Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Lola Kirke

We’re grabbing our Vans slip ons and heading to the mall as we kick off our Amy Heckerling series - Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast - with Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Fresh off her appearance in Sinners, actual high school friend of Griffin Newman Lola Kirke returns to the pod and things get pretty bogus. Like, David Lynch was supposed to direct this movie!!! David Sims has three performances from this on his 1982 Oscar Ballot! We develop sympathy for Mr. Hand! Griffin used to own a pair of fully black Converse sneakers! And, of course - Ben orders a pizza. Listen to An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba https://open.spotify.com/album/27SMV8TOEzD5NvCI6dK7Xc?si=g4PwhZQyRmadAX4DwHgBNw See Lola in Sinner and check out her other projects https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flinktr.ee%2Flolakirke%3Ffbclid%3DPAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAadZwWb4LYeHbYsSacPdH8Gs3qIS6OtLTBWdota6JYV5in-zjWqHWYJtTbGqUQ_aem_TCUvOk74ckqmGwfaYbNyGA&e=AT0W8KSR-nTBj7d6iLqXV88MBsqf6xoswpo7y2djug_JD0FHHLhDCD3qOvHZuRLoSjG5sPYrIgT4mZaltoY_zV-qxvNR1wQwOkQECemdHQTrHf7OI2qP 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.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 0:18Speaker 03

  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.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 02

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

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  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 03

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 02

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

• 1:18Speaker 03

  I'm trying to schedule an acupuncture appointment for myself while I, while I do this.

• 1:22Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  East.

• 1:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, just talk through it so Ben can get the levels.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  Okay, East Village acupuncture and massage. Massagee?

• 1:30David Sims?

  See, I'm just a massage guy. I'm just kind of like, massages are great. I don't need someone to do acupuncture for me because I'm already so happy with the massage.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  This is a different thing. What the fuck is electro acupuncture?

• 1:43David Sims?

  Dude, that's a thing.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 1:45David Sims?

  I don't know. It's like them putting speaker wires into you. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's acupuncture, but with these things that are plugged into something.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  Do you need me to keep talking?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I'm all set.

• 1:57David Sims?

  Great. Let's just go.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Any stuff. Okay, wait, I'm almost done picking.

• 2:01David Sims?

  Oh, you're booking your appointment.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Do you think I'll be able to make a 3:15 acupuncture?

• 2:09David Sims?

  Where, where is your acupuncture?

• 2:10Speaker 03

  East Village.

• 2:12David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 2:13Griffin Newman?

  I think we can.

• 2:14David Sims?

  Okay, well, let's go.

• 2:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15David Sims?

  Let's go.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  2:45, that's, that gives us time to talk for two hours.

• 2:18Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be a short episode.

• 2:19David Sims?

  I love it. I love it.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 2:23David Sims?

  We'll get you out of here. It's fine.

• 2:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Okay, ready?

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  What Jefferson was saying was, hey, you know, we left this podcast because it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves pronto, we'll just be bogus too. I really fucked that up.

• 2:59David Sims?

  Did you? I mean, that seemed fine to me.

• 3:01Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I went very generic. I think part of the magic of his performance-

• 3:04David Sims?

  Of Spicoli is, right, it's actually less generic than you.

• 3:07Griffin Newman?

  There was a specificity to the way he plays this that still makes this the funniest version of this archetype, I would argue.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  I, I would agree.

• 3:14Griffin Newman?

  And I just-

• 3:14Speaker 03

  You don't have to argue, Griffin.

• 3:15Griffin Newman?

  I did the off the rack version. I couldn't get there.

• 3:18David Sims?

  You know who Mr. Hand is, right?

• 3:20Griffin Newman?

  Ray Walston. What do you mean? Who it's based on?

• 3:21David Sims?

  No, no, just like, you know who Ray Walston is, right?

• 3:23Griffin Newman?

  My favorite Martian.

• 3:24David Sims?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:26David Sims?

  And a great, great, great musical theater actor, like one of the legends of Broadway.

• 3:29Griffin Newman?

  Popeye's dad?

• 3:31David Sims?

  Is he Popeye's dad?

• 3:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Poop Deck Pappy.

• 3:33David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  And Robert Elman's Popeye. Yeah.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  I did not know that. And I did read the trivia last night.

• 3:40Griffin Newman?

  For this movie.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Just because I wanted to, like, one-up you.

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 3:45David Sims?

  You'll, you'll fail.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 3:47David Sims?

  We have researchers, it's, you know, we're a whole thing now.

• 3:49Griffin Newman?

  This is now a very tight operation. I don't know if you know this, you have now broken the record for the longest gap between appearances on this podcast.

• 3:57David Sims?

  Well, Lola and I discussed this before you showed up, you were late.

• 3:59Griffin Newman?

  Many things have changed since the last time you were on. I was getting Lola TV because she's sick.

• 4:03David Sims?

  No, no, no, okay. And we actually have an episode to get to.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  I'm not sick. Don't say that yet.

• 4:07Griffin Newman?

  Lola's not sick yet.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  I'm not sick.

• 4:09David Sims?

  Griffin's whole thing now is that for some reason, and Ben and I were just discussing this, he's the one who picks up coffee even though he's chronically lazy as it is.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  I have to push back on this. Lately, yes, I do. Lately, I've been having Ben pick up the coffee so I can get here early. And that has been working. I've been getting here early and Ben shows up with the coffee. If you check the records, this is a fact.

• 4:29David Sims?

  You were late the last couple of records.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  But early for you is 15 minutes late.

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no.

• 4:33David Sims?

  On time for him is 15 minutes.

• 4:35Griffin Newman?

  No, no, this was the last one before this, I was late. The last several before this, I was here early and Ben picked up the coffee. That is correct. I had placed the order. I was gonna be on time. I asked Lil if she wanted anything. She said no, and then she said, would you mind getting me a tea? I had to add on to the order.

• 4:54David Sims?

  So now it's our guest's fault. We got a great, cool celebrity in the room. Two minutes into recording, you're throwing her under the bus.

• 5:02Griffin Newman?

  She's not sick yet, but I did a very kind thing.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 5:07David Sims?

  Do you know what the poster tagline for this film was, the original?

• 5:10Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the original poster tagline was, uh, the list of the 12 bands on the soundtrack at the bottom of the poster.

• 5:15David Sims?

  I mean, that's probably true, uh, cause they are down there, but no, it's at Ridgemont High, only the rules get busted. Which is one of those things that I'm like, that sounds clever, but I don't actually know what that means.

• 5:25Griffin Newman?

  No, the, the other posters to this movie are also insane.

• 5:29David Sims?

  Like you can kinda tell they don't really know how to tell you what this movie is apart from like, it's a teen movie with a surfing stoner in it.

• 5:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes, we'll get into it, but the fact that Universal was afraid to release this, cause they were like, is this borderline pornography?

• 5:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:43Griffin Newman?

  And then meanwhile, they were selling it like it was every other sex comedy of the eighties is fascinating. That they were like terrified of it and also trying to sell it as the thing that was de rigueur. Like there were 40 movies a week in which a guy put his dick somewhere weird and America cheered. And it made a hundred million dollars. And then this one, they were like, this might be illegal.

• 6:04David Sims?

  We'll talk about it. Um, what's this happens, what's this podcast? We have, we have a lot to set up.

• 6:07Griffin Newman?

  We have a lot to set up. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 6:12David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 6:13Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who experienced a series of massive success early on in their career. And are given, I said series too early, a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. I have found that 10 years in, I'm having a harder time remembering the intro.

• 6:30David Sims?

  We should just stop.

• 6:31Griffin Newman?

  All of it?

• 6:32David Sims?

  It's just, no, no, we do the podcast, but forget the intro.

• 6:35Griffin Newman?

  Okay, well.

• 6:35David Sims?

  It's like, eh, it's blank check, Google it.

• 6:37Griffin Newman?

  What if I go back to doing a serial parody for the intro?

• 6:40David Sims?

  Oh, no, no, thank you.

• 6:41Griffin Newman?

  This is Blank Check, one director. Told in my name.

• 6:43David Sims?

  What is this mini series, Griffin? Cause I'm realizing I don't think we discussed the title.

• 6:49Griffin Newman?

  Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast.

• 6:52Griffin Newman?

  I'm just, I'm shooting off the hip here.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  I liked it.

• 6:54Griffin Newman?

  Pot, thank you. Lola laughed. Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast.

• 6:58David Sims?

  I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's fine. I'm gonna say it. I think that's almost kind of root one for us at this point.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so Look Who's Podcasting 2?

• 7:06David Sims?

  I think that's funny. I just wanna say, that's exactly what I was gonna suggest.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 7:13David Sims?

  Is funny because it makes a weird amount of sense, but then the two

• 7:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:17David Sims?

  Kind of undercuts it.

• 7:18Griffin Newman?

  Right, cause the other, the other option is Pod Who's Casting 2.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. Look Who's Podcasting 2 is genius because everyone has a podcast. I mean, you guys obviously had the first podcast.

• 7:29Griffin Newman?

  Now, look, I, we did. It was

• 7:30David Sims?

  Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast is fine. There's nothing wrong with it for us.

• 7:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to balance. Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast got an earnest laugh out of Lola, but then

• 7:40David Sims?

  Because it's funny.

• 7:41Griffin Newman?

  Podcasting 2 got a, hmm, that's genius. And I'm like, which is more valuable? Do we wanna be smart or funny? This is the eternal battle of this show. Is it not?

• 7:51Speaker 03

  But, wait, are they not, did Amy Heckerling direct Look Who's Talking?

• 7:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought that that was the little one. Oh, no, that's a, that's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

• 8:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 8:02Griffin Newman?

  She did the Look Who's Talking 1 and 2, and then handed off 3.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Uh, I think Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast is better.

• 8:09David Sims?

  Oh, now she's back to, oh, well, you know what? We'll discuss this later.

• 8:12Griffin Newman?

  We'll discuss this later. But, but this is the start of a mini series on Amy Heckerling.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Well, I'm honored to be here.

• 8:20Griffin Newman?

  And a career that starts with an out of the box masterpiece. We've discussed this before, the different times, types of career starters we cover on this show as people who are obsessive completists. This is like, she just fucking nails it first tryout.

• 8:34David Sims?

  Uh, absolutely true. Um, I think she nails it very much. Um, but. Yeah, hmm, an interesting sort of way to think about her career. Like, is it, is it a problem to start with arguably your best movie? Not in my opinion, but like arguably your best movie? Tough to top, you know, sets you up for a sophomore slump.

• 8:54Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about it. I give her a lot of credit for this movie. This is also one of those magical movies where it's just like all the elements came together.

• 9:00David Sims?

  Bit of a magic movie, right? Where like all the cast is so perfect.

• 9:02Griffin Newman?

  I think the thing that pushes it over the edge is like her judgment and skill and taste. But to your point, it being like Nicolas Cage is in two shots of this movie.

• 9:11David Sims?

  He is.

• 9:12Griffin Newman?

  Like, this is just a film where you think about the people who are on this set every day. And like the energy of just like some people who would dominate the culture for decades, who were all coming in with like, I'm rearing to go, I'm ready to prove myself.

• 9:25David Sims?

  Now, we are all too young for this movie.

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 9:28David Sims?

  We all probably, we all discovered this movie, it was already an established thing, right?

• 9:32Griffin Newman?

  We were born into a fast times culture.

• 9:34David Sims?

  Right, exactly.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  But I watched this movie like once a week on a portable DVD player for the entirety of high school.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, we, I mean, when I, let's, let's say our guest today returned to the show for the first time in eight years?

• 9:51Speaker 03

  A long time.

• 9:51Griffin Newman?

  Is that right?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:52Griffin Newman?

  Since What Women Want.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I love that movie.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes, a film, a film you sold me on. Um, Lola Kirk, musician, author, actress. We're experiencing the 2025 year of Lola. We were talking about publishing your first book.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:10Griffin Newman?

  Releasing your third album.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:12Griffin Newman?

  And then, and, uh, your triumphant return.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, my triumphant return to the screen after no one would give me a job for a few years.

• 10:20Griffin Newman?

  Hey, that's, that's my life.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:22Griffin Newman?

  I understand that beat, being like, maybe I'm retired. Does that have anything to do with no one wanting to hire you? No, I think it's unrelated.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  No, absolutely not.

• 10:29Griffin Newman?

  I made a choice. I made a really strong choice here.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  A really strong choice not to work until someone gave me a job again.

• 10:35Griffin Newman?

  Sinners.

• 10:36David Sims?

  Yes, Sinners.

• 10:36Griffin Newman?

  New Ryan Coogler movie.

• 10:37David Sims?

  That's what, March? Coming out in March, I believe?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  It's now April 18th.

• 10:40David Sims?

  Oh, now April, it's swapped with Mickey 17, so it's now April 20th.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  Right around the time of this episode, am I wrong?

• 10:45David Sims?

  Five, uh, absolutely. This episode is dropping, uh, on April 27th. So, oh, Sinners has been out for a week. It just opened.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  Burn out the box off.

• 10:54David Sims?

  I hope it's good.

• 10:55Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Lola Kirk.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  What's up?

• 10:57Griffin Newman?

  Now, to your point, we grew up together. Went to high school together. I threw you, hey, it's been too long since you've been on. Here's a long list of things. Your immediate response was, well, Fast Times is basically my favorite movie of all time. And it felt very apropos, just because I feel like a lot of our high school was us watching this canon of movies obsessively over and over again. I feel like that is one of many things we bonded on was just like an obsession with 80s teen movies.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Lola's getting emotional.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  I am getting emotional, but also because I feel like one of the things I was thinking as I watched it last night was like, what are teenagers watching now? Like, I saw this movie in the like, I used to read things when I was younger, like the lists. Like, you need to listen to these records.

• 11:48David Sims?

  The 10 best, the 10, 20 best, yes.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  And this was on that list.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  The cornerstone of our podcast, and also basically you are speaking directly to the experience of every one of our listeners.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  I guess it's just like millennial.

• 11:58Griffin Newman?

  Who are other obsessive magazine list people.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, nerdy, oh, I thought it was just millennials, but like nerds.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes, no, less generational and more that type of brain of like, I need to know what the canon is.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to know.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, in all these different corners.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  And this movie was like the one that it just was talked about over and over again. And I was like, I need to obviously see it.

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  And once I saw it, I fell so in love with it. And it was kind of sad because I haven't seen it since I used to watch it all the time. And the perspective that I had as like a 34 year old woman who had gone through all of those things and was now like old enough to, you know, if I had been really young to have those people be my own children versus the perspective that I had as a kid that was like, okay, she had sex at 15, so that means that that's when I should do it. And like all of these other things that I was, I like wanted to be like them.

• 12:51Griffin Newman?

  I think we both had the exact same thing was, we viewed these movies as aspirational.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:57Griffin Newman?

  And I think part of it was, we had this like, very like fucking bespoke, precious, privileged New York childhood that did not resemble these teen movies.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, yes, absolutely.

• 13:09Griffin Newman?

  And it felt like, this is the normal teen experience I'm not getting and I should be experiencing.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  And yet, I didn't notice this in the orig, when I first saw it. But when Jennifer Jason Leigh loses her virginity to Ron Johnson. The way that Amy Heckerling shoots the ceiling and shoots her POV, which I didn't even notice then. I was just like, oh my God, she's having sex and that guy looks like Richard Gere, even though the Richard Gere I knew was like, really old. I was like, no, he doesn't.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Um, but yeah, I, I, I was like, oh, right. There is a sensitivity to these kids' experiences that I never understood.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  It, it is, what is crazy about this movie and what makes it like such a kind of miracle film is I watched it in the same context as you. I was like, this is the movie that all the quotes come from, which is like a real flattening of what this movie is. And yet I probably watched it for the first time at 12 and was like, funny, good, liked it. Wasn't like, I don't get what the fuck's going on here. And then every time I've seen it since then, it like deepens for me. It is a movie that kind of works from all perspectives. And we had our friend, Tim Simons on the show recently and we told him we were getting ready to do this series next. And he was like, Fast Times is one of those movies I haven't seen, but I feel like I've seen through cultural osmosis.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 14:26Griffin Newman?

  And was like, I know all the quotes and the memes.

• 14:28David Sims?

  That was my experience of this movie, where I had seen scenes probably, and I knew about Spicoli and all that. But then I watched the movie and was shocked by it.

• 14:36Griffin Newman?

  The mastery of this film is that it is both of those things, that it's not one of those like, well, people quote the four things, but actually the movie is much more this in tone. And the way we always talk about like Saturday Night Fever, right?

• 14:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:48Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, it gets reduced to three images and then most of the movie is like a pretty dark character set.

• 14:53David Sims?

  Even more extreme, right? Where you watch and you're like, oh, these people are, are, not only is this movie lurid and violent and upsetting, but it means people are sad. It's about how sad they are. It's not about cool people. They, they're, they're kind of cool, like they're dancing, but like.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  But the culture flattens it to like two dance scenes, walking with the pizza and the Bee Gees soundtrack. Whereas this movie, you're not wrong if your perception is it's Spicoli, it's got big lines, it's got huge characters. But then it's simultaneously holding this other thing.

• 15:20David Sims?

  I think you're wrong if you think that. I'm gonna say you're wrong.

• 15:23Griffin Newman?

  What I think, this is my framework of, of my argument for the value of this movie is that like, I think there is an insane, simultaneous managing of tones that Heckerling is pulling off on this that defies logic.

• 15:36Griffin Newman?

  That like this movie should not be able to crosscut between Spicoli and Jennifer Jason Lee, let alone have them exist in the same shot.

• 15:43David Sims?

  But that's, that's life as a teen, baby.

• 15:45Griffin Newman?

  Totally. That's the magic.

• 15:47David Sims?

  That's why it's so good.

• 15:48Griffin Newman?

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

• 15:50David Sims?

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Amy Heckerling's 1982 film. Any of you ever read the book by Cameron Crowe?

• 15:56Speaker 03

  No, I didn't even remember that it was a book until I IMDb'd it.

• 16:01David Sims?

  It is so out of print that it costs $500, $600 to buy like a used copy of it.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 16:07David Sims?

  And Griff has it.

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  I got it for 90. You wanna know why?

• 16:11David Sims?

  I don't.

• 16:12Griffin Newman?

  Cause the cover's misprinted.

• 16:13David Sims?

  Ah, you got a weird.

• 16:14Griffin Newman?

  The title's like sliding off.

• 16:16David Sims?

  I have an original copy of it that I stole, I will say.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  From?

• 16:22David Sims?

  I was at a family member's house in California.

• 16:28David Sims?

  It's a long story and I won't tell it, but we were staying there. And like all their kids were grown up at this point in their 30s or, you know, like, and, but it was their house that they all grew up in. And I was staying in one of the kids' bedrooms and I saw it on the shelf and I took it. And I read it and I was like, I took it home with me. So I guess I didn't.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Do they listen to this podcast, your family?

• 16:48David Sims?

  I would be stunned to real, to learn that they listen.

• 16:50Griffin Newman?

  Does a single member of your family listen to this podcast?

• 16:52David Sims?

  That's actually a really good question.

• 16:53Griffin Newman?

  Joey doesn't listen regularly, right?

• 16:55David Sims?

  My brother.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  He has listened.

• 16:57David Sims?

  I think my brother occasionally listens. That might be that.

• 17:00Griffin Newman?

  My mom's become a regular listener, which sucks.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  It used to be a sometimes thing and now I'm like, she's hearing everything I say. Like me saying, it sucks that she listens.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Well, I mean.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  I think she's probably hearing right now.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  My mom has, like sees my Instagram and it makes me wanna die. So I can't imagine, you know, anything more in depth.

• 17:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:21David Sims?

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High, yes, written by Cameron Crowe, obviously. So it's his launchpad too. It's a launchpad for a lot of people. But it's.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  So Cameron Crowe was doing this before he was doing the stuff he did in Almost Famous.

• 17:31Griffin Newman?

  It's after.

• 17:32David Sims?

  Well, it's after.

• 17:33Griffin Newman?

  That's the weird timeline is basically.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  Cause he like never been kissed it and went back to high school.

• 17:37Griffin Newman?

  Correct. That's the origin of this movie.

• 17:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 17:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. Is that he doesn't have a high school experience because he goes on the road as a music journalist.

• 17:44David Sims?

  He was, he was 22 when he enrolled in high, I told my wife this, I told Forky this, you've never seen.

• 17:51Griffin Newman?

  It is, it, it almost breaks your brain to be like, that's what this movie comes out of.

• 17:56David Sims?

  I was like, and I was like, yeah, I guess if someone did that now, that would not be greeted with like handshakes and high fives.

• 18:02Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 18:03David Sims?

  He, he was, the school was aware of who he was, but I guess the kids weren't, right? He was 22 years old and he sort of approached the school being like, can I quote unquote enroll?

• 18:12Griffin Newman?

  You look at the photo on the back cover and you're just like, he looks like 16.

• 18:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 18:17Griffin Newman?

  And he was also, I think perhaps a little developmentally stunted from being on the road and not, right? Experiencing these things.

• 18:24David Sims?

  But yeah, it's not, if I wrote a book now that I was like, yeah, I hung out with a bunch of high school, people would be like, what the fuck is the matter with you doing that? You know, anyway.

• 18:31Griffin Newman?

  But also like the framework of the book not being like, this is what I found going undercover, like making himself the main character.

• 18:38David Sims?

  No, it's just vignettes.

• 18:40Griffin Newman?

  It's vignettes. It is just observation, which is obviously Cameron Crowe's kind of superpower. And then for the movie to also not go for the high concept hook of young faced reporter.

• 18:50David Sims?

  Well, let's, right, for him to not be a character in the movie, thank God.

• 18:54Griffin Newman?

  You can just imagine Hollywood, even if he avoided that in the book, that Hollywood was like salivating and being like, oh my God, the premises, Tom Cruise goes undercover.

• 19:02David Sims?

  Well, they were salivating. They may never been kissed. They eventually did just make that movie. Amy I. Heckling, however, is here, we're here to talk about, born 1954 in the Bronx. Uh, in an apartment building where, uh, most of her, she says neighbors were like, um.

• 19:17Griffin Newman?

  Holocaust survivors.

• 19:18David Sims?

  Holocaust survivors. So, you know, uh, her grandparents had relatives who've been in concentration camps, you know, lots of Jewish immigration to the Bronx, whatever, at the time, you know, and that's, she probably lived on Grand Concourse, the way she's describing it. My father and mother, both accountants, spent a lot of her youth in Brooklyn with her grandma. Uh, her mom was basically a teenager when she was born. She had a younger brother. So she was shuffled around. She liked Brooklyn a lot more. She lived near Coney Island. She loved movies. She loved gangster movies.

• 19:48Griffin Newman?

  The grandmother lived near Coney Island.

• 19:49David Sims?

  That's, you know, she liked going to Brooklyn for this reason. She liked musicals. She liked James Cagney and Fred Astaire.

• 19:55Griffin Newman?

  She's really into Golden Age Hollywood stuff.

• 19:57David Sims?

  And then as a teenager, obviously, she's being exposed to like Mean Streets and Clockwork Orange and all these new Hollywood movies. So she's really into all of that. Um, yeah, she has a, wow, this is a long dossier. Okay.

• 20:09Griffin Newman?

  I'll say, there's, there's, JJ put a lot in here. This Cagney section, we might circle back to.

• 20:14David Sims?

  Yeah, we'll get back to that for Johnny Dangerously. Exactly.

• 20:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever seen Johnny Dangerously?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:21Griffin Newman?

  Her follow up to this is she basically makes a Mel Brooks movie that's a parody of gangster movies.

• 20:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 20:27Griffin Newman?

  It is one of the, which I think rules, but it is like a wild swerve into like full cartoon mode, like gag a minute movie.

• 20:34David Sims?

  Um, when she's a teenager, she moves to Queens. She hit all the boroughs. When she's 14, she goes to high school, at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, starts hanging out at the Museum of Modern Art. And, you know, she's just whatever. Art is in her bones. She's into all that stuff.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  This is the other funny part of this movie is it is made by two people who basically didn't have this experience, right? That like.

• 20:58David Sims?

  Yeah, who are not like Californian.

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  Heckler is a city kid and, and Cameron Crowe doesn't really go to high school until he's an adult. There, I think it's, it's part of like them being very intuitive and observant, but also having a little bit of distance.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Well, I also feel like that's like some testament to the idea that you have to be a little bit of a freak to be a real artist.

• 21:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Like, could you make a movie?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  I don't know if you have this kind of more regular experience, not that there aren't amazing artists that come from totally regular lives, but I mean, most of them are also, I mean, a lot of them are freaks.

• 21:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes, and at least, you know, the byproduct of some weird perspective.

• 21:45David Sims?

  She goes to NYU Film School, starts making weird student films that are, she says, sort of like 1930s musicals, but, you know, with hippie vibes.

• 21:54Griffin Newman?

  She's doing postmodern riffs on the old Hollywood movies she loves.

• 21:58David Sims?

  And, um.

• 22:01Griffin Newman?

  Blazing Saddles was a big activator for her.

• 22:03David Sims?

  Meets Martin Brest, who I think we briefly mentioned this when we did his mini-series.

• 22:08Griffin Newman?

  There is a nice kind of chain of handholding between this series, the Lynch series, and the Martin Brest series, weirdly.

• 22:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 22:16Griffin Newman?

  They're all connected.

• 22:17David Sims?

  Right, because David Lynch was the original choice to direct this movie, or a choice to direct this movie, which is crazy to think about.

• 22:22Griffin Newman?

  But also Martin Brest and Amy Heckerling are like the cool kids who are on and off dating and become friends with Stuart Kornfeld, who is an AFI student, who later becomes Mel Brooks's producing partner, and hires Brooks to do Elephant Man, but he also kind of helps both of their careers, and he is Judge Reinhold's boss in this, at the pirate.

• 22:43David Sims?

  What an asshole. Oh, at the pirate thing. Well, what an asshole.

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  He's the one who tells him to keep the uniform on, but he's this quiet figure who passed away a couple of years ago, who kind of like links a lot of American 80s film.

• 22:53David Sims?

  So she follows Marty Brest to AFI, to LA.

• 22:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:57David Sims?

  They both go to LA, they break up, she really hates LA, she hates that she can't get around at all, she's like a New York City kid, she hates how it all works, she doesn't know how to drive, Martin Brest tried to teach her, and failed, apparently, eventually she figured it out.

• 23:12Griffin Newman?

  JJ relayed this to me as a note of solidarity and consolation, that Amy Heckerling failed her driver's test five times.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Do you have your license yet?

• 23:21Griffin Newman?

  No, of course not. What the fuck are you talking about?

• 23:23David Sims?

  Lola, can you drive?

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 23:24Griffin Newman?

  Of course she can.

• 23:26David Sims?

  So can I. Ben? Yeah, three drivers in the room.

• 23:30Griffin Newman?

  Ben's keeping his sunglasses on this episode because he said it matches the vibe.

• 23:33David Sims?

  Heck, early. Got a quote.

• 23:35Griffin Newman?

  He's also maybe still recovering from his.

• 23:36David Sims?

  I, uh, yeah, she hates LA. Um, so, uh, she finds AFI very elitist. She hates that it's a big mansion on the hill.

• 23:44Griffin Newman?

  Another thing to pin is interesting when we get around to Clueless.

• 23:47David Sims?

  No, 100%.

• 23:48Griffin Newman?

  Which is Clueless making a movie with compassion about the opposite of the person she is.

• 23:53David Sims?

  That's true.

• 23:54Griffin Newman?

  That she came to be like, they seem, it must be nice to have that view on life.

• 23:59David Sims?

  Uh, it has compassion, but also Clueless is a social satire.

• 24:03Griffin Newman?

  It's both. It's, yeah, okay. I mean, it's, this is the magic of what she's good at.

• 24:06David Sims?

  Um, so her thesis film, she makes a movie called Getting It Over With about a girl who just wants to lose her virginity before she turns 20. She struggles to finish it because it's fucking hard, especially back then to make your student movie. She gets in a car accident. Uh, that messes with her.

• 24:22Griffin Newman?

  One point for Griff for not driving.

• 24:23David Sims?

  She really does seem to hate cars. And, uh, the president of Universal sees her short, wants to work with her. She's like, I'm fucking sitting in my apartment in Hollywood. I got no money and no car. I don't know what to do. I've like, got to go to physical therapy because I was in this accident. Tom Mount from Universal calls and says like, get an agent because I want to work with you.

• 24:42Griffin Newman?

  This is also just, let's just say.

• 24:44David Sims?

  This is so unusual for like a female filmmaker in like the seventies, like the early eighties, whenever this is, you know?

• 24:49Griffin Newman?

  There's this argument that gets repeated a lot quietly that like, when the last 10 years, people are like, it's finally gotten good for female directors. And it's like, no, it's finally like getting back to kind of where it was in the eighties. It was better in the eighties than it was before that and after that for 30 years. Where like, it wasn't great. It was still disproportionate, but there were a lot more like young film, female filmmakers getting to make stuff within the studio system in the 1980s.

• 25:16David Sims?

  Um, she's trying to make this movie called My Kind of Guy. Uh, Warner Brothers is interested. She calls it a female version of carnal knowledge. They like the idea, but then like, whatever, there's an executive shift. The project dies. She shops it around. No one will approve it. Uh, there was only one woman making profitable movies in Hollywood and that was Barbra Streisand, is her quote. Um, it finally gets a home at MGM, but then an actor's strike kills the project. Uh, and she's like, you know, I don't know what to do.

• 25:45Griffin Newman?

  I think the one thing to call out here is this is basically the second wave of film school students.

• 25:52David Sims?

  Yes, sure. Like becoming more of a professionalized thing. You can go to film.

• 25:56Griffin Newman?

  There aren't that many of them. And if someone makes a good student film, the studios are actually just keenly paying attention to what's coming out of these places. Because they're looking for new directors. Like, the model has shifted from someone works their way up from being like a P A or an exec, you know, works their way up the ranks within the studio and learns on the job to, there are now film schools where people are coming out of a pipeline with a showreel and they can at least get into development meetings or whatever.

• 26:24David Sims?

  Um, all right, moving on to Cameron Crowe. We all know Cameron Crowe's story of teen sensation, becomes a Rolling Stone writer at like the age of fucking 15.

• 26:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we covered it.

• 26:32David Sims?

  You know, all this stuff.

• 26:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:33David Sims?

  Um, and he decides when he's turned 22, like no one knows about the kids. No one's like written a book about the kids, right? Everyone's trying to figure out what the kids like, but I'm gonna go and hang out with the kids. And so he goes to the school that he attended for like some summer session once, Ridger, Ridgemont Senior High in Redondo Beach. And walks in, tells the principal, I'm gonna attend classes as like an inconspicuous presence in this school for a year. The principal allows this to happen. I don't really get how that's possible. But then again, like, I don't know, like, I'm watching this movie with my wife who's a teacher. And when they're, you know, dissecting a cadaver in front of kids, she's like, this would never happen. And I'm like, maybe it did though.

• 27:15David Sims?

  Like, I don't like, I feel like back in the day, people, teachers would just kind of be like, eh, I'm gonna do this.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  I mean, where Griffin and I went to high school, they just hired a, a convict to teach the children and then he metooed all the kids.

• 27:27David Sims?

  My, I'm aware of that because my wife also went to the same school.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Oh, who's your wife?

• 27:32Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna bleep it out, but he's gonna say it.

• 27:33David Sims?

  I don't know if you know her.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  That name sounds really familiar.

• 27:36Griffin Newman?

  You definitely are. Yeah, but we'll bleep it out the time we said it. But yes, yes, David's keenly aware of how overly permissive our school was of everything.

• 27:44David Sims?

  Yeah, they kind of went a little too far in the old permissive.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Honestly, it would be a good, it would be a good show. It might be a little bit more euphoria.

• 27:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it's inevitable.

• 27:54David Sims?

  I think now it's become very euphoria.

• 27:56Griffin Newman?

  But like, oh, well, I feel like kids, I feel like euphoria, and I could be wrong, but euphoria, the kids like have sex and do drugs.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  I thought kids didn't do that anymore.

• 28:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:05David Sims?

  Well, now the kids, right, the kids are all incels who hate porn and, right, they just play video games.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 28:11David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 28:11Griffin Newman?

  Think movies with sex scenes should be arrested, that you should put handcuffs around the film reel.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  What?

• 28:17Griffin Newman?

  This is like a thing.

• 28:18David Sims?

  You know, who knows?

• 28:19Speaker 03

  There's film reels?

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, I took the joke into an abstract direction.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, okay, I liked it, I liked it.

• 28:25David Sims?

  So.

• 28:25Griffin Newman?

  There's this whole argument of like, are sex scenes unethical?

• 28:28David Sims?

  Fast.

• 28:28Griffin Newman?

  Because the characters aren't giving consent to be watched.

• 28:32David Sims?

  Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 28:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, the book is already like hot stuff and so the script is pretty much written immediately. Universal snaps up the option and they throw it right to David Lynch, right off of Elephant Man.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  A really interesting.

• 28:45David Sims?

  Crow meets with him.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  But like, look, when he takes the jump from Eraserhead to Elephant Man, people were like, I guess maybe he's just a guy who can do anything. And there were a lot of examples of like, someone starts out making weirdo abstract art films and then they just get conventional. Like George Lucas was kind of that narrative. So I think after Elephant Man was good, people were like, I don't know, maybe he can make any kind of movie.

• 29:08David Sims?

  Um.

• 29:08Griffin Newman?

  But he actually meets with them.

• 29:11David Sims?

  He meets with them and he says, this is a great story, it's really great, it's just not the kind of thing I do and good luck. And he apparently got into a white VW bug and drove away.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 29:18David Sims?

  Um, Art Lindson, who is a producer, um, is, has seen Heckling short and is like, this girl gets sex. Uh, and let's face it, this is a movie about sex and she really gets it. And so that's why they take it to her and they pick her. The book blows Heckling away. It had such reality to it, she says, you totally get into the kids' lives. Um, and she goes to Crow and she's like, you know, like, has tons of ideas. Crow says that she was like a European director, uh, who wanted to make like this raw movie and like, no, I guess no one else is probably coming to him with that.

• 29:53Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 29:53David Sims?

  Take, right? Everyone else is probably trying to sell them on a conventional teen movie. This movie is very unconventional.

• 29:59Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 30:00David Sims?

  Uh, it does have main characters and it does have a plot, sort of.

• 30:04Griffin Newman?

  Kind of, it has narrative threads, clean arcs and.

• 30:09David Sims?

  It's like half sketch, half narrative. Um, and it has sympathetic characters, but it also has very unsympathetic characters and it. Yeah, it just, you know, obviously, it just depicts life realistically, but then also has the most famous like whack-off fantasy sex scene in a teen movie ever.

• 30:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:28David Sims?

  Which is like a parody of it, but then it loops all the way back around to just being the fucking whack-off teen fantasy sex scene.

• 30:35Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm saying, though. It's like this movie defies logic in how much it is all of these things simultaneously.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  Wait, which is the fantasy sex scene?

• 30:40David Sims?

  The Phoebe Kate scene, like where it's like, you know, that is clearly-

• 30:43Speaker 03

  I call that just getting out the pool.

• 30:44David Sims?

  Right, but like, that is like a parody of dumb teen 80s movies.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Got it, got it.

• 30:49David Sims?

  Doing like, okay, now we'll have a scene with tits, because like, that's required of these movies.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  I did re-watch it on the airplane last night in the middle seat, and I gotta say, there, I felt really grown up because, well, I was just like-

• 31:01Griffin Newman?

  The pilot came back to look over your shoulder.

• 31:02David Sims?

  Whoa, dude!

• 31:03Speaker 03

  But I thought people would be like, you know, maybe offended, and then I thought, I don't care. And that made me feel really happy.

• 31:10David Sims?

  It's brass, hey?

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Finally. Yeah, it's boobs. And what are they watching? Everyone was watching the exact same thing last night, which was the Bills game.

• 31:16Griffin Newman?

  It is crazy to me to think-

• 31:17David Sims?

  Sure, talk about pornography, depraved, oh, come on!

• 31:21Griffin Newman?

  No, to think that like, you used to go on a plane, and the pilot would be like, "Our movie today is Home Alone 2."

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:26Griffin Newman?

  Like, everyone would find out in real time what the movie was gonna be, and you'd go like, "Ah!" And then there's just everyone looking at communal screens, the same movie that has been edited down for planes. And now you go to a plane, and people are just watching fucking whatever they want.

• 31:39David Sims?

  They're just fucking throwing on a Serbian film.

• 31:41Griffin Newman?

  Right, but that's the thing. You'll like, sit there, and someone be sitting next to a kid, and they'll be watching fucking Terrifier 3 or whatever.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I watched Nowhere on the airplane once, and that felt wrong.

• 31:51Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  But I only watched it on the airplane because I'd always wanted to see it, and the girl sitting next to me was watching it, and she ripped it.

• 31:57David Sims?

  You watched the Gregor Rocky movie, Nowhere?

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:59David Sims?

  Was that like, available on the plane?

• 32:01Speaker 03

  No, no, no, I had a laptop, and the girl next to me had her laptop, and I always wanted to see it.

• 32:06David Sims?

  It was like, "Today on Delta, we have a Gregor Rocky, uh, series, if you want to check out that package."

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and next time, we'll be doing kids on the return flight. Yeah, yeah.

• 32:19Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 32:19David Sims?

  Yes.

• 32:20Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 32:23David Sims?

  Is that the C S cow?

• 32:24Griffin Newman?

  The C S cow is back.

• 32:25David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 32:27Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:32David Sims?

  Okay.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:37David Sims?

  Wow.

• 32:38Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 32:40David Sims?

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

• 32:46Griffin 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.

• 32:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 33:00David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:06David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 33:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:10David Sims?

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

• 33:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:14David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 33:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:16David Sims?

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

• 33:21Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 33:22David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap.

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  But Zach Cherry. Performances, friend of the show.

• 33:25David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 33:27Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 33:28David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 33:29Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 33:30David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. Won the Queer Palmakan. 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.

• 33:40Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:54David Sims?

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

• 33:58Griffin Newman?

  What happens? 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.

• 34:10David Sims?

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

• 34:23Griffin Newman?

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

• 34:33Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 34:33David Sims?

  Yes?

• 34:34Griffin 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.

• 34:55David 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.

• 35:14Griffin 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.

• 35:30David 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.

• 36:05Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 36:06David Sims?

  Yes?

• 36:06Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 36:07David Sims?

  Uh-oh.

• 36:08Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 36:09David Sims?

  Ah!

• 36:10Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:13David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 36:14Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 36:16David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 36:17Griffin 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.

• 36:26David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 36:27Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 36:28David Sims?

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

• 36:31Griffin 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.

• 36:45David 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.

• 36:51Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 36:52David Sims?

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

• 37:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:08David Sims?

  Thank you for that.

• 37:09Griffin 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.

• 37:21David Sims?

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

• 37:25Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 37:26David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with the 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 protection and zinc carnosine for gut support.

• 37:44Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 37:45David Sims?

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

• 37:48Griffin 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.

• 37:57David Sims?

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

• 38:27David Sims?

  Uh, she goes with Crow. They pick through the books like, okay, what's all our favorite stuff in here? She's like, the mall is the narrative center of this book. So it will be the narrative center. It's like the, the.

• 38:36Griffin Newman?

  Let's amp it up even more. That's the sort of.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  I do understand the exoticism of a mall as a New Yorker.

• 38:41David Sims?

  Me too.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  I now live in Tennessee and I love the mall.

• 38:45David Sims?

  But aren't malls kind of dying a little bit as online, right? They're not quite the social hubs that they used to be, I feel.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Not New Jersey. As a New Jersey resident.

• 38:54David Sims?

  They're like historical art of buildings.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  They're just, yeah, exactly. They're required. They're truly so in my DNA. That like was where everyone would hang out on the weekends, after school. I would just hang out at the mall.

• 39:08Griffin Newman?

  But I, I have that same thing where once I was out of high school and I traveled anywhere and I still have this instinct. I'm like, where's the mall? I should go to the mall. You know, like, I wanna, I will understand the place I'm in right now if I go to the mall.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Have you been to the Mall of America?

• 39:24Griffin Newman?

  I haven't.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Oh, my god, they've roller coasters.

• 39:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, I've been to the American Dream Mall.

• 39:29David Sims?

  That's in Jersey.

• 39:30Griffin Newman?

  In New Jersey, which also has roller coasters and is a nightmare.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  I've seen that recently.

• 39:34Griffin Newman?

  This is a new mall that opened during the pandemic.

• 39:36David Sims?

  Do you go to the mall a lot in Nashville?

• 39:38Speaker 03

  I do go to the mall, because that's where, like, the nice stores are.

• 39:40David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  And I only buy nice things.

• 39:42Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 39:45David Sims?

  Because the appeal of the mall is, like, I get it so, like, maybe malls need to make a comeback, because it is like, I don't know what to do with myself. The mall will show me what I want. Do I just want to go eat some pizza and window shop? Fine.

• 39:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like the ultimate.

• 39:59David Sims?

  Do I want to go, like, yeah, like.

• 40:01Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate third place, because what if the third place is a million places?

• 40:04David Sims?

  Yeah, want a sample of chikin teriyaki? Yum, yum, yum.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  But I also just feel like, and I'm sure it was like this in the 80s too, but like, now, it's so much more obvious how much, like, crap you can buy, like, even, like.

• 40:19David Sims?

  It's all laid out for you there.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  And it just, like, I feel gross at the mall after a certain amount of time, because it's just like, obviously, this was made by someone that shouldn't be making clothing, and, you know? Like, there's a, there's a kind of, we've peaked behind, yeah, the purity of the mall.

• 40:35David Sims?

  Capitalism of it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Has been replaced by my knowledge of capitalism.

• 40:38Griffin Newman?

  Arguably, another thing too, which is just like, we're being sold shit all the time, everywhere.

• 40:43David Sims?

  Yeah, so it's less of an escape or whatever.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  Right, the escape of just like, I'm going to a mall and considering buying stuff for the first time.

• 40:49David Sims?

  I like the idea of like.

• 40:50Griffin Newman?

  Versus like, every social media feed is like, cramming stuff down your throat.

• 40:54David Sims?

  I grew up in London, and, you know, I would, like, I'd, and I would do the same shit with my friends, which was like, I would go to the record store, your Virgin Megastore, or HMV, or whatever, right?

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Loved the Virgin Megastore.

• 41:06Griffin Newman?

  We don't want to save that to the soundboard. Go on, David.

• 41:07David Sims?

  Um, right, and then we would go see a movie. It's just like, we just didn't get to all do it in one big building. Like, we were doing the same shit.

• 41:14Griffin Newman?

  I feel like for us, that was Union Square, right, where it was not a mall, but you had the Virgin Megastore, you had the Regal Theater, like, there were, like.

• 41:21Speaker 03

  You had the places you'd shoplift from.

• 41:23Griffin Newman?

  Max Brenner, Chocolate by the Baldwin.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  Oh, my god, what about Cozy? Cozy in Sando? Is that how you pronounce it?

• 41:29David Sims?

  Ollies? Would you go to Ollies?

• 41:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:32David Sims?

  Cause I would go to Ollie's. Well, you know what, whatever.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  We were cool. Forbidden Planet, Forbidden Planet.

• 41:37Griffin Newman?

  Forbidden Planet, of course.

• 41:38David Sims?

  Oh, you're talking Union Square, not Lincoln Square, sorry. So, all right, casting. Sean Penn had only been in one movie, Taps, but says he felt like this was his role. Like, he was already, like, sort of brimming with arrogance.

• 41:51Griffin Newman?

  His father's like a top TV director, did a bunch of Star Trek and stuff, Leo Penn.

• 41:56David Sims?

  And?

• 41:56Griffin Newman?

  And, yes, he was like, already at this age, had the reputation for like, that Penn kid is serious.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  And then I was reading on IMDb trivia, and they keep saying that until it sounds like a reputable news source, about like, how seriously he took this comedic role. And I was just thinking, like, whenever I've worked with actors who do that now, well, A, they don't, but B, if they did, I'm thinking of one person who was just like so serious all the time, and I felt like they were a loser.

• 42:29Griffin Newman?

  You want to strangle them and also, usually you watch the final product.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Well, they're a prick.

• 42:35Griffin Newman?

  They're a prick.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  They're a prick, and he was probably a prick, but it's so good.

• 42:38David Sims?

  It's perfect for this.

• 42:39Griffin Newman?

  But it's also like, he's being serious about playing a fun guy?

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, I'm like, he might have been less of a prick on this movie than on every other movie? There's a possibility that him taking Spicoli seriously made him easier to work with?

• 42:53David Sims?

  Did he go method, you think?

• 42:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he did.

• 42:56David Sims?

  So he got stoned?

• 42:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:57David Sims?

  Hell yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  I mean, his eyes, I was, how you could not, the eye, I was like, someone either is the best makeup artist of all time and figured out how to do that.

• 43:05David Sims?

  The eyes and just his general, like, redness, like, there's just something very, very real about it.

• 43:11Griffin Newman?

  He notoriously was like, I will treat this as if I am playing Hamlet.

• 43:15David Sims?

  You can't call me Sean, I'm only Jeff, I'm only Spicoli.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  None of the actors like interacted with him.

• 43:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  This seems like a nicer guy to interact with, but to your point, usually, that's annoying because it's people doing that to play tortured people, right?

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  Or B, if you're taking something that could be this silly, that seriously, you're just kind of like, dude, you're sucking the fun out of it. You watch the final product and you're like, this is too overthought?

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Well, you're not understanding the assignment, and this is something I feel as an actress all the time.

• 43:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Like, I overburden the script with my idea of what good acting is.

• 43:49Griffin Newman?

  Very well said.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  And I'm like, oh my god, it was a scene where I was supposed to eat like pasta and a normal person would do that with a knife and fork, but not I. I use spoons.

• 43:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is the movie brain thing of both of us being like obsessive movie dorks is you like read the script and you go like, oh, this is that type of scene. Like rather than trying to do the math on like what serves the character.

• 44:10David Sims?

  Right, what would this person be doing?

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Or what serves the story.

• 44:13Griffin Newman?

  Right, you're like, what are my favorite pasta scenes in movies and how do I make this my version of that or whatever?

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:18Griffin Newman?

  Like he is so serving the film.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:21Griffin Newman?

  It is one of the best comedic performances of all time. There are also so many cases of things like this where it's like a serious actor who has an early like quote unquote silly performance and they're really embarrassed by it. And he's like, no, that's like amongst the best work I've ever done. I take it really seriously. He will do every retrospective interview.

• 44:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 44:40Griffin Newman?

  Like he just like values this so much. It's just so funny to be like, oh, the pen kid. He's like fucking method. He's the new Brando. He does one movie, then he does this. It like turns him into this surprise kind of like teen like movie star for a moment in like a very different vein and he doesn't distance himself from it and yet then goes back to doing his other shit and becomes like that guy times a billion.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:05David Sims?

  I mean.

• 45:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:06David Sims?

  He did We're No Angels. He's made very few comedies.

• 45:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 45:10David Sims?

  And usually when he makes a comedy quote unquote, it's kind of like a crime comedy or whatever. Like it's got like a edge to it.

• 45:15Griffin Newman?

  But I also feel like the times that I-

• 45:17David Sims?

  Twenty One Grams is a comedy, right?

• 45:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's very fun. No, he's been, he's done funny things, if you ask me, in the last 15 or 20 years and almost all of them are self parody of making fun of how serious he is.

• 45:28David Sims?

  But his, my favorite Sean Penn performance all time is Milk, which is a drama but is like such a like life, like, you know, filled with life, so humorous, like he's so very-

• 45:39Griffin Newman?

  It's the same thing as Spicoli where you're like, there is like a beauty to the purity of this character and the optimism of that.

• 45:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  Where you're surprised that he's able to conjure that for a guy who's so like-

• 45:50David Sims?

  Gangster Squad.

• 45:51Griffin Newman?

  But then like, right, he'll show up on like, not Curb Your Enthusiasm.

• 45:55David Sims?

  He's so funny in Licorice Pizza, playing a guy who takes himself too seriously.

• 45:59Griffin Newman?

  And even like, he's like funny in Walter Mitty. Like, there'll be these things where it feels like he's riffing on Sean Penn is humorless.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:07Griffin Newman?

  And he does it well.

• 46:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 46:08Griffin Newman?

  But the bizarre thing is to see him nail this.

• 46:11David Sims?

  Mystic River, that's a comedy?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  I thought it was hilarious.

• 46:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Okay, wait, I have to pee.

• 46:15Griffin Newman?

  Do it.

• 46:16David Sims?

  Go ahead. I'll keep, I'm gonna keep doing context while you pee. Judge Reinhold is the only person they like who reads for the role.

• 46:24Griffin Newman?

  Your honor.

• 46:24David Sims?

  My favorite performance in the movie, kind of, in a weird sort of a way.

• 46:27Griffin Newman?

  He's wonderful.

• 46:28David Sims?

  And, or also a performance that reveals more to me as you re-watch this movie. I've seen it, this movie, many, many, many times.

• 46:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean, we'll talk about it at the moment in the parking lot.

• 46:37David Sims?

  Because it's deceptively subtle, exactly.

• 46:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But to Lola's point, Nicolas Cage read for that part originally. They liked him. They found out he was underage, would not be able to shoot adult hours.

• 46:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 46:47Griffin Newman?

  So they throw him the Brad's Bud part, just as a like, hey kid, we'll like, give you a credit and help you get your SAG card.

• 46:54David Sims?

  Can I tell you what Art Lindson said about Judge Reinhold? As they are obviously wrestling with like, right, do we cast this underage actor? And apparently, they like Reinhold, and Art Lindson says, "Look at this guy, he's as old as Ed Astor."

• 47:08David Sims?

  Just think that's a great insult. And so they cast everyone in the senior class.

• 47:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:12David Sims?

  Is basically played by a 25-year-old, which is, my wife remarked on it immediately. She was like, it's like all the teen movies where like, and I'm like, it's kind of starting, you know, like,

• 47:21Griffin Newman?

  Judge also-

• 47:21David Sims?

  It's this sort of unavoidable. But yes, and also, he just reads old Geno.

• 47:24Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I think you could pull him out of class at 17, and he still would have read old. I think he's just got a bit of an old man energy.

• 47:31David Sims?

  He's got the gawkiness, he's so tall that he-

• 47:33Griffin Newman?

  But the deep voice and the-

• 47:35David Sims?

  Yeah, he's such a sweetie pie.

• 47:37Griffin Newman?

  I love it. But I think, to your point, in this movie, it feels, um- It feels deliberate and appropriately applied that it's kind of speaking to an ecstatic truth of when you are 15 or 16, how old an 18-year-old feels, right? Like, the gulf between him and Jennifer Jason-Leigh, and I know Jennifer Jason-Leigh is also not a teenager in this movie.

• 47:58David Sims?

  Oh, she is. She's like 19.

• 48:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 48:00David Sims?

  She's like 19 or 20. She's... Everyone's a few years older than they're playing.

• 48:04Griffin Newman?

  The six years between them in real life feels reflective of how big the two years between those characters feels when you're a teenager.

• 48:13David Sims?

  It works for that very reason.

• 48:13Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 48:14David Sims?

  I don't know if you agree, Ben.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  It's so authentically capturing what it's like to be

• 48:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  that age and be that and that time in your life that I think you just settle in. And I'm not, I'm not so distracted

• 48:29David Sims?

  No, not at all.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  by that fact.

• 48:30David Sims?

  No, no, no.

• 48:31Speaker 02

  You're just locked.

• 48:32David Sims?

  I don't find it remotely distracting, but I'm also watching actors I know as older actors.

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's that part.

• 48:37David Sims?

  So I'm like, "Look at Jennifer Jason-Leigh's, like, little puppy fat cheeks, and like, 'Look at baby Sean Penn, look at baby Judge...'" You know, like, I'm like, "I know what these guys grow up to be."

• 48:46Griffin Newman?

  It is wild to watch a movie like this where so many people in it continue to be relevant today, where you're like,

• 48:52David Sims?

  Yes.

• 48:53Griffin Newman?

  you have, like, many, many people where the careers are really long and important. And then you read the list of, like, so many of the other people who read for parts or were close to parts, and it's one of those things where you're like, "There's an entire alternate cast of this movie that would have been good, that aren't like Eric Stoltz in Back to the Future, like, 'Thank God, we missed that.'" Eric Stoltz, of course, also in this.

• 49:14David Sims?

  He is. Matthew Broderick, Ralph Macchio, Scott Baio, Ali Sheedy are people who read and who came close or whatever. Jennifer Jason-Leigh, obviously, it's her big breakthrough. Phoebe Cates, Art Lindson found in a juice bar because she was just so gorgeous.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm. Jodie Foster was, the studio wanted her for the Jennifer Jason-Leigh part.

• 49:33David Sims?

  Well, she's a young actor.

• 49:33Griffin Newman?

  Makes perfect sense. Justin Bateman was offered the Phoebe Cates part and did Family Ties instead.

• 49:38David Sims?

  Well, that worked out for the fun.

• 49:40Griffin Newman?

  It worked out for everybody.

• 49:41David Sims?

  And now she's a normal poster.

• 49:41Griffin Newman?

  Tom Hanks turned down for Brad.

• 49:43David Sims?

  Yeah, Tom Hanks makes total sense for Brad. Yes. But, uh, I'm happy we got the judge.

• 49:48Griffin Newman?

  Me too.

• 49:49David Sims?

  Um, movie's made for five and a half million dollars, uh, shot in thirty five days. Sherman Oaks Galleria is the mall they use. Uh, Van Nuys High School, which I feel like is a high school that gets used all the time is the high school.

• 50:02Griffin Newman?

  The main two producers on this are, uh, Art Linsens, we said, and then, uh, what's his name? Irving Azoff, who is a big music producer as well.

• 50:11David Sims?

  Right, and he's, uh, putting the soundtrack together. Right.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  Which is incredible.

• 50:15Griffin Newman?

  So there's basically this balance of like, they got this heavyweight who's able to negotiate to get some of the songs they want. But also he's like, I represent Stevie Nicks, you gotta put a Stevie Nicks song in there.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  What is that song?

• 50:26Griffin Newman?

  Sleeping Angel, which is incredible.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have never heard it.

• 50:30Griffin Newman?

  I, I mean, I know it from the Fast Times.

• 50:32David Sims?

  The Eagles had just broken up and he kept trying to get every like solo Eagles project that was starting up as well. Like he'd be like, you gotta do this and this and this.

• 50:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 50:41David Sims?

  And Hackerling is fighting for like, I want edgy new music. I want Fear, I want the Go-Go's, I want the Talking Heads, I want, uh, Oingo Boingo, the Dead Kennedys. Like she's fighting for that and they're just, the soundtrack is a compromise.

• 50:53Griffin Newman?

  But I think it's a great balance.

• 50:55David Sims?

  Oh, I agree.

• 50:55Griffin Newman?

  Working and it, yeah, there's a weird thing of like it having these leftover seventy songs that you're like, they would still be circulating. It's that thing people talk about with period films, like if you're making a movie in nineteen eighty, the art director should look at things from nineteen seventy five. Cause it feels wrong if everyone has the newest clothes, the newest furniture, the newest cars.

• 51:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 51:15Griffin Newman?

  And so there's that sense of like, these songs would still be on the radio. And also Amy Heckerling was clearly like finding things that were right on the edge of breaking through.

• 51:23David Sims?

  It's perfect because when you're a teenager, you do listen to like old.

• 51:28Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 51:28David Sims?

  You know, the exact radio music as well as new shit.

• 51:30Griffin Newman?

  It's a perfect soundtrack.

• 51:31David Sims?

  They test screen it in Orange County and famously get terrible, uh, results, probably because Orange County's more conservative and.

• 51:38Griffin Newman?

  That's, that was Art Linsens.

• 51:39David Sims?

  The studio gets spooked.

• 51:40Griffin Newman?

  And Art Linsens was like, this is not our audience. We made a movie that, that has sex and drugs in an honest way, and this is, these are not our people.

• 51:48David Sims?

  They have to cut Robert Romanus's penis out of the movie because they got an X rating.

• 51:52Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 51:52David Sims?

  When they cut it out, they go back to an R rating. Now my Blu-ray lovingly includes his penis.

• 51:56Griffin Newman?

  The Criterion Collection version.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  Is it a flaccid penis?

• 51:59David Sims?

  It's a flaccid penis. It's just when they're undressing, it is, in my opinion, crucial to the scene because the idea of they're both equally vulnerable in that moment.

• 52:07Griffin Newman?

  And the scene's timed a little differently.

• 52:09David Sims?

  It's just slightly longer.

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  Right, it's a little more awkward. I mean, she gets, look. The abridged version of it has its own comedic power. Cause it becomes so ridiculously fast. But yes, it is like quietly restored on the Criterion version. I feel like there wasn't even a lot of noise made about it at the time. But it was the first time you can now see her version of that.

• 52:32David Sims?

  And someone within, oh, but it's a bit, sorry. Did you want to say?

• 52:35Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, I mean, not even a one minute man. No.

• 52:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 52:40Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 52:40David Sims?

  No.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  But that's, it's so perfect. It's so perfect. Like, of course.

• 52:44Griffin Newman?

  We'll get to it, but it's just like, yeah, yeah. The arc of that character is unbelievable.

• 52:49David Sims?

  Someone internally at Universal writes a memo to Nidtane and Sid Shimer, who run the studio. And say, if you release this film, like the future of the studio is in doubt.

• 52:58Griffin Newman?

  People were talking about it as if it was kids.

• 53:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 53:01Griffin Newman?

  As if like, this is a movie with like, you know, like unsimulated sex and like intravenous drugs. Like the, the level of outrage within the studio is insane.

• 53:12David Sims?

  So they kind of release it quietly, then are flabbergasted that, uh, kids are really excited by the movie and want to see it. It does okay.

• 53:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:21David Sims?

  But they basically could never kind of catch up to the demand. And then it becomes a early VHS super smash.

• 53:27Griffin Newman?

  It was a weird scramble.

• 53:27David Sims?

  And famously, when you rent the VHS, the Phoebe Kate scene is completely degraded.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  Oh my God.

• 53:33David Sims?

  Hundred percent.

• 53:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Griffin Newman?

  Which then makes it mythical of like, I have a cousin who saw it in theaters. Yeah.

• 53:40David Sims?

  But, but it is an early example of a movie that owes so much of its life to video.

• 53:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:47David Sims?

  Uh, cause it was sort of the early days of video.

• 53:48Griffin Newman?

  And it's also a little.

• 53:49David Sims?

  And obviously it's a teen thing.

• 53:50Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, it's a little early in the eighties teen movie trend, you know? I mean, it's not like the one that kickstarts everything, but it does feel like.

• 53:58Speaker 03

  Which one did kickstart everything?

• 54:01Griffin Newman?

  Let's do a timeline on this.

• 54:03David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 54:03Griffin Newman?

  No, cause the first Hughes is eighty-four. Is that right?

• 54:06David Sims?

  Oh, no, no. Okay, okay. Well, first, we, you have to go back to like Last Picture Show in American Graffiti, which are these early seventies new Hollywood movies, but they're about teens.

• 54:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:15David Sims?

  Now they're, they're, uh, they're set in the fifties, right? They're nostalgic, but they're a little realer.

• 54:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:21David Sims?

  And so like, I feel like, I mean, and if you go even back even further to like the Blackboard Jungle or whatever, like there's even, you know, there's like early like.

• 54:27Griffin Newman?

  But those movies are real, but also kind of wistful, right? And have this sense of being a little more elevated because they are.

• 54:34David Sims?

  Then in seventy eight, you have Animal House.

• 54:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:37David Sims?

  Which I feel like that is the, the, to me, original R-rated movie for teens.

• 54:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:44David Sims?

  Right? Like where it's like, it's kind of contradictory and it was like, why would you make like a grown up movie essentially? That's about stupid idiot teenagers getting naked and swearing and like getting in fights or whatever, right?

• 54:54Griffin Newman?

  But it's also college sex.

• 54:56David Sims?

  It's college, so it's a little more grown up.

• 54:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 54:59David Sims?

  Um, but still, it's like, it's not like that movie is for, you know, sweater wearing forty year olds, right? Like, I mean.

• 55:03Griffin Newman?

  No, in fact, that movie flips off the sweater wearing forty year olds.

• 55:07David Sims?

  And so then I guess it's like Rock and Roll High School is an early one, right? And like, I'm trying to think of other like, uh, like early, I mean, this is really one of the first ones to me.

• 55:18Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing. I think this movie is a turning point.

• 55:21David Sims?

  Two as well.

• 55:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:22David Sims?

  And Porky's kinda is porn.

• 55:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 55:25David Sims?

  Like Porky's is like softcore porn.

• 55:27Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 55:27David Sims?

  Like, I'm not saying that judgmentally. It's just like Porky's is a little bit more like, let's do some plots so we can get to like more sex jokes and nudity and stuff.

• 55:34Griffin Newman?

  I put forward the notion that Porky's and Fast Time basically creates the two lanes that these movies go on for the next decade, right? Where it's like Fast Time's more directly leads to like Hughes and Martha Coolidge. And then Porky's leads to just like fucking Screwballs and Hot Dog, the movie, all the fucking movies where like dudes are fucking things and jerking off.

• 55:54David Sims?

  Have you seen Porky's?

• 55:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 55:56David Sims?

  Do you know what Porky's is?

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Yes. I mean, I know the poster.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:59David Sims?

  Of course. Um, there's a character named Booger.

• 56:02Griffin Newman?

  No, you're thinking Revenge of the Nerds.

• 56:03David Sims?

  That's Revenge of the Nerds, which is kind of sanitized Hollywood Porky's, right?

• 56:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:07David Sims?

  I would say. And Revenge of the Nerds has essentially like a rape subplot in it that it doesn't recognize as a rape.

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 56:13David Sims?

  It's like, it's like, huh, this is funny.

• 56:15Griffin Newman?

  It, it treats us sort of a like, uh, snobs versus slobs victory.

• 56:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 56:19Griffin Newman?

  That like the nerds got one over on the uptight cool girls.

• 56:23David Sims?

  Right. Which is an example of like how dysfunctional these movies are.

• 56:27Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 56:28David Sims?

  Uh, which this one is not.

• 56:29Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is what I'm saying is that there becomes this split into like the movies that are just like hormonally like fucking tits and hijinks, right?

• 56:37David Sims?

  Like Losing It and, uh, Private School. And I'm trying to, you know, like all those sex comedies of the mid eighties.

• 56:44Griffin Newman?

  And then there's the sort of like inner life of the teen movie made compassionately, kind of like.

• 56:49David Sims?

  John Hughes movies.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Valley Girl and stuff like that, you know, even in a sillier version or whatever. And that this is the one that's like kind of both.

• 56:57David Sims?

  But it's also neither.

• 56:58Griffin Newman?

  In a much more intelligent way, but as you said, it's also neither.

• 57:02David Sims?

  Like, this movie is also one of the very few that's directed by a woman.

• 57:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 57:06David Sims?

  Of any of the movies we're talking about, and it's just the way it depicts sex to me is all because a woman is directing it.

• 57:12Griffin Newman?

  I agree. They, during, during the pandemic, Museum of Moving Image, along with the, like, Queen Science Center, did this whole summer series of drive-in double features that we went to a couple of. We went to Robocop and Escape from the Uork.

• 57:27David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:28Griffin Newman?

  I, I mean-

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Did you take a taxi, Griffin?

• 57:30Griffin Newman?

  I would make people drive me, such as-

• 57:32David Sims?

  I drove.

• 57:33Griffin Newman?

  My friend Ben.

• 57:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 57:34Griffin Newman?

  Um, but I kept on, anytime I saw a good one on the schedule, and I was so scared of doing anything during the pandemic, I'd like text everyone I knew with a car and be like, hey, you wanna do this on Tuesday?

• 57:42David Sims?

  Griffin wouldn't let me hotbox, though, which was so annoying.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  What a fucking nark.

• 57:47David Sims?

  Did he at least make out with you?

• 57:48Griffin Newman?

  Of course I made out. I'm a gentleman.

• 57:50David Sims?

  Yeah, he put, he put out.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:52David Sims?

  You bought the popcorn and Griffin put out.

• 57:53Griffin Newman?

  Over the shirt, stuff. Over the shirt, over the shirt. Um, they did a Fast Times, Dazed and Confused double feature that I went to with our old friends Ramona and Eloise Head.

• 58:03Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 58:04Griffin Newman?

  And Ramona just turns to me like an hour into Fast Times and is like, how did this get made?

• 58:10David Sims?

  Yeah, well, it's a little bit-

• 58:11Griffin Newman?

  Not to quote Paul Scheer, and I was like, it's directed by a woman, and she's like, oh, okay. But was just so confounded by like, this is from 1982 and it's treating this stuff this way? Why does this feel different than every other teen movie I've seen? And I was like, that is the key difference.

• 58:29David Sims?

  Um-

• 58:29Speaker 03

  Something I feel like it really nails is how grown up kids are.

• 58:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 58:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  Like, that's something-

• 58:38David Sims?

  And yet aren't.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  And yet aren't, but how grown up they like seem like they are. Like, I love how untimid Jennifer Jason Leigh is, or her character is about sex. And whether that's because she's compensating for a real- Timidity that she does have.

• 58:53David Sims?

  It's a little bit that, but then she does actually right have a sexual boldness to her.

• 58:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:57David Sims?

  That she doesn't quite know how to express, I guess.

• 59:00Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing that hit me on this watch that I don't think I picked up on before. Does this movie not show a single parent?

• 59:07David Sims?

  Uh, it doesn't show any parents.

• 59:10Griffin Newman?

  But like, that's to your point.

• 59:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 59:12Griffin Newman?

  That it like, it is just about treating them as autonomous individuals.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:17Griffin Newman?

  They are not defined by their relationship with their parents, which I feel like is such a big part of all these other movies. And even Breakfast Club, that only has the parents at the beginning, is so much of them talking about their parents.

• 59:27David Sims?

  Well, but Breakfast Club is also them very loudly talking about their social class.

• 59:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:31David Sims?

  Whereas in this movie, all of that is you there for you if you want to think about it. Uh, especially how Demone is clearly so much poorer than most of the characters in this movie. But you don't really think about it until the end of the movie.

• 59:43Griffin Newman?

  And the movie also doesn't really create like a social strata within the school of like the, the hierarchy of the cliques.

• 59:51David Sims?

  Because that stuff is still not happening.

• 59:53Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 59:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 59:54Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's sort of coexisting, you have different types.

• 59:56David Sims?

  Cause that's what Everybody Wants Some is also about to me is it's like, it's like throwing back to a less cliquy times, college, obviously. But right where you're like, stoners, jocks, who cares? Let's all just like hang out, man, and sing songs and get stoned.

• 1:00:09Griffin Newman?

  But this is the start of like.

• 1:00:11David Sims?

  Utopian is that?

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Subculture, culture taking over.

• 1:00:14David Sims?

  But everyone wants to go see fucking Van Halen.

• 1:00:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:17David Sims?

  Or whatever, like whoever's playing at the, you know.

• 1:00:20Griffin Newman?

  Blue Oyster Cult.

• 1:00:21David Sims?

  Man, where were you two weeks ago? He had all the Blue Oyster Cult tickets then. Do you just like wait for them to do Don't Fear the Reaper or then you're like, all right, I'm out.

• 1:00:30Griffin Newman?

  All right, thanks so much.

• 1:00:31David Sims?

  Hopefully they start with that.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  Yep. We need to shout out too, just because we didn't include it, Grease.

• 1:00:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Feels like another.

• 1:00:37David Sims?

  It's a good point.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Teen movie.

• 1:00:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  That came before.

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  The musical is much raunchier.

• 1:00:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:44David Sims?

  And then the, the movie version is a little, sands it down a little bit to make it more.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  But another movie that is nostalgic for an earlier time.

• 1:00:52David Sims?

  Another, right, 20 years ago.

• 1:00:54Griffin Newman?

  That was the bridge though, I do think, cause also Animal House is a period piece.

• 1:00:58David Sims?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:00:58Griffin Newman?

  People forget that, but like all of these were kind of.

• 1:01:01David Sims?

  They all feel like they're period pieces now, yeah.

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  But all of them were getting in through the system because it was like slightly older filmmakers making films about their childhoods with a distance that was more sellable to middle aged audience members.

• 1:01:17Griffin Newman?

  You know, rather than being like, we are just making movies for teenagers, which I think was seen as like a limiting audience, like as a business model at that time. And then in the eighties, they're like, oh, fuck, teenagers have money. They go to malls. We gotta make more movies for them.

• 1:01:31David Sims?

  So we've got Jennifer Jason Leigh is a, is a sort of major character. I'm trying to think of like, how you organize this film.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  I feel like she is the ostensible lead.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  She's the main part.

• 1:01:42David Sims?

  She's probably the biggest lead character. And then you've got.

• 1:01:44Griffin Newman?

  Do you have performances on your Oscar bracket for this movie?

• 1:01:48David Sims?

  Oh, let me.

• 1:01:48Griffin Newman?

  Cause I was doing the math on this. David has a spreadsheet of who he would nominate in every category every year for decades.

• 1:01:53David Sims?

  That was cool. You shouldn't be telling her that shit.

• 1:01:54Griffin Newman?

  That's why I have to tell her, David.

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  I, I, I like this game, though.

• 1:01:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  I'm not that cool.

• 1:01:59David Sims?

  Uh, so Jennifer Jason Leigh is my winner for best actress.

• 1:02:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  Um, and then I have Sean Penn.

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  Supporting.

• 1:02:07David Sims?

  Uh, nominated as supporting and judge. Uh, and that's it. I don't have any, I mean, that's, but that's plenty.

• 1:02:13Griffin Newman?

  Who's she beaten for actress in your 82?

• 1:02:15David Sims?

  Oh, Sean Young for Blade Runner, uh, Mary Warrenov for Eating Rowl, a very underrated movie. Dee Wallace for E.T. and Joe Beth Williams for Paltricues. I think it's kind of like a weird year for actresses.

• 1:02:25Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:02:26David Sims?

  Um, yeah, but I might be kind of.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Did Meryl Streep not make a movie that year?

• 1:02:30David Sims?

  I think she did.

• 1:02:31Griffin Newman?

  E2.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  What was it? Silkwood?

• 1:02:33Griffin Newman?

  Like French Lieutenant's Woman?

• 1:02:35David Sims?

  That's a great movie. Uh, or that's a good movie. Let me look up the Oscars for that year.

• 1:02:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40David Sims?

  So the Oscars.

• 1:02:41Griffin Newman?

  You have zero overlap.

• 1:02:42David Sims?

  Definitely. Cause the Oscars for that year is the Gandhi E.T. Oscars.

• 1:02:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46David Sims?

  Right? Um, and so, oh, right. Sophie's Choice. Meryl Streep wins for Sophie's Choice that year.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  She did. Okay.

• 1:02:52Griffin Newman?

  Not only did Meryl Streep make a movie that year, she made the Meryl Streep movie.

• 1:02:56David Sims?

  I've never seen Sophie's Choice.

• 1:02:57Griffin Newman?

  Me neither.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  Nor I.

• 1:02:58David Sims?

  Um.

• 1:02:59Griffin Newman?

  We've all chosen the other, the other option to not watch it.

• 1:03:02David Sims?

  These movies, I've never seen Missing, the Costa Grav- Gravest movie, uh, which is Sissy Spacek.

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08David Sims?

  I've never seen Francis, where Jessica Lange plays Francis Farmer. I bet it's good.

• 1:03:12Griffin Newman?

  What is kind of hard to see now? Is that right?

• 1:03:15David Sims?

  I think a lot of these movies end up in weird rights zones or whatever. I've never seen An Officer and a Gentleman in Full. I've seen that like half on TV or whatever, Deborah Winger.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  I have.

• 1:03:24David Sims?

  Um.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  I'm cool.

• 1:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  It's great. I mean, I love Deborah Winger. Huge fan.

• 1:03:29David Sims?

  I do too. Big Deborah Winger fan.

• 1:03:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32David Sims?

  Um. Probably five years prior would have been perfect for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Like, she kinda has, well, did she make a movie with Amy Heckerling? I'm like, no, she didn't.

• 1:03:41Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:03:42David Sims?

  But I feel like, I don't know, there's a world where they would have crossed paths.

• 1:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47David Sims?

  But, okay, so Jennifer Jason-Leigh is kinda your main character and then like Phoebe Cates is sort of attached to her, right? Like, and I guess Brian Backer, Rat, is sort of a main character with Ramon is kind of, you know, with a, you know,

• 1:03:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean, you have, right.

• 1:04:00David Sims?

  Attached to him.

• 1:04:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:04:02David Sims?

  And then Judge Reinhold is sort of your third-ish, like, most important main character.

• 1:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think the Rat Demone thing, what's interesting-

• 1:04:09David Sims?

  Kind of floating around.

• 1:04:11Griffin Newman?

  Is that for the first half, Rat is leading that storyline, the second half, Demone is leading that storyline. There's sort of one thread that flips in terms of-

• 1:04:18David Sims?

  This all feels like it flies in the face of how you would do this kind of a movie.

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:04:23Griffin Newman?

  To not force any sort of more conventional structure on the book, you know, or hooks or any of that kind of stuff. And to just have it be like, it's just sort of a fudgy timeline of a year.

• 1:04:33David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, 100%. Let's not even, right, worry about homework or parents or, right, like, oh, I gotta get into college or I gotta, you know, like, none of that shit, like-

• 1:04:43Griffin Newman?

  My favorite thing about the decision to really center around the mall is like, really tying each of them to their jobs.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Griffin Newman?

  And also forcing these characters to spend half of the movie in the dumbest uniforms possible.

• 1:04:55David Sims?

  Really dorky clothes.

• 1:04:56Griffin Newman?

  Like, it gets this, this sense of like, this weird conflict between like, you feel like a grown up because you have a responsibility and you're making money on your own for the first time.

• 1:05:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:05:05Griffin Newman?

  But the payoff for that is you gotta wear some dumb shit and flirt with the people you like while wearing that shit.

• 1:05:11David Sims?

  It's such a big part of the book, and that's the Judge Reinhold character, Brad, who I love. It's such a great joke that he's like, I'm so good at this.

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm a single, successful, I'm a successful guy.

• 1:05:23David Sims?

  I'm on top of the world.

• 1:05:24Griffin Newman?

  I gotta figure it out.

• 1:05:25David Sims?

  He's a fry chef, essentially, and it's just like, he's, it's beautiful. Like, the rest, every other character in this movie, I think, is more just kinda like, God, I cannot wait to be a fucking grown up. Like, get out of this shit and like, go do whatever exciting things I wanna do. And Brad is the guy who's like, it ain't getting better than this, baby.

• 1:05:41Griffin Newman?

  I got a little saber, baby.

• 1:05:42David Sims?

  I got my Buick, I got my job, I got my girl.

• 1:05:45Griffin Newman?

  I've been going steady for three years or whatever. You know what's funny, I'm realizing now, Brad is kind of the original template for the Cameron Crowe character.

• 1:05:54David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:05:55Griffin Newman?

  Not as much like, uh, say anything, but Brad is like a mini high school version of a like Jerry Maguire. Where it's like this guy who kind of feels like I have it all figured out. I'm a master of the universe.

• 1:06:05David Sims?

  It's just so fun pulling the rug out from under you.

• 1:06:07Griffin Newman?

  And then his life just like crumbles and he's like, I'm getting it together. You know, like Brad just keeps being like, gonna get this back on track.

• 1:06:15Speaker 03

  The thing that shocked me the most of watching it last night was that it's Forest Whitaker.

• 1:06:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21David Sims?

  He's, he is, it's one of his first roles.

• 1:06:24Griffin Newman?

  Where you're just like, he's just there.

• 1:06:26David Sims?

  Twenty, twenty-one years old.

• 1:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Like he's in three scenes, but the way this movie's shot, you're like, he's around in the background a bunch.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  But I always remembered like how that character had one eye smaller than the other.

• 1:06:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  And then rewatching it, I was like, oh yeah, that guy looks like Forest Whitaker. With one eye smaller than the other. And then I looked it up and I was like, that is.

• 1:06:48David Sims?

  It's Forest Whitaker, baby.

• 1:06:49Griffin Newman?

  We covered this on some other episode. Maybe it was the panic room episode, but this thing I find fascinating is like, this is his first movie? Is that right?

• 1:06:56David Sims?

  Yeah, he has one other credit the same year called Tag, The Assassination Game.

• 1:07:00Griffin Newman?

  And then he does, uh, Color of Money.

• 1:07:03David Sims?

  Yeah, but that's four years later.

• 1:07:05Griffin Newman?

  He has some other credits in between or no?

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  Just one. He's in, uh, Vision Quest.

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  It's like us, Griffin.

• 1:07:10Griffin Newman?

  Then Color of Money, he's got this like really.

• 1:07:12David Sims?

  Like done some TV or something, I don't know.

• 1:07:14Griffin Newman?

  Good kind of showcase extended role, right?

• 1:07:17David Sims?

  Yeah, he's really good in Color of Money. And he's in Platoon that year.

• 1:07:19Griffin Newman?

  And then after Platoon and Color of Money, Lola, Forest Whitaker's like, I don't know my craft. And then like goes to drama school. He already like has five major credits. And has like worked with incredible people and is like, I need to get serious about this. And then like.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  Hell yeah.

• 1:07:37Griffin Newman?

  Goes to fucking conservatory and then comes back and is like, here I go, I'm ready.

• 1:07:42David Sims?

  I mean, I don't, interesting, cause I, are you sure that didn't happen after Vision Quest? Because he goes right from Color of Money and Platoon to Stakeout and Good Morning Vietnam to Bird. Like those are.

• 1:07:52Griffin Newman?

  Then you know what? Maybe I'm right. Maybe it's in between.

• 1:07:54David Sims?

  I feel like it must be before because like.

• 1:07:56Griffin Newman?

  In between Vision Quest and Color of Money.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

  It makes sense too, because he comes out of whatever that was. A much more fully formed actor.

• 1:08:03Griffin Newman?

  So that, I knew there was a gap, but it has to be that.

• 1:08:06David Sims?

  Cause in this, he's being cast for his physicality. He really like, he looks the part. He's so funny just for like one minute, basically like, uh, as the, I mean, I think the scene where Demone pretends to be his friend is really funny. Um, because he doesn't, he's not mean to Demone. He's just kinda like, okay.

• 1:08:21Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this movie just constantly somehow holds back from the most obvious version of every scene of every joke and like just grounding it enough in realistic behavior.

• 1:08:31David Sims?

  Yeah. And not, yeah, not making too much of a meal out of the fact that like Phoebe Cates is making up a boyfriend essentially probably, or whatever, whatever.

• 1:08:40Griffin Newman?

  Or at least wildly exaggerated.

• 1:08:41David Sims?

  Completely delusional about a guy she had sex with one time or something. That Demone is full of shit about, you know, his, his little business, uh, as a scalper that Brad is full, you know.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  He's, so he's not a scalper?

• 1:08:54David Sims?

  No, he is, but it's just like, he's acting like he's some wheeler dealer.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  Right, cause he doesn't have any money for the abortion.

• 1:08:58David Sims?

  He doesn't have any fucking money. Like he's clearly like laying himself out way too much to get like people like to like him by getting them concert tickets.

• 1:09:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna ask the question too. One of his, you know, big intro scenes is him explaining to Rat the like five moves that always get a woman, right?

• 1:09:13David Sims?

  Right. This kinda like pickup artist shit.

• 1:09:16Griffin Newman?

  This guy's got all the fucking answers. My read, especially watching it this time.

• 1:09:19David Sims?

  Is he a virgin when he has sex?

• 1:09:20Griffin Newman?

  Is he losing his virginity to Jennifer Jason Leigh? Right? Yes. 100%.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  Yes, of course.

• 1:09:24David Sims?

  If not, then he's barely ever had sex.

• 1:09:26Griffin Newman?

  I had always considered it and watching it this time, I was like 100% dead to rights.

• 1:09:29David Sims?

  Okay, here's my question. This is the bigger question. Is Demone hot?

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:34David Sims?

  Would you fuck Demone?

• 1:09:35Griffin Newman?

  This is what's fascinating. When I was 14, I was like.

• 1:09:38David Sims?

  I might not fuck him if I got to know him, cause then I'd be kinda like.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  I didn't think he was hot when I was a teenager, but I thought he was hot now.

• 1:09:42Griffin Newman?

  When I was 14, I was like, Demone is so cool and this movie pulls off this amazing narrative twist of revealing that he's a piece of shit, right? But I was like, the first half of the movie, I'm buying his coolness and now I watch it and I'm like, see fucking through it from the get-go. This guy's trying too hard.

• 1:09:59David Sims?

  I find him. I find the film is very compassionate to him, which I like.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:10:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:05David Sims?

  It would be easy for him to be a villain because he does the most straightforwardly villainous thing in the movie, which is he doesn't pay for the abortion.

• 1:10:11Griffin Newman?

  And doesn't show up, more than anything, like beyond the payment.

• 1:10:14David Sims?

  Cowardice, right?

• 1:10:15Griffin Newman?

  The cowardice is not showing up and saying, I'm sorry, I couldn't get the money.

• 1:10:18David Sims?

  And I like that the movie doesn't really punish him, like that Rat and him sort of like shake on it and they're like kind of still friends, although it's always gonna be weird.

• 1:10:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  And that he's just gonna be demon, like, and it's kind of like, you know, you're like, punishment enough that he's kind of, you know, a bit of a bottom feeder or whatever it is.

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

  It is an incredible performance.

• 1:10:36David Sims?

  It's a great performance. And then I really think it's crucial that at the end of that movie, near the end, you see him coming out of his house, his apartment, and you're like, right, he doesn't have a big fucking house with a pool that, you know.

• 1:10:46Griffin Newman?

  He lives in an apartment.

• 1:10:47David Sims?

  Yeah, like, it's like, like, you just get more and more, you get to know him more as the movie goes on in a way that, again, whatever, a regular teen movie would just not bother.

• 1:10:58Griffin Newman?

  And it isn't overstated, but he, there's.

• 1:11:00David Sims?

  It's not overstated.

• 1:11:00Griffin Newman?

  But there's the moment when he goes to Jennifer Jason Leigh's house and he goes, oh, man, must be nice to have a pool.

• 1:11:06David Sims?

  Yeah, and she has a pool house to have sex in.

• 1:11:08Griffin Newman?

  A changing room or whatever they call it.

• 1:11:10David Sims?

  It's a pool house, yeah, you know, whatever.

• 1:11:11Griffin Newman?

  Right, but that, like, that happens like 10 minutes before you see the one shot of him leaving and you've heard, you know, that she called him and his mom picked up and said he's in the garage working with dad.

• 1:11:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:11:23Griffin Newman?

  Right, but like, it's all that sort of stuff where you're like, so what's the structure of his life? What are his parents like? You don't see it, you don't know, yeah.

• 1:11:30David Sims?

  He's just a little more lower middle class or whatever.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  I love his fashion. He has such good fits.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Also, his, his musical taste from his walls are like incredible, the tattoo you poster that's on the wall, like, you do get this sense of his aspiration and his desperation to leave this world that he's in, which is very different from

• 1:11:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:11:52Speaker 03

  the Jennifer Jason Leigh character's life.

• 1:11:55Griffin Newman?

  This guy wants to be Cameron Crowe, right?

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 1:11:58Griffin Newman?

  Like, as much as we are.

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  Or at least he wants to go live in the city.

• 1:12:01Griffin Newman?

  I think this guy lacks the focus to be like, I should be writing reviews or trying to interview musicians, but like, what he dreams of is that kind of life of like, I am friends with all the people. I think are cool and they respect that I am cool. His whole posture is like, can I present a worldliness and awareness of culture? You know, a sort of understanding of business that shows these teenagers that I'm on a different level and I'm beyond this. And in reality, he just wants those people to be like, you belong here with us.

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  Well, he's like, you know, I guess in today's terms, he would just have been like a hipster.

• 1:12:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  And Jennifer Jason Leigh, like if you look at her bedroom, like she's, she loves her life in a way. Like she, when she takes Rat into her room, she wants to show him pictures like of her and her friends. It's so sweet. It breaks my heart. Like, because she likes having pictures of her friends and she likes her family. And then, um, when you see Spicoli's room, I mean, you really do understand.

• 1:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  I did see that a lot of those pictures on his wall are of Dorothy Strattan, which is another interesting.

• 1:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah, but that's.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  We have two Lana Clarkson and Dorothy Strattan references in that movie.

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  Very interesting.

• 1:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Right, but she was star eighty. I mean, this is like her era. But, but even that, I'm like, the absence of the parents is so fascinating because it doesn't feel like the stylistic choice that is calling attention to itself. And yet, like, they are less present in this world than they are in fucking Peanuts, right? Like, you don't even have a representation of their absence.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  But you can, what's, what's nice to me and I think, you know, is a, is a good, maybe note for filmmakers now. Is like, you understand the inner lives of these kids without having any of them talk about how depressed they are.

• 1:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And to, to the point I feel like you were setting up.

• 1:13:51Griffin Newman?

  When you see Spicoli's room, and especially that moment at the end when Mr. Hand is leaving and he clocks all the naked women on the wall and just kind of gives it a beat and then walks out.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Griffin Newman?

  My mind starts to go like, oh, this quietly says a lot about Spicoli's parents. I don't need to see them. I don't need to hear them referred to.

• 1:14:10David Sims?

  He's, they're chill about this. Yeah.

• 1:14:11Griffin Newman?

  There's something here in the culture of Spicoli's home where it's like his entire room is wallpapered.

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  Spicoli has no mom. Is the immediate thing that I think, I mean, you have the dad, it's, it's the little brother references dad and then. I don't think your mom would let you have that stuff on your walls.

• 1:14:27Griffin Newman?

  But there's all this coding shit where like this movie makes you kind of like spin out considering the aspects of the characters that aren't stated directly through the little hints it gives you of these things. And like seeing Demone's room before you see him leaving the complex, you know? Like, oh, his taste is good. Look at who he has on his walls versus, oh, he's the only person in this movie who doesn't live in a house.

• 1:14:50David Sims?

  But Spicoli also has the most incredible fashion. And I-

• 1:14:54Speaker 03

  Oh, those vans?

• 1:14:55David Sims?

  The vans-

• 1:14:56Speaker 03

  I didn't realize that that was, you know, originated by Spicoli.

• 1:15:00Griffin Newman?

  He's right there.

• 1:15:01David Sims?

  The kind of pink knitted sweater thing. Everything he wears-

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  With the turtleneck underneath?

• 1:15:06David Sims?

  The turtleneck, the blue cap, the Colt 45 t-shirt in the last scene. All of them, you're like, I know the whole point of this, guys. He just rolls out of bed right into a van that's filled with bomb. But I'm like, he's making choices. He's making great choices.

• 1:15:19Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this movie, I think, really-

• 1:15:21David Sims?

  Extra cheese sausage, not a bad pizza order.

• 1:15:24Griffin Newman?

  Totally. This movie really, I think, gave vans as a brand, like, exposed them to, like, the mainstream. To see him take them out of a box. It was like skater- Right. Show the fresh ones straight to camera and then fucking hit himself in the head with it. You're like, fuck, those shoes are cool. Yeah. I'm wearing my van slip-ons today.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  I noticed that.

• 1:15:47David Sims?

  I had a vans, they would always just kind of fall apart on me kind of fast. They're, you know, they're not great, no offense to vans who should sponsor our show.

• 1:15:54Griffin Newman?

  We'd love.

• 1:15:56David Sims?

  Come on board, Ben.

• 1:15:57Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:15:58David Sims?

  But I do feel like they kind of fall apart on me quickly.

• 1:15:59Speaker 03

  They're never gonna come on board now that you said that. Well, maybe you walk hard.

• 1:16:03Griffin Newman?

  But also, like, Converse-

• 1:16:04David Sims?

  No, but I'm playing hard to get. They're gonna be like, we gotta win them.

• 1:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Like, Converse high tops, another iconic piece of shoe wear.

• 1:16:10David Sims?

  More what I wore.

• 1:16:11Griffin Newman?

  They're, they're, they fall apart similarly. They're, I think they're kind of made, they're ephemeral. I was a fucking duct taped Converse kid.

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  Maybe that's the new tagline, like- Nothing lasts forever when you're

• 1:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Enjoy a lot last.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  Enjoy all. There's something there.

• 1:16:27David Sims?

  I had these like puke green Converse's. I loved them so much.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  I have hot pink Converse.

• 1:16:32David Sims?

  Hell.

• 1:16:32Griffin Newman?

  I had all black, the sole, everything was black.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  Those were cool.

• 1:16:36Griffin Newman?

  And then I refused to retire them. So I would like tape them up to try to get another two months out of them.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:41Griffin Newman?

  And by the end of it, it was like, these are more duct taped than they are shoe.

• 1:16:43David Sims?

  Shoes were so, it was like when you're a teen, you're like, I don't get to get shoes that often, you know, like it was such a big deal. Now I'm just kind of like, shoes are, you know, Maddox, you can just go get more shoes.

• 1:16:53Griffin Newman?

  I know, but it was just like.

• 1:16:54David Sims?

  Back then, it really, you did like wear it to death.

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  You didn't order them online. You had to go to Eighth Street between Fifth and Sixth.

• 1:17:00Griffin Newman?

  That was the shoe block.

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  That was the, all, all shoes.

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  I went to a uniform school.

• 1:17:04Griffin Newman?

  There were zero shoe stores left on the block now. It's crazy.

• 1:17:07Speaker 03

  What is it now?

• 1:17:08Griffin Newman?

  It's like just fucking juice bars and avocado toast.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:17:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna fucking.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  AI.

• 1:17:13Speaker 03

  Everything is.

• 1:17:15David Sims?

  Chat GPT store.

• 1:17:18David Sims?

  I had to wear black, uh, non sneakers, right? Like I was like, I didn't, I didn't.

• 1:17:23Griffin Newman?

  Dress code?

• 1:17:23David Sims?

  I had a dress code. I was wearing a uniform, as many British students do. So I wore.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  Clip soles?

• 1:17:28David Sims?

  Uh, so I wore Doc Martens.

• 1:17:30Griffin Newman?

  Ben clipped that for the soundboard as well.

• 1:17:32David Sims?

  Wearing Doc Martens was the way to be like kind of cool while still like obeying the rules. Cause it's like, these aren't sneakers.

• 1:17:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40David Sims?

  And they are black, right? So they're not like, they don't have like a pattern on them.

• 1:17:44Speaker 03

  That's why Dr. Martin invented Doc Martens?

• 1:17:46Griffin Newman?

  I like you calling him Dr. Martin.

• 1:17:48David Sims?

  Dr. Martin.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  He's my physician.

• 1:17:49David Sims?

  Well, he was hanging out with Dr. Pepper and, uh, who else? Who are the other doctors of, of Detroit?

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Dr. Martens when I was a child.

• 1:17:57David Sims?

  Dr. Martin?

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  And I, I used to have the floral Doc Martens.

• 1:18:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:18:01David Sims?

  I believe they are, they are officially Dr. Martens.

• 1:18:04Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:18:05David Sims?

  It's just a, uh, you know, affectation.

• 1:18:06Griffin Newman?

  Here's my strong memory of, of what we're talking about with like, oh my God, I finally get to get new shoes. Is like trying to sell my mom like, oh God, these shoes hurt. I think my feet are growing too much. You know, that you try to jump ahead of like, you're only getting new shoes when you've grown out of them. When you're still at an age where the size isn't like changing rapidly. Oh, my toes are breaking. I need new shoes right now.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:18:30David Sims?

  Um, so.

• 1:18:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a really good performance.

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  How you got, that's how you got into the biz?

• 1:18:35Griffin Newman?

  That's how I got into the biz.

• 1:18:35David Sims?

  I mean, like, it's such a big movie.

• 1:18:37Griffin Newman?

  Phoebe Cates was discovered at a juice bar. I was discovered at a shoe store and they're like, this kid's really selling toe pain.

• 1:18:47Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:18:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:19:05David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:19:06Griffin 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.

• 1:19:29David Sims?

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

• 1:19:41Griffin 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.

• 1:19:50David Sims?

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

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:19:53David 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.

• 1:20:00Griffin 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.

• 1:20:14David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:20:16Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:20:19David 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.

• 1:20:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:20:50Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:20:50David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:20:51Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:20:53David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:20:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:20:58David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:21:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:21:06David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip-dense sweater.

• 1:21:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:21:10David Sims?

  Uh, it's a sort of a brown. Would you agree?

• 1:21:12Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:21:16David 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."

• 1:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh, a soft boy.

• 1:21:25David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:25Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:21:40David Sims?

  Quince does rock. It's got high-quality staples, made with these, uh, premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere. 14 karat gold?

• 1:21:50David Sims?

  Italian leather?

• 1:21:51Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:21:52David 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, uh, cashmere accessories, everything your loved ones need to stay warm and look good together all season long.

• 1:22:11Griffin 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.

• 1:22:24David Sims?

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

• 1:22:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:22:32David Sims?

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

• 1:22:36Griffin 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's asked where you heard about them, let them know it was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:23:31Speaker 03

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 1:23:35Speaker 04

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:23:46Speaker 03

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye bye. Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving,

• 1:23:50David Sims?

  it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:23:56David Sims?

  I'm trying to figure out how to tackle this movie. Like, um.

• 1:24:00Griffin Newman?

  When we start out with just.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  Well, we should smash your car and spray paint it.

• 1:24:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  And that's how we'll get into the movie.

• 1:24:05David Sims?

  Because it's a short movie, 90 minutes. It's nonetheless feels quite epic because I think of the year structure. Like, you just really feel time passing, even if the movie is generally kind of light and airy.

• 1:24:17Griffin Newman?

  And it doesn't do this kind of like hitting up the seasons, reminding you of what month it is. Like, so many movies like this really use.

• 1:24:23David Sims?

  Partly because it's set in California where it's like, man, it always looks like this.

• 1:24:26Griffin Newman?

  But I feel like a lot of movies like this try to use like holidays to like pinpoint where you are in time. And this movie doesn't do any of that. You just sort of realize at the end, like, oh, the year's over.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  It doesn't even make like the dance a thing, like often in these teen movies where it's like, it's all building up to the last dance of the year.

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Basically, the day of.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:24:45Griffin Newman?

  No one's talking about anticipation until the scenes that are taking place that day.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50David Sims?

  And it's not what these movies become, which is, oh, I have to ascend the social structure of this school or figure, crack the code or whatever.

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  In fact, the cheerleaders are very made fun of, but I guess that was a trope.

• 1:25:04David Sims?

  I think that's true at the time. I think, yeah, cheerleaders haven't gotten to be alphas yet. And that's such a funny scene.

• 1:25:10Griffin Newman?

  It's seen as dorky.

• 1:25:10Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 1:25:11David Sims?

  The cheerleaders trying to say, God bless her. Like, we worked really hard on this. And everyone is just like, every, this. I don't know if this is what kids were like in the early eighties. I wasn't a kid in the early eighties. When they're on the school bus and it's just fucking anarchy, everyone just throwing shit at each other, right? It does feel like more discipline came later. There must have just come some point where in like pedagogy, it was like, you know what? You should probably like make people sit still in their chairs.

• 1:25:36Griffin Newman?

  Well, I also think you think of like the sixties and the seventies.

• 1:25:38David Sims?

  Like we're not gonna be a military school over here where people stop throwing shit at each other all the time.

• 1:25:43Griffin Newman?

  I think in the sixties and seventies, you had this cultural shift to like the youth of America becoming very politically engaged and feeling the need to push back. And the sort of like unwieldiness and the chaos of their behavior was like as means to an end to make a point. And in the eighties to some degree, that has like dissipated and now it's just chaos.

• 1:26:01David Sims?

  And all the adults are so burnt out at that point, too.

• 1:26:03Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's the thing. Like, you imagine these teachers were like 10 years ago dealing with students doing bra burning. And being like, well, I can't push back on this or I'll look like a square, right? And now it's just kids being kids and they're no longer trying to accomplish anything.

• 1:26:18David Sims?

  But I think about Mr. Hand, played by Ray Walston.

• 1:26:20Griffin Newman?

  Incredible performance.

• 1:26:21David Sims?

  An incredible performance. So I'm gonna say that Mr. Hand is the age that Ray Walston was.

• 1:26:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:26:26David Sims?

  Okay? How old do you think Ray Walston is?

• 1:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 1:26:29David Sims?

  Because it's gonna surprise you how old he is.

• 1:26:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So my favorite Martian's in the sixties or fifties?

• 1:26:34David Sims?

  Uh, my favorite Martian, which was the TV show he's on.

• 1:26:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes, where he plays.

• 1:26:37David Sims?

  Was in the mid sixties.

• 1:26:39Griffin Newman?

  Arguably my favorite Martian.

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:26:42Griffin Newman?

  I had to do it. I debate, I don't know if you saw me just close my eyes and take the beat and go, am I gonna go through with this? But it was too far along. I'm gonna guess he was 47 when they filmed this.

• 1:26:52David Sims?

  He was 68 years old.

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  That's crazy. I was surprised in the opposite direction. I assumed you were setting me up to think he was gonna...

• 1:26:59David Sims?

  That's what you assumed I was doing and I was shocked to learn that in fact, he's really old at this point. So let's say he's actually 68 years old.

• 1:27:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:27:04David Sims?

  That means he's probably been teaching since like World War II.

• 1:27:07Griffin Newman?

  Right, he's been teaching for 40 years.

• 1:27:08David Sims?

  Because I was really trying to put myself in this mindset of fucking Spicoli walks into this guy's class. This guy just wants to drone on about the Spanish-American war to these kids.

• 1:27:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:16David Sims?

  And Spicoli's ordering pizzas to the classroom, right? It's like the most like impossible force, immovable object thing, right? Like, it's just, he is never gonna get through to this kid. But he's also not the kind of teacher who thinks he should be getting through to kids, right? He's like, the kids should sit still while I talk to them.

• 1:27:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:27:33David Sims?

  And I was just, I, again, I had a lot of empathy for Mr. Hand. Where I'm like, again, like, this guy, he probably served in World War II.

• 1:27:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:40David Sims?

  And now he's just like, what the hell has happened?

• 1:27:43Griffin Newman?

  But, but to my-

• 1:27:43David Sims?

  To America's youth.

• 1:27:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's my-

• 1:27:45David Sims?

  This is what I'm being confronted with.

• 1:27:47Griffin Newman?

  To my point.

• 1:27:47David Sims?

  But his way of reaching them is terrible.

• 1:27:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:49David Sims?

  He's such a bad teacher.

• 1:27:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:51David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 1:27:52Griffin Newman?

  No, to my point that it's like, Mr. Hand has had to deal with trouble before, but the trouble always had some kind of driving reason behind it. Whereas Spicoli is something he just cannot wrap his head around. Where like, Spicoli's lack of like shame or understanding when he is called out seems to be the thing that trips him up most. That when he's like, trying to make an example as Spicoli, Spicoli just kind of lets it roll off him.

• 1:28:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:21Griffin Newman?

  And yet, it's like the thing in the final scenes where he's just like, I do kind of respect this kid. There's the combination of like-

• 1:28:28David Sims?

  That's why the scene's so beautiful.

• 1:28:29Griffin Newman?

  He's not dumb. His brain is sideways.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:32Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't think like anyone else, but he's not dumb. You know, he, he's like, you actually got close on that one, Jeff. Even when he's trying to explain the Revolutionary War through his prism, he's like, you're not totally off? And I think by the end of it, he's like, there's something kind of beautiful about the way Spicoli functions. That he is so like, unimpeded by the forces of anything else in the world.

• 1:28:57David Sims?

  So, I, have any of you ever ordered a pizza to your class?

• 1:29:00Griffin Newman?

  No, it's the coolest move in the world. I wish I had.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  No, why didn't we do that?

• 1:29:03Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. I feel like I did other dumb shit.

• 1:29:05David Sims?

  I watched this with my wife. She's a high school teacher.

• 1:29:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08David Sims?

  And she's laughing at that scene, because it's funny.

• 1:29:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11David Sims?

  She's like, because we, and she says like, we had to stop the kids doing this. And I was like, what do you mean? It's like, they were all fucking ordering DoorDash. Because I was like, right now!

• 1:29:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, now!

• 1:29:18David Sims?

  They don't do that!

• 1:29:19Speaker 03

  That's too easy. That's too easy.

• 1:29:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:20David Sims?

  And it was, they were, she was like, we had to make a rule. So it went from being the coolest thing in the world to kids- Being like, let me just.

• 1:29:26Griffin Newman?

  I remember bringing an entire White Castle Crave case into perhaps a class I had with your wife.

• 1:29:33David Sims?

  Talked about this on the show before.

• 1:29:34Griffin Newman?

  And the teacher just being like, absolutely not.

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  Correctly.

• 1:29:37Griffin Newman?

  This is not happening.

• 1:29:38Speaker 03

  I remember 4/20, my favorite holiday for way too long.

• 1:29:41Griffin Newman?

  Of course, yes.

• 1:29:43Speaker 03

  Uh, and I can't believe I did this, but I guess Spicoli was like a hero to me.

• 1:29:47Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:47Speaker 03

  I walked into my 8 a.m. first period English class with a pint of fish food ice cream and Miss Cantor.

• 1:29:54David Sims?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:29:54Speaker 03

  Miss Cantor looked at me and was just like, are you kidding me?

• 1:29:58Griffin Newman?

  That, that was the response I got to the Crave case was just like.

• 1:30:01David Sims?

  That feels like a St. Anne's thing too, where it's like, you kids have so much rope and still you find the boundary.

• 1:30:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  As someone who was basically high throughout my junior and senior year.

• 1:30:13David Sims?

  Okay, so that's when it kicked off for you, kind of junior year?

• 1:30:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I, it's unbelievable to think back of how I would just be like bloodshot, red eyed. Going to class and my teachers just didn't call me out on it.

• 1:30:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  And I wonder if it's a thing where now weed is so pervasive, it's so readily available, that I feel like now teachers are maybe like, have to call kids out more so, whereas then it was like swept under the rug.

• 1:30:40Griffin Newman?

  That's my thing. I'm like, it being legal probably makes it less appealing to high schoolers? Am I insane about that?

• 1:30:47Speaker 03

  Bought my drugs.

• 1:30:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Speaker 03

  Like in a store.

• 1:30:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:30:51David Sims?

  Right, rather than getting like the worst drugs from the weirdest person, right?

• 1:30:56Speaker 02

  Did you smoke under the bleachers? No, we would, there's a lot of weed smoking while in the car, unfortunately while driving.

• 1:31:06David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  Which is shown in this.

• 1:31:08Speaker 03

  Adults do that all the time, by the way. No.

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  But yeah, it was mostly, we would smoke in the car on the way to school and then show up late and roll in stinking like blunt.

• 1:31:19David Sims?

  I'd be so fucking annoyed with you.

• 1:31:20Griffin Newman?

  It is impossible.

• 1:31:21David Sims?

  I would be like, school gets out in the middle of the afternoon. Get stoned then. It's fine. Like, why do you have to get stoned at 9:00 in the morning?

• 1:31:26Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm already winding down for the night by 3:00 P.M. now.

• 1:31:29Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:30David Sims?

  Well, now, sure, but you know, 16, you know.

• 1:31:33Griffin Newman?

  It is impossible to watch this movie and not go down these roads and like trying to like, what was I doing? And what were my things? And like, what did I see in other kids and whatever? And yet this movie is not coded in any sense of sort of like wistful nostalgia, remember one? Like, it is very unsentimental.

• 1:31:51David Sims?

  Because it's not a

• 1:31:52Speaker 03

  But it's compassionate.

• 1:31:53Griffin Newman?

  Also being compassionate is the exact word I was about to use.

• 1:31:55David Sims?

  It's very compassionate for everybody.

• 1:31:56Griffin Newman?

  This very fascinating balance, especially when you think about all the things leading up to it being like, man, we're at the 50s, a better time. Wasn't it great that we grew up in the 50s?

• 1:32:06David Sims?

  It's not nostalgic and it is not about like, you know, kids versus adults. It's not bye bye birdie of like, ah, fuck these teachers. The teachers are kind of, there's just Mr. Hand, who yes, he's a hard ass, but he's just clashing with Spicoli, who is

• 1:32:19Griffin Newman?

  And here's the other thing, let's acknowledge it.

• 1:32:20David Sims?

  Not being a very good student.

• 1:32:22Griffin Newman?

  Mr. Hand is funny. Like when

• 1:32:24David Sims?

  He's got, he's got wit.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  When Mr. Hand snaps back at Spicoli, the students laugh.

• 1:32:30David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:30Griffin Newman?

  He's not funny to the audience while watching a movie. He knows what he is doing. He's working his classroom. He's trying to get one up on Spicoli by making the better joke at his expense. Like even that is much more balanced than just him being like mean scary teacher.

• 1:32:48David Sims?

  And then there's Vincent Chevelli as Mr. Vargas. He just switched to Senka. Please forgive him.

• 1:32:53Speaker 03

  Obsessed.

• 1:32:53David Sims?

  Such a sweet performance.

• 1:32:55Griffin Newman?

  Beautiful.

• 1:32:55David Sims?

  Of a teacher who again, maybe is maybe traumatizing his kids by essentially showing them a cadaver. I don't know. Like feels a little traumatizing for a teenager.

• 1:33:04Speaker 03

  I think it feels important.

• 1:33:06David Sims?

  Okay. I mean, I'm kind of with you on that.

• 1:33:08Griffin Newman?

  Has the two weird, like for lack of a better word, franchise extensions that don't work. They make the second movie, The Wildlife, directed by Art Lenson, starring Chris Penn, that is based on additional material from Cameron Crowe.

• 1:33:23Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:33:23Griffin Newman?

  Is not a straight up sequel, but is like, let's try to do another Fast Times.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  Is he Spicoli's younger brother?

• 1:33:29Griffin Newman?

  Different character. They were just sort of like, ah, fuck, can we get a Penn? Like, we just want to remind people of Fast Times as much as possible, but it's not a straight sequel.

• 1:33:38David Sims?

  Let's just glom on, right?

• 1:33:39Griffin Newman?

  But then there was a network TV Fast Times TV show where the only two returning cast members were the teachers.

• 1:33:47Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:33:47David Sims?

  Cause why not?

• 1:33:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  I love that Mr. Vargas' wife is a babe.

• 1:33:50Griffin Newman?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:33:51Speaker 03

  Lana Clarkson.

• 1:33:52David Sims?

  Of course, that guy would, Paul. Are you kidding me?

• 1:33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55David Sims?

  He's tall, he's interesting, he's got a good heart.

• 1:33:58Griffin Newman?

  But Ben, Lana Clarkson, did you realize who this is?

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:34:02Griffin Newman?

  This is the woman that Robert Blake shot, correct?

• 1:34:04Speaker 03

  No, it's that, that Phil Spector.

• 1:34:07Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, I'm sorry. I get them confused. I get those two crimes confused because they were so close together.

• 1:34:11Speaker 03

  They are, they were very close together. Yeah.

• 1:34:14David Sims?

  So rather than trying, rather than trying to succeed at school or defeat the teachers or whatever the fuck. Okay, so Jennifer Jason Leigh, she wants to have sex. She doesn't even want to have sex like some American Pie, like we've got to do it by this deadline.

• 1:34:29Speaker 03

  I think she wants to be.

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  She wants to be grown up.

• 1:34:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that to me, I feel like is very much an eighties thing. Like, I feel like now everyone wants to be a kid.

• 1:34:39David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah, forever. Like, everyone wants to be a kid forever.

• 1:34:41Speaker 03

  Wanting to be a grown up. Like, when I look at so many movies from the eighties that aren't teen movies, like, I was just watching Basic Instinct. That's eighties, right? That's not nineties?

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  Yeah, very early nineties.

• 1:34:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, it's ninety.

• 1:34:53David Sims?

  One ninety-one, maybe.

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  Whatever. All movies from that time, every leading lady looks like a librarian. But the point, besides, I mean, Sharon Stone is obviously, you know, but even her, she's wearing like blazers and turtlenecks.

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Demi Moore and Sharon Stone and all these, like, the major sex pot, sort of desirable leading ladies of the late eighties and early nineties were like adults. They were not children, they were not infantilized.

• 1:35:20Speaker 03

  It was also the style, though, to wear, to wear clothes that made you look like you were an adult. And I think it's much sexier because it actually, you have to imagine so much more.

• 1:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:35:27Speaker 03

  It was like, no, I'm, what I'm working with must be so amazing that I can wear this and still drive you crazy.

• 1:35:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Speaker 03

  I mean, obviously, there were like, you know, a lot of other things in culture happening that glorified naked women's bodies and all that type of stuff. But I do think the style was look sophisticated.

• 1:35:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  And I think that that's something that you really see in this movie. These kids want to be grown up. They are posturing as being grown up. And I, I don't know. I, I feel like the kids I know that are younger now, it's, it's really more about like embracing the commodity of youth.

• 1:36:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:04Speaker 03

  Like, they look down on, I mean, I look down on older people, too. That was, and I still do, because I know everything now at thirty-four.

• 1:36:12Griffin Newman?

  You finally figured it out.

• 1:36:13Speaker 03

  But I always knew everything. It just, I, I just always learned that I, what I, everything I knew wasn't true.

• 1:36:19Griffin Newman?

  Just in time, before anyone else realized.

• 1:36:22Speaker 03

  But, yeah, I just think that it's interesting to see the way that these kids, like, want to be adults in a, in a different way.

• 1:36:29Griffin Newman?

  Well, what does Jennifer Jason Leigh, like, sort of?

• 1:36:33Griffin Newman?

  Uh, respect the most, or what is she most in awe of? It is the fact that Phoebe Cates is like over it.

• 1:36:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:36:41Griffin Newman?

  It isn't like, oh my God, she's had so much sex and I haven't. And she's selling that sex as so exciting and fun.

• 1:36:46David Sims?

  Yeah, Phoebe Cates is kinda like, oh, I had my wild period and now I've got my steady boyfriend who we never see.

• 1:36:50Griffin Newman?

  Right. And so like that feeling of like, the movie isn't centered around, I gotta lose my virginity. It happens very quickly because what Jennifer Jason Leigh wants to do is go six steps.

• 1:36:59David Sims?

  Yeah. She just toddles right into a buzzsaw, which is she gets picked up by a twenty something and thinks that's normal. Because, God bless her, like, you know, he's showing interest and like, he's a grown up. He's like, you know.

• 1:37:10Speaker 03

  But what she says at the end of the movie, I had never heard it because I just wanted to have sex when I was watching this movie. Though, but what she says, when she's, anyone can have sex. What I want is romance. And then Phoebe Cates says something to the effect of like, we don't even have, uh, we don't even have good pizza or something in this town and you want romance?

• 1:37:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:30Speaker 03

  Um, but I-

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  And Phoebe Cates has been this whole time talking about this like guy who she's like engaged to be engaged to.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Griffin Newman?

  The implication that they have a more serious, mature relationship. But like, as you said, you get the sense of like, this is probably someone she slept with four times. This is someone who would like call her when he was on break in between semesters, you know, like-

• 1:37:52David Sims?

  I don't even think he's real. I think that she's fabricating it. I, I sometimes think that she's, he's made up, that he's like a Canadian boyfriend.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:01David Sims?

  But then the whole thing where she's crying at the end-

• 1:38:03Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. I don't think she can find that.

• 1:38:05David Sims?

  I'm like, this is a little too elaborate.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  She's too pretty to have completely made that up. I'm sorry.

• 1:38:08Griffin Newman?

  That's the other part.

• 1:38:09David Sims?

  I think it's more someone that exactly is essentially just like, has her on the side and she's taking it seriously because he's more older.

• 1:38:16Griffin Newman?

  If the guy that Jennifer Jason Leigh has sex with in the fucking dugout, right?

• 1:38:21David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:21Griffin Newman?

  If she had slept with him three more times over three years, that's what Phoebe Cates has.

• 1:38:26David Sims?

  But then like, I just love the reversal of once he's discarded her.

• 1:38:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:30David Sims?

  Phoebe Cates being like, he's a fucking stereo salesman. And it's like, if you knew he was a loser this whole time, which he is, clearly a loser.

• 1:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38David Sims?

  Cause he's picking up fifteen year old pizza waitresses, like, why didn't you point that out before? Because she's, you know, and I'm not saying Phoebe Cates is a bad friend. She's just like- Like an affirming friend, right?

• 1:38:48Speaker 03

  But she, I mean, I, I had that friend.

• 1:38:51David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. Everyone has that friend.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  That's what I was responding to.

• 1:38:53Griffin Newman?

  Can you say it and then bleep it out?

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  Who it is?

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:56Speaker 03

  I mean, it was kind of like a composite.

• 1:38:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:38:58Speaker 03

  I feel like it was so many people.

• 1:38:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes, okay, that's, I was just wondering if you were pinning it on one person. We don't need to say it, bleep it out.

• 1:39:03Speaker 03

  No, but just the girl that you thought had everything and then you get older and you realize she just probably had a really unhappy home life.

• 1:39:09Griffin Newman?

  I will, I will say, I will say this without naming the person, but there was like a friend of ours in high school who talked to me about losing their virginity very young in like this very kind of like, ah, I got it over with. It didn't, you know, I don't, I don't put a lot of value on that kind of thing. It was just whatever.

• 1:39:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:39:25Griffin Newman?

  In that kind of Phoebe Cates way, I'll tell you afterwards. And then like, a year or two later, she stopped with someone at her school and made a really big deal of it to me. And I was like, why are you making such a big deal of it? You'd already like had sex before. And then like five years after that was like,

• 1:39:41David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:39:41Griffin Newman?

  No, of course I hadn't had sex before. You believe that story I told you? You know, and I feel like there's some of that with the Phoebe Cates character.

• 1:39:49Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:50Griffin Newman?

  Um, and Jennifer Jason Leigh is like not being, she doesn't care about how she's perceived by other people. She is such a sincere person, but she's not naive. What she's really in pursuit of is like experience, right? Not just sexual experience, but she's like, I want to figure out what it's like to be a person, what it's like to be an adult. To try all these things, to have heartbreak, to have feeling, like, right.

• 1:40:12David Sims?

  Except for Judge Reinhold.

• 1:40:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40:14David Sims?

  Who feels like he's 45.

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  Yes, he does feel like he's 45.

• 1:40:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:40:18David Sims?

  Um, is he still a virgin?

• 1:40:19Speaker 03

  Judge. Yes, yes.

• 1:40:21David Sims?

  Judge Reinhold?

• 1:40:22Speaker 03

  No, I think his character's a virgin.

• 1:40:23David Sims?

  Girlfriend.

• 1:40:24Griffin Newman?

  No, but there's that whole scene where he's saying to her, do you want to go to the point tonight? And she goes, for what? And he goes, you know, and she goes like, I don't, Brad, I'm not going to use sex as a tool.

• 1:40:34David Sims?

  Oh, I, my, I've always taken that as like, again, with the 45-ness, that he's like, they're like an old married couple.

• 1:40:41Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, no.

• 1:40:41David Sims?

  They don't even have sex anymore.

• 1:40:43Speaker 02

  No, I think it's an important detail that he hasn't had sex yet, but his younger sister has.

• 1:40:48Griffin Newman?

  And I think my other read on it is that moment of her saying, I don't want to use sex as a tool comes 30 seconds after he's bragging to the other guy on the fried line about how good she is in bed. And the immediate shutdown, I, I think I used to read it the way you're saying it. And this time I was like, oh no, it's complete posture. And he's just once again being like, maybe if we go to the point one more time, she puts out, which he's just wrong about. Yeah.

• 1:41:14David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:41:14Griffin Newman?

  And she's over him.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  I just, right, to me, the joke of him is so much just like that he's old before his time and right, is just acting like, anyway, but yeah, I, I, I get it, I get it. I mean,

• 1:41:28David Sims?

  I don't think him jerking off to Phoebe Cates really confirms it in either direction because he's still a horny teen as much as he's like basically filing his ten ninety-nine, right? You know, after he does that or whatever.

• 1:41:38Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. His, his iconic response in that scene.

• 1:41:42David Sims?

  One of the most incredible line readings of all time.

• 1:41:44Griffin Newman?

  When you dig into it, what's so funny about it is his response more than embarrassment of being caught is like, kids these days have no manners.

• 1:41:53David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:41:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 1:41:55Griffin Newman?

  It's like, we don't even knock anymore.

• 1:41:57David Sims?

  I can't even go fucking spy on the pool from the bathroom and like, you know.

• 1:42:00Griffin Newman?

  But, but his response is as if she interrupted him building a fucking house of cards.

• 1:42:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  You know?

• 1:42:06David Sims?

  Or doing his taxes.

• 1:42:07Griffin Newman?

  Totally, right.

• 1:42:10David Sims?

  And that scene, again, ten, fifteen years later, that scene is, I'm sorry, just keep bringing up American Pie, which our friend directed and is a funny movie, like.

• 1:42:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:21David Sims?

  But in, you know, it's like, that scene is a crazy set piece where something wild happens. And instead it's Phoebe Cates going like, oh. And then be like, doesn't even fucking knock anymore. And like, that's it.

• 1:42:30Griffin Newman?

  That moment's so much quicker than you think it would be. And it's also, not only that, immediately undercut by, you're, you're going with the like, the slow motion iconic Phoebe Cates shot, right? And the Cars song playing and everything. And then, you know, cut, cross cutting between that and like Judge Reinhold just looking like a dork masturbating, which is a silly looking act. Right? Especially if you're just sort of like.

• 1:42:52David Sims?

  Standing.

• 1:42:52Griffin Newman?

  Right. But then the immediate like puncturing of the reality before she even comes in and knocks is you cut to regular motion, Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool and she's got water in her ear. Like this immediate re-centering of like, here's now replaying the actual version of her getting out of a pool and she's like, ugh, ugh. And she plays it so well, it's so funny, but she's just sort of like walking weirdly.

• 1:43:17David Sims?

  She's so funny. I love when Rat and Demone show up later.

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:43:22David Sims?

  And they like jump in the pool and they're roughhousing and she's just like, ugh. Immediately it's like, I'm getting the fuck out of here.

• 1:43:27Griffin Newman?

  For both of them. But I, it is interesting, I have, I have had conversations with people who I think incorrectly have said that like, There is a necess- how am I gonna frame this? I'm relaying someone else's sentiment that I disagree with, okay? That like, there is a necessity for the male gaze in the film ecosystem because films are sexual and there is something about capturing female beauty that female directors can't do.

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  What?

• 1:43:55Griffin Newman?

  And it has led to a sexless culture in film. This is a thing that I have had said to me by a person or two that I always was like, I don't really agree with your take. But also watching this movie, right? And I understand the scene is presented as parody, that it is sort of like a riff on these types of scenes in other movies. I'm also like, this is Amy Heckerling shooting what has become the basic high watermark for like male fantasy image in film.

• 1:44:21David Sims?

  Sure, yeah, the like slow motion, MTV, you know, whatever, car commercial, like, yeah.

• 1:44:26Griffin Newman?

  Right, she did it better than any man could do it and is also making it funny and commentary at the same time.

• 1:44:32Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:44:33David Sims?

  Absolutely. I mean, this is a genius movie that's beautifully directed.

• 1:44:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:36Speaker 03

  Wait, what was the take?

• 1:44:37David Sims?

  Dude, I, yeah, I can't even begin to parse. You, I know you're trying to sum up-

• 1:44:42Griffin Newman?

  Correct, a bad argument.

• 1:44:44David Sims?

  Someone's dumb argument.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:45Speaker 03

  But that we're, films have become sexless because women direct them?

• 1:44:49Griffin Newman?

  Because men, that male directors-

• 1:44:51David Sims?

  That's what I was taking away, too.

• 1:44:52Griffin Newman?

  I think the framing of it was, male directors have now been scared out of being horny as filmmakers. So those films have become sexless and the only people who are allowed to depict sexuality are women and women don't know how to shoot female bodies in a way that is actually titillating.

• 1:45:08Speaker 02

  You know, you know Mr. Burns and his office has like a button that drops people into a pit? I think that take needs to be dropped into a pit.

• 1:45:16David Sims?

  Drop him in a pit.

• 1:45:17Griffin Newman?

  Drop him in a pit.

• 1:45:18David Sims?

  He's still bringing it on to the airwaves.

• 1:45:19Speaker 03

  Women are much more sexually creative than men are.

• 1:45:22Griffin Newman?

  I agree. That's, I mean, this is my point, is like this scene is such a good example of that. And I think there are many movies that have come out over the last 10 years in particular that are great, like, arguments in that favor.

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  Yeah, we're, again, we're arguing against this trauma that's not in the room, so I think we should move on.

• 1:45:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. We're doing a lot of invoking people who we refuse to name on, like, in this episode.

• 1:45:44David Sims?

  Alright, so Jennifer, so Jennifer Jason-Leigh's character, of course, is called Stacy and she, uh, she hooks up with Brad on the bench, the bleachers. What, what does it say? What, what's the, um, graffiti that she focuses on?

• 1:45:58Speaker 02

  Fuck. Something about surfers.

• 1:46:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, or shark, like, die.

• 1:46:04Speaker 03

  Die shark.

• 1:46:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, I think it's the

• 1:46:07David Sims?

  It's like sports.

• 1:46:08Griffin Newman?

  Team, yeah.

• 1:46:09David Sims?

  And like, I just love that, that she's just like, oh huh, I guess I'm looking at this while I have this kind of seminal, life-changing experience.

• 1:46:16Griffin Newman?

  But to what you said also, like Phoebe Cates is like, fucking go for it. When she's kind of like, I don't know, he is kind of cute, right? Like, I need your affirmation before I call this guy back. Phoebe Cates is like, yes, and then immediately on the other end of it is like, that guy's a dork and a creep and a loser.

• 1:46:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:32Griffin Newman?

  Um, yes, it's this feeling of like, she just wants to get this over with.

• 1:46:36David Sims?

  Hundred percent, right, which is, I'm sympathetic to, obviously, but, you know, she doesn't-

• 1:46:40Griffin Newman?

  Sympathetic to, obviously.

• 1:46:41David Sims?

  Just the feeling of like, I just want to get that out of the way, the like, uh, you know, the, the pressure of the first time, quote unquote.

• 1:46:48Speaker 03

  I never realized until now, uh, you know, that they have sex on a fucking like wooden bench.

• 1:46:55Griffin Newman?

  A dugout.

• 1:46:55Speaker 03

  A dugout, like disgusting.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

  For how much this movie was received within Universal and by the MPAA at the time is like, this is pornographic, this film is like, toxic, X-rated, lewd, uh, this film has two sex scenes and both of them are basically as unsexy as a scene could possibly be, and take place in the worst environments. One is in a dugout-

• 1:47:17Speaker 03

  The poolhouse was sexy, the poolhouse is sexy.

• 1:47:19David Sims?

  The poolhouse scene is sexy.

• 1:47:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, I think the buildup to it is sexy.

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the buildup, I'm saying-

• 1:47:23Griffin Newman?

  It's not a sexy space.

• 1:47:24Speaker 03

  I, I did a lot of, of sexy things in poolhouses as a teenager.

• 1:47:28Griffin Newman?

  Sure, I'm saying, the moment he gets on top of her, you become aware of like, oh, this couch is not big enough for their bodies, you know? Like, the undressing is sexy, the kissing is sexy.

• 1:47:39David Sims?

  No, this is why they got the X-rating, it's too realistic. It's, it's not that it's sexy, it's that it's realistic.

• 1:47:44Griffin Newman?

  But at the time, everyone was like, this is too pornographic, and you're like, no, what you're actually responding to is, this makes you uncomfortable because it's honest.

• 1:47:51David Sims?

  I, the, the Ebert review, did JJ put it in his dossier? Let's see.

• 1:47:57Speaker 03

  Who's this JJ?

• 1:47:58Griffin Newman?

  JJ's our researcher. If you want to go ahead and fire him quickly, feel free.

• 1:48:01Speaker 03

  No, no, no. I'm impressed by it.

• 1:48:03Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of a gift we offer to our guests. The ability to fire JJ.

• 1:48:07David Sims?

  Roger, we're giving this one one star. And it's a review I think about all the time because it is clearly written with the perspective that you're talking about.

• 1:48:16Speaker 03

  What did Siskel say?

• 1:48:18David Sims?

  I don't know. I can find out.

• 1:48:19Griffin Newman?

  Siskel gave it one boner up, probably. I got a fucking horny.

• 1:48:23David Sims?

  The lead of the review is, how could they do this to Jennifer Jason-Leigh? How could they put such a fresh and cheerful person into this scuz pit of a movie?

• 1:48:31Griffin Newman?

  Same fucking Blue Velvet review.

• 1:48:32David Sims?

  Yes. It's like, and I think he did somewhat soften with age and understand that maybe he was being a fuddy duddy essentially with this stuff. But like, he's so scandalized because he feels for Jennifer. He's like, look, I can watch Animal House. That's a cartoon. I get it. That can be vulgar. I'm not opposed to vulgarity, but like, sweet little Jennifer Jason-Leigh.

• 1:48:52Griffin Newman?

  She's giving such an emotionally honest performance.

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  Well, she's also like Hollywood royalty in a way.

• 1:48:55David Sims?

  That's maybe part of it. Like, hey, you have a star on your hands here, so why is she in this like, you know, lurid movie?

• 1:49:02Griffin Newman?

  And we'll say to Ebert's credit, for someone of his stature and prominence.

• 1:49:07David Sims?

  Whatever happened to upbeat sex? Whatever happened to love and lust and romance and scenes where good-looking kids had a little joy and excitement in life?

• 1:49:13Griffin Newman?

  This is the guy who fucking wrote Russ Meyer's movies. I mean, that's right.

• 1:49:16David Sims?

  He's just like, this is pure exploitation. And I'm like, bro, teenagers have bad sex with each other all the time because they don't know what they're doing.

• 1:49:23Speaker 03

  Adults have bad sex with each other all the time.

• 1:49:25Griffin Newman?

  That's the revolution of this movie also is like showing things like that and not doing it in a tortured rebel without a cause way. Like being able to make it a fact of life.

• 1:49:33David Sims?

  Not to be all if a man directed this movie.

• 1:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:49:36David Sims?

  But if a man directed this movie, her getting an abortion would be this like tragedy.

• 1:49:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:49:42David Sims?

  And it would be this like awful experience. The film really like, instead it is a bummer fucking day that she has.

• 1:49:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:49:50David Sims?

  But it is kind of something she's like, eh, you know.

• 1:49:52Speaker 03

  Well, and she's so strong too in that scene where she just says like, no, I told my boyfriend to pick me up downstairs. Like, she doesn't make too much.

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  She's not sobbing.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:50:01David Sims?

  On a couch. She's not confessing to her parents. You know, like, I just think Amy Heckerling gets this far more than like most directors would.

• 1:50:09Griffin Newman?

  I also think a male director would make. Demone worse.

• 1:50:15David Sims?

  Or that's what I'm saying. It would just all be much more, you know, over the top.

• 1:50:19Griffin Newman?

  They would make that a lot more torrid and tragic and torture.

• 1:50:22David Sims?

  He fucking came, you know, two seconds into having sex with this person.

• 1:50:26Griffin Newman?

  They would make Demone worse to make him more clear cut piece of shit to be like, well, he's a really bad example of a guy versus all of this guy's failings coming out of like a cowardice of vulnerability, you know, an insecurity. Like, I like that we see him making the calls, trying to get the money.

• 1:50:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I like that too. It's a sympathetic scene.

• 1:50:45David Sims?

  He makes some effort and then fails and is right, too cowardly to reveal that he.

• 1:50:50Griffin Newman?

  It fucking sucks, but you see it on his face when he's making the calls of him just being like, but do I have the courage to go to her and say, I don't have the cash? Is it better to not show up?

• 1:50:59David Sims?

  There is also to me, total emotional truth of like, do we see a scene later where she confronts him in the school? No.

• 1:51:05Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:51:05David Sims?

  Like, obviously he has this graffiti, this like, but like, no, the confrontation is him and Rat almost fighting in the locker room or whatever.

• 1:51:13Griffin Newman?

  Also, what's the bigger confrontation?

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  And then being like, whatever.

• 1:51:15Griffin Newman?

  The bigger confrontation is her making four attempts to talk to him and him brushing her off. Where it's like, that's the first offense, right? Of just like, he's acting like I don't exist. There's that amazing, I think it all plays out in one shot of Demone walking down the hallway like he's king shit.

• 1:51:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:51:32Griffin Newman?

  And for the first time in the movie, you're like, oh, this guy's got real confidence now. He feels so good about himself because Jennifer Jason-Leigh wanted to have sex with him. We just watched him have the worst sex of all time.

• 1:51:43David Sims?

  Right, and nonetheless.

• 1:51:44Griffin Newman?

  And yet, he's taking it as a win that he was desired and he's eyeballing the other girls in the hallway, right? He's making faces at them. He's like, I can get anyone. And then she walks up to him and he immediately shuts down.

• 1:51:56Speaker 03

  It's so sad.

• 1:51:57Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, he's got this power of being like, I am someone a woman wants to have sex with. That makes me feel grown up and cool. And his greatest vulnerability is the one person in the world who actually knows what having sex with him is like, which is terrifying to him.

• 1:52:13Speaker 03

  Right, right. I also think what's so interesting to the point of like, if a man directed this, this movie, would we have this incredible part? I feel like that archetype in the movie. Is, and this happens in Fast Times as well, but like, is the character that the woman should like? The good guy? And we see very clearly like why she doesn't as well. Like she's, I made the first move, I made the second move, I made every move. Like, he's got that insecurity too. I like that though, we're not going like, no, don't be with Demone, be with Rat. We're like, well, I see why you wouldn't want to be with Rat.

• 1:52:49Griffin Newman?

  And it's even better than that because it's like, so many versions of this movie. She spends the entire film taking Rat for granted and then only after she's been treated worse by other-

• 1:52:58David Sims?

  She fucking tries with him.

• 1:52:59Griffin Newman?

  She tries.

• 1:53:00David Sims?

  She sits his ass down on her bed and he's like-

• 1:53:02Speaker 03

  And she gets into, oh.

• 1:53:04Griffin Newman?

  He built up the courage to make like-

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  Yeah, the-

• 1:53:07Griffin Newman?

  One tenth of a move and she's totally open and she gives him multiple shots. And then goes to her and is like, I think he doesn't like me. I don't get what the fuck is going on.

• 1:53:18David Sims?

  Yeah, and then later she's like, I think he's nice. Like, you know, when Demone is like, I'm friends with Rat.

• 1:53:24Speaker 03

  But I like you. I mean, she's so hot.

• 1:53:26David Sims?

  She is.

• 1:53:27Speaker 03

  She's so hot that then she could go be in Single White Female and be so scary.

• 1:53:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:32David Sims?

  And kinda hot though.

• 1:53:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Speaker 03

  And kinda hot too, for sure, I would wear those out. I mean, a fashion icon.

• 1:53:37David Sims?

  She is an icon.

• 1:53:40Speaker 03

  She is an icon.

• 1:53:41David Sims?

  I would say in all ways. I was trying to describe her to my wife, who again is like so pop culture literate that like-

• 1:53:46Griffin Newman?

  Give her a context.

• 1:53:47David Sims?

  It's Jennifer Jason-Leigh and she's like, I don't know who that is. Hard to kind of describe Jennifer Jason-Leigh.

• 1:53:51Griffin Newman?

  She's been like ten different things.

• 1:53:53David Sims?

  Mega cool for many decades.

• 1:53:54Griffin Newman?

  Without feeling like she has defined phases. But you're like, right.

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  A major actress, but never quite the Meryl Streep type, right? Like more of like sort of an indie arty actress.

• 1:54:03Speaker 03

  But respected in that way.

• 1:54:04David Sims?

  Hugely respected by everybody. Can do character stuff, can do like comedy, can do, you know.

• 1:54:10Griffin Newman?

  There's a moment in the nineties where there was kind of a quiet like, is she the best actress working today?

• 1:54:15David Sims?

  Yes, there was. It's the sort of Single White Female shortcuts, hot sucker, Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle, Georgia.

• 1:54:20Speaker 03

  Oh my god, her in shortcuts.

• 1:54:21David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:54:21Griffin Newman?

  But that's like an incredible run.

• 1:54:23David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying, but none of those movies are hits, right?

• 1:54:26Griffin Newman?

  And she like never gets an Oscar nomination until Hateful Eight. It was kind of like-

• 1:54:29Speaker 03

  Wow, I did not know that.

• 1:54:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  Yes, and like that, it's especially Mrs. Parker, Georgia, which are two- Oscar snubs in a row, right? Where it's like, she played Dorothy Parker. You didn't like that? You know, like she like.

• 1:54:40Speaker 03

  She did?

• 1:54:41David Sims?

  Yeah, that movie rocks.

• 1:54:42Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it, maybe I'll watch that today.

• 1:54:44Griffin Newman?

  Was supposed to be a bit of an Oscar vehicle for her.

• 1:54:46David Sims?

  Which one, sorry?

• 1:54:46Griffin Newman?

  Kansas City was sort of framed as.

• 1:54:48David Sims?

  That movie didn't go over at all. And like.

• 1:54:50Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever seen that movie alone?

• 1:54:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:54:52Griffin Newman?

  Altman's Kansas City is really good.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  What? No, I have not seen that.

• 1:54:55Griffin Newman?

  Prohibition jazz movie with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson and fucking Harry Belafonte.

• 1:55:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  Rules.

• 1:55:04Speaker 03

  I just watched a copycat with Harry Belafonte and sorry. Wow, Harry Connick Jr. I'm sorry, I'm ill.

• 1:55:10David Sims?

  Why did you wait? Why did you watch copycat?

• 1:55:12Speaker 03

  Cause I love 90s neo noir.

• 1:55:14David Sims?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:55:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:15David Sims?

  Hell, yeah. That movie isn't even that good, but like the vibes are out of control.

• 1:55:19Speaker 03

  Does Harry Belafonte sing? Yes.

• 1:55:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:55:22Speaker 03

  And so does Harry Connick Jr. And they're both named.

• 1:55:24Griffin Newman?

  They're both Harrys.

• 1:55:25David Sims?

  It is, it is so funny to imagine confusing them. Their, their persons.

• 1:55:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Speaker 03

  There's a Miriam Makeba and, and Harry Belafonte record, which I really love and I highly recommend people listen to.

• 1:55:38Griffin Newman?

  I stress, I have a better pitch. Kansas City is Altman doing jazz Thelma Louise.

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  Oh, amazing.

• 1:55:46David Sims?

  It's called.

• 1:55:47Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  An Evening with Belafonte Makeba.

• 1:55:49Speaker 03

  That's.

• 1:55:49David Sims?

  That's what the record's called.

• 1:55:50Speaker 03

  It's really beautiful.

• 1:55:53David Sims?

  Jennifer Jason Leigh, right? And then by the late 90s, early 2000s, when you've got like anniversary party and in the cut and stuff. It's like, right now she's already graduated to character actress in a way.

• 1:56:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:56:04David Sims?

  Just an interesting career.

• 1:56:04Griffin Newman?

  And not only character actress, but it's like, she's either in kind of like small indies or bigger parts, or she's like in stuff like Road to Perdition, where you're like, she's in big movies, but in kind of entirely thankless roles.

• 1:56:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:56:17David Sims?

  Whereas like Phoebe Cates, obviously is a star throughout the 80s. And then it's like, I'm marrying Kevin Kline, peace and never.

• 1:56:22Griffin Newman?

  Great choice.

• 1:56:24Speaker 03

  I love when that, when sex symbols do that. It's kind of like Brigitte Bardot being like.

• 1:56:29David Sims?

  I'll be preserved in amber.

• 1:56:30Speaker 03

  I'm so like done with you guys looking at me. And now I'm gonna go like, you know, live, breed dogs. I think she breeds dogs.

• 1:56:38Griffin Newman?

  Can we also just like frame of reference? Cause I feel like this is a thing my dad would talk about all the time. And it's, he's. It's a little Gutenberg adjacent, but like the run Judge Reinhold has of just like four or five years of being at the center of the culture, where people were like, is Judge Reinhold just golden?

• 1:56:57David Sims?

  Okay, so give it, give it to me.

• 1:56:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, I might get this order wrong, but I'm just like Judge Reinhold is in Fast Times, Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins.

• 1:57:05David Sims?

  Yep, true. He's also in Stripes.

• 1:57:08Griffin Newman?

  He's also in Stripes, like eighty to eighty-five for Judge is insane.

• 1:57:13David Sims?

  It's pretty insane. I mean, yeah.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  I know he's not the guy in any of them.

• 1:57:18David Sims?

  That's the thing.

• 1:57:18Griffin Newman?

  But I'm saying the through line of like, this guy keeps on showing up on the right sets.

• 1:57:22David Sims?

  He's very much around, but I do feel like he's, you know, he's a reliable white guy, like to be like, you know, not steal your movie, right?

• 1:57:32Speaker 03

  And then is he eclipsed by the other reliable white guy, Tom Hanks?

• 1:57:35David Sims?

  Yeah, he just doesn't evolve, I guess.

• 1:57:38Speaker 03

  Who's our reliable white guy now?

• 1:57:40Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of still Tom Hanks.

• 1:57:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's still Tom Hanks.

• 1:57:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, I don't think, who's the young Tom Hanks?

• 1:57:44David Sims?

  Chris Pratt, of course. He's always playing relatable characters.

• 1:57:46Speaker 03

  I think that that's.

• 1:57:47David Sims?

  Called like John Glenn.

• 1:57:48Griffin Newman?

  Buffest high school science teachers or whatever.

• 1:57:52David Sims?

  Uh, I don't know. I don't know who are relatable. I mean, I think about Adam Scott and Severance, a show that I love that I'm thinking about right now because it's, uh, there's a new season of it where he kind of exists in that world, right? Cause he's being picked for that role.

• 1:58:04Griffin Newman?

  I have the answer, but he's old.

• 1:58:05David Sims?

  Okay, who?

• 1:58:06Griffin Newman?

  It's Paul Rudd still.

• 1:58:08Speaker 03

  It is still Paul Rudd.

• 1:58:10David Sims?

  Kind of, but he is actually getting too old.

• 1:58:12Speaker 03

  But who's young Paul Rudd?

• 1:58:13David Sims?

  That's her question. I think it's a fair question.

• 1:58:15Griffin Newman?

  Like, obviously Paul Rudd launches with Clueless. We'll talk about that in a couple of weeks, but then it kind of takes another like fifteen years for him to become a full-on movie star. So he basically at like.

• 1:58:27Speaker 03

  And what is it? What is it?

• 1:58:29Griffin Newman?

  What, what is his movie star role? My god.

• 1:58:33Speaker 03

  Oh my god, I'm so happy!

• 1:58:37David Sims?

  Oh my god.

• 1:58:38Speaker 03

  There's a birthday party in here for me. Oh my god.

• 1:58:46Griffin Newman?

  Ben, I just want to make clear, that was an actual pizza order and not you hiring an actor to deliver a pizza, because you've done that version of things too.

• 1:58:53Speaker 03

  That's cool too. Wait, I have to pee again.

• 1:58:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm gonna pee after you.

• 1:59:00Speaker 05

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• 1:59:44Griffin Newman?

  There's the one where he does the key change in the... He goes really high at one point.

• 1:59:52David Sims?

  Jackson Browne?

• 1:59:58Griffin Newman?

  Ben, thank you for one of the best tasting bits we've had in a long time on the show.

• 2:00:01Speaker 03

  That was amazing.

• 2:00:02Griffin Newman?

  We had to take a break, so people didn't hear us chewing.

• 2:00:04David Sims?

  Yeah, you're so welcome. All right, so...

• 2:00:06Griffin Newman?

  That's the part I was thinking.

• 2:00:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:07Speaker 03

  It's so good.

• 2:00:08David Sims?

  We've talked about J.J. L.

• 2:00:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:10David Sims?

  We've talked about Phoebe. We've talked about, uh, Demone and Rat. Do we have any more? No, we've talked about them. It's not...

• 2:00:16Griffin Newman?

  I want to... I think this is a movie where you just kind of have to go through moments, and I know we're doing it wildly out of order, because it's hard to kind of track even the character throats.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  We talked about, uh, Forest Whitaker. His little brother makes me laugh so hard.

• 2:00:27Griffin Newman?

  It's really fun.

• 2:00:28Speaker 03

  See my shit? It's gonna kill us.

• 2:00:30Griffin Newman?

  You know what's a really good, very skillful, but like, not overstated thing?

• 2:00:34Speaker 03

  What?

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  The scene where, after having sex with Demone, Jennifer Jason-Leigh is asking Phoebe Cates about how long...

• 2:00:42David Sims?

  Right, and Phoebe's like, oh, like, 30 to 40 minutes.

• 2:00:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. Well, no, I think at first she says...

• 2:00:47David Sims?

  Phoebe says 20 to 30, and J.J. L. is like...

• 2:00:50Speaker 03

  I thought you said... It took longer.

• 2:00:51David Sims?

  Thirty to forty and she's like, oh, right.

• 2:00:53Griffin Newman?

  Thirty to forty and he goes, what about Damone? He goes, like.

• 2:00:56David Sims?

  Ten to twenty.

• 2:00:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. And she goes, not bad for a high school boy. What are they doing while having that conversation? Chopping up a big ass sausage.

• 2:01:03David Sims?

  Pepperoni. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:01:04Speaker 03

  It's amazing. Also, I was, I always used to.

• 2:01:07Griffin Newman?

  They're just fucking cutting dicks.

• 2:01:08Speaker 03

  I wanted in high school, like, I remember that carrot scene so well, when she's teaching her how to give the blowjob and then all the boys clap.

• 2:01:16David Sims?

  Yes. And I like that their reaction is not embarrassment.

• 2:01:19Speaker 03

  Yes, me too, me too. It's so, it's so cool. They're so cool.

• 2:01:23Griffin Newman?

  To go back to, oh, no.

• 2:01:24Speaker 03

  The way that she then bites the carrot at the end is so fucking good. They're just so chill.

• 2:01:30Griffin Newman?

  Um, you were saying, uh.

• 2:01:31David Sims?

  Couple of chillers.

• 2:01:32Griffin Newman?

  The bad tagline on the poster, that's just pen at the chair with a surfboard and a textbook and two babes. Right. Average, mon high, only the rules get busted. The other posters I saw on the IMP Awards site, my favorite poster resource. There's this one that's like a painting of a topless woman from behind on a beach, pulling off her bikini bottoms and like Spicoli going like, whoa.

• 2:01:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the one I remember.

• 2:01:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. And Fast Times is written on her back in what I assume is supposed to be suntan lotion, but looks a little bit like ejaculate. And the tagline is literally, you loved Porky's, now turn yourself loose on some Fast Times. And then there's this one that's like the very Animal House, sort of Jack Davis mad magazine sort of cartoons.

• 2:02:19David Sims?

  Fast Cars.

• 2:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Fast Carrots.

• 2:02:21David Sims?

  Fast Carrots?

• 2:02:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That's the tagline.

• 2:02:25Speaker 03

  Hilarious. Okay, I get it.

• 2:02:27Griffin Newman?

  It's just very funny how weird all the approaches to selling this movie were.

• 2:02:33David Sims?

  You know, it's hard to just sell this movie because it's basically just about high schoolers hanging out.

• 2:02:37Griffin Newman?

  Outside of knowing Spicoli was money in the bank, that was the one thing they seemed to be very clear on.

• 2:02:41David Sims?

  They know that and they know Spicoli's different, right? You know, his look is kind of different, so that's cool. And it's more modern. Again, it's not a vintage movie like, uh, like Animal House or something like that. Valley Girl's like the year after.

• 2:02:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:02:52Speaker 03

  Never seen Valley Girl.

• 2:02:54David Sims?

  She's just getting cage off of this.

• 2:02:56Griffin Newman?

  Valley Girl, Valley Girl, you would like.

• 2:02:58David Sims?

  Cage says like.

• 2:03:00Griffin Newman?

  A syllabus?

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  A syllabus. Yeah.

• 2:03:02David Sims?

  I mean, that's another of the few that is directed by a woman, Martha Coolidge.

• 2:03:05Griffin Newman?

  About something?

• 2:03:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:07Griffin Newman?

  I'm just remembering that this was a thing in high school that for your birthday. You would say, Mom, Griffin's gonna pick 10 movies and can you buy them for me?

• 2:03:15Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:03:15Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember that?

• 2:03:16Speaker 03

  Like vaguely, that's so sweet.

• 2:03:22David Sims?

  Are there any other scenes we want to hit?

• 2:03:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:23David Sims?

  I was thinking, we, uh, we pointed out that there's no grownups, right?

• 2:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, only teachers.

• 2:03:29David Sims?

  But no, there is another presence of grownups, and that is the managers of the restaurants.

• 2:03:35Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, they're bosses.

• 2:03:37David Sims?

  Who are like 25, like, yeah, like the little scooches.

• 2:03:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:03:42David Sims?

  Because they take it even more seriously. They're like, you know, hey, you know, come on, was this guy bothering you?

• 2:03:48Speaker 02

  The guy who works at fucking Captain Jack, like the manager, makes him wear the uniform.

• 2:03:52Griffin Newman?

  That's the Stuart Kornfeld.

• 2:03:53Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, that's so corny.

• 2:03:54David Sims?

  Him flirting with the girl is so funny with that fucking hat on, it's so funny.

• 2:03:58Griffin Newman?

  That is Nancy Wilson.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  Uh, that is Nancy Wilson, this beautiful girl.

• 2:04:02Griffin Newman?

  Who then becomes Cameron Crowe's wife, Nancy Wilson from Heart.

• 2:04:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:06David Sims?

  Yeah, Anthony Edwards, Pamela Springsteen, Martin Brest is the doctor, like, there's a lot of-

• 2:04:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes, when they go to the morgue, that's Marty Brest.

• 2:04:13David Sims?

  Oh, wow. There's a lot of, uh, cameos. And of course, the great Taylor Negron delivering the pizza.

• 2:04:18Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 2:04:19Speaker 03

  Who's that?

• 2:04:20David Sims?

  He's just a guy who's got a great face.

• 2:04:23Speaker 03

  Yes, I did recognize him.

• 2:04:24Griffin Newman?

  Sort of like an early comedian and then is in a million things in this sized role.

• 2:04:30David Sims?

  He's a classic that guy.

• 2:04:31Griffin Newman?

  He's one of those guys where his voice is so funny, his vibe is so funny, and his look is so specific that you can be like, hey, will you show up for three lines or just hand over a pizza and it will be funny? It is one of my favorite things of all time.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, his vibe in that scene is amazing.

• 2:04:46Griffin Newman?

  You can look him up and be like, oh, right, he's that guy in 20 other movies. He passed away a couple of years ago. I think it is the funniest thing in the world. Do you know the Mulaney, Stefan, Taylor Negron story?

• 2:04:58David Sims?

  But we're not doing that right now, no, Griffin, we're trying to wrap up this episode, no. No, that's a, no, people Google it.

• 2:05:04Griffin Newman?

  I'm giving the look.

• 2:05:06Speaker 03

  I'm gonna Google it.

• 2:05:07Griffin Newman?

  Lola's curious.

• 2:05:08David Sims?

  Lola's gotta go, so you cannot complain later, Griffin, if we didn't talk about something.

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  I won't complain later, here's what I'll say.

• 2:05:14David Sims?

  I'm getting a pizza while you do this.

• 2:05:15Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you're getting a pizza, so, I wasn't gonna tell the story, but now I have to. I was not going to, I was gonna move on. Lola.

• 2:05:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  Remember the Stefan, uh, Bill Hader, Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update bit where he was the guy who would list, like, this club has everything?

• 2:05:34Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:05:35Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, this really isn't gonna work.

• 2:05:36Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, I missed a lot of SNL.

• 2:05:40Griffin Newman?

  What am I gonna do while you're chewing on pizza?

• 2:05:43Speaker 02

  Talk about the movie, what do you mean?

• 2:05:44Griffin Newman?

  Boy, Ben's chewing too.

• 2:05:46Speaker 03

  Everyone's chewing around.

• 2:05:48Griffin Newman?

  I know, Lola and I are the only two people trying to chew the fat and have a conversation.

• 2:05:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jesus Christ.

• 2:05:54Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:05:54Speaker 02

  Um, okay, uh, everyone dances so well at the school dance.

• 2:05:58Speaker 03

  Oh my god, there's one, I think it's Forest Whitaker's character is dancing like amazing.

• 2:06:02Speaker 02

  He is killing it. They're all so good in a way where I'm almost like, that is the one thing that's not authentic to high school. No, my, at least my school was not.

• 2:06:11David Sims?

  Is the band also too good?

• 2:06:13Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 2:06:14David Sims?

  In that kinda movie way of like.

• 2:06:15Speaker 03

  Well, they had to have some elements of cinema, you know?

• 2:06:18Griffin Newman?

  Here's the other thing with Forest Whitaker. He, when he has this sort of, I guess, post-drama school, uh, second wave or in his start of his career, he's like bulked up a lot, right? And then he's like increasingly a bigger and bigger guy. And then I feel like after Last King of Scotland, he slims way down.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  He did get trimmer, it's true.

• 2:06:38Griffin Newman?

  This is the one movie where he's just fucking like an absolute unit, right? Cause he's such a tall guy, but now he's gotten so slim that you don't think about it in the same way. Where in this, it's like, oh, he's a fucking quarterback.

• 2:06:50Speaker 02

  I do think, well, he's not a quarterback.

• 2:06:52Griffin Newman?

  What position is he?

• 2:06:54Speaker 02

  It seems like he's a tackle. He's, cause he's like a defensive.

• 2:06:57Speaker 03

  We don't know.

• 2:06:58Griffin Newman?

  Frankly, I wouldn't, you have to tell me.

• 2:07:00David Sims?

  They went to the same ads.

• 2:07:01Speaker 03

  It's the same ads.

• 2:07:03David Sims?

  Football is your life!

• 2:07:04Speaker 02

  Football's illegal there.

• 2:07:06Griffin Newman?

  I just like that anytime David tries to mock me for going to that school.

• 2:07:10Speaker 02

  You kidding me?

• 2:07:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, you fucking married into it!

• 2:07:13Speaker 02

  I fucking.

• 2:07:13Speaker 03

  You married into it.

• 2:07:14Griffin Newman?

  I don't like having gone there either.

• 2:07:16Speaker 02

  Oh, whatever. You went where you went.

• 2:07:19Speaker 02

  You didn't get to pick.

• 2:07:20Griffin Newman?

  I didn't get to pick.

• 2:07:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:21Speaker 03

  What do you mean? It was an amazing school. We were so lucky.

• 2:07:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:07:25Speaker 03

  You were enrolled!

• 2:07:26Griffin Newman?

  You guys, my mom wouldn't let me go! Cause my dad said I was gonna end up dancing on top of taxicabs.

• 2:07:33Speaker 02

  Okay, I know we don't have a lot of time, but I'm just interested, what was everybody's job in high school? I'll share mine, first I was a stock boy at a, like, a local market.

• 2:07:42David Sims?

  So my, my major, like honestly, how I made my money was as a babysitter. I was a really good babysitter.

• 2:07:48Speaker 02

  Oh, I can see that. You seem like you would have been a trustworthy kid.

• 2:07:51David Sims?

  And well, not just that, I was, I was always just giving boys, right? Like the parents where they were just like, I don't know what these boys, they're climbing up the walls. Like, I need to get out of that. Like, I was, I was good because I knew how to chill out like nine-year-old boys, which is you played video games all day, obviously. It's not like I was like enriching these kids' lives. But I was also a receptionist at a doctor's office, which is crazy to think about. For like two summers in a row, which is crazy to think about because like, I was like handling medical records or whatever. I mean, my job was just basically like making appointments and being like, okay, like, he's ready for you.

• 2:08:26Speaker 02

  For being a stoner, I would show up late all the time and just like restock, melt, clack, clack, putting cans on shelves. Exactly.

• 2:08:34Speaker 03

  I feel like I didn't have a good job for being a stoner because I was, I worked with children as well.

• 2:08:38Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's what I did.

• 2:08:39Speaker 03

  But I worked at a daycare center in Chinatown with mostly only kids that spoke Chinese and me.

• 2:08:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was babysitting and like daycare.

• 2:08:48Speaker 03

  No, but I.

• 2:08:49Griffin Newman?

  Preschool stuff, yeah.

• 2:08:50Speaker 03

  They, but I mean, there's different dialects, obviously, and some of the kids didn't even speak the same language.

• 2:08:55Griffin Newman?

  I've tried to explain this to people. It is, it is tough getting high school jobs when you grew up in New York City because everyone wants jobs in New York City so badly.

• 2:09:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:09:06Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 2:09:07Griffin Newman?

  You know that the things that are sort of like good entry-level jobs for teenagers are.

• 2:09:11Speaker 02

  Like a Starbucks.

• 2:09:12Griffin Newman?

  Are like competitive here.

• 2:09:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so you do have to kind of find like weird sideways under the table things.

• 2:09:18Speaker 03

  But it was, I loved that job. It was my favorite job I've ever had.

• 2:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:21Speaker 03

  More than any acting job.

• 2:09:23Griffin Newman?

  That is, that is the.

• 2:09:24Speaker 02

  What the fuck?

• 2:09:25Speaker 03

  No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

• 2:09:26Griffin Newman?

  The only other thing I think I would be happy doing in my career.

• 2:09:30Speaker 03

  Is working with kids.

• 2:09:31Griffin Newman?

  Is be, like being a preschool teacher, yeah.

• 2:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I worked at the preschool at St. Anne's too.

• 2:09:34Griffin Newman?

  Right, and then when I dropped out of college, I went and worked there.

• 2:09:38Speaker 03

  You literally worked.

• 2:09:39Griffin Newman?

  I literally, yeah. I mean, I was like floater sub stuff. And they were sort of like, if you want to really do this, you have to go back to school.

• 2:09:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:09:48Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, that sounds like a bummer.

• 2:09:50Speaker 03

  Guys, I have to go.

• 2:09:52David Sims?

  Griffin walking in 15 minutes late to St. Anne's preschool with a bunch of blank street coffees.

• 2:09:56Griffin Newman?

  I don't like this bit.

• 2:09:58David Sims?

  Bit.

• 2:09:58Griffin Newman?

  I got Lola tea.

• 2:10:00Speaker 03

  He got me tea to help me get through.

• 2:10:02David Sims?

  Lola, before you go, because we can, we can rap without you, but is there anything else you want to say about Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

• 2:10:08Speaker 03

  I'm just so happy that I got to watch it again. It made me feel so like good inside.

• 2:10:12Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's really a really special movie.

• 2:10:14Speaker 03

  I read this quote of hers on IMDb trivia, where she said, I wanted to make something that if, like a movie that if you woke up inside it, you'd be happy.

• 2:10:23Griffin Newman?

  I think she fucking nailed that.

• 2:10:24David Sims?

  Not interesting because this movie's also a bummer, but it is. Nonetheless, the end is, I am really happy when he clocks that guy.

• 2:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Part of it is there is a very positive spirit to this movie, but if it were artificially happy, it would not create the same warmth. If it felt like it was in ignorance of reality, right? And I think when I think about why these like 80s high school movies are this ultimate comfort food for me, it is that, that they're able to like create the sense of fun, individuality and the music and the clothes and whatever, but the ones I like also have like, they're touching on sadness, you know, and like broken aspects of the human condition. And I think, you know, at John Hughes's peak, the thing that people would say, and especially the actors he worked with were like, it's crazy. He like, there's like a teenager still inside of him. He knows how to write as if it's still so like present and immediate for him, right?

• 2:11:17Griffin Newman?

  And this movie isn't that in an interesting way. It is like a 22 year old who never kissed, had never been kissed his way into a high school and a woman who never had this kind of experience at a high school. And there's like a little bit of removed and it has this level of like adult perspective on these experiences while respecting the characters.

• 2:11:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:11:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Recognizing what's funny about them and what's silly about them, but also what's like sad about them and, and what's uncomfortable and all of that. I just, it's like a very unique film. Lola.

• 2:11:50David Sims?

  Thank you for being with us, Lola.

• 2:11:51Griffin Newman?

  Book is called Wild West Village.

• 2:11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:53Griffin Newman?

  The new album is called?

• 2:11:54Speaker 03

  Trailblazer.

• 2:11:55Griffin Newman?

  Sinners coming out.

• 2:11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:57Griffin Newman?

  One week ago.

• 2:11:58Speaker 03

  One week ago. I love you, Griffin, forever.

• 2:12:00Griffin Newman?

  I love you, Lola.

• 2:12:01Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me, guys. This was so fun.

• 2:12:03Griffin Newman?

  We'll see you in eight years. I'm joking.

• 2:12:06David Sims?

  I think six.

• 2:12:07Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I think two. Let's call it.

• 2:12:09David Sims?

  All right. That sounds fine. But you live in Nashville. I mean, like Lola's not always here. It's hard. Bye Lola. See you later.

• 2:12:20Griffin Newman?

  Okay, that was a door slam.

• 2:12:21David Sims?

  Kabam.

• 2:12:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:22David Sims?

  Lola's gone.

• 2:12:23Griffin Newman?

  Lola's gone.

• 2:12:25David Sims?

  Never to return.

• 2:12:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, no, let's, let's make this, uh, the, the final part of the conversation, okay? I mean, we're talking about the summer job or, or the high school job thing.

• 2:12:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:34Griffin Newman?

  I do think it's, uh, what you were saying about like Brad's whole thing being, taking this so seriously and priding himself on how much he's good at it.

• 2:12:43David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:12:43Griffin Newman?

  And these guys who are just a couple of years older than him and have such an attitude and such a sense of superiority. The final note of the movie is like Brad's great victory being that he gets promoted to manager really quickly. Right?

• 2:12:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:58Griffin Newman?

  Like this movie.

• 2:12:59David Sims?

  Stops a robbery.

• 2:12:59Griffin Newman?

  This movie nails the like Chyron, what happens to the characters shit.

• 2:13:04David Sims?

  I, I mean, the Chyron, the, the, those are so funny. We should also say Brad, Brad is the, the closest thing the movie tries to do. A hero. He steps up for his sister in this like non-obnoxious way.

• 2:13:14Griffin Newman?

  It's just a beautiful.

• 2:13:15David Sims?

  He's so sweet with her.

• 2:13:16Griffin Newman?

  Him dropping her off at bowling. He's immediately sort of like.

• 2:13:19David Sims?

  He's like, what?

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  Bowling with friends. He drops her off. He gets stuck in like an intersection.

• 2:13:24David Sims?

  Yeah, he notices where she's really coming.

• 2:13:25Griffin Newman?

  In the rearview window.

• 2:13:26David Sims?

  And he waits for her. It's not like he barges upstairs.

• 2:13:28Griffin Newman?

  He waits for her.

• 2:13:29David Sims?

  He just waits outside.

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  Patiently.

• 2:13:31David Sims?

  And he's just super chill about it.

• 2:13:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:33David Sims?

  Um, so yeah, but then of course, yeah, and then James Russo, we should shout out fellow, uh, Beverly Hills cop member trying to stick up the, uh, 7-Eleven or whatever it is.

• 2:13:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh shit.

• 2:13:42David Sims?

  Yeah. Who's really funny.

• 2:13:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's, he's Axel's partner at the beginning of the movie. But I just, I love the sort of efficiency of like how quickly he comes and spray paints the camera and takes the gun out. Like this guy moves so fast that even though he's not wearing a mask or anything, it's like disorienting of you don't have time to respond. Which is what he's counting on, right?

• 2:14:02David Sims?

  Yep. I also think it's important that like the most put together and least put together characters kind of unite at the end who don't have anything to do with each other, Spicoli and Brad, to solve this problem.

• 2:14:14Griffin Newman?

  There's like an incredible restraint of this movie not forcing the characters together in like obvious overlap ways and you'll have like Jennifer Jason Lee being in Spicoli's class, but it's not like it's building to any specific interactions with them, you know? Like the plotlines don't really cross over that much.

• 2:14:34David Sims?

  Not really. Um, oh, I should.

• 2:14:37Griffin Newman?

  Which makes it fun when at the end it's like, oh, right, these two guys haven't interacted.

• 2:14:41David Sims?

  I also think we should shout out that Rat takes Stacy to some sort of German fucking Oktoberfest ass, you know, mall store. It was like the nastiest farts are gonna be coming out of you on this date. You're eating like bratwurst or whatever.

• 2:14:58Speaker 02

  It's like sauerkraut on the table.

• 2:15:01Griffin Newman?

  Not only that, Jennifer Jason Lee is a tiny woman.

• 2:15:02David Sims?

  She's tiny. They drink like 18 cokes, right?

• 2:15:05Griffin Newman?

  Rat is a tiny person. They're also sitting in the biggest chairs of all time.

• 2:15:07David Sims?

  It's so funny. It's like the least good vibe.

• 2:15:10Griffin Newman?

  It's the visual of them in like the most grown up, stodgy, bad smelling, like angry servers place, sitting in these chairs that look like they're swallowing them and he realizes he doesn't have his wallet on him and she does like a full kind of like Mel Brooks musical sting, like he's in a thriller suddenly and he keeps just ordering more and more cokes to delay to get Demone to drop off the wallet, which of course is the fatal move that fucks him. But what really fucks him is, no, I, I, I'm as.

• 2:15:38David Sims?

  He's too scared to make a move.

• 2:15:39Griffin Newman?

  That's, that's the mistake. Yes.

• 2:15:42David Sims?

  Yeah, he's just, he's just not ready, man. They just gotta kind of circle around and they find each other better.

• 2:15:47Griffin Newman?

  But that sequence is so funny.

• 2:15:49David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, uh, Demone gets busted for scalping Ozzy Osbourne tickets, Mr. Vargas switches back to coffee, Linda, of course, starts dating her professor in college, Rat and Stacy haven't gone all the way yet.

• 2:16:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Spicoli saves Brooke Shields and then spends all his money.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  Blows all the reward money.

• 2:16:07David Sims?

  Hiring Van Halen to play his birthday party, sounds like a good party.

• 2:16:10Griffin Newman?

  But Brad gets promoted to being the manager of this gas station and a thing I really like, if you watch that, it is very clear that they didn't get enough footage.

• 2:16:22Griffin Newman?

  And so the the footage that is running over or underneath the Chyron for Brad, where he's standing above the body with the gun and it looks like he keeps readjusting, is the same clip played backwards and forwards like three times.

• 2:16:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:16:35Griffin Newman?

  If you notice, he starts to do weird like movements. He's he's he's going, uh, Black Lodge.

• 2:16:44Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say we should shout out the football.

• 2:16:48Speaker 02

  Scene is really funny.

• 2:16:49Griffin Newman?

  I don't give a shit about football.

• 2:16:50Speaker 02

  I just think I just think it's like really funny, physical comedy.

• 2:16:53Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:16:54Speaker 02

  And I and I think she does a really good job with like just making it so over the top.

• 2:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm. But that's what's crazy like it's in the dossier, but that she grew up loving Mad Magazine. That like that's her sensibility, right?

• 2:17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17:07Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of like comedic exaggeration and we'll totally get that in Johnny Dangerously and talk about that. And even Clueless is like a much more stylized, heightened movie, right? And, you know, that it was another thing that JJ put in the dossier, but that when she was growing up, she loved movies. She was like, what's my career path? I only know of one female director. And she would have to point to her parents and be like, I guess I want to do what Elaine May does because that was the only person she could sort of point at as an aspiration. And Elaine May's movies are like a lot more heightened, you know? I I just think this movie being able to do both and cut between them so quickly and so much of this movie will play out in montage, you know?

• 2:17:49Griffin Newman?

  And we'll have these sort of sequences beyond even our primary characters, just catching like five second glimpses of random kids or featured background actors or people who have like under five roles. And it's just sort of like, here's what everyone's doing in class. Here's what everyone's doing at the mall. Here's what everyone's doing at the dance. And they feel like Mad Magazine, like Sergio Argones, like weird marginal drawings. And then she can like have a scene that has real emotion in it. And neither one is like fighting against the other. And I I struggle to think of other movies that are good at holding both tones at their most extreme ends and not, as you're saying, David, sort of doing a movie that is like funny and goofy for the

• 2:18:31Griffin Newman?

  The first forty five minutes and then she gets an abortion and it becomes really serious for thirty minutes.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  Her mistakes come back to haunt her.

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  And then suddenly there's a stretch with with zero jokes. Like, I just kind of can't believe how beautifully she lets this film be everything. Which also feels reflective of like being a fucking teenager.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  It captures the energy of that time.

• 2:18:53Griffin Newman?

  And the wild emotional swings.

• 2:18:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:56David Sims?

  That's why it's good.

• 2:18:57Griffin Newman?

  Now, you saying, does it kind of fuck her that she's got a movie this good out of the gates?

• 2:19:02David Sims?

  Tough. It's tough to follow it up.

• 2:19:04Griffin Newman?

  I think it does help her that the movie is a bit of a slow burn that grows. So it's not like it lands with such an impact that she's stuck under the shadow forever.

• 2:19:13David Sims?

  No.

• 2:19:14Griffin Newman?

  I think weirdly, over time, it becomes a bigger sort of shadow for her.

• 2:19:18David Sims?

  I mean, like, she doesn't, I mean, Johnny Dangerously, her next film, is is not very successful.

• 2:19:23Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:19:24David Sims?

  And then she makes European Vacation, which is successful, but is not exactly her movie or her success, really.

• 2:19:31Griffin Newman?

  But she's sort of-

• 2:19:31David Sims?

  So it takes to Look Who's Talking for her to really have, like, sort of like a major success again, and that is a huge success.

• 2:19:37Griffin Newman?

  But Look Who's Talking is like a revenge movie. Like, Look Who's Talking is a Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like, I need to make something that's undeniable. That's a franchise. That's a blockbuster. You know, it was a very strategic move for her. But that's the first one that she's, like, fully creating and conceptualizing herself.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:56Griffin Newman?

  It's an interesting career that I'm very excited to talk about.

• 2:19:58David Sims?

  Uh.

• 2:19:59Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is a director that we've been threatening to do for so long.

• 2:20:03David Sims?

  Yeah, no, she's been on our list from the beginning.

• 2:20:05Griffin Newman?

  A decade of dreams.

• 2:20:06David Sims?

  Um, so this film came out August thirteenth, nineteen eighty-two. So it's like a pretty quiet, trashy time. Like, late summer back then is not a real blockbuster time, as you'll see from what's in the box office.

• 2:20:20Griffin Newman?

  And as you said, it's like this movie is conceived of as like, maybe this is our new animal house or American or theater, whatever. Then they get scared, they suppress it, and then it sort of catches on. So then they try to catch up with the demand, but they never quite nail it.

• 2:20:35David Sims?

  It made, I think, twenty-two mil, something like that. Um, uh, it's opening number seven on five hundred screens.

• 2:20:42Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:20:42David Sims?

  So number one at the box office is also new this week. It's the big hit of the week, and it is a horror sequel.

• 2:20:48Griffin Newman?

  Hmm. Is it a Halloween?

• 2:20:51David Sims?

  Nope.

• 2:20:52Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Jason Voorhees?

• 2:20:55David Sims?

  Yes, it is a Friday the 13th.

• 2:20:56Griffin Newman?

  Is it two?

• 2:20:57David Sims?

  No.

• 2:20:58Griffin Newman?

  It's three already?

• 2:20:59David Sims?

  Friday the 13th, part three.

• 2:21:01Griffin Newman?

  So it was 80, 81, 82, three consecutive?

• 2:21:03David Sims?

  They made them every year.

• 2:21:04Griffin Newman?

  They were on a paranormal schedule, yeah.

• 2:21:06David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, their movies were made quickly and obviously the whole point was to send it, but then I think-

• 2:21:11Griffin Newman?

  How's three? Three is the first hockey mask one, right?

• 2:21:14David Sims?

  Uh, yes, uh, three is good. Um, it is not my favorite.

• 2:21:20Griffin Newman?

  But it is the one that kind of codifies the whole Jason thing.

• 2:21:25David Sims?

  Uh, I guess so. I mean, two is pretty-

• 2:21:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but two is sack head in fucking overalls?

• 2:21:31David Sims?

  Um, yeah, yeah, I guess so. Uh, three is also the 3D one, so in whatever, you know.

• 2:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:21:37David Sims?

  Uh, because that was hot back then. And then four, the final chapter.

• 2:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:21:42David Sims?

  Uh, is the one with Crispin Glover that I think is, is really good and is kind of-

• 2:21:46Griffin Newman?

  Wild that they ended it there and never made any other ones.

• 2:21:49David Sims?

  And then five is really bad, in my opinion.

• 2:21:51Griffin Newman?

  The last one was the final chapter?

• 2:21:52David Sims?

  Uh, and then six rocks. Six is my favorite.

• 2:21:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm confused. That's two past the final chapter.

• 2:21:57David Sims?

  And yet, they keep doing it.

• 2:21:59Griffin Newman?

  The math ain't mathin'.

• 2:22:01David Sims?

  Uh, the math ain't mathin'. Um, so that's number one at the box office.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:22:05David Sims?

  Teens are going to see that, obviously. Number two at the box office, and it's been in the box office for 10 weeks. It's made $200 million and it's going to be the most financially successful film ever made.

• 2:22:14Griffin Newman?

  Is it a film we have covered recently on the show? It is called ET, the Extraterrestrial.

• 2:22:18David Sims?

  That's right. Um, obviously the biggest hit of 1982, number three.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, up until that point, the biggest hit of all time.

• 2:22:24David Sims?

  Of movies. Uh, number three is a, another giant hit of the year. Uh, I already mentioned it, a big romantic drama.

• 2:22:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a bigger, is it Officer and a Gentleman? David, is it off? Okay, slow response time there. That was a real kind of throwback in I'm David moment.

• 2:22:41David Sims?

  And a gentleman with Everwinger and Richard Gere.

• 2:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:22:44Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 2:22:45Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:22:45Speaker 02

  Just noticing, um, that there's just a knife on the desk.

• 2:22:49Griffin Newman?

  Lola called this out. Look, here's, here's a little peek behind the curtain in terms of a weird record order. That was the knife that Gethard used to open the box of Kit Fisto presents.

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:23:00Griffin Newman?

  Which, for the listener, will have been three months ago, but in our reality was three days ago.

• 2:23:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:06Griffin Newman?

  And that just, Lola was, was playing with the knife.

• 2:23:09David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is a-

• 2:23:12Griffin Newman?

  We run a proper business.

• 2:23:13David Sims?

  Musical comedy with big stars.

• 2:23:17Griffin Newman?

  It's a musical comedy with big stars in 1982.

• 2:23:19David Sims?

  Yes, it is, I think, actually a solid hit.

• 2:23:22Griffin Newman?

  It's a solid hit.

• 2:23:23David Sims?

  Um, it gets one Oscar nomination for supporting actor.

• 2:23:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it's Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?

• 2:23:30David Sims?

  The best little whorehouse in Texas, starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

• 2:23:35Griffin Newman?

  But Academy Award nominated Charles Durning performance. I've never seen that film.

• 2:23:38David Sims?

  Neither have I.

• 2:23:38Griffin Newman?

  I often invoke Charles Durning as one of my 10 favorite actors of all time.

• 2:23:41David Sims?

  Great actor.

• 2:23:42Griffin Newman?

  I have seen his number in that, probably 20 times.

• 2:23:45David Sims?

  He's the governor.

• 2:23:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and he does, uh, what's, uh, is his number called Sideshow or Softshoe?

• 2:23:51David Sims?

  Uh, his number is called The Sidestep.

• 2:23:54Griffin Newman?

  The sidestep, thank you.

• 2:23:55David Sims?

  Number five at the box office is a film that was released in 1977.

• 2:23:58Griffin Newman?

  It's about using weasel words as a politician to spin the narrative.

• 2:24:01David Sims?

  They never do that, that's crazy.

• 2:24:02Griffin Newman?

  But the thing is, he starts literally doing a little sidestep, even though he's talking about it metaphorically. I'm sorry, go on, David.

• 2:24:10David Sims?

  Uh, it's a film that came out in 1977, it's been re-released clearly.

• 2:24:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I think it is called Star Wars?

• 2:24:16David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:24:16Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:24:16David Sims?

  The film Star Wars. You've also got, uh, Fast Times Original High, of course, you've got The World According to Garp.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:24:24David Sims?

  Um, you've got a action comedy with Cheech and Chong called Things Are Tough All Over, which is, I guess, not a-

• 2:24:33Griffin Newman?

  Proper Cheech and Chong movie. I think that's a-

• 2:24:36David Sims?

  It is, I think it's the fourth one.

• 2:24:38Griffin Newman?

  Are you sure about that?

• 2:24:38David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:24:39Griffin Newman?

  I, uh, my, I feel like, I might be very wrong about this, I've never seen the film. My thought was always that that was more of a Cheech vehicle that Chong is in that was them starting to figure out what their post duo careers were.

• 2:24:51David Sims?

  I guess so, but it's billed as about Cheech and Chong taking a cross-country trip.

• 2:24:55Griffin Newman?

  So then maybe I'm fucking wrong.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  I don't know. I think you're thinking of something else.

• 2:24:58Griffin Newman?

  I am.

• 2:24:59David Sims?

  Maybe, but I'm not sure.

• 2:25:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:25:01David Sims?

  Uh, but, uh, you know, they also, because it's in between Nice Dreams and Still Smoking.

• 2:25:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:25:08David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:25:08Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:25:09David Sims?

  Uh, you've got, uh, Night Shift.

• 2:25:11Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:25:11David Sims?

  Which is the Michael Keaton film, right?

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Keaton gives one of the greatest debut performances in film history.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  Damn, Ron Howard film, obviously.

• 2:25:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:21David Sims?

  And you've got Rocky III.

• 2:25:24Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I know we say this very often when we play this game. Pretty good eaten at the Cineplexes.

• 2:25:32David Sims?

  Um, yeah, I would agree.

• 2:25:34Griffin Newman?

  There's a good spread. Sure. There are a couple undisputed classics, but I'm also just like, they're, they're big cultural movies. They're popular hits. There's a lot of big things coexisting.

• 2:25:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:45Speaker 02

  So you're saying they ate.

• 2:25:46Griffin Newman?

  They ate.

• 2:25:47David Sims?

  But you've got two part threes in here. There's this, there's a little bit of a, things are getting a little.

• 2:25:53Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you.

• 2:25:54David Sims?

  Samey, maybe. I don't know, but yeah, yeah, you got a musical, you got a big grown up drama.

• 2:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:59David Sims?

  I mean, it's August. For August, this is not bad.

• 2:26:01Griffin Newman?

  For August, this is incredible.

• 2:26:03David Sims?

  Um, so that's what's happened there.

• 2:26:07Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:26:08David Sims?

  And that's it.

• 2:26:09Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's what happened there and that's it.

• 2:26:10David Sims?

  I think that's, that's it.

• 2:26:12Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:26:12David Sims?

  Right?

• 2:26:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think that's what happened there and that's it. Excited to go on this heckling journey.

• 2:26:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:20David Sims?

  Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

• 2:26:22Griffin Newman?

  Have neither of you seen Johnny Dangerously?

• 2:26:24David Sims?

  No.

• 2:26:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:26:25David Sims?

  Why would I have seen that?

• 2:26:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:26David Sims?

  It's like not available.

• 2:26:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:28David Sims?

  How am I gonna see it?

• 2:26:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh, we'll find a way. I'll say this, I mean, we're recording this some months in advance. We're like, can we convince someone else to make Johnny Dangerously more viewable by the time this comes out?

• 2:26:42Speaker 02

  We're working on it.

• 2:26:43Griffin Newman?

  We're working on it. But in the meantime, might be a great time to sign up for ExpressVPN.

• 2:26:48David Sims?

  Is it available on, uh?

• 2:26:50Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I watched it on like Disney Plus Croatia or something a couple of months ago when I was doing my Keaton watch through. Uh, and if you remember in a past ExpressVPN, I'm ad read when I hinted that I had to use it to watch an upcoming director's movies, that was, that was it. I'll say this, you know, I have my, and part of it's a personal challenge. Uh, I want to get, uh, physical copies of all the movies of whatever the mini series is. This has been the most difficult one of any director we've ever covered.

• 2:27:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:20Griffin Newman?

  Fast Times Criterion, Johnny Dangerously, this is a straight up bootleg. It's a very good bootleg. It's a straight up bootleg. European Vacation weirdly seems to be out of print as a solo. And I wanted the solo rather than it as a box set or a double feature.

• 2:27:34David Sims?

  But that one I assume is available on like iTunes or whatever.

• 2:27:37Griffin Newman?

  I think The Look Who's Talking disc is out of print. There's no Blu-ray for the two sequels. Clueless is okay. Loser, I had to import from Australia. It might be the single most expensive Blu-ray I've ever purchased. And then I believe "I Could Never Be Your Woman" came from Denmark.

• 2:27:56David Sims?

  Wow.

• 2:27:56Griffin Newman?

  Those are the only countries those two have been releasing.

• 2:27:58David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, all of these things.

• 2:28:00Griffin Newman?

  Vam Scotten, okay.

• 2:28:00David Sims?

  All of the movies he just said, except for Johnny Dangerously, are streamable for, you know, iTunes or whatever.

• 2:28:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:06David Sims?

  So I will probably just be doing that. But I guess I'm gonna buy this Johnny Dangerously DVD. I don't know.

• 2:28:11Griffin Newman?

  I'll send you the link.

• 2:28:12David Sims?

  Oh, sure, to the bootleg?

• 2:28:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you to Lola for being here.

• 2:28:17David Sims?

  Yes, thank you Lola.

• 2:28:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:19David Sims?

  Uh, thank you to all our future guests.

• 2:28:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, hey, a big thank you to all our future guests.

• 2:28:24David Sims?

  And past guests.

• 2:28:24Griffin Newman?

  Let's throw it back to the past guests. It's been a decade of dreams. We couldn't have done it without them. Uh, tune in next week for Johnny Dangerously.

• 2:28:34David Sims?

  Uh, next week is Johnny Dangerously.

• 2:28:36Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:28:36David Sims?

  Uh, and then, yeah, European vacation. Wow.

• 2:28:38Griffin Newman?

  And on Patreon, at this point, we are doing Superman. Is that correct?

• 2:28:42David Sims?

  Oh, God, Griffin.

• 2:28:44Griffin Newman?

  We're looking up in the skies.

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  It's so true that we are doing.

• 2:28:46Griffin Newman?

  It's so true.

• 2:28:47David Sims?

  Uh, Star Trek, uh, finished, I think, in, yeah, we're about to start Superman.

• 2:28:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:28:54David Sims?

  About to start it.

• 2:28:54Griffin Newman?

  We're about to start it. We're doing Superman.

• 2:28:56David Sims?

  In, in just a couple of days, we'll be covering the film Richard Donner's Superman. Have you heard of this guy?

• 2:29:01Griffin Newman?

  Man of Steel, which we voted for a long time.

• 2:29:04David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, that's one of the movies we'll discuss.

• 2:29:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and then it will lead straight into Superman Returns, a movie we love, made by entirely unproblematic people. And then, uh, leading straight into a, a new release episode on the, the James Gunn Superman, pre- and title gold 2025. Fun series.

• 2:29:21David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  Excited to do it.

• 2:29:23David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:29:24Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's happy.

• 2:29:25David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:29:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm excited to go back to eating pizza.

• 2:29:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:29Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening.

• 2:29:31David Sims?

  You know what, though?

• 2:29:32Griffin Newman?

  Hmm?

• 2:29:34David Sims?

  I, I wanna do this.

• 2:29:36Griffin Newman?

  Ben's holding up a finger.

• 2:29:37David Sims?

  We're gonna actually, at the end of the episode, include a clip.

• 2:29:40Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:29:43David Sims?

  To a section of our Superman episode.

• 2:29:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:29:47David Sims?

  Just give a little sample, a little taste of what's available on the Patreon.

• 2:29:50Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. We haven't recorded that episode yet. What if it sucks?

• 2:29:55David Sims?

  Fuck.

• 2:29:55Griffin Newman?

  What if it's dog shit?

• 2:29:57David Sims?

  What's going on? Who's that? Why is the, why did the movie, the picture, we don't know what editing is, the picture's different. It was a picture of one guy and now it's a picture of another guy. This motherfucker flies?

• 2:30:08Griffin Newman?

  What if we respond to Christopher Reeve flying like it's the train coming into the station?

• 2:30:11David Sims?

  I think it should be more idiotic than that. The guy's coming towards me. They do like a close up of his head and we're like, his head got cut off. It's just only his head. It's getting so big. His head's getting so big.

• 2:30:23David Sims?

  Where does that go? Where's the body?

• 2:30:27David Sims?

  Oh my God.

• 2:30:30David Sims?

  Should I buy the Arrow Limited The Cell disc?

• 2:30:33Griffin Newman?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:30:33David Sims?

  I don't fucking know.

• 2:30:34Griffin Newman?

  It's the Barnes and Noble sale going on right now and I've been trying to get the Arrow.

• 2:30:38David Sims?

  Companies where they're like.

• 2:30:39Griffin Newman?

  Glorious Bastard set, but it's sold out everywhere. And so I keep checking to see which stores have it in stock for pickup because they won't do ship to home.

• 2:30:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:30:49Griffin Newman?

  That what? This is what we were talking about with Bilgov, like some movie you think is okay gets a lovingly restored extras back set.

• 2:30:55David Sims?

  I think The Cell's pretty good.

• 2:30:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But you like that someone put in the time.

• 2:31:00David Sims?

  I liked The Cell more than critics and now I probably like it less than whoever's in charge of culture.

• 2:31:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:07David Sims?

  It's become canonical or whatever.

• 2:31:09Griffin Newman?

  Remember we were trying to end this episode?

• 2:31:10David Sims?

  Yeah, all right, we're done.

• 2:31:12Griffin Newman?

  No, we're not done. I haven't done the thing to end the episode yet. We went on a couple of side tensions. And as always, I'm gonna put the knife away.

• 2:31:29David Sims?

  Williams' score here is so good. This overture for Krypton.

• 2:31:33Griffin Newman?

  Fortress of Solitude.

• 2:31:34David Sims?

  No, this is Krypton, Griffin. Jesus fucking Christ! You need to leave this podcast calling that the fucking Fortress of Solitude.

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry.

• 2:31:40David Sims?

  God!

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  This is Krypton.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  I'm so mad. No, this is Krypton.

• 2:31:42Griffin Newman?

  It's called Krypton. Marlon Brando always says Krypton.

• 2:31:46David Sims?

  So then Superman is from a planet called Krypton, right?

• 2:31:51Griffin Newman?

  Marlon Brando calls it Krypton.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  And they decide in their infinite wisdom that there should be a big prologue, you know, explaining the destruction of Krypton and where Superman came from. And they'll cast a big star to play Superman's dad, Jor-El. And they paid him $3.7 million and 11% of the box office, Griffin.

• 2:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:32:17David Sims?

  So he made $19 million in 1978.

• 2:32:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:32:23David Sims?

  For what is 10 minutes of screen time or whatever.

• 2:32:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it still is maybe the most someone's been paid relative to time on screen.

• 2:32:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:32:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. If you break down how much he was paid like per second, per minute.

• 2:32:36David Sims?

  Famously, I love this scene so much.

• 2:32:39Griffin Newman?

  It's so good.

• 2:32:40David Sims?

  So Brando famously, of course, said that, why don't we have my character be a suitcase or a talking bagel? And they instead are like, how about we have it be Marlon Brando?

• 2:32:51Griffin Newman?

  How about if we're paying you $3.7 million, you need to show up on set?

• 2:32:55David Sims?

  Cue cards are all over the set because he refused to memorize his dialogue.

• 2:32:58Griffin Newman?

  His whole performance is him looking off to the middle distance in different directions where different cue cards are.

• 2:33:03David Sims?

  And nonetheless.

• 2:33:05Griffin Newman?

  He certainly has.

• 2:33:06David Sims?

  Brando's really good in this movie.

• 2:33:07Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:33:08David Sims?

  It's kind of an iconic performance. This is a year before Apocalypse Now? And it's sort of like, it's the tail end of his post-Godfather boom with like Last Tango in Paris and stuff.

• 2:33:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:22David Sims?

  Where it's like, he's a really big actor again. And Apocalypse Now is where fat Brando becomes like what Brando is.

• 2:33:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  Right, like uncontrollable, bizarre, out of shape. This is the last time you can feel him kind of like, kind of coming correct.

• 2:33:36Griffin Newman?

  This is lazy arrogant Brando still giving you results.

• 2:33:39David Sims?

  He gets results.

• 2:33:40Griffin Newman?

  And within four years, you're just like, I don't know what to do with this footage.

• 2:33:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:33:54Speaker 02

  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

• 2:34:36Speaker 02

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.