A Serious Man with Marc Maron

The time has come for us to lock the gates. On the occasion of the end of WTF, Marc Maron joins us to talk about chaos, God, mathematics, and Jewish identity as we dive into 2009’s A Serious Man. Highlights of this episode include Marc asking, “Is this a bit?” when David opens the dossier, Marc’s discussion of his audition to play Larry Gopnik, and Marc telling Griffin that he’s proud of him. Not a dry eye in the house, folks. This is a special one. Listen to WTF http://www.wtfpod.com/ Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12Speaker 01

  It was so fun. It was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:21David 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 01

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:38Speaker 01

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53Speaker 01

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 01

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

• 1:17Griffin Newman?

  Lock the gates!

• 1:29Griffin Newman?

  Hello, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin Newman. Welcome to the pod. Blankies, Blankstables, Blankers,

• 1:45Griffin Newman?

  Blankupy Wall Streeters, Blankorekins,

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Blankadians. This is the pod. This is me. This is Griffin. Big show today. Serious Man, Marc Maron.

• 2:03Griffin Newman?

  Serious Man's the name of the movie. He is a serious man and a funny guy. He's a nice guy. He's a good guy. We had a good talk, good chat, good episode. Long time in the making. We'll get to that. But I think you guys are gonna like that one.

• 2:21Griffin Newman?

  Pow! Just shit my pants. Dunkin' Donuts, raspberry flavored coffee. What's new? What's new with me? What's going on here? Uh... My dryer is broken. It still gets hot, but it doesn't turn. The drum doesn't turn. Gotta get someone to fix the dryer. I got clothes that are clean, but they're wet. Not ideal, not ideal. Cat update! I don't have cats. I still don't have cats. No cats. That's the update. I'm allergic to them, and I don't like them on a personal level. Uh... Trying to keep my head on straight. Trying to stay normal.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  Trying to be healthy. Do read the Reddit sometimes. Probably a mistake, but some of the things I'm reading on the Reddit get me a little worked up. What else? What else? Uh... I guess, yeah, just, uh... Here's our talk with Marc Maron. Talking to serious man. He's been dream guest, one of the ultimate, our white whales. I think Marc didn't really know what to expect. Definitely had never listened to the show before. Was surprised how long we were going. Didn't tell him that this was probably the shortest episode we've done in years. But still, it's a good length. It's a good length. It's a healthy length. I think you're gonna like it. Are we adding these intros just to pad it out?

• 3:47Griffin Newman?

  No, I thought it was a cool, stylistic exercise. Anyway, here we are. Serious man with a serious man himself and a very funny guy, Marc Maron.

• 4:02David Sims?

  And I'm David.

• 4:15Griffin Newman?

  So the way, the way we usually start this podcast is I, I do a quote from the movie.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  So go do a quote from the movie.

• 4:21Griffin Newman?

  And I ham fist the word podcast into it.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, do it.

• 4:24Griffin Newman?

  But I sort of think at a tribute for this episode,

• 4:26Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 4:27Griffin Newman?

  we should like cut it, like fade in on this.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 4:30Griffin Newman?

  In the mid-conversation.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  This part right now?

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 4:34Griffin Newman?

  The way you do.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 4:36Griffin Newman?

  Where it's like, there's not the hard start to the conversation.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's true, right.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  So we're getting to the table setting.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Have copped that.

• 4:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 4:42David Sims?

  I mean, you're the king. Everyone's copped every goddamn thing you do.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  We don't do that. We do abrupt start, but we've copped like 40,000 other things for me.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  I've already done the, are we rolling?

• 4:52David Sims?

  Yeah, we're talking.

• 4:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so now, so now we're doing it. So now I'm gonna do the quote, but now I've set up the quote, okay?

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  So let me just, um, uh, I, I, I-

• 5:02Speaker 04

  Crazy you didn't have this queued up.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  I had it queued up.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  Okay, great.

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  I was getting into the character. We've been talking about process for the last half an hour. You gotta let me find it. I have it right here. I have a screenshot. It's right here. Can you give me a moment?

• 5:16Griffin Newman?

  I've had quite a bit of stress lately, marital problems, professional, you name it. This is, this is not a frivolous request. This is a, a seri- I'm a seri- I'm, I, I, I've tried to be a serious podcast, you know?

• 5:29Speaker 04

  Hmm, hmm, there you go.

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  Right? It just felt like the obvious thing to do.

• 5:32David Sims?

  I guess so. There's so many things. Could Sussman sleep?

• 5:36Griffin Newman?

  Pow, you just shit my pants. I had to do, I'm sorry, I had to do, I had to do a little.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Justcoffee.co op.

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  We did that for years. We did not have the sponsorship, but anytime I drank coffee, I would say that and I'd give them the free plug that was worth a penny. The other ones-

• 5:48Speaker 04

  They were initially upset about that until they changed their business entirely.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 5:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, the original guy-

• 5:53David Sims?

  Oh, they were like, come on, it's the same shit. What the hell?

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't love it.

• 5:57David Sims?

  This is uncouth.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  The mail orders were coming in.

• 5:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 6:01Griffin Newman?

  So when we

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Money talks.

• 6:02Griffin Newman?

  When we started this podcast, it really originally had a different premise. It took us about a year to figure out what the show actually

• 6:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, same with us.

• 6:08Griffin Newman?

  Was.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:09Griffin Newman?

  And when we started, I think we were trying to, in a way, the framing was more satireizing other podcasts.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:16Griffin Newman?

  So we were lifting from every other podcast we listened to and then repurposing other podcasts, accidental and purposeful catchphrases into our own.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:25Griffin Newman?

  So I feel like we eased off of them, but there are like six marionisms that were in our lexicon for a very long time.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  So Pow, I just shit my pants.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:35Griffin Newman?

  Who are your guys?

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  We did a lot with. The one I love, and I brought up with Brendan once, and he said he didn't remember it, is the day you were working the door at the Comedy Store, and Damon Wayans walked in and said, I'm just gonna do a jazz set.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  We repurposed jazz set a lot.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh, in context that no longer makes sense.

• 6:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:53Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and then, and then lock the gates. We do, we do a lot of lock. I mean, whenever we talk, because I feel like I also will reference people involved in the movie we're talking about. If you have interviewed them, I will pull up things that they said on your show. But we will exclusively refer to that as, like, when Jeremy Strong locked the gates.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:11Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 7:12David Sims?

  Right, right. That's from the gate lock.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:14Griffin Newman?

  And we also did Almost Famous early.

• 7:17David Sims?

  Yeah, we did. That, Cameron Crowe is one of our first Blank Check guys, because he is, he's

• 7:21Griffin Newman?

  Ultimate Blank Check career.

• 7:22David Sims?

  Yeah, like, he gets to a point where he's making movies that don't make sense on paper.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  I don't understand what happened to that guy. I, I really

• 7:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Because there's only really the two movies, right? I mean,

• 7:35David Sims?

  I think I give him three.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  Last Times, right?

• 7:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes, which is a masterpiece.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 7:40Griffin Newman?

  Say Anything, Almost Famous, Jeremy Maguire.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 7:43Griffin Newman?

  Those are the three undeniable.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  But that's fine.

• 7:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, totally.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  I mean, I don't know what we expect out of these guys.

• 7:48David Sims?

  I don't love Singles, but I think Singles has its place, or whatever. You know, Singles is, to me, it's just

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  We're pro Vanilla Sky, but Vanilla Sky is more divisive.

• 7:55David Sims?

  Yeah, but what he did was so fine line, right, of like,

• 7:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:59David Sims?

  It's gonna have five acts, and it's gonna be very touchy feely, but it'll be funny, and it'll be, and it's just like, the minute you lose your tone calibration on that, it's gonna be just terrible.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  I don't know what happens to certain guys when they lose Their tone.

• 8:11David Sims?

  Is it that they get too successful, like too, you know?

• 8:14Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this was originally the premise of our show.

• 8:16David Sims?

  Less conflict in their life.

• 8:17Griffin Newman?

  Is blank check status kind of like a monkey paw? It gets people in their heads and the first five or six people we covered all fit that paradigm of the success maybe was the worst thing that happened to them.

• 8:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, I think, but it's not in terms of that they necessarily get too comfortable. I think they, the buckling under the expectations.

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  And starting to think in terms of those expectations.

• 8:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  As opposed to the movie.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Uh, it be- becomes a, a real struggle.

• 8:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and that to us, now we've moved on and, and we'll cover it like the Coens. You know, they have little peaks and valleys, but it's not like the first half of their career is good and then they lose it and never get it back.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  There, but there are a film, the Coens as filmmakers for me, and not unlike how I talk about, you know, literature or, or music, that there are certain works of art that if you go back to them at different points in your life, they, they deepen.

• 9:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  And they take on different meaning. And for me, that is the indicator of, of a true work of genius, that you have a lifelong relationship that evolves with the art that evolves as you evolve.

• 9:22Griffin Newman?

  I, I agree completely, and I think they've done a good job. Part of what we're talking about that I think fucks other people is people don't know how to handle it when they get to the stage where you become the blank thing as a proven formula. The Cameron Crowe thing, right?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:38Griffin Newman?

  Once he had done it a couple of times in a row, it was like, great, make a Cameron Crowe movie.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  We all know what a Cameron Crowe movie is. You don't need to prove it to us anymore. You've like nailed it. And that burden of expectation, I think, starts to get in people's heads where they're not fighting against a pressure. Or trying to find the thing.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, it's, it, but it takes, you know, so people appreciate or, or have the reverence for, there's an expectation for people to keep delivering.

• 10:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  No matter what, and that's a, it's a diminishing returns, if not a dead end.

• 10:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  As a creator. That was one of the, the greatest moments, uh, in, in my podcasting experience was when I talked to McCartney and I threw him that curve ball. It's, it's the greatest moment for, for me, because I, I really, I don't, I wouldn't say I have.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  I definitely have the ability, just out of my own ego, to not have, like, to not audibly have an uncontrollable amount of reverence for somebody. I couldn't, sure, I couldn't hide it with Keith.

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  And that's fine, we all know that, people who listen know that, well, alright, well Maron's just gonna do this.

• 10:47Griffin Newman?

  When he takes out a cigarette on mic in that episode and you just start giggling.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  It's the best.

• 10:50Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  It was, that was great. But like McCartney, oddly, when I went into the McCartney interview, and I hold on to this, and it was really part of it, there was part of me that was sort of, like, in my heart, I'm like, I'm a John guy. But I'll, I'll talk to Paul.

• 11:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  But it's like, and everyone else is like, it's a Beatle, and I'm like, I know, but you know, I'm a John guy.

• 11:11Griffin Newman?

  David kicked his head down.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  So, that moment where, I've talked to a lot of musicians of that generation, and just because of their egos.

• 11:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  They have to believe they're doing their best work ever. You know, when you talk to Roger Waters and he's, you know, talking about his fourth or fifth solo album.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  You know, they're, they're kind of saying, well, this is really what it is. So, knowing that, I asked Paul, and I imagine you heard it, I said, so a lot of people I talked to of your generation, you know, think that they're doing their best work now. And then, by the way, he was promoting a bad record.

• 11:41David Sims?

  Well, which record was it?

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Egypt Station.

• 11:43David Sims?

  Egypt Station, it's a pretty, even by his late standards.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I said, you know, they think they're doing their best work ever, and he just said, I was in the Beatles.

• 11:49Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  That's a pretty high bar.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  That's the happiest attitude you can have, though.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  The best.

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's perfect. And I think, I think the Coens have done incredible job, as much as every single movie they have made in their career is distinctly a Coens movie, couldn't be made by anyone else, right?

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  Is in some way capturing that Coen Brothers thing.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  What that could be is very varied. They have stretched it in multiple directions, sizes, genres.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  And all, and most, and a lot of the later movies, you know, were, were paying homage to Hollywood.

• 12:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  To being movie fans.

• 12:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:25Speaker 04

  You know, like, no one talks enough about Hell Caesar, and I never shut up about it.

• 12:29Griffin Newman?

  Fucking master.

• 12:30David Sims?

  Incredible movie.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  Fucking masterpiece, right.

• 12:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  A double feature of Barton Fink and Hell Caesar.

• 12:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  That, they, they're almost, it's almost a sequel.

• 12:38Griffin Newman?

  It's the same movie studio.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they're both capital pictures.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:43Griffin Newman?

  The first time I saw it, I was like, yeah, it's good. And David was like, no, it's a masterpiece.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  I always hose him right to the mat for that one.

• 12:50Griffin Newman?

  Since then, and every time I watch it, it's what you're saying.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  It's only been fucking eight years or whatever. Every time I watch it, I go, there's shit in this I did not see.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 12:59Griffin Newman?

  I did not get. It keeps getting deeper.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  And one, and Clooney, one of his funniest performances.

• 13:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Like when he's in that armor in that communist meeting, trying to just on his chair.

• 13:09Griffin Newman?

  Here's like, here's an indication of guys who know how to handle their career really well, though, right? Sneakily. And they always write it off as like, I don't know, we don't overthink these things, right? They make No Country. It is their highest grossing film up until that point in time. They win three Oscars each.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Win Best Picture.

• 13:26Griffin Newman?

  They're each walking out of there with three trophies. They already, at the time they're on the Oscar stage, have Burn After Reading in the can. Their follow up to No Country is something that is seen as kind of like a goofy lark. Why are you doing?

• 13:40Speaker 04

  I had to rewatch that.

• 13:41Griffin Newman?

  I love that movie.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  I, I love it now, too.

• 13:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  I just have a, I, I have some sort of strange issue with Malkovich sometimes.

• 13:48Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. That to me is like maybe the best application of him ever, but.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  I'm with Mark.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  David, can you share your Malkovich analogy?

• 13:55David Sims?

  Wait, what's my, no, what, that he's a sun dried tomato?

• 13:57Griffin Newman?

  He's a sun dried tomato.

• 13:59David Sims?

  You know, it's like you put eight sun dried tomatoes on a sandwich and then you're like, right, I'm eating a sun dried tomato sandwich.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  And also, you can't put them on any sandwich. You gotta build a sandwich properly.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  Well, that's the thing. My take on him.

• 14:09David Sims?

  And I love him sometimes. I really love him.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  He's great. I, I love Malkovich, but, but the burden of Malkovich is that, and how I usually frame it is that there's the movie, that's the movie, and then there's the movie he's in.

• 14:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes, right.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  And it's a separate reality.

• 14:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Benicio sometimes is like that, too. It's like, he's great, but he's obviously in some other.

• 14:31Griffin Newman?

  He's gonna do whatever he wants to do. And if the movie happens to sync up with him.

• 14:35David Sims?

  Cause I just interviewed Wes Anderson for the new movie that Benicio's the star of. And he said, while we were talking about Benicio, he's like, I know this is trite, but I'm looking at the monitor with Bruno, who's my DP, while we're filming it, and I. I said to him like, it's like we're watching a movie. And Bruno was like, I know what you mean. You know, like, it's like, just his face.

• 14:54Griffin Newman?

  Anything he does is watchable.

• 14:55David Sims?

  His face is crazy.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  And the space they occupy.

• 14:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I rewatched Burn After Reading and it, to see those, to see, and Clooney does it in a lot of the Coen movies, it, it very specific and almost broad comedic choices as actors. Like that, the stuff that he and Brad Pitt were doing in Burn After Reading.

• 15:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Is, is some of the best comedic acting.

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  On screen.

• 15:21Griffin Newman?

  I agree. And I think Clooney and Burn is like specifically underrated because he has so many other Coens performances.

• 15:27David Sims?

  And because Pitt's so big in that movie and all that.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  It's such a guy that I've never seen anyone play before and you immediately go, I've met 20 of these dudes across my life.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  That scene in, in the restaurant where, where he takes a bite and he doesn't know if he's got shellfish. He's like,

• 15:43Speaker 04

  I'm okay.

• 15:44Griffin Newman?

  And even his, his initial, his character introduction is him having the hors d'oeuvres and talking about whether he's lactose intolerant or if he has acid reflux.

• 15:53David Sims?

  I always took it as him making fun of Pitt a little bit because Pitt's always eating or whatever. And then he's kind of like, I could do some busy eating if you want me to do some busy.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  I've been trying to do that as an actor lately, not be afraid to get involved with the food.

• 16:05David Sims?

  But then don't you have to like eat it, like take after take or whatever?

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  That's where you gotta be strategic.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  No, you get a spit bag.

• 16:11David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 16:11Griffin Newman?

  You're a spitter.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  No, I, I don't, I haven't eaten that much, but yeah, I have spit. That, that's the best story, that Tom Arnold story. Do you remember that? Where he was on a movie for the first time, or I don't know if it was first time, but he had to eat donuts and he didn't know about the spit bag. So he was just like, by the, by the fifth take, he couldn't, you know, he was so full of donuts that he was sick. And they, he didn't know that that was an option. It's, it's kind of funny. My problem with food is, is that it's, it's, it's a continuity thing. Like, you know, you've got, you've got to do the thing. And they can cut around it usually, but you do have to be aware. Like if you eat once, if you're committed to that bite on that fork, you're in for it. It's not so much the food, but you've got to time it. It's another thing you have to think about it.

• 16:55Griffin Newman?

  Now, do you enjoy that game? Cause I kind of like the additional stressor of.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  I think it's

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  This is giving me a structure to my handle on this scene?

• 17:04Speaker 04

  It can, but like, yeah, it's not my nature to, to, to think about those things. I'm, I'm more want to be emotionally present or just present, present. But there are some dudes that love it. Like I had Eric Stoltz.

• 17:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  On my show, Maron, and he had a salad and he was all about it.

• 17:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Like he, you know, he was eating it and then he was like cat, you know, he was like storing it. And he knew like, it was definitely a part of a thing that he loved about acting was the challenge of getting that continuity correct.

• 17:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also like in, in meal scenes, by and large, you're seated, you're having a seated conversation, which is so static.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  I'm big on putting the fork down.

• 17:42Griffin Newman?

  That shit is great for accentuation.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Just put the fork down.

• 17:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you do it at the top.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  What, so I don't have to eat?

• 17:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  You know, but I'm noticing on Stick, uh, this new Apple show I'm on that I do, I do the, I'm doing the mug work. I'm doing, I'm doing some eating.

• 17:57Griffin Newman?

  Guy loves the hotel breakfast.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  And, but there's also just sort of like, alright dude.

• 18:01Griffin Newman?

  It's written in as a character detail.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  This character is something you can handle. Let's, let's try to work this other muscle. Let's go, let's do the mug thing.

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  I just think, right, both to like, sometimes use it as an exclamation point on lines and other times use it as a way to throw away lines.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  But there's also, it does imply a naturalism.

• 18:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes, exactly.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  You, you know, like you can, you can be aware of punctuating things in there, the, it within the arc of any scene.

• 18:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:26Speaker 04

  But when you, when you do do it and I'm watching it, I'm like, it, it makes it seem more real.

• 18:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  If you're, if you do the eating.

• 18:33Griffin Newman?

  This, this movie has a very subtle version of that, which is, uh, what's his name? George Wyman, uh, the, the second rabbi who tells the story about the teeth. And his fucking tea work.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:44Griffin Newman?

  His teacup work and when he chooses to take a sip.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Great.

• 18:47Griffin Newman?

  When he's just holding it higher up in preparation.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  George Weiner.

• 18:49Griffin Newman?

  Weiner.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  From Hill Street Blues.

• 18:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  The Goy.

• 18:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  Well, that's, I need to talk about that line. That's a very important line in my family. Who cares about the Goy?

• 18:57Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of taken off guard because he's refocused his attention so much to the teacup that the idea that this guy's still hung up on the story is surprising to him.

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, because the story is a story he's told a million times that, you know, and the closure of that story, it's it's not about the story ending. It's about some sort of strange, I don't know if you would call it, uh, it's not really an allegory, but it's a fairly classic Hasidic tale where, you know, you're waiting for an end, but there is never an end.

• 19:28Griffin Newman?

  It's a microcosm for the whole movie, and it's the same as the the fake Yiddish tale at the beginning of the movie.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  Well, those are all those stories, like if, you know, that like that Martin Buber translation of the Hasidic tales.

• 19:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  And, you know, Woody Allen was definitely kind of preoccupied with some of that as well, that that there there is no conclusion, really, that is satisfying in the way of an ending.

• 19:48Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  And and I tried to, when rewatching The Serious Man, to talk to you guys, like, I was really trying to to understand on some, you know, uh, story level, why they opened with that with that.

• 20:03David Sims?

  The fable.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  The fable. Oh, that's what the fable. That's what I'm looking for. And it does have implications for the the the the actual story.

• 20:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  Of a serious man, but it's still peculiar. It's a peculiar story because, you know, when the the the rabbi walks back out into the night with the ice pick in his chest, it it is not conclusive. Like, he's saying, like, we're in trouble. He's gonna be dead.

• 20:29Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  And she's completely confident in her assessment of the situation.

• 20:33Griffin Newman?

  But there's there was zero resolution. You don't know if this guy's gonna die, if he's supernatural or not, and whether or not it's gonna come back to them either way.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:41Griffin Newman?

  And they were, they've been very adamant when they talk about this movie,

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 20:45Griffin Newman?

  That they were like, eh, this feels like the kind of thing that should open with a Yiddish folk tale.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:49Griffin Newman?

  They looked around, they didn't find one they liked.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  And they wrote one.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  They wrote one.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:53Griffin Newman?

  And they've been like, it has nothing to do with the movie at large. It doesn't link in. A lot of critics at the time were like, I think they're being sneaky, and this is some, like, ancestor of the family, and everything that's happening to this guy is the long-tail curse of that, which I don't think it is. I think it's more just about the idea of, these things happen to us. There's no reason why it happened to us. We did nothing to bring it upon ourselves, and we'll have no sense of resolution at the other end of it.

• 21:20David Sims?

  Judaism is a search for meaning in darkness.

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 21:24David Sims?

  And that often, the story you will be told is one of suffering. And you're like, oh, okay. And then what happened? And they're like, I don't know, more suffering later.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the fact that all of Judaism, basically, was retroactively turned into the prequel for Christianity, right?

• 21:43David Sims?

  You never think about that.

• 21:44Griffin Newman?

  The Old Testament is like-

• 21:45David Sims?

  That we're a bit of a retcon as a religion.

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  But also, our religion is like Star Wars up until the ending of Empire Strikes Back, where everything's really bad. And then Christianity was like, and what if a guy came along and kind of fixed it? And slowly, like, taught us lessons that gave us, like, a sense of optimism?

• 22:00Speaker 04

  I don't, but I think more than optimism, it's, uh, the humanness.

• 22:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  That-

• 22:05David Sims?

  Bridges the gap between the celestial and the human.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  And it also makes it user-friendly. Because, you know, with Old Testament Judaism, there, you know, everyone always talks about the, you know, the vengeful god and this god, or the angry man in the sky. But I think in that, that same conversation with the tea, that, was his name, was it Nussbaum, that rabbi that Weiner played? Well, you know, what he says that I think is the key to, one of the keys to-

• 22:34David Sims?

  It's a knock, knock.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Knock, right. To the, to the movie is that it's not up to us to decide-

• 22:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  You know, what God is intended.

• 22:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  It's up to us to, to, to live, you know, he's not going to give us answers.

• 22:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  We just have to honor the, the rules, right? And I, I think that's a, that's sort of the key to the whole thing.

• 22:55Griffin Newman?

  Which the building blocks of all religions are basically like children's tales to teach you lessons on how to behave.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 23:02Griffin Newman?

  They're like just-so stories and Grimm's fairy tales.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  The Ten Commandments are just basic rules to, to, for civilization. They, they know that if you fuck your neighbor's wife, that that's going to probably end in murder.

• 23:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Or somebody's going to lose their land.

• 23:15David Sims?

  Lots of the Old Testament, right, it's just kind of like-

• 23:18Speaker 04

  It's practical.

• 23:18David Sims?

  Yeah, because that's the whole thing with all the kosher stuff, where you're like, that stuff will get you sick, it's 4,000 B.C.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 23:24David Sims?

  Don't be eating bottom-feating shellfish.

• 23:26Griffin Newman?

  Milk on top of a pig? What the fuck are you doing?

• 23:28Speaker 04

  It's crazy.

• 23:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  But they're just rules to, to maintain order in a community.

• 23:33Griffin Newman?

  And then in the vacuum of a- Direct relationship or direct conversation with God in modern society and us spending thousands of years going back to the original texts. We keep trying to put more and more on them and this guy keeps on going to rabbis and being like, explain to me why this is happening. And they don't view it that way. And he just keeps thinking, I'll get to a higher rabbi. Who's in touch with something deeper, who gives me the perspective and the highest rabbi who won't talk to him will only talk to his son.

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Because he has to.

• 24:01Griffin Newman?

  His, because it's the only thing left in his basically ceremonial job.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:05Griffin Newman?

  The only thing he wants to talk about is like Jefferson Starship kind of slaps, right?

• 24:09David Sims?

  Airplane, excuse me.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  Airplane, but, but, but he does the lyric and then he goes, now what?

• 24:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  But, but also the, the Jesus thing is really, you know, you can talk to Jesus.

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 04

  And, and, and there's a set of answers.

• 24:24David Sims?

  Right. You can say, hey, Jesus, thumbs up, thumbs down.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Well, no, I, I fucked up. Forgive me.

• 24:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:28David Sims?

  And that too.

• 24:29Griffin Newman?

  It's built into the structure where they're like, this is how you talk to Jesus. He's always listening. Yep.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  And, and, and I did, I did a bad thing. Forgive me. And then the priest will forgive you or the Jesus you have in your head will forgive you.

• 24:40Griffin Newman?

  You're pre-approved.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  Yes, but you know you're flawed.

• 24:42Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  And, and that, that also is fully Old Testament.

• 24:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  That, that it's just chaos and nobody can follow these rules completely. Unless they're enforced by modern laws like murder and some of the other ones. But, but everyone's flawed. Everyone's going to fluctuate and that's just the nature of people and, and that's a given. And I think people want more answers than that.

• 25:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And the sense of forgiveness is not built into the same, the Old Testament in the same way. So the idea that you're flawed comes with the recognition of failure.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  And the weight of it.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  The weight of it.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  And, and the constant.

• 25:16Griffin Newman?

  I've tried to be a serious man.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  That's right. And the constant conversation, whether it's Talmudic or the, the, it's just Jews argue with God all the time.

• 25:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  Jews defy God all the time.

• 25:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  And either they get what's coming to them or they don't.

• 25:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. But either way, they feel bad about it. That is the cornerstone of Jewish guilt.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Or they, or they succeed tremendously.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  And you have to assume that they'll, they'll feel bad, but they might not.

• 25:39Griffin Newman?

  Eating them up inside. Who knows? Right.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  But they might not.

• 25:41Griffin Newman?

  That's the scariest part. Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  But the thing that, that struck me about. Rewatching it because it's one of those movies I keep going back to and I have a certain, you know, there is something familiar to the beginning of middle-class Jewery, you know, in terms of, you know, the kind of, once Jews are reluctantly invited into the community or the social circle is just regular people.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  So you were in New Jersey and New Mexico, right?

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, you know, my parents, yeah, my parents are from Jersey, but I grew up in New Mexico and there was a, at the time we moved there, in my temple, there's probably 500 families, but you know.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  It was a similar kind of enclave, culture within a culture.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, conservative, middle-class Jewish.

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  And, you know, and I've talked about this a lot lately, is that, you know, many Jews, you know, the identification, it's not that it's all cultural, it is still religious, but most Jews were never taught, unlike Christianity, to sort of have an active and, and sort of practical relationship with God.

• 26:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  That, you know, usually it was more about Israel and about, you know, ritual and about, you know, you know, showing up occasionally in the community, but that is the nature of Judaism.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  But we, you know, and even in terms of like, you know, is there a heaven or hell? And it's never been made clear to me.

• 26:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:58David Sims?

  They don't know.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  No, they don't know. But he talks about it, he talks about some of the deeper Talmudical stuff of the different possibilities of, of post-death.

• 27:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  And then you assume that the Kabbalah, which is this uncrackable code, has some sort of a, a deeper understanding of the mystical.

• 27:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Which is what, and, and in this movie, that is what Richard Kind represents.

• 27:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:20Speaker 04

  Is that he is writing the Kabbalah.

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  And there is a moment where you're like, oh, this is a schizophrenic, this guy has mental problems.

• 27:26Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  And then he turns to the page where there's a Hebrew in the middle of it.

• 27:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  That he's trying to decipher in his, you know, either slightly schizophrenic sense, you know, he's trying to make sense of the universe. And he's obviously jealous of his brother, who is a mathematician, who is a guy whose job it is to get the answer. So the control freak element of the, of the main character is, is built into the mathematician thing, that as a character, why wouldn't that guy want answers?

• 27:55Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  And the idea that he can't get answers for a guy that is, you know, has done the work to get the answers is kind of a, a great character. And in the dream about, um, what's his name? Uh, the guy who's having an affair with his wife.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Where he's at the blackboard, the massive blackboard.

• 28:12David Sims?

  Cy Ableman.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  That's where he writes out the uncertainty principle.

• 28:15Griffin Newman?

  The uncertainty principle.

• 28:16David Sims?

  Well, that is modern Talmud, or what I like, that is like mathematicians being like, let me explain to you why nothing makes sense about the world.

• 28:23Griffin Newman?

  It was the other line I thought about quoting at the beginning. But what a perfect piece of writing. The uncertainty principle, it provides, we can't ever really know what's going on, so it shouldn't bother you not being able to figure anything out, although you will be responsible for this on the midterm.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. And then in that dream, you know, Cy, who is now a dybbuk.

• 28:44David Sims?

  No longer with us.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. That's a great point. He has basically become a dybbuk in this guy's life.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  That's right. And in the dream, you know, that what sort of eventually happens is I know he's calm until, you know, he's like, I fucked your wife.

• 28:58Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  So that, that is the human, like, it's all, the whole movie is just different versions of that opening Yiddish scene. That, that, these are all those stories.

• 29:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, exactly. That's the point of the opening.

• 29:11David Sims?

  Well, and I also think Judaism is, like, what should we do?

• 29:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:15David Sims?

  You know, like, most conversations you're having.

• 29:17Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 29:24David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 29:25Griffin Newman?

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• 29:32David Sims?

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• 29:33Griffin Newman?

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• 29:40David Sims?

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

• 29:46Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:47David Sims?

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• 29:53Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:57David Sims?

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• 29:57Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 29:58David Sims?

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• 30:45Griffin Newman?

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• 30:46David Sims?

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• 30:46Griffin Newman?

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• 30:51David Sims?

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• 30:56Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 30:57David Sims?

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• 31:05Griffin Newman?

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• 31:13David Sims?

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• 31:37Griffin Newman?

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• 32:06David Sims?

  This film, my mother was-

• 32:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a blank check with Griffin and David, by the way. I'm Griffin.

• 32:10David Sims?

  David.

• 32:11Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmography. It's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks.

• 32:16David Sims?

  I like how this was prompted by me saying- My mother. Go ahead.

• 32:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Sometimes those check clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini-series on the films of the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen.

• 32:26David Sims?

  Yep.

• 32:27Griffin Newman?

  It is called Pod Country for Old Casts.

• 32:29David Sims?

  Sure.

• 32:30Griffin Newman?

  Today, we are talking about A Serious Man.

• 32:31David Sims?

  Yep.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  With Marc Maron.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Hi, Marc.

• 32:34Griffin Newman?

  As I was sort of setting up, Burn After Reading-

• 32:37Speaker 04

  You're gonna use all that stuff, right?

• 32:37Griffin Newman?

  Every, all of this.

• 32:39David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  We don't edit that.

• 32:40David Sims?

  It's all staying in.

• 32:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Burn After Reading comes out like six months after they win the Oscar.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:45Griffin Newman?

  This is the first movie they make with the Oscar success.

• 32:49David Sims?

  Correct.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  One of their best movies, in my opinion.

• 32:51David Sims?

  I think it's arguably their best.

• 32:53Griffin Newman?

  But it is certainly in the argument. They're guys where you're like, there are five movies that would be undeniably the best film in anyone else's career and those five movies are fighting with each other.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  I think they've got ten. Well, they also, they never, they never buckled under what we talked about before.

• 33:08Griffin Newman?

  That's what I'm saying. For this to be the post-Oscar-winning movie, when most people would go, now is my time to make True Grit, my big Western epic, they wait to do that. They're like, we gotta tell this weird, small, kind of punishing story with theater actors.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  But totally-

• 33:24Griffin Newman?

  With no movie stars.

• 33:25Speaker 04

  But, and with complete meticulous control-

• 33:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Of the story and it's still sort of totally a Coen Brothers movie.

• 33:33Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  And, but they, but it's an interesting example. They never, and it seems like they've sort of stopped, uh, working together.

• 33:40Griffin Newman?

  They're in a weird place.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  But, but-

• 33:42David Sims?

  There's rumors that they'll re-

• 33:43Speaker 04

  But it could be done. Why not go out, you know, like, wait, how are you gonna argue with any other, I even, I watched The Hudsucker Proxy again.

• 33:50Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  It's a great movie.

• 33:51Griffin Newman?

  I love it so much.

• 33:52Speaker 04

  You, you forget that you buckle to reaction without having the personal experience-

• 33:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  To other people's reaction to it. But when you re-watch it, they did exactly what they set out to do.

• 34:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah, it is a perfect movie on the terms that they set out for themselves, which people were just confused by.

• 34:08David Sims?

  Obviously, their interviews were always a little nitty and cryptic, but they are not guys who are like, ah- That one, we could have used another week on that one. Or like, ah, we fucked that one in the end.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  No, complete control.

• 34:17David Sims?

  They gave you what they wanted.

• 34:18Griffin Newman?

  Flood's simple is the only one where they're like, it feels a little amateurish to us because we didn't know what we were getting.

• 34:22David Sims?

  Which one's your, Blood's simple? Their first movie.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  It's great, though.

• 34:24Griffin Newman?

  It's great.

• 34:25David Sims?

  Yeah, it rocks.

• 34:25Griffin Newman?

  But that's the only one where they're like, ah, I watched some of it and I wish I'd done it differently because I just didn't know.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  But they were finding their, their, their way. Look, I watched Miller's Crossing the other, like, couple of weeks ago. Great, it's great.

• 34:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  It's great. So your mother, Judaism?

• 34:41David Sims?

  You can get to that later if you want, but, um.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  We gotta get into it now.

• 34:44David Sims?

  My mother was raised in Utica, New York. I think you know that, upstate New York. And I think it's similar to what you're talking about of like, there were Jews. It's an Italian-Irish city at that time, but like, there's enough Jews and she's conservative. It's the 50s. This is the exact same shit, I think. And I don't think I've ever seen a movie have a more profound, you know, Proustian, eaten the medal in effect on her than this movie, ever.

• 35:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  It's because the whole thing is a poe- it's a meditation on, on the, the, the.

• 35:12David Sims?

  Picket fence Americanism and the struggle of Judaism at the same time. And it's, what about the goy is the line where she was like, you have to understand, we didn't care about the goy. Like, the goys, that's, she, they get that so much.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  And now the goys know it and they're angry. Right, right. We're all gonna pay.

• 35:28Griffin Newman?

  Now everyone's living next door to the guy from this movie, but the guy next door isn't gritting his teeth and saying it under his breath.

• 35:34David Sims?

  They named her Ellen. Like, they picked the most American name, they sent her to the public schools, they wanted her to be as American as possible or whatever. But at the same time, like, I feel like there was that, well, we didn't really care about the goys.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, my dad grew up in Rye, New York.

• 35:47David Sims?

  Sure.

• 35:47Griffin Newman?

  Lower.

• 35:48David Sims?

  Yep.

• 35:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh, in the state. Um, but it was a similar thing where it was like, uh, three Polish families, cousin families that all immigrated together.

• 35:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Griffin Newman?

  Bought like a row of houses.

• 35:59David Sims?

  Yep.

• 35:59Griffin Newman?

  And basically made their own neighborhood.

• 36:01David Sims?

  Sure.

• 36:01Griffin Newman?

  And then became friends with like, three other families that had done the same thing, mega family groupings, right? And my grandfather was like the dirty Hungarian who broke in and basically had to abandon his family.

• 36:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Griffin Newman?

  In order for them to accept him. So it was the Newmans, the Rabinowitzes and the Orlovskis. And the Rabinowitzes were atheists. In the like 1950s.

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 36:25Griffin Newman?

  And that was this sort of like, don't say it too loudly.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, there were there, there were atheists, there were communists.

• 36:31Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Like my great aunt and uncle were of the, you know, kind of communist bent.

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Uh, old, old timey commie Jews.

• 36:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  Uh, there was a lot, a lot going on in terms of Jewish identity then. But I think one of the things that I take away from this film in watching it again is that it really documents in a very unique and specific way, you know, something that is, has been approached before is that the, the changing of the culture.

• 36:59Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  Towards, you know, the, the sixties coming in.

• 37:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Well, cause that Jefferson Airplane album is already out, so this has got to be what year? It's got to be like, what, sixty five?

• 37:08David Sims?

  I think it's sixty seven.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, sixty seven. Yeah. So everything is on the precipice of change.

• 37:13David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  And.

• 37:14David Sims?

  It's gonna take a minute to get to Minnesota, but it's happening on the coast.

• 37:17Speaker 04

  But, but, but it's happening in middle class culture because they're picking it up from youth culture.

• 37:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 37:22Speaker 04

  And the kid is on the pulse of it. And the fact that during the, the, the dental story.

• 37:28Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  They're playing Hendrix's Machine Gun is, is crazy.

• 37:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  It's because that song is a very specific meaning.

• 37:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 04

  And, you know, and whatever it indicates about signs or symbols.

• 37:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  But during that whole song, the, the, the scene, the Hebrew lettering, help me, please help.

• 37:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  And.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  It's like, why that choice? And I think that what they're exploring even at the end with the, with the, with the old rabbi is that it's at that time where the, the chaos that has now reaped the social reaction that we're seeing now to the quote unquote freedom of the sixties and the open mindedness that it implied. Is that that was an embracing of a chaos that none of them could understand. And, and that it was, it, it became a cultural movement.

• 38:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  To sort of, you know, not just anti-war, but psychedelics.

• 38:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  Right. And the idea of pot and that like when he's up on the roof with that antenna and all of a sudden he has that moment where Hebrews coming in, TV shows are coming in. You know, sounds of the Yiddish are coming in. And then he looks to the sun that there you're you're caught in the middle of a tremendous cultural shift that's about to happen. And that at the end of it, the old rabbi is, you know, he understands that, right? He understands that moment when the truth is revealed to be lies. You know, he's like, what, what, what, what's what?

• 38:53Griffin Newman?

  But also, what's the other thing that matters? You want somebody to love. Like, basically, that hits somebody.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  He doesn't get that far.

• 38:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:59David Sims?

  Right, that's true. He doesn't get that far.

• 39:00Griffin Newman?

  But you have to imagine that's the thing that kind of locked in for him is this song is identifying, isn't that kind of the core need that all of us are driven by at the end of the day?

• 39:08Speaker 04

  I guess so. But I do like the idea that on the periphery of Jewish mysticism in general and Jewish stories in general is something unknowable, but something that must be sort of accepted is just life. And now, you know, they're all over this movie, we're entering the psychedelic era where where that unknown that was once terrifying is now going to be just embraced. And you're just going to throw yourself into it. And with that comes Vietnam on the other side. But I think that the way that's suggested and referred to in the film as this slight, you know, kind of, it's not meant to be menacing, but but it is happening.

• 39:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  In the scene where she smokes pot with him.

• 39:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  And he's just looking at the glass.

• 39:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  And then he says, and that's the psychedelic moment.

• 39:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  It's bona fide. They shot it that way. And he's just looking at the glass. And he says, maybe the young rabbi was right, the first rabbi. It's just all my perception.

• 40:10Griffin Newman?

  Well, they also do. They shoot that scene with this vignetting around the edges of the frame. And I think the only other scene in the movie they shoot that way is the folk tale at the beginning.

• 40:19David Sims?

  Hmm, interesting.

• 40:20Griffin Newman?

  They're the two kind of hallucinations. What were you about to say?

• 40:23David Sims?

  I was gonna open the dossier.

• 40:24Griffin Newman?

  Can I say a thing before that?

• 40:25Speaker 04

  Okay. What's the dossier? Is this a bit?

• 40:27David Sims?

  No.

• 40:27Griffin Newman?

  No, this is real. This is a no bit podcast.

• 40:30David Sims?

  A researcher who does great work for us, you know, digging up sort of production history and stuff like that.

• 40:35Griffin Newman?

  I was just gonna say, because I you you talk about your mom, made me realize, I don't think my dad's ever seen this movie.

• 40:40David Sims?

  That's insane.

• 40:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm also realizing that he basically, I think, would have been bar mitzvah this exact year.

• 40:45David Sims?

  Same with my mom.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  Like, this is his, like, exact.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  That's another, they used it there, too. When he's on the pulpit.

• 40:52Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 40:52David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, when he's stoned.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  Characters are stoned.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  Psychedelic moment.

• 40:55Griffin Newman?

  Are shot the same way.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  A timeless psychedelic moment.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Because it so captures what it's like to be high on pot.

• 41:02David Sims?

  Especially when you're a teenager.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  The look of the. But to be high on pot at that moment, that is crazy.

• 41:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  In front of God, in front of the elders.

• 41:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  You're holding the yud, is that what it's called?

• 41:12David Sims?

  Yes.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  I think, you know, the, the.

• 41:14Griffin Newman?

  And the scraping sound of the yud that they do.

• 41:16David Sims?

  My favorite thing is the guy going like, to get the Torah out. Those things are fucking heavy.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, but the pressure of that moment and then sort of like, you know, realizing you're high. The, one of the funniest beats of that movie is when he sees the buddy he got high with.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  Knowing that, you know, that he's in that, it, it's not even hell, it's a mystical moment. And he taps into an ancient frequency.

• 41:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Which, which is really, that is the God consciousness.

• 41:43David Sims?

  And that, that's what my implication with the, um, who's the oldest guy?

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Oh, I just had that realization, that psychedelia, the chaos of psychedelic experience and the chaos of war in Vietnam. That is all in the God consciousness.

• 41:57David Sims?

  That's where Marshak is supposedly.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  He's above it.

• 42:00David Sims?

  Exactly. Because the inspiration, as you said, Griff, they wrote this the same time as No Country and Burn After Reading. They were at the mall at the same time.

• 42:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:08David Sims?

  They've said they've never been so productive.

• 42:10Griffin Newman?

  Which is in their fall period. It's coming off of two consecutive flops. They write three masterpieces basically all in a row and they make them. Uh, Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty, which were their sort of.

• 42:20David Sims?

  Intolerable Cruelty I'll stick up for, but certainly their least critically successful movies.

• 42:24Speaker 04

  I don't even feel compelled to go back to those. I, maybe I should.

• 42:28David Sims?

  Intolerable Cruelty is pretty fun, especially if you like Clooney in Coen's mode.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:32David Sims?

  He's great.

• 42:33Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of them doing a Preston Sturgis movie.

• 42:35David Sims?

  Okay.

• 42:36Griffin Newman?

  But, um, those movies at the moment were absolutely flops. That's all I'm saying. That it was, and it was seen as them trying to level up and make more commercial studio films.

• 42:45David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:45Griffin Newman?

  That ended up being too idiosyncratic for audiences and critics treated them as if they were selling out.

• 42:49David Sims?

  Scott Rudin, his like, hey, I've got this Cormac McCarthy novel. They're like, okay, well, look at that. They start working on Burn After Reading at the same time. They start working on this at the same time. And, and the inspiration for this is what they call like an ancient rabbi that they knew when they were kids. Who they call like a sort of a Semitic Wizard of Oz, like this weird Yoda like rabbi who's. They all kind of revered, but he never spoke. Like, that's, that's the genesis of a serious man.

• 43:14Griffin Newman?

  But this film is set earlier than their childhood would have been, right?

• 43:18David Sims?

  Yeah, no.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  No?

• 43:20David Sims?

  No, they, they, they'll cop to this as pretty autobiographical.

• 43:23Speaker 04

  No, it seems like that's about right.

• 43:25Griffin Newman?

  I just remember when it was announced.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  They gotta be like, he's got, Joel's gotta be like seventy now?

• 43:29David Sims?

  They were born, correct. Joel's seventy, Ethan sixty-seven. They were born in the mid-fifties. They're basically like, they're a couple of years younger than my mom. Like, and they were bar mitzvahed in sixty-seven.

• 43:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:39David Sims?

  Yeah, or Joel was.

• 43:41Griffin Newman?

  When this movie was announced, and they usually do kind of an air of mystery around what the project is if it isn't based on some public war.

• 43:48David Sims?

  What they say is not autobiographical. It's like, that's not their dad. That's not their family. It's just more the milieu.

• 43:54Griffin Newman?

  I remember them saying like, they're gonna follow up No Country with a movie about a boy getting bar mitzvahed that's autobiographical. And it really felt like, oh, they're gonna do their, like, Avalon, their Fableman's.

• 44:04David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 44:05Griffin Newman?

  And then when the trailer came out and it was like, it's about the dad. They talked about that at one point, it was more split narrative, like the boy and the dad in equal measures. Even though the dad was a complete creation. And then the final product ended up swinging wildly in a different direction.

• 44:20Speaker 04

  It's just like, what's amazing about it, and I really, because the more I thought about it this morning, I do think that, you know, outside, I think that the, the core character struggle of the, the main guy is, is specifically Ten Commandments shit.

• 44:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  And, and I think the rest of it, the brother is, is a, a, a mystical interpreter.

• 44:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  That, you know, has a mental illness. Because even as a Jew growing up, you always knew that there was a cousin that had problems.

• 44:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But this guy like-

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Who might be a genius.

• 44:50Griffin Newman?

  This guy literally covets his neighbor's wife.

• 44:52Speaker 04

  Totally, all of it.

• 44:53Griffin Newman?

  Like, he's going through the-

• 44:54David Sims?

  He does hit on those commandments pretty hard.

• 44:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:56David Sims?

  But like, to sort of draft off what Mark was saying, the Coens do say like, obviously sixty-seven, that's when Joel's fourteen, Ethan's ten. They like the idea of like Jewish liturgical music and Jefferson Airplane were kind of like intertwined for them in that moment.

• 45:11Griffin Newman?

  Two different belief systems, basically.

• 45:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 45:13Griffin Newman?

  Right, rock and roll and like-

• 45:14Speaker 04

  But I think, but they, but they're asking, were they?

• 45:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:17David Sims?

  American-

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Were they different belief systems?

• 45:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  That the at the the end of all the Jewish stories, there's just this chaos.

• 45:23David Sims?

  And there's like a shrug of like, we don't know.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  We don't know.

• 45:26David Sims?

  It's magic.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:27David Sims?

  I guess, you know, and like, but also like, uh, boomer sort of, uh, you know, the sort of tail end of like conservative, like post-war.

• 45:35Griffin Newman?

  And kind of like the building of Jewish American culture, right? This kind of assimilation.

• 45:41David Sims?

  Post-war Judaism that's assimilating with this sort of white picket fence.

• 45:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the doctor, the lawyer. Like, my dad's family.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  Great cameo by Michael Lerner, great cameo.

• 45:48Griffin Newman?

  Incredible, but like no one in my dad's sort of like cousin families, right? The Rabinowitzes were like outwardly atheistic. The other ones were like, can you believe it? But weren't casting them out. No one even pretended to have a relationship to God. It was all, we gotta do this stuff because of tradition.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  It's like the dinner scene in, uh, in Crimes and Mysteries.

• 46:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 46:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:09Griffin Newman?

  That's and like when my grandfather died, everyone was like, we don't care about this, right? And even when he was alive, we do like the abridged Seder.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:16Griffin Newman?

  It was the sense of we gotta do this because our ancestors did this. We don't think we're communicating with anything, you know?

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Well, I bet, but that's, that's right, but that that's almost all of it.

• 46:27Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. But but part of that was, I think, them being like, we we cannot be seen as Jews, period. We have to be Jewish Americans.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:36Griffin Newman?

  Which means our culture needs to be meshed with theirs. We can't be living in our own.

• 46:40David Sims?

  But at the same time, you see your neighbor, I think this, you know, like your neighbor, the the the goy neighbor looking at you and you're like, right, they don't, we can't trust that.

• 46:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, there definitely was a difference, but I remember.

• 46:52David Sims?

  Your head still needs to be on a swivel.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  And I I remember as a kid that, you know, the bonds that I created with, you know, from second grade on with the Jewish guys.

• 47:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  You know, that there was definitely a shorthand. There was a shorthand about sex, about everything, like there was like an openness and understanding. Like I'm still friends with David Kleinfeld, who like I've known since second grade.

• 47:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  And, you know, and I remember because like these are just one of the, this is a good example. Like when we were in second grade, his father was, I think, a a an ophthalmologist and was killed flying his own plane. We were in second grade.

• 47:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  And I remember David, you know, the. Weeks after that, you know, at Hebrew school and just, you know, the, I remember seeing his dad sitting in this yellow car on the parking lot. But it, there was no answers.

• 47:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  And, you know, and he had, you know, three brothers and sisters, and I know his mother and everybody else. And, and life, you know, eventually went on.

• 47:44Griffin Newman?

  Profoundly terrible and yet kind of meaningless.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  But he had, we still, the community was still there and they were still there for all of them for the whole time.

• 47:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which is also this reactionary, like we're trying to assimilate, but also we need to protect each other. Because we're not that far off from feeling like we are the target of the universe.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  Right. From the Holocaust, totally. And it, it is sort of a, a, amazing that, that there, there was no Nazi point of reference in this. There was an American Jew-hating reference in a dream and it suggested. But it's rare that you see a movie of this era that close to the end of the Holocaust that, that made no, there was no point of reference.

• 48:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  And that's kind of, that's, that's in and of itself kind of amazing.

• 48:24Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  And it is a testament to passing and, and to integrating.

• 48:28David Sims?

  Yeah. Right. We don't want to talk about it.

• 48:29Griffin Newman?

  We can't wear it too strongly.

• 48:30David Sims?

  But just the way that he talks about, that he can talk with his colleagues who are Jewish and they can use words with each other that they wouldn't use in front of other.

• 48:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:40David Sims?

  Anyway, but they're writing this story. Initially, it's a kind of father-son story. And then they're, as they're writing it, they're like, we really just like tormenting the dad. Like, this is gonna be a movie movie about the dad. Yes.

• 48:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:51David Sims?

  And as you say, they'd claim with the Yiddish folk tale, the ghost story, they're just sort of like, eh. It's kind of like an ambassador for the movie. It doesn't have any connection to anything, whatever.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  But in that, in that it does.

• 49:02David Sims?

  I agree.

• 49:02Griffin Newman?

  It teaches you how to watch the movie because as you said, every single scene after it is a version of it in a way.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  And then it ultimately, not unlike those tales, the entire arc of the movie, whatever builds the movie. You know, at the end, you know, it's, it's not a happy ending, but it's an ending. You, you know, it is tragic, you know, that, you know, I was talking to Brendan before that, and there was a suggestion that as a consequence, for him rationalizing, keeping the money, changing the grade to help his brother. The next thing that happens is, you know, you gotta come in, there's something on your X-ray.

• 49:36Griffin Newman?

  And then a fucking tornado is.

• 49:37David Sims?

  And that's how I feel all the. At a time.

• 49:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 49:40David Sims?

  Anytime I'm like, should I like, you know, should I do? And then you're just like, yeah, but no.

• 49:44Griffin Newman?

  Should we start our own wireless service provider?

• 49:46Speaker 04

  But I, but, but because of the tornado. To imply.

• 49:50David Sims?

  Which is a real tornado.

• 49:51Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 49:51David Sims?

  That really happened.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. To imply that there is consequences that are being delivered to you specifically by a god. It, it, it, it is ultimately in the conclusion of the movie does not add up.

• 50:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 50:07Speaker 04

  It, it is not, whatever that implication is.

• 50:11David Sims?

  You can't actually chart it.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  You're manufacturing.

• 50:13David Sims?

  This happened because of this.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 50:13David Sims?

  This happened because of that.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  You're manufacturing.

• 50:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 50:15David Sims?

  Of course.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  And, and early on, when he's in conversation with the Korean kid.

• 50:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  He's like, there has to be consequences. And the Korean kid's like, no, there doesn't.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  But there, there are consequences for your actions.

• 50:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  No, that doesn't have to be.

• 50:26Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't have to be.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 50:27Griffin Newman?

  That's a choice.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  And ultimately, anything you impose on this in terms of a moral consequence is something that you are putting on it.

• 50:36Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  And that, that's the nature of the movie and what it's trying to say. That it is all relative to your perception, that all you can do is try to be a decent person and that you have no control over anything else.

• 50:47Griffin Newman?

  Well, also for movies that are so, uh, fun to read into and analyze and search for meaning in.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  You can, you can teach a course on this for a year.

• 50:56Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  On this movie.

• 50:57Griffin Newman?

  The Koens have always kind of made fun of people who try to break down the symbolism of their films.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 51:02Griffin Newman?

  Or the intent or what they're trying to say.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  But this one craves it.

• 51:05David Sims?

  Accept the mystery.

• 51:05Griffin Newman?

  But then yet, the movie is telling you.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  To do it.

• 51:09Griffin Newman?

  To do it and also accept that you're never gonna get answers to satisfy you.

• 51:13David Sims?

  Except the mystery.

• 51:13Griffin Newman?

  It's never gonna line up. Yeah.

• 51:15David Sims?

  Uh, look, serious, man, so, uh, their last movie, I'm just, just, just briefly touching on this research. Well, obviously Burn After Reading has a zillion stars in it. Uh, they don't have a budget on this movie.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  Burn After Reading was also a big hit, which people forget.

• 51:28David Sims?

  Hundred percent. But they really want a lead actor who's basically unknown to the audience. Obviously, Michael Stuhlbarg was sort of a Broadway name-ish, face-ish, not really. He was a Tony nominee.

• 51:38Griffin Newman?

  Now, you know who auditions for this role, right?

• 51:40David Sims?

  You can tell me. Marc Maron.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  I did, yeah.

• 51:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  Uh, it was, I.

• 51:44David Sims?

  Was it for, was it for the?

• 51:45Speaker 04

  It was for the lead.

• 51:46David Sims?

  Valeri?

• 51:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was a very low level, you know, first.

• 51:49David Sims?

  Did you meet? With the Coens?

• 51:50Speaker 04

  No, no. It was just like that first sort of, you know, throwing out the net, you know, I met with the casting agent.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  Alan Chenoweth?

• 51:56Speaker 04

  I think so. And, you know, I went in and they taped me and I remember had a, a, a full Van Dyke uh, kind of beard situation, but I really wanted it.

• 52:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  You know, and I really read it and I thought that like I could do that, but I didn't have the chops to do that. And I'm, I'm not thrilled with their choice of him.

• 52:14Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 52:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:15Griffin Newman?

  Well, here's what I thought watching it again last night is that like you would have fit perfectly somewhere in this movie and I think you would fit in so well in a Coens movie in general. I think you innately would be too powerful and forceful.

• 52:30David Sims?

  I couldn't have gotten to the, the vulnerability of it.

• 52:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yeah. Yes. But I think there's even just like a baseline level of indignation within you.

• 52:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:41Griffin Newman?

  At the world.

• 52:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:42Griffin Newman?

  That you cannot totally diminish.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  There wasn't a, there wasn't really a part in this movie for me unless I really had a better chops as an actor then, which I didn't.

• 52:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  You know, I, I imagined that I could play the lawyer. I probably could have played, um.

• 52:56David Sims?

  I think he could have been Arthur. It's a different Arthur, the Richard Kind, you know, like.

• 53:01Speaker 04

  Oh, it'd be a different Arthur.

• 53:03David Sims?

  But I can see that again, the just sort of like, what's he doing with the meticulous?

• 53:07Speaker 04

  That's a wider version of it. Man.

• 53:09David Sims?

  Yeah. He's, and he's so good. Cause he's right. The physicality of kind, like the shoulders, he's so.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  And also like I had, we had a cousin Brent, you know, there was just like, you know.

• 53:17Griffin Newman?

  There's one in every family.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  Right. That, you know, he's Mensa.

• 53:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  But he doesn't do anything.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 53:22Speaker 04

  You know?

• 53:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  For years I tried to make a joke work about that. And it actually is sort of a, a Jewish, um, you know, uh, open-ended tale joke.

• 53:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:33Speaker 04

  Where like, I remember when I was a kid, my brother, my dad had this cousin Brent.

• 53:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  Who was like a genius. That's all we heard. Brent's a genius. He's in Mensa. And at some point during the early seventies, Brent and Brent went on to do, he was a chef.

• 53:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Like, you know, like, not even at a high-end restaurant, the genius.

• 53:51Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  The disappointment.

• 53:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  It was always, that was the tone of it.

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  And I remember like knowing this about Brent and then him and his girlfriend stopped over in New Mexico when they were driving across country. You know, to, you know, stay the night. And I just remember it was like, this is the genius. And he was just this like, kind of hippie-ish dude with this woman. And then when they left, before they left to get back on the road, they, they, they made us breakfast. And my punchline, and I, I really tried to make it work was like, and I gotta be honest with you, those were the best eggs I ever had.

• 54:26David Sims?

  The genius eggs.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:28David Sims?

  But, but it never landed. And I thought like, how else do you end that story? It's a perfect end to it.

• 54:33Griffin Newman?

  But I think you gotta have the experience. That, that is actually a thing you kind of can't communicate in a way.

• 54:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 54:40Griffin Newman?

  You know, and I, I think the kind of character is such a heightened version of it. That he works in a way that reads for the story, even if you don't have someone like this within your family structure. It is also funny to consider that at the time this movie came out, he is undeniably the biggest name.

• 54:57David Sims?

  Sure. He's your most famous face.

• 54:59Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if you remember this as like.

• 55:01Speaker 04

  I guess Fred was, was.

• 55:02David Sims?

  I think Fred was really just a guy who was in Woody Allen movies back then, right?

• 55:05Griffin Newman?

  He had done like seven Woody Allen movies and voiceover roles. Like Amy Lanier had similarly mostly done voiceover. Like half the cast are like local people they found in Minnesota. Adam Arkin was probably the second biggest.

• 55:16Speaker 04

  He's great.

• 55:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:18David Sims?

  Larry is not cheap. He's just, he's just really good at that shit.

• 55:22Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember when they announced this movie and all the fucking like Oscar prognosticator websites were just like, I guess Richard Kind for best supporting actor, sight unseen?

• 55:31David Sims?

  Right, right. Like he'll crush in some coins.

• 55:32Griffin Newman?

  If the coins were making another movie and now they're Oscar guys and Kind is in it.

• 55:37David Sims?

  Let me tell you about Stolbar.

• 55:37Griffin Newman?

  And this is like the least Oscar-y part ever, despite how great Kind is. It's not designed to give someone.

• 55:43Speaker 04

  And also the, the Kind thing, like.

• 55:45Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  The, you know, the implied sort of competition between the brothers at one point.

• 55:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Like obviously they were both mathematics guys.

• 55:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  And, and Kind's life just didn't work out. So he's doing this like massive schizophrenic project to beat his brother.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:00Speaker 04

  At the same game.

• 56:01Griffin Newman?

  And also draining his cyst and like crying.

• 56:03David Sims?

  A spacious cyst. That would make me pretty mad. But that's such a, that, that, like. If that's what I ended up having to do every day.

• 56:11David Sims?

  I know, but I feel like that's another, like, thing, like, the sort of 50s, 60s, where it's like, yeah, people have like a thing.

• 56:17Griffin Newman?

  It's also biblical.

• 56:18David Sims?

  They need like a big wheezy device.

• 56:19Griffin Newman?

  It feels like a biblical plague.

• 56:20David Sims?

  Yeah, no, I know, I know.

• 56:21David Sims?

  Yeah, I got you, I got you.

• 56:22Griffin Newman?

  Weird 60s machinery.

• 56:24David Sims?

  Oh, right.

• 56:24Griffin Newman?

  It's a humming motor.

• 56:25David Sims?

  Gets boils.

• 56:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:26David Sims?

  Yeah, in the story, okay, that makes sense.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  But he's also like, you know, there's a biblical dynamic, a biblical, you know, a biblical brotherly dynamic.

• 56:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  You know, well, the Cain and Abel thing.

• 56:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  You know, but there is something about, you know, the nature of, of two brothers and one is painfully compromised.

• 56:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:46Speaker 04

  Uh, yet there, there's still like, and there's a resentment to him.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:51Speaker 04

  That, you know, that, you know, he doesn't direct at his brother, but he directs at God.

• 56:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  But ultimately, in that moment at the pool, it's at his brother, it's like,

• 56:59Griffin Newman?

  Why?

• 57:00Speaker 04

  Hashem looked out for you, you have a job, you have, you know, like jealousy and the fury.

• 57:04Griffin Newman?

  And this guy's life, by the way, is crumbling. Like, the guy whose life he covets is like absolutely crumbling, but he looks at like, you have the firmament of what looks like a normal American life.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  And I have the mon- the humunculus, or whatever it is.

• 57:18David Sims?

  The mentaculus.

• 57:19Speaker 04

  The mentaculus. Which is, it's a very, uh, thought provoking, deep movie, you know, in, in, in so many ways that, like, I, I'm surprised that it took me kind of moving through it again in the last few days, because I watched it recently.

• 57:34Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  And I, I watch it primarily because it's familiar to me, and I never really set out.

• 57:40Griffin Newman?

  It is weirdly comforting.

• 57:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, as a Jew.

• 57:42Griffin Newman?

  If you live in our headspace, it is a weirdly comforting movie to watch.

• 57:45Speaker 04

  But it's unlike any other Jewish movie. It's unlike any depiction of, of Jews. And, and it wasn't until, you know, and I've always sort of half tried to figure it out, but to sort of, you know, put it into some sort of, uh, criticism around all the, the, the, not just the story, but the characters and also the changing of the eras, and the nature of, of chaos, and the nature of coincidence, and the nature of, of trying to have control, like, it, it's, it's one of those movies, and the reason why it's a masterpiece, is all of those are touched upon.

• 58:16Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:16Speaker 04

  Everything is touched upon.

• 58:17Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  That, that makes us human and questioning.

• 58:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:22Speaker 04

  If you do that.

• 58:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Most people don't.

• 58:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 58:30Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 58:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 58:31Griffin Newman?

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

• 58:36David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 58:37Griffin Newman?

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

• 58:48David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 58:49Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16-millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything.

• 58:58David Sims?

  Wow.

• 58:59Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 59:12David Sims?

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

• 59:23Griffin 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."

• 59:32David Sims?

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

• 59:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:35David 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.

• 59:43Griffin 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.

• 59:56David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 59:58Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:00:01David 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.

• 1:00:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:00:33Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:00:33David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:00:34Griffin 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.

• 1:00:55David 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.

• 1:01:14Griffin 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.

• 1:01:30David 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/listen to Dracula.

• 1:02:05Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:02:05David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  People cut the cord. Means the death of the repeat, the rerun. But where do repeats still exist? In your closet.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  Ah, the sweater that goes with everything, Griffin. The tea you somehow always reach for first?

• 1:02:19Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's, we know the feeling.

• 1:02:21David Sims?

  Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. That's what Quince does best.

• 1:02:25Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:02:25David Sims?

  This is true for me. I will say I go to Quince. I buy a thing like a polo shirt, a sweater, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I like that. Guess I'll get a bunch more because now that's what I'm gonna put on.

• 1:02:36Griffin Newman?

  Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day.

• 1:02:51David Sims?

  Love it. They got those 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Those start at just $60.

• 1:02:55Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:02:55David Sims?

  Giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand. Without that luxury price tag and look, it's starting to get chillier. You're gonna need layers, right? How about you just do Quince for every layer, huh?

• 1:03:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:03:11Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:03:12David Sims?

  What?

• 1:03:12Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:03:14David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:03:14Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:03:17David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Yep, that's me. David, I like these. They're just clean. They're comfortable. They got the right amount of pockets.

• 1:03:24David Sims?

  Wow. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know. It was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:03:49David Sims?

  So Stolberg, just want to tell you, initially auditioned to play the husband in the Yiddish story.

• 1:03:54Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow. That's.

• 1:03:55David Sims?

  He learned Yiddish. He learned the entire scene in Yiddish, like how to, how to do it. He does the audition for them and they're like, huh? And then months later, they ask him back to read for Uncle Arthur and then for Larry.

• 1:04:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  And then they meet with Richard Kind, who I think they're thinking about for the lead role.

• 1:04:12Griffin Newman?

  Kinda, yeah.

• 1:04:12David Sims?

  And they just are like, we just really want, you know. Yeah, he would have made a meal out of it. He would, right, right, right.

• 1:04:19Griffin Newman?

  You also need someone like Kind in the shorthand way for the brother because you're not gonna spend that much time on him.

• 1:04:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:04:25Griffin Newman?

  And the look gets you like half the way there to the characterization.

• 1:04:29David Sims?

  And, uh, yeah, like, uh, Kind had, I guess, auditioned for Burn After Reading. They knew, you know, who doesn't know?

• 1:04:35Griffin Newman?

  But had never worked with them before.

• 1:04:36David Sims?

  Had never worked with them before. They initially wanted him to maybe play a rabbi in this, and then they are like, no, he'll work for Arthur.

• 1:04:42Griffin Newman?

  Made a meal out of that, yeah.

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  Yes. And Fred Melamed had auditioned for them all the way back for Barton Fink, for the, uh,

• 1:04:48Griffin Newman?

  Michael Lerner.

• 1:04:49David Sims?

  Lerner role, for the studio head. Which makes sense, he's got that velvety voice thing, you know?

• 1:04:53Griffin Newman?

  But you look at his career before this, and he truly, it's like seven Woody Allen movies and three other credits until this.

• 1:05:01David Sims?

  As Joel says, Si is the sex guy in this movie. Every film needs one. And I do just love that everyone in the movie is like, I mean, it's fucking Si Abel. This is a robust guy.

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:12David Sims?

  Everyone's like, this guy, man, what's bossy up in there?

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  Right, right. But, but the, like, the idea that he's a sex guy even in this film.

• 1:05:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  You know, it was so grounded in something fundamentally Jewish and, and fundamentally not sexy in even the Jewish way.

• 1:05:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  You know, you don't got, it's not Elliot Gould you're dealing with.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:05:32Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:05:33David Sims?

  He's not a, right, you're right, you're right.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  And it's only that, sort of, that implication of like, you gotta let it breathe. Like, like, he's a sophisticated charmer.

• 1:05:42Griffin Newman?

  He is a serious man, yeah.

• 1:05:43David Sims?

  They made the movie for $7 million. To quote Ethan Coen, when you're making a movie about a Jewish Midwestern community in 1967 and Fred Melamed is the sex guy, they don't give you a lot of money.

• 1:05:56David Sims?

  They shot it in Bloomington, Minnesota, which is where the Mall of America is. They looked, they wanted, you know, they looked around for basically suburban neighborhoods that looked like their childhood neighborhoods. Shot for 44 days, finished ahead of schedule, which is like the classic Coen story. It's like, under budget, un, and then finished early.

• 1:06:12Griffin Newman?

  And they, at this point, have their thing worked out with working title where most of the time, they'll just let him do whatever they want. Yeah.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, and Deacons, Roger Deacons, their DP, shows up with all these what they call swing and tilt lenses that are, that just skew the focal plane and stuff where that he had just been doing them. Uh, using them on, uh, The Assassination of Jesse James.

• 1:06:31Griffin Newman?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:06:32David Sims?

  Which is so funny to think I'm working on that incredibly painterly movie and then showing up to this and being like, this will be good for the stone scenes.

• 1:06:38Griffin Newman?

  But also Burn After Reading.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  But also for the, from the roof scenes.

• 1:06:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Burn After Reading was the first movie they hadn't done, they'd done without deacons in over a decade.

• 1:06:48Speaker 04

  You, you know what's interesting is oddly in terms of, you know, psychological terrain and, and sort of, um, almost mystical interpretations, the, the closest movie to this of theirs is Barton Fink.

• 1:07:02David Sims?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:07:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03David Sims?

  Like in terms of the, uh, liminal, kind of like dream reality.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, what sort of feeling.

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  The unknown.

• 1:07:08Griffin Newman?

  But a thing I find so interesting is like such a recurring theme of theirs is a guy who is so obsessed with a sort of outside perception of his own mediocrity that he needs to prove himself, punch above his weight class, do something demonstrably great in a way to win everyone's respect and just gets in over his skis and torpedoes his whole life in the process. This is not that guy. This is a movie that starts with a guy who is pretty comfortable with where things are and everything starts collapsing around him.

• 1:07:41Speaker 04

  Well, also.

• 1:07:41Griffin Newman?

  And he's looking for an explanation for why it's happening to him because he has done nothing to bring it upon himself.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  Well, but what is, I think that's his, probably his biggest sin.

• 1:07:51Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  And, and also like he pulled it off. He became an American.

• 1:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:07:56Speaker 04

  And, and maintained his Jewish identity, but he is living what, what, what was presented as the American dream. This is what we're here for.

• 1:08:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  We're not, you know, we're not the first wave immigrants.

• 1:08:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  We're the second generation. We've now integrated into the middle class. I have a house. I have kids. I have a job. I'm about to get tenure. I did it.

• 1:08:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. But Barton Fink is like a pretentious, elitist, self-centered weasel, you know?

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  And also a socialist too.

• 1:08:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:08:26Griffin Newman?

  Jerry Lundergaard in Fargo is a guy who's like stacking up crimes in order to like get over the hill and prove that he's like a big man.

• 1:08:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:33Griffin Newman?

  This guy is just comfortable tapping out at bare minimum, right?

• 1:08:37David Sims?

  But also he had, he believed he had principles.

• 1:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:40David Sims?

  And that he had artistic integrity.

• 1:08:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42David Sims?

  And that his art meant something.

• 1:08:43Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:44David Sims?

  Which, yeah, I'm.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  Barton.

• 1:08:45Griffin Newman?

  Barton, yeah.

• 1:08:46David Sims?

  Yeah, Barton, yeah. But Lundergaard is also the neighbor.

• 1:08:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:50David Sims?

  It's also.

• 1:08:51Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:52Griffin Newman?

  Right, I mean, this movie is basically.

• 1:08:53David Sims?

  Is the goy.

• 1:08:54Griffin Newman?

  Is centered around the guy who Lundergaard tries to sell the true coat to, who calls him a fuck, right?

• 1:09:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Griffin Newman?

  It's like an entire.

• 1:09:03David Sims?

  A fucking liar.

• 1:09:03Griffin Newman?

  A fucking liar.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  A fucking liar.

• 1:09:05Griffin Newman?

  But it's an entire movie centered around a guy with that energy.

• 1:09:08David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, who's just like, I'm on the receiving end of Jerry Lundergaard's every day of my life.

• 1:09:13David Sims?

  The, oh, the sweaty Goodman.

• 1:09:15Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:09:16David Sims?

  In that, in Barton Fink is just the best. And the bugs, that movie is so good.

• 1:09:23Griffin Newman?

  That's David's favorite, right?

• 1:09:25David Sims?

  Fink, yeah.

• 1:09:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25David Sims?

  Yeah, Fink's my favorite.

• 1:09:26Griffin Newman?

  You're a Fink guy.

• 1:09:27David Sims?

  But this is, I think, right up there.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29David Sims?

  And maybe, yeah, they're linked for me because of that movie.

• 1:09:31Griffin Newman?

  Stulberg already had a Tony nomination at this point.

• 1:09:33David Sims?

  He's in The Pillow Man, the McDonagh play.

• 1:09:36Griffin Newman?

  Which I will say.

• 1:09:37David Sims?

  It's a great play.

• 1:09:37Griffin Newman?

  He plays a developmentally disabled adult man in that. It's a tough role. It is maybe the only time I've ever seen someone do that where I was like, this is 100% respectful and not embarrassing.

• 1:09:49David Sims?

  I saw it on the London stage, not to brag, and Adam Godley played that role and he was wonderful.

• 1:09:54Griffin Newman?

  Great actor.

• 1:09:55David Sims?

  Um, so.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  David grew up in the UK.

• 1:09:58David Sims?

  Moved to the UK when I was nine.

• 1:10:00Speaker 04

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:10:00David Sims?

  It is nice. It's wonderful.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  Have some real history.

• 1:10:03David Sims?

  Yeah, they do.

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  To live in a place.

• 1:10:05David Sims?

  To live in a place where there are walls from 600 AD. I mean, yeah, it's lousy with fucking castles.

• 1:10:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12David Sims?

  When they're designing this movie, Mary Zofries, who's their costume designer, finds a Sears Roebuck catalog that she, that's called Deep Autumnal, she says, from the 60s.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  Oh, see, there you go, autumn.

• 1:10:23David Sims?

  I basically use all of that for Cy Ableman.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  For generation.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  Yes. And I like this, she bought this Tahitian fabric for Leo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, and she never used it. And then for Cy Ableman, she was like, that's what Cy is gonna have. He, he's, he went traveling.

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:39David Sims?

  Cy's the kind of guy who comes back wearing some kind of like, it's like the lush shirt or that he's wearing or whatever.

• 1:10:44Griffin Newman?

  It also, this movie has.

• 1:10:46David Sims?

  I think the Jolly Roger would be appropriate, Griffin.

• 1:10:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:49Speaker 04

  Surely you jest.

• 1:10:52Griffin Newman?

  Um, this movie has that smart art direction costuming thing of, oh, it's like sixty seven, but everyone here is basically still.

• 1:11:01David Sims?

  Right, it's still like fifty nine.

• 1:11:02Griffin Newman?

  Sure. Right, no one's at the tip of the cultural sphere.

• 1:11:05David Sims?

  And that's what Mad Men is, where you're just like, well, why does Don Draper still wear a hat? Isn't it the sixties? And it's like, yeah, but like, he's not gonna start fucking dressing like a hippie tomorrow, you know?

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  I grew up, you know, just on the cutting edge of, uh, I guess Gen X, I'm the last boomer. And we were still, you know, when I was in high school and junior high in the mid seventies, it was still the crashing wave of the sixties, the late sixties, seventy one, all the music.

• 1:11:30Griffin Newman?

  And that's the furniture everyone still has in their homes. It's not like nineteen sixty hit and people threw shit out.

• 1:11:35David Sims?

  Swapped everything out for peaslee. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  There's a little bit of it going on, like in the, in the, in the game room or the family room. There might be a beanbag in one of the kids' rooms.

• 1:11:43Griffin Newman?

  That's the fringes, it's just starting to leave.

• 1:11:45David Sims?

  But like.

• 1:11:46Griffin Newman?

  And you assume when these guys go off to college, it's gonna be open season.

• 1:11:49David Sims?

  What's going on, though? It's like, the kid, the, the boy just wants to watch F Troop, which is like, that, that show's just sort of a western sitcom, right? Like, that's a very traditional.

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, they had a fort, it was Larry Store.

• 1:12:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:00Speaker 04

  Larry Store.

• 1:12:01Griffin Newman?

  And the guy, the guy with, let me say it, the famously huge hog, right? Wasn't the other guy in F Troop one of?

• 1:12:07Speaker 04

  Forrest Tucker?

• 1:12:08Griffin Newman?

  Forrest Tucker.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  Okay. I don't know that about him.

• 1:12:10Griffin Newman?

  Is on the Milton Berle list.

• 1:12:11Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 1:12:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, on the Liam Neeson list.

• 1:12:13Speaker 04

  A lot of good it did him.

• 1:12:15David Sims?

  He was on F Troop?

• 1:12:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:12:16Griffin Newman?

  David had to Google his name.

• 1:12:18David Sims?

  F Troop's fuzzy.

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  Larry Store was like a, a comic.

• 1:12:22Griffin Newman?

  Kind of like, quietly, you could argue, an early alt comic?

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  Kinda, yeah, like him and Professor Irwin Corrigan, where I felt, I feel like.

• 1:12:31Griffin Newman?

  Cause he was kinda doing character stuff, right? Almost his persona, yeah.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  They've always been weirdos.

• 1:12:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:12:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, in terms of comedy, there's always been a couple that were undefinable.

• 1:12:42Griffin Newman?

  Right, but I feel like he was an early version of, is this guy from Mars?

• 1:12:46Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:12:47Griffin Newman?

  Not the sort of making jokes, self-referencing how weird they are.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Crazy guy.

• 1:12:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, but yeah, the kid just wants to watch F Troop and listen to Jefferson Airplane and get stoned.

• 1:12:56David Sims?

  Girl just wants to go out with her friends to the mall or whatever.

• 1:12:59Speaker 04

  And wash her hair.

• 1:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Wash her hair and get into it.

• 1:13:01Speaker 04

  But he does have to learn his Haf Torah.

• 1:13:02Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:13:03Speaker 04

  Which was a nightmare. I, you know, I think if I go on to. Uh, think about this movie more. I'll try to figure out, you know, what was the topic of that?

• 1:13:12David Sims?

  Your Torah Bar Mitzvah?

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  Well, I know what mine was.

• 1:13:15David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:15Speaker 04

  I, I did.

• 1:13:16David Sims?

  Oh, figure out what it is in the film.

• 1:13:18Speaker 04

  What story is he telling?

• 1:13:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Speaker 04

  What, what portion is he reading?

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  What did you do?

• 1:13:22Speaker 04

  I'm trying to remember now. I guess it didn't really land to me. I have to, I have to go look at my book Jerusalem Syndrome again to remember what the topic was.

• 1:13:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:29Speaker 04

  It was, I, all I remember was that it was relatively short and I got lucky.

• 1:13:33David Sims?

  Smart.

• 1:13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Or luck. Yeah.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  What, you look that up. What was the Torah portion he read?

• 1:13:38David Sims?

  That, well, I know I was never Bar Mitzvah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

  No, but I mean.

• 1:13:40David Sims?

  In the movie.

• 1:13:41Speaker 04

  In the movie.

• 1:13:41David Sims?

  Okay, okay. I'll look it up. Um, uh, so, but I, I wasn't Bar Mitzvah because we moved to England.

• 1:13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49David Sims?

  And my mom, I mean, not to talk about my mom too much on this podcast, but we, it's a serious man, I guess.

• 1:13:54Speaker 04

  It's a serious man.

• 1:13:55David Sims?

  Uh, was kinda like, I don't like the vibes of the Jewish, Jewish people here. Like she couldn't find the kinda reformy.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  Oh, no, it's hard. I remember, I was always fascinated when I interviewed British Jews.

• 1:14:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Speaker 04

  Cause like you just don't associate them.

• 1:14:07David Sims?

  Or you don't really talk about it.

• 1:14:08Speaker 04

  American middle-class Judaism is the stereotype.

• 1:14:12David Sims?

  Yep. Right. The closest she could find was American transplants in London.

• 1:14:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:14:16David Sims?

  Who were like, oh, we have a little thing here for, you know.

• 1:14:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. And also you gotta figure that the Jews were there forever.

• 1:14:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. You know, so it's a totally integrated thing.

• 1:14:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  It's like Jews from the South that were here, that came over before that first European immigration.

• 1:14:30David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  You know, first of slavery business.

• 1:14:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Speaker 04

  I mean, there were Jews in the, you know, plantation South.

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  That, yeah, it's, it's kinda crazy because we all have such a strong identity with this middle-class, uh, you know, 50s Judaism that kinda built us. But there's like, I remember that going to the, the Yad Vashem, uh, in, uh, in Israel, the, the Holocaust museum.

• 1:14:53David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  And there's just the, uh, they showed like Jews from around the world. Cause you identify, you think you know Jews.

• 1:15:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  And then they're just showing like, you know, Africans and you're like, oh my God, what a, like a myopic idiot I am.

• 1:15:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  You know, but they're not Jews like us.

• 1:15:08David Sims?

  Right, right. His Torah portion is Leviticus. And like, I do think it is funny when you get handed this Torah portion where you're like, oh, what's it about? And it's basically just being like, oh, if you. Have a farm, you better not have a farm too close to the other guy, you know, it's just some rule.

• 1:15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:15:21Griffin Newman?

  And then, right, everyone in their Bar Mitzvah translates it to like, it's like in school when you have to resist the temptation to cheat off of someone else's test. And everyone gives them like a fucking round of applause.

• 1:15:33David Sims?

  But like, literally, it's just like, you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so the time of seven weeks of years, she'll give you forty nine years. It's a bunch of math, and I bet you the co-inspictive for that exact reason, right?

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:15:45David Sims?

  And it is just so funny when you read the Bible and half of it is like, yeah, he's fed this fucker to a whale because he doesn't listen to him. The other half is like, if a lady has her period, steer clear for me.

• 1:15:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:54David Sims?

  And you're just like, they wrote that down next to that?

• 1:15:56Griffin Newman?

  Right, that causes the same kind of like spiral that this movie is about of being like, how does this relate to my life? What am I supposed to take away from this?

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:16:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  Or what, I don't even know it.

• 1:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:16:08Speaker 04

  The stories.

• 1:16:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  Like, there's no implication in middle class Judaism that anyone knows the Bible.

• 1:16:12Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:16:13David Sims?

  I have struggled with my relationship to Judaism and not, not that it was, I wasn't even Bar Mitzvah, so it wasn't that pushed on me that hard, but you know.

• 1:16:23David Sims?

  The only time when I'm in a temple and like, the only magic to it, to me is like, people said this shit three thousand years ago.

• 1:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:16:31David Sims?

  The same shit we're saying right now, like, you know, these words.

• 1:16:34Griffin Newman?

  It's the same as seeing fucking Romeo and Juliet staged or whatever. We were like, this is crazy, this text is like.

• 1:16:39David Sims?

  There's some magic to that.

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  You're singing in Hebrew, I, you know, we did, Adon Olam at the end was always, and then, you know, someone brought a new version and it's like, what are we doing? What's with the fact, I, I, I like, Adon Olam.

• 1:16:52David Sims?

  Oh yeah, you don't like the new music, right?

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  And then all of a sudden it's, Adon Olam, Adon Olam, Asher Olam, Asher Olam.

• 1:16:57Griffin Newman?

  Like, I was off book.

• 1:16:58Speaker 04

  What's happening?

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:59David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, that, and that does happen, and then, and then, my mom.

• 1:17:02Speaker 04

  Reform synagogues, like, what's with the guitar? Why is there stained glass in here?

• 1:17:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. My parents definitely tried to push that on me to be like, this one's fun, they're puppets and acoustic guitar, yeah.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  Yeah, where the guy's like, you know, stories are like, kind of like about the Avengers, it's not about the fucking Avengers, God didn't know about Marvel.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  Give it the weight it deserves.

• 1:17:21David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Griffin Newman?

  God was kind of the original Iron Man.

• 1:17:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:27David Sims?

  So. Larry Gopnik, yeah, he lives in St. Louis Park. He's got a wife who, pretty much, first thing she says to him is, "I need to get, I'm divorcing you and I'm marrying Cy Ableman."

• 1:17:37Griffin Newman?

  You know how we've been having trouble?

• 1:17:39David Sims?

  But there's been no hanky panky, right? Like, there's not, it's all above board.

• 1:17:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:17:43David Sims?

  So, and I believe her. I feel like it is just that she's like, "This guy's so magnetic."

• 1:17:47Griffin Newman?

  It speaks to what a sex guy he is, that she's ready to leave her husband just at the idea of fucking Cy Ableman.

• 1:17:53David Sims?

  Because the idea is that Cy Ableman's wife just died, right? Because later Adam Arkin is like, "She's barely in the ground."

• 1:17:59Griffin Newman?

  But it's been three years.

• 1:18:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:00Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing they keep correcting.

• 1:18:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  But also, he's like, an adventurous spirit.

• 1:18:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:05Speaker 04

  And he knows about wine.

• 1:18:07David Sims?

  He's expansive, right? Yes, he's culturally.

• 1:18:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, the expansive thing, again, with the psychedelic, you know, undertones. It's, it's, it's all about, you know, not being locked in to this pattern.

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  He knows about things outside of this enclave in Minnesota.

• 1:18:22Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:18:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24David Sims?

  Um, so that's, kind of just, that's all that's really going on in the movie is just, it's the inciting thing.

• 1:18:31Griffin Newman?

  He's up for tenure.

• 1:18:32David Sims?

  Then it's, right, a series of sort of...

• 1:18:34Griffin Newman?

  There is a young student who is blackmailing him because he's given him a failing grade. What are the other things stacked up? He's, he's got his brother sleeping on his couch.

• 1:18:43Speaker 04

  Columbia House keeps calling.

• 1:18:45David Sims?

  That's my favorite, that, and, and you're with him every time he walks in and she's like, he's on the phone again. He's like, "I can't deal with that."

• 1:18:52Speaker 04

  I, I, when I was a kid, I did it.

• 1:18:54David Sims?

  Did you do it?

• 1:18:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I got the 12 cents for a dollar or whatever.

• 1:18:57David Sims?

  And my uncle would just, like, sign up false addresses or whatever. I feel like it was so easy to fake it.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  The ones that were, that I got that made an impression were Aerosmith's first album, uh, Joe Walsh, The Smoker, You Drink, The, Whatever You Get.

• 1:19:11David Sims?

  Um, I don't want Santana Abraxas.

• 1:19:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, that might have been one of them, but the ones that stuck.

• 1:19:17Griffin Newman?

  I didn't do anything.

• 1:19:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:19David Sims?

  But then, did you, did you do the monthly?

• 1:19:21Griffin Newman?

  Would you cancel them or would you get locked in?

• 1:19:22Speaker 04

  No, eventually you gotta get your parents to step up and get you out of it.

• 1:19:25Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  I mean, you don't have the money.

• 1:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:19:27David Sims?

  Because you would tape, like, a penny back in the era or whatever.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  Well, you know, you had to buy, like, three or four records at regular price.

• 1:19:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  You get the, the 12 for free.

• 1:19:35David Sims?

  You get the 12 for a penny.

• 1:19:36Speaker 04

  And then you gotta, you know, you gotta buy a certain number of records.

• 1:19:39Griffin Newman?

  The free thing was actually a brilliant business strategy to be like, "Well, kids just fucking take the initiative and mail it in and the parents get stuck with the bill."

• 1:19:47Speaker 04

  Sure, I definitely.

• 1:19:48Griffin Newman?

  They don't have to ask for permission the first time.

• 1:19:49Speaker 04

  And also, you get new music.

• 1:19:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 04

  You know, like, you're like, "That sounds good."

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54David Sims?

  Steve Park, who played, obviously.

• 1:19:57Griffin Newman?

  Mike Yanagida.

• 1:19:58David Sims?

  Mike Yanagida in Fargo, plays the student's father.

• 1:20:01Griffin Newman?

  Except the mystery in Clive as the student.

• 1:20:03David Sims?

  Clive as the student, right.

• 1:20:04Griffin Newman?

  Which is also, right, like, another form of assimilation is like, here is this foreign family that has moved here and named their son Clive.

• 1:20:12Speaker 04

  Oh, that, that assimilation too is very interesting.

• 1:20:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:15Speaker 04

  Because like, the one moment where the neighbor actually reaches out is like, is it, do you need help here?

• 1:20:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:20:20Speaker 04

  Because the guy was Asian.

• 1:20:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:20:22Speaker 04

  Is there a problem?

• 1:20:23Griffin Newman?

  For a second, he's like, the hierarchy of hatred.

• 1:20:25Speaker 04

  Yes, we can both hate them.

• 1:20:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, that can bond us.

• 1:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:29David Sims?

  And if the movie has a structure, it's just these three visits to rabbis that he makes that are him seeking answers, I guess initially on the divorce.

• 1:20:39Griffin Newman?

  A get.

• 1:20:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:20:40Griffin Newman?

  Right, a traditional Jewish divorce.

• 1:20:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:20:42Griffin Newman?

  And he's hoping he can also get some kind of clarity for why his life is in the place it is.

• 1:20:49David Sims?

  All at the same time.

• 1:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:51David Sims?

  And he sees first Simon Helberg, Rabbi Ginsler, and then he sees Marsh.

• 1:20:57Griffin Newman?

  A vexed Simon Helberg. This is an a vexed Simon Helberg film.

• 1:20:59David Sims?

  Right. Then he sees Knokner, and then, and he never sees Marshak. He doesn't get to see Marshak.

• 1:21:03Griffin Newman?

  You see Marshak.

• 1:21:04David Sims?

  His son gets to meet Marshak. And, yeah, there's not much, no one's saying anything about the actual politics of the time. Is there, do they even reference Vietnam maybe in the?

• 1:21:17Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 1:21:18David Sims?

  No.

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 1:21:19David Sims?

  And it's like, like you're saying, the sort of cultural shift is, is on the edges all the time.

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  The reference is Machine Gun by Hendrix.

• 1:21:28David Sims?

  The reference is art that's about Vietnam.

• 1:21:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:21:31David Sims?

  And other stuff.

• 1:21:33David Sims?

  But, yeah, like.

• 1:21:34Griffin Newman?

  You're not talking about who's president in this movie.

• 1:21:37David Sims?

  No.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  No, it's Johnson. It's, it's all a biblical struggle.

• 1:21:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:42David Sims?

  Yes, and he is put upon in ways that you initially can keep track of, and eventually you do start to kind of think like, someone actually does need to intervene here.

• 1:21:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:53David Sims?

  But everyone, and it's a series of meetings. It's all meetings.

• 1:21:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:57David Sims?

  He's meeting with Sayaboom, and he's meeting with rabbis, he's meeting with the lawyers, right? Like, it's always just him being like, isn't there something?

• 1:22:03Griffin Newman?

  And one way or another, yes.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:05Speaker 04

  But I think interestingly, if I think about it, that, you know, the beginning of the third act is the bar mitzvah.

• 1:22:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 04

  So, you know, what you have there is a coming together and an understanding.

• 1:22:17Griffin Newman?

  That's the other thing. Everyone he keeps meeting with keeps like saying like, pretty exciting bar mitzvahs coming up. You know, it's the big event culturally.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  And also that's the moment where there is, if there is any sort of reunification of the, of the wife in him.

• 1:22:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:33Speaker 04

  It's in that moment.

• 1:22:34David Sims?

  They're proud of their son.

• 1:22:34Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:22:35Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  But there, it is fraught with expectation because he's stoned.

• 1:22:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:38Speaker 04

  And they're all wondering.

• 1:22:40David Sims?

  They shouldn't be proud of him. He's dancing on a pinhead. I mean, he is.

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, they are.

• 1:22:43David Sims?

  He's reading that Hebrew.

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  But he almost didn't do it.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  I know, I know.

• 1:22:46Griffin Newman?

  He's hitting those notes.

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  They were nervous because they didn't know if he was nervous or what, but there's a moment like, is he gonna pull it off?

• 1:22:52David Sims?

  Right. They do say, they do keep saying to him, like, you gotta cherish this, right? You know, like the, the people will be like, ah, you know, you know, your kids are young, like, you gotta cherish it. And I guess there is the implication that Larry cherishes nothing in life. Like, it's hard to know what Larry, uh, likes.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  He cherishes math.

• 1:23:11David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 1:23:11Griffin Newman?

  But he also doesn't seem to derive great pleasure from it.

• 1:23:14David Sims?

  Doesn't seem like he's into teaching.

• 1:23:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. Everything feels like a burden on him to some degree or another.

• 1:23:18Speaker 04

  I don't know if I, if I got that with the math. I think that, you know, it was his salvation.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:23Speaker 04

  And that, you know, the fact that he could share that, I mean, being a teacher, I mean, is another important position, you know, biblically speaking, that everyone's framed that way. And that there was this, the context of his teaching was, uh, if you knew how to do that, you could be effective and, and, and share the wisdom.

• 1:23:41Griffin Newman?

  But he also seems so beleaguered at the struggle of how to communicate it to other people, right?

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  His teaching really.

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  Teaching kids.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  He's teaching Schrodinger's cat.

• 1:23:51Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Like really complicated, abstract stuff.

• 1:23:55David Sims?

  And he's showing math.

• 1:23:56Griffin Newman?

  Easy to teach. I think he puts value on this system, this language that makes sense to him and helps give him a sense of order in the world.

• 1:24:02David Sims?

  Everyone's searching for meaning.

• 1:24:02Speaker 04

  But there is a, but there is sort of a, a nevishy hubris.

• 1:24:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  To his position.

• 1:24:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And all he wants is tenure. He wants the minting of, you get to be. Be this guy forever.

• 1:24:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Griffin Newman?

  Your status is not in question.

• 1:24:16Speaker 04

  And also no expectation to, like, he hasn't published?

• 1:24:20Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:21David Sims?

  Yeah, he doesn't, but like, he is seeking, now that I think about it, a rabbinical position.

• 1:24:25Griffin Newman?

  He is.

• 1:24:26David Sims?

  Of like, yeah, once you get tenure, you'll sit in your office.

• 1:24:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:24:29David Sims?

  People will come talk to you and you'll be like, hmm.

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  You've become an elder of the community.

• 1:24:32Speaker 04

  But, but, but not so much, uh, uh, uh, it's just sort of like, there, in math, there's, there's no wig over.

• 1:24:37David Sims?

  Yes or no.

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  This is right or wrong.

• 1:24:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:24:39Speaker 04

  Period.

• 1:24:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:24:40Speaker 04

  And yet, but life, not that easy.

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  It's solvable.

• 1:24:43David Sims?

  So he first goes to see Helberg, who tells him, look at the parking lot. Uh, and there is a comedy to this that I feel like is so true in religion, when you do have to confront someone who's like, hi. Like, I, I, I got to be a priest like 20 minutes ago, but I am nominally like a representative of God.

• 1:25:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:03Griffin Newman?

  The three rabbis in the movie are like a guy who's younger than him, a guy who's a contemporary, and a guy who's his elder.

• 1:25:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:25:09Griffin Newman?

  And immediately, he's sort of sitting with this guy with the disappointment of, I really thought I was gonna talk to the big guy.

• 1:25:15David Sims?

  But, but like, Kessler's not gonna tell him, he doesn't know about the horse.

• 1:25:18Griffin Newman?

  No, but he's just waiting for this guy to kick him up the chain. You know, he kind of, you can tell that he goes into that meeting knowing he's not gonna get anything that he's happy with.

• 1:25:26Speaker 04

  But, in.

• 1:25:28David Sims?

  But I do think he gets the best advice from that guy.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:25:30Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  The perception advice, yes.

• 1:25:31David Sims?

  Like, that, that, actually, he should listen to.

• 1:25:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:25:34David Sims?

  Of just like, just look at the parking lot.

• 1:25:36Griffin Newman?

  But he's pre-committed to the outcome of, this guy has nothing he can teach me.

• 1:25:40David Sims?

  Things aren't so bad.

• 1:25:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, but that's what he goes back to.

• 1:25:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:25:44Griffin Newman?

  It's also funny that it's a parking lot, which goes back to Fargo as well, where this guy's entire life is built on the idea of, if I can get this parking lot deal, my, my father-in-law will respect me, right?

• 1:25:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:55Griffin Newman?

  Like, the parking lot's the most.

• 1:25:57Speaker 04

  He's a climber.

• 1:25:58Griffin Newman?

  It's the kind of most sacred cornerstone of a community in America.

• 1:26:04David Sims?

  Um, and then you got Knokner, who tells the teeth story. I think this is the crowning moment of the movie?

• 1:26:13Griffin Newman?

  And once again, it is a movie that has like four things that would be the undeniable crowning moment in any other film.

• 1:26:20David Sims?

  There's just something so wonderful about how involved you are in it.

• 1:26:24Speaker 04

  I think that that that story is, in a way, the the the, is it the parable? Is that what we call them?

• 1:26:33David Sims?

  Sure, yeah. Fable, whatever.

• 1:26:35Speaker 04

  That is the fable that it explains the movie in the context of the opening fable. And it is it is what the movie is.

• 1:26:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  And the fact that the the reason I say that is because he did take the letters and break down the kabbalistic math of what the numbers of the letters implied on a Kabbalah level.

• 1:26:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:26:56Speaker 04

  He did go, yeah, he did go to the supermarket where the number was four, expecting something. And that that is the entire search of the movie. That is the movie.

• 1:27:06Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:27:06Speaker 04

  In in that parable form.

• 1:27:09Griffin Newman?

  And we were talking about before recording the like the semiotics in visual storytelling in like the great movies.

• 1:27:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  And how a movie that's really humming, you're like, you could look at the back of the teeth and they would tell you something.

• 1:27:21Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:27:21Griffin Newman?

  And this is literally a guy who's hyper fixated on the back of the teeth, which are saying something so specific and yet nothing at the same time. And the further he dug, the less answers he got.

• 1:27:30Speaker 04

  And that also, the the the, I guess the interesting thing is, is that there is a level of wanting coincidences to mean something.

• 1:27:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:40Speaker 04

  And wanting how you perceive

• 1:27:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  things in relation to things that have happened before in your life, or or or suggestions of things that happened before in your life as having some sort of arc or continuity to it. And if you look at that that story about the dentist, he never asks the guy.

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:57Speaker 04

  How did these, do you know you have this on your teeth?

• 1:27:59Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  That there's a whole other side of this story.

• 1:28:02Griffin Newman?

  He's not asking

• 1:28:03Speaker 04

  That is unexplained.

• 1:28:04Griffin Newman?

  The essential question.

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:28:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, to the essential person, but also like. This is how we read movies, right? Like you're saying, like, you look for answers and meaning in things, right? And purpose and all of that. And yet, movies are like, this many people came together and put this much time and money and effort into something that exists in a fixed time, right? That is a finished work. So you want to look at it and assume that every single decision has some meaning behind it. Whether purposeful or accidental, there's something to be inferred by the decision of every line reading, of every costuming choice, of every sound cue, of all of that.

• 1:28:42Speaker 04

  And sometimes it's just collaborative coincidence.

• 1:28:45Griffin Newman?

  A kismet. And we're watching a movie that feels so tightly constructed by these guys who make things that similarly open the same kind of questioning that keeps telling you, I don't know.

• 1:28:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. And also, like, the dentist, you know, obviously couldn't talk about it with anybody but the rabbi.

• 1:29:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:29:02Speaker 04

  And that when he tries to look at his wife's teeth, it has to be while she's sleeping. I thought that was sort of an interesting thing about, you know, how women are handled in this movie.

• 1:29:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:13Speaker 04

  And, and from the very beginning, when the woman just kills the guy, the divik, right? And without, you know, asking the husband or anything, you don't know what the hell they're gonna do.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  Two questions, right?

• 1:29:25Speaker 04

  And then there's the woman on the beach who's, you know, kind of flirting with him.

• 1:29:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:29Speaker 04

  That there is something in, in that sub, subtext and, and the way that, that women are handling these relationships, because once the dentist forgets about the teeth, the shot is he's telling a story to his wife.

• 1:29:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:29:43Speaker 04

  You know, and it's clearly not the dentist.

• 1:29:45David Sims?

  He's reconnecting with his wife.

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:29:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:29:47Speaker 04

  And, and it's kind of interesting that they, they, they hold sort of a mystical, unknown space in this movie.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:52Speaker 04

  Something that men are not going to get into.

• 1:29:55Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:29:55Speaker 04

  And can't understand.

• 1:29:56Griffin Newman?

  Larry's wife also basically disappears for close to an hour in this movie.

• 1:30:01David Sims?

  She's really not back until the rabbinist.

• 1:30:03Griffin Newman?

  After Cy Ableman dies, her presence is, anytime he goes over, you just hear her wailing, but you don't see her. He's talking to the kids.

• 1:30:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Griffin Newman?

  And you just hear her crying upstairs, inconsolable.

• 1:30:14David Sims?

  And that's what the kid says when he, he's like, Dad, you have to come home. Mom won't stop crying.

• 1:30:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. Doesn't tell him why. They, like, throw it out to him as, like, background knowledge of, like, well, yes, Cy Ableman died. And then she doesn't, I think, appear physically again until the bar mitzvah.

• 1:30:29David Sims?

  And then he's gonna get her back. He's gonna get tenure, he's gonna get his wife back, he's gonna get his family back together and then he's gonna die of frickin'.

• 1:30:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it'll all resolve itself. But that's really interesting if I think out loud about the the mystery of women in this movie. Because it's it's definitely.

• 1:30:45David Sims?

  Because Land Decker is obviously the the the neighbor. It's like a, you know, nymph. Exactly. Like, she's like a mystical figure.

• 1:30:51Griffin Newman?

  But it's a deliberated woman.

• 1:30:53Speaker 04

  Then there's a woman, you know, kind of, you know, flirting with him on the beach and ready to go in for the kill. You know, if he if he'll take her. And then there's the wife, and then there's the daughter, and he literally says that she, my daughter mostly washes her hair. And it seems to be very many steps to the process.

• 1:31:10Griffin Newman?

  Women are like seen as unknowable.

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  A total enigma, just like the answers.

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  And it's not our job. It's just like God. It's like Hashem.

• 1:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:31:18David Sims?

  And like, as Nachner says to him, it's like, it's one way. We, he owes us nothing. We can't ask Hashem what's going on.

• 1:31:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:26David Sims?

  Like, it's not like Christianity where you can be like.

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  But yeah, but it's accepting that relationship, which is crazy, but.

• 1:31:33David Sims?

  Atef, we don't know. Aside from Hashem, we don't know. Helping others. Couldn't hurt.

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  When he's like, what's the ending? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's always it.

• 1:31:40David Sims?

  That's right.

• 1:31:41Speaker 04

  That's the big, that's, that's the weird trick of Judaism and why we never shut up with each other.

• 1:31:45Griffin Newman?

  The more, the more you overanalyze the text, the further you get away from the idea, which is like, don't be an asshole.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  It's not like some belief systems where they're like, you have to be nice, or you're in trouble.

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  But overanalyzing the text is the nature of Judaism. And it's it's it's the nature of Jewish community. It's the nature of Jewish men sitting at a deli. It's the nature of debate.

• 1:32:05David Sims?

  I do think that's why I've always struggled with very strict Judaism, which of course exists, like mega earth, where I'm like, you guys think that's definitely it?

• 1:32:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, but the thing is, is like, but, but it's absolute in in the sense of that their knowledge of what you're talking about as being these weird stories about math.

• 1:32:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:24Speaker 04

  That's a week of conversation with a Hasidim.

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:32:28Speaker 04

  You know, like, they're going to, like, read into that. They're going to interpret it. They're going to comment back.

• 1:32:32Griffin Newman?

  They're doing five blank check episodes a day. Just about single pages of the.

• 1:32:36Speaker 04

  That's right. There's an endless amount of text. It's not as simple as the New Testament.

• 1:32:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:32:41Speaker 04

  So that like however, we're gonna, and God knows I try to compartmentalize if not, you know, condescend or, or am outright anti Semitic about the Hasidic community. There, they have an almost infinite material for dialogue and debate, you know, outside of their ritual.

• 1:32:58Griffin Newman?

  But an infinite well and a very fixed text.

• 1:33:03Speaker 04

  Sure, but I.

• 1:33:04Griffin Newman?

  And moving text.

• 1:33:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, but middle class Judaism becomes a fixed text.

• 1:33:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  It's, it's simpler and it integrates the possibility of democracy in America.

• 1:33:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:33:15Speaker 04

  But you, you know, yeah, and you don't have to wear the same outfit.

• 1:33:17Griffin Newman?

  How do we translate this to a modern culture gives them new things to analyze in a way?

• 1:33:23David Sims?

  Speaking of Mark's point about the things that go unspoken, there's also the unspoken thing that Arthur is gay.

• 1:33:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:29David Sims?

  And is sort of up to private hanky panky, right? You know, like, and when he gets. Yeah, and that's obviously right. That's the dark thing he wants to understand more than anything. Right?

• 1:33:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:33:40David Sims?

  And then, then when that is revealed, sort of obliquely revealed by the cops.

• 1:33:45Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:33:45David Sims?

  It's never discussed again.

• 1:33:46Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:33:47David Sims?

  I mean, I guess he talks to the, the lawyer about like, you're gonna need a criminal attorney or whatever. But no one sits Arthur down being like, how can we help you or what's going on?

• 1:33:55Speaker 04

  No, but, but, but that, that conversation didn't exist then.

• 1:33:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:33:59Speaker 04

  But there, but there was acceptance.

• 1:34:01Griffin Newman?

  There's no path.

• 1:34:01Speaker 04

  There was acceptance.

• 1:34:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but they don't, they can't believe that in a weird way.

• 1:34:06Speaker 04

  But with the brother.

• 1:34:07Griffin Newman?

  Quiet, unspoken acceptance.

• 1:34:08Speaker 04

  But with the brother, there was unconditional.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:11Speaker 04

  Acceptance and love.

• 1:34:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:34:13Speaker 04

  To the point where the dream is, I'm gonna help you get out.

• 1:34:16Griffin Newman?

  And I was gonna say, I find the dream so affecting because the, the Carter Burwell score in this is incredible. His scores for all the movies are incredible. But this one is so ominous, so repetitive. It is so limited in sort of the motif of what it is repeating. And the first major variation of it is in that dream sequence where he's putting the same baseline melody. But then he's putting this kind of like sweeping emotional orchestral thing on top of it.

• 1:34:43Speaker 04

  It's the end of a movie.

• 1:34:44Griffin Newman?

  For the first time, there is this sense of possibility and uplift, which is he takes the kid's money.

• 1:34:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Griffin Newman?

  And he buys his fucking brother a canoe and sets him off.

• 1:34:53David Sims?

  To Canada.

• 1:34:53Griffin Newman?

  To Canada.

• 1:34:54David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:34:54Griffin Newman?

  Just a sign that says Canada and the idea of if you cross the border, maybe over there, you can live in.

• 1:34:59David Sims?

  Which also speaks to the Vietnam time. Like this, it was a thing.

• 1:35:02Speaker 04

  That's interesting.

• 1:35:03David Sims?

  You go to, you go to Canada to get away.

• 1:35:05Speaker 04

  That's how you get out, get away from the guns.

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Is the abstract kind of like Bizarro America, which is us without our problems.

• 1:35:12David Sims?

  My uncle was gonna go to Canada.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  But that's a good point, though, because ultimately you don't, you don't escape the violence.

• 1:35:18Griffin Newman?

  No, the guy shows up and shoots him in the boat.

• 1:35:20Speaker 04

  He's, he's. An American.

• 1:35:21Griffin Newman?

  And he wakes, he wakes up screaming.

• 1:35:23Speaker 04

  Anti-Semitic Jew hater.

• 1:35:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. So the Jews are, you know, either way.

• 1:35:27Griffin Newman?

  And the only other time the score repeats that sort of tone is at the end with the reveal of the tornado.

• 1:35:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34David Sims?

  So why does he change the grade? Is he just sort of like, is he affecting, you know, feeling it like, oh, things are starting to go better for me? Maybe I shouldn't be so tough on this kid.

• 1:35:44Griffin Newman?

  I think it's like the law bill and he.

• 1:35:47David Sims?

  Right. He gets the law bill and he's like, maybe I can just.

• 1:35:49Griffin Newman?

  The, he's so scared off by the nightmare of trying to help his brother.

• 1:35:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:35:54Griffin Newman?

  Escape to a different life that he, but he has the same compulsion within him to protect him. I think especially now that he understands the sexuality and understands the unspoken thing that's never going to be solved within this guy, that he feels like the ultimate mitzvah he can do is get this guy back down to zero.

• 1:36:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. And who's going to be the wiser?

• 1:36:12Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:14David Sims?

  And then the minute that, there was a real, it's called Black Sunday. It was a real tornado system that ripped through Iowa and Minnesota.

• 1:36:22Griffin Newman?

  And they must have.

• 1:36:22David Sims?

  Killed lots of people.

• 1:36:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. Lived in the.

• 1:36:24David Sims?

  Right. Right. 1967, like right then.

• 1:36:26Griffin Newman?

  The order of it is, does his superior come in and give him the indication that he's about to get tenure right before the doctor phone call?

• 1:36:36David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  And then the tornado?

• 1:36:38David Sims?

  It's tenure, then he gets the bill.

• 1:36:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:36:41David Sims?

  Then he changes the grade.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:36:42David Sims?

  Then the doctor calls. I love the thing with the tenure too.

• 1:36:45Griffin Newman?

  Feeling the, the fact that he's a little invincible because he's gotten a tenure.

• 1:36:49David Sims?

  Was Cy the one writing the letters? Again, I know, I know it's silly to ask questions of this movie when we should be accepting the mystery, but right, that's the.

• 1:36:57Griffin Newman?

  Does feel though.

• 1:36:58David Sims?

  That when at the bar mitzvah, the wife says like, Cy was writing letters to the tenure board.

• 1:37:02Griffin Newman?

  And they go out of their way to see how eloquent the letters were. How poetic they were.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Right, that they weren't, this isn't someone who English is not the first language.

• 1:37:11Speaker 04

  Well, so then, you know, if you're gonna believe that, then, then Sai is the devil.

• 1:37:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and Sai also.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Which he sort of is. Or he's this mystical, dark beast.

• 1:37:22Speaker 04

  No, he's, he has evil intent.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:24Griffin Newman?

  But Sai's whole thing is playing it all as like, look, this is just, it's an intellectual exercise, right? It would make sense for you to go to the Jolly Roger. It's the right thing to do. This isn't emotional, right?

• 1:37:34Speaker 04

  The Jolly Roger with an empty pool.

• 1:37:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:37:37Speaker 04

  And he, no, but he, biblically, he is the, it's not even a Faustian character. He is the only representative of, of human evil.

• 1:37:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and he is also.

• 1:37:50Speaker 04

  He took his wife.

• 1:37:51Griffin Newman?

  This is his way of cucking him before he's literally cucked him, right?

• 1:37:54Speaker 04

  Sent him out of his home.

• 1:37:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:56Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, is trying to diminish his reputation.

• 1:37:59Griffin Newman?

  What are you saying, oh my god, too bad?

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  When he has that conversation and he's like, why don't you move into Sai's house? And they have this look of like, are you kidding me?

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  It makes me so mad because it's so deeply unfair.

• 1:38:14Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  It's so like, they've made this decision amongst each other.

• 1:38:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  And, and there, there's no like, other alternative way.

• 1:38:23Griffin Newman?

  And that's when he says, surely you jest.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't even actually understand, is there some kind of like, religious aspect to that?

• 1:38:34Griffin Newman?

  No, I, I really don't think so.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it, it's not religious, it's societal. It's like.

• 1:38:40Griffin Newman?

  Don't break up the family unit.

• 1:38:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. She's the head of the family.

• 1:38:43Griffin Newman?

  Right, so she is defining to him, you have to leave because the family unit is changing with him moving in.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:49Griffin Newman?

  And the house is the continuity and you're the part that's replaceable, not.

• 1:38:53Speaker 04

  But also, he might not even really care about her that much.

• 1:38:59Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't seem to really have any level of intellectual intimacy there.

• 1:39:04Speaker 04

  He's a, a, a instigator of chaos.

• 1:39:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:07Speaker 04

  He's a, a biblical bad boy.

• 1:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Do you also get the sense, I, I don't know, I mean, my inference is that.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  Who's your favorite biblical bad boy?

• 1:39:16David Sims?

  I don't know. Gotta think about it.

• 1:39:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I, I get the inference in this that it was kind of one of these quiet, kind of like passively arranged marriages, right? That this was sort of a, not that they were actually set up to like combine family estates.

• 1:39:29David Sims?

  It's hard to imagine Larry taking charge.

• 1:39:32Griffin Newman?

  Right, but you're just sort of like, this is probably like the girl he met when he was 14 and everyone was like, you should marry her.

• 1:39:37David Sims?

  Just trying to think of any other.

• 1:39:38Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, he's good. He's got a good job. I mean, I, I, it's as arranged as expectations are.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  The rabbi is busy. He doesn't look busy.

• 1:39:47Griffin Newman?

  He's thinking.

• 1:39:48David Sims?

  I'm just trying to think of like any other, cause this is such a quotable.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  There's a part where he's talking about their relationship.

• 1:39:55Griffin Newman?

  Had you seen this before, Ben?

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  No, I'd never seen it before. And he's like, she's usually right about this stuff. And it's in reference to like their relationship crumbling.

• 1:40:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  Like, I love that he's even not sure about that.

• 1:40:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  That he's leaving it kind of up to her.

• 1:40:11Griffin Newman?

  Right, that he falls in line with what she's telling him with very little resistance and then has to do the work to actually make her reality of cucking him in, in, tangible. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:24Griffin Newman?

  That she's like, I need to get, you have to get the get for me.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Well, okay, one other thing, the bus scenes.

• 1:40:31David Sims?

  The bus scenes.

• 1:40:32Speaker 04

  They're great.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  They're so fun. It really captures what it's like at that age to be on the bus with your friends.

• 1:40:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  And I love the kid that keeps just saying fuck all the time.

• 1:40:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Like, just really, you, it's like, he's really, at that age, you're like, I'm, I've learned this word and I'm gonna fucking use it, man.

• 1:40:52Speaker 04

  And also, the, the really kind of like, those are, those kids are American.

• 1:41:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:00Speaker 04

  First and foremost. Like, even at the Hebrew school, like, on the bus.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:05Speaker 04

  Those are kids that are fully integrated.

• 1:41:07David Sims?

  And you have the old teacher guy who feels like he's, and my mom would talk about that, how you'd have these teachers who were Holocaust survivors.

• 1:41:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:13David Sims?

  Like, cause like, that was her generation and that they were so from another world and so haunted.

• 1:41:18Griffin Newman?

  This doesn't relate to me.

• 1:41:19David Sims?

  And she's like, yeah, I watched like Leave It To Beaver and so, like, it's like, she doesn't, yeah.

• 1:41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, and F Troop.

• 1:41:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, also, right, the movie starts with the cold open, right? We gotta shout out Fivish Finkel.

• 1:41:28David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:41:28Griffin Newman?

  Legend of the rules in this.

• 1:41:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:31Griffin Newman?

  Um, and this, right, this idea of saying like, I ran into this guy, you remember him and the wife is immediately terrified at like, he died. I swear to you, he died. There's no chance you saw that guy. And he shows up and the whole question is, was the, the gossip wrong?

• 1:41:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:47Griffin Newman?

  Or is this guy supernatural? Which she then takes the initiative, stabs him.

• 1:41:52David Sims?

  Another example of a woman.

• 1:41:53Griffin Newman?

  Walks out into the cold.

• 1:41:54David Sims?

  Taking charge in this movie. Sure.

• 1:41:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, and the question is, did that doom them forever?

• 1:41:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, like Adam and Eve and like, and gossip is another very specific commandment.

• 1:42:03David Sims?

  And Adam and Eve, the first gossip, right, is, I hear feet that tree.

• 1:42:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Griffin Newman?

  But then you go into this like void of darkness, right? The credits come out like really quickly, almost like Superman, the movie flying at the screen with this weird humming that turns into the Jefferson airplane. You see the small kind of like circle of light. And as you push in on it slowly, you're coming out his ear canal. You're going into the speaker. You've been in the mind of the sun, who is so secondary to the narratives of this movie. But here he is sneaking music. The teacher takes it. The money is tucked into the radio, right? Which he needs to pay the bully back for, for the lid.

• 1:42:41David Sims?

  He's running away every day.

• 1:42:43Griffin Newman?

  He's just got this quiet subplot, the whole movie, which is just this big kid keeps chasing him down the street. And he's got to figure out how to get his twenty dollars back.

• 1:42:52David Sims?

  Give the kid, and the kid's like, there's a tornado.

• 1:42:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:54David Sims?

  We're about to fucking die.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:42:56David Sims?

  All right, we gotta play.

• 1:42:58Speaker 04

  Go ahead, Griffin.

• 1:42:58Griffin Newman?

  We've not been going long.

• 1:43:00Speaker 04

  I have to go to the Natural History Museum.

• 1:43:01Griffin Newman?

  What are you doing at the Natural History Museum?

• 1:43:03Speaker 04

  Look at the whale.

• 1:43:04Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:43:04Speaker 04

  My girlfriend's never been there.

• 1:43:05David Sims?

  That is my favorite place.

• 1:43:06Speaker 04

  And she's a dinosaur freak.

• 1:43:08David Sims?

  That, my, my phone picture is my daughter.

• 1:43:10Speaker 04

  I can't wait.

• 1:43:10David Sims?

  In front of the whale.

• 1:43:11Speaker 04

  Sorry to spoil the whale for you.

• 1:43:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:13Speaker 04

  I'm sorry if I, if I.

• 1:43:14David Sims?

  No, no, no, Mark.

• 1:43:15Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, absolutely not. No.

• 1:43:17Speaker 04

  I just, we have to play the box.

• 1:43:19David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:43:19Speaker 04

  Last thing we do before we finish the episode. Griffin, do you remember when this film came out?

• 1:43:25Griffin Newman?

  This came out in September or October?

• 1:43:26David Sims?

  October 2nd, 2009. Mark, Griff's gonna, I mean, and feel free to join in, but Griff's gonna try and guess the movies that were top of the box of this movie when this film came out. October 2nd, 2009.

• 1:43:37Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm not gonna be able to.

• 1:43:38Griffin Newman?

  So my-

• 1:43:38David Sims?

  Film opened at, I think, Toronto or-

• 1:43:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that sounds right.

• 1:43:42David Sims?

  You know, it had like a festival release.

• 1:43:44Griffin Newman?

  My relationship to my father was largely solidified in that he shared sports with my brother. I was the first child. I had no interest in the thing that he cared about the most.

• 1:43:54Speaker 04

  I'm the same. Well, my dad didn't care about anything, but go ahead.

• 1:43:57Griffin Newman?

  In an effort to connect and come up with an equivalent thing to my dad and my brother coveting the sports scores in the Daily News and New York Post every morning.

• 1:44:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Griffin Newman?

  My dad tried to build the same ritual over checking out the box office top 10.

• 1:44:09David Sims?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 1:44:10Griffin Newman?

  Every Monday morning, I guess. And so it started this thing of all of these being locked in my brain. So even though this movie comes out at a point in time where I'm ostensibly an adult and not living with my father.

• 1:44:21David Sims?

  You still care about this.

• 1:44:22Griffin Newman?

  Most of our relationship is on Sunday being like, you see that number for-

• 1:44:25David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:26Griffin Newman?

  The first screen was wild on that. So all of these things are just baked into my brain. I'm a lunatic. Yeah, okay. October 2009.

• 1:44:33David Sims?

  Yeah, it's opening on 6th-

• 1:44:34Griffin Newman?

  It's the first week in, basically, the 9th.

• 1:44:36David Sims?

  Release, so it's not number one, but number one is new this week. Griffith's an action comedy, I guess. Sort of horror, action, comedy.

• 1:44:44Griffin Newman?

  Is it Zombieland?

• 1:44:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46David Sims?

  Good job.

• 1:44:46Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Okay, so I remember there being three new releases this weekend.

• 1:44:51David Sims?

  You're right. There's actually four.

• 1:44:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, let me say, I'm gonna pull one thing right out of my ass.

• 1:44:55David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 1:44:55Griffin Newman?

  Toy Story, Toy Story 2 3D double feature re-release happens this weekend.

• 1:44:59David Sims?

  You're so fucked up.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  I was hoping it was gonna overtake Zombieland. I had, I had some personal-

• 1:45:03David Sims?

  So that's number three is a, I got a re-release. You're saying it's of the first two Toy Stories?

• 1:45:08Griffin Newman?

  They did a double feature, because both those movies are under 90, so it was like a, right, it was like a three-hour double feature with some, probably one of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life.

• 1:45:17David Sims?

  So number one is Zombieland. That's number three. Number two is a children's, and we did film.

• 1:45:21Griffin Newman?

  And is it also a new release?

• 1:45:22David Sims?

  No.

• 1:45:23Griffin Newman?

  No. It's a-

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  Coming down from number one.

• 1:45:26Griffin Newman?

  Coming down from number one in 2009, so it was a September-

• 1:45:30David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:45:31Griffin Newman?

  Release.

• 1:45:32David Sims?

  You struggle with this one. It's based on a children's book.

• 1:45:35Griffin Newman?

  It's based on a children's book. I've struggled with this one in the past.

• 1:45:38David Sims?

  This one in the past.

• 1:45:39Griffin Newman?

  Uh, which studio released it?

• 1:45:41David Sims?

  Sony.

• 1:45:42Griffin Newman?

  It's a Sony release.

• 1:45:44Speaker 04

  He always struggles with this one. Mark could have been in this one.

• 1:45:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it's cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

• 1:45:47Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 1:45:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I always just don't think about that being based on a book.

• 1:45:52Speaker 04

  You're in The Bad Guys? Is that your cartoon?

• 1:45:53David Sims?

  Yes, Yes.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  Bad Guys opens in August.

• 1:45:56David Sims?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:45:56Griffin Newman?

  Can I say this?

• 1:45:57Speaker 04

  Mr. Snake.

• 1:45:57Griffin Newman?

  I love every time you talk about going to the first screening and hearing that everyone else did kind of their regular speaking voice.

• 1:46:05Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:05Griffin Newman?

  And wondering why you put so much effort into it.

• 1:46:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I gotta do this every time I talk as a cartoon.

• 1:46:10Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say to you, I took my little cousin, who's like, now 10, but I guess was eight or seven when the first one came out, to see that movie opening weekend. And I was like, God, fucking Maron's locked in. He's delivering. He's putting in the work.

• 1:46:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:25Griffin Newman?

  I want you to know, the vocal strain you put in that role is appreciated.

• 1:46:28Speaker 04

  Oh, well, thank you.

• 1:46:28Griffin Newman?

  And he was laughing at the snake. I'll say that.

• 1:46:30Speaker 04

  Oh, good.

• 1:46:31Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't, he doesn't know from WTF. He's not laughing because it's you.

• 1:46:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:35Griffin Newman?

  You also played Lex Luthor.

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I didn't even know what that was.

• 1:46:40Griffin Newman?

  I will say.

• 1:46:41David Sims?

  But they just sort of ambushed you with a microphone.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  It does kind of come across in that performance. Versus the snake where I'm like, you got a handle on this?

• 1:46:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I didn't even know it was a big movie.

• 1:46:49David Sims?

  Is that the Pets?

• 1:46:50Griffin Newman?

  Super Pets.

• 1:46:50Speaker 04

  Super Pets. I'm like, alright, I'll do it. Because when you do animated, it's like you drive to Burbank.

• 1:46:55Griffin Newman?

  It's the dream.

• 1:46:55Speaker 04

  And you just do the thing.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

  The absolute dream.

• 1:46:57Speaker 04

  And I had no care about any of that.

• 1:46:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:00Speaker 04

  But yeah, but I put it in with the snake. And then, like, when did people stop doing cartoon voices?

• 1:47:05David Sims?

  I agree.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  So, though Anthony Ramos definitely steps up.

• 1:47:08Griffin Newman?

  He does. Everyone's good in it.

• 1:47:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:10Griffin Newman?

  Russell's good in it. But I just, I like that you came up with a full character.

• 1:47:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:47:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:15David Sims?

  Number four, Griff, it's a kind of a bomb. It's a sci-fi kind of action movie with like a movie star who's getting to be in his dotage, getting a little older.

• 1:47:25Griffin Newman?

  He's over the hump.

• 1:47:26David Sims?

  Yeah, he's retired now, but uh...

• 1:47:29Griffin Newman?

  He's retired now?

• 1:47:30David Sims?

  He is, yes. For sort of, sort of sad reasons.

• 1:47:33Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it's a Bruce movie. Is it?

• 1:47:34David Sims?

  Bruce Willis.

• 1:47:34Griffin Newman?

  Is it Surrogates?

• 1:47:35David Sims?

  That's right. The film Surrogates.

• 1:47:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:37David Sims?

  A movie I've never seen.

• 1:47:38Griffin Newman?

  Me neither.

• 1:47:38David Sims?

  Robots, I don't know.

• 1:47:39Griffin Newman?

  Jonathan Mostout, right?

• 1:47:40David Sims?

  And then number five, it's new this week. It's a comedy from sort of a, I guess, a comedy auteur of sorts.

• 1:47:46Griffin Newman?

  You said that with a bit of an eye roll.

• 1:47:48David Sims?

  You know, I don't know. I have a complicated relationship with the guy. People do.

• 1:47:52Griffin Newman?

  It's not due date, is it?

• 1:47:53David Sims?

  No, no, he's British.

• 1:47:55Griffin Newman?

  He's British and you have a.

• 1:47:57David Sims?

  He's like starring and he's directing and he's writing.

• 1:47:59Griffin Newman?

  Is it the motion picture, The Invention of Lion?

• 1:48:02David Sims?

  Ricky Gervais.

• 1:48:03Griffin Newman?

  Now, I've heard a scurrilous rumor.

• 1:48:06David Sims?

  Yeah, speaking of movies about God, right?

• 1:48:08Griffin Newman?

  I heard he doesn't believe in the guy.

• 1:48:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:48:10Griffin Newman?

  I, I swear.

• 1:48:11David Sims?

  Bad movie.

• 1:48:12Speaker 04

  Where did you hear this?

• 1:48:13Griffin Newman?

  I, I, deep, deep gossip circles, De Mois was posting about it.

• 1:48:18David Sims?

  You never did Gervais, right? You never talked to that guy?

• 1:48:21Speaker 04

  Nope, I'm not sure why. I did go to the premiere of that movie with CK though.

• 1:48:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:26Speaker 04

  And CK ditched me.

• 1:48:28Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 1:48:29Speaker 04

  He just needed some, he just wanted to go with somebody, but this was, you know, the nature of that friendship when it existed.

• 1:48:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:35Speaker 04

  Like I was in LA, he's like, you want to go to this thing? And then I, I, I go, yeah, okay, that sounds fun. So I go over to his hotel, Beverly Hilton or something. And, and then we get, we go to the thing, we go to the premiere, we get out of the car, he walks to the line. He says, you're all set, you know, you, you, you've got a ticket. He leaves in the car. I sit and watch that horrible movie.

• 1:48:57Griffin Newman?

  He didn't stay for the movie?

• 1:48:58Speaker 04

  No, but then the, the car, you know, took me back to the, like, I somehow lost my keys. And I thought they were in his hotel room and I can't even remember how that resolved itself. Cause I had to go back to the hotel, get them to go into the room to see if I could find my car keys and my car was at the hotel. God, how did that resolve itself?

• 1:49:17Griffin Newman?

  The goy. Yeah, that is like a serious man-esque trial of.

• 1:49:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I, and I, and, and the most indignity is that like, I don't remember where, how that resolved itself.

• 1:49:28Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  But I remember it was a horrendous panic. Well, yeah, I got my car, but I don't think I ever found my keys.

• 1:49:34Griffin Newman?

  CK is clean shaven in that and it makes it feel like the movie's a hallucination.

• 1:49:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  I feel like it's right before the show.

• 1:49:42David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:49:43Griffin Newman?

  When he's sort of like ascends.

• 1:49:44David Sims?

  It's a horrible movie.

• 1:49:45Griffin Newman?

  It's always a terrible film, but it feels like watching Henry Cavill with the CGI'd out mustache where you're like, this face doesn't move right.

• 1:49:53David Sims?

  Number six of the box office is Whip It, the roller derby movie, really fun movie.

• 1:49:57Griffin Newman?

  Elliot Hay, True Bear Moore's only directorial effort?

• 1:49:59David Sims?

  Yeah, and then you've got Fame, I guess, is that a remake of Fame?

• 1:50:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, big time.

• 1:50:03David Sims?

  And then the Michael Moore movie Capitalism, A Love Story?

• 1:50:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So that was what, up to 250 million domestic at this point?

• 1:50:10David Sims?

  Made four million.

• 1:50:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:50:12David Sims?

  And then you got the Soderbergh movie, The Informant, which is a-

• 1:50:14Griffin Newman?

  Great movie.

• 1:50:15David Sims?

  Uh, very good.

• 1:50:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  And then something called Love Happens. What the hell is that?

• 1:50:19Griffin Newman?

  That was Aaron Eckert, Jennifer Aniston, I think he plays like a Tony Robbins-esque motivational speaker?

• 1:50:25David Sims?

  Right, and she's a florist.

• 1:50:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:27David Sims?

  And Love Happens.

• 1:50:27Griffin Newman?

  Love does indeed happen.

• 1:50:29David Sims?

  But that's it?

• 1:50:30Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:50:30David Sims?

  That's the box office game.

• 1:50:31Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:50:32David Sims?

  We're done, Mark, we're good. I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll send you off.

• 1:50:35Griffin Newman?

  You have to, not to, not to-

• 1:50:37David Sims?

  That's, that's his thing, I'm, I'm, I try to beat my own cap.

• 1:50:40Griffin Newman?

  Are we allowed to ask you that?

• 1:50:41David Sims?

  What?

• 1:50:42Griffin Newman?

  Are you, are we good?

• 1:50:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're good.

• 1:50:44Griffin Newman?

  We're good.

• 1:50:44Speaker 04

  It was great. Yeah, I did, I did realize during this conversation that I am definitely not a math Jew.

• 1:50:51Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:50:51Speaker 04

  And I definitely do not have the obsessive attention span of a film nerd Jew. And, uh, I, I am definitely more a mystically bent Jew.

• 1:51:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:03David Sims?

  So you're more listening to, to, to Airplane?

• 1:51:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:51:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:07David Sims?

  All right, all right.

• 1:51:08Speaker 04

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:51:09David Sims?

  This is dropping when? It's coming out in a while, yeah, in, in the fall, so.

• 1:51:14Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I'll have the special out then.

• 1:51:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:16David Sims?

  Is that on HBO?

• 1:51:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, HBO, the special's called Panicked.

• 1:51:20Griffin Newman?

  You shot it at BAM, right?

• 1:51:21Speaker 04

  I did, I shot it at the BAM Harvey.

• 1:51:23David Sims?

  The Harvey with the, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:24Speaker 04

  The Bad Guys is coming out in August.

• 1:51:26Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:51:26Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  Can't wait to hear that snake growl.

• 1:51:29Speaker 04

  We'll see what happens with this feature film that I starred in, an independent called The In Memoriam.

• 1:51:35Griffin Newman?

  And then the documentary that you're-

• 1:51:37Speaker 04

  The documentary, hopefully we'll have a home where you can watch, Are We Good?

• 1:51:41David Sims?

  In Memoriam is the one that's about the guy who wants to make the In Memoriam at the Oscars, right? That's a great premise.

• 1:51:47Speaker 04

  It's funny, you guys are really, oh, I did.

• 1:51:49David Sims?

  That's an Oscar premise.

• 1:51:51Speaker 04

  I think, I think I did all right.

• 1:51:52David Sims?

  Where you watch that every, every year and you're like, huh, weird, that guy didn't make it.

• 1:51:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, why didn't that guy make it?

• 1:51:57David Sims?

  Chop liver, like, you know?

• 1:51:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's politics involved.

• 1:52:00Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing that people don't know is that like you basically don't make it unless someone submits you.

• 1:52:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:52:04David Sims?

  Someone's gotta remember that you died.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, someone's gotta make the case.

• 1:52:08Speaker 04

  They all remember Gene Hackman or whatever, but like.

• 1:52:10Griffin Newman?

  Never forget, yeah. Uh, thank you so much for doing this.

• 1:52:13Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me, fellas.

• 1:52:14Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I, it's, uh.

• 1:52:16Speaker 04

  A real joy, we're, we're a huge fan. Well, I hope I, I stepped up enough.

• 1:52:20Griffin Newman?

  No, absolutely, but it's also, it's one of those things where it's, uh, hard to imagine that we would be doing this if you hadn't done what you did as much as this show is very different.

• 1:52:29Speaker 04

  Well, thank you, I appreciate that and I'm happy for you guys.

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  That's, at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

• 1:52:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:35Griffin Newman?

  I've been waiting for my dad to say that for so long, but it means maybe more coming from you.

• 1:52:40David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:52:40Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you for saying that, thank you for being here, thank you Brendan for making this happen.

• 1:52:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks Brendan.

• 1:52:45David Sims?

  I'm hanging out.

• 1:52:46Griffin Newman?

  Respectfully.

• 1:52:48Speaker 04

  Enjoy the Natural History Museum.

• 1:52:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:50Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:52:50David Sims?

  Nice place on earth.

• 1:52:51Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:52:52David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:52:53Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you all for listening, please remember to, uh, rate, review, subscribe.

• 1:52:57Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:52:58Griffin Newman?

  I say that, that's the thing I say. Tune in next week for True Grit.

• 1:53:03Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 1:53:05Griffin Newman?

  Their biggest hit.

• 1:53:06Speaker 04

  That's right, that was their follow-up, you're right.

• 1:53:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, and as always, embrace the mystery.

• 1:53:21Griffin Newman?

  There we go, Marc Maron, serious man on the pod, long time coming, very, I was happy with that episode, I was happy with that episode, he was very generous with his time, but then he had to leave because he had to go the Museum of Natural History, he wanted to see the squid and the whale, that's what he wanted to see, he wanted to see that, that's not a bit, that's real. Uh, thank you to Brendan McDonald for making that happen, total mensch, uh, great guy. Uh, well, thank you for listening, please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Uh, of course, the full archives, Blank Check Archives are available for free wherever you get your podcasts, we've talked about Marc Maron a lot in the past, we've stolen

• 1:54:06Griffin Newman?

  a lot of his bits, most of that really originates with our almost famous episode from year two, uh, 2016, so here's a little, a little clip of that, our original Marc Maron conversation, if you want to listen to that, you can go back, listen to the episode.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  Lock the gates!

• 1:54:26David Sims?

  Great times.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Boom, I just shit my pants. Justcoffee.com.

• 1:54:29David Sims?

  Oh god, he says that all the time.

• 1:54:33David Sims?

  Remember when all the podcasts were just WTF? That was like the only podcast you could listen to?

• 1:54:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that was the only format that people wanted to do.

• 1:54:40David Sims?

  Oh my god. And then you were like, great. You're like, two years in, you're like, I've now heard every comedian give an interview. A long-form interview. Yeah, to each of the other comedians.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  Like, it got to a point where it was like, so you've been doing open mics for a couple of years? So tell me about your process. Like, what? Why are you interviewing?

• 1:54:56Griffin Newman?

  So how much time you got at this point? You got what, you got forty? You got, you got a tight twenty?

• 1:55:00David Sims?

  It was one of those things where it's like, you know, you were, is there a saturation point? Like, will they eventually do all the comedians? And then after a couple of years later, you're like, yep, yep, they did it. They did all the comedians.

• 1:55:12Griffin Newman?

  But David, let me ask you a question.

• 1:55:13David Sims?

  Yeah?

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  Who are your guys?

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  There you go. Uh, so there's, there is that. Hope you liked the episode. Next week, True Grit. Uh, Stavros Halkeis, the comedian, the rebel rouser, the podcaster, the man, the myth, the legend, on the show, talking True Grit. Uh, Good Ep. Think you're gonna like that one. Lane Montgomery did our music WTF version of the theme, extra noodley. Macaroni, linguine. I don't know, I don't know what I'm saying. Okay. Catch you all next time. Bye.

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  Bulmar lives.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  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 L.A. Montgomery and the great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features,

• 1:57:14Speaker 01

  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.