Inside Llewyn Davis with Rachel Zegler

🎵🎶Puh-pa-please Mr. Kennedy (uhoh!) please won’t you listen to our puh-podcast🎶🎵This week we broadcast, not from a balcony, but from the Blank Check office, with guest Rachel Zegler (she connects with people, JJ’s research confirms)! Coming off of back to back Blank Checks the Coen’s took their time to release Inside Llewyn Davis, a somber comedy following a folk singer stuck in a failure loop. We’ve got two dogs off the leash, two fart detectives, the Coen’s attempting the Armageddon method of casting Llewyn, and the cold reality of pursuing the arts. Read Jack Antonoff’s slander in print https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a62651803/rachel-zegler-jack-antonoff-interview-2024/ Watch Carey Mulligan in 2015’s Far From the Madding Crowd https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2935476/ Listen to the penultimate episode of WTF https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1685-marc-maron Get the Evita Album https://evita.indiemerch.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

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31Speaker 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.

• 0:37Speaker 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.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  If it was never new and it never gets old, then it's a podcast.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 1:45Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  I was wondering if you were gonna sing.

• 1:46Griffin Newman?

  I can't. I, I.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  We do have a singer next to us.

• 1:50Griffin Newman?

  I point your attention to our guest.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Who?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:54Griffin Newman?

  Lenny Bernstein. The dog Lenny Bernstein's been barking up a storm and I dare not sing in front of him.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  I mean, technically, we have two dogs off the leash.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. We like to say that Sims is off the leash.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Why are you off the leash?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. They call me David Dog, I guess. The dog nickname. And then I recently gifted him his own leash.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  He does have a leash. We could put.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  And the way Lenny is like that.

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  You took the leash out and Lenny immediately barked. Yeah.

• 2:22David Sims?

  Sorry, Lenny. Sorry, Lenny. I am not trying to take you outside.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry, guys.

• 2:27Griffin Newman?

  That's for David. It's because David gets rowdy, Lenny.

• 2:29David Sims?

  If I get silly, I'm off the leash.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Oh, gotcha. Oh, Lenny, stop. Sorry, guys.

• 2:34David Sims?

  You shouldn't have said that word. You shouldn't have said it.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Lenny's here.

• 2:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37David Sims?

  Two dogs off the L.

• 2:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the L.

• 2:40David Sims?

  Oh, the L.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the L.

• 2:42David Sims?

  Um, yeah, that was, you did that line from the movie. That was great. Sorry.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I love that line.

• 2:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Party well, party cast.

• 2:51David Sims?

  There he goes.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Party cast.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  He's, here's the other thing. He sings so well in this.

• 2:57David Sims?

  It's a little annoying what a good singer he is.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  It's disgusting.

• 3:00Griffin Newman?

  It is not, like, I have not, in the past, in the intro for this show, butchered songs from movies that are sung well, but because he does not sing that often.

• 3:10David Sims?

  I was gonna say.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  Every time I re-watch it, I'm like, Jesus Christ, he's actually this good at singing?

• 3:15David Sims?

  Does he sing anything else, really?

• 3:17Griffin Newman?

  I cannot.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  He sings in a.

• 3:19Griffin Newman?

  Remember.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Putting on my Oscar Isaac hat, which is very annoying, and I'm very sorry.

• 3:25David Sims?

  Ooh, what a charming hat.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  He is.

• 3:27David Sims?

  Great face on this.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  He is in a film about like a high school reunion where he sings, because he plays like somebody who went on from high school to become a singer.

• 3:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  And like, he was like, yeah, he's.

• 3:40Griffin Newman?

  What is this movie?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  It's called, yes, with Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson.

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's in this movie and it doesn't exist.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:46David Sims?

  It's called, oh, boy, really boring title. It's called Ten Years.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's about a 10-year high school reunion.

• 3:51David Sims?

  It's from like his, um, you know, like from like Robin Hood Drive, like his early Sucker Punch. It's 2011.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  I imagine it's kind of like one of the first times he did sing publicly in like a film. Uh, and there's some great, I mean, he does a really great cover of a Bob Dylan song in it, weirdly enough. Um, what fucking song is it?

• 4:11Griffin Newman?

  He does have, I, I assume he sings in the still never released musical cut of Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch?

• 4:18David Sims?

  Uh, Standing in the Doorway is the song he sings. It's a positive.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:22David Sims?

  No.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  We ride me high. You're right.

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay, there we go.

• 4:26David Sims?

  Well, then I don't know. The problem is if you Google Oscar Isaac Bob Dylan, Google is just like, no, it's called Inside.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  Actually.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Fair.

• 4:34David Sims?

  And you're like.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  And Bob Dylan is depicted in.

• 4:37David Sims?

  He is briefly depicted.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Inside Luan Davis.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  But I'm, I'm looking, I'm not clocking any other movie that I can remember him singing.

• 4:43David Sims?

  Why not sing more, Oscar?

• 4:45Speaker 02

  I honestly, I have to say, I kind of respect it because as somebody who has made her career on something like that, then it just becomes a thing that everybody wants you to do all the time.

• 4:55David Sims?

  Well, it's hard and you're good at it. So people want you to do it.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Thing is, I'm just so darn good at it.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  I have two things to say.

• 5:04David Sims?

  He dances, of course, famously in Ex Machina.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  Great dancing, yes. But he's never done a full blown singing and dancing musical, which we know he can do both.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  We've tried.

• 5:13Griffin Newman?

  We've tried.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  There was the longest time he was rumored to be doing the Funny Girl revival. For the longest time.

• 5:19David Sims?

  Like on stage or on stage? Right, right, right. He'd be, he'd probably be pretty good.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  And I certainly think he would be fantastic in literally anything that he ever tried to do.

• 5:28Griffin Newman?

  I agree. And we're gonna, we're gonna talk about him a lot because it's been an interesting career.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  God forbid a girl wants to talk about Oscar Isaac.

• 5:35David Sims?

  I was about to say, like, yeah, no need to threaten Isaac discussion on the Inside Luan Davis episode.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  All the time.

• 5:41David Sims?

  You do.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  He did, he did sing in his, in the sign in Sidney Bernstein's window.

• 5:47David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. That's right. I saw that. He was, yeah, that was good.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was fantastic.

• 5:53David Sims?

  Two things I want to say. Second act trouble, but it was good. No, you weren't a fan? I mean, you were a fan.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I love everything he does.

• 6:02David Sims?

  I'm a critic.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Don't hurt words in my mouth.

• 6:04Griffin Newman?

  Criticize her.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  He's off the lead right now.

• 6:08David Sims?

  Listen to this Londoner. She's saying lead.

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  We don't want to trigger Lenny. He's O V L.

• 6:14David Sims?

  He may have sung in Moon Knight. I did watch every episode.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I loved Moon. He didn't sing in it, but he was very, I, I'm still waiting on season two of that shit.

• 6:21David Sims?

  He's, he loves it. He's ready.

• 6:23Griffin Newman?

  One, I want to say, it does make this movie retroactively even more special that it's like, this is the one time he sings, right?

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:30Griffin Newman?

  It feels like a thing proprietary to Luan Davis.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  I talk about this effect so much, but like. Seeing High Fidelity when it came out and when Jack Black sings at the end, you're like, holy shit. That guy can sing. And then I showed it to my sister, who's a little older than you, who had already seen School of Rock and everything. And I was like, you're 14, you're old enough to see High Fidelity. And I was like waiting for her response to the scene and she's like, yeah, of course, the Jack Black thing.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Of course he can sing.

• 6:56Griffin Newman?

  Right, like Llewyn Davis, it feels like Llewyn Davis, the character can sing, not that Oscar Isaac can sing, because it's not a given that he's gonna sing in everything.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Right, and you think that because of the point in his career that that film was, that it would be one of those things that kind of sets the standard for the rest of his career, but he's been very choosy about when he's decided to sing.

• 7:15Griffin Newman?

  This is what we're gonna talk about.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Lenny is eating the mic.

• 7:17Griffin Newman?

  Hi, Lenny. This movie comes out. I'm trying to capture it. And I was like, well, here he is. This is the guy. This is the definitive leading man.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Not a single award, what the fuck?

• 7:27Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. That actually is crazy. But then also the ensuing career has not been like exactly, but even more generally, like. You're mad that he's not the most famous actor alive, or whatever.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm mad about it too, babe.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  He's obviously done a lot of interesting stuff and good roles. Yes.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Now, he's good in everything he does.

• 7:43Griffin Newman?

  Now, here's the second thing I wanted to say before I introduce the podcast. Speaking of good things and interesting roles, I was scrolling through the IMDB to try to find, is there any earlier singing role I forgot? And I didn't find one, but I did find that his fourth ever credit is a TV movie called Lenny the Wonder Dog. Oh. In which credited. That's so true, 2004. Oscar Isaac Hernandez, he plays the role of Fart Man. Excuse me, Griffin, Detective Fart Man.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  I'm so.

• 8:15Griffin Newman?

  IMDB didn't have that information.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry, we have to get him on the phone.

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  And the poster, the poster, Lenny the Wonder Dog, looks quite a bit like.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Well, it looks like Leonard.

• 8:24Griffin Newman?

  You're Lenny.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  That's his face.

• 8:25Griffin Newman?

  And the tagline is, in quotes, "I'm not a cartoon, I really can talk."

• 8:30David Sims?

  Andy Richter's in this, Craig Ferguson.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's an, oh my God. In my brain, I was like, oh, this is something that probably came out and like was not.

• 8:40David Sims?

  It doesn't look like it got an American release.

• 8:42Griffin Newman?

  Directed by Bela Tar?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  It was in English, really?

• 8:45Griffin Newman?

  Like, it was a TV film, maybe director.

• 8:47David Sims?

  Looks like it went straight to Hungarian television.

• 8:51Griffin Newman?

  Like all the best films do.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, Lenny's famous in Hungary.

• 8:55David Sims?

  Oscar Isaac. I'm sorry, Michael Winslow, of course, who is the sound effects guy from Police Academy.

• 9:02David Sims?

  We all remember him, has a story credit on Lending the Wonder Dog.

• 9:06Griffin Newman?

  Sounds good.

• 9:06David Sims?

  Yeah, so.

• 9:07Griffin Newman?

  Sounds good.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  I need to talk to him about this because this is actually such fascinating, like, well, let's throw this one out. Let's watch that movie and do a live reaction instead.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  It's a more important movie to talk about. Oscar Isaac often jokes about his involvement in the production of this picture. In a 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said, "Yeah, I was Detective Fart Man. That was in Miami. I was just out of high school. I played one of two bumbling officers. No farts ever happened, though, so I'm not sure where the name Fart Man actually comes from."

• 9:35David Sims?

  It's, it's actually, right, it's Swedish fartman.

• 9:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 9:40Griffin Newman?

  Used to be for Tarsski.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 9:42David Sims?

  Oh, man, he looks, uh, yeah, he looks like Oscar Isaac, I'll say. He looks baby-faced, but, uh, yeah, it's a good old.

• 9:49Griffin Newman?

  Lenny the Wonder Dog. We have two guests on the show today.

• 9:51David Sims?

  That's right.

• 9:52Griffin Newman?

  And I have to introduce the show. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 9:55David Sims?

  And David.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast, David mime strumming a guitar. Uh, and listen to those beautiful, can you sing again for me?

• 10:03David Sims?

  Uh, me? No.

• 10:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm David. You're just strumming a guitar and then saying, "I'm David." It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is a mini-series on the films of Joel and Ethan Coen, together and separately. Today, we are talking about, I'm ready to say it, Upon This Rewatch, my favorite film of theirs.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:31David Sims?

  Favorite Coen Brothers movie.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah.

• 10:33Griffin Newman?

  Inside Llewyn Davis, which is kind of like a double blank check for them.

• 10:39David Sims?

  Uh, sure.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  We talked about in the speed at which their work came out.

• 10:43David Sims?

  Sure.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  That True Grit was kind of a true blank check cash from the success of No Country. And then True Grit is such a blockbuster.

• 10:51David Sims?

  Right. They get to do this.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:53David Sims?

  I guess. I mean, I think this was a pretty modest movie, like in terms of budget and scale and all that, like.

• 11:00Griffin Newman?

  But as JJ points out in the research, they had been like one a year on a clip.

• 11:04David Sims?

  Yes, they're slowing down. Yeah.

• 11:06Griffin Newman?

  And they took their time on this one. They, they really gave themselves the space.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  And it shows.

• 11:11Griffin Newman?

  It shows. It's my favorite film of theirs.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 11:14Griffin Newman?

  It's called Inside Llewyn Davis. This is a mini series called No Country Pod Country. For old cast.

• 11:21David Sims?

  There you go. There you go. Who's our guest?

• 11:25Griffin Newman?

  Our two guests today.

• 11:26David Sims?

  One.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Guest one. He's known as Lenny the Wonder Dog.

• 11:30David Sims?

  Alphabetical order.

• 11:32Griffin Newman?

  He's finally calmed down.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:33Griffin Newman?

  His head resting on the desk.

• 11:34David Sims?

  He's a cutie pie.

• 11:35Griffin Newman?

  His name.

• 11:36David Sims?

  He's so cute.

• 11:37Griffin Newman?

  Is Leonard Bernstein.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:39David Sims?

  Is it actually Leonard Bernstein or is he just Leonard?

• 11:42Speaker 02

  No, well, so his name is Lenny, but he's named after Leonard Bernstein. And so he's Leonard Bernstein Zegler.

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  That's him.

• 11:49Griffin Newman?

  LBZ.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  LBZ?

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And our second guest today returning to the show.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Less important.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Well.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Well.

• 11:56David Sims?

  Lenny is also returning.

• 11:57Griffin Newman?

  We were never gonna be able to book Lenny without you. So you're equally important in that sense.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  He can't walk himself here.

• 12:02David Sims?

  You're his stage mom.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I am. I'm his mama Rose. Avita. It's me.

• 12:08Griffin Newman?

  Rachel Zegler.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  First lady of Argentina.

• 12:12Griffin Newman?

  Coen Brothers win our March Madness thing. We commit to them. We're figuring out guests. I know you're doing Avita in London.

• 12:19David Sims?

  You are truly doing a show in another country.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Eight times a week.

• 12:23David Sims?

  Eight times a week and you gotta go on that balcony and London isn't, isn't warm?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:27David Sims?

  Or was it sometimes warm?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  We had a really nice summer, actually. Yeah. And I, I didn't get rained on either. Like outside on the balcony, never got rained on.

• 12:35Griffin Newman?

  That's wild.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Like at least not like in torrential downpour state.

• 12:38David Sims?

  Maybe a little.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Like a mist.

• 12:40David Sims?

  I mean, London's so misty.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I had, I had the most beautiful weather for the balcony.

• 12:45David Sims?

  So wait, you're doing the show actually like outside?

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  Every night.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Every night. Sometimes twice a day. I would go out after intermission and the act two opener is Don't Cry For Me Argentina.

• 12:59David Sims?

  Heard of it.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  So I ever heard of that song?

• 13:01David Sims?

  Yes.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  So I. So I would go out on the balcony of the Palladium and look over Argyle Street and people showed up in droves.

• 13:10Griffin Newman?

  So the numbers performed to the people outside the theater and then streamed inside to the audience.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it was such a hot topic of conversation.

• 13:21David Sims?

  Is this good?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:22David Sims?

  Is this bad?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  It's this bad.

• 13:24David Sims?

  That was the idea.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean narratively makes sense that she wouldn't sing the song to rich theater goers.

• 13:29David Sims?

  She sings to the people.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  She sings to the people. Um, and it was like TikTok viral immediately, terrifying every night. I always convinced myself no one was gonna come, like I was gonna walk out, there'd be nobody, like it's a farce.

• 13:41Griffin Newman?

  That was your fear.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  That really was, you know, because it, the, the crowd kind of made them, the experience on the inside even more amazing because the camera had them on it.

• 13:50David Sims?

  Oh, right, right.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  So people would always like, it would get applause inside the theater when the camera would pan to the amount of people.

• 13:56Griffin Newman?

  That's cool.

• 13:57David Sims?

  Argyle Street is small.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  They don't know.

• 13:59David Sims?

  Right, Argyle Street is small.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  It's a half street, yeah.

• 14:02David Sims?

  It's like the Palladium, it's like, it's basically just foot traffic, there's not a lot of cars. And the way it's sort of perfect, it feels like an old town square kind of vibe, yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  And also the Palladium, the balcony on the Palladium has this big gold crest that has a big P on it, or bed on. But, so it actually really worked in our favor.

• 14:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  It's for, yeah, it's obviously for the Palladium.

• 14:24David Sims?

  No, it's for you.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  But I was like, this is really, this works really well. Um, but yeah, so I was doing that when he texted me.

• 14:31Griffin Newman?

  You're doing that production.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:32David Sims?

  The first show I saw on the West End when I was nine years old was Oliver at the Palladium.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  How old were you?

• 14:40David Sims?

  Nine, nine or 10, yeah.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  And can I ask how many years ago that was?

• 14:44Griffin Newman?

  Great question.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 14:46David Sims?

  Uh, it would have been about, it would have been about like 95 or 96, so, uh, 30, 30 years ago.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  Because my sweet boyfriend, his West End debut.

• 14:55David Sims?

  Was Oliver?

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Was Oliver when he was, I think he was 11 years old.

• 14:59David Sims?

  Oh, he was like one of the little guys.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was one of the kids, but it was, it was after that, yeah.

• 15:04David Sims?

  No, I saw, because I'm, I was, I looked up what was in the Palladium while I lived in London. So it was Oliver from 94 to 98, and I saw that production. Then it was Saturday Night Fever, which never made it to Broadway, maybe, maybe it did.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  No, that definitely did.

• 15:18David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:18Griffin Newman?

  Not very successfully.

• 15:19David Sims?

  Which was a big hit in London, which I saw as well. I remember when he jumps off the bridge, he like jumps down.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 15:27David Sims?

  Whatever.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  That's sick.

• 15:28David Sims?

  Trap door. It was cool. Uh, King and I, which I saw.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Love. Oh, with Helane Page, probably.

• 15:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:33David Sims?

  And then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I don't think I saw that. So that would be it. But I have, you know, yeah. Cool.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Well.

• 15:39David Sims?

  Now they have a Vita.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  I, I, I played the Palladium twice too, which was pretty cool.

• 15:43David Sims?

  With your own.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  My own set and music and pretty crazy.

• 15:48David Sims?

  What was your 11 o'clock number?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Uh, my man.

• 15:51David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  I'm Funny Girl. From the last series that I did.

• 15:55David Sims?

  Yes.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  With you guys.

• 15:56Griffin Newman?

  Um, this is the other thing. So we, we put the Coen Brothers on the schedule. Our Reddit, who are very normal.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  I'm sure they were.

• 16:05Griffin Newman?

  Start wishlist and guess, right?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Reddit and normal in the same sentence.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  And someone pings friend of the show, past and future guest, Rachel Zegler, very on the record about Llewyn Davis being her number one favorite movie of all time.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Of all time. Yes.

• 16:16Griffin Newman?

  And I say to David, should we ask Rachel? And David says, first of all, she's in London, she's doing a Vita, she's doing eight shows a week. Secondly, he was like, it is very funny that we have.

• 16:28David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 16:29Griffin Newman?

  This young, like, future facing star.

• 16:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 16:32Griffin Newman?

  On our podcast and all three times she's done depressing music movies.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:37David Sims?

  Yeah, that's true. Movies about how like musical chew you up and spit you out.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 16:41David Sims?

  So, uh, obviously Cabaret, uh, a star.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  A star is.

• 16:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 16:44David Sims?

  And now.

• 16:46Griffin Newman?

  Three movies basically about like depression and failure in the music industry. Yeah. Or in musical theater.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:52Griffin Newman?

  And, um.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Or the pending war.

• 16:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 16:55David Sims?

  Well, true.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, I text you, you respond immediately.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  I say, Coen Brothers on blank check. And you just all caps go like Llewyn Davis. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And it's just been months of trying to find like truly the three day window.

• 17:12David Sims?

  She's here.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  I'm here.

• 17:14David Sims?

  Here. No problem.

• 17:15Griffin Newman?

  Dog here, everything going great. But it's been months of just like, without stress.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:20Griffin Newman?

  The, the date's gonna arrive. We're gonna find the window.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  It's leading, it was all leading up to this.

• 17:25Griffin Newman?

  It's all leading up to this.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  But no, I mean, even when you, when you texted me like. And we put down a date.

• 17:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  And I was like, at that point, I wasn't doing my two shows at the Palladium, so.

• 17:35Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 17:36David Sims?

  You thought you were gonna have a big cushion.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I thought I was gonna be home. But then London fell in love with you. But then I really fell in love with London, too.

• 17:42Griffin Newman?

  Both directions.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was awesome.

• 17:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but you basically auto-completed the request before I even had the chance to ask.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't have to ask me.

• 17:49Griffin Newman?

  You said, just when and where.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz I never get, you know, like, in these, these interviews that you do when you have the job that I have.

• 17:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  You, you get asked what your favorite movie is, but you never get asked why. And you never get to sit there and explain why it's so fucking genius.

• 18:07David Sims?

  Llewyn Davis, I love it. And they're like, that box, Oscar Isaac.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, cool. You love Oscar Isaac.

• 18:11David Sims?

  Anyway, like.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 18:13David Sims?

  Do you shower at night or in the morning? Or whatever else.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Literally that.

• 18:16Griffin Newman?

  Five, like, you can't live without.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I had Jack Antonoff tell me that it's, it's, it's not even in the top five Coen Brothers movies, in Cosmopolitan. And I was like, not only are you loud.

• 18:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  You're wrong. And it's like.

• 18:29Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this has been the, the nightmare this whole series, is I try to like, update the list in real time. I've seen all these movies many times.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:36Griffin Newman?

  But upon these rewatches, things are moving around, right?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and by the way, life comes with different perspectives.

• 18:41Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. And every Coen Brothers movie plays different to me every time I watch it.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 18:46Griffin Newman?

  I like them all, but they all like unfold different things. I find different things in them.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:52David Sims?

  That's not even top 10, which, he says not even top 10.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Is that what he said, top 10?

• 18:57David Sims?

  Yeah, he says that's not even top.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  I'm glad it made it into the actual final cut of the article, cuz.

• 19:01Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:02Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna do our ultimate.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  We all love to jackay, but my god.

• 19:05Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna do our ultimate ranking in the Buster Scruggs episode, but I was trying to arrange my Letterboxd list in prep, right? Last night, like, doing some rough drafting. And I was like, the shit that's outside of my 10 is insane.

• 19:18David Sims?

  I'm sorry.

• 19:19Griffin Newman?

  And it looks rude, but it's insane.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Look how upset.

• 19:22David Sims?

  You are overpowering Antonoff in this. I'm sorry, you're crushing him. He goes like, I like Dune. Who's in that? Oscar Isaac. And you say, are you just gonna name all the Oscar Isaac movies? You're just slamming him at the wall.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  But that's how Jack and I, we're from New Jersey. It's like, that's love.

• 19:37David Sims?

  It's banter.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  That's us showing love to each other.

• 19:40David Sims?

  He says it's about, you say it's about Javier's comedic timing, which you're right. And he says, no, it's about the ships. And you say, that's wrong. It's actually about the worms.

• 19:47Griffin Newman?

  It's not about the ships.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  It's about the worms.

• 19:49David Sims?

  It's about the worms. No one watches Dunes and go, Dune and goes, great ship.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, the worm showed up to the BAFTAs.

• 19:56David Sims?

  We love those.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  I was there or was something Oscar?

• 19:58David Sims?

  They were at the Oscars.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  They were.

• 20:00David Sims?

  Conan had the worm playing the piano at the Oscars, which I loved.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Was that this year?

• 20:05Griffin Newman?

  That was this year.

• 20:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  I was there. Yeah. I can't fucking remember. Everything, this year.

• 20:10Griffin Newman?

  Too many Oscars.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  If you Google my year.

• 20:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Nothing feels real.

• 20:14Griffin Newman?

  Sure. But like you could, you could say in casual conversation with someone, what's the movie with the, the space worms?

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's gonna be Dune.

• 20:24Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be. What's the movie with the spaceships?

• 20:27Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say Star Wars.

• 20:28Griffin Newman?

  Dune is like your 40th answer.

• 20:30David Sims?

  You presented the Oscar to Dune.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  I did, and twice.

• 20:33David Sims?

  Visual effects.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I've done it twice now.

• 20:35David Sims?

  That's funny.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  They have, I've done special effects twice, like visual effects twice, and Dune has won both. Right.

• 20:42David Sims?

  All right. So Lenny's ass is now on the mic. Let's be honest.

• 20:46Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what's cooler than presenting an Oscar to Dune?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Presenting an Oscar to Dune twice?

• 20:53Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say Dune two times.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  Did you see this movie when it came out?

• 20:59David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Did I?

• 21:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  So I couldn't see it in theaters because it was rated R and I was 12 years old.

• 21:04Griffin Newman?

  This unfortunately is the question I had to ask and I need to get that answer out of the way.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  But I was the same, when it came out on digital.

• 21:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  I saw it almost immediately and I shouldn't have. I was too young, but I was 13 years old and, and in my head, I was already a struggling musician. Which is hysterical now, looking back, but, um, so I saw it quite young and I was obsessed and I watched it like every day of my like freshman year of high school.

• 21:30David Sims?

  One might say this is an interesting movie for a freshman in high school to become obsessed with. Just because it's about a. A guy who's gotten the shit beaten out of him, right?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Immediately.

• 21:40David Sims?

  Yeah. And you're just like-

• 21:41Speaker 02

  And physically.

• 21:42David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. And physically. Right. Actually gotten the shit beat out of him. Yes.

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, this is the kind of movie that gets an R rating, not even because it's incredibly inappropriate, but just because it's like, kids shouldn't see this.

• 21:53David Sims?

  Sure. He says fuck four times.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the thing.

• 21:57David Sims?

  Like, I don't think, right, there's not much, I mean-

• 21:58Speaker 02

  It really is just for language. There's no nudity. And honestly, the content isn't even that crazy.

• 22:05Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  It's really just like, language and suicidal ideation, but even though the suicidal ideation isn't in your face.

• 22:14Griffin Newman?

  It's more subtextual.

• 22:15David Sims?

  The cult reality of pursuing the arts.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:18David Sims?

  I would say that is-

• 22:19Speaker 01

  It's rated R.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 22:21David Sims?

  Right. Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  And that's why 14-year-old-

• 22:24David Sims?

  Rated R for hard truths. That's why 14-year-old you loves it.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  14-year-old me was like, yeah, fuck yeah, dude. This shit sucks.

• 22:30David Sims?

  Tell me I'm doomed.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  Do you think-

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 22:33Griffin Newman?

  Do you think it helped you? Cause you, you have weathered a lot of storms in your young career.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 22:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, let me check my notes here. Everything has gone well. We've, we've talked about it in the past, on and off mic, but you've had this fascinating career, like shot out of a cannon with like incredible high highs. And then everything seems to have like an ensuing storm around it in one way or another. And I'm constantly impressed with how well you were able to keep your head on your shoulders and like process stuff and weather stuff.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 23:04Griffin Newman?

  Do you think like it is stuff like this, that you were preparing yourself for like the harsh reality of it, rather than some golden like version?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  There is, certainly there's an aspect of like, lessons learned from movies like this that come out like, you know-

• 23:20David Sims?

  And Star is Born in Cabaret.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  And all that jazz. Like, those movies really do prepare you for like rejection and feeling like you're in a rut. And living the same day over and over and over and over again. And yeah, I think there's certainly aspects of that. I think watching it- During those storms were very, was very helpful.

• 23:40Griffin Newman?

  So it is a movie you will like revisit as a comfort food.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  I see it. I watch it an embarrassing amount of times per year. The last time I watched it was like New Year's Eve this year. Like I ushered in the new year, watching this movie, which is not something you should do.

• 23:54Griffin Newman?

  But it kind of makes sense to me.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  But I was alone on New Year's. I was like left behind by a guy. And it was like one of those things where I went, I'm just gonna go home. I'm gonna watch my favorite movie and I'm gonna cry. And I don't know if you remember this year, we had like that amazing like lightning and thunderstorm this year on New Year's.

• 24:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  And so it was like watching it in the comfort of my like cozy New York apartment, lightning and thunder in the background, Oscar Isaac wailing with a guitar. It was awesome.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  It is damp blanket of a movie. This movie is so comforting to me and yet I've seen so many times I had not seen in a couple of years, but especially in the years after it came out. I saw this like three or four times in theaters. I kept rewatching it once it came out on Blu-ray. But I hadn't watched it in a couple of years and I forgot how intricate the web of his mistakes is.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 24:49Griffin Newman?

  And so I'm like so comforted by the movie and its rhythms and the beats. And I was doing the fucking Leo point to my girlfriend of being like, here's the line. The line's about to come up kind of stuff.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, that too. He doesn't see a lot of money in this. But then there were so many moments where I would like grab my skull and squeeze it. And I'm like, oh, fuck, I just remember what he's about to do.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:08Griffin Newman?

  He's about to say the dumbest thing.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  He's about to ask Justin Timberlake.

• 25:12Griffin Newman?

  That moment is astounding.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  For money, for an abortion, for his wife. He got pregnant.

• 25:19Griffin Newman?

  God bless. Yes.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  It's crazy. Like, it's crazy.

• 25:22Griffin Newman?

  He maybe got pregnant.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  He probably did, but you know, by the end of the movie, you don't know.

• 25:27Griffin Newman?

  You don't.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  And that's what's amazing about it.

• 25:29Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Oh, I love this fucking movie.

• 25:32Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the best movies.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  It really is. I'm jealous that like, I'm jealous for anyone who got to see it in a theater. I'm, I'm always waiting on a re-release. When I finally get my ass in that Criterion closet, it's the first one I'll go to.

• 25:43David Sims?

  Oh, we gotta get you in there.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  I know, it's my dream. But I did, I do have the Criterion Collection copy of it.

• 25:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  And I had a, my laptop case is like the cat on the

• 25:55David Sims?

  Really?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  waiting on the sto- It's like, the Criterion cover is the cat with the guitar case, and that's my laptop case.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  Um, have you watched the thing on the Blu-ray that is Guillermo del Toro talking to the Coen Brothers?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:08Griffin Newman?

  It's like 40 minutes long. I sent it to everyone in the blank check room text last night from some shady Russian website.

• 26:13David Sims?

  It's hard not to, like, be charmed by, of course, like Guillermo. I feel like he'll just get anyone talking.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Have you seen that new tweet that he, uh, sent out when somebody was like, Guillermo del Toro is like, he's like just a girl because he makes all these things that he wants to make, blah blah. And he said, like, that is me. Like, he responded, "That is me." Then they were asking him about it on the, um, Frankenstein carpet about why he's just a girl. And I love him, he gets it.

• 26:41Griffin Newman?

  Um, he's so infectious and he's so knowledgeable and he's so good at speaking about film. And he's clearly so in love with the Coen Brothers. And I watched the interview and it feels to me like the most open I have ever seen them be.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:56Griffin Newman?

  Because they're usually so cagey and don't want to, like, overanalyze their films.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  And the fact that it's like, he's one of them and they're able to throw questions back at them. But there's the key quote in that thing where they go, "When it came out, people asked us, uh, how did you decide to make a movie about, um, an unsuccessful folk singer?" And they were like, "It was only being asked that question that for the first time we realized, we had never even considered the idea of making a movie about a successful folk singer." It never would cross our mind.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  That's fantastic.

• 27:32David Sims?

  Yeah. Yes.

• 27:33Griffin Newman?

  And automatic, yeah.

• 27:35David Sims?

  Uh, so, okay, so Rachel, right, you fall in love with this movie as a teenager. Griffin, I assume you saw this in theaters. I sure did too. I remember getting in a big, excited, uh, discussion about it with J.D. Amato, friend of the show at Lincoln Park. Uh, remember that bar?

• 27:50Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 27:51David Sims?

  We all used to go, it was called Lincoln Park, right?

• 27:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Lincoln Park, the bar named after the band.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  But not, but not the town in New Jersey.

• 27:57David Sims?

  The town in New Jersey.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Where you're from.

• 27:58David Sims?

  Where Ben is from.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Where Ben is from.

• 27:59David Sims?

  So Lincoln Park, of course, means many things to many people.

• 28:01Griffin Newman?

  Emo band.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've become so numb. I can't feel you there.

• 28:05David Sims?

  Exactly. I'm crawling in my skin.

• 28:09David Sims?

  But no, where JD and I were like agreeing about like how it's like about how creativity is iterative. And it's like you do so much and you accomplish so little, but then things barely do change. And like that, you know, like that's, I just remember very animated.

• 28:24Griffin Newman?

  No, I, I, that was the bar we go to after Chris Gethard show. I remember having an almost identical conversation with JD at the Creek in the Cave. I think after Gethard's album taping, possibly. It's when he recommended Film Spotting to me for the first time because we couldn't stop talking about this movie. And he was like, you should listen to their episode on this. I think that's when I first started listening to them. But the same thing of like, you know, JD, who's very heady about this stuff being like, careers are these series of like branching opportunities. You have these cycles of like, there's an opening and suddenly there's a path to be able to build your life and be recognized. And this movie is all about that loop and a guy who keeps on making every incorrect decision over and over again.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 29:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 29:17David Sims?

  Is that the city has cow?

• 29:19Griffin Newman?

  The city has cow is back.

• 29:20David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 29:21Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:26David Sims?

  Okay.

• 29:27Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma.

• 29:31David Sims?

  Wow.

• 29:32Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 29:34David Sims?

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

• 29:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:52David Sims?

  Yes.

• 29:53Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 29:54David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 29:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:01David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 30:02Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:04David Sims?

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

• 30:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:09David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 30:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:10David Sims?

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

• 30:15Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 30:16David Sims?

  You know, legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 30:18Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 30:20David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 30:21Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 30:22David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 30:23Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 30:24David Sims?

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

• 30:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:49David Sims?

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

• 30:53Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 30:55Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:05David Sims?

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

• 31:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:22David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 31:28Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 31:29David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:37David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 31:38Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:45David Sims?

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

• 31:51Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:52David Sims?

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

• 31:58Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:02David Sims?

  No.

• 32:02Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 32:03David Sims?

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

• 32:50Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 32:51David Sims?

  Yes?

• 32:52Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:56David Sims?

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

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 33:02David Sims?

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

• 33:10Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:18David Sims?

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

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  Cookware to kicks, toys to high-tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once. Okay? That's shop.com. You can just go click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot. From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals, and checkout fast, all at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 34:11David Sims?

  We love it.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  We love it.

• 34:13David Sims?

  It's a good movie. Um, should I open the dossier? What should I do?

• 34:16Griffin Newman?

  I think let's, let's go straight to the dossier.

• 34:17David Sims?

  Okay. All right. So look, Coen Brothers, they make a bunch of movies. Do you like the Coen Brothers? Rachel?

• 34:22Speaker 02

  I do like the Coen Brothers.

• 34:23Griffin Newman?

  This is a good question.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Burn After Reading is so fucking fantastic.

• 34:26Griffin Newman?

  Had you seen other films of theirs before you saw this?

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Definitely not. I feel like everything of theirs made a, made an R rating before, right?

• 34:35David Sims?

  Yes. Yeah. Yes.

• 34:36Griffin Newman?

  They're almost all R.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I was certainly, I was certainly too young. Um, I feel like, I feel like the first one I watched after Inside the Moon Davis was Burn After Reading.

• 34:45David Sims?

  Right. Right.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Which is so great. It's such a great fucking movie.

• 34:50David Sims?

  So the Coens, uh, after they do True Grit are kinda chilling. They're pretty tired. Uh, there was one report that they were gonna do a TV show with Phil Johnston, the guy who wrote Cedar Rapids and Ralph Breaks the Internet.

• 35:05Griffin Newman?

  Ben.

• 35:05David Sims?

  Hey.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 35:07David Sims?

  Ralph Breaks the Internet. Damn. Um, it was called Harvey Corbo. It was an hour long, single camera comedy about a Los Angeles P I. I don't know. Nothing ever came of this.

• 35:19Griffin Newman?

  But they did.

• 35:19David Sims?

  Funny to think that they considered TV.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  It's a likely thing for them to consider though. Like that synopsis enough is enough for me to be like, yeah, the Coen Brothers probably thought they were gonna do that.

• 35:28Griffin Newman?

  They, they did four movies in four years? Four movies in five years?

• 35:31David Sims?

  Uh, sure. Yeah. Uh, four and, four and four.

• 35:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 35:35David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  Right. So there, there is that sort of like, and it was this, as we've talked about, the spurt of creativity where like, uh, serious man in Burn After Reading are written around the same time that they're adapting No Country. When that's a hit, they're like getting automatic green lights on everything.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 35:50Griffin Newman?

  Then it's the real, if you could do anything, what would you do? They picked True Grit, but it's like, they're just constant motion.

• 35:56David Sims?

  Yeah. But so they're sitting around as they do when they write, and Joel says, all right, well, how about this? Uh, folks here gets beat up in the alleyway behind Gertie's Folk City. And then they're like, well, why would someone beat up a folk singer? But they can't let it go. And so they return to this idea every so often.

• 36:12Griffin Newman?

  This thing that often, often happens with their films where they have an idea they can't resolve. And they go like, put that on ice. And anytime we have writer's block for something else, we'll go back to it and see if we can iterate on it.

• 36:22David Sims?

  Yeah. So they like the idea, this notion of someone who's not successful, but not because they're not good. Right? So tell a story about like a folk musician who's like a failure, but is good. And so that's interesting.

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:37David Sims?

  Because like no one's, everyone like thinks Llewyn is talented, right? Even Bud Grossman. It's just kind of like, yeah, but what's your thing? How do you fit into the world?

• 36:51Griffin Newman?

  Going back to the, it is surprising how good Oscar Isaac is as singing thing. It's almost within the structure of the movie that like, what? He performs maybe once every 10 to 15 minutes. And in the time between, the guy is such a self-destructive mess.

• 37:06David Sims?

  So rancid that you're like, Llewyn.

• 37:07Griffin Newman?

  That you're like, he must not be that good on top of this. And then he breaks out a guitar and you're like, fuck. This guy is just getting in his own way.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:15David Sims?

  The way Ethan puts it is we wanted a nice dick. Now.

• 37:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay, David.

• 37:20David Sims?

  The guy's penis.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa.

• 37:23David Sims?

  He means someone who blows his top, speaks out of turn, says something really dickish. And then three minutes later is like, I'm a dick for doing that. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, is self-aware, but cannot help but be kind of a dick. And Dave Van Ronk is the guy they quickly alight on where they're like, right? This was the guy in the folk scene where everyone was like, he's talented. He's one of a kind. He is a tough hang. He is always making mess for himself.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  He was so fucking talented.

• 37:49David Sims?

  Right. I brought the mayor of McDougal Street. I assume that's the book. Oh, Chronicles.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Chronicles. In the first chapter, he talks about meeting Dave for the first time. It's a really just short little moment here. They're hanging out and he asks him, how can I get a gig like working at the gaslight?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And Van Rongk looked at me curiously with snippy and surly and asked if I did janitor work.

• 38:13David Sims?

  Damn.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Bob Dylan famously easy to get along with.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  Both famously chill.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Very normal chill men.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Really easy to talk to.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:22David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:23David Sims?

  But of course then Dylan played a song and he was impressed.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  To be able to get like some gigs.

• 38:30David Sims?

  I mean, did Bob Dylan, how did that career pan out?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  You know what? I just got into the chapter one.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I'm not really sure how it pans out.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Dude, I don't want to spoil it, but you're gonna love what happened.

• 38:41David Sims?

  I will say Chronicles is, we don't need these things anymore, I guess, because we have phones, but that was an awesome bathroom book. Because you just pick it up and you just get like, you know, five good minutes of Dylan music.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:51David Sims?

  Anyway.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like the Joan Didion's The White Album where you're like, I get a couple essays about in the 1970s.

• 38:57David Sims?

  A little bite sized.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:59David Sims?

  Dave Van Rongk. Now, Llewyn is nothing like Van Rongk really in the movie, apart from that kind of status. Like Dave Van Rongk was gigantic.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:07David Sims?

  He was Swedish.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:09David Sims?

  He, if you've listened to him, he has this like really hoarse, kind of awesome gravelly voice, not this like beautiful little voice that Oscar has.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  He's mostly Irish. He just has the name. I feel like that was something he like said about himself.

• 39:21David Sims?

  Right. So then he was a Swedish guy, right?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:24David Sims?

  Swedish stock, maybe. Cause he was big.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was big.

• 39:27Griffin Newman?

  When the Coen Brothers announce a movie, they usually do not explain a lot. You know, you know, the cast, you maybe know the title, but it's a working title.

• 39:35David Sims?

  The setting.

• 39:36Griffin Newman?

  A working title production. And so there'll be rampant online movie nerd speculation from fucking idiots like us. And it feels like until the trailer comes out, you don't actually really know what the movie is. And because they'd been working at such a fast clip and then this movie shot, and then they had a really long post-production. They were like, we don't want to rush it. There was like three years of mystery around it. That the early words were like, they've cast Oscar Isaac, this like young semi unknown actor. It's about the folk music scene. It's New York in the 60s. I remember early Dave Van Rongk being like thrown out there. It's like, it's maybe kind of based on him. And people thought it was more of a biopic, or even if it was fictional. It was lightly fictionalized.

• 40:20Griffin Newman?

  And I think that has created an issue, perhaps, for the Dave Van Rong legacy, where people still kind of assume the movie is more closely based on his

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 40:31Griffin Newman?

  personality.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:32Griffin Newman?

  Where he was difficult in a way that's very different than Luanne Davis, that they really use it as a jumping off point of like, who's the other guy? Right? That like, I think what they're obsessed with is the idea of like, reading Bob Dylan's biography. And for 98% of the public, you're like, man, this name comes up 800 times, and I've never heard of this guy before. Who's the one guy in the scene who didn't become totemic?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 40:56Speaker 02

  And that's, I think it's a totally fair, like, jumping off point for a film to be made. And really, they just kind of based his look, you know, like beard, shaggy hair. This is the jacket he wore, and they have the same album cover.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  It's jumping off.

• 41:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, because Dave Van Rong's album cover is the same as like, the Inside album cover that he shows to

• 41:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  F. Murray Abraham.

• 41:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:17David Sims?

  Inside of Dave Van

• 41:18Speaker 01

  And similar repertoire, too. A lot of the songs.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Green, green, rocky road is a Dave Van Rong.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Were like, traditional songs that he played as well.

• 41:25David Sims?

  If you listen to his dink song, his

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:28David Sims?

  Well, it's so different because his voice is different. It's worth listening to. It's very cool.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  It's so like, raspy and cool. But like, I'm pretty sure, I don't know if, I'm fairly certain this is a true story, that Oscar wasn't super good at guitar before this job.

• 41:43David Sims?

  No, he was not.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  And then he met Dave Van Rong's, like, somebody who had either learned from him or had played with him randomly at a bar in the Village. And he took him upstairs and taught him how to play guitar. And if you watch Oscar, I mean, if you've ever watched Oscar play guitar, it's insane.

• 42:02David Sims?

  He's doing something weird with how he plucks it, right?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Yes, and that is because that is how Davies play.

• 42:07David Sims?

  You play the guitar?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  I do play the guitar, and I also similarly learned for a film.

• 42:12David Sims?

  Uh, which film did you?

• 42:13Speaker 01

  You play like, double neck bass, right?

• 42:16Speaker 02

  My dad can.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. But no, I, um, I learned for the Hunger Games Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I learned from a woman who did not speak any English. So that was really fun.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Well, did you?

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  Music, the universal language in many ways.

• 42:28David Sims?

  Because you shot that in?

• 42:28Speaker 02

  I shot it in, um, in Poland and in Germany. Um, but I did learn, and I played live for the movie.

• 42:34Griffin Newman?

  So Oscar Isaac was basically, he was like a dorm room.

• 42:39David Sims?

  After we saw Gladiator together, I was like, remember that?

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Gladiator two.

• 42:42Griffin Newman?

  This story has shifted to after we saw Gladiator together.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  After we saw Gladiator two, which was a movie that came out.

• 42:48David Sims?

  I just remember texting being like, who's Secret Barrett would have kicked all these guys ass? Because it's all arena fighting.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  It is, and I'm good at arena fighting. And I did it in heels.

• 42:55David Sims?

  That's right.

• 42:56Griffin Newman?

  I need to correct the story.

• 42:57David Sims?

  No, we saw it together.

• 42:58Griffin Newman?

  Sam goes to see Gladiator two.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  We saw it in the same IMAX theater.

• 43:02Griffin Newman?

  Someone points to you and goes, isn't that Rachel Zegler? And you go, oh, yeah. And you text her and then you talk.

• 43:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Griffin Newman?

  It wasn't like, hey.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  And we talked, we talked over text.

• 43:10David Sims?

  We'd also talked over text.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Did we see each other in person, though? Like, I remember, I stood up and I waved.

• 43:15David Sims?

  We said hi. I cannot remember if we actually.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  I was with Kit Connor.

• 43:18David Sims?

  You were with Kit.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  My sweetie pie.

• 43:19David Sims?

  Yes.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  You're just framing it almost as if you texted Rachel.

• 43:23David Sims?

  We went to the quad.

• 43:24Griffin Newman?

  Hey bitch, wanna go see Glad two?

• 43:27Speaker 02

  He said, and that is.

• 43:28David Sims?

  I just did a G I I.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's time and then sent her a Fandango link.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 43:34David Sims?

  Enter the arena, uh, Coliseum.

• 43:36Griffin Newman?

  Sure, yeah, for sure.

• 43:38David Sims?

  Um, anyway, uh, what was the point about this?

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Um, he learned how to play guitar for this.

• 43:43Griffin Newman?

  Right, I was gonna say, was he basically like a dorm room guitarist? Like he had like.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  I'm fair, yeah, like he, he had, because.

• 43:49David Sims?

  He had a scob punk band named Blinking Underdogs.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  That doesn't shock me at all. No, that's a great, yeah, that's a great name. Are you kidding?

• 43:59David Sims?

  They opened for Green Day, so apparently had.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Wait, no fucking way.

• 44:02David Sims?

  Had a little bit of success.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 44:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Because obviously, uh, DJ Katrona, who's, uh.

• 44:07David Sims?

  A friend of the show.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  A friend of the show, friend of mine.

• 44:09David Sims?

  How has he not been on the king of memes?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  He actually wants to know why he's never been on the show.

• 44:13David Sims?

  What, really?

• 44:14Speaker 02

  We should have that conversation. Yes, let's hang out with him.

• 44:16David Sims?

  We gotta meet him.

• 44:16Griffin Newman?

  We're on an email thread with him.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Cause he's, I know, and he says that he's really upset that you guys aren't memeing back with him. Cause he made.

• 44:22David Sims?

  Well, he's better at making memes.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  I know, guys, this is why we became friends. We both suffer from fast brain, is what we say.

• 44:29Griffin Newman?

  Look, I don't think we're allowed to talk about Shadow League, but let's just say we're in a very active email thread.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  It's fucking awesome.

• 44:35Griffin Newman?

  Based around movie nerdery.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  And I was, I was the puppeteer for DJ last season.

• 44:39Griffin Newman?

  I do know this, cause.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  You know that?

• 44:40Griffin Newman?

  I, I know this, I don't know if you want to take credit for what you helped him with, but.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  I did reveal, he revealed me in a very funny way. I can't remember what it was, but it was funny.

• 44:49Griffin Newman?

  But he will make bespoke memes off of the thing that just happened in the email thread.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  He's disgusting in that way.

• 44:55Griffin Newman?

  Very, very fast and very well.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  He pisses me off.

• 44:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Um, but he. He is very good friends with Oscar. He's the reason I've met him and um essentially like Oscar used to live on his couch and in LA like they were all just broke together in Los Angeles. And so he's like, do you realize how many like fucking times I had to tell him to stop rehearsing for that fucking movie? Oh, for this? Yeah, because it was just be like all the time playing Green, Green Rocky Road. And so like, and me, avid fan of this film. I have the record on my vinyl player essentially at all times. I'm always playing it and DJ would just kind of stop coming over.

• 45:35Griffin Newman?

  I can never hear these songs again.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  I just can never hear these songs and he can't enjoy the movie.

• 45:39David Sims?

  I would, I would listen to Oscar pluck that guitar all day and night.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  That's the thing. You have no, I was like, you don't understand how lucky you were. You got to hear a Oscar worthy performance.

• 45:50David Sims?

  I agree.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Fucking disappointed that he was not.

• 45:53David Sims?

  Not even nominated.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Given a fucking, or a Golden Globe.

• 45:56David Sims?

  He got a Globe nom.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  But why didn't he win?

• 45:58David Sims?

  Why don't you give him yours?

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Fine. I didn't get to accept mine in person.

• 46:02Griffin Newman?

  Go Ving Rhames mode.

• 46:03David Sims?

  You got it the one year the Globes were canceled.

• 46:06Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, too.

• 46:06David Sims?

  Oh, were there two? Okay.

• 46:07Griffin Newman?

  There's the insane fucking uh sag strike year.

• 46:11David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 46:12Griffin Newman?

  I think it's the 2008.

• 46:15David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:15Griffin Newman?

  Where it was like a half hour Entertainment Tonight special where they showed photos and they were like, and the winner is Johnny Depp. Anyway, next category.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry. I won via a tweet. I win.

• 46:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that was.

• 46:26David Sims?

  You had it, you had it weird.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Lenny's sitting.

• 46:29David Sims?

  So the Coens, Lenny's.

• 46:30Griffin Newman?

  Really good boy, actually.

• 46:32David Sims?

  He's being very good boy. Uh, the Coens are like, all right, folk singer Dave Van Rock, this is all interesting. The world is so interesting to us. We can't really think of much of a plot. So we're writing something without an engine, right? There's no like narrative drive to this movie. So we'll just follow him for a week and not much will happen and that's going to be okay. Which is, I suppose, a bit of a risk. And when you think about like Burn After Reading, True Grit, like these are very plotty movies.

• 46:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:57David Sims?

  And so.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, like every five minutes, there's a new twist.

• 47:00David Sims?

  But it concerned them so much that they threw the cat in, is how they put it. Now, obviously.

• 47:06Griffin Newman?

  Just be a little quiet.

• 47:07David Sims?

  Look, we're gonna have to discuss a cat.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Lenny loves cats.

• 47:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, yes, they say that in the, if the criterion thing that they're like, we got so concerned with the lack of a plot that they were just like, if we throw a cat in there, that gives it a spine.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Angelicals can, angelicals do.

• 47:22David Sims?

  I mean.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  And so they threw in a cat.

• 47:24David Sims?

  They're not wrong.

• 47:25Griffin Newman?

  This is a good New Year's Eve movie because it's about a jellicle ball.

• 47:28David Sims?

  That's so true, but if an animal is in even the slightest danger or whatever, like it does kinda keep you engaged in that weird way of saving the cat shit.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  It's the hilarious thing that then the plot really did become the cat.

• 47:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  And like the phrase. Yeah. And that's why my favorite thing when people are trying to figure out what the movie's about, there's a great scene where he's on the phone trying to get in touch with, um, the gore finds and he's talking to the, I guess the, the office, the whoever it is at the desk. And she, uh, he's like, tell, tell him that Llewyn has the cat. And she goes, Llewyn is the cat? He's, no, no, I'm Llewyn. I have his cat.

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  And the plot is Llewyn is the cat.

• 48:09Griffin Newman?

  Llewyn is the cat.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  It's fucking awesome.

• 48:11David Sims?

  We can think, oh, talk, there's much to discussion. There's so much like, so many ideas of what the cat represents. I feel like.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  I know. People, people think that it's.

• 48:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  People think that it's, um, Mike.

• 48:22David Sims?

  It's Mike.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  That his departed.

• 48:24David Sims?

  Grief. It's his, well, you know, anyone care, you know.

• 48:26Griffin Newman?

  No, I think on a very simple level, it's just that the cat is the only thing bigger than him. It is the only thing outside of himself that drives him, right?

• 48:36Speaker 02

  It's the only thing he seems to care about.

• 48:38Griffin Newman?

  In a weird way, it's like.

• 48:40David Sims?

  And he has literally knocked someone up and has a family elsewhere and has a career he's trying to start or whatever.

• 48:45Griffin Newman?

  The cat is the only thing in the entire movie that supersedes whatever his impulses are at any given moment, right?

• 48:51David Sims?

  He'll, he'll be selfless to try to save the cat.

• 48:55Griffin Newman?

  It's not even, well, yeah, but it's almost like not even selfless.

• 48:58David Sims?

  They'll stop what he's doing.

• 48:59Griffin Newman?

  It's just like some weird survival mechanism comes in, like. You know, I find the moment where he stares at the poster of the incredible journey outside the theater.

• 49:08David Sims?

  Right. The homework bound.

• 49:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:11Griffin Newman?

  So like impactful and very moving. And it's sort of this notion of like, this cat's been on this whole movie that I'm unaware of. Right? Like, he's looking at this like Disney movie poster and this tagline and being like, I've been caught up in my own shit and stressed about the cat. The cat just went and did something and came back, you know? And it, none of it had to do with me.

• 49:34David Sims?

  Coens, start casting. They want a musician who can act. They don't want an actor who can sing. Like, they're looking for a musician who can act. They say they only auditioned real musicians. I wonder who.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  They don't, they don't say?

• 49:45David Sims?

  Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is one that they do say.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Bon Iver.

• 49:48David Sims?

  Um, which sort of makes sense.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  That does make sense.

• 49:52Griffin Newman?

  Someone recently talked about having auditioned for this. I feel like now that it's been over 10 years on this movie.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  That it's not tacky to talk about it?

• 50:00Griffin Newman?

  People in promo tours will talk about it and there are a lot of stories about people being like, I fucking bombed that audition.

• 50:06David Sims?

  Well, who you are talking about is, uh, Ryan Reynolds said literally that he bombed the audition for Inside Llewyn Davis.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  There's no way it was for Llewyn.

• 50:16David Sims?

  It's what he says.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  It has to be for, what is it? Jim?

• 50:20David Sims?

  Maybe. That makes sense.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  My memory, and it was part of like this movie being like.

• 50:25David Sims?

  That makes sense to do with.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  I'm imagining a Ryan Reynolds Llewyn Davis is crazy right now.

• 50:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  And there would be a voice over being like, yep, that's me.

• 50:35David Sims?

  Sitting on that stool here.

• 50:36Griffin Newman?

  Casey Affleck talks about bombing it.

• 50:38David Sims?

  I could see that.

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  To play Llewyn.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  I could see him bombing that.

• 50:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I could absolutely see him bombing that. There's some other people.

• 50:44David Sims?

  He picked up a gun and said he couldn't do it anymore and they had to wrestle.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  And Manchester.

• 50:48David Sims?

  Connor Oberus says that he auditioned. That makes sense. Yeah. It makes it, they just.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  A lot of people auditioned.

• 50:53David Sims?

  Right. They took their net into the emo pool, the sort of like singer songwriter pool. They didn't like anything they found.

• 50:59Griffin Newman?

  But I think they had the sort of Armageddon problem of, is it easier to teach a musician to act or an actor to sing?

• 51:06David Sims?

  Well put.

• 51:07Griffin Newman?

  And they started, thank you, with the like, let's get a singer. And none of them were up for the acting part of it. And then they were like, fuck, I guess we go to actors. And none of them could handle the singing. And it's the lead role in the movie.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  It's the lead role. And the whole point is that like, very similar. I mean, weirdly to bring it back to like a cabaret thing where it's like. Why isn't Liza Minnelli breaking out of this club? She's so fucking good.

• 51:29David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Like, it's very much like that in this movie.

• 51:32Griffin Newman?

  That's the other thing is you're like, the vibe has to be so right.

• 51:37David Sims?

  I just, I'm sorry, I have to quote Ben Affleck on the Armageddon commentary now that you've invoked it. Because obviously Armageddon is.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  The second Affleck mention.

• 51:45David Sims?

  Correct, is that like, it's easier to train oil drillers to operate a space shuttle than it is to train space shuttle operators to operate an oil drill.

• 51:53Griffin Newman?

  A space shuttle operator.

• 51:54David Sims?

  Space shuttle pilots.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  Astronauts is what I would call them.

• 51:56David Sims?

  There you go. And, uh, and when Affleck on the commentary is just like, how hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on.

• 52:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 52:04David Sims?

  I think about it all, but he's so disdainful. Played an oil driller in the movie.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  The most Boston thing ever.

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  But, but I think that's part of the problem of it is like, uh, uh, materialists affirm I like a lot and defend with my whole chest.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Good for you.

• 52:19Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Very proud of myself. Has this core issue, and I remember asking you this when you saw it, where I was like, in what universe?

• 52:29David Sims?

  How does he get away with Chris Evans being a loser?

• 52:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. That he's like, uh, uh, an unsuccessful actor, right?

• 52:39Griffin Newman?

  There's silence in the room.

• 52:40David Sims?

  Yes, no, but right, like, it's a movie where, um, uh, you know, Pedro Pascal is the rich, uh, successful guy, but Chris Evans is like, yeah, I can't get my life together. Right, you know?

• 52:49Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 52:50David Sims?

  How does he get away with it?

• 52:51Griffin Newman?

  Right, and my thing with that movie is like, it needs to do a little more work to characterize the ways in which he's self-defeating, which you can do, because if he looks like that, people are begging him to do like a fucking LL Bean catalog shoot at the very least.

• 53:08David Sims?

  He'll be all right.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  I was begging Chris Evans to do that after Knives Out, because of that sweater.

• 53:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 53:13David Sims?

  Sell me that sweater, Chris. I'll buy it off your back.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  And I did.

• 53:16Griffin Newman?

  You can see that, though, if they're auditioning musicians, you're just like, you are so talented that it doesn't matter how difficult you are. The audience will think this guy should be successful. And you can also see actors playing the difficulty of it, but not being good enough as a musician, where you're like, why would anyone put up with him for even a second? It is such a tough, tough balance to strike of this kind of guy we all know, where you're like, it sucks that he's talented.

• 53:41David Sims?

  Oscar Isaac, to who, of whom you speak, though.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Of whom you speak.

• 53:46David Sims?

  He's talented.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Juilliard grad.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  Rachel.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Juilliard grad.

• 53:50David Sims?

  Is he actually? I didn't know that.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Yes, he is. Of course. Yeah, him and what?

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  Chestain.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Chestain. And yeah.

• 53:56David Sims?

  Oh, right. Most violent year. That was very disrespectful.

• 53:58Griffin Newman?

  But they've done like four things together.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  They did the scenes from a marriage.

• 54:02David Sims?

  So much sad sex in that movie.

• 54:04Griffin Newman?

  Was that the show they did on Broadway? They did a show on Broadway before Llewyn Davis?

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 54:09Griffin Newman?

  Cause she popped a little before him.

• 54:11David Sims?

  Uh, she did? I mean, all right. Give him a rest. He's doing his best.

• 54:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  That's the thing. He's, he's also like not white and

• 54:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  It just takes us, it takes us a second.

• 54:21David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Shout out to Letty.

• 54:23David Sims?

  Jessica Chestain? Very white. God bless her. I enjoy, I like her.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  You know what? Good for her.

• 54:28Griffin Newman?

  A tremendous talent. Very white.

• 54:31David Sims?

  Oscar auditions. He plays the guitar for them while he, and they're like, oh, are you like, he's like, I've been playing it since I was a kid. And they were like, all right. And T-Bone Burnett, who obviously their close collaborator on all the music was like, he's great. He plays the guitar better than some people I know. Like, and they were like, great. We're casting him.

• 54:47Griffin Newman?

  My, my memory also in this period, just not to interrupt you, was that it felt a little similar to the True Grit thing, where there was this feeling of like, they still can't find the guy.

• 54:58David Sims?

  Yeah, it was getting a little sweaty of like, Jesus, like we, we do need a lead actor.

• 55:03Griffin Newman?

  And they're actually not going to go ahead if they don't have somebody in the clock.

• 55:05David Sims?

  Studio Canal funded the entire thing seventeen million dollars. They were making it essentially kind of independently.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, seventeen million.

• 55:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 55:12David Sims?

  Pretty crazy. Um, Eric Franzen is the guy you're talking about, Rachel, who he met at the old Gaslight.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:18David Sims?

  And like

• 55:19Speaker 02

  I love being right.

• 55:20David Sims?

  You, and like helped him prepare and taught him, it's called Travis picking, which is according to Oscar Isaac, a very complicated syncopated style of playing. That's kind of like ragtime piano. You use the thumb as the metronome. I mean, I don't know. I don't play guitar.

• 55:36Griffin Newman?

  None of this makes any sense to me.

• 55:38David Sims?

  Sounds hard.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Hey, I get it.

• 55:40David Sims?

  And of course he was in the punk ska band, Blinking Underdogs. And he says, like, anytime that act looked like it was getting remotely successful, something would happen to fuck it up. And it was like Llewyn Davis-esque. So that's interesting. Uh, I do think the Coen should do a Llewyn Davis sequel set in the world of ska. Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  And I'm in it.

• 56:00David Sims?

  Yeah, everyone's like.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Which Scott revival?

• 56:03David Sims?

  I don't, Ben, you help me. I don't know which one.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  I think maybe Third Wave.

• 56:08David Sims?

  Great.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Place it in the nineties. What is that? The late nineties, like, yeah.

• 56:11David Sims?

  Mighty, mighty Boss Tones.

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  Real Big Fish.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Less Than Jake, kind of, maybe band.

• 56:18David Sims?

  I will say, when he got cast in this movie, obviously, I'm obsessed with the Coen Brothers. And to me, he was like, yeah, he's like, I was like, right, he kind of popped in Robin Hood. Like, I didn't know, I mean, he was in Drive, but he's nasty in that movie.

• 56:32Griffin Newman?

  He had been a guy who was starting to kind of pop in things. There's.

• 56:35David Sims?

  You'd notice him, like, he's good in My Much Invoked, the Bourne legacy. He has a great part in that.

• 56:41Griffin Newman?

  Which that is, uh, he was one of, like, 20 people on the list for the lead.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  You know what's, I know the story here.

• 56:49Griffin Newman?

  Please share.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Um, he hurt himself learning how to skateboard and showed up, showed up to an audition to be the lead in an action film.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Why was he learning how to skateboard?

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Ask DJ Katrona when you have him on the show.

• 57:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, it's happening, DJ, it's happening.

• 57:05David Sims?

  He and DJ were gonna play skateboarding cops who solve mysteries.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Well, no, DJ is like a really, really great at skating and, and I think sweet Oscar just wanted to learn, but decided to do it right before a really big callback.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Before they. I'm so embarrassed, I just have to correct myself. The Third Wave Scott started in the late eighties.

• 57:25David Sims?

  Oh, Jesus, man, I'm really, I'm really fucked up.

• 57:29Griffin Newman?

  So it's more like the specials?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  We have to start over.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, who's that? Two-tone sort of, uh, yeah, UK sort of era.

• 57:36Griffin Newman?

  Boss Tones, fourth wave?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  It's fucking wave, I looked it up, it's argued. And I don't think we've, like, uh, firmly established the fourth.

• 57:45David Sims?

  Okay, all right.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  We're still riding the third, I guess, I don't know.

• 57:48David Sims?

  It's like the Messiah. We're like, this fourth wave will come one day.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I just have to make sure the one guy who cared, I corrected myself.

• 57:56Griffin Newman?

  Can I also quickly pitch a buddy movie starring DJ and Oscar Isaac called Scott Boarding?

• 58:00Speaker 02

  They definitely want to do it.

• 58:02Griffin Newman?

  They're, they're skateboarding Scott guys.

• 58:04David Sims?

  I'm seeing you're getting a bunch of five dollars.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Especially now in this.

• 58:09Griffin Newman?

  In this economy?

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Economy of filmmaking. Yes. You get $5 and a dream.

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  For Scott boarding.

• 58:15David Sims?

  Now, look, they rehearse for like a week, but this, it's pretty intense because they, you know, the performances are live. Like there's, these are not dubbed.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  No, they're really not. Yeah.

• 58:24David Sims?

  And, uh, you know, it's fucking complicated.

• 58:28Griffin Newman?

  Can we just do this Oscar Isaac?

• 58:30David Sims?

  Yeah, okay, okay. His career. Yes.

• 58:32Griffin Newman?

  So like, he has some like young, like teen roles. Then he goes to Juilliard, right? Then it's sort of like reemerging as a serious actor. He's post fart man now, right?

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Maybe we all someday be in our post fart man era.

• 58:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Nativity Story is Catherine Hardwicke right after, uh, or right before Twilight. I'm sorry. But it's sort of right after Passion of the Christ and they're like, these are now gonna be all the rage.

• 58:56David Sims?

  I think Lenny's hearing people outside.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Lenny, Lenny thinks he's guarding.

• 59:00Griffin Newman?

  Lenny also didn't like the Nativity Story.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Which, yeah, Lenny's Jewish.

• 59:04Griffin Newman?

  Um, this, this makes sense.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  I mean, he is. He's Leonard Bernstein. Lenny, come here.

• 59:10David Sims?

  That your dog, because of his namesake, is culturally Jewish enough to resist Christmas.

• 59:17Griffin Newman?

  He's a little suspicious.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  He doesn't understand putting the Christ in Christmas. He likes commercial Christmas.

• 59:22David Sims?

  Right. Well, he likes that Coca-Cola Christmas.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  And Ho Ho Ho and Jingle Bells and Presents for Pretty Girls.

• 59:26Griffin Newman?

  Post Passion of the Christ, when that was such a phenomenon and everyone was like, this is the future. They make this big budget Nativity Story with Keisha Castle Hughes and Oscar Isaac as Mary and Joseph. And there was a big push behind it and it totally belly flopped. But that was kind of his first push as a leading man. Then there's sort of this run you're talking about of like Body of Lies. He's really good in, and a small role is kind of like a scummy guy, Che.

• 59:50David Sims?

  Yeah, he's good in that. He was always someone where you would notice him.

• 59:53Griffin Newman?

  He'd pop in like the, the eighth or 10th role in a thing. So then he starts to become one of these guys on these casting lists of like, projects where they're maybe interested in like launching a new leading man and trying to bump someone up. Bourne Legacy was that, where before they decide to go to then king of the franchises Jeremy Renner, there was a list of like 20 younger actors where they were like, do we cast it with someone who's on the brink of breaking out? Sucker Punch is one where people were like, who the fuck is this guy?

• 1:00:23David Sims?

  I mean, he pops in that movie. It's not a movie I love.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  So great in it.

• 1:00:26David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:00:27Griffin Newman?

  But then it's like Drive, W E, like he's in this zone.

• 1:00:30David Sims?

  I really enjoy him in Robin Hood, by the way. A movie I stick up for.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  I think that's Tom Blight's first. Film credit.

• 1:00:36David Sims?

  He must have been a little baby.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  He's like a little feral child in it.

• 1:00:41David Sims?

  Wonderful.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  I'm fairly certain that's true.

• 1:00:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm looking up. But he is very good in Born Legacy, but it's like, it's a consolation prize.

• 1:00:48David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's one of the other guys.

• 1:00:50Griffin Newman?

  We liked you. We're gonna have you like, you get to kind of run the movie for eight minutes.

• 1:00:54David Sims?

  But he's literally like a failed, you know, Jeremy Renner, right? Like, he's called Outcome Number Three. Like, he's like one of the other ones that didn't turn into a born or whatever.

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  But that's basically right before.

• 1:01:05David Sims?

  And you are correct that he, Tom Blythe, is literally credited as Feral Child.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I knew it.

• 1:01:10David Sims?

  In Ridley Scott's Robin Hood.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  Yes, Angel Smith.

• 1:01:12David Sims?

  I just imagine, like, Ridley Scott walking around with a big cigar, and then they open a door, and they're like, these are the feral children. It's just like a bunch of kids. He's like, ah, that one and that one. All right, moving on.

• 1:01:25Griffin Newman?

  Oscar Isaac, not a method guy, but he is kind of infamously an obsessive research guy. So I'm just like, how does he get that good at the songs in a week? But I think he just goes turbo mode.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  I think he just does, yes.

• 1:01:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  That's his way.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  They filmed this in 2011 or 2012?

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  I believe it's 2012.

• 1:01:44David Sims?

  A great question. The answer is, I don't know.

• 1:01:50Griffin Newman?

  Because I was pulling up some articles at the time from like,

• 1:01:54David Sims?

  Yeah, principal photography, early 2012.

• 1:01:56Griffin Newman?

  Summer 2012, when the movie was in the can, and people were like, is it gonna come out this year? And everyone had the note of like, the Coens don't want to rush this. They're sitting on it, they're taking their time in the edit, it's done, but they're, they're not gonna push it out this Oscar season. And because they knew whenever they decided to release the movie, that would become Oscar season, Oscar Isaac season.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  And one person clapped, and it was the person who made the joke.

• 1:02:26David Sims?

  You're going out on a balcony?

• 1:02:29David Sims?

  We were just seeing Griffin livestream that joke.

• 1:02:32Griffin Newman?

  Lenny has tears in his eyes. Big, big, strong dog, tears.

• 1:02:35David Sims?

  To be fair, I am holding a giant bone in the air.

• 1:02:40David Sims?

  Oscar Isaac, good quote from him. "I thought a lot about the comedy of resilience, and why sometimes we find someone going through hardship funny." Happens in Chekhov a lot. "I thought about Buster Keaton, someone who's constantly going through near-death experiences, death experiences, yet we laugh, we root for him, but his face is melancholic." You know, like, I like that idea.

• 1:02:59Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. I mean, like, even though it's, It's physical only in his body language. This isn't a movie with like physical comedy. The, the, uh, the interpersonal situations he gets himself into have the energy of being like whacked in the back of a head with a board.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  I also. Here comes the anvil. Yes.

• 1:03:18David Sims?

  I must, obviously, we don't really see him being romantic in this movie.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:03:22David Sims?

  We understand that basically everyone at some time is kind of giving a thought to Llewyn Davis, you know, tumble in the hay.

• 1:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Although I do think.

• 1:03:30David Sims?

  Cause he's so hot.

• 1:03:31Griffin Newman?

  His last scene with, um, uh, Carey Mulligan is so well modulated in my opinion, cause up until that point, you're like, so is the chemistry that everyone kind of gets off on how much of an asshole he is.

• 1:03:42David Sims?

  Right. And like berating him.

• 1:03:44Griffin Newman?

  And then the final scene with her, he's a little charming and vulnerable. And you're like, oh, this is where he gets people.

• 1:03:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Is that like one out of every 20 times he's a real person and people fall for it. And then he punishes them.

• 1:03:55David Sims?

  Just want to move to the village in 1961 and have a spare room and just see who cycles in and out of that thing, you know? Right?

• 1:04:02Griffin Newman?

  This whole movie really makes it feel like this was the place to be and the time to be there.

• 1:04:06David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08David Sims?

  Um, I think the food wasn't as good back then though.

• 1:04:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay, go off.

• 1:04:12David Sims?

  Just saying, right? Probably less good restaurants, right Ben?

• 1:04:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, like sandwiches, sandwiches cost like a dollar.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Like no, there were like no ska bands.

• 1:04:20David Sims?

  And there was zero.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Absolutely zero ska.

• 1:04:24David Sims?

  Egg ska. That's a lot of folk music.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  So why would we want to go? I mean, personally, folk music is my Spotify wrapped every year. So I would have a good time.

• 1:04:33David Sims?

  I love folk music. I might struggle if I'm at the gaslight and they're like, you know, here are the four Irish guys in sweaters. I mean, maybe not. They, they, those guys crush it.

• 1:04:46David Sims?

  It's just funny that you're like, I'm here to see Bob Dylan. Like nah, he's fucking, he's on vacation.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Here are the white, here are the four white cardigans.

• 1:04:55Speaker 02

  It's so funny, the first time I watched it, I remember that scene coming on and being like, I like their sweaters. And what does he say?

• 1:05:00David Sims?

  Uh, he

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  He says, I like their

• 1:05:02David Sims?

  They have good sweaters.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  They go, they're not bad. He goes, I like their sweaters.

• 1:05:07David Sims?

  I tried to look up if they were like referencing someone specific, but they're not. It's just kind of like, yeah, that kind of shit would pass through a lot of like ethnic quote unquote.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  There was some like notable, like singer, Irish singer group that is talked about in the No Direction Home documentary. I can't think of who they are.

• 1:05:25David Sims?

  It would be like, this is folk music. So like, here's Celtic folk music. Here's, you know, Polish folk music. Like people would be passing through from, you know, lands afar or whatever.

• 1:05:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's also not incidental in the Cohen's talk about this, that the acts that he is most hostile towards onstage are the ones that are actually the purest version of folk music.

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:45Griffin Newman?

  Are actually the most traditional version of folk music. Like that group and the harpsichord or the, uh, what is it? Auto harp.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Griffin Newman?

  Woman, whose husband beats the shit out of him.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Good.

• 1:05:55Griffin Newman?

  Are like, this is like traditional culturally, like historic folk music.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Where it was born.

• 1:06:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. Done in an unsexy way.

• 1:06:03David Sims?

  I think

• 1:06:04Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, fuck this.

• 1:06:06David Sims?

  So what, what's the thing? It's not a zither. What's the thing? She's sort of like an auto harp. Yeah. It'd be funny if he actually beaten him with the harp, you know, if he just came out here. It's like, like the old timey music, huh?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  They were called the Clancy Brothers.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Tommy makeup and the clan or Clancy Brothers and Tommy makeup.

• 1:06:22David Sims?

  They were the Hanson of their day.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:06:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:46David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:06:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:10David Sims?

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

• 1:07:21Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:30David Sims?

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

• 1:07:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:07:33David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever, you see it in a documentary for two seconds. But this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:07:40Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:07:54David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:07:56Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:59David Sims?

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

• 1:08:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:08:31Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:08:31David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:08:32Griffin 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.

• 1:08:53David 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.

• 1:09:12Griffin 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.

• 1:09:28David 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 haunted 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.

• 1:10:03Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:10:03David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:10:04Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:10:08David Sims?

  When I was younger.

• 1:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:10David Sims?

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

• 1:10:18Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:10:21David Sims?

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

• 1:10:35Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee-free. We love it.

• 1:10:36David Sims?

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

• 1:10:42Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:10:43David Sims?

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

• 1:10:56Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free!

• 1:10:57David Sims?

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

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

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

• 1:11:32David Sims?

  Oscar consulted with his Juilliard teacher, Moni Yakeem. Just, this is what interesting.

• 1:11:37Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me.

• 1:11:38David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Most famous for.

• 1:11:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:11:41Griffin Newman?

  Being the movement coach who cracked Robocop.

• 1:11:44David Sims?

  Right, right. So as Oscar says, a famous, that he learned movement from him.

• 1:11:48Griffin Newman?

  Often invoked on this show, Robocop, perhaps my favorite movie ever.

• 1:11:51David Sims?

  And he, Robocop's got a specific gate.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  Peter Weller will never not credit Moni Yakeem.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  But I love that.

• 1:11:57David Sims?

  Oscar also credits him for what he calls a walking, like a camel against the wind, which is how Lewin's always like a little hunched and like always feels like the wind is like blowing in his face. Which I really love.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  That movie does look so cold, doesn't it?

• 1:12:15David Sims?

  It does look.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  It's one of those where you're watching it and you're like, I'm freezing watching this.

• 1:12:19Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the great winter movies and especially like northeast winter movies.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:23Griffin Newman?

  But like you're Peter Weller, they put a difficult suit on you. You go, I can't move, call Moni Yakeem. Most people in Oscar Isaac's position wouldn't say, I obviously need to call in a movement coach for.

• 1:12:34David Sims?

  Absolutely. They would more be focused on the music or the whatever. Right.

• 1:12:37Griffin Newman?

  But this is why. His walk is like half of the movie.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  And this is why he's not like, like, you know, a method actor, but somebody who loves to research.

• 1:12:45David Sims?

  Loves, loves to think about the crap. Timberlake comes to them through Scott Rudin, normal guy.

• 1:12:51Griffin Newman?

  Normal guy.

• 1:12:52David Sims?

  Carrie Mulligan's obviously bubbling around. She's getting more famous. I feel like an education is like two or three years before.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  And she's fucking.

• 1:13:01Griffin Newman?

  2009.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  She's fucking brilliant. She's got the best line reading in the whole movie.

• 1:13:04David Sims?

  Which is, she's got the best bangs in the whole movie.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Ready?

• 1:13:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Give it to us.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  Ready?

• 1:13:08David Sims?

  Rachel's kind of coiling.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  I'm preparing. I'm talking. I just got off the phone with Moni Yakeem and I'm ready to. No, I should have made you wear double condoms. Well, we shouldn't have done it in the first place, but if you ever do it again, which is a favor to women everywhere, you should not. But if you do, you should be wearing condom on condom and wrap it in electrical tape. You should just walk around always inside a great big condom because you are shit. You should not be in contact with any other living thing being shit. Lenny's clapping again.

• 1:13:38Griffin Newman?

  I need the listener to know Rachel was looking at nothing.

• 1:13:41David Sims?

  Rachel ain't got no screen propped up in front of her. She just did that.

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  No, that's, that is line reading of all time.

• 1:13:47David Sims?

  That is great.

• 1:13:48Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  I love her so much.

• 1:13:49Griffin Newman?

  She's so goodness.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  She really is. And she gets to a point where like the, the female lead in um, Cripple of Inishman where it's like, girl, come on now, come on. But that is, that's a good performance in my opinion where you're like, you're mad at her for being so fucking negative towards what is already such a negative plot and negative situation. And then you kind of end the movie. You love her for a second with her getting the gaslight for him, but then you realize how she did it.

• 1:14:19Griffin Newman?

  But also the two of them had just done Drive together.

• 1:14:22David Sims?

  That's right, of course they did Drive together.

• 1:14:23Griffin Newman?

  Married, but a very different vibe in their relationship. They clearly have some

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  Not a great marriage, I'll say.

• 1:14:28Griffin Newman?

  But she's in, right, it's like, in education's oh nine, Public Enemies and Brothers are the same year, Small Rolls, Wall Street Money Never Sleeps, normal movie, normal production. Never Let Me Go are 2010, Drive and Shamer 2011.

• 1:14:42David Sims?

  Right. I feel like Drive and Shamer, her first post Oscar nom like projects where she's popping.

• 1:14:47Griffin Newman?

  And then This and Great Gatsby are the same year.

• 1:14:49David Sims?

  Love her in Great Gatsby.

• 1:14:49Griffin Newman?

  Very much in her.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  This and Great Gatsby being the same year is so what? Cause it's such, like, it's really like Rachel McAdams doing Notebook and Mean Girls where you're like, these are two completely different films, completely different performances.

• 1:15:00Griffin Newman?

  Phenomenal.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  She disappears into both and she's fantastic.

• 1:15:03David Sims?

  Agreed. Love her in Far From the Matting Crown. Highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it.

• 1:15:08Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen that.

• 1:15:09Speaker 02

  I've never seen it either.

• 1:15:10David Sims?

  Check it out. Um, so John Goodman, so Timberlake, Morgan Plo, John Goodman, here's a quote from him. You know this quote?

• 1:15:18Griffin Newman?

  He, he had not worked with them since, oh brother. I do not know the quote.

• 1:15:22David Sims?

  I got an email from Ethan that said, quote, madman, we've got something you might be interested in. That's all.

• 1:15:29Griffin Newman?

  I, I think he's like the ghost of Christmas future in this movie.

• 1:15:32David Sims?

  Sure, of course.

• 1:15:33Griffin Newman?

  And Louis does not know how to.

• 1:15:35David Sims?

  Not become this. Well, okay, fine. But it's like, yeah, he's the curdled, like, he hates everything.

• 1:15:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:15:41David Sims?

  He's considers himself a genius.

• 1:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:15:43David Sims?

  Musical genius.

• 1:15:44Griffin Newman?

  And now he's the guy in the back of the car yelling at everyone else for being wrong.

• 1:15:47David Sims?

  Watching the world pass him by.

• 1:15:49Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:15:49David Sims?

  Fucking jazz snob.

• 1:15:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51David Sims?

  One of the worst snobs.

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  Unlike ska fans.

• 1:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is what I was gonna say.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:15:57Griffin Newman?

  You're like 25 years from now, Llewyn could be the old grumpy folk singer in the back of the car complaining about the ska musicians up front.

• 1:16:05David Sims?

  It's kind of what Dave Van Ronk became. Yeah, it's like, right, yeah, you you sort of stuck here.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Can I say though?

• 1:16:11Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  Garrett Hedlund.

• 1:16:13David Sims?

  This was the first.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  So hot in this movie.

• 1:16:14David Sims?

  He's so hot. And I feel like this is the first time he'd been around, right?

• 1:16:18Griffin Newman?

  Hollywood was pushing him. It was very much like, we want this to be a guy.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  Was this pre-Tron or post-Tron?

• 1:16:23David Sims?

  It's post-Tron.

• 1:16:24Speaker 02

  No way.

• 1:16:25David Sims?

  And I had always been like, oh, yeah, he's fine. He's handsome. Like, I get it.

• 1:16:28Griffin Newman?

  Why is everyone so crazy about him?

• 1:16:29David Sims?

  This one, I was like, and he barely speaks, obviously.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  He literally has like one line in it when he's reading poetry in the diner.

• 1:16:36David Sims?

  I love him.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Or the road stop wherever they go.

• 1:16:38Griffin Newman?

  No, it is. I had that exact same feeling, which was like, they've been pushing this guy so hard and he's fine. What's the deal? And then you watch him in this and you're like, I get it.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  He's captivating.

• 1:16:48Griffin Newman?

  I get it. No one else has captured this, but clearly the guy has the juice.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53David Sims?

  Now he's the Tulsa King.

• 1:16:54Griffin Newman?

  Now he's, well, he's no.

• 1:16:55David Sims?

  No, that's.

• 1:16:56Griffin Newman?

  Sly is the Tulsa King, but he's on Tulsa King.

• 1:16:58David Sims?

  Uh, he is beautiful. A big fan of him.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:01David Sims?

  In general. Um, they shoot this movie mostly in Brooklyn in the Lower East Side. The actual village, of course, as they say, is basically too noisy, like visually for them, right? Uh, to do all the period stuff.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Have you seen, you've seen the paparazzi photos from those shoots with the stuffed cat? Yeah?

• 1:17:18David Sims?

  I have seen that.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  The cat that looks like one of the Webkins? Like, it's such, it looks like a Webkinz. Oscar Isaac and his emotional support Webkins.

• 1:17:27David Sims?

  It's very cute.

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  It's fantastic.

• 1:17:30Griffin Newman?

  They talk a lot about, I feel like when Ethan talks about his burnout and what eventually caused him to decide to go on break.

• 1:17:36David Sims?

  Annoying movie to make, and here is his Webkins.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  Look at that. It looks like a Webkinz.

• 1:17:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  It's so cute.

• 1:17:43David Sims?

  Ben, of course, is the biggest cat person in the room, I would feel.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I have a cat named Pig.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  Wait, cutest name for a cat ever, actually.

• 1:17:51David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Oh, my god.

• 1:17:52David Sims?

  Inspired by Miss Piggy.

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  Oh, my god, even better.

• 1:17:55David Sims?

  Uh, she's seventeen years old.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Years young.

• 1:17:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay, there we go.

• 1:17:59David Sims?

  She's asthmatic, she's diabetic.

• 1:18:01Speaker 02

  No, she's so sweet.

• 1:18:03David Sims?

  Impressive.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Seventeen is amazing. God bless.

• 1:18:06Griffin Newman?

  Um, I was just gonna say that I feel like Ethan points back to the process of working with the cat on this movie as one of the things that, like, broke him. Where he was like-

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  Hence the webkin.

• 1:18:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, truly, but he was just like, oh, it'd be fun to put a cat at the center of the movie. That kind of gives the story like a pulse of drive. And you're like, oh, my god, the amount of scenes that are driven by a cat needing to start one place and end up in another place.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's hard.

• 1:18:31Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever worked with a cat?

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  I don't think so, no.

• 1:18:34Griffin Newman?

  It's a fucking nightmare.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  I've worked, you know, I've only like worked with dogs and birds and stuff, snakes.

• 1:18:40Griffin Newman?

  I've worked with snakes. You've sung ballads to them.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  I did.

• 1:18:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I did a multi-camera pilot with a cat where the cat was supposed to be a big part of it. And I genuinely think the process of working with the cat was fifty percent of why the show was not picked up.

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  That's wild.

• 1:18:55Griffin Newman?

  Because it was just a nightmare.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  They're not like trainable, that's the thing, they're so independent.

• 1:18:59Griffin Newman?

  And they'd be like, so, like, the timing is on this line, the cat needs to go from here to there. And the trainer was like-

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

• 1:19:05Griffin Newman?

  I'll see what I can do.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  She'll do what she wants to do.

• 1:19:07Griffin Newman?

  And the producer was like, who's this fucking cat wrangler we got? Like, we can't get someone better than this? And they were like, that is the best.

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  That's the best cat wrangler.

• 1:19:14Griffin Newman?

  She's just being honest with you, that you're never gonna be able to get them to do what you want.

• 1:19:18Speaker 02

  And that's why, what's his name on, was it, is it Salem on-

• 1:19:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Sabrina.

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  Sabrina was an animatronic.

• 1:19:25David Sims?

  Seamless.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  Was an automaton.

• 1:19:27David Sims?

  I never knew that was a robot.

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  You couldn't tell?

• 1:19:29Griffin Newman?

  It's basically like a broken clock is, is right, twice a day process, working with the cat on camera. Where it's like, you do two hundred takes and eventually one of them will accidentally be-

• 1:19:38David Sims?

  I like how Salem was so busted and then they upgraded to a slightly less busted Salem. He was always funny, by the way, he always has the right line.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  I always like the background, though, like, when he leaves a scene, it is a real cat. And I kind of love that.

• 1:19:49Griffin Newman?

  I, I don't wanna rain on anyone's Salem parade here. I should acknowledge that Salem did just headline the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  You're fucking kidding.

• 1:19:57Griffin Newman?

  And it was, it was the newer puppet, it's the better one.

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  And then when he walked offstage, it was a real cat.

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  It was a real cat?

• 1:20:06David Sims?

  They were like, everyone look over there for a second. And then when they looked back, it was a real cat.

• 1:20:10Griffin Newman?

  Funny every time.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  Every single time.

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  Funniest thing on the show.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Roger Deakins does not shoot this movie, guys. They're a longtime cinematographer. He was busy.

• 1:20:20Griffin Newman?

  Sky falling.

• 1:20:20David Sims?

  The sky fall.

• 1:20:22Griffin Newman?

  Let it crumble.

• 1:20:23Speaker 02

  Let it crumble. Let it crumble.

• 1:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Can you?

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  We will stand tall.

• 1:20:29David Sims?

  Okay, we will stand tall and face it all together.

• 1:20:32Griffin Newman?

  We have to face it all together. Here's a pitch. What if you play James Bond, the Bond girl, and sing the song?

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  So the thing is, I feel like.

• 1:20:39David Sims?

  That's like hosting SNL and doing musical guests. That's a lot of work.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, which people do it all the time. So why not? Right? I would love to be a Bond girl. I'm just putting it out there.

• 1:20:49Griffin Newman?

  But also, but also be.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  I know Barbara broccoli doesn't do it anymore, but girl.

• 1:20:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's a.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  It's Amazon now, right?

• 1:20:56Griffin Newman?

  It's Amy Pascal.

• 1:20:57David Sims?

  And David Hayman.

• 1:20:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  Come on, guys. David Hayman. Come on.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  He's gonna, if he ever hears this, it's gonna be like, so I'm never working with her.

• 1:21:07David Sims?

  I think as the toast of London, you should be considered.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on.

• 1:21:10David Sims?

  Now that you are the toast of London's own. I'm an honorary citizen.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  So Roger Deakins didn't do it.

• 1:21:15David Sims?

  No. So Bruno Del Banel, one of my favorite DPs, who loves to shoot things like this, all smokey and cloudy. You know what I mean?

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:24David Sims?

  The guy who shot Amelie way back when, who I always have to mention, completely freaked it on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  And totally fucking freaked it on that.

• 1:21:33David Sims?

  Gorgeous looking movies ever made about double door and shit.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  But he's, he's the king of making live action look like watery pastels.

• 1:21:41David Sims?

  Like inky.

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42David Sims?

  Exactly. So cool.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

  Smudgy colors.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Griffin Newman?

  I know that the look of this movie is divisive, even amongst people who consider it.

• 1:21:48David Sims?

  On film.

• 1:21:49Griffin Newman?

  A masterpiece, but obviously very, very fucked with digitally opposed.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's muted, but and people tend to not understand that just because it's not colorful, doesn't mean it's not good.

• 1:22:00David Sims?

  It's a movie that looks like slush. Like that is what they wanted. They were like, winter in the village.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:22:05David Sims?

  The Free Will and Bob Dylan album cover. It's like a big.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Literally, yes.

• 1:22:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:10Griffin Newman?

  But also, New York in January, February, looks white. It looks gray.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  It literally is gray.

• 1:22:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And this movie somehow gets.

• 1:22:20Griffin Newman?

  It somehow gets at some aesthetic truth of what the cold feels like more than what the cold looks like.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:27Griffin Newman?

  I, I love the look of this.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  It shot brilliantly.

• 1:22:30Griffin Newman?

  It's very stylized. It got the Oscar for that.

• 1:22:33Speaker 02

  Oh, good, because the lighting in it is fantastic.

• 1:22:35Griffin Newman?

  Incredible. It only got two nominations.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  When he is sat at the Regio waiting for Carey Mulligan to come bring his stuff.

• 1:22:40Griffin Newman?

  That's the scene I always think about.

• 1:22:41Speaker 02

  And he's staring out the window.

• 1:22:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:43Speaker 02

  He's beautiful.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  He's beautiful.

• 1:22:46Griffin Newman?

  He's quite beautiful. But Bruno does this, he does Buster Scruggs and he does Macbeth. So as Deacon sort of gets caught in Mendes land.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  We can't say that.

• 1:22:54Griffin Newman?

  He becomes, I'm.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  All the world's a stage.

• 1:22:57Griffin Newman?

  He shot the Scottish film.

• 1:22:58Speaker 02

  MacBiddy.

• 1:22:59Griffin Newman?

  I appreciate you viewing this podcast studio as a theater.

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  All the world's a stage.

• 1:23:05Griffin Newman?

  That we're cursing.

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  The Palladium balcony.

• 1:23:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. The Blank Check offices.

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  It's all a stage.

• 1:23:11Griffin Newman?

  It's all a stage.

• 1:23:12Speaker 02

  I have to go sing "Don't Cry For Me." Bye, guys.

• 1:23:15Griffin Newman?

  You're right back.

• 1:23:15Speaker 02

  We're halfway through.

• 1:23:17Griffin Newman?

  Bruno loves stage bound stuff, though. He loves shooting on sets. He loves being able to control the light. Yeah. This is a movie where he's mostly dealing in real environments. A lot of locations.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Lower East Side is real, unfortunately.

• 1:23:29Griffin Newman?

  A lot of New York street shooting, but also like shooting in actual tiny cramped apartments.

• 1:23:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it's, you know, I.

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  Subway cars.

• 1:23:37Griffin Newman?

  And still exquisite. Yeah.

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  Gorgeous.

• 1:23:40Griffin Newman?

  Carey Mulligan is married to Mumford.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  Mumford.

• 1:23:42Griffin Newman?

  One of the Mumfords.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  Who's the voice.

• 1:23:44Griffin Newman?

  Marcus.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  There's.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  The voice.

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  It's the voice of Mike Timlin, who's his passed away, um, his, his writing and singing partner.

• 1:23:52Griffin Newman?

  But it's not him on the album?

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  It's him on the album.

• 1:23:55Griffin Newman?

  It is, it is, okay.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Oh, wait, I don't know about the album Art.

• 1:23:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  But he's definitely the voice.

• 1:23:59Griffin Newman?

  I know he's the voice. I just can never remember if it's him on the photo.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  Sometimes they bring Oscar on stage and they sing fairly well together, which is so cool.

• 1:24:05Griffin Newman?

  Oh, that is pretty cool.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  It rules, it rules. I've never seen it because it never happens when I'm there. So Marcus Mumford, if you're out there.

• 1:24:13Griffin Newman?

  I've told this story before, but my, my mom wanted my sister to be bilingual. When she was.

• 1:24:22Speaker 02

  She made a wish?

• 1:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Thirteen, fourteen.

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:24:25Griffin Newman?

  Well, she had failed to make my brother and I bilingual. My mother's French.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:24:29Griffin Newman?

  And so she decided to pull my sister out of school in eighth grade and immerse her in a school in France for a year to make her bilingual, which.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry. I would be so mad if I were your sister because like eighth grade, my last.

• 1:24:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, really normal, emotionally and psychologically balanced year to take a girl out of the environment that she knows and place her in a foreign country. Also too late to make someone bilingual.

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is, that is not.

• 1:24:52Griffin Newman?

  Four years older. I'm, I'm gonna say all of it was a disaster, but I went, I went to visit them largely because it was a disaster. My mom was like five alarm fire. We need additional support.

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 1:25:03Griffin Newman?

  Like backup.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  Oh my God.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  And they were, they were subletting this apartment in France and just this one fucking Mumford and Sons song was on a loop. They had an iPod and a dock and they were playing this one song.

• 1:25:18Speaker 02

  Little Lion Man.

• 1:25:19Griffin Newman?

  Four straight hours every night.

• 1:25:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Griffin Newman?

  And like three days in, I was just like, why the fuck do you like this song so much? I cannot believe you listened to this song so many times. And my mom goes, the iPod is broken. We don't know how to change it to a different song. Cool. And within five seconds, I identified that they just had it on repeat and hadn't fixed it.

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:25:38Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, are you telling me that for four straight months, you have listened to this song?

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  What song was it?

• 1:25:44Griffin Newman?

  And it's a man down the night.

• 1:25:49Griffin Newman?

  I couldn't tell you what it's called.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  My dear, my dear.

• 1:25:53Griffin Newman?

  That one.

• 1:25:54Speaker 02

  Wait. It was not your fault, but mine.

• 1:25:58Griffin Newman?

  I think that's it.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  That is Little Lion Man, isn't it?

• 1:26:00Griffin Newman?

  I think that's one of their most famous songs, right? Yeah. It was like.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  Lenny, Lenny doesn't like it.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  No, he's right to growl. There you are.

• 1:26:08Griffin Newman?

  They're a little mid. It was like advanced interrogation.

• 1:26:10Speaker 02

  I love Mumford and Sons. I will not sit here and listen to this.

• 1:26:13Griffin Newman?

  Sorry. I bring this up only because I have a negative association with Mumford and Sons for the rest of my life because of this. It felt like an advanced interrogation tactics.

• 1:26:22Speaker 02

  I'm, that is so funny.

• 1:26:24Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, why wouldn't you just turn the iPod off? And they were like, well, we love music. I was like, you love listening to the same song every night?

• 1:26:30David Sims?

  Inside Llewyn Davis.

• 1:26:31Griffin Newman?

  That's the end of my story.

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  Inside Llewyn Davis.

• 1:26:33Griffin Newman?

  That was it.

• 1:26:34David Sims?

  It's about a guy called Llewyn Davis. It's Welsh, but his mom is Italian, I believe he says.

• 1:26:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  And I love that somebody like says, like Pablo. What are you? They call him Pablo.

• 1:26:47David Sims?

  They call him Pablo.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  Cause he looks, cause he is Latino. I love that line.

• 1:26:51Griffin Newman?

  But also Bud Grossman says, what's the N stand for?

• 1:26:54Speaker 02

  I love, it's a great line.

• 1:26:56Griffin Newman?

  And then once again, because he's Guatemala and says, maybe if you stay out of the sun a little bit.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:27:01Griffin Newman?

  He's giving him the career advice.

• 1:27:03David Sims?

  Yeah. He says 18 hysterical insane things and then promptly has an air and overdose and probably dies. The, the, the two seconds of sympathy he gives him in silence when he says his partner killed himself. And he's like, anyway, George Washington Bridge is a terrible bridge to throw yourself.

• 1:27:22Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:22Griffin Newman?

  Well, Grossman doesn't say that.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  No, no, yeah.

• 1:27:24David Sims?

  No, no, John Goodman.

• 1:27:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:27:26David Sims?

  Like just, just all the amazing things Scott Goodman said.

• 1:27:29Griffin Newman?

  I was like, well, John Goodman's like, it's a brief performance. He's only in like six or seven minutes of the movie. And then I'm watching and I'm like, does he actually have 15 straight pages of dialogue?

• 1:27:38David Sims?

  It's all gold. He, he comes in, attacks the racket so good. But yeah, Llewyn Davis, uh, he, uh, is a folk singer.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 1:27:46David Sims?

  It's okay, Lenny, Lenny, it's okay.

• 1:27:48Griffin Newman?

  He's just practicing.

• 1:27:49David Sims?

  You can let him, what will happen if you let him rampage?

• 1:27:52Speaker 02

  He's just gonna do this for like five minutes.

• 1:27:56David Sims?

  What are you mad about, Lenny?

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  He hears people in the hallway.

• 1:27:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  He thinks he owns the blank check office.

• 1:28:01Griffin Newman?

  He thinks.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  He's the guard, his official guard dog.

• 1:28:04David Sims?

  This, uh, once, yeah. If you live in like a busy apartment building with an animal, with a dog, like they will anytime someone like exits out of an elevator.

• 1:28:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12David Sims?

  You know?

• 1:28:13Speaker 02

  It's insane. He's crazy.

• 1:28:15Griffin Newman?

  They know.

• 1:28:16David Sims?

  Um, Llewyn Davis, uh, his partner died. It's 1961. He released a solo album. It did not sell. The movie begins with him getting the ship beat out of him. Do you consider this a flash forward or not? I feel like there's, there's so much debate about this in the movie.

• 1:28:31Speaker 02

  Whether or not it's a loop.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Because it is presented differently both times, but obviously it's very similar.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:38David Sims?

  I think of it as two different things.

• 1:28:40Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  But I don't really care that much. And I don't, I'm not trying to Reddit, please calm down, like, offer some definitive take on this. I like the idea that it is a loop with the mildest improvement at the end of He Keeps the Cat. You know, like in the house, like he's learned a little bit.

• 1:28:59Griffin Newman?

  I will say this, and I said some things to this effect at the beginning of this episode. It's a little frustrating sometimes talking about the Coen brothers.

• 1:29:08David Sims?

  Right, where people are trying to solve it, right?

• 1:29:10Griffin Newman?

  And I think we tend not to try to be like puzzle solving movie guys. But a lot of our episodes, there's been a lot of very loud, like, I cannot believe they got all of this wrong.

• 1:29:20David Sims?

  They forgot this part of the plot is this.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  I forgot art wasn't subjective.

• 1:29:25Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's the thing. Forgetting plot stuff, we do that all the time. We're bad at our jobs, but the sort of like, that is a fundamental misread of the movie. There are certain things where like, we got the fucking, of course, it's not Tommy Lee Jones's dad at the end of No Country.

• 1:29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Griffin Newman?

  That he goes to visit, like, that's just actually on us, that's a big mistake. But there's other stuff where I'm like, every time I watch these movies, I flip opinions on certain reads. I really do think the Coen movies are like that. They really do feel like dreams where you wake up and you go like, why the fuck was I doing that? Like, what does that mean? And the more I re-watch them, the, the changes in where you are in your life. Like, sometimes I'm like, it's absolutely two separate events. And sometimes I'm like, it's the same event from two different perspectives. And I don't think there's a definitive answer.

• 1:30:14Speaker 02

  I don't think there's a definitive answer either.

• 1:30:15Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely not.

• 1:30:16Speaker 02

  I do think they kind of, not spoon feed, but drop. Hints with the line about folk songs saying it's never new and it never gets old. But, you know, a folk song is repetitive. A folk song is the same, like melody sung over and over again to different words.

• 1:30:36Griffin Newman?

  And this is a good point.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  And so it's one of those where you go. And also, if you pay attention to the way it's edited, what's a hard cut versus what's a fade? Is also a very cool way to watch this film. Cause it fades to him being back at the Gorfines the next morning and the cat.

• 1:30:53Griffin Newman?

  Waking up with the cat on his chest, which happens both times.

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  Yes, and it's a, yes, and it's a fade that time. The first time it's a hard cut. And the second time it's a fade. I think that's brilliant.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  And those are two distinctly different events. They feel different, exactly. Well, the cat wakeups are absolutely two different. And the result is different.

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  Yes, but I do think.

• 1:31:09Griffin Newman?

  One time he lets the cat out, one time he doesn't. I, I think you're right. Sorry, finish your point.

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm just saying like, there's so many ways to watch it. There's so many ways to interpret it. I do think that something that we learn as we get older is that whether it's God or the universe, you're handed the same situation over and over again to see how much you've learned. And I do think that the idea of this film is to, it's weirdly hopeful despite how depressing it is that he's going to figure it out at some point because the first step was not letting the cat out.

• 1:31:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I, I agree with you. That is my read. It's that the multiple interpretations is the point. It isn't that one or the other is the answer. This movie is very paired, in my opinion, to A Serious Man in a lot of ways. Where it's the sort of like tests of Job, this guy who keeps being challenged by the universe. And the point in A Serious Man is it really isn't this guy's fault.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:02Griffin Newman?

  And the point in this movie is all of this is basically self-created and self-perpetuated by this guy. But like whether or not they're the same event, it's meaningless to him.

• 1:32:14Griffin Newman?

  He probably couldn't differentiate between them being separate events, a month apart, a week apart, a night apart. And also, his takeaway would probably be the same. What is frustrating about this guy is that he isn't learning, right? And you can look at the ending, and sometimes I think, oh, he's starting to get it. And other times, I think he's just disregarding this. The overvar is like him putting an ironic distance to a thing that he should actually be processing in a deeper way.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  And that's mental illness, which is the other thing, is like, very much can't tell what was a month ago, what was a week ago, is like, that's depression, like 100%. And that's living in a rut, that's being an artist who's facing rejection. But then John Goodman has this great line where he's like, essentially making fun of him, but also reading him for filth, where he's like, oh, my life's this big pile of shit. I don't remember making this big pile of shit.

• 1:33:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  Which is like, you are the reason your life sucks. You can do something about it. And those kinds of people are the most frustrating people to deal with, where you're like, I have a solution, do something else.

• 1:33:18David Sims?

  He, right, clearly thinks, you know, maybe not the world, but the industry, the scene is against him a little bit, right? But there's, but he never rants about it or anything. There's no moment in this movie that's that on the nose. And he can't talk about the horrible thing, which is that he lost his partner. Like, that's the thing where it's obviously like, the mere mention or waft of it sets him off and makes sense. Like, it's like, that's the un, you know, that's the unsolvable riddle of like, how am I supposed to get another partner? That was when I was probably at my best.

• 1:33:54Griffin Newman?

  Which I, I think is why this movie is so personal. And I feel like is one of their most overtly moving movies, because it is, I think it's really activating something about these two guys who work together, trying to process the theoretical tragedy of losing your other half, right? And they have obviously now, at the time we're recording this, been in their sabbatical, split off, side projects, but like, they didn't lose each other.

• 1:34:22Speaker 02

  No, you can't break up your brothers.

• 1:34:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:34:26Griffin Newman?

  There's like, there's like a certain Twilight Zone nightmare scenario of like, what if they made Blood simple and then one of them died?

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:33David Sims?

  Sure, right.

• 1:34:34Griffin Newman?

  What the fuck would they do?

• 1:34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:35Griffin Newman?

  Kind of thing. But I also think watching it this time, I really started to drill down on, does Luwin want to be successful? This is a big thing that in the past, I've read this sort of sense of resentment of, ah, fuck, why is no one giving me my break? Right? And I started really like through the lens of just, when does he indicate that he wants something more than what he has? And it happens so rarely. And when it does, it feels like what he wants is for someone just to create an ecosystem where he can keep doing the exact thing he's doing right now with slightly less struggle. Because he's not saying that he wants a ton of money, that he wants fame,

• 1:35:19Griffin Newman?

  that people aren't calling him a genius, right? And he also, for how cynical he is, doesn't do a lot of why that guy and not me kind of shit. That you so often sense from guys like this.

• 1:35:31David Sims?

  Grinding an axe. You're right. About Bob Dylan or whoever the fuck.

• 1:35:34Speaker 02

  No, definitely not.

• 1:35:35David Sims?

  The specter of Bob Dylan at the end of the movie, I do feel he's clocking like, oh, is, you know, something changing?

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  I also think with, um,

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:35:43Speaker 02

  What's the Troy, the character that Stark Sands plays?

• 1:35:46David Sims?

  Yeah, he doesn't like Stark Sands.

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a little bit of like, this is the thing that's, that's getting Bud Grossman's attention. Like, you got to play

• 1:35:56David Sims?

  I mean.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  At Bud Grossman's, like, that's crazy.

• 1:35:58David Sims?

  But then the Bud line of like, he connects with people, like, that he says about.

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, 100%.

• 1:36:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's a good kid.

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  He's a good, upstanding guy.

• 1:36:07Griffin Newman?

  Read his goodness.

• 1:36:09David Sims?

  And like, the, you know, the unspoken thing that Bud is saying to Luwin of like, you on the other hand seem like a moody piece of shit.

• 1:36:17Speaker 02

  And he like inadvertently, I mean, like, he doesn't know he's telling him to kill himself, but he's like, you should get back together with your partner. And that, like, to a depressive. Is very much reading, you should kill yourself too.

• 1:36:28Griffin Newman?

  Like, absolutely.

• 1:36:29David Sims?

  There is an easy symbolic read of this movie in which he is literally trying to pay a fare to cross, you know, to and go in the ocean that he's like, you know, that the merchant marine are like Charon and he's like, that's the only step left before he enters the underworld. Right? Like, and he's just in this purgatory where he's like, do I do that? Do I fucking get on the boat? You know?

• 1:36:51Griffin Newman?

  The merchant marine thing is what I find very telling within this sort of focus I was giving on this viewing, right? Is like, he really bristles at Sark sans, but I think a lot of that is this has to be an act. This guy can't be for real, right?

• 1:37:05Speaker 02

  And he's Well, he says, does he have a higher function when he's watching him play in the bar?

• 1:37:10Griffin Newman?

  He's this type of guy who wants to believe that he's operating like a samurai or something, right? That there's like an empirical code for artistic purity. And that if you are more or less ambitious than that, then you're wrong, right? He doesn't want people who are just kind of clocking in and clocking out. And like this guy seems so untroubled and uncomplicated by it. And it's like, that's not enough. You need to be tortured by this. But also if you're too mercenary, if you're too careerist, if you're too strategic, then you're not doing it for the right reasons. Right? And they keep on sort of asserting this idea that it's like, you could have a home. To some idea, to some degree, you seem obsessed with the idea of being unmoored,

• 1:37:52Griffin Newman?

  sleeping on people's couches, not needing much to get by, you know, constantly struggling to just get $10 a head. Like, that's the thing. And I think all he ultimately wants is the idea of someone like Bud Grossman, who's a kingmaker, saying, you are good enough that I will give you just enough money to survive. I will give you just enough attention to survive. I don't think he wants to be Bob Dylan, but Bob Dylan is a classic example of a guy who didn't play by the rules, right? Doesn't get along with people in an obvious way, but his genius was so undeniable that the world warps around him and goes, you do it your way and we're all gonna fucking support it. I don't even think he wants that much attention. I think he's just like,

• 1:38:35Griffin Newman?

  Can I enter a system in which I'm stuck in a loop, but a loop of comfort?

• 1:38:41David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 1:38:42Griffin Newman?

  Wants.

• 1:38:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Griffin Newman?

  The Merchant Marines thing is like, okay, Bud Gressman says, no, go back on the boat. He's not fucking bitter about it. He's almost like, okay, it's over. Because even though he's lying to himself in that moment, right? I think what he's looking for is the three hots and a cot.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  But every home he enters is not a welcoming one besides the gore finds.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  He will never be happy.

• 1:39:03Speaker 02

  It's so interesting though, because if you, if you watch the movie and focus on the times he's in somebody's home.

• 1:39:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:39:10Speaker 02

  You've got Adam Driver, who's in this tiny, tiny place.

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  Outer.

• 1:39:14Speaker 02

  And he was also not.

• 1:39:18David Sims?

  It is funny that Kylo Ren and fucking Poe.

• 1:39:21Speaker 02

  And Poe Dameron.

• 1:39:22David Sims?

  Off a Star Wars movie two years later.

• 1:39:25Speaker 02

  It's so funny.

• 1:39:25David Sims?

  Two years later, that's happening. That it starts with them faced like inch to inch apart.

• 1:39:32Griffin Newman?

  I certainly think this is why.

• 1:39:33Speaker 02

  Also Juilliard, by the way.

• 1:39:34Griffin Newman?

  Isaac.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:36Griffin Newman?

  I think this is why Isaac gets Star Wars, no question.

• 1:39:39David Sims?

  Maybe, I mean, obviously that that part was also weird where it was gonna be small and they got bigger. But okay, no, so he's an Adam Driver.

• 1:39:44Speaker 02

  He's in Al Cody's place, who's also not selling any records. That's failure. He has a home, but he's still a failure. The marriage between Jim and Jean is destined to fall apart at some point.

• 1:39:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Speaker 02

  Maybe with his doing, maybe without, that's a home that's falling apart. His sister yelling at the kid, that's an unhappy home. The final home he enters is his dad in a nursing home.

• 1:40:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, shitting himself.

• 1:40:07Speaker 02

  Shitting himself.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  Having a moment of connection.

• 1:40:09Speaker 02

  And he's not.

• 1:40:09Griffin Newman?

  The double.

• 1:40:10David Sims?

  That is the most Coen Brothers.

• 1:40:12Speaker 02

  It is so Coen Brothers.

• 1:40:14David Sims?

  Going into their bag moment.

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  Like looking out the window as like Oscar Isaac just like plays his heart out. Then he slowly turns his head to look at his son and you're like, oh my God, it's a Coco moment. The music has spoken through the senility. He says wow twice and then walks out and goes, my father needs to be cleaned. It's perfect.

• 1:40:34David Sims?

  The, when the second union guy is like, oh, how's your dad? You know, like.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  Great. He's been asking after you.

• 1:40:43Speaker 02

  Also, the, um, you can't join the military. What? Cause I'm a communist?

• 1:40:46David Sims?

  And then the guy says the uh.

• 1:40:47Speaker 02

  He even spawned something in Russian?

• 1:40:49David Sims?

  It's the, uh, yeah, the word for like a fellow socialist. I forget what he's saying.

• 1:40:53Griffin Newman?

  And he goes, never mind. That first guy too, he goes, uh, uh, you're, you're not Hugh Davis's kid, are you? And he goes, why not?

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  Why not? Why not? It's so good.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  It's so good.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  And it really is. This movie, the humor really is in a lot of the edit. As is with a lot of Coen Brothers films, like their editing is really what makes, their writing is funny on paper, but when it's cut so well, it's fucking fantastic.

• 1:41:19Griffin Newman?

  Cause so often the punchline is like the, the repetition of these things in different environments and different people in these very short scenes, right? Where, you know, him asking Al Cody, how's your place? It's a dump. Do you have a couch? Hard cut to taking stuff out of the back of Al Cody's car. Yeah.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  Um, the Gorfines though, this is the, right. The warmest home he's brought into. Do you think, um, what's this, you know?

• 1:41:44Griffin Newman?

  My, I, I, this is my letterbox. I said fundamentally, Mike is not a Gorfine.

• 1:41:49David Sims?

  Right. But you were, were you kidding? I couldn't tell.

• 1:41:51Griffin Newman?

  No, I wasn't. I think he's not.

• 1:41:53David Sims?

  Right. Right.

• 1:41:54Griffin Newman?

  It's like that, that I actually think is a misread of the movie. I think it is interesting. Like I get why people flock to that because her reaction is so extreme.

• 1:42:06David Sims?

  It's not just that. To me, the read of that is like, every time he's going in there, there's a bit of a strain to how they're behaving. Like the way he answers, but since she's making her famous moussaka, they always have friends there. It feels a little like they are also not looking something in the face. That's why I like can see the reading of like, and also he wouldn't, he wouldn't use the stage name Mike Gorfine. He would think of a better stage.

• 1:42:31Griffin Newman?

  I agree with that.

• 1:42:32David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like.

• 1:42:33Griffin Newman?

  Mike Timlin.

• 1:42:34David Sims?

  Right. He's come up with like a folk singer name, right? You know?

• 1:42:37Griffin Newman?

  Here is, is my read on that.

• 1:42:39David Sims?

  But then it's almost, if he is their son, like then it's kind of crazy that he yells at them because it's their son who died. You know what I mean?

• 1:42:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:45David Sims?

  Now, Llewyn Davis is a bit of a, you know, bit of a caustic fella.

• 1:42:49Griffin Newman?

  I, I think the, the number one reason I. I think he is not a glorifying is in the father's, I should say, the husband's response.

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  The great Ethan Phillips.

• 1:42:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:59David Sims?

  Neelix himself.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes, not the father, but the husband, that he goes like, hey, look, we're all grieving in our own ways.

• 1:43:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:06Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 1:43:06David Sims?

  And which is great. I mean, like, the way they let him back in is lovely.

• 1:43:10Griffin Newman?

  If it was his son.

• 1:43:12David Sims?

  It feels a little crazy.

• 1:43:13Griffin Newman?

  He would either be more emotional or he'd be angrier at Llewyn.

• 1:43:16David Sims?

  It would be Bill or when Rachel getting married.

• 1:43:18Griffin Newman?

  I think it is him, exactly. I think it is him correcting for his wife kind of making it about her.

• 1:43:26David Sims?

  Great, great Robin Bartlett.

• 1:43:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, my whole.

• 1:43:28Speaker 02

  She's so great in this movie. Where is his scrotum?

• 1:43:32Griffin Newman?

  It's what you're saying of like, this is the only functional home he's allowed in, right?

• 1:43:36David Sims?

  Yeah, and they're like, you know, again, if you're reading them not as Mike's parents, like, they're just like patrons of folk music who love it. And they're like, you know, crunchy Upper West Side guys.

• 1:43:44Griffin Newman?

  They are crunchy liberal Jews who have become upper class or, you know, upper middle class, right? And feel the need to become patrons of the arts and support the people doing the real work, right? And I think to him, there's something unseemly about that, that he doesn't want to be like a court jester, right?

• 1:44:05David Sims?

  Yes, he resists being a performing monkey.

• 1:44:08Speaker 02

  As somebody who like grew up as like the singer, even though that was the way.

• 1:44:12David Sims?

  For everyone.

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  The way you make money and that's the way you put food on your table and pay rent. You're like, I'm not, it's not, I'm not a circus animal. This is not my party trick. This is my job. So it's like one of those scenes that I really do get, but I do have to skip it when I watch it sometimes because her reaction always makes me so sad.

• 1:44:30Griffin Newman?

  They will give him the free home with nothing in return, but there's also the expectation of like, you belong to the kingdom now, right? Like, he owes them something, whether or not they're going to ask him to sing at every dinner. There is some unspoken sense of singing for your supper because there are people who get off on the idea that they're patrons of the arts and they are supporting the people doing the radical work while they've settled into something more comfortable. And I think the idea that he is being commodified in that way, even if they ask nothing of him, even if they are the most accepting and the most kind of like emotionally engaged with him pisses him off.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:03Griffin Newman?

  And I also think her turning Mike's death into something that she has to grieve pisses him off because he wants that to be his.

• 1:45:10David Sims?

  Unless she's his mom.

• 1:45:11Griffin Newman?

  Which is why I think she's not his mom.

• 1:45:13David Sims?

  Ben, you seem to disagree.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no. I was gonna more just add it. I really feel for him in that I think they're parading him around. And I

• 1:45:23David Sims?

  I mean, it's cool that they're friends with this guy or whatever.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  I think they're, yes, giving him a place to stay, but I there's something gross about it, especially even with the fact that you keep seeing different friends at these dinner parties and it feels very established that like he and these other musicians are always around and they're always like little like guest performers at these dinners.

• 1:45:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. These salon, these curated, interesting minds things. And it feels like there's like a petting zoo element of like, we brought a guy with a camera to like, look at you, you know?

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  And he's living this life of struggle and they have like

• 1:45:57David Sims?

  The big bearded guy.

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  They have the comfort of academia. And they, you know, like they've decided to go that route. And I think it would, it would piss anyone off to be paraded that way.

• 1:46:07Griffin Newman?

  That's the part of him that doesn't want success. He wants to find a comfortable middle where he can stay in a loop because he actually

• 1:46:13David Sims?

  What doesn't piss him off?

• 1:46:14Griffin Newman?

  Everything.

• 1:46:15David Sims?

  I'm saying, what makes him happy?

• 1:46:16Griffin Newman?

  Nothing.

• 1:46:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  He's fundamentally an unhappy person.

• 1:46:20Speaker 02

  The most content you see him is the very last, his very last, like singing Fare The Well without Mike.

• 1:46:25David Sims?

  Sometimes you see the spirit move through him in a way that's more comforting. But obviously when he's performing for Bud or whatever, it's so powerful, but it's angry and it's sad, you know?

• 1:46:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. He picks the death of Queen Jane to sing to like the most important audition of his life.

• 1:46:41Griffin Newman?

  Such an insane decision.

• 1:46:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  But that this is a guy who

• 1:46:43David Sims?

  But it feels like a Lewin Davis decision.

• 1:46:45Speaker 02

  It is a Lewin Davis decision, but you think it's such an interesting moment to then see how free and beautiful he sounds singing Dink's song at the very end of the

• 1:46:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:54Speaker 02

  At the very end of the movie.

• 1:46:54David Sims?

  Because he's making that decision himself.

• 1:46:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:57David Sims?

  Like that it's like, rather than, you know, doing it in front of the Gorfines and then she joins in doing Mike's part where it's like, you know, stick keeping, you know, like now it's like he's, here's a new take on this.

• 1:47:09Griffin Newman?

  And when he sings it in front of the Gorfines, he's singing like his part of a duet.

• 1:47:13David Sims?

  He's not doing the

• 1:47:13Griffin Newman?

  It is missing something. When he sings it at the end, he has finally found the way to sing it as a solo performer. I think like part of his Samurai code though is like, I only want to borrow money from people who don't have money. To give me, right? I only want to stay on a couch of someone who doesn't have enough room. Like, the idea that the gore finds, like, the cup overfloweth makes it feel, like, dirty to him. And how much they are attentive.

• 1:47:36Speaker 02

  It makes him feel more like a charity case.

• 1:47:39David Sims?

  Have you watched Star Trek Voyager?

• 1:47:41Griffin Newman?

  No. I know he plays an alien doctor.

• 1:47:43David Sims?

  No, that's the thing I just want him for one second say. He plays the character of Neelix on Star Trek Voyager.

• 1:47:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:47:48David Sims?

  Now, of course, Star Trek Voyager is about a spaceship that gets flung to the other side of the galaxy, right? So they're lost, right? And so there's sort of a makeshift crew. That's the point of Star Trek Voyager. They've got a captain. They've got a doc. The doctor is the hologram, is of course Robert Picardo.

• 1:48:04Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 1:48:04David Sims?

  Your favorite.

• 1:48:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:48:05David Sims?

  You know, they pick up a sexy Borg lady. They've got, but then there's also Neelix, played by Ethan Phillips. Who's he? He's like a weirdo they find.

• 1:48:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:48:15David Sims?

  He's just like a guy. He's like an alien they meet from over there. And he's kind of like, I kind of know the lay of the land around here. If you want me to, like, hang out. And they're like, okay, what are you doing? And he's like, I can cook. And so he's the cook. But that's, it's just so weird. It's, there's no Star Trek character like it.

• 1:48:29Griffin Newman?

  His design is really good.

• 1:48:30David Sims?

  His design's really cool. He's got these crazy spots and like this weird sort of tufty hair. And it must have been such a pain to put it on every day. But every episode that he's a part of, Janeway's like, hey, Neelix, what's up? There he is.

• 1:48:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  And Neelix is like, I'm trying to make, like, sort of scrambled eggs. And she's like, geez, fucking, I'll see you later. Like, everyone is annoyed by it. Anyway, I always love to see him. I think he's really good in this movie, as is, um, uh, Robin Bartlett. Well, everyone is good.

• 1:48:57Griffin Newman?

  I, I.

• 1:48:58David Sims?

  Everyone doing the one scene performance. Alex Karpovski, funny for a second. Max Casella, such a good slimeball, like, you know.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  I, we, Penn and Casella, I need to talk about him. But, uh, there is something in, you know, this kind of person. They're not bad people, the gore finds, right?

• 1:49:13David Sims?

  No, not at all. They're just a little annoying.

• 1:49:15Griffin Newman?

  They're a little annoying. And they also, like, basically, they want to launder their sense that they've sold out and have gotten comfortable and are no longer, like, skin in the game, right? And I think her singing along with him is like an overly personal thing to do that she feels the need to do because she feels some. Ownership of the music to show how much he gets it.

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  Performative grief.

• 1:49:39Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  Which is why the, her husband makes that apology of like, we're all grieving in our own ways. And to him, the insult is like, you don't need to grieve at the same level that I do. You're a guy who brought him over for dinner and let him sleep on your couch. He was my partner. My life will never recover.

• 1:49:59Griffin Newman?

  But for him, it's, it's just like, he basically wants to figure out a way to live the exact life he's living with 5% less difficulty. And he keeps thinking, if I could just solve these two issues, I'd be happy. And he can solve the two issues and he's not happy. 10 new issues emerge and he fucks all of them up.

• 1:50:18David Sims?

  Well, but there's also stuff like he needs to pay for an abortion for Carey Mulligan and her bangs. Her beautiful.

• 1:50:25Speaker 02

  And her bangs.

• 1:50:26David Sims?

  He goes to the clinic and they're like, no, it's fine. You're paid up from the last fucking abortion you paid for that she decided not to do.

• 1:50:35Speaker 02

  She carried to term.

• 1:50:36David Sims?

  Yes. And like, it's just the kind of like, right, exactly. All around, he goes to the Merchant Marine and they're like, yeah, you owe us some money. You know, it's like, he just has these tiny little balances up and down.

• 1:50:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:47David Sims?

  He can never quite balance out. And if he balanced them out, he'd be great. No. So he goes and records. Exactly. He goes and records the fucking novelty song and they're like, do you want royalties or the paycheck? And he's like, what the fucking pay? I need money. Given the paycheck. And then at the end of the movie, they're like, that song, by the way, is gonna make so much money.

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:06David Sims?

  He's like, eh.

• 1:51:07Griffin Newman?

  Such a good Cohen's judgment that I kept being like, right, does the song come on the radio when he's on the road trip? Does he have to hear it be a hit? No, it's that the gore finds there like, that song's gonna be a hit. You never see him face the success of the song. You see him face the idea of you probably fucked up.

• 1:51:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26David Sims?

  It would be too on the nose if he was walking around town and there's like posters of Al Cody or whatever.

• 1:51:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:32Griffin Newman?

  But like, why does he take the money?

• 1:51:34David Sims?

  He needs it for the fucking abortion.

• 1:51:36Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:51:36David Sims?

  I know. It's like, he's always trying to pay the piper and then there's another piper.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  It's so well done to have sympathy for being a fuck up.

• 1:51:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  Because the thing is too, the other element. This is that his manager is this old inept man.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Who he'll never get payment from, right? So he also just knows that like this roadblock.

• 1:51:54David Sims?

  I think you should dump your manager and switch to Mel.

• 1:51:57Speaker 02

  I love Mel. And you know what? There's so many Mel's on the Lower East Side.

• 1:52:01David Sims?

  I was about to say, I mean, it would be, yeah, I like if I was.

• 1:52:04Speaker 02

  It's a Mel and his, whoever is his like clerk.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  The lady.

• 1:52:07Speaker 02

  Funny.

• 1:52:08David Sims?

  Who just comes out with the box.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  You got it? Yeah, I got it. So good.

• 1:52:13David Sims?

  Uh, like that moment where right where he's like, has, you know, has Buck Grossman called? And she goes and lifts up her hands. He's like, and she's like, no, I meant to tell you we're throwing out your records.

• 1:52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  And goes and gets the box.

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  But let's also call out Mel is like, I can't give you money, but I can give you the jacket. And Luan hates the idea that he's seen as a charity case that needs the jacket. And then we watched the entire movie him suffer from the lack of the cold.

• 1:52:36Speaker 02

  And the, and the way that they, and I'm saying the way they depict the cold, even with like the shot of his feet at the diner.

• 1:52:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:52:43Speaker 02

  With his wet socks.

• 1:52:43Griffin Newman?

  It is so visceral, that feeling of my entire foot is wet. I'm going to take my wet sock out of my wet shoe.

• 1:52:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:51Griffin Newman?

  And rub them against each other to just try to make it.

• 1:52:53Speaker 02

  Some warmth.

• 1:52:54Griffin Newman?

  One percent warmer.

• 1:52:55Speaker 02

  But can I say like the, the whole movie is kind of summarized in the one shot of him walking through the snow where there's clearly a snowless patch next to him.

• 1:53:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 1:53:06Griffin Newman?

  I don't need your coat.

• 1:53:07Speaker 02

  And I don't need your coat, but I'm going to walk in five feet of snow.

• 1:53:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then be upset about the problem, but also not complain about it to anyone because I like the idea that I'm comfortable with the suffering.

• 1:53:17David Sims?

  I do now think now that you're saying like, yes, he does not actively complain about anyone, but every man he meets in this movie, you do feel him bristling.

• 1:53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:24David Sims?

  So it's like Justin Timberlake, he's like, I hate this performative, nice husband man, right? Who's like, you know, good at what everything he does. He doesn't like Adam Driver for being a buffoon, really.

• 1:53:35Griffin Newman?

  And, and to him, like a fake.

• 1:53:37David Sims?

  Yeah, a phony circus act. Exactly. Right, right.

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  He's going to change his name.

• 1:53:42David Sims?

  Stark Sam, he's like, you're a disgusting square to me. You know, he won't say it aloud, but like.

• 1:53:46Griffin Newman?

  The struggle is part of it. How can you be this untroubled and make great music?

• 1:53:51David Sims?

  It's the, like the famous Mark Manon episode where he interviews Nick Kroll, which I think about all the time where Mark Manon is just like, your childhood was normal. I hate it.

• 1:53:57Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  And Nick Kroll's like, I'm sorry, I had a happy child.

• 1:54:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But this character is very Maron-y and the last like-

• 1:54:05David Sims?

  Yeah, he's very Maron-y. Cause you're like, you're talented. I get it. And things just aren't quite lining up for you. Maybe Llewyn should get a podcast.

• 1:54:11Griffin Newman?

  That's the answer.

• 1:54:12Speaker 02

  The thing is, he would if this, if this movie were made right now, he would have a podcast.

• 1:54:18David Sims?

  Do you think Bud Grossman likes me? I auditioned for him once.

• 1:54:21Griffin Newman?

  He would not be enough of a go-getter to start a podcast. If he did, he'd abandon after three episodes. He would be so active in the comments. Llewyn Davis-

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  He's a Redditor. He's a Redditor.

• 1:54:30Griffin Newman?

  A comment-

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  Oh, he's burning up the AV club.

• 1:54:33Griffin Newman?

  But the penultimate WTF, the solo Maron monologue one-

• 1:54:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:54:39Griffin Newman?

  I feel like was so emotionally affecting and was, I don't know if you've listened to it, but it was basically Maron talking about how the podcast got him to break the Llewyn Davis cycle.

• 1:54:49David Sims?

  Yes, very much.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  That he was this guy for 20 years and that through the act of interviewing people, which started out as a career move, but like taught him empathy and understanding and comparing other people's careers that he like got out of this. And I just think, and Maron talks about this, that throughout his twenties and his thirties and into his early forties, that he always had this attitude of like, why this fucking guy? And Llewyn Davis does not do that once in the movie. I agree with you that he bristles with people, but like every-

• 1:55:16David Sims?

  He never rants.

• 1:55:17Griffin Newman?

  He never rants and every other version of a movie like this with a guy like this who's stuck in the middle is angry at the other people for how they're perceived.

• 1:55:27David Sims?

  The one person he takes it out on is the nice lady with the auto har-

• 1:55:31Griffin Newman?

  Who's the most legit thing.

• 1:55:33David Sims?

  And just, right, exactly. He's the most undeserving of being heckled. She's like, I've literally never performed in New York before. He's being so mean.

• 1:55:41Griffin Newman?

  In that Del Toro interview, they were like, that was one of her most complete ideas-

• 1:55:44David Sims?

  Crude, like-

• 1:55:45Griffin Newman?

  In the movie is if this guy comes face to face with the real thing, he not only doesn't know what to make of it, but he's gonna be an asshole. And they said the other like really complete idea that they write their scripts, they start out and then they go like, what happens to the next scene? What happens to the next scene? They don't map out the plot in advance by and large, unless they're doing really naughty kind of noir stuff. And so they're like surprised as things are going along as they develop them. And they said, a complete idea for us that we never considered the alternative is that he's gonna drive past Akron and not pull off the side of the road.

• 1:56:19David Sims?

  Just notice it.

• 1:56:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. Right. That the entire idea for the movie is there's no scenario we could imagine going there. And he said, if we do the thought experiment of he drives off and he knocks on the door, that's a bad scene from a bad movie. I don't want to see that. Right? The complete idea is you look at this glowing CGI town, right? It looks magical. It looks like fucking Potter.

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  It's literally the Polar Express like pulls into.

• 1:56:45Griffin Newman?

  This guy has no fucking home and there's literally a family ready to go right there.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  His two-year-old son.

• 1:56:52Speaker 02

  His two-year-old baby.

• 1:56:54David Sims?

  That he's never met before.

• 1:56:55Speaker 02

  That he's never met, that he didn't know existed until 30 minutes before.

• 1:56:59Griffin Newman?

  And I think the movie brilliantly tricks you because you're like, well, the shitty move is that this guy pulled up on the side of the road and said, I'm really tired. I could use some sleep. Can you drive me back to New Jersey? And you think he's gonna be selfish and take the car to Akron and fuck this guy over because he needs to meet his child? And instead, he doesn't even do that.

• 1:57:18Speaker 02

  He does. He just looks at the sign.

• 1:57:20Griffin Newman?

  He just looks at it and keeps on fucking driving and hits a cat.

• 1:57:23David Sims?

  The wrong cat that he took off the streets of New York City.

• 1:57:27Griffin Newman?

  Right. And look, he shows up at her door. She probably slaps him in the face, right? She apologizes for not telling him that he didn't get, she didn't get the abortion, but also goes like, by the way, you're a fucking asshole and I don't want you in my kid's life. But even still, that gives him a sense of closure and processing that he's actively avoiding. And their decisions like, what I was saying, John Goodman is like the ghost of Christmas future. Not only does he not know how to not become that guy, he refuses to acknowledge that this guy is a version of what he could become. He leaves him on the side of the road.

• 1:57:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, like probably dead. Yeah, probably gonna die.

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  It's not a great situation. In his defense, I'm not sure what he should do at that point.

• 1:58:07Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:58:07David Sims?

  It's a little bit of a tough.

• 1:58:09Griffin Newman?

  But his, his response almost every time is, what am I supposed to do? I'm walking away.

• 1:58:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:14Griffin Newman?

  I don't know what to do here.

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  Lewin is the cat.

• 1:58:16Griffin Newman?

  Lewin is the cat.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Because the cat doesn't get, actually get hit is the crazy thing is that he checks the, he checks the car. There's nothing, there's no sign of a cat having been hit. The cat moves on.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Your point about the Appalachian performer and like how he's so rude to her and yet she's the most legit. Yeah.

• 1:58:34David Sims?

  She's literally what folk music is.

• 1:58:37Griffin Newman?

  She is the real thing.

• 1:58:38David Sims?

  Here is a person from a faraway place who is performing very regionally specific music.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  Who learned music as it was like.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  Right. It's like an oral tradition. A hundred percent.

• 1:58:48Speaker 01

  And there's something too about like his like whole like, you know, Samurai code authenticity. And yet the music that he plays is traditional music that someone else wrote.

• 1:58:59Griffin Newman?

  That he's trying to put his own spin on.

• 1:59:01David Sims?

  He should be doing sea shanties. Because he was a Merchant Marine guy. Maybe he should do sea shanties.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then with the Dylan of it all too, like what Dylan really did, right? Is he was the first one to be like, why don't we just take this music form and write original music?

• 1:59:16David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:59:17Griffin Newman?

  And also he was. The now.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  A total sponge. He was taking in everything and spitting out everything and mixing shit together. And people are like, what the fuck's your deal? And he was like, I don't know.

• 1:59:27Speaker 01

  So when Grossman's like, I don't see money here. I mean, that's the, the thing is he's, it's so cutting, but it's kind of true.

• 1:59:33Griffin Newman?

  He is correct.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  What, what is, what is Llewyn want to do here?

• 1:59:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  What is the, the success here? I don't think he actually, you're right. He doesn't really have a thing in mind.

• 1:59:43Griffin Newman?

  Dylan had shit to say. Llewyn Davis does not. Or if he does, he's not saying it, right? He just wants to impress people with his skill at the standards, right? And so Bud Grossman, like, he says, there's not a lot of money here, which is the most cutting shit in the world. And then he follows up by saying a bunch of things that are good about him, even when some of them are backhanded, where he's like, you are talented, but like, what makes you different than 800 other guys I see every week?

• 2:00:09David Sims?

  And then he's like, could you be a Peter? Could you be a Paul?

• 2:00:11Griffin Newman?

  He gives him a path.

• 2:00:12David Sims?

  He does.

• 2:00:13Griffin Newman?

  He goes, stay out of the sun, cut that into a goatee. You could be the third guy. That's a career. And then you can go to fucking poppies and play your own shit wherever you want. But that's the version of it where that funds your lifestyle. And he immediately goes like, no, not happening.

• 2:00:27David Sims?

  Well, he, he won't have a partner again. He can't, he can't like enter into that kind of emotional contract.

• 2:00:33Speaker 02

  He can't open himself up to the possible pain.

• 2:00:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:36Speaker 02

  And that's the difference between him and. Um, the gore finds where they have performative grief and he has anticipatory grief.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:00:45Speaker 02

  And Lenny is also really upset.

• 2:00:48Griffin Newman?

  Lenny's grieving.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  So sorry.

• 2:00:49Griffin Newman?

  But don't you think if Bud Grossman had said to him in that moment, I got an idea. I got a songwriter who can't sing or play a lick.

• 2:00:59Griffin Newman?

  Would you perform his material?

• 2:01:01David Sims?

  Right, sure, sure.

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  He would go, no, I don't do other people's songs, right?

• 2:01:04David Sims?

  Probably.

• 2:01:04Griffin Newman?

  If Bud Grossman offered 10 other versions of here's my pitch for how to sell you that weren't forcing him to be part of a duo or trio again, he still would bristle at it. The idea is that he wants someone to go, yep, I get you. Move here, live above the venue, perform here every night. I pay you a stipend. It's the version of the Merchant Marines. It's three hots and a cot. You don't need to get more or less ambitious than you are right now.

• 2:01:31David Sims?

  What if Bud was like, um, do you want to be my toothbrush? He'd say, yes, because this guy's full of bristles.

• 2:01:37Griffin Newman?

  He's bristling.

• 2:01:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 2:01:39David Sims?

  Rachel, don't leave. What are you talking about? Why are you opening the door?

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  Did it's holding a baseball card?

• 2:01:43Griffin Newman?

  I have my Pete Alonso card here.

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 2:01:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:01:46Griffin Newman?

  My boy Pete, sorry, mess fan.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  Whatever.

• 2:01:48Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:01:49Speaker 02

  Um, my daddy built Yankee Stadium.

• 2:01:52Griffin Newman?

  What was that?

• 2:01:53Speaker 02

  My daddy built Yankee Stadium. No.

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  We were chatting before you guys.

• 2:01:58Griffin Newman?

  Did your dad work on the construction of the Yankee Stadium?

• 2:02:00Speaker 02

  My dad actually did work on the construction of the new Yankee Stadium when I was a kid.

• 2:02:03Griffin Newman?

  With his bare hands?

• 2:02:04Speaker 02

  With his bare hands.

• 2:02:06David Sims?

  This is Baby Joe from Superman. Sorry, I'm reaching for all my comfort objects.

• 2:02:09Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen Superman?

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  I, guys, I have.

• 2:02:12Griffin Newman?

  That's good.

• 2:02:12David Sims?

  It's fine.

• 2:02:13Griffin Newman?

  It's good.

• 2:02:13David Sims?

  It's good, Dylan, you'd enjoy it.

• 2:02:14Griffin Newman?

  You've not seen it out of loyalty to DJ Catrona, your one true Superman.

• 2:02:18Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing.

• 2:02:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:19Speaker 02

  You know me and my love of DJ as Clark Kent. But, um, it's also that I was doing a Vita and I just simply.

• 2:02:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Speaker 02

  Like Sinners, I saw Sinners and then I went back into my tunnel. So then when I came out, I could only see what was in theaters after I came out.

• 2:02:33Griffin Newman?

  And by the way, guys, this is the only reason I keep on turning down Broadway musicals. They're begging me and I go, I can't miss these movies.

• 2:02:39Speaker 02

  What's the last offer you got on a Broadway musical?

• 2:02:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh, my God, Death Becomes Her, they wanted me to play both. And I said, the movie's on this. I can't. You said, I can do it.

• 2:02:49Speaker 02

  He said, I could.

• 2:02:51Griffin Newman?

  I could do it in my sleep and I'd have excess energy left over. What role on Broadway would you fit best? You know, the one, it's off Broadway. The one I-

• 2:02:59Speaker 02

  Seymour.

• 2:02:59Griffin Newman?

  Seymour.

• 2:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:03:02Griffin Newman?

  I, every year ago, is this the year I-

• 2:03:04Speaker 02

  I've given you sunshine.

• 2:03:06Griffin Newman?

  I hire a vocal coach and try to figure out if I could do it. Please don't do it. I mean, you can't if you want. No, he should, he should.

• 2:03:12Speaker 02

  I'll be your, I'll be your Audrey. It'll be so fun.

• 2:03:14Griffin Newman?

  Here we go.

• 2:03:15Speaker 02

  We've got a contract.

• 2:03:16Griffin Newman?

  I mean, if you hitch these tails, you're gonna go far.

• 2:03:19Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 2:03:20Griffin Newman?

  I'm just imagining the producers of Little Shop being like, it's non-negotiable. Wait, one second. We have to take Newman? Jesus fucking Christ. What if you were like Hermes in Haiti's town?

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  You could totally be in Haiti's town.

• 2:03:33Griffin Newman?

  I will say the Christopher Seber part in Death Becomes Her is really fun. Yeah, but nobody beats him. Nobody beats Christopher.

• 2:03:38Speaker 02

  I love Chris Seber so much.

• 2:03:40Griffin Newman?

  He's the god. I agree. He is a fucking legend, but because I have seen him do such insanely technically complicated things on stage, I thought the performance was gonna level up to a thing I could not possibly ever consider doing.

• 2:03:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:03:56Griffin Newman?

  Like his fucking Lord Farquhar on his knees.

• 2:03:58Speaker 02

  On his knees the whole time?

• 2:04:00Griffin Newman?

  Or I saw his Mrs. Trunchbull in Matilda where he was amazing. I was like-

• 2:04:04Speaker 02

  Do you think he feels like Death Becomes Her is a nice break?

• 2:04:06Griffin Newman?

  It does feel like it. Just to walk around in a suit.

• 2:04:09Speaker 02

  Because Jennifer Somard and-

• 2:04:11Griffin Newman?

  Are you gonna see him in Bad Boy?

• 2:04:13Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 2:04:13Griffin Newman?

  He's doing Bad Boy? At, at Encore. He's playing the Reverend? I assume so.

• 2:04:17Speaker 02

  That's exciting. I love encores.

• 2:04:20Griffin Newman?

  He is phenomenal in Death Becomes Her, but it does feel like a little bit of a princess part where I think-

• 2:04:24Speaker 02

  Great.

• 2:04:24Griffin Newman?

  Like, they get to do the crazy stuff. I agree. Have you seen it yet?

• 2:04:27Speaker 02

  I haven't.

• 2:04:28Griffin Newman?

  I saw it recently. I just feel the need to acknowledge this because we covered Death Becomes Her on this.

• 2:04:32Speaker 02

  Paul Tazwell costumes.

• 2:04:34Griffin Newman?

  That show is a tremendous amount of fun and is-

• 2:04:36Speaker 02

  Eric Winterling built them. They're just incredible pieces of costumes.

• 2:04:40Griffin Newman?

  It is an astonishing production.

• 2:04:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:42Griffin Newman?

  It is like impeccably staged in ways where the scenes are introduced and I'm like, I don't know how you pull this scene off.

• 2:04:49Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah. I love hearing that.

• 2:04:50Griffin Newman?

  Like knowing the movie where you're like, there's no way to translate this right now. Beyond even the kind of like magic-

• 2:04:56Speaker 02

  Like the Beetlejuice stuff that's been done.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there, there is just, it is incredibly well-conceived.

• 2:05:02Speaker 02

  You can't put a hole in a woman's stomach, and they do.

• 2:05:04Griffin Newman?

  They do. Don't say Beetlejuice one more time.

• 2:05:06Speaker 02

  I won't.

• 2:05:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay. I could play Lydia. Sure.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  Hey, Mom.

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  I can do. No, the only one I would do is, is, is Little Shop.

• 2:05:16David Sims?

  Yeah. It does feel like that's never gonna close too. It's really crushing.

• 2:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:21David Sims?

  Uh, it's a little.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Unfortunately, there's no shortage of Seymour's. All the most handsome men on planet Earth. Above six, three are lining up to play Seymour. It's going great. Um, uh, other things I want to talk about. Justin Timberlake, who I have bristled at.

• 2:05:38David Sims?

  Just crazy decent. Maybe the two best movies of the decade. That's all.

• 2:05:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:41Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:05:42David Sims?

  This is social network.

• 2:05:42Griffin Newman?

  This was this period where it, it felt like he was like, I want to make a serious role at being an actor.

• 2:05:49David Sims?

  Right. We're gonna work with really serious guys.

• 2:05:51Speaker 02

  And he's not bad in it.

• 2:05:52David Sims?

  He's totally fine.

• 2:05:52Griffin Newman?

  I think he's really good in this and he's really good in social network. And then he was like, great. Thank you. I'll go be a movie star now. And everyone was like, Justin.

• 2:06:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:06:03Griffin Newman?

  You had it.

• 2:06:04Speaker 02

  You got to be in Shrek the third. You have enough.

• 2:06:07Griffin Newman?

  The three best movies of the decade.

• 2:06:09Speaker 02

  Honestly.

• 2:06:10Griffin Newman?

  That there was this feeling of like, don't do.

• 2:06:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:13Griffin Newman?

  In time, don't do friends with benefits. Don't do runner runner. This isn't what we want.

• 2:06:18Speaker 02

  Runner runner. Oh my God.

• 2:06:20David Sims?

  What if time was money?

• 2:06:22Griffin Newman?

  This.

• 2:06:22David Sims?

  That was that movie.

• 2:06:23Griffin Newman?

  And social network are like, working with the best directors alive who are using your energy in such smart ways. Um, I, I think he's really, really good.

• 2:06:34David Sims?

  He's good in this. He, I mean, he's also just, I think it's a, it's a very clever piece of casting to, you know, have such an established pop star. You know, play someone that Llewyn would be chafing against.

• 2:06:44Speaker 02

  I mean, it was the era of that, wasn't it though? Like Adam Levine doing Begin Again and other films, you know?

• 2:06:50Griffin Newman?

  But he like really underplays this. I mean, I, the moment that I think he really nails is when Llewyn goes, who wrote this shit? And he takes the two seconds before saying me, right? And he's like, how defensive am I gonna be in this response?

• 2:07:03David Sims?

  Given that I am eight levels above you in status at this point anyway.

• 2:07:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:07Griffin Newman?

  But yet you can tell that he kind of looks up to Llewyn creatively.

• 2:07:11David Sims?

  Absolutely. He knows Llewyn is for real.

• 2:07:13Griffin Newman?

  It's the magic of guys like this where even when they're shooting themselves in the foot and like everyone else is lapping them, they still look at them and they're like, but I want this guy's approval.

• 2:07:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I want to be like him.

• 2:07:22Griffin Newman?

  And more than anything, I don't want his judgment.

• 2:07:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:07:26Griffin Newman?

  I don't want him to feel like I'm part of the problem. It's, yes. Uh, I want to call out some other cast people. I need to pull this name quickly. Jerry Goldsmith.

• 2:07:37Griffin Newman?

  Jerry Goldsmith. Is Mel. No, I'm sorry. His name is. Famous composer.

• 2:07:41Speaker 02

  I was gonna say Jerry Goldsmith is.

• 2:07:43Griffin Newman?

  His name is, thank you, Jerry Grayson, who I worked with on Beware the Gonzo. Oh, sure. He played the ornery old diner owner.

• 2:07:52Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:07:52Griffin Newman?

  I spent a lot of time with this guy.

• 2:07:54Speaker 02

  Is he lovely?

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  He passed away like months before this movie came out. This is his final performance. He was.

• 2:08:01Speaker 02

  It's a great final performance.

• 2:08:03Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:08:04Speaker 02

  It's really fantastic.

• 2:08:05Griffin Newman?

  Incredible.

• 2:08:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:06Griffin Newman?

  He was an ornery old character actor who started out as part of a duo act. He kind of had his own like Martin and Lewis thing. They played in Vegas. He was a little bit of a like Llewyn Davis of.

• 2:08:18Speaker 02

  Of his generation.

• 2:08:19Griffin Newman?

  Comedy in the kind of like Rat Pack Club era. And then he transitioned to being a really good character actor. He did a Death of a Salesman on Broadway and had a heart attack during intermission. This is his famous story. He finally died of heart disease. Um, but uh, they, May 1st, 1995, a heart attack brings real drama to Broadway. He died, they brought him back to life and he was back on in the second act.

• 2:08:47Speaker 02

  You're fucking joking.

• 2:08:48Griffin Newman?

  I'm not joking you.

• 2:08:49Speaker 02

  Do you think he was the one who was like, I have to go on stage?

• 2:08:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I imagine. I feel that way too.

• 2:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And, and the previously mentioned Sam Riegel, one of my best friends, I brought him to, this was like the first movie I was ever in back when I was an actor. And I brought him to the rap party and Sam got like buttonholed by Jerry Grayson, who monologued him for like an hour. And Sam was in college in a film course and he was like, I have to make a documentary about someone. Do you think Jerry would let us do it? And we went over to Jerry's apartment and just filmed Jerry talking for like five hours. He lived in like Tracy Letts's basement. He had an apartment that was just like 20,000 Blu-rays. And every photo of every show he did when he was like 25 going, look at how gorgeous I was. And then we go see Llewyn Davis together and we're like, oh my God, Jerry Grayson. It's the part his whole career's been building up to.

• 2:09:39Griffin Newman?

  And then we realized after walking out of the movie that he had died. But he's so fucking good in this and it felt like a beautiful capper to his career.

• 2:09:46Speaker 02

  Him saying, get the fuck out of my office is a great line read.

• 2:09:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:09:50Speaker 02

  It's brilliant. He's brilliant.

• 2:09:51Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this too. He died with a full head of hair. The guy had great genes. He shaved it for this.

• 2:09:56Speaker 02

  No way. Oh, that's really cool. Cause in my head, I picture him as this. Bald guy.

• 2:10:02Griffin Newman?

  Beautiful, beautiful, not a rug, beautiful Buffon, oh man, yeah. Anyone else you wanna shout out? Uh, his secretary.

• 2:10:08Speaker 02

  It's brilliant.

• 2:10:09Griffin Newman?

  He's so funny. Um, was, let me get her credits here as well.

• 2:10:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, she seems like someone who would be a legend.

• 2:10:16Griffin Newman?

  She had.

• 2:10:17Speaker 02

  That they snuck in.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  She's one of these people, her name was Sylvia Cotters. Uh, she's one of these people who basically didn't hit until she was sixty-five.

• 2:10:25Speaker 02

  Love those stories.

• 2:10:26Griffin Newman?

  And then was in like, uh, she's in Witness, she's the, uh, tourist with the camera that Harrison Ford threatens to punch. Uh, Paul Giamatti yells at her in a checkout line in American Splendor.

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:10:38Griffin Newman?

  Um, uh, she fights the predator with a broom in Predator Two. Good. City Hall of Crimes and Mrs. Demeanors, like this, obviously, she's like a classic, the lead of your movie yells at her for one scene kind of thing. Um, but she basically had two careers for thirty years, she was Philadelphia's director of special events. And she did like the centennial, the bicentennial and all the sorts of things, the Liberty Bell, she worked with like seven presidents.

• 2:11:08Speaker 02

  The Liberty Bell?

• 2:11:09Griffin Newman?

  She cracked it herself.

• 2:11:10Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 2:11:11Griffin Newman?

  She pissed off.

• 2:11:12Speaker 02

  I never knew that it was her.

• 2:11:14Griffin Newman?

  She didn't look where she was going. No, she didn't like the way it was looking at her. She popped the one.

• 2:11:19Speaker 02

  She hit it with a golf club.

• 2:11:20Griffin Newman?

  Um, but she died shortly after this as well, it was one of her last performances.

• 2:11:24Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 2:11:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but yeah, just like lived a great life, kind of supporting the arts and then finally like made it as a character actor.

• 2:11:31Speaker 02

  So funny.

• 2:11:32Griffin Newman?

  When she was like sixty and was on fire until eighty-seven.

• 2:11:34Speaker 02

  The two of them really do have such a funny rapport.

• 2:11:37Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  In that office scene.

• 2:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Lenny, this is your space. Yeah. Get all over it. It's your podcast now.

• 2:11:42Speaker 02

  Lenny's just having a time.

• 2:11:44Griffin Newman?

  Does Lenny have any podcast ideas? Does he wanna pitch to us?

• 2:11:47Speaker 02

  Probably like chicken.

• 2:11:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay, interesting, interesting, what's the format?

• 2:11:52Speaker 02

  Chicken and open running in a field.

• 2:11:55Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so, so we, we have someone run after Lenny with a microphone in a field with a chicken.

• 2:12:00Speaker 02

  With chicken.

• 2:12:01Griffin Newman?

  And record what happens between the two of them.

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the chicken can't be spiced or salted.

• 2:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:12:05Speaker 02

  It just has to be boiled to death.

• 2:12:07Griffin Newman?

  Tricky diet, tricky diet.

• 2:12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  Are we thinking audio only or video?

• 2:12:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:12:11Speaker 02

  You have to have video. I mean, have you seen him? He's gorgeous.

• 2:12:14Speaker 01

  The man is made for video.

• 2:12:16Speaker 02

  He's so beautiful.

• 2:12:17Griffin Newman?

  He's Lenny the Wonder Dog. And it's the kind of content that should be up on Netflix. Can we buy the Lenny the Wonder Dog rights?

• 2:12:23Speaker 02

  I would. I feel like if we talked to Oscar.

• 2:12:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:12:26Speaker 02

  And we said, look.

• 2:12:27Griffin Newman?

  Fartman will return. Well, the twist is gender swap. You play Fartman. Uh huh. Oscar plays someone else.

• 2:12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

  It's like a sleuth thing where now he's returning in a different role, you know?

• 2:12:39Speaker 02

  He's the Doctor Doom.

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  Now. That's the move. That's the move.

• 2:12:43Speaker 02

  He's Doctor Doom.

• 2:12:44Griffin Newman?

  He will be Moon Knight and Apocalypse as well. Yes. Right. Can Moon Knight be in Lenny the Wonder Dog with Rachel as detective Fartman?

• 2:12:51Speaker 02

  Both of them, his twin, but all three of them triplets now. Yeah.

• 2:12:55Griffin Newman?

  Good. Oi, oi. That's him being Moon Knight.

• 2:12:58Speaker 02

  Oi, oi, oi.

• 2:12:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I'm just gonna like keep running through moments I want to call out because this is a movie of moments. Go ahead. Go ahead. In the Bud Grossman thing, uh, when he gets his performance moment, right? He already bombs the joke of asking for the $5 for the record.

• 2:13:12Speaker 02

  Hysterical.

• 2:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then the guy's like, no, I'm actually getting Tessie. You're fucking here. You have to play for me. He's unprepared, right? He goes, here, stage. And Bud goes, not here. They're in an office.

• 2:13:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. But still, they're not on stage. They're performing in the audience with the overturned chairs on the tables.

• 2:13:28Speaker 02

  Beautiful scene.

• 2:13:28Griffin Newman?

  And, uh, F. Murray Abraham, I feel like this is sort of at the beginning of his like Renaissance period because Grand Budapest is the following year.

• 2:13:36Speaker 02

  So good.

• 2:13:37Griffin Newman?

  It feels like he was sort of rediscovered after being dormant for a while. He of course did Ethan's, uh, Almost an Evening, his off Broadway show many years ago. And that felt like it was kind of in a fallow period for him. So I think Ethan's always been like a very big supporter of his. Um, but he's doing this kind of like Sphinx-like look of intensity of active listening while Llewyn's performing. And even though he has chosen the absolute worst song to audition with, he is like crushing it, right? Sure. He's giving it his all. It's just a bad strategic move. And there's a moment where he looks up and makes direct eye contact with Bud. And Bud seems to be like very deeply affected. What he reads is deeply affected by his performance. And Llewyn starts putting English on it.

• 2:14:23Griffin Newman?

  Where the last like 30 seconds of the song, he starts hamming it up. Like he's making swoony aisles and he smirks at him.

• 2:14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:30Griffin Newman?

  You know, and he's just sort of like, I got him in my crosshairs. Here's the moment where I go in for the kill. And then the absolute deflation of, I don't see a lot of money here.

• 2:14:38David Sims?

  Which, of course is a cruel thing to say in a way, and of course, but he's just laying it out kind of plainly. It means like, it's not, you're not good. It's more, I don't, as a commercial agent for musicians, understand how I would make money.

• 2:14:52Griffin Newman?

  But that also that his biggest note to go, which is true, is you don't connect with the audience. You don't let people in. And in that moment, Llewyn's like, oh, now I'm gonna let him in. That he's doing this very kind of like phony schmoozy charisma thing at the end of the song. To try to draw the guy in.

• 2:15:08David Sims?

  Right through that.

• 2:15:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's like, you don't have it. You don't, you don't have the thing that speaks to people. You're a good musician. Uh, and it's because it's, he's unresolved as a person.

• 2:15:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:15:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I think there are people like Bob Dylan, say, right? Who are kind of like unresolved and don't operate by the rules of society. But yet they cannot help but communicate something that means something to other people. And those types of people drive the people like Llewyn Davis insane. Because they're not able to point to them and go like, yeah, but that guy sold out. That guy's being palatable. That guy plays the game, right? That's how he wants to be received as just like, we're taking you as you are.

• 2:15:48Griffin Newman?

  And, and yeah, I mean, it's like the beauty of the movie ending with him literally walking out on Bob Dylan playing. Because the guy's about to beat the shit out of him. And the guy's about to beat the shit out of him because he doesn't know how to process his emotions. At Poppy telling him that he also slept with Carey Mulligan. Where he is possessive of her, even though he's an asshole.

• 2:16:08David Sims?

  And he is not her boyfriend.

• 2:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:16:11Speaker 02

  Or husband.

• 2:16:11David Sims?

  Or husband.

• 2:16:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. And in that final scene where they actually have chemistry together.

• 2:16:15Speaker 02

  In NSYNC.

• 2:16:16Griffin Newman?

  He wants to believe.

• 2:16:17David Sims?

  He never was.

• 2:16:18Speaker 02

  He's, he was never in NSYNC.

• 2:16:20David Sims?

  In Pop, their, their best song.

• 2:16:22Griffin Newman?

  He clearly wants to believe that in her mind, it's like Luwin's the great love of my life. And unfortunately, I can't ever be with him. Right? That I'm the only person she cheats on her husband with. But he does want to be A number one. He never wants to settle down with her. He wants the idea that she wants him more than her boring husband. And the idea that she would sleep with someone else, even though the implication is perhaps she slept with him again recently, specifically to get Luwin stage time because she feels bad for him. Pisses him off so much that his rage gets misdirected at the most genuine folk act in the entire movie, which then leads to the next night, him missing the guy who will define folk music.

• 2:17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17:00Griffin Newman?

  In America for the next century forever. And the idea, it's like, I got you on stage the night the Times is there. And you're like, great news. The Times is going to write about the guy who went on right after you. The moment Dylan goes on stage, everything before that becomes a footnote in the book. It becomes the prologue to what actually mattered.

• 2:17:20Speaker 02

  And they write about that moment in this really great book by David Hadjou called Positively Fourth Street, which is about like Joan Baez, is it Carlos Farina? Mimi Farina and Bob Dylan. And they talk about like that first night and how absolutely no other act that night mattered. The first time Bob Dylan was ever reviewed by the Times. And it wasn't, they weren't necessarily good reviews. They, they, they. Sorry, Richard Farina. Thank you. They, they speak of him as if his voice, I think they say like a machete through metal, like sheet metal.

• 2:17:53Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:17:54Speaker 02

  They like say that about his voice, but it still made such an impact.

• 2:17:58Griffin Newman?

  It was so special. Undeniable.

• 2:18:00Speaker 02

  Different.

• 2:18:00Griffin Newman?

  Something has happened here and everything's been leading up to this. And it was like a complete unknown to my. He's hard to know.

• 2:18:06Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 2:18:07Griffin Newman?

  I remember you.

• 2:18:07Speaker 02

  Complete unknown.

• 2:18:08Griffin Newman?

  Say that again?

• 2:18:10Speaker 02

  I think there's a movie here.

• 2:18:13Griffin Newman?

  Lenny, don't growl at me. Jesus.

• 2:18:15Speaker 02

  Lenny knows that I also auditioned for that.

• 2:18:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well.

• 2:18:18David Sims?

  You would have been good.

• 2:18:19Speaker 02

  Hey, thanks. Monica was amazing.

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  Monica's phenomenal.

• 2:18:21Speaker 02

  She's fucking amazing.

• 2:18:23Griffin Newman?

  I was kind of dreading that movie because I love Llewyn Davis so much. And I remember you seeing it and telling me the thing that's kind of miraculous about it is it actually works as a companion piece.

• 2:18:32David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 2:18:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%.

• 2:18:33David Sims?

  Because that movie is about, I mean, not to get too much on it, but it's about Dylan, you know, is the opposite of Llewyn. He's charmed in this way that no one can understand. Where everyone's like, what's your deal? And he's like, eh.

• 2:18:44Griffin Newman?

  It all.

• 2:18:44David Sims?

  And they're like, what the fuck? And he's like, I'm famous. I guess. I mean to be.

• 2:18:48Griffin Newman?

  It all lines up for him. Like, people like pave the road underneath his feet.

• 2:18:52David Sims?

  Right. And then anytime anyone's like, so what you do is great. Keep doing it. He's like, gonna do something else, you know? And they're like, what the fuck? But it's, you know, that's how he keeps it.

• 2:19:00Griffin Newman?

  That movie's refusal to pathologize him is what is smart about it, that it views him like ET and everyone else is trying to make sense around him.

• 2:19:08David Sims?

  Why isn't there a scene where he like looks at a mansion on a hill and then you cut to him writing the song Mansion on a Hill? What movie could I be talking about right now?

• 2:19:15Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:19:16Griffin Newman?

  But Llewyn Davis is the opposite.

• 2:19:17David Sims?

  Movie where he watches Badlands and is like, writes Badlands.

• 2:19:21Speaker 02

  Stop. This land isn't very good. Sorry, is that real?

• 2:19:25David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 2:19:25Speaker 02

  What if this land?

• 2:19:26David Sims?

  You'll see it.

• 2:19:28Speaker 02

  Fuck.

• 2:19:28David Sims?

  You might like it.

• 2:19:29Speaker 02

  Guys, I'm from New Jersey.

• 2:19:30David Sims?

  I know, and we love the boss. And there's things about the movie that worked for me.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  And you auditioned for that part as well, right? You auditioned for Bruce.

• 2:19:36Speaker 02

  You would have been amazing.

• 2:19:38Griffin Newman?

  You would have been great.

• 2:19:39Speaker 02

  The highways jump with broken heels on a last chance power drive. Come on.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  Rachel's wearing a jean jacket and it's jangly.

• 2:19:48Speaker 02

  I have a bandana in my back pocket.

• 2:19:50David Sims?

  Covered in jangly things.

• 2:19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, I just, I love that this movie is the inverse where it's like, uh, let's spend a lot of time getting into the headspace of someone who cannot fucking figure it out.

• 2:20:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:02Griffin Newman?

  Which is just always, uh, when well rendered.

• 2:20:06Speaker 02

  But it's always relevant.

• 2:20:07Griffin Newman?

  Drugs to me.

• 2:20:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I absolutely feel the same way. I think that's why it was so moving to me even as a young teenager to feel like, oh, yeah, I mean, this is, this is what it's like. And, and that is such a, it's such a teenage feeling too, to be like, uh, when am I ever gonna get it together? And it's like, not for another 15 years, bitch. Yeah, like, it's just, do you know what I mean? So I, I feel like it, it really does speak to so many audiences.

• 2:20:33Griffin Newman?

  And, and to some degree, it is like. The worst thing you can do is trying to fight the why can't I get it together thing versus like trying to absorb lessons from everything that happens to you. Uh, the aforementioned sitcom pilot with the cat that didn't go. I remember having an emotional breakdown to a comedy mentor of mine at a bar that New Year's Eve when I was like 23 and I was like, my life is fucking ruined. And she was like, the industry sucks. And I was like, you don't get it, but this was the thing. And she just looked at me and went, everything is the thing.

• 2:21:06Speaker 02

  Everything's the thing.

• 2:21:07Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, no, but you're wrong. I've been in shitty fucking college humor shorts. Those weren't the thing.

• 2:21:13Speaker 02

  She's so right though.

• 2:21:14Griffin Newman?

  With every passing year, I'm like, everything is the thing.

• 2:21:16Speaker 02

  Everything is the thing.

• 2:21:17Griffin Newman?

  Everything is the thing. It is the whole point of the kind of cyclical loop nature of this movie.

• 2:21:22Speaker 02

  And you realize what passes you by is meant to. Until you learn the lesson, you will learn the same lesson over and over again until you actually learn it.

• 2:21:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. Cause there's a framing of this movie that is, he had one shot and it was to blow away the New York Times reporter at that show. But yet the performance he gives for the New York Times reporter.

• 2:21:41David Sims?

  He does a good job.

• 2:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Is the best performance in the whole movie.

• 2:21:43Speaker 02

  That he gives in the whole movie.

• 2:21:44Griffin Newman?

  And it's actually a moment of processing for him. He solves something in himself there in a minor way.

• 2:21:49David Sims?

  I think he has made some progress and I think he's gonna be okay in about like 2022, you know? Yeah, moving at this pace, I'm saying like it's a slow, slow.

• 2:21:58Speaker 02

  I think, yeah, yeah. I think 2022 more loops of the same.

• 2:22:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:22:03Speaker 02

  Week is also just one of those.

• 2:22:05David Sims?

  I'm just imagining he's like 95 and he's like, you know, I think I'm actually pretty healthy at this point, like emotionally healthy.

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Um, I just need to call this out because you said you think this is why the movie relates to so many people. Uh, our researcher JJ, who I first must call out, texted us, by the way, most of the high school kids that I tutor don't give a shit about movies, but when they do, they have almost always said that their favorite movie star is Rachel. Granted, this is a sample of like five students who actually care about movies, but like three of them.

• 2:22:36David Sims?

  Five Wisconsinites love Rachel.

• 2:22:37Griffin Newman?

  Listed her, but still.

• 2:22:38David Sims?

  Okay, three of five Wisconsinites love Rachel. Rachel's making an appreciative face just for the listener.

• 2:22:43Speaker 02

  I don't have the words. It's really, really sweet.

• 2:22:47Griffin Newman?

  You matter. Now that started with, by the way, because it was following up this anecdote.

• 2:22:51Speaker 02

  There we go.

• 2:22:52Griffin Newman?

  I have this full sense memory of walking to a Trader Joe's in Evanston a few days after seeing Inside Llewyn Davis. And at one point, Julie, JJ's wife, and I turned to each other and we're like, that's our favorite movie of the year. And we just talked about all the stuff we loved the whole walk there. And then we grocery shopped and when we got to the cashier unprompted, he immediately said, I need to warn you about this movie. You should not see. It's called Inside Llewyn Davis and it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

• 2:23:20Speaker 02

  And they said, this is a Trader Joe's, right?

• 2:23:22Griffin Newman?

  Like he hadn't heard us talking about it. He was just genuinely concerned we might see a movie that he thought was too sad.

• 2:23:29Speaker 02

  So the thing is, that's such a Trader Joe's employee thing to fucking do.

• 2:23:33David Sims?

  They'll talk.

• 2:23:34Speaker 02

  Where they analyze your basket and go, oh, is it taco night? None of your fucking business.

• 2:23:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:41Speaker 02

  I'm a New Yorker. I don't want to fucking talk to you about my, I'm kidding. I'm so joking. But that is a likely thing where they see somebody who has like a melancholic look on their face and be like, warning, there's a really sad movie out right now.

• 2:23:55Griffin Newman?

  And the idea that they were saying this to every person they rung up for hours.

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably.

• 2:24:00Griffin Newman?

  But I think this is a movie where either you see it and like a lightning bolt to your brain, you're like, oh my God, that's the human condition.

• 2:24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:06Griffin Newman?

  Or you're like, why the fuck would I want to spend time with this guy?

• 2:24:09Speaker 02

  No, quite literally, yes. That's exactly what it is.

• 2:24:12Griffin Newman?

  People who are allergic to this movie, I can't even fault them. I couldn't understand it.

• 2:24:16Speaker 02

  I don't get it.

• 2:24:18David Sims?

  I actually kind of don't really get it either.

• 2:24:19Speaker 02

  I don't get it and I don't respect it.

• 2:24:22David Sims?

  It's not like a misery porn movie. Like it'd be different if it was like, it was a really wrenching movie about truly, truly awful shit. I'd be like, I get that you don't want to watch that. Fine. But it's not really like, and it's also, you know, it's short. And like, yes, nothing really happens, but in Cohen's fashion does move. Every scene's really interesting.

• 2:24:41Speaker 02

  It's got great performances.

• 2:24:43David Sims?

  There's this really hot guy who plays Llewyn Davis. His name's Oscar Isaac. You can look at his face the whole time.

• 2:24:48Speaker 02

  He's so hot.

• 2:24:49Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk a little post Oscar?

• 2:24:51David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:24:53Griffin Newman?

  Cause he gets Star Wars and he's in what is sort of designed to be the Han Solo equivalent role, right? As you said, JJ offers him the movie and originally his character was supposed to die.

• 2:25:05Speaker 02

  Supposed to die, but they love him.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  And he said, that's what I just did in Born Legacy. I can't keep being the kind of like fake out lead of a different movie who's done by the end of the first act. And so they keep him alive. I think he's excellent in that movie.

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  He's kind of the best part of that franchise, in my opinion.

• 2:25:22Griffin Newman?

  When they announced that cast, I was like, here we go. He is the guy who is going to pop from this because I assume that the major recalculation they're doing in the Disney Star Wars era is these things need to be funny again. They have to stop being so self-serious. And what we need is that kind of off the hump, bad boy Harrison Ford energy. And Oscar Isaac is a really good analog for that. And I remember seeing A Most Violent Year with my father, which comes out the year after this. Is that correct?

• 2:25:54David Sims?

  It came out the year after this. Good movie.

• 2:25:56Griffin Newman?

  So the year before Star Wars, my dad and I walk out of Most Violent Year and we both are like, we're watching 70s Pacino.

• 2:26:03David Sims?

  Pacino is the comp from that one, for sure.

• 2:26:05Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 2:26:05Griffin Newman?

  But Llewyn Davis in Most Violent Year, and that's an okay movie that I think he's excellent in.

• 2:26:10David Sims?

  He's really good. I like that movie.

• 2:26:10Griffin Newman?

  But it just felt like this guy is doing like Godfather, Godfather 2, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, back to back. This guy is on fucking fire. We're about to watch like a generational run. And then Star Wars comes out and a problem I've identified before is Adam Driver basically takes.

• 2:26:26Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 2:26:30David Sims?

  Everything good?

• 2:26:33Griffin Newman?

  This thing's unplugged.

• 2:26:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, thankfully I have a backup.

• 2:26:36Griffin Newman?

  Do we need to plug it back in?

• 2:26:38David Sims?

  Um, just keep talking. It's okay. I got it. No, no. Rachel, Rachel, sit down, sit down. It's fine. It's fine.

• 2:26:43Griffin Newman?

  You're not guilty. You're innocent.

• 2:26:46Speaker 02

  No, I'm not.

• 2:26:48David Sims?

  It's not your fault that people are walking down the hallway. Whoa, he brought the whole Mac down. Don't worry. It's just a little Mac mini. It's all good.

• 2:26:55Speaker 02

  You say that and then Reddit, Reddit's gonna go ablaze. Rachel Zegler can't control her dog.

• 2:27:01David Sims?

  Reddit a blaze.

• 2:27:02Griffin Newman?

  Reddit a blaze. It's just funny to me that there was also this notion that like Star Wars was kind of a career dead end for people, right? That Harrison Ford was the only star like birthed by Star Wars. And even in the prequels, the people who had heat going in, it stalled out their career for a bit, like Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, and the people that George discovered, like Hayden Christensen, got a little cursed. And then you're like, not only is the curse reversed here, but it's Darth Vader who becomes the totemic leading man.

• 2:27:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:27:34Griffin Newman?

  And that Adam Driver's run for the next 15 years is it feels like he absorbs every,

• 2:27:39David Sims?

  You bring this up a lot.

• 2:27:40Griffin Newman?

  One-fourth of the roles that Oscar Isaac should have had. And I'm not saying that Oscar Isaac would have done them better, but it's like he took every serious leading man role, and there was no space left. And Oscar Isaac's choices in the vacuum have been a little disappointing only because you're like, isn't this guy just supposed to be like fucking like throwing no hitters over and over and over again?

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  I think this is the pressure you put on Oscar.

• 2:28:06Griffin Newman?

  I put so much pressure.

• 2:28:07David Sims?

  I don't put this pressure on him.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  Because I love him so much.

• 2:28:10David Sims?

  Agree with that. Sort of. I think Oscar's doing great. I love him, but I know what you mean in terms of.

• 2:28:16Speaker 02

  Oscar, the one thing you can always guarantee is that he's going to be the best thing in whatever he does.

• 2:28:21David Sims?

  I haven't seen Frankenstein yet. Did you like him in Frankenstein, the Del Toro?

• 2:28:25Griffin Newman?

  I know you just saw it. See, here's what I'll say. I like Frankenstein and I like him in it. Alordi is the best thing in it.

• 2:28:30David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:28:30Speaker 02

  I love that for Jakey, though.

• 2:28:32Griffin Newman?

  He's incredible in it. And Alordi now has a little bit of that energy of Oscar Isaac in this era where you're like, this guy's doing interesting stuff.

• 2:28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Jake is great.

• 2:28:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:45Speaker 02

  That's a talented young actor.

• 2:28:46Griffin Newman?

  I think he's an unbelievable actor.

• 2:28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. That makes me really happy.

• 2:28:49Griffin Newman?

  But there's something kind of so unique and special that is captured within this movie that is such a complete performance and feels so unique to him. As much as I wish he could have done this like 100 times, going back to the idea of like, why doesn't he sing more? There's something about this as just like one perfect document.

• 2:29:10Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing. You want it to be a special moment because then if if all he ever did was sing, it just wouldn't be as special anymore.

• 2:29:17David Sims?

  Yeah. We're gonna play the box office game. Rachel, is there anything else? We haven't touched on the movie. You've obviously talked plenty.

• 2:29:23Speaker 02

  It's just fucking great.

• 2:29:24David Sims?

  A plus.

• 2:29:25Speaker 01

  Can we shout out the sister scenes?

• 2:29:29Speaker 01

  We didn't really touch upon that. And I just, because there's a quote here that I love that I think encapsulates the movie so well. When she's talking about getting another job, he says to her, and what just exist?

• 2:29:40Speaker 02

  Is that what we do outside of show business? We just exist?

• 2:29:43Speaker 01

  What a fucking asshole.

• 2:29:46David Sims?

  To say to his sister, too.

• 2:29:47Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 2:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:49David Sims?

  Film was bought by CBS Films, of course, who I think did a fine job releasing it and it made a little bit of money. They made 13 mil domestic, 32 worldwide. Like it did fine.

• 2:30:00Speaker 02

  That's actually really great.

• 2:30:01David Sims?

  It got a couple of Oscar noms.

• 2:30:02Griffin Newman?

  The only the two, it got cinematography.

• 2:30:05David Sims?

  Rapturously received one prize at Cannes.

• 2:30:08Griffin Newman?

  But like rudely snubbed in best original song screenplay, obviously Oscar Isaac egregious snub.

• 2:30:13Speaker 02

  The best original song category is very tricky, though, because it could not have been written, like the words could not have been written first.

• 2:30:21Griffin Newman?

  Please, Mr. Spaceman was the one to put up.

• 2:30:24Speaker 02

  Please, Mr. Kennedy.

• 2:30:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Sorry. Yes. Hunger Games had that same problem.

• 2:30:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the lyrics were written in the book. It didn't count as original.

• 2:30:35David Sims?

  That's actually really funny. That's crazy.

• 2:30:37Speaker 02

  So stupid.

• 2:30:38Griffin Newman?

  Even though the melody was new.

• 2:30:40Speaker 02

  Not written. Yeah. But yeah, so like that, that category can be very, very tricky. So if any of those like lyrics had been pulled from something that was well known or known at all.

• 2:30:51David Sims?

  Right. And of course, it's a lot of folk music that's already extant.

• 2:30:55Griffin Newman?

  CBS Films, I was looking it up last night, basically releases their first film in January 2010 and their last film in October 2019.

• 2:31:04David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 2:31:05Griffin Newman?

  They are like entirely a 2010s thing and are now completely defunct.

• 2:31:09Speaker 02

  Sorry, who was this? What was the second nomination? Cinematography and what?

• 2:31:12David Sims?

  Sound, which.

• 2:31:14Speaker 02

  I'll give it. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 2:31:16Griffin Newman?

  Deserving.

• 2:31:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, great, great sound.

• 2:31:18David Sims?

  Let's lost to gravity for both.

• 2:31:19Griffin Newman?

  On there.

• 2:31:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 2:31:21Griffin Newman?

  Let's throw Carey Mulligan in there.

• 2:31:25Griffin Newman?

  What was the thing I was gonna say? CBS definitely tried to do a kind of, oh, brother thing with this. There's the concert film. That's now harder to see.

• 2:31:32David Sims?

  They did a concert for the New York Film Festival that was filmed at Town Hall. We performed there and Rachel did the National Anthem by.

• 2:31:40Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  The ninth general anthem.

• 2:31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, there we go.

• 2:31:44David Sims?

  Via phone. Yes, via phone. That was a true like, we are wasting this talented woman's time.

• 2:31:50Speaker 02

  Not at all. It was so much fun.

• 2:31:51David Sims?

  Okay, yeah.

• 2:31:52Speaker 02

  Lenny was in it, too.

• 2:31:53David Sims?

  Yeah, standing ovation from the crowd. We made everyone stand up with their hands on their. They were already doing it. Yeah. This film came out December 3rd, 2013, mere days before my first day with, date with my wife. Well, wow.

• 2:32:06Speaker 02

  That's cute.

• 2:32:07David Sims?

  Unfortunately, we went to see Dallas Buyers Club instead. Bad. Seen this. She'd already seen it. Number one at the box office is a film from the Walt Disney Corporation, Griffin. Been out for three weeks.

• 2:32:18Speaker 02

  Oh, can I guess?

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  Yes, you can.

• 2:32:20Speaker 02

  Iron Man 3?

• 2:32:21David Sims?

  No, that is a great guess, but that was the summer of this year.

• 2:32:24Speaker 02

  Fuck.

• 2:32:24David Sims?

  What? So this is December, November.

• 2:32:28Speaker 02

  Cause so it's not, okay, Disney.

• 2:32:30David Sims?

  Is this the Frozen year? Frozen.

• 2:32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, Frozen came out. Yeah, in November of that year, right?

• 2:32:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:39David Sims?

  So Frozen's doing rather well. I'm checking my notes here. Quite a big hit? I mean, Frozen is one of those things.

• 2:32:45Speaker 02

  Insane.

• 2:32:46David Sims?

  Just today, I dropped my daughter off at school and as was true boast, as is true, almost anytime you drop a child any place, someone was in an else address. Yeah. One kid's gonna be in an else address.

• 2:32:55Speaker 02

  I love that, actually.

• 2:32:56David Sims?

  That's the kind of culture to be, ubiquity. You cannot, you know, recreate, right? It is one of the most culturally omnipresent things.

• 2:33:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:03David Sims?

  Frozen has as much saturation as like bananas.

• 2:33:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:09David Sims?

  Number two at the box office. Interesting, Rachel. What could this be?

• 2:33:12Speaker 02

  It's catching fire.

• 2:33:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:16David Sims?

  Francis Lawrence's Hunger Games, Cratching Fire. In my opinion.

• 2:33:20Speaker 02

  It's the best Hunger Games film.

• 2:33:21David Sims?

  I think it's the best of the original series for sure. And it's got the trick where they expand to IMAX, which I think is really cool for games. Very, very good movie. Number three at the box office is new this week. From a director, I was just making fun of his new movie. Wow. You were just making fun of his new movie. Mention on a hill.

• 2:33:40Griffin Newman?

  Oh. It's a scoop. It's a scooper picture.

• 2:33:43David Sims?

  Scott Cooper picture.

• 2:33:44Griffin Newman?

  Is it Crazy Heart? No, Crazy Heart's earlier.

• 2:33:46David Sims?

  Earlier.

• 2:33:46Griffin Newman?

  Is it Out of the Furnace?

• 2:33:48David Sims?

  It is Out of the Furnace, a film I've never seen with Christian Bale.

• 2:33:52Griffin Newman?

  Rachel, it's weird that face you're making right now, because this is a movie that absolutely exists that we talk about all the time.

• 2:33:58David Sims?

  New Jersey.

• 2:33:59Speaker 02

  Oh, fuck.

• 2:34:00David Sims?

  It's about guys in New Jersey who are a little unsavory.

• 2:34:02Griffin Newman?

  Crazy Heart wins Jeff Bridges the Oscar and they announce like this is Scott Cooper's follow up and he's got like 10 of the best actors alive in it and everyone's a crack at their knuckles.

• 2:34:11Speaker 02

  Never heard of this movie.

• 2:34:12Griffin Newman?

  Absolute banger coming. Movie comes out.

• 2:34:13Speaker 02

  And I actually quite like Scott, so like, and he's a really nice guy.

• 2:34:17Griffin Newman?

  Just a movie that made.

• 2:34:18David Sims?

  Everyone loves Scott Cooper and I shouldn't be making fun of him.

• 2:34:20Griffin Newman?

  Zero impact whatsoever. It's a zero impact movie. I've never seen it.

• 2:34:24David Sims?

  I've never seen it. It was a movie that made like not very much money and didn't get any Oscar buzz.

• 2:34:29Speaker 02

  But number three.

• 2:34:29David Sims?

  But it's opening number three in December. Number four, The Box Office, is a film I did see on a date with my wife. It is a Marvel film, the Marvel film of, of, of current, came out about a month ago.

• 2:34:40Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, you're saying current at the time.

• 2:34:42David Sims?

  The November 2013 Marvel film.

• 2:34:44Griffin Newman?

  Is Thor the Dark World?

• 2:34:45Speaker 02

  Thor the Dark World, Seth! Starring Zachary Levi.

• 2:34:49David Sims?

  He is in there. I wouldn't say he's starring.

• 2:34:52Speaker 02

  Starring Shazam 2's Zachary Levi.

• 2:34:54David Sims?

  He's there.

• 2:34:55Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 2:34:55David Sims?

  Harold and the Purple Crayons.

• 2:34:56Griffin Newman?

  That David and I vouch for very hard.

• 2:34:58David Sims?

  Fun movie.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  That we really like, that we put upper Marvel tier.

• 2:35:01David Sims?

  I really like that movie.

• 2:35:02Griffin Newman?

  I will say, I like Thor the Dark World. Most of the performances in it.

• 2:35:05David Sims?

  Skeptical.

• 2:35:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:07Speaker 02

  I, I, I haven't. I am a Marvel girly. I haven't seen Thor the Dark World.

• 2:35:11David Sims?

  Check it out. Cat Dennings.

• 2:35:12Speaker 02

  I love Cat Dennings, yeah.

• 2:35:14David Sims?

  Everyone's rude to it.

• 2:35:15Speaker 02

  Everyone's rude. I, I know this about that film, that people are rude to it.

• 2:35:19David Sims?

  They shouldn't be.

• 2:35:19Speaker 02

  I quite like the Thor franchise from what I, what I have seen.

• 2:35:22David Sims?

  Very fun.

• 2:35:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:23Griffin Newman?

  It's the one that kind of takes the mythology seriously and I'm not saying it in a nerd jerk off way, but it's like, what if we treated this like?

• 2:35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:30Griffin Newman?

  Fucking, they're, they're gods.

• 2:35:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:33Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it also looks good in a way a lot of the Marvel movies don't.

• 2:35:37David Sims?

  Number five at the box office is a comedy that, uh, kind of is, it's a movie star, comedy movie star comedy is kind of at the end of his comedy movie star era. Uh, one of those posters where he's literally doing this.

• 2:35:51Griffin Newman?

  He's doing the face. Is it Vince Vaughn's delivery man?

• 2:35:53David Sims?

  Bam.

• 2:35:54Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 2:35:55Griffin Newman?

  David's impression for the listener.

• 2:35:56David Sims?

  I did a pretty good impression of the poster. He's like, I have 53 children or whatever.

• 2:36:01Griffin Newman?

  This is like.

• 2:36:02David Sims?

  He's like a sperm donor.

• 2:36:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:36:04Griffin Newman?

  And it turns out he has like 200 children.

• 2:36:06David Sims?

  Oh, it's 533 children. Wow.

• 2:36:08Speaker 02

  Jesus.

• 2:36:09Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:36:09Speaker 02

  Strong swimmers.

• 2:36:10Griffin Newman?

  This is like.

• 2:36:11Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 2:36:12Griffin Newman?

  A bunch of Michael Phelps in those testes.

• 2:36:13Speaker 02

  Heyo.

• 2:36:15Griffin Newman?

  This is like peak Griffin auditioning for everything, struggling actor, period. I, I think.

• 2:36:21Speaker 02

  You're one of the 500.

• 2:36:22Griffin Newman?

  I think I straight up auditioned for 15 different kids. Cause they kept being like, we liked your read on this. We went a different way. We have six more kids we want you to read for. Cause some of the kids are like leads. Some of the kids are one scene. Some of the kids are one line. They just kept throwing more songs at me.

• 2:36:39Speaker 02

  That is crazy.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  Not in the film. Not in the film.

• 2:36:42David Sims?

  Uh, the other film's out, uh, Homefront. Is that the one with Franco that like Sylvester Stallone wrote?

• 2:36:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It's this old Stallone script that was made with Statham.

• 2:36:52David Sims?

  Statham is the good guy and Franco's the bad guy.

• 2:36:55Griffin Newman?

  He's an American patriot being hunted by Franco as a creep.

• 2:36:59David Sims?

  Franco is an evil meth dealer.

• 2:37:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. Who plays Franco's wife in that?

• 2:37:04David Sims?

  Um, of course, Winona Ryder plays Gator's girlfriend.

• 2:37:08Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:37:08David Sims?

  Franco's playing a character called Gator. Uh, and Kate Bosworth plays Gator's mean sister.

• 2:37:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:37:15David Sims?

  Uh, you got number seven. You got the book thief. Is that like an inspirational?

• 2:37:18Speaker 02

  It is. It is a Holocaust film. It's a great book.

• 2:37:22David Sims?

  Great book.

• 2:37:22Speaker 02

  The, the movies.

• 2:37:23David Sims?

  Best seller.

• 2:37:24Speaker 02

  The movie's lackluster, but you got Geoffrey Rush in there, which is really great, but the.

• 2:37:27David Sims?

  GR's there.

• 2:37:28Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Mark Forster?

• 2:37:30Speaker 02

  It's.

• 2:37:33David Sims?

  Forster. Did Mark Forster?

• 2:37:34Speaker 02

  It's really great. It's a, it's a Holocaust story told from the perspective of death, uh, in the book at least.

• 2:37:39Griffin Newman?

  I like the sound of that.

• 2:37:40Speaker 02

  Mark Zuzak is the author, I think. Really, really, really great.

• 2:37:44David Sims?

  Marcus Zuzak. Uh, the director of this film is Brian Percival.

• 2:37:47Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:37:47David Sims?

  He never really made a lot of movies.

• 2:37:49Griffin Newman?

  It's Downton Abbey guy.

• 2:37:50David Sims?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 2:37:50Speaker 02

  That's so funny. Brian Percival isn't, are those, aren't those two of Dumbledore's middle names?

• 2:37:56David Sims?

  Rachel.

• 2:37:56Speaker 02

  Albus Percival.

• 2:37:57David Sims?

  I believe you are correct.

• 2:37:58Speaker 02

  Wolfric Brian Dumbledore.

• 2:38:00David Sims?

  I think, and I am embarrassed to admit, I think without checking, I know you are correct. Dumbledore. Remember in the fifth book when he's just like, Harry just experienced a great tragedy. Watch someone die in front of him. I think I'm gonna ignore him all year. That's my strategy. Uh, number eight at the box office is- By the way, when's the FBI gonna release the secrets of Dumbledore? They have that list. They're sitting on the files. All of Dumbledore's secrets. It's just so funny those, there were three of those movies and they were like, and the secrets will soon be revealed. Never, cause this franchise is done. Uh, number eight is the best man holiday. The sequel to the best man. Yeah. Sort of legacy sequel almost. Yeah. No, definitely.

• 2:38:45David Sims?

  Then number nine, the, in my opinion, wildly underrated drama, Philomena, uh, with Judi Dench. She'll never sing.

• 2:38:51Speaker 02

  Guys, I have a note from Judi Dench.

• 2:38:54David Sims?

  What? Uh, and does it say what? Like, I'm sorry, I rear ended your car to post it.

• 2:38:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. How did you know?

• 2:39:01David Sims?

  What's your note from Judy?

• 2:39:03Speaker 02

  Can I just say, this is the second time on this podcast that I'm revealing a note.

• 2:39:06David Sims?

  Right. Cause you had a note from Barbara. From Babs, right?

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  Um, Judy came to see Evita and I went into my dressing room one day and there was a beautiful blue note and I was struggling to read it. She's got very chicken scratch writing because, but apparently it's because her eyes had given out and that was-

• 2:39:21David Sims?

  She, she has very poor eyesight at this point.

• 2:39:23Speaker 02

  That was, that was the line, the last line of the note was like, sorry for my penmanship. I can't see shit essentially is what she said, but it's the letterhead.

• 2:39:31David Sims?

  Oh, like from the desk of Judy Dench?

• 2:39:32Speaker 02

  I didn't look at the letterhead. I was just trying to read this chicken scratch.

• 2:39:35David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:39:36Speaker 02

  It was Judy Dench. And so now I have it in a, I have it in a double sided frame.

• 2:39:40David Sims?

  Did she like you?

• 2:39:42Speaker 02

  She liked it. Like, imagine she-

• 2:39:45David Sims?

  I thought you were okay.

• 2:39:47Speaker 02

  You were shit in this.

• 2:39:48David Sims?

  Basic.

• 2:39:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Patty did it better.

• 2:39:51David Sims?

  What a queen, Judy Dench. Love her so much.

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  Philomena.

• 2:39:55David Sims?

  Philomena herself. And number 10 is, uh, Black Nativity, the Casey Lemmons movie. Oh, sure. Which I've never seen. Another like big ensemble family movie. I mean, it's, it's the season. It's tis the season.

• 2:40:05Speaker 02

  Tis the season.

• 2:40:05David Sims?

  Twas the season. And number 11, Dallas Buyers Club, soon to be seen on a date by me and my wife. What a time. What a time. What a time.

• 2:40:13Speaker 02

  At the Williamsburg Theater, huh?

• 2:40:15David Sims?

  At the Williamsburg Theater.

• 2:40:16Speaker 02

  That's where I saw Meghan.

• 2:40:17David Sims?

  Cauldron of Romance. That is where, that is, the law requires you see Meghan there.

• 2:40:22Speaker 02

  Muthreagan.

• 2:40:23David Sims?

  I was gonna ask you to correct. Thank you for taking it.

• 2:40:25Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Muthreagan.

• 2:40:27David Sims?

  Muthreagan. Yeah.

• 2:40:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I love this movie.

• 2:40:31Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 2:40:33Griffin Newman?

  I love Mithreagan. No, I love Llewyn Davis. I could watch this movie every day of my life.

• 2:40:37Speaker 02

  And I did my freshman year of high school. It's, it is, it's got really great rewatchability, actually, because

• 2:40:44Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:40:45Speaker 02

  As you get older, as you go through different things, you notice different things about it. You have different sympathies, you have different annoyances. It's, it's really fucking fantastic.

• 2:40:55Griffin Newman?

  And also rewatching it feels like resetting the cycles of his life.

• 2:40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:59Speaker 02

  I said, I mean, I, I actually had to like stop myself from saying this to Ethan Cohen at a party once.

• 2:41:04David Sims?

  Did you mean?

• 2:41:05Speaker 02

  I met him and I pretended that I didn't know who he was.

• 2:41:08David Sims?

  Rachel.

• 2:41:09Speaker 02

  I was really nervous.

• 2:41:10David Sims?

  No.

• 2:41:11Speaker 02

  No, he didn't say like, I'm Ethan Cohen. He said, my name is Ethan. I was like, cool. What do you do? You know?

• 2:41:17Griffin Newman?

  That's quite a move.

• 2:41:17Speaker 02

  You have to, you have to. I'm so sorry. I, I can't like, I really, I got so nervous. Cause how do I explain that I've seen the movie like 300 something times?

• 2:41:27David Sims?

  I think you could say that to him and he would go.

• 2:41:30Speaker 02

  Or he'd go, why? What's wrong with you?

• 2:41:32Griffin Newman?

  I do think that's how he would respond.

• 2:41:34Speaker 02

  What prescription are you on? How much soul off do you take?

• 2:41:38Griffin Newman?

  I think you're right that this is, he'd pull out a list of alts and they'd be all the things you just said. I don't think that's a guy who takes compliments.

• 2:41:45David Sims?

  No.

• 2:41:46Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing. And that's why.

• 2:41:47David Sims?

  He probably deflects it with a joke. You're right.

• 2:41:48Speaker 02

  And that's why I like, wouldn't dare compliment him. He's probably been complimented enough. He does ask for, he was, he did ask my best friend for an opinion on his current play that is playing with Aubrey Plaza. Um, and like, they all went out after my best friend happened to be there. And he was like, should I change this? Like asked her for like genuine advice and she said, I think you should keep it in. And he did. Which is really cool. These are, they're really cool people. Like they're just, I mean, you can't, you, you can't deny it after watching one of their films. They're like a really cool person to have made this. And like, they are cool people.

• 2:42:20David Sims?

  It would be funny if they were total squares.

• 2:42:22Speaker 02

  Total squares.

• 2:42:23David Sims?

  They were like, I love J Crew.

• 2:42:25Speaker 02

  And Old Navy.

• 2:42:27Griffin Newman?

  Calm music.

• 2:42:28David Sims?

  Well, wait a second.

• 2:42:29Speaker 02

  Well, hey now, Ben is right there.

• 2:42:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:32David Sims?

  Well, I, I mean, I don't.

• 2:42:35Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 2:42:36Griffin Newman?

  You're just a historian. You're an impartial historian.

• 2:42:39David Sims?

  Ben, you were a former tuba player.

• 2:42:42Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, there was a re-

• 2:42:43Speaker 01

  Don't you dare in front of Rachel.

• 2:42:45Speaker 02

  I was, hey, I was an alto saxophone player.

• 2:42:47David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:42:48Speaker 02

  Shout out tuba.

• 2:42:49Speaker 01

  Shout out band.

• 2:42:50Speaker 02

  Shout out band. Well, I was technically a woodwind.

• 2:42:53David Sims?

  I guess the sax is technically, you know, it's got the, it's got the metal on the outside.

• 2:42:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:42:58David Sims?

  I guess that's cool.

• 2:42:58Speaker 02

  Whatever you say.

• 2:42:59Speaker 01

  I'm a ska appreciator and I, but I also-

• 2:43:02David Sims?

  A ska appreciator.

• 2:43:03Speaker 01

  I didn't want someone to come for me as far as like my lack of ska.

• 2:43:07David Sims?

  You didn't want some baggy trousered fellow knocking on your door.

• 2:43:11Speaker 01

  He starts swinging around his fucking chained wallet and ropes me.

• 2:43:15Griffin Newman?

  What a nightmare.

• 2:43:16David Sims?

  Ties you up in some suspender.

• 2:43:18Griffin Newman?

  Kicking you with his checkerboard van.

• 2:43:20David Sims?

  Trying to think of other, exactly.

• 2:43:22Griffin Newman?

  Steel-toed checkerboard vans.

• 2:43:25David Sims?

  Rachel, thank you very much for taking the time in your very busy schedule to come do this bullshit for two and a half hours.

• 2:43:31Speaker 02

  Stop. I'm genuinely like so honored because I love talking about this movie and I'll talk about movies with you guys.

• 2:43:36David Sims?

  It's lovely to talk to you.

• 2:43:38Speaker 02

  Time for me to plug the Evita album.

• 2:43:40Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna ask. Yeah.

• 2:43:42David Sims?

  Please.

• 2:43:42Speaker 02

  I'm kidding, because when does this drop, guys? When do you think?

• 2:43:45David Sims?

  Pretty soon. Let's, let's find out. Yeah, it's gonna drop on November 2nd.

• 2:43:50Speaker 02

  Awesome. So the Evita album is going to be available, it's selections from the Evita album, it's not the full thing,

• 2:43:57Speaker 02

  on October 24th. So by the time you are listening to this, it'll be out on all the platforms.

• 2:44:02David Sims?

  And I should listen to it on a Stairmaster, right? Going up and downstairs.

• 2:44:05Speaker 02

  To get the full experience. And then you should go outside and go outside on a balcony and like look up at the, like, don't be on the balcony. You've got to like go outside, look up at a balcony.

• 2:44:15David Sims?

  Okay. Oh, right. And to listen to Argentina.

• 2:44:19Speaker 02

  Don't cry for me, Argentina.

• 2:44:20David Sims?

  Just find the nearest balcony in your eye line and focus on it.

• 2:44:23Griffin Newman?

  And also tweet at Cash Patel, demand the release of the full Evita cast recording.

• 2:44:28David Sims?

  Oh yeah, exactly. Good selection.

• 2:44:30Speaker 02

  I can't say anything on this matter, but just know that I feel the same way. 10 tracks, 10 tracks, the three hour fucking musical.

• 2:44:38Griffin Newman?

  Release the full album.

• 2:44:39David Sims?

  And it's sung through.

• 2:44:40Speaker 02

  And it's sung through, it's an opera, yeah.

• 2:44:41Griffin Newman?

  Release the secrets of Dumbledore and the crimes of Grandpa.

• 2:44:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, where are the Dumbledore files?

• 2:44:46David Sims?

  Is there anything else you want to plug? Is there anything else coming up?

• 2:44:49Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 2:44:50David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:44:51Speaker 02

  Let's, let's just like, I don't know, call your senators and pressure them to bring Evita to Broadway.

• 2:44:56Griffin Newman?

  This, this is a very good plug.

• 2:44:58David Sims?

  Now wait a second.

• 2:44:59Speaker 02

  It's a national matter.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Plaguing our country today.

• 2:45:02Speaker 02

  It's a national matter.

• 2:45:04Griffin Newman?

  There is a criminal lack of Evita on Broadway.

• 2:45:06Speaker 02

  Go vote Mom Donnie, guys.

• 2:45:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, uh, this will come out.

• 2:45:10David Sims?

  Election day is two days from now. If you live in New York, please.

• 2:45:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:45:14David Sims?

  Go and vote.

• 2:45:14Speaker 02

  The name is Mom Donnie.

• 2:45:16David Sims?

  And I will say, when I went to vote in the primary and I was going to my early voting location, I voted early, not to brag.

• 2:45:24Speaker 02

  Hey, not to brag.

• 2:45:25David Sims?

  Um, the Zoran canvasser came up to me and said, are you David? It was your blank check. And I said, yes. And she said, I'm a big fan of your show.

• 2:45:33Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry, Zoran Mom Donnie, friend of the pod.

• 2:45:35David Sims?

  Let's get Zoran on. He could do it.

• 2:45:37Speaker 02

  What movie do you think he'd come and talk to you guys about?

• 2:45:40David Sims?

  Well, not one of his mom's movies, because that would be too personal.

• 2:45:43Griffin Newman?

  I was talking about this with someone. I was like, if we had done Mirinayer three years ago, it would have looked cool and it would have been easier to book him now.

• 2:45:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:52Griffin Newman?

  If you would have been like, oh, you guys did that? That's like.

• 2:45:55David Sims?

  That's cool.

• 2:45:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. Now we can't do without looking like we're trying to get his attention.

• 2:45:58David Sims?

  What's his favorite movie? Let's find out.

• 2:45:59Speaker 02

  We should find out. This is a big voting issue.

• 2:46:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:02David Sims?

  Yeah, we should be hearing this more.

• 2:46:04Speaker 02

  What if he doesn't like Inside Lou and Davis?

• 2:46:05David Sims?

  Cuomo's just like, my favorite movie is, uh, whatever the best movie is, whatever everyone agrees is the good movie.

• 2:46:10Speaker 02

  Who's the other guy? Sliwa? Sliwa? Him being like, Gangs of New York is about me.

• 2:46:17David Sims?

  Sliwa was spitting bars at that debate. I cannot deny it. When he was like, 311 is a joke. The parade part where they were like, did you watch it? Where they're like, you know, what parades would you do? What parade do you boycott? And both Cuomo and Zoran are like, what? And Sliwa's like, the mayor should be in all parades. Parades are the most important thing. I will never say no to a parade. I'd be in a parade. It was at 3:00 in the morning. I'd be at the fucking parade.

• 2:46:39Speaker 02

  It's amazing. It's amazing. He's like, I was shot at a 7-Eleven. It's like, it's shit like that, that really, I don't know. Maybe he'd be a friend of the pod.

• 2:46:48Griffin Newman?

  Does Zoran like, like Jumpin' Jack Flash? Uh, oh, cause Penny Marshall. Cause Penny Marshall.

• 2:46:54Speaker 02

  Cause Penny Marshall.

• 2:46:55Griffin Newman?

  We always say that Penny Marshall's next. Um, thank you again, Rachel.

• 2:46:59Speaker 02

  Hey, thank you guys so much.

• 2:47:00Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you all for listening. Hey, we love you. You're the best.

• 2:47:04Speaker 02

  I am.

• 2:47:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh, you're three out of five tutored kids' favorite movie star.

• 2:47:09Speaker 02

  I'll say, I will take it. That's like two, two, three more than I ever thought I'd have. So.

• 2:47:13Griffin Newman?

  Golden Globe winner and consensus favorite of JJ Birch's pupils.

• 2:47:20Speaker 02

  Aw, thanks, JJ.

• 2:47:20Griffin Newman?

  The great Rachel's. Uh, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Hail Caesar? Uh, next week is Hail Caesar with Shirley Lee. With the great Shirley Lee returning to the show.

• 2:47:33Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 2:47:33Griffin Newman?

  And I'm gonna say this very quietly because I don't want to get upset. David is very much O the L in that episode.

• 2:47:39Speaker 02

  You're awful.

• 2:47:40Griffin Newman?

  Oh, am I? I don't remember.

• 2:47:43Speaker 02

  What'd you do?

• 2:47:44Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. I have no memory. Shirley gets it out of you. She gets the sillies out of you. Yeah.

• 2:47:48Speaker 02

  I love it. I actually really love Hail Caesar, so that's great. It's a great movie.

• 2:47:53Griffin Newman?

  And as always, Detective Fart Man. Perfectly timed bark. Lenny's like, there's a fucking guy in the other.

• 2:48:01Speaker 02

  Let's play the Wonder Dog.

• 2:48:08Speaker 01

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us

• 2:48:53Speaker 01

  on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.