the, yeah.

• 6:13Griffin Newman?

  The big old.

• 6:15David Sims?

  Yep.

• 6:15Griffin Newman?

  Bollie iron that is Peter Pan. It's a mini-series on the films, the early films of Steven Spielberg, the first half of his career. It's called Podrastic Cast.

• 6:24David Sims?

  That's right. What's wrong with that?

• 6:26Griffin Newman?

  Nothing.

• 6:26David Sims?

  Nothing.

• 6:27Griffin Newman?

  Nothing at all. Nothing wrong.

• 6:29David Sims?

  Not a thing.

• 6:30Griffin Newman?

  And today we're talking about Hook. And our guest today returning to the show, long overdue, long in, long in negotiations.

• 6:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 6:38Griffin Newman?

  Is that fair to say?

• 6:39David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, it just took a while to get here.

• 6:41Griffin Newman?

  There were a couple, there were a couple of things flowing around. I think this was the right place for things to land. You know him best as the man who asked us all, as a people, to consider the coconut. Something we somehow did not discuss. Well, the last time you were on the show, something that looms so large in David's mind.

• 6:57David Sims?

  Wait a second, when was the last time? It was quite a while ago, right?

• 7:00Griffin Newman?

  All that jazz.

• 7:01David Sims?

  Well, I remember that.

• 7:02Griffin Newman?

  I want to say it was 22.

• 7:03David Sims?

  Yeah, that's, I'm trying to remember that because like, did I have a kid?

• 7:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you had a kid.

• 7:06David Sims?

  But was my kid maybe, so now I have seen, I mean, obviously I'm a big fan of a lot of your.

• 7:11Griffin Newman?

  Lin-Manuel Miranda. Let's say, let's say our guest today here is Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 7:15David Sims?

  Hello. I love, I love much of your work, but now I have seen Encanto and Moana four billion times because I have a young daughter. And I am now just so deep in the, the work there. Like, I just think about it all the, and very, very densely.

• 7:29Griffin Newman?

  You guys don't understand how well this is structured.

• 7:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 7:33Griffin Newman?

  And we'll be like, yeah, no, we know. And he's like, no, you don't understand. I've watched it six million times.

• 7:38David Sims?

  If you watch, you know, talk about Bruno, right? Like that many times. You do, we, we don't talk about Bruno, so. You know, you have to start just like thinking about every single moment of it. Sorry, Lynn. I know this is boring, but, uh, yes, anyway. I guess that didn't come up last time.

• 7:52Griffin Newman?

  When we did Muskrin Clements in 2020. Which I feel like was when maybe you started messaging with us that you'd been listening to the show. I feel like

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Yes, that's

• 8:00Griffin Newman?

  It was in response to a lot of those episodes. But when we had recorded them on, so we did not, we were in no way aware you were listening to the show.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Yes, I'm aware that you were not aware.

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  But we're both so locked into consider the coconut as a line.

• 8:15David Sims?

  It's a great line.

• 8:15Griffin Newman?

  We have a lot to talk about.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Well, David Foster Wallace nod.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  This is my question. Where did that come from?

• 8:20David Sims?

  Was that, were you thinking about considering the lobster?

• 8:22Speaker 04

  I mean, listen, you get a lot of materials when you're learning about the world and the culture that you're writing about. And one was this document that was all of the different uses of the coconut. And, uh, and so, yeah, I think I pulled, I mean, I'm a big fan of the David Foster Wallace essays. So I thought that would be a good opening line to, to, you know, introduce the verse where we're going to use, we're going to tell you all of the uses of the coconut.

• 8:50Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  In song.

• 8:51Griffin Newman?

  There's also like Profundity to the, to the simplicity and the directness of it. To just be like, I'm going to tell you the uses of the coconut. And the way I'm going to open this door is just consider the coconut.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Consider the coconut. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's fun because it's one, just really interesting how many uses one can get out of coconut.

• 9:08David Sims?

  Which is

• 9:08Speaker 04

  And two, also like, man, is she going to be staring at the water and like getting out of there. Because it's like, it's coconut for dinner.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  We're relitigating this. Yeah. She's a really good kid.

• 9:19David Sims?

  She's a good kid, but right. It's, you know, the coconut is very, very crucial for the first act of Moana. Their coconuts aren't working, right? Like they're getting the bad coconut.

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  This is true. And then you got your whole little bad guy gang who, who

• 9:31Speaker 04

  The Kakamora.

• 9:31Griffin Newman?

  The Kakamora. Where the coconut is armored. Which was giving Lost Boys energy, kind of.

• 9:36David Sims?

  That's true. That's true.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I think it's as Fury Road inspired as it seems like it is.

• 9:42David Sims?

  Right. It's very Mad Max.

• 9:44Griffin Newman?

  But I'd say it's like half Fury Road, half Hook specifically. Something about the build of their ship looks like the Hook Lost Boys.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  That's a nice segue into it.

• 9:53Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 9:54Speaker 04

  I'll take it.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes. The hideout.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, the thing about that hideout is, and I mean, we may go in order, we may not, but like, it looks so fun in Never Neverland. It kind of, it's, it's the thing that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie did by accident.

• 10:09David Sims?

  There you go.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  When you get to the Foot Clan hideout and you're like, this looks dope.

• 10:13David Sims?

  It's a connection.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  There's video games and pool tables.

• 10:16David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 10:16Speaker 05

  There's a half pipe.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  There's a half pipe.

• 10:19David Sims?

  Yeah, they have. Well, they have track, right?

• 10:21Speaker 04

  If I were a wayward kid, I would end up here.

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  Our, our friend JD Amato, who you know, directed the My Brother, My Brother and Me TV. We, there are a couple other times in the last couple of years, we've reached out to you and you've gone, maybe I do this, but I don't know. This and that.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  You know what it is? I, I, I felt so overprepared for all that jazz because I'd been working on Fosse Verden and.

• 10:40Griffin Newman?

  You came in with a lot.

• 10:41David Sims?

  Came in with a script.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  I had, I had like stuff and.

• 10:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the text from the homie John Kander.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  That's right. And so for the, you know, I, I just wanted to be prepped.

• 10:52Griffin Newman?

  I will, I will say this. This is an issue we are starting to put up against. I'd say specifically with filmmakers, where we will reach out to people and they'll be like, I only want to come on if it's a movie I feel like I can talk about backwards and forwards. Like I need to be this prepared. And we're like, what have we done wrong in our framing of this show? To make people think they need to be prepared.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:19Griffin Newman?

  To talk bullshit with us.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  All I have is vibes and I rewatched the movie recently this time. I did not come with a source text. Uh, I just, like every kid who was 11 in 1991, this movie rocked my shit.

• 11:31Griffin Newman?

  You know, we're like, hey, Spielberg was really big. Is, is really big for you. It's humongous. Uh, is totemic. Reached out, I think gave you like first crack of just like, we settled on doing this anyone? And you write back hook.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Hook.

• 11:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was just no question. It was hook. Finger pointed there. JD had thrown out that he wanted to do hook.

• 11:51David Sims?

  It wasn't just, he, he said Close Encounters or Hook, to be clear. He did not, he did not.

• 11:55Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Yeah. And we said, well, you know.

• 11:57Griffin Newman?

  And we were like, we're going to put you on Close Encounters, Lynn wants hook. And he was like, I can't believe I'm being bummed for Lynn.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  But the thing he immediately put his chip down on was, I insist that you guys talk about, and it's what I would have come prepared, loaded for bear to talk about is the nineties movie micro trend of the hideout that is a skate park.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:20David Sims?

  Right. It's those, it's turtles.

• 12:22Griffin Newman?

  He was linking those two immediately.

• 12:23David Sims?

  Sort of Three Ninjas kind of has that vibe, right? Like that early nineties, like it would be fun to be a kid and a ninja, like at the same time.

• 12:31Griffin Newman?

  And it's not quite the same thing, but I think Blank Check and Richie Rich both have this element of like, what if, like a perfect kid's play space? That felt a little dangerous and humongous.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  All encompassing.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  It's levels.

• 12:46Griffin Newman?

  Levels.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Which I think-

• 12:48Speaker 04

  It requires skateboarding experts.

• 12:49David Sims?

  I think of Kramer in Seinfeld when he starts adding levels to his apartment. It's a good, you know, levels is good. That's ambitious.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  I would say, though, that what these spaces all have in common is no parents allowed.

• 13:02Griffin Newman?

  No parents allowed.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:03David Sims?

  All right. So your relationship to Hook, well, maybe your relationship to Spielberg first, though. I don't know. Like-

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Sure. I, I, I mean, I think I, I think you're probably with me here that like, for me, if you wanted to make movies as a little kid, they'd say, oh, you want to be the next Steven Spielberg. It was literally shorthand for-

• 13:23David Sims?

  He's the word.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Director.

• 13:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Um, when I was growing up.

• 13:26David Sims?

  Vanderkind, right? Like this sort of like, yeah, he started young. Like he was a movie nerd and he got to, you know-

• 13:32Griffin Newman?

  But also, I think especially in the 90s, if there is like a representation of a director in any other form of media.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. He was also playing himself as a lot of stuff. Like, I think of him in-

• 13:43David Sims?

  Personality.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. He was in the Goonies are Good Enough video where Cyndi Lauper goes, Mr. Spielberg, help us out. And he goes, I don't know what to do. And you're like, first of all, the fact that that video had both Nikolai Volkov, Andre the Giant and Steven Spielberg and the entire cast of the Goonies. And it was like, they didn't quite know how videos worked yet. So they just do two videos that encapsulate the plot of the Goonies and play the song twice.

• 14:09David Sims?

  I believe, uh, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Captain Louboutin. Like a lot of wrestlers are in there, right? Yeah. I have seen it. The Goonies before my time. So I've always struggled. Like Hook a little bit more my time.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 14:20David Sims?

  The Goonies.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Down here, it's your time.

• 14:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:25David Sims?

  Okay. So yeah, all right. So Spielberg on, right. The first director any kid learns about in our generation, essentially.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  It's Spielberg. Oh, you want to be Steven Spielberg.

• 14:31David Sims?

  Yes.

• 14:32Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember the first one you see? Like, are you hearing the name repeated before you're understanding who he is? Or were you already developing a relationship?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  In the same way that you'd hear West Side Story as synonymous with musicals.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  Spielberg was synonymous with the movies. I think for me, the, probably the first one I saw was E.T. Which-

• 14:51David Sims?

  Probably not in theaters.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  No, definitely on VHS. And my grandfather owned a video store. So I remember-

• 14:57David Sims?

  I don't think I knew that.

• 14:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, this is-

• 14:59David Sims?

  In like Upper Manhattan?

• 15:00Speaker 04

  No, in Puerto Rico. So when I'd go for the summers, I'd go hang out at Miranda Video and I would like see the different- Jaws covers, like there was Jaws and then there were like the subsequent ones he didn't make. And then for some reason I associate, the big thing you also need to know is my grandfather owned a video store. So I was just unsupervised watching movies all the time. And also my grandparents had cable and my parents didn't. And so what was playing on-

• 15:27David Sims?

  Was this a summer thing?

• 15:28Speaker 04

  It was a summer thing. So like, what was playing constantly on HBO that those summers when I was a kid was Jaws four was like Michael Caine and the shark following him to the thing. And also Richard Jenna's standup routine about how dumb Jaws four is, about how the shark follows this one family too. So, so yeah, so I, I remember.

• 15:51David Sims?

  I have to ask quickly, were the VHSs dubbed, subtitled, or neither?

• 15:57Speaker 04

  A little bit of everything.

• 15:58David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  And, and usually they were just in English with Spanish subtitles.

• 16:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  And then my grandparents, I'm sure this wasn't legal, but they were always making copies like with two VHSs on the movies in the back. And that's where I saw the really inappropriate stuff because there was a porn section of the video store, like-

• 16:16David Sims?

  Back in the day, man.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  Eighties video store.

• 16:18David Sims?

  The old red curtains.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  And you would just hear, you would just hear those movies being dubbed in the back of the, oh, my parents are going to be really upset when they listen to this.

• 16:27David Sims?

  You should, I think you should open a video store now. You should revive Miranda Video.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  I mean.

• 16:34David Sims?

  It's kind of physical media, you know, it's getting hot again. It's sort of this cult thing.

• 16:38Griffin Newman?

  And I think you should bring back the porn section. I think that'd get a lot of positive press.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Listen, I never went, like it was back in the day, it was curtained off.

• 16:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  I, there was a Double Dragon two console in the video store. So I played a lot of Double Dragon two. I watched that poor four bit girlfriend get punched so many, that's how the game starts. Punch the girlfriend, throw her over the shoulder, then you gotta go. So we've really ventured from my spiel.

• 17:00David Sims?

  No, but this is good. This is important. But so Hook 1991, you're, you said you were 11?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  I was 11.

• 17:07David Sims?

  So you saw this in the theater?

• 17:08Speaker 04

  I definitely saw this in the theater.

• 17:10David Sims?

  Yeah, right. I also did. I was but five, but I still, I think was still whatever, like locked in enough with, you know, whatever. I was gonna go see Hook, the Peter Pan movie, right? You clearly, you wouldn't have, you would have been very small.

• 17:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm just, look, I'm gonna get this out of the way.

• 17:25David Sims?

  He no likey hook.

• 17:26Griffin Newman?

  I don't like Hook.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  I struggle strongly with Hook.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  It's a polarizing film.

• 17:32Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  It's a tough movie. It's because

• 17:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  The parts that are good are so good and it takes us a while to get there.

• 17:38Griffin Newman?

  So I didn't see it.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  And you share that opinion with Spielberg.

• 17:44Griffin Newman?

  I do, which has always been my defense. And I will say, in the history of doing this show, right, we covered the second half of Spielberg's career eight years ago. We're finally getting to this now. I've sort of like just taken strays at Hook over the years and been like, and obviously, we all know Hook sucks. And every time I would do that, our listeners would get really angry and being like, what are you talking about? And what is this assumption? This is not the like norm opinion, which I feel like I grew up with. My parents went to see Hook. I was two, three when this came out.

• 18:19David Sims?

  Yeah, you would have been like two years old.

• 18:21Griffin Newman?

  My parents definitely went on a date night to see it when I'm the one child before my brother is born. And I just remember growing up in a household where Hook was used as shorthand for like folly. And the thing I've sort of had to like, work through in doing this series is realizing that I grew up in a weirdly anti Spielberg household.

• 18:42David Sims?

  Right. Not just Hook. They were generally a little skeptical.

• 18:45Griffin Newman?

  But Hook is the turning point.

• 18:46David Sims?

  Uh huh. Sure.

• 18:47Griffin Newman?

  It is. Like, my parents just still, and even recently, like, we had a family dinner and I brought up, like, Lynn's coming on to do Hook. And they were like, God, that movie sucks. And it's like this, it's this very like raw thing for my parents. They still are like, man, we got a babysitter. We went to see that and Hook. And they've just like, anytime they have liked a Spielberg movie since Hook, they say it almost begrudgingly.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 19:12Griffin Newman?

  They're just like, it's weird how good Bridge of Spies is. And I'm like, it's not weird.

• 19:16Speaker 04

  It's not weird. He's Spielberg.

• 19:17Griffin Newman?

  But so I grew up in this house where Hook is just this like clout. I weirdly felt like I had Hook toys growing up. And they'd just be like, oh, that movie sucks. Like, they'd just walk by me. So it was like, not something that was like, presented to me. I'd see it at friends' houses. Everyone else loved Hook. Other friends would have the VHS for beyond TV.

• 19:36David Sims?

  Youth.

• 19:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 19:38David Sims?

  Certainly, the film was got mixed reviews when it came out. It was seen as a bit of a disappointment by

• 19:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:43David Sims?

  grown up critics, but not us kids.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  What was the movie he made just prior to this?

• 19:46David Sims?

  So it's a weird point in his career because it's it's the movie he makes prior to this is Always. Probably his most forgotten film. Have you even seen Always?

• 19:54Speaker 04

  I have not seen Always.

• 19:55David Sims?

  Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Ghost of.

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  Remake of Golden Hollywood Romcom.

• 20:00David Sims?

  Ghost of Fire Pilot Drama.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  I have this awareness of being aware that Hook was over budget, even when I was 11.

• 20:08David Sims?

  Right. It became so right.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  It became a thing of like, they're having trouble making Hook.

• 20:13Griffin Newman?

  And obviously.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  And I remember being a kid anticipating the movie like sequel to Peter Pan, like, let's go.

• 20:18Griffin Newman?

  Look, I'm not reading Premiere and Movie Line magazine when I'm two, but by the time I'm seven and I'm reading it, they're still using Hook as shorthand.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm definitely reading Entertainment Weekly by this point and aware that like, they brought in that they're like having trouble.

• 20:34David Sims?

  Right. Carrie Fisher is doing rewrites.

• 20:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  I don't know if I was aware.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you were.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  But I was I was aware that it was over budget and that people were worried about it.

• 20:43Griffin Newman?

  Like by many accounts, this movie, the ultimate budget was close to $80 million in 1991.

• 20:49David Sims?

  Yes.

• 20:50Griffin Newman?

  And that's $80 million with a huge asterisk, which is Spielberg.

• 20:56David Sims?

  Borg.

• 20:57Griffin Newman?

  The Borg.

• 20:58David Sims?

  Spielberg.

• 20:59Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg.

• 20:59David Sims?

  Hoffman.

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  Hoffman and Williams, all for win salaries.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  And Roberts.

• 21:04Griffin Newman?

  No, but those three, no salaries.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 21:07Griffin Newman?

  Right. The deal was they get zero upfront money and they get, was it 40% of first dollar earnings?

• 21:16David Sims?

  A lot of the money, the gross.

• 21:18Griffin Newman?

  JJ has it in the dossier. We'll break it down. It was an insane structure. So it was $80 million without paying the three biggest people. I think Roberts was paid a lot.

• 21:26David Sims?

  Because she was newly hot stuff at the time.

• 21:30Griffin Newman?

  So I wanting to be this kind of like savvy, wise movie kid was just like, yeah, we all know Hook sucks. My parents taught me that Hook sucks. You use Hook as shorthand for like failed 90s blockbuster.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  Actually flinching every time you say it.

• 21:44David Sims?

  Just, you know, take it easy on her guess. Come on, he's a special guy.

• 21:47Griffin Newman?

  Had seen it piecemeal over the years, many, many times, but had like never really sat down and watched the whole thing. Then I feel like.

• 21:51David Sims?

  Oh, you never saw it as a kid?

• 21:52Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 21:53David Sims?

  Oh, wow.

• 21:53Griffin Newman?

  Then I feel.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Received wisdom.

• 21:55David Sims?

  That is weird. It's weird.

• 21:56Griffin Newman?

  Yup. When I'm in my early twenties, my friend Jake makes some reference to Hook and I'm just like, Hook? And he's like, you didn't grow up with Hook? And I'm like, I actually don't think I've ever seen the whole thing all the way through. And he's like, we're watching Hook tonight. We watch Hook. I'm just like, God.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Remember having time in your twenties?

• 22:11David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  When like you would be like, you haven't seen this? Clear the next three hours. We're doing this now.

• 22:17Griffin Newman?

  It was also the era where Netflix was the only streaming service and it had every movie.

• 22:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:22Griffin Newman?

  You just knew you could immediately go like this and pull Hook up. Uh, watched it that night was just like, this is completely missing me.

• 22:29David Sims?

  Sure.

• 22:29Griffin Newman?

  I just don't get this.

• 22:30David Sims?

  You don't have the kid grounding at all.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  Nope. And I, I had, I don't have the thud butt at a formative time in your life.

• 22:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:37Griffin Newman?

  The world's biggest pin in thud butt.

• 22:40David Sims?

  We'll talk thud butt. He's coming.

• 22:42Griffin Newman?

  We better talk.

• 22:43David Sims?

  He's always coming.

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  Um, and was just like, I struggle with this thing. And then just went on making straight.

• 22:50David Sims?

  You've never liked Hook. It's never stuck.

• 22:54Griffin Newman?

  Three months ago.

• 22:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:55Griffin Newman?

  Four months ago, it was playing at the Nighthawk Theater in Prospect Park.

• 22:58David Sims?

  Lovely place.

• 22:59Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, we got this series coming. Lynn's gonna come and do an episode. Yeah. I, I deserve, I, it deserves a proper reconsideration on a big screen. It was advertised as a 35 print. It ended up being a DCP. I went to a weekend matinee of Hook. I walk out fuming. Fuming. I go on Letterboxd. I log it as half a star.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  The things you say, children will listen.

• 23:21Griffin Newman?

  I log as half a star and immediately the whole blank check text thread is like, Griffin, what are you doing? Who, what point are you trying to make here? And I'm like, walking down the street like harumph, harumph, harumph.

• 23:33David Sims?

  Yeah, you're fuming.

• 23:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Griffin Newman?

  Now admittedly, I had had dental surgery like 10 days earlier that had gone poorly and the recovery was bad.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:41David Sims?

  Ben and I are exchanging a knowing look. Yes.

• 23:44Griffin Newman?

  I saw some other movies in that period that I liked, but I do think in a certain way where if you have a headache and then someone starts making a high pitched noise, it's gonna hurt twice as hard. I was like, this movie has never worked for me, but when I'm in mouth pain, when my whole skull hurts, I was like, please make it stop.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Cannon fire and dental work don't make great.

• 24:04Griffin Newman?

  The whole thing was just really rubbing against me. So then I gave it another rewatch.

• 24:09David Sims?

  Sure. To prepare for like.

• 24:11Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 24:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  And I'm, I'm now just back to just like, yeah, I don't know.

• 24:16David Sims?

  Well, all right.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:17David Sims?

  Let's close the book on you. Hush.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Establish.

• 24:19David Sims?

  Establish. Yes. All right.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  But that's my history with it.

• 24:22David Sims?

  I am like most people my age, I'm a little younger than Lynn, but like I say, I saw Hook as a kid and I was like, this movie rocks. It's got sword fighting and it's got Rufio in it. Like this is great.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  It is the only movie with Rufio in it.

• 24:33David Sims?

  Unfortunately. Uh, Hoffman like maybe laughs at me, maybe like, right? You know what I mean? Like, I remember as I grew up learning that like Julia Roberts' performance in this was considered bad. And me being like, I don't get, I don't get that at all.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  That's the best acting I've ever seen.

• 24:45David Sims?

  Like, yeah. And then, yeah, I grew up and I, Hook's nostalgia has curdled for me slightly. There's things in it I don't like at all. I do think it's way too slow at the beginning. I think it is a fascinating.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  I agree. Yeah.

• 24:58David Sims?

  Uh, I think it is a fascinating like Spielberg text. Like it is a fascinating like moment in his life on screen. He, I, and look, you actually know Steven Spielberg. I'm gonna say a little bit.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Little bit.

• 25:11David Sims?

  Little bit. You've, you've chatted with Steve.

• 25:13Speaker 04

  You did a.

• 25:13David Sims?

  You've had screenings with him.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, we did a Raiders screening.

• 25:16David Sims?

  Yeah. I don't know if you've ever talked Hook with Steve, but I feel like he's usually fairly dismissive of it. He's kind of like, ah, that didn't work. Right? Like, I have you, I mean, like.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, I'm just going by his own doc. Like.

• 25:26David Sims?

  He's just, yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  But have you ever brought up to him, are you like, would it break, it would break my heart to tell him I like Hook and have him make a face? No, no, no. I, uh, it's not my, also it's like, I mean, if I have to list Spielberg favorites, it's not even that high up there.

• 25:40David Sims?

  Of course not.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  But in the early Spielberg and where it landed on my life, again, and it's interesting to watch this as an 11 year old in the theater. And interesting to watch it as a 45 year old father of two. But the, the other micro trend that this falls into besides skate parks as, uh, clubhouses is, um, dads who just don't have time for their gosh darn kids. That's cell phone duel.

• 26:07David Sims?

  Is this the first cell phone movie to, you know, cause like that became such shorthand for like, oh, he's a workaholic. It's like, this is 91. Not a lot of people have cell phones.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  Not a lot of people have cell phones.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  It is an era that I actually think will be hard to explain and contextualize to younger generations.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  I don't like, I couldn't even explain to my kids when I watched it with them. They're like, oh, their computer's not even in there.

• 26:28David Sims?

  Right. It used to be crazy that you had a cell phone. Like that was rare.

• 26:31Griffin Newman?

  Period in family film where if a character takes out a cell phone, the movie is basically saying, he deserves to be shot in the street.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  This motherfucker doesn't look at his kids.

• 26:40Griffin Newman?

  A tough.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  He doesn't know his kids' middle names.

• 26:43Griffin Newman?

  Physically holding a cell phone is the same as.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  It's that liar liar.

• 26:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:49David Sims?

  Liar liar is a perfect example. One of my favorite movies, One Fine Day, which the entire plot is the two workaholics switch cell phones.

• 26:56Griffin Newman?

  Basically, the entire Disney live action Tim Allen canon, which was big for me, is all predicated on this guy spends too much time on his cell phone. And then.

• 27:04David Sims?

  He wears suspenders. He goes to an office. He has his cell phone.

• 27:07Griffin Newman?

  He's a huge part of.

• 27:08David Sims?

  There's a baseball game and or dance recital that he is late to or doesn't even make.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  Had to struggle to justify the baseball game here. It's a Christmas series baseball game.

• 27:17David Sims?

  It is one of the immediate things in Hook Around. Like, why the fuck are they playing baseball in December?

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  The catcher is wearing a Santa Claus beard?

• 27:24Speaker 04

  It's a Christmas season.

• 27:26David Sims?

  Because like, do they live in New York? Are they in New York?

• 27:30Griffin Newman?

  This movie's doing so much.

• 27:31David Sims?

  We don't really know where they are in America before they go to London, but like, if they're in the Northeast, they should not be playing baseball in December. It's very cold.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  It's cold. Yeah.

• 27:38David Sims?

  Okay. Anyway.

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 27:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 27:48David Sims?

  Is that the city as cow?

• 27:50Griffin Newman?

  The city as cow is back.

• 27:51David Sims?

  Heard from her in a while.

• 27:52Griffin Newman?

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

• 27:57David Sims?

  Okay.

• 27:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:02David Sims?

  Wow.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 28:05David Sims?

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

• 28:11Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:23Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 28:25David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 28:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:32David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:35David Sims?

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

• 28:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:39David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 28:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:41David Sims?

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

• 28:46Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 28:47David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 28:49Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 28:50David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 28:52Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 28:53David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 28:55David Sims?

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

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:19David Sims?

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

• 29:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:35David Sims?

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

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:53David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 29:58Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 29:58David Sims?

  Yes?

• 29:59Griffin 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.

• 30:20David Sims?

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

• 30:39Griffin 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.

• 30:55David Sims?

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

• 31:30Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 31:31David Sims?

  Yes?

• 31:31Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 31:32David Sims?

  Uh-oh.

• 31:33Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 31:34David Sims?

  Ah!

• 31:35Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:38David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 31:39Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 31:41David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 31:42Griffin 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.

• 31:51David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 31:52Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 31:53David Sims?

  I can't remember. Big Red One. You can call it the Big Red Podcast.

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:10David 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.

• 32:17Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 32:17David 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.

• 32:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:33David Sims?

  Thank you for that.

• 32:34Griffin 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.

• 32:46David Sims?

  Yes. AG1, they've got now AG1 Pro.

• 32:50Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 32:51David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with a performance and recovery layer built in. So you've 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 production and zinc carnosine for gut support.

• 33:09Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 33:10David Sims?

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

• 33:14Griffin 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.

• 33:22David Sims?

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

• 33:52David Sims?

  Yes, I watch it now and I'm like, it's kind of a movie that's similar to me. There's other kids movies like this where I'm like, kids do like this movie as we have discussed.

• 34:01Griffin Newman?

  Did you watch it with? Daughter.

• 34:02David Sims?

  No, no, I have. She would be baffled by this. No, she's a little too young for this.

• 34:06Griffin Newman?

  Did you watch it with your children?

• 34:07Speaker 04

  I watched it with my kids and they basically.

• 34:09Griffin Newman?

  They seen it before? It's the first time?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Uh, no, they've never, they've seen it once. Yeah.

• 34:13Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  And, and actually I, I saw it way back when we decided we were doing this. I was like, I'm, so this was like last summer, last fall.

• 34:20Griffin Newman?

  Scheduled very far.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  It's taken us a long time to get here.

• 34:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Um, but yeah, I watched it with them and they were so into Neverland. It takes a long time to get to Neverland.

• 34:29David Sims?

  It takes a full 35, 40 minutes.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  It's half hour to Neverland and they're still in Pirate Land for the first 20 minutes and it's 52 minutes till they meet the Lost Boys.

• 34:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 34:38David Sims?

  It's, you know, and beyond that, which, you know, the first half hour of this movie where it's just Spielberg being like, I'm such a workaholic. And I'm like, you're making a movie about Peter Pan for children, my friend. This movie is rated PG. Like children are coming to see it. They don't care about your cell phone. Like, is my take. Now, again, kids like this movie. But then just like the sort of like, the softness and the kind of like emotional, like it feels too dad to me in a way sometimes. I'm like, we need more fun. We need more like kid energy in this and less like sad dad energy in it. But it did also kind of work on me as a bit of a, as a bit of a sad dad. You know what I mean? Like I'm watching it now and I'm like, and he's talking about his happy place or all that. I'm like, this isn't gonna not get me a, you know, come on.

• 35:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. See, it's, it's so doesn't get me, but I also will say that like watching it again this morning with my mouth in good condition. A balanced set of teeth. I, I was digging into more the weird like messiness of how much this movie is him at odds. And sort of like a crossroads point in his career. I think the movie, I don't want to say the movie suffers because of that. I think the movie is basically a monument to him being in this like, I don't know. And there's a quote that JJ pulled up in the dossier that I'm like, that's the whole fucking movie for me now. And upon reading that, I'm a little more engaged with watching the film. But your question of where he's coming from, right? Just to like snapshot it.

• 36:08Griffin Newman?

  He has this insane dominant run of blockbusters. Then he has this eighties period that's very much him trying to like grow up and make

• 36:15David Sims?

  Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always.

• 36:18Griffin Newman?

  Clearly.

• 36:19David Sims?

  Yes, right.

• 36:19Griffin Newman?

  And people are just like, get over it. Right? There's this like weird wave of people being like Spielberg's a little boy who makes theme park rides and he's like, great, I'll make serious movies. And they're like, go back to making your theme park rides. Who are you kidding? And the, the one part of it that's weird for me, the existence of Hook is that like Hook kind of makes sense to me as him being like, fine, I'll go back to doing what you guys want out of me. Had he not just made Last Crusade? Like, that's the other part of the puzzle.

• 36:49David Sims?

  Right. Which is the movie before Always.

• 36:51Griffin Newman?

  Right? Is that like in between Temple of Doom and Last Crusade? He does Color Purple. He does Empire of the Sun. He goes through the whole Twilight Zone calamity. He has his first child. He makes Always, which is like not a serious movie, but it is ostensibly trying to be a movie for grownups.

• 37:09David Sims?

  Sure. Like a soft grownup movie, you know, like drama.

• 37:12Griffin Newman?

  But he like comes back and does another Indiana Jones that is a big hit and that people like, and is him kind of doing like the Spielberg roller coaster again. So it always feels weird to me.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Man, Last Crusade is such a good roller coaster.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  I love Last Crusade.

• 37:25Speaker 04

  It's my kid's favorite Indiana Jones.

• 37:27David Sims?

  And it's him being like, I'm still good at this, by the way. And everyone's like, yes, you are. You know, like, you know.

• 37:32Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  And I think that's why I was so excited to just going back in time. That's why I was so excited to see Hook in the theater, because I had seen Last Crusade on a thousand sleepovers with my friends.

• 37:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes, yes. This was probably your first theatrical.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably.

• 37:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So that's huge.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:49Griffin Newman?

  But like, right after this, which has its whole like, the press is having a field day over this movie. The expectations for it were basically either this is the biggest movie of all time or it's a disappointment. And you read like the immediate press and they're all sort of like, well, it's a hit, but it's not a mega hit. And he's at the sort of odd like junction point. And then two years later, he does Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  Right. Just the most dominant shit.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Take that, take that.

• 38:19Griffin Newman?

  All time.

• 38:21David Sims?

  It is a, it's a real, you know, sort of like, it's over. He has nothing left to prove after that. But Hook, he still has stuff to prove.

• 38:26Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 38:27David Sims?

  And he's not quite.

• 38:28Griffin Newman?

  If it went from, straight from Hook to Schindler, I'd be like, okay, so he's like, you know what? That's past. I'm, I'm not doing that kind of thing anymore. I've grown up. Here's my kind of movie. But the fact that he does Jurassic in the same year, and he's like, I can still knock this out of the fucking park if I want to. You want me to build a roller coaster? I'll build a roller coaster.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  I mean, it's hard to, it's hard for kids to understand now, but like, at that time, when you found out Spielberg was directing Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park was such a hit book. Like, sixth graders were carrying around Jurassic Park when I was in sixth grade. And everyone was like, how are they gonna do the dinosaur?

• 39:02David Sims?

  Yeah, how?

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Like, literally, like, this is not possible. Because they'll never make them look real. And so it was like, he delivered on that in the most incredible way possible. And then the movie still just fucking rips.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  Like, he actually did the, like, it was, like, it's hard to overstate how much Jurassic Park felt like you were watching the impossible happen in 1992.

• 39:23David Sims?

  I, I mean.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Is that right?

• 39:24David Sims?

  Ninety-three, ninety-three.

• 39:25Griffin Newman?

  But he has talked about the fact that Jurassic was kind of an impersonal movie for him. And it's the reason he did Lost World, where he's otherwise been protective about not trying to do sequels. He had the agreement with George where he had to do the Indiana Jones sequels, but otherwise he's always kind of backed off. And he was just like, look, Jurassic Park was me just like, having fun.

• 39:43David Sims?

  Yeah, just doing a good time.

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

  Hook and, look, last year's data are both very personal.

• 39:48David Sims?

  Let's get him getting through the dad shit. A child who became a man, you know, going to war with a man who is a child, who is basically like, come be a child. I only want to, you know, I want us to be children again and fight and play. And Peter, you know, like, it is, it is his, his id and ego, like, doing battle on screen. Like, it is the most psychologically rich shit. And yet Spielberg is kind of like, ah, the sets were too big. And I should have made it a musical. And like, you know, Julia Roberts was getting on my nerves. You know what I mean? He won't acknowledge this.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  I, I read about that this was almost a musical, that there were these John Williams, Leslie Brickus tunes that got cut. I, is, I mean, is this like, I'll do anything level? This was a musical got cut?

• 40:31David Sims?

  I don't, well, no, because I'll do anything, they filmed the musicals.

• 40:33Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen?

• 40:34David Sims?

  The sequences, right?

• 40:35Griffin Newman?

  The musical cut of all the?

• 40:36Speaker 04

  No.

• 40:37Griffin Newman?

  Hey, Lynn, you might get an interesting email at the end of this.

• 40:40David Sims?

  It's quite interesting.

• 40:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they they were.

• 40:44David Sims?

  Non musical version of that movie, but.

• 40:45Griffin Newman?

  They were fully recorded, mixed, rehearsed, and then cut. They were never filmed.

• 40:50David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 40:51Griffin Newman?

  I think there was recently a limited CD reissue where the third disc was the tracks. But like, as JJ dug up, one of the songs was supposed to be older Wendy. And they had gotten Julie Andrews to record it. And Maggie Smith was going to lip sync.

• 41:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  Julie Andrews singing John Williams musical numbers.

• 41:14David Sims?

  We could have had it all.

• 41:15Griffin Newman?

  It got that far along.

• 41:16David Sims?

  Fascinating to consider.

• 41:17Griffin Newman?

  And he basically welched, like, I think, a month before film.

• 41:20David Sims?

  So.

• 41:20Griffin Newman?

  That's too bad.

• 41:21David Sims?

  Steven Spielberg has always loved Peter Pan. There is the sequence in E T, right? Where Peter Pan's being read to the children, right?

• 41:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yes, yes. But he's also just like, the idea of Peter Pan on screen being the depiction of flight is this sort of like leveling up in the imagination. Anytime anyone flies in a movie, it's riffing on Peter Pan. E T flying on the bike is riffing on Peter Pan.

• 41:46David Sims?

  He has always said his mother is Peter Pan to him. And obviously, if you've seen The Fableman, it's like that makes sense. The sort of like, she seems to have the energy of this kind of like fairy woman, right? This kind of delightful musical person who would read him Peter Pan and all that.

• 42:00Griffin Newman?

  Pixie haircut and yeah.

• 42:01David Sims?

  Yes, and then, of course, as Spielberg becomes a famous filmmaker, everyone's like, this is Peter Pan. This is the boy who won't grow up, right? It's the easiest thing to tag him with. So in 1984, news breaks. Steven Spielberg will be making a live adaptation of Peter Pan in London. No one has ever done a Peter Pan movie at this point, since like the silent era.

• 42:21Griffin Newman?

  That's.

• 42:21David Sims?

  Like, obviously, this is the Disney film, but no one's done a live action Peter Pan.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes, his, his quote was, there has never been a live action picture except a 1924 silent version. This is the first real motion picture version of Peter Pan, and I'm really excited about it.

• 42:36David Sims?

  You will believe a boy can fly.

• 42:38Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's basically his pitch is like, the Disney one is the definitive one. If I can pull this off in live action and pull off the impossible, I, I make the definitive version of this story, which is insane to consider now where there's a new Peter Pan movie every 24 months. Like, post Hook, it has not stopped.

• 42:54David Sims?

  Hoffman is attached as Captain Hook pretty much from the beginning. Michael Jackson is heavily interested in playing Peter Pan.

• 43:02Griffin Newman?

  He really wants to do it.

• 43:04David Sims?

  Michael Jackson, as people know, may have had a bit of a thing about Peter Pan. You might guys, you know, you know, they had the Neverland Ranch and so on and so forth. Spielberg waves him off supposedly. Michael Jackson hired a witch doctor to cast a curse on him. That is like one of the many Michael Jackson stories that's out there that may or may not be true. Who knows?

• 43:21Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg's response in interview was, what else is new?

• 43:25David Sims?

  But.

• 43:26Griffin Newman?

  It's a really good line.

• 43:27David Sims?

  In 1985.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Say that to everything.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, it was, this is bizarre, but what else is new?

• 43:33Speaker 04

  Wowee.

• 43:34David Sims?

  Spielberg has a son in 1985 and Spielberg says his appetite for Peter Pan goes away. Once this happens, I think partly because making it was going to be this giant London production. Like, you know, whatever, like with sets and shit where he's like, I don't have time.

• 43:49Griffin Newman?

  I don't want to be away from it.

• 43:50David Sims?

  I want to, right. I want to be with my kid, Max, his first kid.

• 43:53Griffin Newman?

  With Amy Irving.

• 43:54David Sims?

  With Amy Irving, a friend of the show and past and future guests. We'll get her back, right?

• 43:58Griffin Newman?

  We'll get her back.

• 43:58David Sims?

  And so Peter Pan goes away.

• 44:01Griffin Newman?

  But there's the other part of it.

• 44:02David Sims?

  Backburnered all the way to the back.

• 44:04Griffin Newman?

  He's like, this has ended my permanent adolescence. A child is born, I look at it, suddenly I have responsibility in the world. And he sort of talked about.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  It's Peter Bandings happy thought.

• 44:13Griffin Newman?

  Basically, yes, yes, yes. Where he's just like, immediately I found myself becoming my parents and the way I told myself I would never be. The transformation happened, I couldn't stop it. I no longer connected to Peter Pan as a character.

• 44:26David Sims?

  So James, Jim V. Hart, who is one of the credit screenwriters on this movie, an interesting guy. In like his career is interesting. He picks up the project as, you know, writing it and shifts it to what Hook is, which is sort of a sequel to Peter Pan. Right? Like what if Peter Pan grew up? What if Captain Hook wasn't dead? Like what if Captain Hook, you know, was merely lurking in the crocodile and then escaped? I don't know. They don't really get into it, do they?

• 44:53Griffin Newman?

  It was, look, it's, it's a good kid logic pitch where his little son draws a picture, Captain Hook and the crocodile. And he's like, what's that? And as the son's describing it, he's like, it's Captain Hook and the crocodile, but the crocodile didn't actually eat Captain Hook. Captain Hook got away. And he goes like, ping. What if Captain Hook's still alive? Somehow Captain Hook has returned.

• 45:14David Sims?

  Nick Castle famously plays Michael Myers in Halloween, but is also like a, how would you describe him in grift? Like a sort of low to mid budget genre filmmaker at this point.

• 45:25Griffin Newman?

  I just want to call out.

• 45:26David Sims?

  Makes The Last Starfighter, makes.

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  Tap. Yes. I just want to call out heart. It's a two-pronged thing. There's the what if Hook survived?

• 45:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Griffin Newman?

  And then he's like, a year or two later, his son goes, daddy, what happens to Peter Pan when he grows up? And he's like, he doesn't. And he's like, but what if he did? And he's like, are you a fucking exec?

• 45:44David Sims?

  I'm buying the room.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, truly. Right. Right. Then immediately.

• 45:48David Sims?

  500 grand.

• 45:49Griffin Newman?

  I locked up the rights. That's a good fucking hook. You're asking big questions. Um, yes. Nick Castle is, is.

• 45:55David Sims?

  He comes aboard.

• 45:56Griffin Newman?

  Interesting genre figure who obviously has the roots in the carpenter stuff, but then does Last Starfighter film I adore, but kind of was one of these guys who was always like making movies that felt like they should have been huge hits, but always stayed a little cult. Were never making, they were never bombs, but he was never totally crossing over.

• 46:15David Sims?

  Pictures at this point ended up at Sony TriStar and, uh, Mike Metavoy, who was Spielberg's first agent, comes on as a producer and Spielberg is basically brought in to displace Castle. Castle's bought out, given 500 grand to leave the project because Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman want Steven Spielberg. Like they know he had sniffed this project before. They obviously want Steven Spielberg.

• 46:36Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of the beginning of the mega packaging where they were just like, what if we put all our biggest clients on this? They go to Spielberg. He's like, I would never want to be responsible for another director getting kicked off a project. And he's like,

• 46:47David Sims?

  too late.

• 46:47Griffin Newman?

  Well, great news. I fired him a week ago. It's yours. They basically set it up so that they were just like, the toes have already been stepped on, my man. You can't stop this.

• 46:57David Sims?

  And so Spielberg's coming aboard a project that isn't his project exactly. He wanted to make Peter Pan. At this point, it's now evolved into the Peter Pan sequel concept, right? And he's like, that's a good idea for a movie. I'm not sure it's my idea for a movie, but okay. And, uh, he brings in Malia Scotch Marmo, the other screenplay writer here, who reshapes the character.

• 47:20David Sims?

  Of Hook, I guess. Carrie Fisher famously did a lot of rewriting. I think a lot of other people did too. Hoffman had basically always been aboard. Spielberg had almost made Rain Man with him a while ago. So I guess they'd sort of been circling each other.

• 47:33Griffin Newman?

  He was so close to doing Rain Man, but was contractually obligated to do Indy 3. And unsurprisingly, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise had a lot of script notes and the development of that movie took a long time. So it was all three of them together working on it. And Spielberg had his like moment where it's like, if I haven't started filming Rain Man by this date, I will not be able to then finish in time to go do Indy. And he left Rain Man and then watches someone else win Best Picture and Best Director.

• 48:03David Sims?

  True.

• 48:04Griffin Newman?

  Which probably has to get to him a little bit.

• 48:06David Sims?

  Spielberg, Hoffman, Williams all declined salaries, as you say. Instead, they're going to split 40% of the gross from the movie, which is a lot of money.

• 48:14Griffin Newman?

  But they get, there's a weird structure where it's like, they get 40% of the first 200 million and then it goes back to Sony and then they get everything after that.

• 48:24David Sims?

  Who cares? Julia Roberts, who's 24 years old.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  I'll tell you who cares.

• 48:28David Sims?

  See, it was Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  Deadline.

• 48:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, deadline.

• 48:31David Sims?

  Julia Roberts is only 24 years old. Pretty Woman obviously came out a year before Hook.

• 48:35Griffin Newman?

  A thing that is insane to consider.

• 48:37David Sims?

  She had just gone through a very scandalous tabloidy breakup with Kiefer Sutherland, where she supposedly left him at the altar. I think in actuality, she called off the wedding a few days before.

• 48:47Griffin Newman?

  JJ has four pages of notes devoted to the fact that she actually broke off the marriage three days before the wedding, not at the altar.

• 48:54David Sims?

  Fair enough.

• 48:54Griffin Newman?

  Vindication.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  But like, it's the most change I have ever done.

• 48:57David Sims?

  I think because Julia Roberts has become this very sort of gentle celebrity, like people are just like, yeah, Julia Roberts is chill. She's like been married for a zillion years. She kind of lives in San Francisco doing it. It is hard for younger people to remember, to know how much insane scrutiny she was under in the early 90s. Like the most insane press bullshit around her at all times.

• 49:17Griffin Newman?

  She is 24. She's already been nominated for two Academy Awards. She's the biggest female star in Hollywood. She's already had like relationship drama that's burning up the tabloids. Yeah, she was in a real like.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Is this her only Spielberg movie?

• 49:32David Sims?

  Certainly, I think they they had, they did not enjoy working together. I think now they are like, we were both just not, we, it's too bad. You know, they, it's not like they still hate each other. Like, they talk about it like this sort of like, hey, man, we were both in bad places and it just wasn't working. And of course, almost all of her footage is just on a blue screen with nobody around her, which must have been a huge bummer. Like, once in a while, I think Robin Williams would come to sort of do lines with her, but that's about it.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  I think the biggest nod to that era that you see in the movie is there's just these random cutaways of her just grinning that beautiful, pretty woman smile.

• 50:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  And it's like, you almost can hear the exec be like, where's the smile?

• 50:11Griffin Newman?

  Do the move.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  Do the move.

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Um, because, you know, obviously she sold a lot of tickets on that dazzling and her incredible performance in Pretty Woman.

• 50:20Griffin Newman?

  But she said basically.

• 50:21Speaker 04

  But it feels cut in, like, there'll be like, the Lost Boys will be playing and then they'll just cut to Julia Roberts, like.

• 50:26David Sims?

  She doesn't have a, yes, a sort of, right, role in this film in a weird sort of a way, you know, like.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  It's a weird Eponiney, like, she does, she does have, but she's playing this weird unrequited love. It's, she's speaking the unspoken subtext of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan, which is that Tinker Bell is jealous of Wendy. But like, it's now these monologues.

• 50:48David Sims?

  It's now these monologues and her, her grudge fully sized and putting on essentially a wedding dress to talk to Peter Pan where you're sort of like, we already knew this. We didn't quite need it spoken aloud.

• 50:57Griffin Newman?

  It needs to be that overstated because you've hired Julia Roberts to do it. Like, now you need to justify why she's the third name above the title.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  Equivalent of like, well, if, if she's singing in it, she's got to have a second act solo. That, that scene is her second act solo that they wrote because Julie Roberts is playing.

• 51:14Griffin Newman?

  The scene of her getting big for four minutes feels like her being like, can I have one scene where I stand on a set?

• 51:20Speaker 04

  With a person.

• 51:21Griffin Newman?

  In front of a person and make eye contact.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Just a girl in front of a boy.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. She basically was like, Hoffman did off camera for me one time, Robin did it a couple of times. I was mostly in a harness, surrounded by crew guys in front of a blue screen.

• 51:35David Sims?

  As Spielberg put it at the time, this is 1991, her personal life fell apart and she reported to work on the same weekend. It was a bad time for her and under those highly charged emotional conditions, she was a pro. But in 99, Roberts did complain about Spielberg calling him a turncoat. Uh, said that he basically didn't like Defender in the Press enough, I think. Like, I think she was getting so much shit.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  She.

• 51:56David Sims?

  And she wanted a little bit more backup from him.

• 51:59Griffin Newman?

  She didn't like what you actually said. She didn't like that his line became like, it was a bad time for us to work together.

• 52:06David Sims?

  Yeah, and like, she was going through a lot of shit.

• 52:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:09David Sims?

  So, under those circumstances, she did fine. It's true, it's not, it's a bit backhanded. I don't know, man. They've figured it out. Everyone's doing fine. They're all rich, they're all successful, they all have Oscars.

• 52:18Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's okay.

• 52:19David Sims?

  Uh, cause even 1999 Julia Roberts is different from like 2009. You know, like, she still hasn't won her Oscar yet. She's still like, just sort of putting this turnaround, you know, anyway.

• 52:28Griffin Newman?

  Can I call out my favorite quote? That JJ found here. New York Times interview when the movie's about to come out.

• 52:35Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg says, I guess I had to get a little older to see that I wasn't done regressing. I've given up trying to be Martin Scorsese, Kurosawa, or David Lean. Maybe this film is about my finally growing up. I guess I've given up avoiding me. Everything I find textually interesting about this movie is this feeling of him being like, I guess you've got me figured out. Right? Like, him sort of being backed in a corner and it's like, I guess you're everything I say I am.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  But you know what's fun? I mean, when I think about the parts I love in this movie, it's none of that. And again, like, sometimes you have to wait a bit to get to these good parts, but like, man, the wonder he finds in Never Neverland, when we finally get to the Lost Boys. And the other thing I just want to call out is the fact that like, it's pretty much all white people until Never Neverland.

• 53:25Griffin Newman?

  True.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  And that's.

• 53:26Griffin Newman?

  Very pointed, I would say.

• 53:27Speaker 04

  The other thing that I think is so incredible about this movie is that like, when he creates joy and like fun personified, suddenly the rest of the world is allowed to be in the movie. And there's Hispanic kids and black kids and Asian kids. And we have a, we have an Asian leader of the Lost Boys in Dante Bosco as Rufio. And, and it explodes in color in every single sense. And that is, I mean, again, like, it is hard to overstate how. How much Rufio meant to kids.

• 54:02David Sims?

  This, I wonder how much he knew, like I was like, cause it does feel conscious in the movie that like the lot of the lost.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  Especially when you consider when in the scene in the, at the fundraiser, when they're honoring Wendy.

• 54:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  Old white men stand up.

• 54:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  And are like, you raised me Wendy, you raised me Wendy. And then we go to the real Never Neverland and they're, you know, the United Colors of Benetton. And you're like, well, when did, when did Neverland start letting us in?

• 54:31David Sims?

  Dante Basco, I'll read his quote. So he was from, you know, he was from basically like Compton. He was from California.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  He was like, I'm a, I was adjacent to.

• 54:40David Sims?

  Sure. Okay. Fine. I think, you know, I'm not, but like he, he says that like, he grew up around like gangs and friends, you know, friends and gangs. Like there were things about the lost boys that resonated for him as a young, I mean, how old is he in this film? Like 14, something like that. He only auditioned one time and then he read on tape and then he met, meets with Spielberg and apparently Spielberg said out of all the kids he saw, Basco was the only kid who scared him, which is a great, like, he does have like, I mean, it's the, I think it's an incredible performance. And I think that.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  He's incredible.

• 55:12David Sims?

  Rufio became something of a sort of like you're saying, like, you know, folk hero to kids our age.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Rufio was 50% of this movie having any stickiness in any legacy.

• 55:21David Sims?

  Yeah. Watch it as an adult. Cause as a kid I was like, oh, Rufio's tough and scary and interesting. And like, you know, then at the end he dies and you're like, yo, this is moving. As an adult, you watch it and you're like, this poor kid, it's such an emotion. We'll get into it, but just like all the emotions of like the dad left and is back, like the way he loves Peter and resents him.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 55:42David Sims?

  He plays it so well. He's a great, I mean, I love Dante Basco.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  I mean, to me, that's one of the great moments in the films when he draws that line. It's me or the pan. And then, you know, I mean,

• 55:51David Sims?

  And they.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  When I think back on this movie, if you were to, if you were to sum this movie up in one sentence, it would be there you are, Peter. Like, that's the moment. And then John Williams comes in with that music and they all cross the line. But I mean, like, I'm like, why the fuck am I crying?

• 56:06David Sims?

  The fact that he later got to be Zuko and have this other sort of like lovely second act to his career is so great. I mean, I love Avatar, The Last Airbender and all that, but uh, but he's, he's just amazing in this.

• 56:18Griffin Newman?

  The reason I call out the Compton adjacent thing is because he made this point of being like, I wasn't in gangs, but I grew up next to kids who were in gangs. Like, he has this right balance of just sort of like, I'm not a tough kid, but I understand what tough kids are, which maybe makes me the right amount of scary for a Spielberg Peter Pan movie.

• 56:38Speaker 04

  And, and also has that vulnerability. I mean,

• 56:40Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 56:40Speaker 04

  And also, I think, again, like, the, that final battle between the Lost Boys and the Pirates is also what doesn't work about this movie to me, is that like, you never quite understand the rules of death and consequences in Neverland. It's like, what the Lost Boys are doing Home Alone?

• 56:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  And they're doing the Barbie beach fight.

• 57:00David Sims?

  They have a chicken.

• 57:01Speaker 04

  And the Pirates have guns and knives. And like, by the way, like, painted ladies, for the record, like, I, I did not catch me being like a friend to all the painted ladies in town the first time I watched this movie. Like, they're, they're adults and they're killing motherfuckers. And everyone else is like, the Lost Boys are throwing eggs. And so when Rufio dies, you're like, wait, that can happen?

• 57:23David Sims?

  Right, right. The Lost Boys can die? Is this not just like an eternal play?

• 57:28Griffin Newman?

  But it also makes very late. Look, I, I don't want to be like nitpicky, but this is like a core thing.

• 57:33Speaker 04

  I do.

• 57:35David Sims?

  Peter Pan has this oddness to it as well, like the core text that is Peter Pan.

• 57:40Griffin Newman?

  But I'm pulling at this only because you presented it. It is a core issue I have with this movie, which is like, I do not understand the way that Neverland operates.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  I agree.

• 57:50Griffin Newman?

  No, what you're saying of like, he has two giant sets, right? There's like the pirate ship in the docks.

• 57:54David Sims?

  And then.

• 57:55Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, this is pirate land, and this is the Lost Boys hideout.

• 57:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 57:58Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, what's happening in between them? And what is their relationship to each other? Just, I don't need like hard brass like answers.

• 58:06David Sims?

  But you're thinking like an adult. It's a very

• 58:09Speaker 04

  Happy thought and fly with us.

• 58:11David Sims?

  I mean, but I mean, like also Peter, yeah, Peter Pan is very strictly a fairy story of like, yeah, there's the pirates, there's Tiger Lily, which this movie cleverly is just like, we're gonna brush by that.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, they reference it, but they don't go there.

• 58:22David Sims?

  Yes, there's the Lost Boys, like, how do you get there? Second, you know, Star of the Right, Fly on to, right? It's all just like kid logic.

• 58:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:30David Sims?

  The whole thing of Neverland is kid logic.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  But you're right, one of the things that makes the film squishy and not quite certainly work for you is that like, adult logic comes into it.

• 58:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  And

• 58:42David Sims?

  Have grown people from our world entering.

• 58:44Griffin Newman?

  Of adults, right?

• 58:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:46David Sims?

  But they have to let it.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  And it's a half hour of setup from grown up land.

• 58:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I'm also not asking for like an explanation of the municipality of like Neverland.

• 58:54David Sims?

  That's why Hook is a good character because he is a kid's impression of a grown up. He's not a real grown up. He's a cartoon character.

• 59:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:02David Sims?

  And like, like it's, it's like one of those Star Trek episodes on the holodeck where like the holodeck comes to life where they're like, what is my, I'm Moriarty? What's my purpose? I just exist in opposition to someone like that's not a real person, right? Like Captain Hook is just, and the whole thing with Peter Pan is, as Lynn knows, and I'm sure you guys know, classically, the same actor plays Wendy's father in Hook and it's this insane Freudian shit. Like baked into Peter Pan, the only movie that ever did it was the, the, uh, the PJ Hogan movie had Jason Isaacs do it. Which I always loved.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:35David Sims?

  Like they, they actually obeyed that rule. And I know, I assume it's partly just theatrical convention of like, well, we've got, we need this actor to do more than one thing, like, right? Like, you know, yeah, we don't want to cast two people, but that hook is this kind of dark side, right? Of, of grown upness, like that she goes to this, you know, place where her dad is suddenly the mean villain who wants to, I guess, stop everyone and having fun.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  Right, exactly.

• 1:00:01David Sims?

  But that, like, the concept of Hook is so clever of like Peter Pan's gone and Captain Hook's like, what do I do? I'm fucking stuck here, like just being Captain Hook against nobody?

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12David Sims?

  This blows, like where's Peter Pan? Like I exist only to fight Peter Pan. And like, he just needs to like, finish this hero's journey, or villain's journey, or whatever. But I guess that-

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  I think the other squishy thing for me in this movie, and it really stuck. It was weird to me when I first saw it, and it's even weirder now. And I did a little reading on this, and I understand why they did it. But apparently J. M. Barry wrote in a later story that Peter Pan ran away from home as an infant, which makes-

• 1:00:45David Sims?

  Which is in this movie.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  But-

• 1:00:47David Sims?

  You see the carriage running away, yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 04

  Oh, man, but the things we could have had if they hadn't done that, because it's the part that strains the most. Like, every parent goes and gets the stroller back, and you get your, like, no child has ever run away from home from being a baby helpless in a carriage that rolls away. Like, that just, it doesn't-

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  It doesn't make a lot-

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  Make sense in a literal or metaphorical sense.

• 1:01:11Griffin Newman?

  A static sense.

• 1:01:12Speaker 04

  If Peter Pan had actually been a 10-year-old kid who ran away from home to become Peter Pan.

• 1:01:18David Sims?

  Yes, to avoid puberty, to like, he knows what's next.

• 1:01:20Griffin Newman?

  To not grow up. It needs to be a choice, that's the problem.

• 1:01:23Speaker 04

  It needs to be a choice. And a baby cannot push his own carriage away.

• 1:01:26David Sims?

  Well, he sure does it in this movie.

• 1:01:28Griffin Newman?

  I get to that whole extended sequence, right? That basically starts with that through to, like, him seeing Gwyneth Paltrow for the first time.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  As we all do at some point in our lives.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, we all, we all remember.

• 1:01:41Speaker 04

  We decide to grow up.

• 1:01:42David Sims?

  We will all be tempted by Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 1:01:45Griffin Newman?

  She imprints upon her like a fucking Twilight. He's just like, I'm calling dibs on that baby.

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  I'm really gonna kiss her, move over, grandma.

• 1:01:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but like, that through to what you said is like, the thesis of the movie, of having the moment where he sees his son, and he's like, this is why I wanted to grow up, right? I'm like, this should be the core of the movie. And in a certain way, I think this sequence has the most power, and yet I think it's basically botching every part of what it's trying to say. And it starts with what you said, where it's just like, two adults being like, and then he's gonna go to business school, and this and that, and I'm like, I'm locked-

• 1:02:17Speaker 04

  Your baby rolled away.

• 1:02:19Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing, I'm so locked into that idea, like, that is something-

• 1:02:22David Sims?

  They should just be a kid, you're saying, you know, it's a little weird that it's a baby.

• 1:02:25Griffin Newman?

  You might be surprised to hear that that is a thing I relate to very strongly, of being a child and hearing adults be like, and when you're a grown up, you'll do this. I mean, being like, fuck. You.

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:02:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm out. But the second it's like, I'm a baby and I remember hearing them say that. So I magically willed my stroller away until Tinkerbell came and flew me over.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  And again, I think it comes out of a fidelity to a J and Barry text, but that's the other, that's the other thing that like gnaws at you while you're watching it. You're like, your grandmother's name was Wendy Darling and you've never questioned, like, and you, the movie starts with him watching his daughter playing Wendy Darling in a play like, there's no examination of the like, so where, how are we?

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  How did this become myth?

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:03:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Here's another thing I find super fucking smushy. So he's doing that, right? Tinkerbell flies him over. He meets Wendy. He goes back and visits her. She becomes an old lady. He falls in love with Gwyneth Paltrow. He's like, I gotta stay here. Then it basically hard cuts to he's Robin Williams with the suspenders in the delivery room, looking at the baby and going, here we go. This is why I want to be a grown up. What happens in between those two points? When does he stop remembering that he's Peter Pan?

• 1:03:40David Sims?

  He says like, he doesn't remember anything before he's 12 years old.

• 1:03:43Griffin Newman?

  But you're telling me that he like jumps through the window when he's 12, sees this 12 year old is like, yes, please erase my memory.

• 1:03:51David Sims?

  Kind of.

• 1:03:52Griffin Newman?

  You adopt me, raise me next to your granddaughter. By the way, I just want to restate dibs. No one else can date her. They date all the way through having their first child and then he's like, there we go. This is why I'm here.

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I also, I mean, I rub up against logic of like, if they took him away when he was a baby, how'd he grow up in Never Neverland?

• 1:04:11Griffin Newman?

  That's right.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  Why couldn't he have just gone away at the age when he'd be Peter Pan?

• 1:04:15Griffin Newman?

  That's always been the Peter Pan logic, which as you said, like, maybe the J and Barry thing starts with him being a baby. That's a good like note that other people came up with when they readapted it. To be like, oh, it's actually better if he stays the age he ran away at. That's the whole point.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30David Sims?

  Steven Spielberg, just to, just to finish out the sort of context here. This film was supposed to take 76 days to shoot. It took 116, so way, way, way over, over production.

• 1:04:40Griffin Newman?

  It's supposed to be like 40 and then it was, ended up somewhere between 60 and 80.

• 1:04:44David Sims?

  It's this era for Spielberg, I think, where he's too famous. People come visit at the set. Obviously, there's all like the celebrity cameos and it kind of, and he builds these crazy sets.

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  Although Glenn Close is legit great as that one pirate.

• 1:04:56David Sims?

  She acts. I mean, like, she's, um, but, uh, like, I think people, she's, she's really funny. People are swinging by. Come see this fucking crazy set, right?

• 1:05:08Griffin Newman?

  The Lost Boys lair and you're like, I want to hang out there. This movie looks like the best, like, theme park walk-through attraction of all time. And it does feel like he just basically half of every day was a party where he would give people tours and be like, don't you want to go down the slide?

• 1:05:22David Sims?

  The boat, it's the Jolly Roger, costs a million and a half dollars is the most expensive, like, thing ever built in a Steven Spielberg movie. Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Mel Gibson, Prince and the Queen of Jordan, among the people who visited this. I'm just like, no wonder he's getting distracted. No wonder things are taking too long. Like, he's too kind of, you know, wrapped up in this madness. And to touch on the musical thing, as we said, there is, uh, five to eight songs that Williams writes with Leslie, uh, Brickus.

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Leslie Brickus, yeah.

• 1:05:56David Sims?

  Uh, who is that? I don't really know.

• 1:05:58Speaker 04

  Leslie Brickus, um.

• 1:05:59David Sims?

  Who's the lyricist, obviously.

• 1:06:00Speaker 04

  The lyricist, oh, man, I'm gonna forget, but Leslie Brickus wrote a lot for the theater.

• 1:06:05David Sims?

  He did, uh, I'm seeing here, Dr. Dolittle, like, uh, Talk to the Animals, stuff like that, Goodbye Mr. Chips, uh, The Pure Imagination and The Candyman from Louis Long.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  That's, that's a big one.

• 1:06:14David Sims?

  So a lot of like movie musical stuff.

• 1:06:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it was like partners with Anthony Lu, Anthony Newley.

• 1:06:19David Sims?

  Right. So, you know, uh, Spielberg basically chickens out, he says, like, I, you know, obviously he's always wanted to make a musical. He finally does it fucking 30 years later with West Side Story. But I, my guess is he's kind of like, if I'm gonna make a musical, I really, really want it to be like something where I'm fully invested. And maybe these songs feel like more of like an add on. And he's just like, I can't deal with it. Like.

• 1:06:45Speaker 04

  I mean, it's already a lot of movie without it being a musical.

• 1:06:47Griffin Newman?

  It's already 20 minutes long, which is insane. But when you watch the theatrical cut of All Do Anything, you have the thought, how could songs possibly fit into this? Right? And when you watch the cut that you may or may not receive a Google Drive link to after this episode, you're like, oh, they fit in oddly. This doesn't like solve the movie. This is very weird and uncanny to watch. Right? Hook does feel to me like a musical that the songs were cut out of. Like, I'm like, everything in its tone and its stylization and its level of performance and even just sort of like, it feels weirdly stage bound, even though it has these ginormous sets.

• 1:07:24David Sims?

  They are sets.

• 1:07:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it's sort of like two big locations that you're ping ponging back and forth through where you're watching people jump around these like jungle gyms.

• 1:07:32David Sims?

  One of my favorite scenes in the movie, in terms of just like Spielberg operating on master level of visual storytelling is when Hook is being introduced, where the Hook is on the pillow, moving through the set and all the pirates are going like, Hook, Hook. You know, and like, you know, the music starts to go crazy and then like we go and he comes out, you know, it's, you're just like, right, Spielberg's really good at this.

• 1:07:54Griffin Newman?

  I like that sequence. I like the induction of the children.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, my favorite image in the whole movie is just the fucking Hook on the window.

• 1:08:00David Sims?

  Those feel like musical sequences without a song being sung, really.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  Right, right. It's building to a musical. By the way, like barriers to entry for younger kids watching this movie. That looks like poltergeist when those blankets come off those kids.

• 1:08:11David Sims?

  That, that, that whole part is, I think I loved it. The thing that freaked me out as a kid, I remember, is the nanny screaming, the children, the children, like when they get home.

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21David Sims?

  It's a little like unnerving.

• 1:08:27Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:08:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:08:33David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:34Griffin Newman?

  On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:08:45David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:08:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:09:09David Sims?

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

• 1:09:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:09:29David Sims?

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

• 1:09:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:32David 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.

• 1:09:39Griffin 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.

• 1:09:53David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:09:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:09:58David Sims?

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

• 1:10:14Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:10:30David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:10:33David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:37David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:10:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:45David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip dense sweater.

• 1:10:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:10:50David Sims?

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

• 1:10:52Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:55David 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.

• 1:11:02Griffin 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.

• 1:11:19David Sims?

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

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Like you're wearing right now?

• 1:11:27David Sims?

  14 karat gold, Italian leather.

• 1:11:30Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:11:31David 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.

• 1:11:51Griffin 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.

• 1:12:04David Sims?

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

• 1:12:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:12:12David Sims?

  They got tree skirts.

• 1:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Garlands.

• 1:12:14David Sims?

  If you want to go Christmas mode.

• 1:12:16Griffin 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 Quint asked where you heard about them, let them know it was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:13:01David Sims?

  So the first half hour of this movie, like we're getting into Huck, Peter Banning, he's a workaholic lawyer.

• 1:13:07Speaker 04

  Cell phone.

• 1:13:08David Sims?

  He's got this fucking cellphone. He, right. He can quick draw better than anybody.

• 1:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. These are the real pirates.

• 1:13:15David Sims?

  Gorgeous and charming Carolyn Grittl, who's really good in this movie.

• 1:13:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:19David Sims?

  Uh, like she doesn't have much to do, but when she's crying at the end, she's so involved.

• 1:13:23Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:13:23David Sims?

  Like.

• 1:13:24Griffin Newman?

  Later reused in Schindler's List.

• 1:13:27David Sims?

  She's amazing.

• 1:13:28Griffin Newman?

  Mrs. Schindler.

• 1:13:28David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, uh, is his wife. Uh, they have two kids. Charlie Corsmo, obviously is the door of

• 1:13:34Speaker 04

  Another MVP of this movie.

• 1:13:36David Sims?

  Um, I however, love little Amber Scott. I don't really know if she ever did anything else, but she's so cute. Uh, Maggie, the little kid.

• 1:13:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:45David Sims?

  When she sings the song and she, yeah.

• 1:13:47Speaker 04

  Which is also the same melody as a penny for your thoughts from Waiting for Guffman.

• 1:13:51David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:13:51Speaker 04

  A penny for your thoughts.

• 1:13:54David Sims?

  That's why we have Miranda on the show.

• 1:13:56Griffin Newman?

  It also, look, it feels like kissing cousins with somewhere out there as well. Coming out of the Spielberg system. Yes.

• 1:14:04David Sims?

  Maggie, uh, has the incredible insult, you need a mother very, very badly. She really, she really puts the mustard on that line. I think I just have a kid with her energy. Maybe that's why I'm, uh, but, uh, he's, he's a workaholic.

• 1:14:18Speaker 04

  Then I also want to speak up for Charlie Corsmo, who by the way, like left the business. He's a lawyer now.

• 1:14:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:14:22Speaker 04

  Um, and he is so good in this and he was also in Dick Tracy.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  He's the kid.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  He's the kid.

• 1:14:28Griffin Newman?

  And he's great in Dick Tracy.

• 1:14:29Speaker 04

  He's great.

• 1:14:29Griffin Newman?

  He's also really good in, uh, Can't Hardly Wait.

• 1:14:32David Sims?

  Yes, he is. His last role.

• 1:14:34Griffin Newman?

  He had like an incredible run.

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  Um, he's just got a great face. He's just got a great kid, nineties kid. He's what a nineties kid looks like.

• 1:14:40Griffin Newman?

  He's the ultimate nineties kid.

• 1:14:42Speaker 04

  But this was, this movie was festooned with our favorite child actors. I want to point out, um, Uh, Jason Fisher, Fisher, who is like just one of the lost boys, but he was also the kid in the witches.

• 1:14:55David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:14:56Speaker 04

  And he was Martin's son in parenthood, which is what I remember when he lost his retainer and like flipped out.

• 1:15:02David Sims?

  Those are his three roles. That guy was three and out. Those are his three roles.

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  But he was great in all of those.

• 1:15:07David Sims?

  He's great. Yeah.

• 1:15:07Griffin Newman?

  Charlie Chrismo had What About Bob as well.

• 1:15:09Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:15:10Griffin Newman?

  He was just on a heater.

• 1:15:11David Sims?

  You know, I

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  The Rocket.

• 1:15:13David Sims?

  Did Little League Baseball. Uh, you, did you do Little League Baseball?

• 1:15:16Griffin Newman?

  I was forced basically at Hook Point.

• 1:15:18David Sims?

  I just like, so like, I think Charlie's like a little baseball obsession.

• 1:15:23Griffin Newman?

  That's what it felt like, really.

• 1:15:27David Sims?

  I was just like, yeah, this is me, you know, like I am right. I don't know. I identified very strongly with little Jack Banning as a kid, but uh, Jack Banning, um, uh, loves his dad, loves baseball, but his dad no attend baseball game in, in Christmas time.

• 1:15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, but yeah.

• 1:15:42Griffin Newman?

  But David sends a cinematographer.

• 1:15:43David Sims?

  He sent a cinematographer to catch all the action.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, a video. That feels personal. Send someone to film it.

• 1:15:49David Sims?

  Yeah, that's, that'll really resonate with that kid.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  Typical dad move.

• 1:15:53David Sims?

  Scanning the bleachers, looking for daddy. Uh, very quickly after this though, they get on a plane to go to London where Peter was raised as an orphan by Wendy from Peter Pan, who's now Maggie Smith in old age makeup. It's one of those funny things where you're like, this is actually Maggie Smith younger. You know what I mean? Like they're aging her up.

• 1:16:13Speaker 04

  To McGonagall levels.

• 1:16:14David Sims?

  And right, we know what she's gonna look like and they kinda nail it.

• 1:16:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they really nail it. My glitz is watching it now. Cause you're like, how the fuck did she live another 40 years? And the answer is she's like 57 in this, but they just absolutely correctly predicted the exact way she would age.

• 1:16:32David Sims?

  They, they nailed it. They do. And she's, uh, she's really good. And obviously I'm sure she was just cast because she has instant mega presence.

• 1:16:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39David Sims?

  Maggie Smith is the greatest.

• 1:16:41Speaker 04

  Was she a dame yet? She probably wasn't even a dame yet.

• 1:16:43David Sims?

  That's a great, when did she get the key, the DBE as they call it?

• 1:16:46Griffin Newman?

  Speak a little bit to the hubris of this movie though, where it's just like, he's Steven Spielberg. For every single role, you're gonna get the single greatest person you could possibly find for that moment, you know? I think Bob Hoskins as Smee is maybe the best performance in this movie.

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  She had just gotten her damehood in 1990. She's freshly damed.

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  But in a way that

• 1:17:08David Sims?

  She has two Oscars already.

• 1:17:09Griffin Newman?

  Unbalances the film a little bit for me.

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  Miss Jean Brody, one of my mom's favorite movies.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  An incredible movie. And then the OK California Suite, her other Oscar win.

• 1:17:16Griffin Newman?

  But like when you have Bob Hoskins as Smee, just throwing fastballs.

• 1:17:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Griffin Newman?

  See, my parents forced me to play baseball. I understand what a fastball is. I explained this to Ben for some unclear reason.

• 1:17:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, Ben.

• 1:17:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm just like-

• 1:17:29Speaker 04

  A fastball is a ball that goes very fast.

• 1:17:31David Sims?

  Some of the balls aren't as fast as other.

• 1:17:35Speaker 05

  And a curveball, you better guess.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:37Speaker 05

  Kind of a curve.

• 1:17:38David Sims?

  Well, I'll tell you, the fucking Jack Banning can't hit a curveball for shit.

• 1:17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, he cannot.

• 1:17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, Robin's like, no, not the curveball.

• 1:17:43David Sims?

  The scouting report of this guy is easy, like breaking balls. He cannot hit them.

• 1:17:47Speaker 05

  I felt it in that I sucked at baseball.

• 1:17:50David Sims?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:17:51Speaker 05

  And I especially was bad at batting.

• 1:17:54David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:17:54Griffin Newman?

  I've talked about this before, but I was left-handed and like two foot negative six. And what my little league teams would do was they would put me up to bat when bases were loaded. Cause they'd call me the walk-on kid.

• 1:18:08David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:09Griffin Newman?

  And children could not pitch to me.

• 1:18:11David Sims?

  Because you had no strike zone and you were a lefty.

• 1:18:14Griffin Newman?

  So they would throw the ball and it would hit me and it would hurt. And then everyone would cheer and give me a thumbs up and go, Griffin, good job. And I would limp with tears over to first base and get them a run.

• 1:18:26David Sims?

  Barry Bonds over here, yeah, great OBP.

• 1:18:28Griffin Newman?

  My torture relationship to sports is just like, if you're willing to undergo physical pain, then maybe your dad will be proud for 30 seconds. So what I was gonna say is that Bob Hoskins is so good throwing fastballs as Smee, that when he's on screen, I'm like, oh, right. So this whole movie's about Smee, right? And it's like, no, he's Smee. He's like one of the parts of this thing.

• 1:18:51Speaker 04

  He's number two to Mr. Hook.

• 1:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. But he's giving you so much that you're like, well, this film should be called Smee. Peter Pan retold from Smee's.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  Smee and Rufio would be a very successful spinoff of this movie.

• 1:19:03David Sims?

  You know, Hoskins is-

• 1:19:04Speaker 04

  Take what works.

• 1:19:05David Sims?

  Right at the peak of like, somehow this guy has become a Hollywood movie star. Like, you know, where it's like Mermaids.

• 1:19:12Speaker 04

  Roger Rabbit.

• 1:19:13David Sims?

  The year before Roger Rabbit, a couple of years before then. Mario Brothers is coming up where it's kind of like, yeah, I guess this like five, six Cockney guy needs to be the lead of movies.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  That's what's crazy though. It's not just that he had become- Come on, major movie star, but it was like, kids love Bob Hoskins.

• 1:19:30David Sims?

  Which we did.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  So funny to consider.

• 1:19:32David Sims?

  We did. I would see that guy and I would be like, there's my friend Bob Hoskins.

• 1:19:35Griffin Newman?

  My best friend.

• 1:19:37David Sims?

  Percent. Yes. And, uh, and like then only later do I realize like, that was like a serious actor. That's like an Oscar nominated serious thespian. I mean, that's the, the Hoskins clip that I watch all the time of when he gets the Mario role and his kids are like, Mario, we played Mario. And he's like, what? And they're, they like, they load it for him. They say, and he's like, and I watched this little boop, boop. And he's like, I used to play King Lear.

• 1:20:02David Sims?

  Like King Lear.

• 1:20:02Griffin Newman?

  But he signed on not knowing it was a game. He's like, what a wild idea for a picture.

• 1:20:07David Sims?

  I mean, I think he signed on with like, you know, like whatever the, you know, zeros on the check.

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. The script was made in a sandwiched which between million dollar bills.

• 1:20:18David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, so, all right. But so Peter Manning, okay. So he goes to England. It's this snowy sort of fakey England, like this, like total fantasy of England, like this not snow like that in England ever. And like, it just feels like they'd like go to a Christmas card, right? You know, like they go to this lovely big home. This big kind of attic-y room, right? Like they, it's like they're going into Peter Pan world sort of already.

• 1:20:39Griffin Newman?

  To throw out a thing that already drives me crazy about the movie at this point.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Um, is it? Uh, I do really like the plane scene where Jack's giving his dad the.

• 1:20:47Griffin Newman?

  Not surprised you like that.

• 1:20:48David Sims?

  And, uh, and, uh, draws the, uh, picture of his dad dying in a plane accident. Yep. It's pretty funny.

• 1:20:53Griffin Newman?

  Um, which is a nice nod to this movie's pitch coming out of a children's truck. Um, uh, no, it did, uh, Dustin Hoffman is the voice of the pilot, uh, giving the warning, uh, turbulence, which is their subtle nod to the idea of double casting hook in some way.

• 1:21:09David Sims?

  Uh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, uh, Hoskins is a street sweeper very late in the movie as well.

• 1:21:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:14David Sims?

  Yeah. Fun. But what, what, what do you not like?

• 1:21:17Griffin Newman?

  I think I, I'm, I'm saying nothing controversial here. Robin Williams at his best properly applied. One of the most effective actors in movie history, right? But there, the, the legacy of Robin Williams across many decades is sometimes going like, Robin, you shouldn't do that. Come on, man. Right? That's not the right thing. For you to do like wrong instinct. Robin Williams on paper, playing Peter Pan in a Steven Spielberg movie. You're like, well, that makes the most sense of anything.

• 1:21:44Speaker 04

  Get more in there.

• 1:21:45Griffin Newman?

  In the world.

• 1:21:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:47Griffin Newman?

  But it's also part of the inherent tension of what I struggle with in this movie is that it's like. So what, what is the idea? It's like Peter Pan grew up and has to remember to reconnect with his child made by two people who kind of never grew up. And this opening section, I feel like they do not totally know how to depict his boring, normal life. Where I'm like, I think Robin Williams has too much comedy energy in this section of the movie. And then I think in the midsection where he's in Neverland and is like, oh, I don't know. I got a little closer.

• 1:22:23David Sims?

  That was better.

• 1:22:23Griffin Newman?

  I feel like in the midsection, his energy just goes down to zero when he's lost. And that's what I kind of want him to be at the beginning where I'm like, he's having too much fun being a shitty businessman. The quick draw shit and the bits. And when he does like the fundraiser dinner and he's like, oh, I'm nervous. I'm not much of a public speaker.

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 1:22:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm getting, I'm getting closer.

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  You're, you're warming up.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Circling it. Yeah.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  Good morning, orphans.

• 1:22:48Griffin Newman?

  They fucking do the bit. Smee does like, good morning, Neverland.

• 1:22:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Griffin Newman?

  Immediately I'm like, this is the wrong story choice when it cuts to him at the banquet and he's delivering.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  Killing.

• 1:23:00Griffin Newman?

  His shitty jokes, but he's killing.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  It's sort of, it's a bit of a Robin Williams problem. Like it's very tough for that guy to not be on like he's.

• 1:23:07Griffin Newman?

  But in the midsection, I think he turns off.

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  But even in Robin Williams hits, there's just like the sections where they let him go full Robin. And I feel like that was like the one, they put him in front of an audience and I think that just happened.

• 1:23:19David Sims?

  To a Jim Carrey where like Peter Weir later said, like you had to make him.

• 1:23:22Griffin Newman?

  You have to wear him down.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Take over and over. So he would just stop being Jim Carrey.

• 1:23:25Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:23:26David Sims?

  You would get it out of his system.

• 1:23:27Griffin Newman?

  I just think the most effective version of this movie is you're watching the first 30 minutes and you're like, oh my God, where is Robin Williams gone? There's none of that spark.

• 1:23:35David Sims?

  Well, I would also say.

• 1:23:36Griffin Newman?

  Comeback feels like such an exciting cathartic thing.

• 1:23:40David Sims?

  But it should also be 10 minutes. It's way too.

• 1:23:43Speaker 04

  It's just too long.

• 1:23:43David Sims?

  It's just crazy how long it is. And it would make more sense if they were really like firmly setting up the lore. Instead, as you guys are pointing out, the lore is pretty vague. It's a little hard to parse what exactly happened here.

• 1:23:56Griffin Newman?

  Finding Nemo problem, like this movie should open with Maggie Smith narrating the explanation of how he ended up staying here and growing old. And then it cuts to 10 minutes of him being a shitty dad. Because when it's 30 minutes, he needs to have jokes in there because otherwise the audience is going to be bored to tears. I want 10 minutes of him just being like, oh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Like kind of trudging through life because you also need to be like, he's not even really enjoying this. He's on autopilot. And then when he gets to Neverland, he's sort of trying to find himself. And then the last act is like, we got full Robin. He's fucking swashbuckling and doing impressions of William F Buckley or whatever. He's doing his genie bit.

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  Wait a minute. Jimmy swagger in Neverland.

• 1:24:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I just always feel like his performance is miscalibrated in the arc.

• 1:24:42David Sims?

  I understand.

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44David Sims?

  Um, his children are kidnapped by Captain James Hook, who leaves a note saying essentially like, I can't, I took your children. Come get me. And then Tinker Bell arrives to sort of bully Peter into getting to Neverland with her, right?

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  Can I say about the note?

• 1:24:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00Speaker 05

  What a way to leave a note.

• 1:25:01David Sims?

  Hook on the, hook on the door, like a knife on the door, sorry.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've never done that before, but.

• 1:25:06David Sims?

  Oh, you haven't, that hasn't come up? You know what? You haven't been like, you know, when to get milk.

• 1:25:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:25:13David Sims?

  Back in 20.

• 1:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Isn't that how you propose marriage to your fiance?

• 1:25:17Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:25:17Griffin Newman?

  Will you marry me, dagger?

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  No, I used a ninja star.

• 1:25:22David Sims?

  And we exit snowy London and enter Neverland, which is kind of tropical. Like beyond the fact that it's like an island with water and shit. Like it has this sort of like tropical energy to it. Would you agree? Very, very colorful, obviously.

• 1:25:38Griffin Newman?

  I'll tell you what it feels like to me.

• 1:25:39David Sims?

  What?

• 1:25:39Griffin Newman?

  It feels like the like water park adjacent to a major theme park.

• 1:25:44David Sims?

  Yes, it does. It feels like a theme park.

• 1:25:46Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:25:46David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:25:46Griffin Newman?

  But all the like Disney and Universal have their sort of like, here's our fourth gate. It's called like Water Island. But it's also, it's like weirdly like volcano themed and kind of half thought out. And it's just got a bunch of like things that spin.

• 1:25:58David Sims?

  But it's also this like fake reality that doesn't know what to do with itself, right? The pirates are there. They be pirates, but they have nothing to, you know, go and pirate.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:26:10David Sims?

  Right. They're not setting sail and doing pirate stuff. They're just kinda stuck.

• 1:26:15Griffin Newman?

  I, yeah, I don't want hard shoe leather on this, but I do want the movie to give me a little more of like, what the fuck have they been doing for 20 years?

• 1:26:24David Sims?

  They, I, I, I think you're overthinking this.

• 1:26:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:27David Sims?

  I'm gonna finally call it out. You're overthinking this. They don't, time doesn't move for them like that.

• 1:26:31Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  Exist in time. They don't age.

• 1:26:33Griffin Newman?

  But I think the fun thing is the idea that it's like, if Hook doesn't have Pan-

• 1:26:37Speaker 04

  There's this feedback loop of fun that's happening.

• 1:26:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:26:39Speaker 04

  They fight the boys. The boys hang out with the Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily fights, helps them, like, it's this feedback loop of endless adventure.

• 1:26:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:26:47Griffin Newman?

  But the great unresolved thing in Hook is that he never got to defeat Pan, right? That that's been driving him crazy in this, like, interim period. Which then also deflates for me a little bit when he's just like, you're not Peter Pan. Anyway, I'm gonna go back to fighting the kids.

• 1:27:02David Sims?

  All of this, to me, is quite fun. I enjoy just like the pirates being pirates and Hook being Hook.

• 1:27:09Speaker 04

  Yo ho ho.

• 1:27:10David Sims?

  Yes. Like, I, I-

• 1:27:11Griffin Newman?

  Bottle of fun. Yo ho ho and a bottle of fun.

• 1:27:15David Sims?

  Bottle of fun. Thank you very much.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  You're welcome.

• 1:27:16David Sims?

  The Glenn Close. Right? You know, like, that, that whole sequence of like- Someone amongst us is not who he's there, you know, right? Like, and it's Sid, Robin, and assuming it's him.

• 1:27:25Speaker 04

  That's so fun.

• 1:27:25Griffin Newman?

  I gotta call out my favorite cameo in the movie.

• 1:27:27David Sims?

  The Boo Box. Uh, who?

• 1:27:29Griffin Newman?

  Well, yeah, Phil Collins has the-

• 1:27:30Speaker 04

  Detective Phil Collins.

• 1:27:31David Sims?

  Detective Phil Collins. Seems like part, took your kids. It's a bit weird, given that you're a fucking Peter Pan or whatever. I'll see you later.

• 1:27:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, something hooky in the air tonight.

• 1:27:39David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. There's something-

• 1:27:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh, when Tinker Bell drags Peter through the sky, and there's like errant pixie dust falling down, and you have like the very kinda matte painting-y bridge, uh, in front of Big Ben, uh, that, uh, the couple's kissing and they elevate into the sky. They start flying as they're kissing. Do you know who that is?

• 1:28:04Speaker 04

  George Lucas?

• 1:28:05Griffin Newman?

  And Carrie Fisher.

• 1:28:07David Sims?

  Oh, I did.

• 1:28:08Griffin Newman?

  Isn't that weird?

• 1:28:10David Sims?

  I love it.

• 1:28:10Griffin Newman?

  George Lucas mooch in laya.

• 1:28:13Speaker 04

  But do you think that was just because they were on set that day? Could that have been? David Crosby and the Queen of Jordan.

• 1:28:19Griffin Newman?

  I think a hundred percent.

• 1:28:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:22Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 1:28:22Speaker 05

  If they had visited that day.

• 1:28:23David Sims?

  Slap a wig on the Queen of Jordan. She's a, it's a pirate life for her.

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  You're kissing David Crosby, who is already dressed as a pirate.

• 1:28:29David Sims?

  David Crosby, obviously.

• 1:28:30Speaker 05

  So that was.

• 1:28:31Speaker 04

  That's David Crosby.

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  He looks so much like.

• 1:28:34David Sims?

  Crosby is 90% of the way to being a pirate in his daily life.

• 1:28:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39David Sims?

  Like, God bless him.

• 1:28:40Speaker 05

  He swashes.

• 1:28:41Speaker 04

  God bless him.

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:42Griffin Newman?

  Is it actually insane that this is the only time David Crosby has played a literal pirate?

• 1:28:47David Sims?

  I mean, do you know that it is?

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  I'm asking.

• 1:28:49Speaker 04

  I'm sure he's got other uncredited pirate roles.

• 1:28:51Griffin Newman?

  There must be.

• 1:28:52Speaker 04

  He hasn't told us.

• 1:28:53Griffin Newman?

  Because otherwise, what a waste.

• 1:28:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he gets kicked in the nuts. He gets a full on nut shot close up.

• 1:28:58Griffin Newman?

  Gets kicked in the nuts, yeah.

• 1:29:00David Sims?

  So, uh, yeah, what is there to say about, I mean, like, so Peter is, you know, this is the, this is the dismal failure of Peter.

• 1:29:09Speaker 04

  They put a ticking clock on it. Give me three days to get him into shape.

• 1:29:13David Sims?

  But it's a tough scene, even as a kid.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Also, another cameo, Apollo Creed's manager is one of the pirate, he's the only black pirate that I clocked.

• 1:29:23David Sims?

  Duke?

• 1:29:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, Duke. That's Apollo Creed's manager in the Rocky movies. He's in all six of the Rocky movies.

• 1:29:28David Sims?

  Of course, Tony Burton is the actor's name. I did not, like, Tony Burton hook. Let's see, dang. So everyone just kind of wanted to go.

• 1:29:34Griffin Newman?

  Everyone.

• 1:29:35David Sims?

  Have fun.

• 1:29:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  Yeah, right. I mean, the pirates are great. The costuming is great. Like, you know, like, everyone's having fun.

• 1:29:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Jimmy Buffett is also one of the pirates.

• 1:29:43David Sims?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:29:44Griffin Newman?

  What? Because, of course, his best friends was best friends with Frank Marshall.

• 1:29:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, those are the homies.

• 1:29:49Griffin Newman?

  Those are the homies.

• 1:29:50Speaker 04

  I, I know this in my professional life because.

• 1:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Is the Frank Marshall.

• 1:29:53Speaker 04

  Frank Marshall produced.

• 1:29:56Speaker 04

  No, no, he produced the Jimmy Buffett musical Escape from the Greenery.

• 1:29:59David Sims?

  And now Frank Marshall, who obviously had a long career as a producer and also made, you know, Congo and Arachnophobia and a lot, like, he made movies, now just churns out music documentaries. Like, that Bee Gees one was so good. He's since done Carole King, James Taylor.

• 1:30:15Griffin Newman?

  Did the Beach Boys.

• 1:30:16David Sims?

  And the Beach Boys, and something about, like, New Orleans Jazz Fest. He's just like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

• 1:30:20Speaker 04

  He's just doing what he wants to do now.

• 1:30:21David Sims?

  That must be what it is, right?

• 1:30:23Speaker 04

  That's a blank check. Yeah.

• 1:30:24David Sims?

  Yeah, like, where he's just like, can I just interview people, like, and have fun? Right, yeah, talking about.

• 1:30:28Speaker 04

  I like.

• 1:30:28David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. But no, the shaming of Peter, again, like to get, you know, like where it's like, save your children, go fly for them. And then he's humiliated in front of them. It's, I think as a kid, this is like quite transgressive to watch, to watch a dad like get humiliated like.

• 1:30:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can't save your kids.

• 1:30:48David Sims?

  Right. It's really kind of unsettling. I think you're bumping on this again as having not seen this as a kid.

• 1:30:54Speaker 04

  No, no, here's what I'm, here's what I'm reckoning with. Mom and dad save the world type of movies.

• 1:30:59David Sims?

  It's.

• 1:30:59Speaker 04

  To see an emasculated dad basically be like, your dad can't do shit.

• 1:31:03David Sims?

  Captain, like Bowser doesn't try to be Princess Peach's dad. Like it's weird that in Hook, Captain Hook with the help of Smee quickly alights him like, I'll be their father. Like it, the dynamics of it are so strange. It's speaking to the original like Peter Pan mythos.

• 1:31:18Griffin Newman?

  I do think that's the most interesting idea in the movie. That's me is like, you actually want to like fucking hurt this guy? It's not going to be through a sword fight.

• 1:31:26David Sims?

  Right. If you're fighting a kid, you fight with your swords. But like now, right? The way to get at him is to like usurp his fatherhood.

• 1:31:32Griffin Newman?

  Now, so either you're gonna like outbid him.

• 1:31:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:31:35Griffin Newman?

  On the like merger they want to do.

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  Smee brought parental dynamics to a knife fight.

• 1:31:39David Sims?

  Right. That's what I'm saying.

• 1:31:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:42David Sims?

  He's, and the hook's like, ah, good, good, good. Like, let's just get them toys and.

• 1:31:46Speaker 04

  Stockholm syndrome his child.

• 1:31:47David Sims?

  Right. And have them do good baseball.

• 1:31:49Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm trying to process.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Griffin Newman?

  In a childhood where my parents were saying like, and most of all, remember Hook sucks every morning, right?

• 1:31:56Speaker 04

  Remember, let our legacy be.

• 1:31:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. My dad was saying, stay in school.

• 1:32:00David Sims?

  Putting your backpack on.

• 1:32:00Griffin Newman?

  Never get a tattoo. Hook sucks. Right? Those were like his three things. Uh, I do remember as a child being like, that is a potent idea for a movie. And I probably worded it the exact way. I stroked my chin and I went, that's a potent idea for a movie. No, but like as a child, you're like, fuck, what if Captain Hook could never got over Peter Pan? And Peter Pan grew up and he forgot that he was Peter Pan? And when I would catch bits of it on TV at friends' houses or whatever, this was the section I do remember sticking with me.

• 1:32:29David Sims?

  Mm hmm. Okay.

• 1:32:30Griffin Newman?

  Of being like, this movie's bad? That feels kind of interesting to have Hook be like, what if I raise them better than you do?

• 1:32:37Speaker 04

  And listen, I mean, two things. One, like as an 11 year old whose dad did work too much and did have a fucking early cell phone, like that notion of I could get revenge on my dad.

• 1:32:49Griffin Newman?

  My dad was the.

• 1:32:50Speaker 04

  And find a different.

• 1:32:51Griffin Newman?

  Same way.

• 1:32:51Speaker 04

  Bound dad.

• 1:32:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:52Speaker 04

  And, uh, that's very potent and powerful.

• 1:32:56David Sims?

  Did your dad have a cell phone?

• 1:32:58Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:58David Sims?

  I see.

• 1:32:59Speaker 04

  The big brick. I remember my dad had a big car phone.

• 1:33:02David Sims?

  Of course. Love those car phones. Cause when, when should you really be talking on the phone?

• 1:33:06Speaker 05

  In the car.

• 1:33:07Speaker 04

  In the car. Crazy.

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  No, but I, I do think that's the, the power at the center of the premise, right? More than anything is what if Captain Hook realizes the best way to get back at Peter Pan is being a good dad? Not just trying to go after the kids, but like the scene I remember as a child catching glimpses, feeling like it had a little juice was the baseball game and him watching Hook provide

• 1:33:36David Sims?

  Ron and Jack.

• 1:33:36Griffin Newman?

  The actual attention and support that he wasn't giving. Right. That it's not just that he's like, I'm giving you rubies.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's saying like.

• 1:33:45Speaker 04

  I love you, boy.

• 1:33:47David Sims?

  Yeah. And you're gonna succeed and you're gonna be right. Like paid attention to. I like that, um, you know, uh, it's really all centered on Jack though. Maggie, they're just kinda like, yeah, we'll figure her out.

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  I just, Maggie doesn't like me. We'll lock her to the closet. If they hadn't cut her song, she would disappear from this movie.

• 1:34:05David Sims?

  She's a cutie pie doll.

• 1:34:06Speaker 04

  She's cute.

• 1:34:09David Sims?

  So Peter is given three days to become Peter Pan. He goes off to the Lost Boys with the help of Tinker Bell and he joins the Lost Boys.

• 1:34:15Speaker 04

  He should have taken Duke with him, cause that guy's good at training people into shit.

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Speaker 05

  He does get four mermaids.

• 1:34:22David Sims?

  A very strange moment in the movie. He gets dunked into the water and a bunch of adult mermaids make out with him and then he goes off.

• 1:34:28Speaker 04

  They're breathing into him.

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  That's true. That's a good point.

• 1:34:31Speaker 04

  It's called. You added the tongue.

• 1:34:33David Sims?

  Resuscitation.

• 1:34:33Speaker 05

  I, I didn't say anything about tongue. I just said they kiss.

• 1:34:36Griffin Newman?

  What do you call, what do you call an open mouth kiss with no tongue, but a lot of breathing? Where you're just kinda going like, like oxygen delivery.

• 1:34:44Speaker 04

  It is a really interesting, it sort of feels like the nod to the rest of Never Neverland in this weirdly grown up.

• 1:34:50Griffin Newman?

  That's, that's what I think I'm more getting at. Not that I'm like, how does this city run? But that I feel like in all other depictions.

• 1:34:57Speaker 05

  What's the economy here? What kind of money do these people make?

• 1:34:59Griffin Newman?

  I don't care about any of that. It's a magical land. I want to be a magical land. I feel like every other depiction of Peter Pan has a little more of this. And it's maybe part of what you lose by like removing Tiger Lily, which is the right decision. But the sense that like, there's a bunch of other shit going on here too. Right? I've always liked in depictions of Pan where you're like, what goes on in that forest? Here's this tribe. Here's this clique. Here's this species, whatever it is. You sort of just have the 30 seconds of. Well, I mean, it's a pretty hot kissing.

• 1:35:31David Sims?

  It's about an hour into the movie or a little before Lynn, when he's finally.

• 1:35:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's 52 minutes when he finally gets to Bang Ring.

• 1:35:37David Sims?

  Right. So The Lost Boys, similar to Hook. It's like Hook has been stuck in like, I'm a villain with no enemy. Really? And the Lost Boys are like, we're having fun, but with no like, whatever, like organizing purpose, I guess. So what do we think of The Lost Boys? How, what, what can we say? What more can we say about The Lost Boys? We've already talked about how fun the set is, how the cool, the, you know, tracks are.

• 1:36:03Speaker 04

  It's this insanely diverse crew. They're all, they are child star all-stars that we've seen in other movies.

• 1:36:11Speaker 04

  I mean, and that there you are Peter scene is the scene. Like, that's, that's the moment where Spielberg like pulls like just magic out of a hat and like that music swells and, and you feel stuff like that's, if there's a metaphor for what Spielberg makes you feel when you're watching like his best movies, it's that. He pulls your face back. He goes, there you are. There's your inner child. And everyone goes, holy shit.

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  Pocket.

• 1:36:36Speaker 04

  It can feel like this.

• 1:36:38David Sims?

  Isaiah Robinson plays Pocket.

• 1:36:40Griffin Newman?

  I, I, he's maybe my favorite of the kids. But I don't know how much of it is that moment. I will say I am pretty allergic to Thud Butt.

• 1:36:49Speaker 04

  Oh, man. I could not disagree with you more.

• 1:36:51David Sims?

  Thud Butt is a very 90s kid.

• 1:36:54Griffin Newman?

  He's the most 90s kid.

• 1:36:55David Sims?

  Like, he feels like he should be on The Mighty Ducks later, right? Like, or whatever. Like, he's just kind of like a 90s kid. Rashawn Hammond.

• 1:37:02Griffin Newman?

  Maybe it's what I like the most about The Mighty Ducks is that Thud Butt isn't on the team.

• 1:37:07David Sims?

  What do you think of Thud Butt, Lynn?

• 1:37:09Speaker 04

  I love Thud Butt. I, Thud Butt is A plus all around for me. He's very funny. How about when he like sits on the bench? It moves the gravity of the bench over and he goes, don't crowd me. I mean, he's getting effortless laughs.

• 1:37:23Griffin Newman?

  David just solemnly nodding. That's a good one.

• 1:37:26David Sims?

  I like Thudbutt's beret plus tie combo. Like, I like that they have this kind of mix of like greaser energy, but like Dickensian child wardrobe like is sort of a funny way to present them.

• 1:37:38Griffin Newman?

  I bump on.

• 1:37:39David Sims?

  Kind of punk.

• 1:37:39Griffin Newman?

  And Rufio is completely different.

• 1:37:41Speaker 04

  It also, it gives you the sense that different kids have wound up here in different eras.

• 1:37:45Griffin Newman?

  Different eras, different cultures.

• 1:37:47Speaker 04

  In the same way like ghosts can be any century, right?

• 1:37:49David Sims?

  He's got the triple mohawk thing. He's got like the shark teeth or whatever. Whatever is dangling on his jacket.

• 1:37:57Griffin Newman?

  He's got like ripped up pants.

• 1:37:58David Sims?

  The vest and the ripped up pants. He's a little older. He's like the oldest.

• 1:38:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:02David Sims?

  He presents as the oldest, is why he's the leader. Uh, he's got the coolest name in the world, Rufio. I don't know where they can, this is an entirely original character, right? There's no

• 1:38:12Griffin Newman?

  There's not a base.

• 1:38:12David Sims?

  Naming of the Lost Boys apart from the ones we know like and love, um, which is funny. Uh, right. I'm just, yeah, yeah. In the, in the original thing, it's like Toodles, Nibs. Slightly.

• 1:38:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's the one I always remember.

• 1:38:28David Sims?

  Curly and the twins are the original Lost Boys. And, you know, the Disney cartoon basically hinges with that. Right. Uh, yeah, they're all, they're all made up.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, Thudbutt, when he turns himself into a perfect sphere.

• 1:38:41David Sims?

  He does do that.

• 1:38:42Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about this for a second?

• 1:38:43Speaker 04

  Can we talk about this for an hour?

• 1:38:44Griffin Newman?

  We were texting with JD this morning and JD brought to our attention that in 2018.

• 1:38:50David Sims?

  No, no, I, I found.

• 1:38:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you found it. I'm sorry.

• 1:38:53David Sims?

  Um, so here's the prop.

• 1:38:55Griffin Newman?

  It was auctioned off in 2018.

• 1:38:57David Sims?

  It's a little ghastly.

• 1:38:58Griffin Newman?

  This is Thudbutt in ball form. We will post this on our social media.

• 1:39:02David Sims?

  Has a special move. All these kids sort of like Pokemon, like they all have like a power.

• 1:39:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, they evolve.

• 1:39:07David Sims?

  And Thudbutt's special move is where he sort of folds his legs up to his shoulders and turns into a ball and rolls. And it's a pretty obvious shift from actor to prop.

• 1:39:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:39:18David Sims?

  In the movie when this happens.

• 1:39:19Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg is a skillful filmmaker.

• 1:39:21Speaker 04

  Please post that.

• 1:39:22David Sims?

  We shall.

• 1:39:23Griffin Newman?

  We will post it.

• 1:39:23David Sims?

  This prop, which was auctioned off in 2018, uh, price undisclosed, uh, you know, age has not been kind to it.

• 1:39:30Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say.

• 1:39:30David Sims?

  It probably looked better in 91.

• 1:39:32Griffin Newman?

  Spielberg's a good filmmaker, so he knows what angles, which lends us how to light it. How long to let the shot last versus a head on bright, direct light photo of a 25 year aged prop. Has not been kind to it.

• 1:39:46Speaker 04

  He fully sonics. He.

• 1:39:48Griffin Newman?

  He does. So then I responded with the Manuel Thud Butt action figure.

• 1:39:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54Griffin Newman?

  Which on the back has the illustration of the instructions of how to get his play feature activated, which is you can turn him into Thud Ball mode.

• 1:40:02David Sims?

  Thud Butt is certainly, he's the biggest ask of all these kids. The rest of the kids most acute.

• 1:40:08Speaker 04

  So much.

• 1:40:09David Sims?

  You hate him so much?

• 1:40:10Griffin Newman?

  I just, no, I just said, he is so much.

• 1:40:13David Sims?

  He's a lot.

• 1:40:13Griffin Newman?

  I just basically bump on everything he's doing.

• 1:40:16Speaker 04

  But his scene with Robin got me too, when he's like, mine's my mother. Do you have a happy thought? Mine's my mother. Oh, Thud Butt making.

• 1:40:24David Sims?

  He's got chubby cheeks. I mean, this is very much, it's sort of like the Ewoks in Jedi where I, right? Like there's.

• 1:40:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. If you were a kid, you liked it. If you weren't, you didn't like it.

• 1:40:33Griffin Newman?

  I loved the Ewoks.

• 1:40:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, the Ewoks are, you know, the resistance would have failed without the Ewoks.

• 1:40:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. They, they took out the power.

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  Yeah. You know, the logs smashing the.

• 1:40:43Speaker 04

  Also, when Thud Butt realizes he can step on planks and hit people in the nuts, that's how we get David Crosby getting hit in the nuts.

• 1:40:48David Sims?

  That is true. Now, I mean, like.

• 1:40:49Griffin Newman?

  Sure. I have to thank him for that. I do.

• 1:40:51David Sims?

  The, the, as Lynn was saying, like, the logic of they stab and shoot, but the Lost Boys are a little more like, we knock you over like bowling pins, right? Like, that's more what they're aiming to do. But death is present, but only so present? It's never explained or it's never delved into.

• 1:41:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's also interesting how late Rufio dies because obviously it takes 50 minutes to get to the Lost Boys, right? But you could see the more obvious structure being Rufio dies at like the end of act two. And that's what motivates Peter needing to like come into his own and really start to like lead the guys versus like Rufio being a sacrifice. Once Peter has already.

• 1:41:34Speaker 04

  Rufio died for our sins, exactly what he needed to.

• 1:41:36Griffin Newman?

  He does die for our sins. Yeah.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  He does. And so Rufio, right, is, as I already sort of said, he's kind of the juice of the movie. Because he's not just a problem. Like, he could just be a script problem for Peter. He's returned to the Lost Boys and the Lost Boys are like, hey, man, you left. Like, leadership has changed. Rufio's in charge now. You have to beat Rufio.

• 1:41:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:56David Sims?

  But Rufio loves Peter Pan and misses Peter Pan. Just as much as more than anyone and he is Spielberg like, you know, missing his dad. And this movie is made when Spielberg is reconciling with his father. As we talked about on our Empire of the Sun episode, like right when Spielberg is finally realizing that his dad didn't abandon the family exactly, but sort of stepped aside from the family because the mom wanted to be with Seth Rogen.

• 1:42:22Griffin Newman?

  Whether or not that was the right decision, he's trying to.

• 1:42:24David Sims?

  Right. You know, he's trying to protect his mom a little bit. Right. Right. And it's like, this whole movie is about like the father returning. You know, and like stepping into the childish role, but also into the, it's.

• 1:42:36Speaker 04

  And that is where like the juice is in the movie.

• 1:42:38David Sims?

  It's such a rich soup. Yes.

• 1:42:40Griffin Newman?

  Our friend Bill Guberry, yeah, on our Empire of the Sun episode was saying that his big theory is that there is this like.

• 1:42:46David Sims?

  This is the dividing line.

• 1:42:48Griffin Newman?

  It's Spielberg's career, that the first half of his career, he's making movies from the perspective of a son, the second half from the perspective of a father. And it's basically just like clean, like a line is crossed and at one point past the other, right? I always feel like Last Crusade is that pivot point movie because it's basically this guy being like, my dad hates me and I hate him. Forced to go on adventure with him and being like, fuck, we are kind of the same person, aren't we? Like, I hate that I now kind of get him, right? And he has to begrudgingly be like, I understand the value in what you do. Your silly Indiana Jones stuff has some power, right?

• 1:43:25Speaker 04

  Really real.

• 1:43:26Griffin Newman?

  Right. So then to me, I'm like, there is like a clear takeaway in that movie of Spielberg, like processing some stuff. And like finding some middle ground with his father. And then this movie, I find it, I find the, the reckoning interesting. I find the fighting with itself interesting. I just like, do not know what the end conclusion is here. And I'm not asking for like an answer narratively.

• 1:43:49David Sims?

  Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 1:43:49Griffin Newman?

  Does Spielberg, is anything settled in him by making this film? Which is not what I ask for from a film, but I also think a lot of the most interesting movies ever made are someone kind of needing to get something off their chest. And realizing in that sort of James Lipton way of like, oh, fuck, I didn't realize Close Encounters was about me trying to talk to my mom and my dad. Right? And this, I'm just like, if this is a therapy session, does the therapist go like, I have no idea what to make of this. You've thrown a lot at me, but I, I actually can't tie any of this together. Certainly all of it's being like fucked.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  Like the simplest answer is, or whatever, like the most pat answer is, it's like, Hook is like, you are afraid of dying. And Peter Pan's like, no, I'm actually afraid of living. But in confronting you, I have realized it will be great to live as a grown up, like to be a grown up, like it will be fine. Because yes, Peter Pan had already become a grown up, but he's bad at it. But now he's like, no, no, no. I understand that living and raising my children and, you know, growing old is going to be fine. And like, so I no longer return, like, you know, long to return to Neverland and be an eternal child. So that's, you know, what Spielberg, I guess, is realizing. But I, and if you take this as the kind of dividing line of like, right, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, those are movies made by a dad. You know

• 1:45:11David Sims?

  what I mean? Like, not movies of childlike wonder, but those movies of, you know, right? Like, that's, that's, that's, yeah.

• 1:45:16Griffin Newman?

  I just think.

• 1:45:17David Sims?

  Now, if I say this to Spielberg, he'd be like, I don't know, man, that movie was annoying. The sets were too big. It was a headache. Queen of Jordan was on my ass. Like, I mean, maybe that's what he would say. I don't know.

• 1:45:26Griffin Newman?

  I don't need him to be able to explain it. Like, a lot of times, you make a movie because it's something you couldn't say in words, right? You were expressing something greater within you. I think the, the best artists who are in touch with something like, uh, but I feel like, and it's part of the weirdness of the like, Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg, Captain Hook, Peter Pan movie, that sounds perfect, is like, but these are two guys who kind of like, defied the odds and had it both ways for most of their career, right? Like, these are two guys.

• 1:45:58David Sims?

  Robin got to be a kid forever in a sort of a way. He always had the impish thing.

• 1:46:03Griffin Newman?

  And Stan was Spielberg, where it's like, you both got to be kids forever and grow up, right? They both like, became parents.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  Yeah, like, what's, does Spielberg have kid energy now? Like, what's he like?

• 1:46:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I can tell you, the one time I ever was on a, a set he was on, he was filming West Side Story in Washington Heights.

• 1:46:21Griffin Newman?

  Right, of course.

• 1:46:21Speaker 04

  It was the same summer we were writing in Heights. It was one of my all time top favorite days. We filmed the finale of In the Heights on 175th Street. And I walked two blocks to 177th Street where he was filming Maria, which is, and then I walked home.

• 1:46:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:46:36Speaker 04

  Because it was all in my neighborhood.

• 1:46:37Griffin Newman?

  That's the best part of the story.

• 1:46:38Speaker 04

  I mean, it was truly a top five day for me, but I remember he was like a little, and he was filming like the balcony scene, but he was showing me like in the 10 minutes I got with him on set where he was like waiting for something to be set up. He was like, look at this. I did these tests with my camera and he's showing me like him trying to figure out how to film crap.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:57Speaker 04

  And he's like, I did this test with my phone and it was like a kid making his first musical.

• 1:47:02Griffin Newman?

  Right, even though he is.

• 1:47:03Speaker 04

  And by the way, that to me answers the question of why Hook wasn't a musical. It's like, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to do my favorite one and I waited till that was possible.

• 1:47:11Griffin Newman?

  I think that's right.

• 1:47:12Speaker 04

  And I wanted to come at it like a student.

• 1:47:14Griffin Newman?

  Do you like West Side Story?

• 1:47:15Speaker 04

  I, it's tough for me, but well, yes.

• 1:47:19Griffin Newman?

  Looney question.

• 1:47:20Speaker 04

  I love you. I love the original.

• 1:47:22Griffin Newman?

  Me too.

• 1:47:22Speaker 04

  I think that is an incredibly main movie and I think it's even more incredible because Jerome Robbins got fired midway through. Robert Wise took over and it still works. Like there's still incredible filmmaking in that movie. And what I enjoy the most about Spielberg's West Side Story is I can tell the sequences that made him want to do it. Like when you watch cool, you're like, got it. This is why he wanted to make this movie so he could stage cool.

• 1:47:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:47:46Speaker 04

  That sequence is crazy. And, and, and then there are the ones that are just like, I think the first movie was more successful in doing it.

• 1:47:53Griffin Newman?

  This is exactly where I am with that movie.

• 1:47:55Speaker 04

  And I also associate it with a certain high I got for seeing a musical for the first, like seeing the American number for the first time, like, I'm sorry, even Spielberg can't meet my sugar rush or whatever that rush was in seeing like, are you kidding me? Like this is what the best musical is about? It's about like Puerto Ricans trying to figure out whether they should like, what? So like, nothing's ever going to match that sequence for me.

• 1:48:21Griffin Newman?

  I think a lot about.

• 1:48:21Speaker 04

  And Rita Moreno on a rooftop.

• 1:48:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, even Spielberg may agree with you. I think a lot about what you said the last time you were on the show, where you were like, my goal as a filmmaker is to like, only make movies of musicals that are not like canonically already sort of like elevated, that you want to be able to like adapt the things that in a way you're sort of introducing to people. And, and West Side Story for me, I'm like, that's like an eight out of 10. Movie to me, which I think our listeners often think I'm really

• 1:48:47Speaker 04

  And great performances, like, like, there's not a bad, like, everyone's wonderful in it.

• 1:48:52Griffin Newman?

  But it's like

• 1:48:52Speaker 04

  And it's in the shadow of another

• 1:48:54Griffin Newman?

  That's my thing. I'm like, A, my bar for Spielberg is so fucking high.

• 1:48:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:58Griffin Newman?

  Where if a movie's not a 10 out of 10 masterpiece, I'm like, oh, it's a little disappointing, which I don't really feel that way with almost anyone else. And then secondly, it's like him riffing on a movie that already has this like insane power to it. So it like has to fight this thing that like, you're not fighting with tick, tick, boom, which is sort of like, there's a lot of room to interpret here.

• 1:49:18Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:49:19Griffin Newman?

  What was I going to say before?

• 1:49:21David Sims?

  You're talking about like Steven and Robin is eternal children.

• 1:49:23Griffin Newman?

  I just think, yes, I think they're both these interesting guys who had this balance of like never losing the childlike glee. And being able to connect to that and being able to communicate that while also maturing, you know, becoming responsible parents. Becoming like moguls within their industry and people who like move like the tenor of the entire like pop culture landscape with them. And could like stretch into different types of work and do it in a way that didn't feel like a kid playing a grown up in a school play. And so I think a lot of the Captain Hook, Peter Pan dynamic is based on an ideological binary. That these guys in a weird way kind of can't relate to because they've been able to marry the two.

• 1:50:07Griffin Newman?

  It's connected. And I feel like that's the conclusion that this movie needs to get to, that they maybe couldn't quite figure out how to verbalize. Which is like, what, what is the version of being a balanced person, having your cake and eating it too? And this movie basically goes like, he reactivates being Peter Pan long enough to defeat a hook. And then he goes back to being a better dad.

• 1:50:27David Sims?

  Well, no, it's Peter Pan can be within him now without it being a problem. He's merged, you know, like the, the, he's, he's one person now.

• 1:50:35Speaker 04

  It's so, I mean, it's again, because like, I'm thinking back to like when Spielberg was just shorthand for you want to be an artist.

• 1:50:42Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:50:42Speaker 04

  Um, and that's how it was presented to me as a kid and that's how I processed it because I, I also as an adult, I think so much about what I hold true to being an artist is keeping the channel to your younger selves open. Like that's what the best acting is, what the best writing is. It's like being connected to all the versions so that when I have to write from the perspective of a 12 year old, I have to write Moana trying to get off land. I have to be able to connect to who is Moana? What, what is she doing there? What does she want to do? If I have to consider the coconut, I have to consider.

• 1:51:15Griffin Newman?

  You have to consider the coconut.

• 1:51:16Speaker 04

  The, the, the key to being an artist is what Peter Banning does at the end of this movie is like staying connected to your younger self and like being able to like access that channel whenever you need to. Um, because you, I, I think a lot. I think a lot of the decisions we make as an adult are just like promises we're keeping to a younger version of ourselves and.

• 1:51:38Griffin Newman?

  That's a big statement. Yeah. I'm just thinking on that. Yep.

• 1:51:41Speaker 04

  And, and your job as an artist is to be able to access that and be like, all right, well, if I were 16, what would blow my, like, what do I want to make? What do I want to see? Like, that's a lot of, I think, how you form your artistic impulses is like.

• 1:51:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Speaker 04

  What did you like as a kid? What did you not like? And then like, that's how your tastes form. Like if our parents told me I hated hook, I'd be like you sitting in the corner nitpicking the economy of the greater.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  You're on my cell phone trying to acquire companies.

• 1:52:11David Sims?

  Does Bruno have a little hook Peter Pan to him? He's an eternal child in a way. Bruno in the walls. Right? Yeah, I guess so, but he's funny. Bruno's funny.

• 1:52:21Speaker 04

  When you got John Leguizamo like.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  When he does like, when he puts the helmet on his head, what's up?

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  We don't talk about Bruno on this podcast. We don't talk about him that much.

• 1:52:29David Sims?

  We don't do that.

• 1:52:30Griffin Newman?

  We don't, we don't talk about, I'm not saying we can't, I'm just saying we don't do it very often.

• 1:52:34Speaker 04

  Just, and it's a Bruno aside, since you took us there.

• 1:52:36David Sims?

  Please, please tell me something about Bruno. I love to think.

• 1:52:40Speaker 04

  That was probably the e, not easiest song to write.

• 1:52:43David Sims?

  That's crazy because it's quite a complex.

• 1:52:45Speaker 04

  It's a very complex song and I was, I knew it was com, like, I, I remember actually we were in lockdown at the time, so I was living with my in-laws and my brother-in-law.

• 1:52:56David Sims?

  Sounds fun.

• 1:52:57Speaker 04

  That's a lot of the.

• 1:52:58David Sims?

  Wait, is Inkanto like?

• 1:52:59Speaker 04

  A lot of the secret sauce of what's in there, the juice in there is like.

• 1:53:04Griffin Newman?

  Stuck in a house.

• 1:53:04Speaker 04

  What are we allowed to talk about from your mother?

• 1:53:07Griffin Newman?

  This is making a lot of sense.

• 1:53:09David Sims?

  No, and as someone who lives with his in-laws, I wonder if Kanto really resonates with me.

• 1:53:13Speaker 04

  But I do remember like actually stealing away and going to another place to write Bruno and being like, let me go write this somewhere else. Cause I, it's a lot to work out, but the idea for it of like, it's going to be a spooky Montuno and every story they tell about Bruno is actually easily explained away because we're gonna have to see it from another angle.

• 1:53:29David Sims?

  Now, when Dolores says that she can hear him, she's, she can hear him.

• 1:53:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, she has very big ears.

• 1:53:35David Sims?

  But she doesn't know that it's like, she thinks she can just like, right? Like Dolores doesn't actually know he's in the walls. Right? She's got the little aside where she's saying she can hear him, but I think she's more thinking of it metaphorically.

• 1:53:46Speaker 04

  I like to think of it that Dolores has known the whole time, but she also has learned like when we don't talk about him. So it's just a thing.

• 1:53:54David Sims?

  Dolores is my favorite character and the power I would want.

• 1:53:57Speaker 04

  Cursed with knowledge that everyone, you know, that's, you know.

• 1:54:01David Sims?

  Dolores, the ultimate gossip because she can hear everything.

• 1:54:03Speaker 04

  But, but that's the thing. She could be the ultimate gossip, but she keeps all these secrets because she hears everything in the town.

• 1:54:09Griffin Newman?

  Now, see, I have neither seen this movie six million times nor written all the songs for it, but my interpretation, and maybe this holds less water.

• 1:54:18David Sims?

  I will also say, I think Camila's powers are crazy. The fact that he can shapeshift, he mostly uses it to like, hold other people's babies. There's a lot to explore with Camila.

• 1:54:26Speaker 04

  Oh, he was much more nefarious in early drafts.

• 1:54:29David Sims?

  Cause he's like a little, right?

• 1:54:30Speaker 04

  And then they were like, we like this kid. So then, yeah, well, it became like, we are in service of the town.

• 1:54:34David Sims?

  Of course. Right, right. They're, they're, it's like a heroic duty kind of to give back.

• 1:54:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. He used to just, he was just doing it to fuck with her a lot in the early drafts.

• 1:54:43Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna ask, because her ears are so big, is there an interpretation that she can hear Bruno, but she doesn't think he's that close? Like she's like, well, of course I can hear him, but he might be like 40 towns away. I can hear everyone. You don't think so?

• 1:54:57Speaker 04

  I think she echolocates him pretty easily.

• 1:54:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So she's just following the rules.

• 1:55:01Speaker 04

  There are weird magical rules in that house. Like the fact that he's got that tower.

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  In Kanto, there are magical rules?

• 1:55:05Speaker 04

  I just mean in terms of where in space you might be, actually might be tough.

• 1:55:10David Sims?

  The rooms are bigger on the inside.

• 1:55:12Speaker 04

  Rooms are bigger.

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  They're all Mary Poppins.

• 1:55:15David Sims?

  Now, and is it true that when Stephanie had to do the Family Magical live, you were like, I don't know how you do this live, by the way.

• 1:55:23Speaker 04

  Right, this is physically impossible.

• 1:55:24David Sims?

  This song was not written to be performed live.

• 1:55:26Speaker 04

  So, again, I showed up to that, you're talking about the Hollywood Bowl performance.

• 1:55:30David Sims?

  Right, so hey, we'll do the songs live, have fun.

• 1:55:32Speaker 04

  I got there like as they were in mid rehearsal and I think Jamal Sims, who choreographed the sequences for the animated movie staged that. And I think he staged it unbelievably. The one thing I would have said was like, let the other people sing the chorus. So Stephanie can breathe.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:55:48Speaker 04

  Like, I think.

• 1:55:48David Sims?

  It's overwhelming.

• 1:55:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just, I, that's the one thing where I was like, we could have given her a break here and no one would have minded. Like, the company could have swept in and be like, welcome to the fan. And she could have breathed so that she could get ready for the next section.

• 1:56:00Griffin Newman?

  You also could make a bit out of her breathing.

• 1:56:02Speaker 04

  Sequence.

• 1:56:02David Sims?

  Yes, and like the run at the end with the my sister bit where you're not, you know, he's like, I don't know how you do that, anyway.

• 1:56:08Speaker 04

  It's really hard.

• 1:56:09Griffin Newman?

  I, I was, uh.

• 1:56:10Speaker 04

  I hope, I hope we get like a, like I get a crack at like figuring out what the theatrical version of the Gunto would be.

• 1:56:16David Sims?

  Love, love, love to see.

• 1:56:17Griffin Newman?

  There are more movies I have seen that are more.

• 1:56:20David Sims?

  Right, because it's properly suited. Bound to a location. Yeah, but still, you know.

• 1:56:25Griffin Newman?

  I, yeah, it feels like a very obvious conversion.

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  Now, will my daughter ever realize that Maribel's name is Maribel? She just calls her in Kanto. Everyone else's name she knows.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  They were like, there was like an interview, like they got audio footage of Trump at the Kennedy Center and he was like, and then Betty Buckley gets up and sings Cats. I was like, she doesn't sing Cats.

• 1:56:45David Sims?

  He's.

• 1:56:45Speaker 04

  She sings Memory.

• 1:56:47David Sims?

  He's so crazy.

• 1:56:48Speaker 04

  Anyway, let, let me.

• 1:56:49David Sims?

  His Broadway depth of knowledge is like both insanely off and you're kind of like, what?

• 1:56:54Griffin Newman?

  It's like three years. It's like people who like hyper fixate on the SNL cast when they were like 18.

• 1:57:00Speaker 04

  Those are the ones, those are his shows.

• 1:57:01David Sims?

  Maybe Les Mis.

• 1:57:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:57:03David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:57:04Speaker 04

  Well, we all agree on Les Mis.

• 1:57:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:57:07David Sims?

  Good show.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:57:08David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, so we haven't discussed Hoffman.

• 1:57:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think we should discuss Hoffman.

• 1:57:13David Sims?

  Uh, it's. It's not like he's not a comic performer. He has given other comic performances that are very funny.

• 1:57:19Griffin Newman?

  I think he's almost underrated as a comic performer, especially because his reputation for being so intense was overwhelming that even when he made giant hit comedies, they were like, yeah, but Dustin Hoffman's the most serious man alive.

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  Tootsie obviously is this like big hit comedy and he is funny in it, but it's somewhat of a dramatic performance that he's giving.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  Right. He's playing a method actor.

• 1:57:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:57:41Speaker 04

  Stumbles into a comedic situation.

• 1:57:42Griffin Newman?

  But he's both so funny in the self parody and also then like Dorothy Michaels is a very funny performance, which he plays with depth and integrity, but.

• 1:57:50David Sims?

  When you think about Hoffman at this point, it's like he wins the Oscar for Rain Man in 88. That's his second Oscar. Obviously that's this like insanely big methody performance, right? He follows it with Family Business, which is basically forgotten. The Connery, Broderick, Hoffman.

• 1:58:05Griffin Newman?

  A movie I'm obsessed with the notion of a Sidney Lumet film in which the poster is, of course, these three people are related.

• 1:58:13David Sims?

  Connery.

• 1:58:13Griffin Newman?

  Sean Connery.

• 1:58:14David Sims?

  Hoffman, Broderick.

• 1:58:15Griffin Newman?

  Dustin Hoffman fathered Matthew Broderick. They all have the exact same voice.

• 1:58:20David Sims?

  Then Dick Tracy, in which he is mumbles.

• 1:58:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I think that was shot the day after he won the Oscar and he had like 103 degree temperature.

• 1:58:30David Sims?

  That's insane.

• 1:58:30Griffin Newman?

  There's some story about that.

• 1:58:32David Sims?

  Billy Bathgate, a sort of notorious flop of 1991. And then Hook is the, so like, it's just like, it feels like he is going for something completely different post Rain Man, right? You know, he is like, I want to do.

• 1:58:47Speaker 04

  Having a blast.

• 1:58:48David Sims?

  Right. I want to have fun.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  And, and by the way, like his sword fights with Robin Williams are like legit good.

• 1:58:54David Sims?

  It's one reason I like the movie, like, you know, or I forgive the movie sometimes. It has fencing in it. Any movie with fencing in it, I'm serious. How I feel about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I'm like, if you're going to give me fencing sequences, we don't get those in movies ever.

• 1:59:07Griffin Newman?

  I just don't really care about fencing.

• 1:59:09David Sims?

  You know, like sword football, you like Star Wars.

• 1:59:12Griffin Newman?

  I love Star. I love.

• 1:59:13David Sims?

  Do you like lightsaber fighting? Which is just of course sci-fi fencing.

• 1:59:16Griffin Newman?

  But maybe I just need the swords to glow.

• 1:59:20David Sims?

  So you don't like, like your classic Errol Flynn-y stuff? Like you never got into your-

• 1:59:24Griffin Newman?

  I like, yeah.

• 1:59:26David Sims?

  Princess Bride?

• 1:59:27Griffin Newman?

  Robin Hood, but I, but I've always been cooler on the Pirates movies than you.

• 1:59:31David Sims?

  I do, I do love, I like sword fighting.

• 1:59:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:34David Sims?

  Really, it's, it's, cause it's like dance.

• 1:59:35Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I dislike sword fighting, but I'm just realizing, I, it doesn't activate me, maybe in the same way.

• 1:59:41Speaker 04

  I like if there were two blades coming out of, at the same time, like-

• 1:59:45Griffin Newman?

  I think that sounds cool.

• 1:59:46Speaker 04

  Duel of Fates.

• 1:59:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:47David Sims?

  I, I think Hoffman's sword fighting in this is also impressive because he's wearing that coat and stuff. Like, and like, and the stockings and the wig and everything. He's got so much presence in this movie. It is a wildly committed performance. Like there-

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  How about the lip twitch shot where you just see the mustache? Like, I mean, there's, he's just, he's acting all off.

• 2:00:09David Sims?

  He's really going for a living cartoon, kind of similarly to Mumbles, uh, right? You know?

• 2:00:14Griffin Newman?

  Zoom out in this Hoffman context for a second, cause there's some things here, Lynn is leaning back to zoom out.

• 2:00:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Zoom all the way out.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  His sixties and seventies are obviously huge, right? He pops at the end of the sixties. Back to this thing of like him not being thought of as a comedy performer, he breaks through in The Graduate.

• 2:00:32Speaker 04

  He's so funny.

• 2:00:33Griffin Newman?

  Tootsie's like, his highest grossing films ever are Tootsie and Meet the Fockers, right?

• 2:00:37David Sims?

  And Kramer versus Kramer was like a gigantic hit.

• 2:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you're right. You're right. But I'm like, Rain Man is a comedy.

• 2:00:43David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  That is like-

• 2:00:44David Sims?

  It's a dramedy.

• 2:00:45Griffin Newman?

  It's a comedy, but it's like-

• 2:00:46David Sims?

  A lot of it is funny and he farts and so on and so forth.

• 2:00:49Griffin Newman?

  Like one of his two Oscars is for a comedy, you know, like a lot of his biggest films are comedies.

• 2:00:54David Sims?

  I mean, calling Rain Man a comedy is interesting because I'm sure, I'm gonna triple check, but I'm sure it won the Golden Globe for like drama or whatever, right?

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  It's very similar to Terms of Endearment in that sort of like, it is a very funny movie that then gets to some very heavy places.

• 2:01:08David Sims?

  Right, right. Do you like Rain Man? Rain Man's kind of an under discussed movie to, for our generation.

• 2:01:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I-

• 2:01:14David Sims?

  Uncomfortable.

• 2:01:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean- I mean, we know so much more about that than we did then.

• 2:01:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:01:21Speaker 04

  And it's treated as this weird, curious quirk, but, um, but yeah, I remember like we, I actually weirdly remember the Oscar montage where they showed Hoffman's like clip of him being scared of burning the baby. Like, I remember that clip and then cutting back to Hoffman being like, oh, yeah, I killed it.

• 2:01:39Griffin Newman?

  There was a clip I'm obsessed with and I sent the group chat and I'll have Marie reposted on social media, but it was 98 or 99, I want to say, Golden Globes, they gave Dustin Hoffman the Cecil B. DeMille Award and he's sitting there with his wife and they play a clip from, um, uh, why am I forgetting the name now? Little Big Man. And he leans over to his wife and clearly mouths, "Good makeup." Right? And he's just kind of like sitting there and they're playing clips and he's just kind of like making little commentary on it. And then they play a clip from Hook and he looks frozen in his chair and he's like grimacing and he's like, "Ugh." And I think it does sort of speak to in that moment.

• 2:02:22David Sims?

  Do you think he doesn't like that it just, that movie wasn't enough of a hit? Or do you think he's like, "Oh, I'm going too hard."

• 2:02:28Griffin Newman?

  But it was, I had a very strong memory of it in my childhood, especially growing up in a household.

• 2:02:32Speaker 04

  In a household.

• 2:02:33Griffin Newman?

  We hate Hook.

• 2:02:33David Sims?

  I think he's cooking in Hook.

• 2:02:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:35David Sims?

  Lookie, lookie, Hook is cooking.

• 2:02:37Griffin Newman?

  I think he is doing a very committed work in Hook. I, I think there was no reason for him to be embarrassed by anything he did in Hook. And I was sort of like, do I have a false inflated memory of this? Cause I remember him having a really bad reaction and I rewatched it and it was bigger than I remembered it from childhood. But he has this weird eighties, after winning his first Oscar for Kramer vs. Kramer, he does start to get into this period of like, is Dustin Hoffman too difficult? You know, this like sentiment that people would repeat of like, "Life's too short to work with Dustin Hoffman." For everything he gives as an actor.

• 2:03:11Speaker 04

  Famously ornery guy.

• 2:03:12Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna get stuck in like four years of notes and he's gonna battle you on every single thing. And he doesn't make many movies in the eighties.

• 2:03:18David Sims?

  He made four movies total in the eighties.

• 2:03:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  Yes. It's, it's, um, I can find it, but, uh,

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  It's Ishtar, Tootsie.

• 2:03:24David Sims?

  Ishtar, Tootsie, uh, Family Business and Rain Man.

• 2:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Right. And so like nineties-

• 2:03:28David Sims?

  He also did his Death of a Salesman, which was then broadcast on TV, which is this like insanely polarizing performance. Some people are like, one of the best Willy Lomens ever. Others are like, he doesn't understand that role at all. Like it's always been debated, that performance.

• 2:03:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But like Tootsie was kind of like a comeback movie after he had only recently won the Oscar. And then he disappears for a bunch of years, comes back with the movie that is short hand for flop, even though we love Ishtar, or I at least love Ishtar.

• 2:03:55David Sims?

  Yeah. And he's really funny.

• 2:03:57Griffin Newman?

  And then he gets his second Oscar and it's like, he's coming into the nineties. Like I'm here to stay. Right?

• 2:04:03David Sims?

  He made a lot of movies in the nineties. Dick Tracy, Billy Batik, Hook, Hero, Outbreak, Sleepers, uh, Mad City, Wagadog, Sphere.

• 2:04:10Griffin Newman?

  Such a big swing for him to be like, can I do a whole movie where I'm the title character? You're sort of framing the movie around, wait until Hook gets here, right? Like that is the sell of the movie.

• 2:04:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:22Griffin Newman?

  He's first billed and Dustin Hoffman's gonna go fucking hard as Hook. He looks incredible.

• 2:04:29Speaker 04

  I, I think, I mean, saying all that, I think the fact that he looks like he's having so much fun is even more impressive. Like he's got the veneers in, he's got all the stuff on-

• 2:04:38David Sims?

  Doing this accent.

• 2:04:39Speaker 04

  And he still looks like he's having a fucking blast.

• 2:04:41David Sims?

  I think he looks like he's having a great time.

• 2:04:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:43David Sims?

  Ben, do you like Hook?

• 2:04:44Speaker 05

  He looks awesome. His costume is incredible.

• 2:04:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:47David Sims?

  Good, good form, good for, I think he really nails also the, when Peter like humiliates him back near the end and robs him of his wig and suddenly he's like, you know, on the floor and he looks like an old man.

• 2:05:00Speaker 04

  My dignity, Peter.

• 2:05:01David Sims?

  Right. And he's like, oh, I am pleased, Peter, my dignity. Like he's, you know, you feel for him or whatever, you know, like he is this odd tragic like shadow to Peter. Like he only exists in opposition to Peter. You're sort of rooting for him to get to play. You want him to have fun.

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  There's the bit, I'm biased, uh, but, uh, our, our friend David Lowery's Peter Pan and Wendy, which I like a good deal, has the bit that I love, which is a spoiler for a movie that went on Disney plus four years ago. There is a midsection where Captain Hook believes he has successfully killed Peter Pan and Jim Gaffigan is me. And Hook's kind of like, so what do I do now? And he's like, let's check the to do list. And the to do list has one thing on it, which is just kill Peter Pan.

• 2:05:48Griffin Newman?

  And I just, while watching this movie, I think back to this bit over and over again. It just makes it like textual in this, but it's just like, the guy's got nothing else going on other than his hatred for this kid.

• 2:05:58David Sims?

  Other things I need to say, the food sequence.

• 2:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:03David Sims?

  The, you know, you have to access your inner child to see the pretend food that we eat sequence. What's up with the Dayglow pastries?

• 2:06:12Griffin Newman?

  It's that, that to me feels very Nickelodeon coded. It's just like green, pink. But it's also just like bowls of frosting.

• 2:06:20David Sims?

  And I guess that's sort of the idea. Kids like to eat turkey legs and then a big old bowl of frosting.

• 2:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Like your Thug Butts like clearly preparing a sandwich. He's doing his object work. He's layered it in and then all anyone has is just globs of color.

• 2:06:34David Sims?

  But does his object work when he turns into an object? Not people.

• 2:06:37Griffin Newman?

  That's his ultimate object work. Yeah. You think he did that in his Mad TV audition? Here's my impression of a ball.

• 2:06:44David Sims?

  Um, Peter's, uh, insults to Rufio kind of largely don't hit, except for nearsighted gynecologist, which is one of the craziest things ever said in a movie that is rated U in the UK.

• 2:06:57Griffin Newman?

  It kind of, I'm also just like, what is the insult that you're calling him a perv?

• 2:07:00David Sims?

  It is funny. I can, I, yeah, I guess it's sort of like someone who's sort of like, well, wait a second. I need to get closer. I don't know.

• 2:07:07Griffin Newman?

  Or, yeah.

• 2:07:08David Sims?

  Um, I think Robin Williams came up with that himself.

• 2:07:11Griffin Newman?

  It is an example for me though, of a scene, the movie where I'm like, he's maybe going full Robin too early.

• 2:07:16David Sims?

  Well, that is supposed to be when it's starting to bleed out.

• 2:07:19Griffin Newman?

  It's starting.

• 2:07:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:21David Sims?

  Is there other, you know, I'm just trying to make, you know, what, is there other things, Lynn, in your notes? Are there any things we need to think about here?

• 2:07:30Griffin Newman?

  Leading him to Wendy's house.

• 2:07:33David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. And all this sort of flashbacky stuff.

• 2:07:36Griffin Newman?

  That's when he really, that's when he remembers.

• 2:07:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:07:39Griffin Newman?

  That's such an important moment.

• 2:07:41David Sims?

  I know. The emotion of you are my happy thing. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those things where I'm like, I find it treacly. As a kid, I think I was sort of like, can we get back to the Lost Boys, please? Now, like I say, you know, I can't help it resonate with me a little bit. We're dads now. It's different. It's different. But, uh, but it is part of my problem with Hook where I'm like, who is this for? Right? You know, like, I'm not sure. Right. But with the caveat that yes, I enjoyed it as a child. Um, you know, so like I sort of defy my own logic there. But as an adult, I'm like, is this, this isn't for kids enough? Like, it needs to be for kids more, maybe, but I don't know.

• 2:08:22David Sims?

  And maybe I'm just, you know, being a bit of a mud, you know, but.

• 2:08:28Griffin Newman?

  Can I call out a thing I do like in this movie?

• 2:08:30David Sims?

  Please.

• 2:08:31Griffin Newman?

  I like Hook's closet or, or I guess a secondary ship full of clocks.

• 2:08:38David Sims?

  His room of clocks, right? His house of clocks.

• 2:08:40Griffin Newman?

  That his way to blow off steam is to just beat the shit out of clocks.

• 2:08:43David Sims?

  Yes, he hates clocks. Uh, as the original captain Hook hates clocks, of course, because it, the crocodile has a clock in him. Uh, yeah, that's fun. The clock smashing sequence is very fun. The baseball sequence is great. The final sequence is interesting because it's goofy at times. And it's like an episode of Nickelodeon's Guts at times. And they have a chicken laying eggs into an egg shooter. The chicken is the clip in the gun. Chicken is the clip. Rules.

• 2:09:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, that does rule.

• 2:09:16David Sims?

  And yet at the same time, you're like, Rufio died.

• 2:09:18Speaker 04

  Rufio?

• 2:09:19David Sims?

  He will never draw breath again.

• 2:09:23David Sims?

  And I, it doesn't really make any sense. And you just kind of have to like wash your hands of it.

• 2:09:27Speaker 04

  They brought a chicken to a gunfight.

• 2:09:28David Sims?

  Like, forget it, Jake. It's never, never land. Like, I don't really know what you're supposed to say, like, to all of this. Except that it's like, this is actually just a psychodrama that Peter is resolving within himself. Right? You know what I mean? Like, this is all fake. Peter just needed to learn to fucking be a kid and a grown up at the same time. Like he had to liberate his kid self and like return to Never Neverland a whole return to England, England land, a whole person with his children and right?

• 2:09:56Speaker 04

  England, England.

• 2:09:56David Sims?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:09:58David Sims?

  Like, don't think about Never Neverland too hard is like a real place that children are stuck in, right? Because then you will go insane.

• 2:10:04Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 2:10:05David Sims?

  But then again, you do have Toodles in like the real world being like, yeah, I used to live there. Thank you for giving me my normal.

• 2:10:11Speaker 04

  I left them there.

• 2:10:12David Sims?

  Who is, who plays Toodles? Arthur Malley. He's in Mary Poppins.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's the, um, he's the right hand man to the, the next door neighbor to.

• 2:10:23David Sims?

  Yes, Mr. Dawes Jr.

• 2:10:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, my favorite bit.

• 2:10:27David Sims?

  It is crazy that in Mary Poppins, they put up with a guy shooting a cannon every hour. Or is this at sunset? Is it just once a day that he shoots the cannon?

• 2:10:36Speaker 04

  Ah.

• 2:10:38David Sims?

  You know, where they all have to be like, he's about to shoot the cannon and like hold all the paintings.

• 2:10:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember.

• 2:10:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:43Speaker 04

  I think it's once.

• 2:10:44David Sims?

  Maybe it's just.

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  I think it's at noon.

• 2:10:45David Sims?

  Still nonetheless.

• 2:10:46Speaker 04

  Noon and midnight, just noon and midnight.

• 2:10:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Uh, you know what else is crazy? That movie introduces them before it introduces the dark legs.

• 2:10:54David Sims?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, because that's a slow entry, right? Well, like, let's learn about the road they live on first.

• 2:11:00Griffin Newman?

  It was a thing that like really stuck with me as a child. Like, that's a movie that is like so deeply imprinted in me and went to see it recently, Scream.

• 2:11:08David Sims?

  I've watched it a lot when I.

• 2:11:08Griffin Newman?

  And I was just like, every single part of this is like tattooed on my brain and I've spent so much time like trying to unpack.

• 2:11:15David Sims?

  I love Mr. Banks so much. He's such a funny motherfucker.

• 2:11:17Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest performances.

• 2:11:18David Sims?

  So funny.

• 2:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But like just that little detail of just like, and just before we even get to our main characters, we want to know.

• 2:11:26Speaker 04

  Next to a cannon guy.

• 2:11:27David Sims?

  Right. It's, yeah, it's like.

• 2:11:30Griffin Newman?

  And this is never gonna like pay off in a bigger way, but it's gonna continue to be here.

• 2:11:34Speaker 04

  Just texture.

• 2:11:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, just texture.

• 2:11:36David Sims?

  Yeah, just anything else we need to say about Hook. I'm just asking. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just sort of.

• 2:11:42Speaker 04

  No, Rufio rules.

• 2:11:43David Sims?

  Rufio important.

• 2:11:44Speaker 04

  It to the point where I'm on a rap song about Rufio with Dante Basco.

• 2:11:48David Sims?

  Now, you, we said, we said we would talk about this, you and I. Uh, so you tell me more about this. What is the song?

• 2:11:53Speaker 04

  Um, so my friend, I'm friends with, uh, with Kosh, I'm with Kosh. On this, he's most probably most well known for the series Ghosts.

• 2:12:00David Sims?

  Always part of a freestyle.

• 2:12:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I've known him since freestyle.

• 2:12:03David Sims?

  And he's in Good Perfect, he's in.

• 2:12:06Speaker 04

  We've done a million things together and he's, and he's one of my best friends and he kind of just like does singles every once in a while. And he was like, I'm doing a song. He was like, do you want to be on any rap song I write? And I go, I don't really do that. I'm not like a rap, like I write hip hop music, but not really for myself. And he goes, but it's Rufio with, and Dante Basco is going to be on. I was like, okay, I'll do it.

• 2:12:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:27Speaker 04

  Like it was pretty much, it was pretty much the way you guys pitched me hook. I was like, okay, I'm going to do that.

• 2:12:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And we lied to him and said that Dante Basco was going to be.

• 2:12:33Speaker 04

  Dante's on it? Okay, I'm in, I'm in. And so we just wrote this song about how much Rufio rules and not going up. And, and Dante has this kind of spoken word section at the end about what Rufio meant to kids of just like, you know, he was like, what we had.

• 2:12:50David Sims?

  He's the kind.

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  Comes to representation, just like this absolute fucking badass.

• 2:12:54David Sims?

  I think it's so crucial.

• 2:12:55Speaker 04

  Who dies young and for our sins and, um, but rules, he just rules.

• 2:13:02Griffin Newman?

  JD in texting with us this morning.

• 2:13:03David Sims?

  Do we like the cockadoodledoo? I really like that moment.

• 2:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Sure. Okay. Yeah, look, this movie's not my cup of tea, but JD, JD was making the case in text this morning that like part of the interesting tragedy of Rufio is the idea that he has had to be the one to maintain this. And Peter's abs.

• 2:13:22David Sims?

  He's had to be quasi grown up himself.

• 2:13:24Griffin Newman?

  Right. That there was a sense of resentment.

• 2:13:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:13:27Griffin Newman?

  In the fact that he was left to manage this and then everyone's just the whole time waiting for like, and when is Peter going to?

• 2:13:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's like the kid who's been told he has to be the man of the house. He has to be the only grown up in fucking Never Neverland.

• 2:13:38David Sims?

  Yes. Yes. And that is why when Peter returns, he's like, I don't believe it. You're not Peter. Cause he left like, and it would just be easy, whatever. Oh, Lassiter actor would do a worse job with it. And Rufio, you just really feel like this is an abandoned kid who really has a chip on his shoulder about it. Plays the emotion beautifully. It's a wonderful performance. Uh, my hat is off to the great Dante Basco.

• 2:13:59Griffin Newman?

  We did a very long episode on ET.

• 2:14:01David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:14:02Griffin Newman?

  A film.

• 2:14:03David Sims?

  Shut up about ET.

• 2:14:04Griffin Newman?

  And my favorite Steven Spielberg movie, but I think part of the power of that ending for me is the idea that it's like you are seeing on Henry Thomas's face. The notion, the feeling that everything he has just experienced has like created a point of no return for him. He has been forced to mature in a way that he probably can't even put into words or process, but the intensity of the varied emotions and stakes he has felt over the last week or two that you have witnessed have like pushed him over a line in a way that I think is Spielberg expressing this feeling he felt of his parents divorcing, dissolution of that relationship, him starting to become more of a parent figure to his younger siblings, all these things. As much as Spielberg got stuck in this permanent adolescence, he also was someone

• 2:14:47Griffin Newman?

  who was pushed into a kind of maturity, started his career very young, was like a young whippersnapper trying to convince old fuddy duddies that they should trust him with money, that this interesting, like one foot in both worlds thing, right? Is like the core of Spielberg. And I think there is, there is a feeling of insincerity in this movie that ties back to that JJ quote, that I think is probably what he bumps against in re-watching it, in that it felt like, I guess this is everyone telling me this is what I should be doing right now. And versus Jurassic Park also being a theme park roller coaster movie where he's like, I just want to make something that's fun, that knocks audiences on their ass. I don't need to get serious and nuanced here.

• 2:15:30Speaker 04

  And the difference between those two movies is structure. Like Jurassic Park has an incredible structure.

• 2:15:36Griffin Newman?

  It's so clean.

• 2:15:36Speaker 04

  And this has like a mushy, how did we get here? Don't think about it too much.

• 2:15:40David Sims?

  This movie has so much to explain. Jurassic Park is like, you've been invited to look at Jurassic Park.

• 2:15:45Speaker 04

  The juice in the stuff Spielberg cares about is all still there. He just doesn't, the structure doesn't support it.

• 2:15:50David Sims?

  Because Jurassic Park is obviously about, uh, like a guy who has to learn to be a parent.

• 2:15:55Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm building up to here.

• 2:15:56David Sims?

  He's gotta be with these kids.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  So I think Alan Grant is so unlike Spielberg as a character, and yet he is finding a way to express something more clearly through Alan Grant, which is like, hey, look, I'm just serious about my career. I just want to do my work. I don't have time for children. Right? And with Alan Grant, you could argue this is partially subtext, but Spielberg talking when he was younger about, like, look, my parents did that. Number on me. My childhood was weird and sad. I don't want to start that cycle again somewhere else. Right?

• 2:16:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:29Griffin Newman?

  But the self seriousness of Sam Neill playing Alan Grant with full intensity, doing a real little boy's dream thing of I dig up dinosaurs all day.

• 2:16:39Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 2:16:40Griffin Newman?

  And being like, please let me do my serious grown up business. I have no time for children. And needing to just.

• 2:16:46Speaker 04

  And the shots in that of like them seeing the dinosaurs. That's like the child like wonder like. And it's us too. Holy shit. They did it. They made dinosaurs real. I'm looking at dinosaurs.

• 2:16:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And he needs to understand how to like relate to children as people. Which is the thing that Spielberg talked about through like making ET and working with child actors starting to be like, oh, maybe I could be a parent. I'm like, understanding it now, not thinking of them as like an alien species. Versus like Peter Pan on its face and Peter Banning even more so feels like more of a one to one. To Spielberg and he was talking about this era. He had made Amblin. He had become a mogul. He had 80 plates spinning at all times. Anytime he makes a movie, it's a big production. He's doing the math on how long am I going to be away from my kids? Do I feel guilty for owning a cell phone? A great crime. Drag me to the Hague, right? But I just think, and, and maybe is what makes this film interesting.

• 2:17:39Griffin Newman?

  But as someone with zero like childhood connection nostalgia to it, in fact, was predisposed to dislike it.

• 2:17:46Griffin Newman?

  I, I'm just like, I don't know where he's landing here. And I don't want resolution or like a cleanliness, but it just feels like confused to me.

• 2:17:59David Sims?

  Hook, uh, Ben, anything you want to say? Obviously the Lost Boys are very Ben coded in general. We touched on most of that.

• 2:18:06Speaker 05

  We've touched on.

• 2:18:07David Sims?

  They have skeleton armor that hangs from spider web.

• 2:18:09Speaker 05

  Well, that's what I wanted to say. When they get battle ready.

• 2:18:12Speaker 04

  That's pretty.

• 2:18:13Speaker 05

  They put on their stick armor that is hung by spider web and they just go into it.

• 2:18:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were waiting for this day.

• 2:18:20Griffin Newman?

  That's how you get dressed every morning.

• 2:18:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:18:22Speaker 04

  Yes, by the way.

• 2:18:23Speaker 05

  That image has really stuck with me, that visual. Another element that really stuck out to me was giant slingshot.

• 2:18:32David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fun.

• 2:18:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I love that.

• 2:18:36David Sims?

  Yeah, they have fun. A lot of practical stuff.

• 2:18:38Speaker 04

  We're in a Double Dare era when this movie is being made.

• 2:18:41David Sims?

  That's exactly it.

• 2:18:41Speaker 04

  Cool stuff like this is existing.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  It was the whole thing that should I all love.

• 2:18:45David Sims?

  Which I watched, of course, with the agro crag, you know, where it was like, kids don't know how to use bungee cords. And they're like, well, they're gonna use bungee cords on guts. And some of them are gonna be good at it and others are going to spin in the air completely lost.

• 2:18:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, my level of frustration.

• 2:19:01Speaker 04

  There's a cast member in Hamilton, Gregory Haney. He was also in a show I wrote called Bring It On The Musical. He won Global Guts as a kid. He's got the agro crag statue, got a piece of that Radical Rock.

• 2:19:14David Sims?

  As a kid, I would have been like, the agro crag to me was like the fucking Great Pyramid of Giza or whatever. I'm like, that is one of the most important like places on earth.

• 2:19:23Speaker 04

  It is. It is indeed. And it is the most impressive thing anyone has ever told me about themselves, full stop.

• 2:19:28David Sims?

  That, the agro crag and the travelator from Gladiators. I was just like, these are like, right, these have existed since time immemorial, I assume.

• 2:19:35Griffin Newman?

  Our friends at Podcast The Ride had Mo from Global Guts on their show.

• 2:19:41Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:19:41Griffin Newman?

  And I reacted when I saw that episode title drop the way you just did.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  She was the referee, right?

• 2:19:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's go to Mo at the leaderboard.

• 2:19:48Griffin Newman?

  And she was talking about they filmed that show at Universal Orlando and during the day, the rest of the week, she just did various jobs around the Universal Orlando theme park. And they were like, what do you mean? And she was like, yeah, that show paid nothing. And we would do like 15 episodes every two years.

• 2:20:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:20:03Griffin Newman?

  And I'm just like, as a child, I was like, well, that's the most important person on the planet.

• 2:20:08David Sims?

  One of the top five, at least.

• 2:20:10Griffin Newman?

  The head of the UN. What do they pay her? $5 million a segment?

• 2:20:15Griffin Newman?

  She had to pick up work on the side? Well, I was gonna say, watching those shows as a child.

• 2:20:19Speaker 04

  You shattered my reality.

• 2:20:20Griffin Newman?

  I know. When you, when you would watch like Legends of the Hidden Temple or Nick Arcade and you'd be like, these kids are driving me crazy. If I could get in there right now, I could do that so well.

• 2:20:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:20:30Griffin Newman?

  And then you get older and you're just like, wait, they were like on camera in a set that doesn't make sense backwards, looking at the wrong side of the thing. Nick Arcade, they can't see the fucking shit behind them. They're like punching a blue screen.

• 2:20:42Speaker 04

  Between that and like being able to correctly place every country in Africa in 60 seconds on Carmen Sandiego. These are impossible childhood tasks that we watched many times.

• 2:20:52David Sims?

  I was so locked into anything with maps and.

• 2:20:54Speaker 04

  I never saw anyone beat the last thing of Carmen Sandiego.

• 2:20:57David Sims?

  Um, it was kind of like how the Ultra Zord never actually appeared. It was like one time the Ultra Zord appeared and like, there was no YouTube back then. It was just a playground. It was like, you watch fucking Power Rangers? They actually did the Ultra Zord. Remember, they had to like call in a third Zord from a volcano to do the Ultra Zord. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

• 2:21:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I'm just, I'm responding lightly because I never did see the Ultra Zord.

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  It's just fun. I never saw it either. I was so mad about it. Now I watch it on YouTube. Does that make me happy? No. Um, this film came out December 13th, 1991. Unsurprisingly, it was a big Christmas release.

• 2:21:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:28David Sims?

  A big family movie and it opened to $17 million and made 120 domestic and 300 worldwide, which was plenty of money. The film was profitable and surprisingly also a massive VHS hit. It just wasn't the phenomenon I'm sure Sony hoped for.

• 2:21:47Griffin Newman?

  You read the press excerpts from the time and they were doing the kind of hand wringing that we're used to today, but I think was a little more unusual at the time of being like, our back of napkin, Matt, says that the film won't reach break even until it hits 500 million dollars.

• 2:21:59David Sims?

  Which was not true.

• 2:22:01Griffin Newman?

  No, but there was the opening weekend. Okay. So it's a hit, but is it a big enough hit? This is another interesting thing, just to quickly mention is like, this film is getting off the ground, bless you, very shortly after Sony buys Columbia TriStar.

• 2:22:16David Sims?

  Sony has just entered the movie making game.

• 2:22:18Griffin Newman?

  Flag in the ground. That was part of the big maneuvering of like, we're getting Hoffman and Spielberg and, uh, Williams to do this movie together is like, we need a giant movie. And you look at the eighties and the nineties and it's just all the studios fighting over trying to get one Spielberg movie. Now, he didn't have exclusive deals anywhere and they were just like, if we could just get one fucking Spielberg hit, we'd be so good.

• 2:22:41David Sims?

  It was the fourth biggest hit of 91. Like, you know, it was a big hit.

• 2:22:44Griffin Newman?

  So the top film in 91 is Home Alone.

• 2:22:47David Sims?

  Terminator two.

• 2:22:47Griffin Newman?

  Terminator two. Home Alone comes out in 90.

• 2:22:49David Sims?

  Home Alone's 90.

• 2:22:50Griffin Newman?

  So is, and then Home Alone two is 92?

• 2:22:53David Sims?

  Don't ask me when Home Alone two is. Yes, it is. You're right.

• 2:22:56Speaker 04

  I think Terminator two is my oldest son's first R movie.

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  Hell yeah.

• 2:23:00Griffin Newman?

  It was a good first R movie.

• 2:23:01Speaker 04

  It does a perfect.

• 2:23:01Griffin Newman?

  I was like, let's, let's do this right.

• 2:23:03David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Is number.

• 2:23:04Speaker 04

  You're gonna see one. Let's make it. Let's start with a really good one.

• 2:23:06David Sims?

  Don't fuck around.

• 2:23:07Griffin Newman?

  Is number two Beauty and the Beast?

• 2:23:09David Sims?

  Number three is Beauty and the Beast. Number two, you won't get it, is Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

• 2:23:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:23:13David Sims?

  Which is one of those things where you're like. We forget how much of a phenomenon it was. Not like we've forgotten it.

• 2:23:19Griffin Newman?

  The song all summer.

• 2:23:21David Sims?

  Everything he does, he does it for you.

• 2:23:23Griffin Newman?

  Where's Silence of the Lambs?

• 2:23:24David Sims?

  Silence of the Lambs is number five.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Right below Hook.

• 2:23:27David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:23:27Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:23:28David Sims?

  And right above JFK, and then you got Naked Gun, Two and a Half, Addams Family, Cape Fear, and Hot Shots.

• 2:23:33Griffin Newman?

  What a 10.

• 2:23:34David Sims?

  What an era. Number one of the box office is Hook. Number two, the box office new this week is The Opposite of Hook. Talk about an R-rated movie, an action comedy, uh, filled with swearing and guns and boobs. I mean, only some, only some boobs, I think.

• 2:23:50Griffin Newman?

  Hold on, one movie?

• 2:23:50David Sims?

  But it's just like, it's a lurid ass 90s action movie.

• 2:23:53Griffin Newman?

  Is it like a Shane Black?

• 2:23:54David Sims?

  Yeah, you got, you got that right.

• 2:23:56Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Last Boy Scout?

• 2:23:57David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:23:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay, there we go.

• 2:23:59David Sims?

  Tony Scott's The Last Boy Scout.

• 2:24:00Griffin Newman?

  Bullet through the football.

• 2:24:02David Sims?

  Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, fun. A really, uh, uh, peppy movie. Feels like that movie really like had some, you know, went to the bathroom and came out feeling really energized. You know what I mean?

• 2:24:15Griffin Newman?

  That movie took a, a very effective nap during its lunch break.

• 2:24:19David Sims?

  Uh, Last Boy Scout is also new this week. Interesting counter programming to Hook, right? It's like, you know, anyway. Number three of the box office, it's a sci-fi sequel.

• 2:24:28Griffin Newman?

  It's sci-fi sequel.

• 2:24:29David Sims?

  Solid hit.

• 2:24:30Griffin Newman?

  In December 19.

• 2:24:31David Sims?

  We've covered it on this podcast.

• 2:24:32Griffin Newman?

  We've covered it on this podcast. It's not a Trek.

• 2:24:34David Sims?

  It is a Trek.

• 2:24:35Griffin Newman?

  It is a Trek. Is it The Final Frontier?

• 2:24:37David Sims?

  Nope.

• 2:24:38Griffin Newman?

  It's the undiscovered country?

• 2:24:39David Sims?

  Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country. Do you care, care about Star Trek one?

• 2:24:44Griffin Newman?

  No, not as.

• 2:24:44David Sims?

  You've got a lot of interest. I feel like Star Trek would be like a lot for you to take on.

• 2:24:48Griffin Newman?

  That's my one big pop culture blind spot. It's like Doctor Who and Star Trek. I just, I miss the boat.

• 2:24:52David Sims?

  Trek has always been mine.

• 2:24:54Griffin Newman?

  I've been trying to correct it slowly over the last couple of years. Yeah.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  Number four of the box office, it's a big family comedy, big smash hit. Uh, the sequel's way better.

• 2:25:02Griffin Newman?

  The sequel's way, oh, it's The Addams Family.

• 2:25:04David Sims?

  The Addams Family.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  Very son. Which is, uh, one of the best movies ever made, but of course Addams Family Values is the single best film ever made.

• 2:25:12David Sims?

  I like The Addams Family. It's just, I do feel like Addams Family Values just sort of has everything down better.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  But I, I, I think sometimes you undersell the first one a little bit.

• 2:25:22David Sims?

  And you know what? I haven't seen it in a long time. It's really good.

• 2:25:24Griffin Newman?

  It's got great stuff.

• 2:25:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:25Griffin Newman?

  The values, the great role, the greatest of all time.

• 2:25:29David Sims?

  I mean, do you agree? I mean, like, I really feel like he is one of those guys where it's like, if I had a time machine, I would like to go see every like Broadway role.

• 2:25:37Speaker 04

  Absolutely. I would want to go see him and Meryl Streep at the Delacorte.

• 2:25:40David Sims?

  The central part of the show or whatever. Yeah.

• 2:25:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it is the shame with him that you're like, there is a handful of fantastic film performances. But if you dig in, people are like, yeah, but like 90% of his important work happened on the stage.

• 2:25:53David Sims?

  And he was like, and you'll never be able to see. He's one of the most important like Puerto Rican actors to ever live, right? Like one of the earliest like Puerto Rican, like success stories in America, like on a whatever, on that scale, on the sort of A list.

• 2:26:05Speaker 04

  Going to listen to him just singing some crazy charming shit is Two Gentlemen of Verona.

• 2:26:09David Sims?

  Have never listened.

• 2:26:10Speaker 04

  It's the same composers as Hair, the musical.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  It's like a rock.

• 2:26:14Speaker 04

  It's like a rock version of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and it's just Raul Julie being charming as hell over like banging beats.

• 2:26:21Griffin Newman?

  Him and one from the heart. That is just like bottled liquid charm.

• 2:26:27David Sims?

  He's very, very charming.

• 2:26:28Griffin Newman?

  He is.

• 2:26:29David Sims?

  Uh, and he's great. And he's in that movie, which is out and is making a lot of money. Number five, the box office. It's an animated film.

• 2:26:36Griffin Newman?

  Is it Beauty and the Beast?

• 2:26:37David Sims?

  Beauty and the Beast.

• 2:26:38Griffin Newman?

  Beauty and the Beast. Hell is also good.

• 2:26:40David Sims?

  Do you like Beauty and the Beast?

• 2:26:41Speaker 04

  I need six eggs.

• 2:26:45Griffin Newman?

  You must like Beauty and the Beast.

• 2:26:46Speaker 04

  I love Beauty and the Beast. Yeah.

• 2:26:47David Sims?

  The Beast is so good.

• 2:26:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's a, no, it's an absolute stone cold classic.

• 2:26:52Griffin Newman?

  I mean, look, we, we, we talked about it on this show, but it's just like, when you actually zoom into, it's a recurring theme in your work and the, the figures that you're obsessed with. But the level of work that Ashburn put out in such a short period of time is crazy. And the impact and the lasting like echoes of it are just insane.

• 2:27:12David Sims?

  That's the one where he comes in late, right? Where he's busy with Aladdin. And they're like, can you come fucking take a look at this Beauty and the Beast that's not working like, right? Like he like, he did that fast.

• 2:27:23Speaker 04

  They brought Ashburn and Minkinon, I believe, onto that already in progress. And then they wrote this crazy opening number where by the end of it, you understand everyone and everything in the town.

• 2:27:33David Sims?

  She fucking, it's just ridiculous. She goes in there and it's like, let me tell you about Jack and the Beanstalk. The guy owns the library and she's trying to tell him about Jack and the Beanstalk. He knows about it.

• 2:27:42Griffin Newman?

  It's an uneducated town. He's just in it for the money, for that sweet, sweet library money. No, but he writes like those three movies in like 18 months, basically.

• 2:27:50Speaker 04

  Right?

• 2:27:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's. And basically simultaneously.

• 2:27:54David Sims?

  I recently watched Oliver and Company for the first time with my daughter. I look at that film quite a lot. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. And he's got the, he did the one song.

• 2:28:01Speaker 04

  That was the only Hispanic representation in the Disney canon for many years. Cheech, this is torture, chain me to the wall.

• 2:28:07David Sims?

  That's a good Cheech.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a good Cheech.

• 2:28:09Speaker 04

  I've seen that movie. That one I saw in the theaters for sure.

• 2:28:12Griffin Newman?

  And of course, it's very different. Now you also have Cheech Marin as Ramon in the Cars universe.

• 2:28:15Speaker 04

  It's true. It's true. They brought him back. I'm very happy to hear that.

• 2:28:18David Sims?

  Also in the top 10, you've got My Girl.

• 2:28:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:28:21David Sims?

  Another family classic of our youth. You've got Kate Fear. Not a family classic.

• 2:28:25Griffin Newman?

  Well, it is, it is arguably a classic film. It's about a movie.

• 2:28:29David Sims?

  It's about a family.

• 2:28:29Griffin Newman?

  It's a family film.

• 2:28:30David Sims?

  Uh, you've got For the Boys, the Bette Midler, James Caan musical dramedy.

• 2:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Lynn is saluting.

• 2:28:36David Sims?

  Absolutely. Uh, you have a little movie about a little guy called Fievel going west.

• 2:28:42Griffin Newman?

  He's going west. Yeah. That was one of the earliest films I saw in theaters. That I definitely saw in theaters. Yeah.

• 2:28:47David Sims?

  And you have the adorable John Hughes comedy Curly Sue with Jim Belushi, which I don't think I've ever seen.

• 2:28:54Speaker 04

  And Sis Eisenberg. That's Jesse Eisenberg's sister is Curly Sue.

• 2:28:58David Sims?

  Is that right?

• 2:28:59Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:28:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:00Griffin Newman?

  Really? I thought it was, I thought Curly Sue was someone else. Sis Eisenberg was obviously the Pepsi Girl and the girl from Polly, which I swear by.

• 2:29:10Speaker 04

  Is she not also Curly Sue?

• 2:29:12David Sims?

  She's not Curly Sue.

• 2:29:13Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 2:29:13David Sims?

  Callie Eisenberg.

• 2:29:14Speaker 04

  I've conflated them all into one delightful curly haired girl.

• 2:29:18David Sims?

  Because I was sort of like, this is, she's too old. She's too young, right?

• 2:29:21Griffin Newman?

  She's a little too young.

• 2:29:21David Sims?

  Allison Porter.

• 2:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:24David Sims?

  Is Curly Sue. I've never seen Curly Sue. What's it about?

• 2:29:26Speaker 04

  I've never have either.

• 2:29:27David Sims?

  What's it about?

• 2:29:27Speaker 04

  I'm doing this in my mind purely for the.

• 2:29:30Griffin Newman?

  She's a con artist?

• 2:29:31Speaker 04

  Poster.

• 2:29:32David Sims?

  She's like a, she's like a cutesy orphan.

• 2:29:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Allison Porter, original cast member of the Broadway revival of a chorus line.

• 2:29:38David Sims?

  Of the Broadway revival of a chorus line. Okay.

• 2:29:41Griffin Newman?

  Well, it seems to mostly do.

• 2:29:42David Sims?

  From the Broadway revival.

• 2:29:42Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Well, I'll have to tell you then.

• 2:29:44David Sims?

  Um, that's what's top 10 of the box office.

• 2:29:47Speaker 04

  I like the different snobbery we've seen on display here. We have the anti-hook household and the like, a revival.

• 2:29:53David Sims?

  The original cast pulled it off. Okay. Kelly Bishop.

• 2:29:57Griffin Newman?

  Lynn, this is what keeps this show fresh after 10 years.

• 2:29:59Speaker 04

  It makes me so happy.

• 2:30:00Griffin Newman?

  The dynamics are constantly switching around.

• 2:30:02Speaker 04

  It's what keeps me listening.

• 2:30:03Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 2:30:04David Sims?

  Well, that's very nice of you to say. And, um, it's been very nice of you to join us to discuss Hook.

• 2:30:10Speaker 04

  Thank you. I'm sorry. I couldn't bring more primary sources this time. I just really brought my own feelings.

• 2:30:15Speaker 05

  You just brought your own feelings.

• 2:30:16Griffin Newman?

  You brought your truth. You brought your truth. And that's all we asked for on this show.

• 2:30:19Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:30:20Speaker 05

  I was talked out of bringing a hook to the recording. Which I'm kind of bummed about. I think we could have spent a little time just discussing hooks in general.

• 2:30:30Griffin Newman?

  Ben, I don't want to embarrass you, but I just clocked something. Did you hide the chains because Lynn was coming?

• 2:30:37Speaker 05

  No, they're, they're at the gallery.

• 2:30:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:30:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:30:40Speaker 04

  What chains?

• 2:30:42Speaker 05

  I, uh.

• 2:30:42Griffin Newman?

  Ben usually has a display of chains.

• 2:30:44Speaker 05

  Okay. My friend created a sculpture for the office, which is, it's a chain display. It's various different sizes of chains sort of hung from some pipes.

• 2:30:58Griffin Newman?

  Ben loves chains and pipes.

• 2:30:59Speaker 05

  It's just an aesthetic that I've always really appreciated in cinema.

• 2:31:02Speaker 04

  Sticks and stones may break your bones, but whips and chains excite you.

• 2:31:05Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:31:06Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 2:31:06Speaker 05

  Precisely. Wow.

• 2:31:09Speaker 04

  Um, well, that's amazing.

• 2:31:10Griffin Newman?

  What a wordsmith.

• 2:31:11Speaker 04

  Uh, I wish I could take the credit. That's pink.

• 2:31:14Speaker 05

  But no, I would have had a, I would have had a spotlight on it.

• 2:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I just wanted to make sure.

• 2:31:20Speaker 04

  I don't want you to be hiding your truth.

• 2:31:21Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:31:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:22Speaker 05

  Not at all.

• 2:31:23Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm also, as we're saying goodbye, so I will keep it very short, uh, remembering my other connection to Hook, as you mentioned, whether we should have brought Hooks to this recording. Um, I played Captain Hook in the sixth grade play.

• 2:31:36Griffin Newman?

  Whoa.

• 2:31:37Speaker 04

  I was Captain Hook and it was like, it's the old timey Broadway version.

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:40Speaker 04

  Which has a weird hodgepodge of like Roger Hammerstein.

• 2:31:44Griffin Newman?

  Kind of, yeah.

• 2:31:45Speaker 04

  Contributed some material, but then they brought in ringers to write other songs. It's like, it's like actually a weirdly collaborative score. Um, and that was a big deal. Like I got to wear a wig and I got, I had a fake Hook that I then had as a prop for many years in my house.

• 2:31:59Griffin Newman?

  Did you paint on a goatee and go, wait a second, this looks good?

• 2:32:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. I painted on a goatee and said, I think this is going to be my look going forward. I'll wait till this grows in.

• 2:32:09Griffin Newman?

  I'm almost surprised you didn't play Pan.

• 2:32:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, Evan Newman was just a much better singer than me.

• 2:32:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, I mean, you're not gonna be.

• 2:32:16Speaker 04

  I'm not gonna beat Evan Newman.

• 2:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, him. It was a lot easier to get the financing with him as Pan.

• 2:32:20Speaker 04

  It's true. He was a great Peter Pan. He's a wonderful actor.

• 2:32:24David Sims?

  I feel like classically Peter Pan played by an adult woman, right? Like that's.

• 2:32:28Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 2:32:29David Sims?

  Yes. This was a Jay Allison Williams approach in Peter Pan Live.

• 2:32:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:32David Sims?

  Sort of notorious moment in pop culture.

• 2:32:35Speaker 04

  Uh, in Peter Pan history, yes.

• 2:32:37Griffin Newman?

  Lynn, I feel ridiculous asking this, but anything you want to plug? Is there anything relative to when this is coming out that feels?

• 2:32:42Speaker 04

  The only crossover, I have nothing to plug. I'm here because I adore you guys.

• 2:32:46Griffin Newman?

  You're too kind.

• 2:32:48Speaker 04

  But I, uh, I did have a chance to talk with Frank Marshall because I did write a musical adaptation of a movie early in his filmography, The Warriors.

• 2:32:57Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:32:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 2:32:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:58Speaker 04

  So I wrote a.

• 2:32:59Griffin Newman?

  I will say The Warriors, the vibe of The Warriors does feel like a, a, you are maturing up from Rufio and the Lost Boys to The Warriors. I want to make it clear, The Warriors exist before.

• 2:33:11Speaker 04

  Warriors are also very stylized gangs.

• 2:33:13Griffin Newman?

  But I imagine you watched this first and then discovered The Warriors?

• 2:33:17Speaker 04

  God bless. I wish. Again, I will refer you to my unsupervised childhood. I saw Warriors when I was four years old.

• 2:33:23Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 2:33:23Speaker 04

  Like Older Brothers, VHS, like Friends, Older Brothers, VHS cassette. And like that, I imprinted on that. It's like, oh, that's what, where I live is like at night. And like, Lynn, needed to write a whole musical with my friend Issa Davis to like work it out.

• 2:33:37Griffin Newman?

  I saw, uh, Sidney and Matt's The Wiz again recently, which is one of my absolute favorite movies and one of the movies I've watched the most in my life.

• 2:33:46Speaker 04

  I was an Adaprol backup in The Wiz in sixth grade, too.

• 2:33:48Griffin Newman?

  That's wild. But I had a, I had a similar thing where for the first time I think I unlocked why I'm so hyper fixated on that movie. And it was, I think this movie spoke to the way I felt as a child living in a city I love that feels inherently hostile.

• 2:34:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's right.

• 2:34:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. If I'd seen The Wiz sooner, I'd have been printed on that, but I saw The Warriors first. And so, so yeah, so anyway, that's an album. You can get it now. A lot of amazing people are on it.

• 2:34:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:34:14Speaker 04

  Miss Lauryn Hill, Ghostface, Nas.

• 2:34:17David Sims?

  All right, go off.

• 2:34:18Speaker 04

  It's just cra- we got a crazy, because it's an album and not a thing people have to do eight times a week, we just got the all-star cast of our dreams to play different parts on it.

• 2:34:26David Sims?

  That, I mean, it's awesome. I've listened to it many times.

• 2:34:28Griffin Newman?

  And hopefully if it's a Broadway, you can book Eric Newman.

• 2:34:31Speaker 04

  The, Evan Newman was a.

• 2:34:32Griffin Newman?

  God damn it.

• 2:34:35Speaker 04

  Evan, Evan would be great. Evan would go on to play. I directed West Side Story my senior year in high school and he was my riff. Hey. Yeah. No, no, Evan's the real deal. He's great.

• 2:34:44David Sims?

  Excited for everything coming up, whatever it is, be it that and other things. I'm excited for our next episode, Griffin, which is

• 2:34:53Speaker 04

  Jurassic Park. What's that about?

• 2:34:56Griffin Newman?

  Dinosaurs.

• 2:34:57David Sims?

  With the great Sean Finnis.

• 2:34:59Griffin Newman?

  The great Sean Finnis is quite good, that episode.

• 2:35:03David Sims?

  It's quite good.

• 2:35:04Griffin Newman?

  That was recorded 18 years.

• 2:35:05David Sims?

  It was recorded a long ass.

• 2:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Weirdly, that episode is when we first met. We meet on mic in that episode. We're like, should we do a podcast?

• 2:35:14David Sims?

  I am actually excited to listen to it because I have no memory of that conversation.

• 2:35:18Speaker 04

  I'm glad you froze in amber and you will.

• 2:35:20David Sims?

  That's right. Exactly. That episode will be brought out of amber.

• 2:35:22Griffin Newman?

  It is really frozen.

• 2:35:23David Sims?

  By Mr. DNA or whatever his name is.

• 2:35:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:26David Sims?

  Thank you for joining us again.

• 2:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Thank you so much for being here.

• 2:35:28David Sims?

  That's it. Poke. Come on, take us out.

• 2:35:30Speaker 04

  Bang, bang.

• 2:35:31Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate and review. Tune in next week for Jurassic Park. And as always, Lynn, I'm sorry to do this, but one final piece of housekeeping. I must ask this. This is, this is not, I just need, this is purely a question. This is no request. It's a question. I need to close a loop that started on another podcast. The Great Doughboys podcast, I don't know if you're familiar, our favorite podcast. They review chain restaurants, Nick Weiger and Mike Mitchell.

• 2:35:57David Sims?

  Sure, funny show.

• 2:35:58Griffin Newman?

  I recently, when I was in Los Angeles, went and did an episode on Chuck E. Cheese with them.

• 2:36:02David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:36:03Griffin Newman?

  There is a song that plays in the rotation at Chuck E. Cheese now that is 100% Chuck E. Cheese doing Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 2:36:12Speaker 04

  No shit. I haven't been to a Chuck E. Cheese.

• 2:36:14Griffin Newman?

  It's called The Perfect Day. And the Doughboys associate producer, Amelia Marino, said, I think they got the real Lynn for this. It sounds so much like him.

• 2:36:23Speaker 04

  I am so sorry to burst this bubble.

• 2:36:24Griffin Newman?

  I promised I would get an answer.

• 2:36:26Speaker 04

  I have never heard of this song in my life.

• 2:36:28Griffin Newman?

  So I just want to conclusively for the record.

• 2:36:30Speaker 04

  Taking my children to Chuck E. Cheese whenever possible. I was just, I get, I lose them in the pits.

• 2:36:34Griffin Newman?

  But I, we just need to settle this issue. You have never written an original song for the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

• 2:36:41Speaker 04

  I have never had the pleasure of working with Charles Entertainment.

• 2:36:45Griffin Newman?

  Yet. Yet.

• 2:36:46Speaker 04

  Never say never.

• 2:36:55Speaker 05

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features

• 2:37:36Speaker 05

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.