Is This Thing On?

Testing, testing…does anybody know? Is this thing on? It depends on who you ask, frankly. The Blank Check team are divided on Bradley Cooper’s latest offering, the divorce dramedy Is This Thing On? Can you just walk in off the street to do an open mic at the Comedy Cellar? No. Is Peyton Manning one of our finest athlete actors? Yes. Is Griffin’s opinion of this film possibly strained by his anxiety over the New York City mayoral election? Probably. Join us for an episode that we hope is funnier than Will Arnett’s sad sack stand-up, but also probably not as brilliant as Bradley Cooper’s performance as a guy named “Balls.” Read the Cybertruck article https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/entertainment/article/3257594/teslas-cybertruck-new-it-car-10-celebrities-rocking-four-wheeled-status-symbol-beyonce-and-kim Listen to Cannes I Kick It https://cannesikickit.podbean.com/ Watch the Vic Mensa ft. Wyclef Jean performance on Colbert https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=245079227166665 Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10David Sims?

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

• 1:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, do you have something to say?

• 1:48David Sims?

  No, go ahead.

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Is this podcast on?

• 1:52David Sims?

  See, he, he, he wanted, he killed our great intro so he could do that.

• 1:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. A way this podcast works.

• 2:00David Sims?

  That's why he killed it.

• 2:01Griffin Newman?

  Here's my impression of what happens every time David goes, can we start the podcast? I go, okay, let me find a quote. And then you go, oh.

• 2:07David Sims?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  As if you have not been hosting Blank Check with Griffin David for 11 years.

• 2:15David Sims?

  11, Ben.

• 2:15Griffin Newman?

  11.

• 2:16David Sims?

  This is 2026.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  This is the first episode?

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  Of our 11th year?

• 2:21David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:21Griffin Newman?

  And sometimes you seem so confused and irritated by the mere existence of this show.

• 2:27David Sims?

  Confused is not the word, but you nailed the second one.

• 2:30Griffin Newman?

  It is what it is. I don't know what you want out of me.

• 2:33David Sims?

  Arrive on time.

• 2:35Griffin Newman?

  Impossible.

• 2:36David Sims?

  Have a quote ready, and when Ben says we're rolling, do the quote.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Do you think this is why Laura Dern and Will Arnett separated?

• 2:46David Sims?

  No, they separated because he couldn't see her as anything but a volleyball player. I think, I think that's what it was.

• 2:53Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying, what happened just now was I started the quote and you sighed.

• 2:56David Sims?

  No, I sighed because we had a funny intro and you, you nixed it. And instead you did this.

• 3:01Griffin Newman?

  The funny intro was Ben eating a sandwich.

• 3:04David Sims?

  It was funny.

• 3:04Griffin Newman?

  Listeners, vote if you think that's how you wanted this episode just going.

• 3:07David Sims?

  I welcome the poll.

• 3:09Griffin Newman?

  And let me be clear.

• 3:09David Sims?

  Blue wave incoming. I'm blue.

• 3:12Griffin Newman?

  It was the crunchiest sandwich imaginable.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  He did toast it to get it crunchy.

• 3:16David Sims?

  Again, this is a movie about stand-up comedy, but I don't know how you guys feel. It's not a laugh riot.

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  I found it dramatically unfunny.

• 3:23David Sims?

  Griffin wasn't a huge fan, but.

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  I would say this movie made my skin crawl.

• 3:27David Sims?

  But even quality-wise aside, just not that funny a movie. Well, a few moments.

• 3:33Griffin Newman?

  I restate.

• 3:33David Sims?

  Here and there.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  I found it dramatically unfunny.

• 3:36David Sims?

  Marie funny?

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Um, Bradley Cooper's funny.

• 3:39David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure. Ben, off mic, but my guess is you thought it was mildly funny at best.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, not even very funny.

• 3:47Griffin Newman?

  Every single time Bradley Cooper's character, who is named Balls.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:51David Sims?

  He sure is.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  He sure is.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  He sure is called Balls.

• 3:54David Sims?

  Really? I mean, that's how he's credited.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  That's his nickname, but it's a credit.

• 3:57David Sims?

  And they do call him Balls.

• 3:58Griffin Newman?

  Every single time Balls is on screen, I was laughing. And at the screening I was at, the entire audience was laughing.

• 4:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  Every time he was on screen, and the rest of the movie was pin drop silent.

• 4:09David Sims?

  Yeah, it was a lot of, but, but to, to, anyway, so this movie not that funny. Now, we talked for half an hour, various meeting stuff, guys, debating, debating business. Celebrities we should invite on, who's on our shit list, deciding to make a sandwich. No, no, no, no, no. So we're all, oh, scheduling, oh, who should we email? You know, we, we were burning time and it's sort of like, okay, we gotta start the episode. Ben's like, okay, produces, I would say, a Looney Tunes size.

• 4:36Griffin Newman?

  You're missing a piece of this.

• 4:37David Sims?

  What am I missing?

• 4:38Griffin Newman?

  You're missing a piece of this, which is, I'm eating a wrap.

• 4:41David Sims?

  Yeah, you're eating.

• 4:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm rolling, I go, hold on, let me just finish this bite.

• 4:45David Sims?

  Sure, you take a bite, right.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  I digest the bite, I'm ready to start, and I look over, and Ben has magically produced.

• 4:51David Sims?

  It's so big.

• 4:52Griffin Newman?

  The largest, it's fresh out of the microwave, steam lines coming off of it.

• 4:55David Sims?

  I think it was fresh out of the toaster oven, I smelled some burning bread.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  And he takes a bite and it's crunch.

• 5:00David Sims?

  It's crunch, and I'm like, where did you get that? Why didn't you eat that while we were talking?

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  He had just told me to start and suddenly.

• 5:06David Sims?

  Because I wasn't hungry then, which was funny.

• 5:10David Sims?

  It was all captured on mic.

• 5:11Griffin Newman?

  You'll hear it later. Marie's taking a picture of the sandwich.

• 5:13David Sims?

  David, I got it from Caputo's.

• 5:15Griffin Newman?

  You're filming the sandwich?

• 5:16David Sims?

  Love that. Great Italian specialty food store in Cobble Hill. I love Caputo's Bakery, a classic old school Italian joint.

• 5:25Griffin Newman?

  Bradley Cooper, one of our great Italian American filmmakers.

• 5:29David Sims?

  Uh, can I finish that thought?

• 5:31Griffin Newman?

  Bradley Cooper, one of the great Italian American filmmakers.

• 5:34David Sims?

  And, and why do you say that? I mean, he, his, uh, mother is Irish, uh, Italian, I believe.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  His mother's Italian.

• 5:41David Sims?

  Yeah. He, of course, makes a cheesesteak on the East Village.

• 5:45Griffin Newman?

  He does a crunchy sandwich.

• 5:46David Sims?

  But it's available to anyone.

• 5:48Griffin Newman?

  When they opened, he was making them himself.

• 5:50David Sims?

  Or at least when they were in the food truck, he definitely was.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  When they opened the physical space.

• 5:54David Sims?

  He, he was in there a couple of times.

• 5:55Griffin Newman?

  And when it was like, they're open one day a week and you gotta check the schedule.

• 5:58David Sims?

  The line.

• 5:59Griffin Newman?

  It was cuz it was fucking Bradley was there, and he was like, I got two hours, let me make a.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  I haven't forgiven you guys for not inviting me.

• 6:06David Sims?

  I didn't go.

• 6:07Griffin Newman?

  It was just Bobby Wagner and I.

• 6:09David Sims?

  Yeah. I went with my friend Eric.

• 6:11Griffin Newman?

  Bobby Wagner.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  You still went.

• 6:12David Sims?

  Okay, do you want to hang out with Eric? Do you know him?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  No, but maybe we'd be friends.

• 6:16David Sims?

  Marie, you might get along.

• 6:18Griffin Newman?

  We're going.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  We'll go.

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Ben and I will go.

• 6:20David Sims?

  It's honestly kind of better now because you don't have to wait a million hours for it or whatever.

• 6:25Griffin Newman?

  When he was still doing the limited pop-up hours, Bobby Wagner and I and our respective partners went to see Better Man.

• 6:33David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:34Griffin Newman?

  A better film than this.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:36David Sims?

  Sure.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  Was playing at the Villagey Cinema in a screen with a sign outside that said, "Warning."

• 6:42David Sims?

  This movie's about a monkey guy.

• 6:44Griffin Newman?

  Heating broken.

• 6:45David Sims?

  Oh, hell, yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:47David Sims?

  And Better Man came out in August, right? Sweltering August.

• 6:50Griffin Newman?

  It was a late December release. We were seeing it the nippiest days of January. We were seeing it the last day of theaters.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  I remember that being the reason why I didn't go to the Bradley Cooper pop-up at the time was like, "I'm not going to stand out in the East Village."

• 7:04David Sims?

  It was a cold winter.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  In the freezing cold.

• 7:06Griffin Newman?

  We saw it.

• 7:07David Sims?

  It was no good time to release Better Man, but Christmas does not strike me as a great time to have released.

• 7:12Griffin Newman?

  We saw it second half in 12.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  It's fun for the whole family. What are you talking about?

• 7:15David Sims?

  Sure.

• 7:15Griffin Newman?

  Very close to Danny and Coop's, which I was wrong. It's not Danny Myers. It's...

• 7:20David Sims?

  No, it's not Danny Myers. It's some other guy.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  It's some other guy.

• 7:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  No offense to that man if he listens to this podcast.

• 7:25Griffin Newman?

  And we decided, we were like, "Fuck it, it's really cold, but we're here. Let's see." They had advertised they were going to be open today. And we walked over and a guy was like pulling the gate down and he was like, "They ran out of..."

• 7:37David Sims?

  Danny Giampietro. Danny Giampietro.

• 7:41Griffin Newman?

  Who's like a legit cheesesteak man, right?

• 7:43David Sims?

  Yeah, and so they'd run out the first time, but you and Bobby went back.

• 7:47Griffin Newman?

  So then Bobby and I were like, "We gotta go back."

• 7:50David Sims?

  And, you know, I had that cheesesteak.

• 7:52Griffin Newman?

  It was forged in that moment. There was the impulse decision to try to get it post-Better Man and it was forged in that moment. You were not left out of anything consciously, Marie. And it was just Bobby.

• 7:59David Sims?

  And this is Marie Barty Salinas, who is a Philadelphia native that we're speaking to. We're going to introduce someone out of order.

• 8:05Griffin Newman?

  This is a party Salinas episode.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yes, it is. We're going to have a good time.

• 8:07Griffin Newman?

  We're going to have a great time.

• 8:09David Sims?

  But I...

• 8:11David Sims?

  I'm not, I would, I'm not trying to offend you, but I'm not a huge cheesesteak person.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  That's okay.

• 8:17David Sims?

  Generally, right, I don't, I think you're kind of not that pumped up about cheesesteaks either.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  I'm like, you know, I, I don't love Cheez Whiz. I'm like more of a.

• 8:24David Sims?

  Right, and he, you know.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I want like either Provo Lone or American, you know.

• 8:29David Sims?

  Proprietary cheese, which is very good.

• 8:30Griffin Newman?

  It's really good.

• 8:31David Sims?

  This cheesesteak is good.

• 8:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a very liquid cheese that is not Cheez Whiz, but it doesn't feel like it's some stupid elevated.

• 8:37David Sims?

  Right, no, exactly.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  That sounds really promising.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  It's a better version of a junky, super soft cheese.

• 8:42David Sims?

  I went with Eric, and Eric makes fun of me for, usually I'll only eat half of a giant sandwich like that and keep the other half. Now, I don't think you should make fun of me because I think I'm just living my life.

• 8:52Griffin Newman?

  There are many other reasons to make fun of you.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Oh, Ben's going, is Ben going to get the other half of his giant sandwich?

• 8:57David Sims?

  All this talk.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Taking another bite?

• 8:59David Sims?

  And I, I ate half the sandwich and I was sitting and I was digesting and I was like, I'm gonna eat the other half. This isn't making me feel like complete garbage. Like, it's not like a, you know, rock in my stomach, which a cheesesteak can be.

• 9:11Griffin Newman?

  I had the exact same experience. And knowing me and my tum tum.

• 9:13David Sims?

  And no weird poops later.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  I did not have problems.

• 9:17David Sims?

  And you know, I had dinner with Bradley Cooper, which we'll talk about on this episode, and I should have told him no weird poops later.

• 9:22Griffin Newman?

  Can you just clarify that? Anytime you say a sentence like this, I need you to clarify it.

• 9:26David Sims?

  I attended one of these awards-y where it's like 20 people and three celebrities.

• 9:30Griffin Newman?

  The funniest occurrence is where they'll be like, the cast of this movie invites you to dinner, sit at a long communal table.

• 9:36David Sims?

  I mean, like, it's.

• 9:37Griffin Newman?

  With like 15 of your industry colleagues, and then the A-listers at the top of the table.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  I told my husband.

• 9:42David Sims?

  In a way, right.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  I was like, I was like David Selena, or David Sims talked to Bradley Cooper. They had dinner and they talked about how he goes to every Eagles home game.

• 9:52David Sims?

  He does.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  And Dave, my husband David was like, wait, David got dinner with Bradley?

• 9:57David Sims?

  It sounds like I texted him and was like, hey, wanna go to like, you know, let's get a slice.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Erlich was there too. It was not a real thing.

• 10:03Griffin Newman?

  Do you think, do you think the whole notion behind, and by the way, Ben Hozley, ultimate professional, eating his sandwich in the corner?

• 10:09David Sims?

  What a great boy.

• 10:10Griffin Newman?

  He looks great. He's really happy. No crunch on mic.

• 10:13David Sims?

  And by the way.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  We're getting this good sandwich material you want.

• 10:16David Sims?

  And this is the first episode of the, of the new year.

• 10:19Griffin Newman?

  A great entry point for the listeners.

• 10:21David Sims?

  We have not introduced what this show is.

• 10:22Griffin Newman?

  We'll get to it. We'll get to it. Yeah. But, um.

• 10:24David Sims?

  I actually am lying because Bradley Cooper didn't stay for dinner, which is fine.

• 10:29Griffin Newman?

  Oh, d'urrs?

• 10:30David Sims?

  Uh, he was there for the drinks, uh, which is the, kind of the, you know, the part where there's the most chatting.

• 10:35Griffin Newman?

  So you should have said, I got drinks with Bradley.

• 10:38David Sims?

  I got a drink with Bradley Cooper.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  But he also is famously sober, correct?

• 10:41David Sims?

  Yeah, we were both drinking like Yuzu sodas or.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 10:45Griffin Newman?

  He wasn't drinking like a Tom Holland beer.

• 10:48David Sims?

  Not that I knew. And, uh, and then we sat down to dinner and, uh, Will Arnett and Antra Day were also there, uh, people in this movie.

• 10:56Griffin Newman?

  Arnett also sober.

• 10:57David Sims?

  Yes, that's right. I mean, look, I wasn't checking everyone's drinks.

• 11:00Griffin Newman?

  You shouldn't have been.

• 11:01David Sims?

  My finger and being like, I taste alcohol.

• 11:03Griffin Newman?

  It would have been funny if you showed up with like a breathalyzer.

• 11:05David Sims?

  Yeah, like, now wait a second.

• 11:07Griffin Newman?

  Hold on.

• 11:08David Sims?

  Um, Antra Day, however, gluten free, and we discussed that.

• 11:11Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. And you did test her.

• 11:12David Sims?

  And I did. I was, I was like, eat this crouton. She was like, no, I won't do it.

• 11:17Griffin Newman?

  You had a celiac test in your back.

• 11:19David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, oh wait, oh, oh, but right, as we sat down to dinner, Bradley Cooper went, anyway, I have to go. I'm so sorry. And he talked to us for a minute more. And then he was like, I have to pick up my daughter from Russian class.

• 11:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:30David Sims?

  And I was just like, so many questions. Russian class?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Well, because her mother is supermodel Rena Shake.

• 11:36David Sims?

  There you go. That's, see, that's the thing I couldn't put together.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  This is what you need me for, like.

• 11:40David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  To know Bradley Cooper's dating history and all of the Victoria's Secret models.

• 11:44David Sims?

  Everything I got from Bradley, which included some insights about this movie, mostly insights about Clint Eastwood, which is what I really wanted.

• 11:49Griffin Newman?

  Ooh.

• 11:50David Sims?

  Um, but I'll do that later.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  Am I correct in thinking, in remembering that they were never married, that they had a child together and they were together for several years?

• 11:58David Sims?

  I believe the only person he's ever been married to was Jennifer Esposito for one year.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Who is famously gluten free.

• 12:03Griffin Newman?

  Yep. Very, very seriously.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Very seriously gluten free.

• 12:06David Sims?

  Does she like post about it a lot or?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  No, she like opened up a bakery in the East Village.

• 12:09David Sims?

  Well, you know, my wife has celiac.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I know.

• 12:11Griffin Newman?

  Congrats. Humble brag.

• 12:12David Sims?

  And so I am very conscious of, uh, gluten.

• 12:15Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I don't want to get the details of the story wrong, which is why I'm going to proceed to just describe what I remember, probably. In accurately, but um, she had an issue where I believe she was misdiagnosed for many years, where she could tell that something was seriously wrong in her body.

• 12:29David Sims?

  I think this often happens, right?

• 12:30Griffin Newman?

  Doctors misdiagnosed it and it caused a lot of issues when she was on blue bloods and they dropped her from the cast of the show because they said she was difficult to work with and it was like a health condition and there was like a years long lawsuit.

• 12:41David Sims?

  No, no, and I do, you know, if women complain during a job, they are being difficult.

• 12:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, they should be grateful.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Right, exactly.

• 12:48Griffin Newman?

  And by the way, Marie, is there anything you want to say to us?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  I feel like at this point, we could edit together, like a compilation of all the horror.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Cancel compilation? We drop that when it's time to new the show. I love, that's, it's a joke, god damn it.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 13:03Griffin Newman?

  It's like when JD says that he wishes he could pull clips from the podcast and make them pull quotes on posters, like this looks like a bowl of farts. David Sims, the Atlantic.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Cam Dade is the greatest movie of all time.

• 13:15David Sims?

  Love Jennifer Esposito, uh, who I first discovered on Spin City way back in the day.

• 13:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:20David Sims?

  Uh, great show.

• 13:21Griffin Newman?

  Big, big fan. Uh, they had-

• 13:23David Sims?

  She's a big Spike Lee, uh, collaborator. I feel like she's in a bunch of leaves.

• 13:27Griffin Newman?

  Summer of Sam, she's really fucking good in it.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  I still haven't seen that one.

• 13:30Griffin Newman?

  Um, I love Summer of Sam.

• 13:32David Sims?

  It's a good movie.

• 13:33Griffin Newman?

  I love Summer of Sam.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  I, I, I kinda have like an Adrian Brody thing.

• 13:37Griffin Newman?

  It is so-

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Where he really great songs-

• 13:39David Sims?

  Oh, but dude, it's when he was like-

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Locked, he was like locked in.

• 13:42David Sims?

  Fascinating thing.

• 13:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:44David Sims?

  Where you were like, who, it was pre him being famous.

• 13:46Griffin Newman?

  It's like perfect Brody.

• 13:47David Sims?

  But we're also, I mean, just try to think of a time when like anytime that guy popped up and he wasn't famous, but you would be like, it's that guy again with the face and the nose, like he's so weird.

• 13:57Griffin Newman?

  Also, Marie, he's playing a Jewish punk.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:01Griffin Newman?

  Who people start to suspect might be the son of Sam.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  Because they're like, his vibe is so bad.

• 14:08David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:09Griffin Newman?

  It's like perfect casting for him where the whole energy is like, the fuck is going on with you, man? Um, he's great. That movie is very akin to Bring Out the Dead for me.

• 14:19David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  I love Bring Out the Dead.

• 14:21David Sims?

  1999, major New Yorker.

• 14:22Griffin Newman?

  American master.

• 14:23David Sims?

  Epics, uh, sorry, efforts about New York that are very dark.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  And like bombed hard at the time and everyone's like, the fuck are they doing? And I watched them and I'm like, this is like top tier of the filmography.

• 14:35David Sims?

  My brain is on screen right now.

• 14:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:37Griffin Newman?

  For, uh, very high up favorites for me in both of their filmographies.

• 14:41David Sims?

  Written by Michael Imperioli.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Love him.

• 14:44Griffin Newman?

  Cause he was supposed to play the Legzama character. And then I think Sopranos happened.

• 14:49David Sims?

  Yeah, well, and Violator made a couple of phone calls.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  That's the other thing that happened. He farted into the phone. And Spike Lee said, what am I gonna do? What do you want from me?

• 15:00David Sims?

  He's Violator. Anytime Spike Lee, like, he's in the Scorsese doc? And they'll just cut to him and he'll be like, thank God for asthma. And you're like, Rebecca Miller knows when the audience just needs a little punch in the arm, you know?

• 15:13Griffin Newman?

  Here's the best part, him saying, thank God for asthma, and then laughing for 15 consecutive seconds. Doing a full Barty laugh. Yeah.

• 15:21David Sims?

  He does like a Y Luigi laugh now. Cause he kinda like crouches and like, he'll, yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  He is kind of a Waluigi type.

• 15:28David Sims?

  Well, cause he wears a lot of purple.

• 15:29Griffin Newman?

  He wears a lot of purple.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  He wears a lot of purple. Did I tell you guys I was walking around this neighborhood? And it was the first time I had seen, this was probably a year ago, if not more, the first time I had seen a cyber truck out in the wild.

• 15:40David Sims?

  Okay.

• 15:41Griffin Newman?

  God fucking damn it, cyber truck.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Was he driving it?

• 15:44David Sims?

  No, Y Luigi was.

• 15:45Griffin Newman?

  Someone's driving a cyber truck in Brooklyn. Who the fuck is this asshole? And I look as the car turns the corner and I am 95% sure a, a, a sort of like sinking in his chair Spike Lee was shotgun.

• 16:02David Sims?

  Oh, shotgun, okay, okay. He wasn't driving.

• 16:04Griffin Newman?

  He wasn't driving it, didn't seem to be his car.

• 16:05David Sims?

  So maybe someone was like, hey, I'll come pick you up.

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  But almost as if he was like embarrassed, like, I don't want anyone to see that it's me.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put something out here and I'm gonna see if you guys agree with me.

• 16:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  I don't think Spike Lee can drive.

• 16:17Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so either, and that probably explains why I like his homography so much.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Right? Are you Googling Ken Spike Lee drive?

• 16:22David Sims?

  I am, although I don't know why I thought that would work out for me.

• 16:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure he can drive like a big wheel. I could see him on a big wheel, Bobby's world style.

• 16:31David Sims?

  Now we're making Spike Lee into an increasingly sort of gnomish, magical figure.

• 16:37Griffin Newman?

  He's Waluigi, he's Bobby from Bobby's world.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Ken Spike Lee drive a car.

• 16:42David Sims?

  I didn't get an answer and I, I don't know. I mean, he's a New York City guy, so he doesn't have to drive.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  He did an Escalade commercial.

• 16:48David Sims?

  Well, that doesn't, he'll do commercials about anything.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:51David Sims?

  God bless him. Uh, what's the podcast?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  His production company was ticketed for doing, uh, illegal parking in front of the office.

• 17:00David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  But unclear.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, not just, uh, just to close the loop on this, uh, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Esposito were married for 15 minutes.

• 17:09David Sims?

  Yeah, they were very briefly.

• 17:10Griffin Newman?

  And it is one of the most bizarre, kind of, uh, unexplained divorce situations, uh, ever. They were, uh, dating for many, many years, and then they got divorced like one week after they got married.

• 17:20David Sims?

  Uh, I mean, technically, obviously, six months or whatever, but I think they've said, like, "We realized immediately it was not a good idea."

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  I am not saying that Bradley Cooper doesn't have the right to make this movie. I just thought it was interesting to bring in, like, his own history with divorce for a guy who's had a lot of high-profile relationships. Today, we are talking about his new film, because this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 17:41David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 17:42Griffin Newman?

  And there's a smiling producer sitting across from me.

• 17:45David Sims?

  His belly full.

• 17:46Griffin Newman?

  The look of satisfaction on his face.

• 17:47David Sims?

  Chicken parm.

• 17:48Griffin Newman?

  Chicken parm taken down.

• 17:50David Sims?

  It's Benjamin Cronch, Cronch, Hozley.

• 17:52Griffin Newman?

  It's Benjamin Cronch, Cronch, Hozley. And as already mentioned, Marie Barty, Salinas, Party Salinas.

• 17:58David Sims?

  Philadelphia's own.

• 17:59Griffin Newman?

  Philadelphia's own.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Philadelphia's own.

• 18:01David Sims?

  Uh, fly eagles fly. What do they, what do they say?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Go birds.

• 18:04David Sims?

  Go birds.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  And also, like, yeah.

• 18:06David Sims?

  Wood rice.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  E-A-G-L-E-S, eagles.

• 18:09David Sims?

  Yeah, no, um, Bradley Cooper told me, uh, I'm gonna just drop in all the things that Bradley Cooper told me, which have remained in my brain, like, locked in the vault. To be clear, okay, so these stupid dinner invite things can only come in an awards season, obviously, and just because I'm an awardsy voter, I get invited to them.

• 18:24Griffin Newman?

  It would be funny if in April, they were like, "Hey, Mark Scorsese just wants to know I be free for dinner sometime."

• 18:30David Sims?

  Well, I've heard of, there's a couple people who do stuff like that. I, but that's not publicists. That's like.

• 18:35Griffin Newman?

  That's.

• 18:36David Sims?

  Filmmakers who just, right.

• 18:38Griffin Newman?

  They wanna sum it.

• 18:39David Sims?

  Yeah, they like to sort of mix it up.

• 18:40Griffin Newman?

  It's like the character actor dinners or whatever.

• 18:42David Sims?

  Yeah, and it's, I feel like that's also, that is kind of the old-school thing that, like, Pauline Kael used to do, where, like, you know, th- th- they were really mingly back then, the critics and the filmmakers, you know, Kael and Altman and all that. But, um.

• 18:55Griffin Newman?

  And Ebert and Scorsese.

• 18:56David Sims?

  Yeah, and, uh, the, you know, Corliss, that was a big guy with Scorsese, Richard Corliss. Anyway, these dinners come in and yes, I rarely go because I don't, I have kids and I can't do evenings.

• 19:09Griffin Newman?

  You have kids?

• 19:10David Sims?

  I do.

• 19:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 19:11David Sims?

  But that night I had to introduce Kiss Kiss Bang Bang at the Nighthawk.

• 19:14Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 19:14David Sims?

  And I was like, I'm actually not going to go home tonight. And this dinner is bizarrely at five o'clock, probably to fit Bradley Cooper's Russian lessons.

• 19:22Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 19:23David Sims?

  And so I was like, I think I'm going to take the meal, even though I was mixed on the movie. I do like Bradley Cooper, uh, and Will Arnett, uh, you know, I've liked him.

• 19:33Griffin Newman?

  We've loved so much of his work.

• 19:35David Sims?

  Yes. And Andra Day, hey, she's great, I guess.

• 19:39Griffin Newman?

  She absolutely has an Oscar nomination.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Did you talk to Will Arnett about being like, what's it like, being a famous podcaster?

• 19:46David Sims?

  Did not talk to Will Arnett really much at all, except sort of like in, well, when I walked in the door, I was one of the first people there and Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper were standing there.

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:58David Sims?

  And I was like, hi, I'm David. And they're like, hi. And I was like, do I, what do I do with my coat? And Will was like, I'll take your coat. Like, like, was doing a bit, like, which I thought was funny. He was like, oh yeah, I'm doing the coats, I'm doing the coats, you know, that was funny.

• 20:12Griffin Newman?

  You handed him the coat and then he went, is this thing off?

• 20:16David Sims?

  That he should have done.

• 20:17Griffin Newman?

  He had taken the coat off.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  That sounded like a Nicholson.

• 20:20Griffin Newman?

  It's tough.

• 20:20David Sims?

  Is this thing on?

• 20:22Griffin Newman?

  Is this thing on?

• 20:23David Sims?

  You know what I just watched? Uh, cause I have the, what is it? Um, vinegar syndrome, sort of fancy brand cinematography or whatever.

• 20:30Griffin Newman?

  Cinematography?

• 20:31David Sims?

  Uh, there you go. Uh, they're going south.

• 20:34Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I've never seen that.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  I just know like the picture of Jack Nicholson being like, ah.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Looking pretty, Jack.

• 20:40David Sims?

  Uh, uh, uh, retro I will do one day when I open the Sims Cinema or whatever.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  The Sims Cinema?

• 20:46David Sims?

  Westerns. Horny Westerns.

• 20:48Griffin Newman?

  Okay, what else is in horny Westerns?

• 20:49David Sims?

  I don't know, but I'm gonna have to, after watching that, I was like, right, Jack was like, can we make the Western horny? Like, there's gotta be others.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  Let me just close the loop here and then I want to hear.

• 20:57David Sims?

  Westerns about fucking all the Bradley.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Can I close a loop before?

• 21:01Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Um, sorry, I just found an article about celebrities who own Cybertrucks.

• 21:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Uh, film director Spike Lee took to Instagram in December 2023 to show off his brand new Cybertruck. Quote, "I put my reservation in two years ago," Lee wrote in the caption. So he owns the Cybertruck.

• 21:16David Sims?

  Whether or not he drives it.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Still doesn't answer the question if he drives or not, but he does own a Cybertruck.

• 21:21Griffin Newman?

  It, it had that vibe. It had that vibe. This is 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. We almost exclusively do mini-series on directors. Some people, especially more recent viewers, might be going, "Why the fuck is this an episode? What is happening here?" In the earlier days of the show, we would look for opportunities of new release movies where we'd be like, "Ah, fuck, let's do an episode on that."

• 21:54David Sims?

  I think with Star is Born, it was also just the hype around that was so crazy.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  It was like a watershed moment.

• 22:00David Sims?

  Right, and it was this kind of like insta-blank check. And we were like, "Well, let's fucking do a Star is Born." And then he has kind of, you know, continued to build out a filmography.

• 22:11Griffin Newman?

  But I remember that being the last year where Ben would actually have us look at the calendar and go, "Is there anything worth building an episode around?" And we both were like, "This kind of feels like it." And especially after you had seen it at TIFF. It was like, "This is a moment." And if we get it on the ground floor of this, it is gonna be interesting to keep tracking what's going on in his career, which I contend is still the case, even though I don't like this film at all. So this has been, in our sense, a series on Bradley Cooper, happening in real time.

• 22:39David Sims?

  Yeah, that whenever he makes a movie, we'll be there, including... Is this thing on?

• 22:44Griffin Newman?

  Is this, is this thing?

• 22:45David Sims?

  Hey, wait a second.

• 22:46Griffin Newman?

  Lego Batman, I'm trying to find it.

• 22:48David Sims?

  Did you turn this on?

• 22:49Griffin Newman?

  This is kind of a weird Lego Batman sequel. I know they struggled a lot in development to figure out the hook for the second one, but I feel like they really dropped most of what I liked about the first one.

• 22:59David Sims?

  The only thing we did in 2019 that was a standalone...

• 23:04Griffin Newman?

  Was Joker?

• 23:05David Sims?

  Well, yes, we did do Joker, but we had, of course, done DCU movies.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  And Cats, right?

• 23:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we did a Lion King Cats trailer episode.

• 23:13David Sims?

  The other thing we did was we, uh... We solved some murders.

• 23:17Griffin Newman?

  We solved some crimes.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Oh, Detective Pikachu.

• 23:20Griffin Newman?

  Detective Pikachu. Which is sort of an all-format episode for us.

• 23:22David Sims?

  It was, but I would like there to be a sequel to that.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  I really enjoyed Detective Pikachu.

• 23:29David Sims?

  Shot in film?

• 23:30Griffin Newman?

  It was fully announced. Do you remember? They said Jonathan Kressel was gonna direct Detective Pikachu.

• 23:35David Sims?

  They did, and I think Covid kind of kneecapped it, and now they're just sort of figuring out what to do with Pokemon.

• 23:39Griffin Newman?

  There are a lot of sequels like that that were in active development, and then Covid basically adding an extra two years of like pause made them go like, did we miss the moment? You know? Like, there's an alternate timeline in which they filmed that movie in 2020 or 2021, and it comes out in 21 or 22. And by the time they could have started having that conversation in 21, they were like, oh, we're gonna have this come out in 23? It just felt like, yeah.

• 24:05David Sims?

  You know what else is coming out in 2026? This year, by the way, because we're gonna cover some new films this year, obviously, from people who we've covered before.

• 24:11Griffin Newman?

  Sam Raimi, new Sam Raimi picture. Hell, fucking yeah.

• 24:14David Sims?

  We'll cover Sam Raimi's Send Help. We're gonna obviously cover Steven Spielberg's

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Untitled Alien movie?

• 24:20David Sims?

  We're gonna cover The Odyssey.

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  I hear it's called Alt-Aliens.

• 24:23David Sims?

  That's right.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  That's a joke about people getting mad at us. Go on.

• 24:25David Sims?

  We're gonna cover M. Night Shyamalan's Remain.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 24:28David Sims?

  And we're gonna cover Danny Boyle's Inc., which is coming out this year.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Wait, really?

• 24:33David Sims?

  Yes, the movie about Rupert Murdoch.

• 24:35Griffin Newman?

  But he's getting it out that fast?

• 24:36David Sims?

  I think so. They shot it in October. Like, there's no way it's not gonna be like a fall festival.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Well, it's not on the sketch.

• 24:42David Sims?

  And I liked that play.

• 24:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:44David Sims?

  Well, it's on the sketch because there's never a release date.

• 24:46Griffin Newman?

  Right, but there's like the side column of Undated.

• 24:49David Sims?

  And of course, we'll cover Horizon: Part II, An American Saga. I'm sure that's coming. I mean, that's one of those, just, it's coin flip. Either we'll never see it, or tomorrow is coming out.

• 25:01Griffin Newman?

  I'll... Look, may its memory be a blessing. It lives in my head. I watch it every night before I fall asleep.

• 25:06David Sims?

  Now, may I ask if it's only released to streaming?

• 25:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we'll do it.

• 25:11David Sims?

  Yeah, we might, we might.

• 25:12Griffin Newman?

  No question.

• 25:12David Sims?

  Put it on Patreon or something, but we'll do it.

• 25:14Griffin Newman?

  If it, if it comes out in any way, it is going mainstream. I think it has to.

• 25:17David Sims?

  I would agree. I mean, I would agree.

• 25:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:19David Sims?

  But.

• 25:20Griffin Newman?

  And I hope, I hope people get to see it.

• 25:22David Sims?

  That some Qatari prince will furnish Kevin Costner with whatever millions he needs to, to get that accomplished.

• 25:29Griffin Newman?

  And I say this without.

• 25:31David Sims?

  I love Qatar. He's in Qatar right now.

• 25:33Griffin Newman?

  I say this without revealing any privileged information. The vibe I keep getting of why this thing is bottlenecked is anytime anyone offers money to buy the film away from Warner Brothers, he's like, can't we put that money into part three? That his priority, anytime money is made available to him, even as a notion, is what about three, four, and five? And they're like, Kevin, can we just?

• 25:55David Sims?

  Five?

• 25:55Griffin Newman?

  Get two out.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  I thought there were only four.

• 25:58David Sims?

  Well, he started being like, I've got, I've got some five ideas.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  This is what's incredible. He absolutely is like, right now, I'm really excited about this five idea I just had. And people are like, get two out.

• 26:10David Sims?

  Well, you say people are like, it's, it's, it's a handful of people who are.

• 26:15Griffin Newman?

  My man's struggling with like three lawsuits.

• 26:18David Sims?

  I know, but it's just one of those things where it's like, there's no mob storming any Warner Brothers gates being like, horizon.

• 26:25Griffin Newman?

  No, the people I'm speaking of are the people who invested in two, the people who worked on two. I'm not saying the public is demanding it as much as everyone surrounding him directly.

• 26:35David Sims?

  To the people who invested in Kevin Costner's two-part epic saga about the American West, I say, thank you and I salute you.

• 26:41Griffin Newman?

  And I'm looking at the list of his primary investors.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  It was just himself, right?

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  It wasn't just himself.

• 26:44David Sims?

  He had some.

• 26:45Griffin Newman?

  He put up a tremendous amount of money, but it was not just him.

• 26:48David Sims?

  He also, Taylor Sheridan just checked his wallet and it's empty.

• 26:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, boy.

• 26:53David Sims?

  And Costner's running away. We're here to talk about Is This Thing On?, which is Bradley Cooper's third film as a director.

• 27:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:01David Sims?

  I don't know how many movies he's done as an actor. I could count if you want.

• 27:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, give a quick count, because I'm gonna just quickly, since this is.

• 27:06David Sims?

  Cause he is in it.

• 27:07Griffin Newman?

  And this is just how the podcast works. We're 11 years in. This is technically our final episode in our Bradley Cooper mini-series for now.

• 27:14David Sims?

  Unless he makes something else, which I believe he is.

• 27:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. So let me just do a quick ranking of Bradley Cooper films. Number one, Maestro with a Bullet.

• 27:21David Sims?

  You love Maestro.

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  Number two, A Star is Born. Number three, The Cheese Steak. Space, space, space, space, space, space. Number four is this thing on? A movie I really did not like.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so just, uh...

• 27:34David Sims?

  Griffin didn't like the film.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  It's a table set for everyone.

• 27:37David Sims?

  Oh, please. Oh, I am excited for this.

• 27:39Griffin Newman?

  David is licking his lips.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  So, uh, David saw this film independent of us.

• 27:44David Sims?

  I saw it at the New York Film Festival.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Yes, David, yes, David saw it before us. Um, and, uh, the three of us, uh, Ben, Griffin and myself, were, uh, supposed to go to a press screening and...

• 27:56Griffin Newman?

  Kindly offered to us by the folks at Fox Searchlight.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yes. And, um, it was packed.

• 28:03David Sims?

  People wanted to know, on, off?

• 28:07Griffin Newman?

  There was a tension.

• 28:08David Sims?

  Media?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  To know.

• 28:09Griffin Newman?

  There was a tension in the city. People were getting really antsy.

• 28:13David Sims?

  Right. People are, I was like, are you running for Zoro? And they're like, I don't care. I just want to know, is this thing on?

• 28:18Griffin Newman?

  Has anyone seen the switch? What position was it in?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Uh, I, I, I mean, I haven't been to as many press screenings as you have, David.

• 28:30David Sims?

  I have certainly been to a lot.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  I've been to a lot of them, but to me, this was like the most supri... This is the first press screening I've ever been to where they didn't have enough seats.

• 28:39David Sims?

  I, I do think what you experienced is a little rare. I also think they probably just, right, they should have scheduled more screenings. I think they eventually probably did.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  This was not at a movie theater. This was at a private screening room.

• 28:47David Sims?

  It was at 500 Park, which is a small room and, but, you know, there's a real dearth of screening rooms in New York City these days. I think, and like, come awards season, it, it... I am not a publicist. I don't have to deal with this. I think it becomes this nightmare, the jigsaw of like, everywhere's booked.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:04David Sims?

  Like, all fucking day, you know, from October to June or whatever.

• 29:08Griffin Newman?

  I was running late and they hit capacity like 10 minutes before the movie started.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  So you basically were like, there's no way you're getting in here.

• 29:15David Sims?

  And they weren't letting you hold seats.

• 29:17Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  So Ben and I didn't sit next to each other.

• 29:20David Sims?

  Kind of like The Cellar.

• 29:21Griffin Newman?

  A little bit like The Cellar.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  A little bit like The Cellar.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  And really high coverage. They made Marie get chicken tenders.

• 29:28David Sims?

  It's a four-drink minimum, man, and cokes cost eighteen dollars. How much is like a Diet Coke at the Comedy Cellar?

• 29:35Griffin Newman?

  Oh, my god.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Uh, but yeah, Griffin didn't, Griffin missed the movie.

• 29:38Griffin Newman?

  I saw it at the same screening room about ten weeks, uh, ten weeks, ten days, two weeks later.

• 29:43David Sims?

  Good bathrooms there, big mirror, so you can really see everything that's happening.

• 29:46Griffin Newman?

  I love the bathroom.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Um.

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

  And in fact, maybe I'll rank the shit I took in that bathroom above this movie.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  You know, okay, but just to, just to, just to put it out there, like,

• 29:54David Sims?

  I'm taking some shits at the 500 Park bathroom.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  David saw the movie first and you were like, yeah, it's smaller, but it's fine.

• 30:00David Sims?

  Uh, I was sort of like,

• 30:01Speaker 02

  It's fine, it's whatever, it's.

• 30:03David Sims?

  Mixed, some moments, which is where I am at.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  And then Ben and I, we get out of the movie and we're like, it's kind of a nut, we shrugged, we're like, eh.

• 30:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  You know, and I'm like, oh.

• 30:12David Sims?

  Which seems to be the somewhat general critical.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then.

• 30:14David Sims?

  I know a couple of people who love it.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Griffin.

• 30:15David Sims?

  Katie Rich, a huge fan of this movie.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  You hate this.

• 30:18Griffin Newman?

  Let me just take a step back here, right? They announced this movie.

• 30:21David Sims?

  Well, keep on the mic.

• 30:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 30:23David Sims?

  Take a step back, but bring the mic with you.

• 30:25Griffin Newman?

  Hello.

• 30:26David Sims?

  And Ben, do you have a second sandwich you want to eat right now?

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Unfortunately, no.

• 30:30David Sims?

  Ben's.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  But I do have dessert, tiramisu, no, I'm trying to.

• 30:32Griffin Newman?

  And Ben, do you wanna?

• 30:33David Sims?

  No, that's too soft, you would need a crunchy dessert. Rice Krispie treat.

• 30:41Griffin Newman?

  Kind of bland, but funny. Uh, Ben, uh, do you want to tell everyone what you Googled and look up on your screen? I, from the positioning of our desk, I have the view of Ben's.

• 30:48David Sims?

  You can see what Ben's Googling.

• 30:50Griffin Newman?

  And sometimes I just see what Ben has silently pulled up on his computer screen and it makes me happy.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  I was just trying to find an answer to your question, how much does a Coke cost at the Comedy Cellar?

• 31:01Griffin Newman?

  He's got the menu, he's got the full menu PDF on his computer.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  But they don't have listed soft drinks, but I'm actually kind of surprised, reasonable-ish pricing, like for example,

• 31:10David Sims?

  Sure.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  a Bud Light, five dollars.

• 31:11David Sims?

  Oh, that is pretty reasonable.

• 31:12Griffin Newman?

  Not bad at all.

• 31:13David Sims?

  So, okay.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Shout out.

• 31:14David Sims?

  So, you know, and I will say the Cellar's a totally fun place to go, I'm not trying to diss the Cellar.

• 31:18Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 31:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Griffin Newman?

  No, none of, none of this, these movie sins are not on the Comedy Cellar. I would say it has some insane representation of the Comedy Cellar.

• 31:30David Sims?

  Well, what do you mean, Griffin? When we were coming up in comedy, we would always go to the open mics at the Comedy Cellar.

• 31:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's the only way to avoid having to spend $15 to drink at a bar above the Comedy Cellar with no view of the stage.

• 31:42David Sims?

  Of course.

• 31:43Griffin Newman?

  That's just what you do. Listen, let me step back. They announced this movie.

• 31:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Griffin Newman?

  This movie, as it proudly proclaims in its end credits, is based on a true story.

• 31:52David Sims?

  Uh, it is, um, I can, I can speak to this.

• 31:54Griffin Newman?

  It's some real Brittany Runs a Marathon shit.

• 31:57David Sims?

  A, a little bit, but I would say it does not do the Brittany Runs a Marathon thing. It is ostensibly based on the life story of John Bishop, but as Bradley put it to me, because I was talking to him about like adapting. We were talking about Jeremy Strong because he had just done a Q and A with Jeremy Strong for the, the, at this point in January, well remembered, uh, Springsteen Deliver Me From Or To Nowhere From.

• 32:19Griffin Newman?

  Evil. Yeah, I did, I did typo twice in the same day. Deliver, Deliver Me From Evil.

• 32:25David Sims?

  And I told him like, oh, I just interviewed Jeremy Strong. We talked about playing real people, yada, yada, yada. And I was like, this must've been interesting where like, you know, you're, you got the real person. And he's like, oh, no. And I was like, no? And he was like, I, I took two things that he'd become the stand-up in that way.

• 32:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:40David Sims?

  Where he put his name down for fun. And then.

• 32:43Griffin Newman?

  He gets back together with his wife.

• 32:44David Sims?

  No, no, no, no, no. Just that, that his wife was then at a show. Like, he was like, those are the only two things about that that interested me.

• 32:50Griffin Newman?

  But in real life, what the guy's name is?

• 32:52David Sims?

  Uh, John Bishop. I believe, yes, he reunited with his wife. But he's like, but there, the marriage in this is not based on the marriage or anything like that. He's just like, there were just two plot points I liked. The initial thing.

• 33:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:02David Sims?

  And then the twist of like, and then when he's finally finding his feet at the comedy show, one day his wife is there.

• 33:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:10David Sims?

  That was it.

• 33:21David Sims?

  David?

• 33:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:25David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 33:26Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 33:27David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 33:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:34David Sims?

  Okay.

• 33:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 33:39David Sims?

  Wow.

• 33:39Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 33:42David Sims?

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

• 33:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 34:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 34:00Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 34:01David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 34:03Griffin Newman?

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

• 34:08David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 34:10Griffin Newman?

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

• 34:12David Sims?

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

• 34:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:16David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 34:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:18David Sims?

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

• 34:23Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 34:24David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 34:26Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 34:27David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 34:29Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 34:29David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 34:30Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 34:32David Sims?

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

• 34:42Griffin 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 make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 34:56David Sims?

  At Camp Miasma, yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 35:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:12David Sims?

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

• 35:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:30David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 35:36David Sims?

  Yes?

• 35:37Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:41David Sims?

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

• 35:46Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 35:48David Sims?

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

• 35:55Griffin 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.

• 36:04David Sims?

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

• 36:27Griffin Newman?

  From cold favorites to the world's biggest brands, score sweet 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.

• 36:58Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 36:59David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 36:59Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:07David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 37:08Griffin 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.

• 37:15David Sims?

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

• 37:21Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:22David Sims?

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

• 37:28Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:32David Sims?

  No!

• 37:33Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 37:33David 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 lisa.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. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 38:23Griffin Newman?

  This film is announced. It's announced kind of quietly as like-

• 38:27David Sims?

  Very quietly.

• 38:27Griffin Newman?

  Bradley Cooper's working on a new thing. It's a-

• 38:29David Sims?

  He's noodling around.

• 38:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a script by Will Arnett. Will Arnett would star in it, and it's maybe something about the comedy scene. And then at some point, it comes out, oh, it's based on John Bishop? And people are like, what does that mean?

• 38:42David Sims?

  Right. But it's also like, you start hearing like, he's in New York and like, because he lives in New York, but like-

• 38:47Speaker 02

  He's testing out material.

• 38:48David Sims?

  Right. They're shooting stuff and maybe like comedians are involved. And like, what's going on here?

• 38:53Griffin Newman?

  New York comedy subreddits are going like, I saw Will Arnett do 10 mediocre minutes last night. Right? And then people are like-

• 38:59David Sims?

  And you're like, but it's Will Arnett. Like, he could be funny, but it's like, but no, he's doing this like stilted thing.

• 39:04Griffin Newman?

  But then people are also like, I keep seeing Bradley Cooper at the audience at The Cellar. Or like, I saw five real comedians last night, but Bradley Cooper was just standing in the back with like, a 16mm camera. Right? Like, there was just this sort of like, something's happening here. We all are a little befuddled by this announcement. We're like, this is kind of a weird swing. We know that he is very good friends with Will Arnett.

• 39:27David Sims?

  They live together, which I did not know until he told me at this dinner, that they live together in Venice. And it took me, I would say, six to 12 days to clock that he meant Venice, California. I was like, why did you, poor, struggling actors move to Italy?

• 39:42Speaker 02

  That actually sounds kind of cool. I don't know what to move about that.

• 39:46David Sims?

  Yeah, what's that? But then I realized he meant Cal. He meant LA.

• 39:48Griffin Newman?

  When was this?

• 39:49David Sims?

  My guess is like, the 90s. Like, because, you know, like- When is Arnett? Arnett's already like, I mean Alias is 2001.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  So it's, it's gotta be.

• 39:59David Sims?

  Bradley Cooper's big break.

• 40:00Griffin Newman?

  I believe he meets Arnett because of doing Wet Hot, his first movie with Amy Poehler.

• 40:07David Sims?

  Which is like 99 or whatever. Right. I don't know when exactly they lived together, but it was certainly when they were both struggling nobodies.

• 40:14Griffin Newman?

  Did Wet Hot come out 2000 or 2001?

• 40:15David Sims?

  2001. It's a famous 9/11 failure.

• 40:18Griffin Newman?

  So then it's shot in 2000. He gets Wet Hot like a week after he graduates.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:24Griffin Newman?

  From the Actors Studio Program.

• 40:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 40:26Griffin Newman?

  So I think he's there like 96 or 97 to 2000.

• 40:31David Sims?

  Right. And they're, they're right. They're in LA as the century turns, the millennium approaches.

• 40:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:37David Sims?

  Uh, you know, the Y2K bug. Everything okay with that? Everything worked out great. Yeah. Good, good.

• 40:43Griffin Newman?

  And, and perhaps I'm wrong about this and there was some other reason they had met before.

• 40:46David Sims?

  They, Bradley has said they knew each other in New York.

• 40:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 40:50David Sims?

  But that he was kind of intimidated by Will Arnett.

• 40:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:52David Sims?

  Cause Will Arnett, I can confirm, and I think you guys know, is kind of big.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:56David Sims?

  He's like this tall, kind of broad guy.

• 40:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:59David Sims?

  Which is funny, cause I guess I just associate him with like playing a loser.

• 41:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but also.

• 41:05David Sims?

  Like in Arrested Development, but he is kind of alpha.

• 41:07Griffin Newman?

  Having this kind of light, soft voice. This very tender kind of.

• 41:12David Sims?

  Hey, how you doing? I'll take your coat. Um, so he kind of talks about Will, like we were all intimidated by Will, but then I guess they lived together and whatever.

• 41:19Griffin Newman?

  Thing.

• 41:20David Sims?

  Had a good time.

• 41:20Griffin Newman?

  Things I know for a fact, right? He does this acting program. He loves comedy. He gets Wet Hot off a straight audition. He's not in that scene. But he's always been kind of intimidated by New York comedy people.

• 41:31David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 41:32Griffin Newman?

  And loved comedy and felt like I'm too much of a serious actor.

• 41:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 41:35Griffin Newman?

  That's like a straight audition. He is discovered. He gets that part. He becomes friends with all those people. He was one of these guys, much like Jon Hamm in the LA comedy scene. Where in the years where he's just kind of a working actor, it'd be like, do you know who's actually really funny?

• 41:49David Sims?

  Right. They all know him. He hangs out and they're like, yeah, he's actually.

• 41:52Griffin Newman?

  He's actually really funny. But he becomes very close with Will Arnett this period of time. The big thing he always cites is that Will Arnett is like one of the first people who helped him get clean. That in the early 2000s, he had a big, uh, coke issue. And that he was being very abrasive with people in social settings. And Will Arnett pulled him aside one night and said like, you know, everyone thinks you're an asshole, right? Like, I get that you think you're being funny. And that you don't know because the drugs are like giving you this confidence. And that you think you're being this like awesome kind of like shit talking badass guy. But like, everyone is like really, really fucking annoyed with you.

• 42:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 42:32Griffin Newman?

  And then I think as these two guys have had their respective substance issues, ups and downs over the years.

• 42:37David Sims?

  Will Arnett, I think alcohol is big thing.

• 42:39Griffin Newman?

  Both to sobriety, but I know he had a prescription pill thing that Flaked was sort of about.

• 42:43David Sims?

  I thought Flaked was about alcoholism, but yeah, I don't know.

• 42:46Griffin Newman?

  Maybe he had it after that. I don't know. I know there's also been, they've had journeys over 25 years of friendship and their friendship has very much been forged in them sort of, I, I think to some degree, being accountability buddies and what have you on top of everything else.

• 43:01David Sims?

  A hundred percent. And Bradley put it, Bradley, my friend Bradley.

• 43:05Griffin Newman?

  Your friend.

• 43:05David Sims?

  B Rad.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:06David Sims?

  I call him.

• 43:07Griffin Newman?

  B Rad Coops.

• 43:07David Sims?

  B Rad Coops. Uh, basic, very much said like, I made this, this movie, like he was like, I'm very lucky that I'm successful and I make movies. I get to make movies and I really, I made this movie for Will. Like, it's just like, give him the Star Vehicle to, he didn't say this part, but it's clear, you know, to, to adapt his screenplay.

• 43:24Griffin Newman?

  There was that vibe.

• 43:25David Sims?

  Me doing something for Will.

• 43:26Griffin Newman?

  Not it being perhaps a straight favor movie, but this is a movie I'm doing because I love my buddy.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  It's, it's interesting usage of a blank check.

• 43:36David Sims?

  I agree. I also detect more than a hint of another Bradley Cooper collaborator in this film.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Todd Phillips?

• 43:43David Sims?

  Cameron Crowe.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 43:45David Sims?

  Like, so obviously to me. And like, this movie is so close.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  I forgot about Aloha. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

• 43:53Griffin Newman?

  I've rewatched it in the last year.

• 43:54David Sims?

  Where's David pointing, everyone?

• 43:55Griffin Newman?

  The sky.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  The sky.

• 43:57Griffin Newman?

  I regret to inform you that I have fully come around to Aloha being good.

• 44:00David Sims?

  I, one, know that, and two, I'm happy to hear it.

• 44:04Griffin Newman?

  I've just been digging in deeper and I gave Elizabeth Town another watch recently.

• 44:08David Sims?

  Right, and you were like, tss.

• 44:11Griffin Newman?

  Here's my experience.

• 44:11David Sims?

  Stuff's still hot.

• 44:12Griffin Newman?

  First half of it, and a lot of this is, and this is why I really wanted to like this movie without putting pressure on it. As much as I'm like, this is a weird choice for Bradley. Do I want him spending his time as a director kind of servicing Will Arnett? Who I like at times, but I'm like-

• 44:26David Sims?

  You're making Will Arnett sound like an old jalopy.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Servicing-

• 44:31Griffin Newman?

  Just kinda rolling under.

• 44:33David Sims?

  I mean, he made this quickly, so I certainly don't mind, but yes, I know what you're saying.

• 44:38Griffin Newman?

  But I'm like, especially because we kinda fucking call our shot with him, right? And we're just like, here's a guy who seems to be like, developing a career as a filmmaker with intentionality, right? And I'm on the record loving Maestro. I feel like the three of you like it with more qualifications, whereas I-

• 44:56David Sims?

  I'm a huge fan of Maestro.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  No, I love Maestro.

• 44:59David Sims?

  I love Maestro, and I think it's like one of the most underrated movies of the last five years.

• 45:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and I, I get why people bump on it. It is like a very bizarre film, and it's like a huge swing movie.

• 45:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Griffin Newman?

  And this movie, to me, feels like a reaction to some of the guff he got from Maestro in a way that bums me out.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Well, it feel, it feels to me like his first two films are the work of a filmmaker filmmaker, not an actor filmmaker.

• 45:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  And this to me feels like one of those like Tribeca movies that an actor does a one-off, you know, and it goes, yeah.

• 45:36David Sims?

  Tribeca movie, back when Tribeca had a little more juice, but yes, I think, but I mean, to me, that's fine. I'm like, you know what? Take your foot off the gas a little bit. Maestro is a very hard act to follow, and you don't wanna do the, next my movie will be about Alexander the Great. You know, you don't wanna keep escalating, like-

• 45:54Speaker 02

  He had to reset at some point, and I think it's, it's nice to have variety. Like, every great filmography has big and little movies.

• 46:02David Sims?

  And he's a New York guy, as he told me, and then I was like, yeah, cuz Hollywood sucks, right? And he was like, no, no, no, I don't feel that way, and I was like, oh, okay. My fuck. Not in a way where I was like, I'm mad that he thinks it, but I was just like, oh, I failed to bond with Bradley Cooper in this moment. But uh.

• 46:17Griffin Newman?

  And you were like, and you love the Mets, right? And he was like, more Yankees guy.

• 46:19David Sims?

  No, no, he's a Phillies fan. We talked about that.

• 46:22Griffin Newman?

  I'm joking. Yeah, just about you.

• 46:24David Sims?

  Uh, but uh, yeah, I love the Mets. Let's go Mets. And I hope by this point, we have re-signed Edwin Diaz. We've re-signed Pete Alonso. And if we haven't, I'll cry.

• 46:31Griffin Newman?

  Look, i- if we were covering Bradley Cooper as a filmmaker 10 years after.

• 46:36David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 46:37Griffin Newman?

  And we're just like, that's weird. We have to do a, is this thing on episode? I, I'd maybe be less frustrating than like.

• 46:43David Sims?

  Sure, maybe if you know what like, his eight films are, his 12 films are.

• 46:47Griffin Newman?

  But I, I finished this point. Uh, I, I give Elizabeth Town a rewatch. Cause my, I realize my girlfriend has never seen. I made some reference to it. And I'm like, fucking, let's watch Elizabeth Town. And I watch it in the first half of it. I'm like, God. In the nine years, now 10, since we've covered this movie. We have been living in such a dearth of not just Cameron Crowe. But if anyone even attempting to really do the Cameron Crowe thing.

• 47:14David Sims?

  I think, I do think, right, there was. His vibe became kind of radioactive in a way.

• 47:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:20David Sims?

  Elizabeth Town, of course, being the ultimate manic pixie dream movie and all that. Yeah.

• 47:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I, I just, it felt like everyone got scared off of everything like that. And there was even a period.

• 47:30David Sims?

  Fucking buy zoos anymore.

• 47:31Griffin Newman?

  No one buys zoos. No one buys zoos.

• 47:33David Sims?

  I'm gonna Google if there are any zoos for sale.

• 47:35Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing. No one's having kids and no one's buying zoos. And this is why our economy is failing.

• 47:40David Sims?

  We used to have hope and cash.

• 47:42Griffin Newman?

  And bacon.

• 47:43David Sims?

  And zoos.

• 47:47Griffin Newman?

  11 years, David.

• 47:48David Sims?

  I'm all for it.

• 47:49Griffin Newman?

  I love you.

• 47:49David Sims?

  I love you very much.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 47:52Griffin Newman?

  Marie, I love you.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  Love you too.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  I love you guys.

• 47:54Griffin Newman?

  Ben, I love you.

• 47:55David Sims?

  Ben, I love you. And I love chicken parmigiana.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Who doesn't?

• 47:59Griffin Newman?

  Can we make a promise to our listeners? We're not getting divorced.

• 48:02David Sims?

  No.

• 48:03Griffin Newman?

  The four of us are not getting divorced in our four-way marriage.

• 48:06David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the first half of Elizabeth Town, I was like, God. Orlando Bloom is even worse in this than I remember. I truly, like, was I being too mean? No. This is like one of the most disastrous movie star tests I have ever seen.

• 48:20David Sims?

  It is.

• 48:21Griffin Newman?

  And yet, everything around him in the movie was suddenly working for me. And even. In some like long tail, like nostalgia way, I was like, kind of loving peak Donst Manic Pixie Dream Girl of like, right, this is like fucking.

• 48:35David Sims?

  She's a wonderful, charming actress.

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  And this is ground zero of the whole thing, the purest version, the most extreme thing. And I was like, I was way too down on this movie. And then like the halfway point, it like amps the crow up to like 11.

• 48:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 48:49Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, this movie has broken me.

• 48:51David Sims?

  It's, it's not a good movie.

• 48:53Griffin Newman?

  But there was, there was certainly like more stuff in it I liked than I remembered. And I think that is more representative of being like, we kind of kicked this whole thing out of the bloodstream of Hollywood, out of, of the movie culture.

• 49:06David Sims?

  This movie has some Cameron Crowe energy.

• 49:09Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is where I was starting to get excited.

• 49:11David Sims?

  There are moments in this movie that I really liked, such as, I think the best moment in the movie, the amazing grace scene, where I'm like, I love this and this is Cameron Crowe defined.

• 49:21Griffin Newman?

  Why am I already forgetting what this is?

• 49:22David Sims?

  Dude, there is a scene in the movie where I was suddenly, like, it's one of those scenes where I was like, I'm fucking Chaz Palmentary.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  They're setting up breakfast and it's just completely out of nowhere and they just all match.

• 49:33David Sims?

  It just feels like Bradley Cooper being like, I just have an idea. I just want to do something to demonstrate how you guys used to be in sync as like friends and stuff. And aren't really anymore, but you still unconsciously have it.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  It all, yes.

• 49:46David Sims?

  I'm fucking Chaz Palmentary in The Usual Suspects in that moment, dropping the coffee cup, being like, am I gonna have to love this movie? And then it's back to like, I just, you weren't just a volleyball player. And I'm like, oh, I don't care.

• 49:59Griffin Newman?

  I, I see. First of all, I blocked that scene from my memory. Second of all, I had the opposite response, which I was like, this is some second half of Elizabeth Town shit.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Oh, see, I liked it because it didn't have any, like, I just felt like it was, it had no reason to really exist. So I was like, I'm inter, like, this is like a decision that I'm interested in.

• 50:17Griffin Newman?

  This is part of the weird Cameron Crowe thing, right? And obviously it like ends up biting him, but.

• 50:22David Sims?

  Old, old double C's?

• 50:23Griffin Newman?

  Right, but he would do these scenes where you'd go like, how the fuck?

• 50:27David Sims?

  Hundred percent.

• 50:27Griffin Newman?

  Do you have the courage to put that in a movie? How dare you, right? Where he'd break for.

• 50:32David Sims?

  How very dare you.

• 50:33Griffin Newman?

  Or he would do some like incredibly like ecstatically emotional expression of an idea, you know?

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Like Tiny Dancer, is that what kind of stuff?

• 50:41David Sims?

  That's a great example of it totally working.

• 50:44Griffin Newman?

  Right, and, and you're just like, Jesus fucking Christ. And I think in rewatching The Lesser Crows, as I've been doing lately, I have more affection for those moments, even when they don't work. Because I think there's still, even when it's not consistent, the balance of him being able to like, identify these incredibly precise, incredibly small moments of humanity and human connection, right?

• 51:09David Sims?

  I want to shout out my friend Colin, Colin of the, um, Can I Kick It Podcast, who also-

• 51:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 51:15David Sims?

  Was speaking to the crow thing, we were texting about it.

• 51:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And, uh, I think in the later half of his filmography, it perhaps becomes imbalanced.

• 51:24David Sims?

  Oh, with double C.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  Where he's doing too much of the, "I can't believe" shit, and less of the well-observed human relationships shit.

• 51:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  And I felt like, the human relationship shit in this movie, which is like 95% of it, you know? I, I mean, people were like, "Oh, is it like really all about stand-up?" And I was like, "I'd say it's like 30% a comedy movie, 70% a divorce movie."

• 51:48David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  It's a marriage.

• 51:49David Sims?

  If not, 80, 20.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Marriage movie, yeah.

• 51:51Griffin Newman?

  And the other question I got from a lot of friends, when I was telling them how much I hated this, was like, "Oh, is it one of those movies that annoyed you? Because it's a movie about comedy that gets all of comedy wrong?" And I was like, "I do think that's a sin, and I can go off and nitpick some of these things, but they're not my primary concern."

• 52:06David Sims?

  Sure, and any movie about anything will annoy an expert.

• 52:09Griffin Newman?

  My primary concern is it feels like it's a movie about divorce that doesn't understand people.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Well, that was, that was one of my issues with it. I don't, I don't really underst- We, we get put in media res-

• 52:21David Sims?

  This is my huge problem with it.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  -into their divorce. We don't, I know that he works in finance and she like, but like, again-

• 52:26David Sims?

  Marie is just saying the problem with the movie.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Completely nondescript. We don't know why they split up. We don't really know anything about them. Gradually, like, I still don't understand why they split up.

• 52:37Griffin Newman?

  Because-

• 52:38Speaker 02

  He only sees her as of-

• 52:40David Sims?

  Because you only saw me as a volleyball player. This is my whole problem with the movie.

• 52:44Griffin Newman?

  The entire relationship is horribly rendered. The history of it, the present of it, what we're working towards. It feels very nonspecific to me and it feels like a collection of like, screenwriter like, I don't know, what's like an interesting thing that was like her past career? Olympic volleyball player.

• 53:00David Sims?

  I don't know how they got there. I mean, it's fine that they did, but I don't really know how they got to volleyball player. I, I, the movie is depicting, I think in a way, kind of just a chiller divorce by and large. They are not fighting over the kids. They are not fighting over money.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  No one cheated.

• 53:20David Sims?

  No one cheated. No one's being acrimonious.

• 53:23Griffin Newman?

  Just all the energy and the passion just kind of dissipated slowly.

• 53:26David Sims?

  And that's an interesting thing to make a movie about, but it's a hard thing to make a movie about.

• 53:30Griffin Newman?

  And it requires like, in my opinion, incredible perception and location of like specificity.

• 53:38David Sims?

  Well, volleyball, she played.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  I do think that's good casting.

• 53:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Dern, Laura Dern as an ex volleyball Olympian. She's so tall and blonde.

• 53:48David Sims?

  Mad at Laura Dern?

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  If you pitch this movie to me as.

• 53:51David Sims?

  And she keyed my car.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  What?

• 53:53David Sims?

  I'm joking, I'm joking. I'm just imagining a reason to be mad at Laura Dern.

• 53:58Griffin Newman?

  Is that a movie reference? Does she like do that in Blue Velvet?

• 54:01David Sims?

  Yeah, probably.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Um, I guess want to point out before I forget to bring it up later, absolutely insane, like post screening Q and A. Laura Dern talking about how working with Bradley Cooper on this film where he's directing, he's operating the camera.

• 54:18Griffin Newman?

  He was the B camera operator.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  And she's like, it was the, it was like the creative partnership I've had since David Lynch that felt the most similar to working with David Lynch. And I was like, I was like, Laura.

• 54:29David Sims?

  I'm just trying to think of how many directors are dead in a ditch hearing that, like Bomback.

• 54:33Griffin Newman?

  Steven Spielberg?

• 54:36David Sims?

  He's probably feeling fine. He's like, who cares? I've worked with everybody.

• 54:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Bomback won her an Oscar.

• 54:41David Sims?

  Right. Like who, who else would be mad hearing about that? Well, Trevorrow, Dominion, the locusts.

• 54:47Griffin Newman?

  He really helped locate that character.

• 54:48David Sims?

  Throw a locust at her.

• 54:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Hmm. Licks her finger. Feels like there are a lot of big locusts in the air.

• 54:54David Sims?

  Ryan Johnson, he was like, hyperdrive now. You go to hyperdrive.

• 54:57Griffin Newman?

  He gave her a maneuver. No director had ever given her a maneuver before.

• 55:01David Sims?

  Old dough.

• 55:02Griffin Newman?

  Uh, no, if this movie was like Bradley Cooper's decided to make a film about Laura Dern in middle age, a former Olympic volleyball player, trying to figure out her next move after divorce, I'd be like, there is no way you can convince me. I won't eat that shit off.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I thought she was a way more interesting

• 55:22Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 55:23Speaker 02

  character than Willa Ernitz.

• 55:24David Sims?

  She gets a fair amount of time in the movie. It's not like the movie blurps her.

• 55:29Griffin Newman?

  No, we do get. No, it doesn't blurp her.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  We do get some of her.

• 55:31David Sims?

  I mean, blurp might have done some fun bits in this one.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  He might have done a punch up.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  We do get some of her.

• 55:38Griffin Newman?

  I wish we had some of blurps outrageous comedy in this.

• 55:40David Sims?

  Sorry, Marie, sorry.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  No, we do get, we do get like some of her perspective in the film.

• 55:45David Sims?

  Yeah, we do, we do.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Which is, I appreciate, and that's, yeah.

• 55:48David Sims?

  It's not a my wife left me meme.

• 55:50Griffin Newman?

  No, no, it's, it's about both of them.

• 55:52David Sims?

  It is, and that's fine.

• 55:54Griffin Newman?

  Like surprise when they announced that they were running her in lead.

• 55:58David Sims?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  Which this is a classic, like, you know, we always complain about this, like punting the female lead of a movie with a male lead to supporting, especially if it's a suffering wife character.

• 56:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 56:09Griffin Newman?

  Even if she has the screen time and they're just like, no, this is like very much a two handed.

• 56:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:14Griffin Newman?

  Which it is.

• 56:14David Sims?

  It is, it is.

• 56:16Griffin Newman?

  It's not for lack of screen time, and I think she does good work in this, but I just kept being like, I don't think this movie is speaking from a place of like identifying the real kind of what you want from the Cram and Crow magic of just like, there is honest comedy coming out of the recognizing of a moment that feels so true. And you've never seen someone put on screen before, or at least not in that way, you know? And there is stuff that's interesting in the setup of this, and I do like that it's trying to be a divorce movie that isn't about a fucking fight.

• 56:52David Sims?

  Yes, the kind of Kramer versus Kramer, you know, again, there's so many pitfalls you can avoid. And it does not do those things. But when in the final act of this movie,

• 57:04Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:05David Sims?

  And we can sort of go through the plot, but like, you know. She's, they're having this heart to heart in the attic or wherever they are. And she's like, you know, you just kept seeing me as a volleyball player. And he's like, you know, you, whatever, like you weren't in love with me.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  They also have that line about like, the difference between being miserable because of someone or being miserable with someone.

• 57:29David Sims?

  Or being miserable in the marriage. And I'm like, this is all interesting. You guys are catching me up on something I didn't see.

• 57:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:36David Sims?

  So I'm not that, like, these are, these are things that could be insightful. But because I met you having decided to get divorced, I just don't know that I care too much about why you got divorced. Yeah, I already got divorced.

• 57:49Griffin Newman?

  I don't think this movie.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  They also have like really great chemistry, like right off the bat. That scene when they, they go to their friend's loft. Played by Andre Day and Bradley Cooper.

• 58:00David Sims?

  We're gonna get divorced, but let's go to this fucking thing.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  We can't tell anyone we're getting divorced.

• 58:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  And then, so like he, Will Arnett is already like living in an apartment in the city. And Laura during the kids are in the house upstate. And, right. And they're at Rand Central and they're, they're like, you know.

• 58:17David Sims?

  We gotta say before we pass that Bradley Cooper does trip and fall onto a carton of milk. And that might've been the only moment I laughed. Yeah. I mean, basically everything he does.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Everything he does in this movie is really funny.

• 58:30Griffin Newman?

  He has like an along came Polly and, yeah. And he's got like a big ass beard and like super long hair. And he's like an alternate in, not Jesus Christ Superstar, but it's a John the Baptist.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's some sort of religious play and he grew the beard so he'd look more like a disciple. But he's like, yeah.

• 58:47David Sims?

  It's just kind of one of those, I mean, he's smart to be like, I'll just play this fun supporting role. But then anytime he's on screen, I'm like, I think I want the balls movie. Like, what, what movie is this guy?

• 58:56Griffin Newman?

  Not only, not only do I think I want the balls movie, but I'm also like.

• 59:02Griffin Newman?

  No disrespect to his buddy, but Will Arnett could play balls well. And Bradley could play the lead much better.

• 59:12David Sims?

  But you're, I mean, I think maybe you're right, but I, but I do like Bradley's balls.

• 59:16Griffin Newman?

  I do too.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  I love Bradley's balls.

• 59:17Griffin Newman?

  Ideally, it's a double casting. Bradley's both.

• 59:20David Sims?

  And you know, most people have two balls. Not everybody.

• 59:22Griffin Newman?

  Let me, let me just zoom out for a second here, right? We're all confused by this. The trailer comes out. You're like, I like what he's going for. I'm like, I really don't see it, right? Then you see it first and you're like, it's fine.

• 59:35David Sims?

  Yeah, I just couldn't get there with it for the reasons I just said, but then there were little moments I liked.

• 59:40Griffin Newman?

  Then Marie and Ben see it.

• 59:41David Sims?

  They kind of have the same reaction.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:43Griffin Newman?

  Your line I remember was, um, I think I won't remember it in two weeks.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:49Griffin Newman?

  When we record.

• 59:50David Sims?

  Sure.

• 59:50Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:51Griffin Newman?

  And then I see it. I will say candidly, I saw it on the day.

• 59:57David Sims?

  We're about to get a classic Grif new movie.

• 59:59Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:00:00David Sims?

  Okay, go ahead. You saw it on the day?

• 1:00:01Griffin Newman?

  It's not a new movie thing. I just have to be honest about this.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  What, what like life-changing advice or was it the election?

• 1:00:07Griffin Newman?

  It was the election. A hundred percent. I did not like this movie. I would never like this movie. I will admit, and I had to like clock this once I felt the relief of Zorron winning. When I stepped into that theater and the movie progressed and I wasn't liking it. And I was just so terrified of like, and then I'm gonna fucking get out of this theater and turn my phone off. And I'm gonna see that Cuomo is like in the lead.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Why would you think that?

• 1:00:30Griffin Newman?

  Because I don't believe anything good can ever happen again.

• 1:00:33David Sims?

  I will admit, I was also feeling very stressed about that.

• 1:00:36Griffin Newman?

  I don't trust anything anymore.

• 1:00:37David Sims?

  Because obviously I'm a Cuomo sexual and I wanted him to win.

• 1:00:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. You were rubbing your pierced nipples.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Do you guys, yeah, I was about to say, do you guys remember when everyone thought he had pierced nipples for a couple of weeks during COVID? When he would give those press conferences with like.

• 1:00:49David Sims?

  I don't prefer to think about that.

• 1:00:52Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember when he like obliterated a retirement home and then did like six months of victory laps on TV with his brother being like, now listen to me. I figured out how to beat COVID.

• 1:01:03David Sims?

  Right. Only I know how things work. Uh, normal guy.

• 1:01:07Griffin Newman?

  And then wrote a book like by the end of 2020 being like, how I beat COVID. And I'm like.

• 1:01:13David Sims?

  Cuomo, the COVID god.

• 1:01:14Griffin Newman?

  None of us have gotten the jab yet and you're, you're declaring yourself.

• 1:01:18David Sims?

  I think Cuomo's never made a public misstep. I don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:01:21Griffin Newman?

  And the winner by knockout. July 2020.

• 1:01:27David Sims?

  Um, you were stressed. It's just funny. Sometimes we do these, uh, uh, episodes about a new movie.

• 1:01:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32David Sims?

  And you're like, I know something about this movie I didn't like. I did see the film and someone did shoot me with a gun as I entered the theater.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  I feel very resolved in my opinions on this.

• 1:01:41David Sims?

  Sure you don't like the movie, but it is, it's fair to acknowledge, right? You were very in a bad mood watching this.

• 1:01:47Griffin Newman?

  Every moment the movie irked me, it irked me twice as much being like, it was like when we saw Here and I.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  But that actually ended badly.

• 1:01:55David Sims?

  Had anything happened when we saw Here?

• 1:01:57Griffin Newman?

  Where I was just like, fuck, Trump is present and we have to watch Here now? And I would love nothing more in both cases to be like, this movie took my mind off of everything and transported me.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Have you seen Sentimental Value yet?

• 1:02:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  I mean, it made me think of Here a lot.

• 1:02:11Griffin Newman?

  Here's another thing I'm gonna say. Here.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  Here.

• 1:02:14Griffin Newman?

  I see sentimental value just.

• 1:02:16David Sims?

  That's how Will Arnett buying a ticket to.

• 1:02:17Griffin Newman?

  Here.

• 1:02:20Griffin Newman?

  I only build in black and very dark gray. Lego Batman, good movie, five stars.

• 1:02:25David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  Love Lego Batman.

• 1:02:26Griffin Newman?

  Um, I see sentimental value the same week as this, right? And one of the first shots of that movie.

• 1:02:32David Sims?

  Yoke and Cheers film.

• 1:02:34Griffin Newman?

  Quite a good film.

• 1:02:35David Sims?

  Yeah, good movie.

• 1:02:36Griffin Newman?

  One of the first shots of that movie is just a shot of the family house. It's not my favorite either.

• 1:02:40David Sims?

  Oh, but I know, I know. Yeah. Interesting house, of course.

• 1:02:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, houses.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  Architecturally.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Houses really, houses like the starring role in the film.

• 1:02:47Griffin Newman?

  There is what in almost anyone else's hands would just be a perfunctory establishing shot of a house.

• 1:02:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Griffin Newman?

  And I look at this shot and I go, God, he is somehow making the shot feel emotional. It is not because of swelling strings. He has somehow in an image, without doing any fancy trickery, put some feeling into a shot of a house before we built the characters into it. And what jumped out to me was I was like, this is the part of the thing that Cameron Crowe can do that other people don't get right. It's not just the dialogue. It's not just the working with the actors, but Cameron Crowe somehow knew how to visualize the emotions of his films where you watch them and you're just like, even when he's doing a weird thing, right? You're like the. Films have a texture and a feeling and a color palette that feels like the melancholy.

• 1:03:39David Sims?

  I just feel that way about Bradley Cooper's movies too. And I think he had an idea with this one.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  The Cameron Crowe thing, I don't really think of him. Maybe this will change if I like spend more time with his filmography. I don't really think of him as like a super visual filmmaker.

• 1:03:52David Sims?

  Have you seen Jerry Maguire? He knew shot the shit out of that thing. It's a wet movie.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it's, it's a like, I'm not saying that they don't, the movies don't look good, but I think when we talk, when I talk about moments that I have like a particular emotional resonance is because of the music in.

• 1:04:05David Sims?

  Now, Cameron Crowe doesn't really, no, I don't know what you're talking about. He hasn't really used music in any way.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  No, it's not really his thing, but.

• 1:04:13David Sims?

  He worked at Rolling Stone as a music journalist, but famously every week he'd file, haven't listened to a song yet. See you later.

• 1:04:19Griffin Newman?

  He would review how the record looked and not the cover. He'd go deep grooves on this one. Black.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  Not to derail us even further, did I tell you guys about my experience seeing Sentimental Value?

• 1:04:31David Sims?

  Well, how, how was your seeing of sentimental, your view of Yoko Ono's sentimental?

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  I saw it, I saw it at a Q and A screening that David Erlich was moderating.

• 1:04:39David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  So I got to, I got to go for free.

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  Sure. Wonderful.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  And I got to sit in the comp section.

• 1:04:46Griffin Newman?

  Nice work if you can get it.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Who else was sitting in the comp section?

• 1:04:49David Sims?

  Who?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Directly behind me, both of us there by ourselves.

• 1:04:51David Sims?

  Sorry, I'm done.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  No, John Turturro, who I see quite often at various things in New York.

• 1:04:57David Sims?

  A New York celeb.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  A New York celebrity.

• 1:04:59David Sims?

  Francesco Bernoulli himself?

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  Uh, indeed.

• 1:05:01David Sims?

  Carmine Falcone?

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Carmine, Carmine.

• 1:05:03David Sims?

  Carmine Falcone?

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  But.

• 1:05:08Griffin Newman?

  The fading gigolo?

• 1:05:09David Sims?

  Catwoman's daddy. Right? That's the twist.

• 1:05:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but then it was Mark Strong.

• 1:05:13David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  But.

• 1:05:15David Sims?

  I believe so.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  I, he, it was like watching the movie, like with running commentary.

• 1:05:21Griffin Newman?

  Was he responding vocally?

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Vocally.

• 1:05:23Griffin Newman?

  What would he say?

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  Okay. So first of all, during the trailers. Paolo Sorrentino.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  Is making another movie. I don't know if it's like a sequel to The Great Beauty, but it's the same guy.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Most of them are Tony Cervita.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, this guy.

• 1:05:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  And then the trailer plays, trailer ends, he goes, credible actor.

• 1:05:43Griffin Newman?

  He's by himself.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  He is by himself.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  Then when we get to trailer number four. Oh my god, how many fucking trailers are there?

• 1:05:53David Sims?

  Alright, John. Alright, I'm with ya.

• 1:05:56Speaker 03

  This is a car commercial.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I really enjoyed that. And then probably the most notable John Turturro reaction to the film itself was during the sequence where, um, spoil, well, no, people have seen the movie by the time it comes out.

• 1:06:10David Sims?

  It's early January, I would say.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is a moment where Stellan Skarsgård gives some, uh...

• 1:06:18Griffin Newman?

  There's a birthday present.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  There's a birthday present. It's like an eight or nine-year-old child's birthday.

• 1:06:23Griffin Newman?

  Let's not ruin the gag, but there's a birthday present. If you've seen the movie, you know what it is.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  There is a birthday present that is wildly inappropriate. And John Turturro just lost it.

• 1:06:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Like, knee-slapping. And I was like, you know what? I love that.

• 1:06:36Griffin Newman?

  And then at one point, he clenched his fist and went, "Lightning McQueen, I'm gonna win the race."

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  We never, never forget that he was in Cars.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  I forgot he was in Cars.

• 1:06:45Griffin Newman?

  Francesco Bernoulli.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:06:47Griffin Newman?

  Did you reset the clock?

• 1:06:48David Sims?

  No, Ben put it as in countdown mode.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  I set it to two hours, and I counted it down.

• 1:06:54David Sims?

  Ben wanted this to be a short one.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Griffin Newman?

  Hmm, let's see.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  We started about an hour late.

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, we started kinda late, but we're...

• 1:07:01David Sims?

  And then, of course, someone suddenly felt a bit peckish.

• 1:07:06David Sims?

  As we were beginning.

• 1:07:07Griffin Newman?

  Chekov sandwich was eaten.

• 1:07:09David Sims?

  I got hungry!

• 1:07:20Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:07:21David Sims?

  Yeah?

• 1:07:21Griffin 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?

• 1:07:38David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:07:40Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:08:02David Sims?

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

• 1:08:14Griffin 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.

• 1:08:23David Sims?

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

• 1:08:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:26David 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.

• 1:08:33Griffin 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.

• 1:08:47David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:08:49Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:08:52David Sims?

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

• 1:09:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:09:23Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:09:24David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:09:24Griffin 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.

• 1:09:45David 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.

• 1:10:05Griffin 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.

• 1:10:21David Sims?

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

• 1:10:55Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:10:56David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:10:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:11:05David Sims?

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

• 1:11:10Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:11:12David Sims?

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

• 1:11:15Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:11:16David Sims?

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

• 1:11:27Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:11:41David Sims?

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

• 1:11:45Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:11:46David Sims?

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

• 1:11:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:12:01Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:12:02David Sims?

  What?

• 1:12:03Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:12:04David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:12:07David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:12:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:12:14David Sims?

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

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Is this thing on?

• 1:12:45Griffin Newman?

  I just felt some of the Cameron Crowe shit I wanted from sentimental value. And I do not, like, I like the ambition.

• 1:12:55Griffin Newman?

  I know the Crowe thing's been stated a lot, right? In a weird way, this felt like Bradley Cooper specifically trying to make like a 2006 Fox Searchlight dramedy.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:04Griffin Newman?

  It felt like a weirdly specific evocation of a kind of like dead, forgotten middling like Sundance dramedy.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  No, it is a Tribeca actor making a movie, shooting in New York.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  With bigger actors.

• 1:13:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And we had this conversation when the Star is Born trailer came out, where we were just both like, holy shit.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, feels like a real movie.

• 1:13:28Griffin Newman?

  When I hear that like Bradley Cooper is now directing Star is Born after every A-list director in Hollywood has flirted with this for 10 years. And now he's doing it with Lady Gaga, we were like, okay. And you see the trailer, you're like, holy shit, this is a real movie. And it doesn't, much in a Cameron Crowe way, Maestro and Star is Born look very different, but are both like beautifully shot. And look very emotional and are very like ecstatic and expressive. And I see this trailer and I'm just like, I don't know what this is. I don't get why he's doing this. And this movie, let's just say, much like the game I loved of like, ask someone, give them a million chances.

• 1:14:12Griffin Newman?

  They will never, ever in a million years, guess what the final shot of Tar is? You could do the same challenge with this movie of how do you think Bradley Cooper's Will Arnett stand-up divorce dramedy? Is this thing on opens? Why, of course, with a ceremonial Chinese New Year lion.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  I really like that.

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  I like that too.

• 1:14:36Griffin Newman?

  Rearing up its head. It's just like, where is this movie? And then it's, you know, the two of them at their child's like recital. And then it basically goes into, to this point of what we're saying. The two of them standing in the bathroom mirror, doing their nighttime routines, standing in just kind of like complacent silence. And then she turns to him and says, do you think we should call it?

• 1:14:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, okay, this is kind of interesting that they're choosing to just be like, this thing just ends in like a puff. You know, there's no dramatic blow up.

• 1:15:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think it's a realistic portrayal of this stuff. I mean, the Chinese New Year thing comes back.

• 1:15:13Griffin Newman?

  It does, at the end of the film.

• 1:15:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:15:15Griffin Newman?

  Under pressure.

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they also, they also talk about like a lion, like the difference between a lion and a dragon.

• 1:15:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think that made me roll my fucking eyes.

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  Well, you look, I, Griffin, you were hostile to this film. I cannot deny, but I'm just saying like, the Chinese New Year thing is not, that is woven in. Right, right.

• 1:15:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm not saying it has nothing to do with anything. I'm just setting the bed.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  It worked for me in that kind of thing of like, you are a grown up having a crisis. You had to show up to your kid's thing. Your kid's thing is a loud, bizarre, echoey gymnasium thing where you're just like, oh my god.

• 1:15:48Griffin Newman?

  The camera swings around to him, like his head against the wall, and it looks like he's going through a hangover, which he's not, but it's just like, this guy's at nothing.

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  I, I found that quite resonant.

• 1:15:57Griffin Newman?

  And then you have this, right, like, there's that, should we call it? And then the next thing you see is them standing outside the son's bedroom, and they're like, so like, do I stay here or do you?

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Like, they're trying to make the immediate plans, right, before even figuring out the larger untangling of everything. The son comes out the bedroom and he's like, are you guys fighting? And they're like consoling him, and they're going out of their way to say like, no, of course, we never fight. We never fight. You know that. We never fight. And the kid is accepting it. And you're like, okay, this is kind of interesting. In what we're saying, that this movie is setting up like this thing just fizzled, something clearly just like slowly leaked out of them. They're in the least dramatic way possible, just going like, I guess it's over. And they're acknowledging that there hasn't been a strain on the kids of them fighting. And then you basically go to this, right, they're friends, they're a group of friends who they've been friends with for decades. It's Sean Hayes and his real husband.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  Oh, that's his real husband. Oh, that's nice. Cause I'm like, I don't know who that actor is.

• 1:16:55Griffin Newman?

  Two of the three smartest guys in this movie. Uh, Andrew Day and her husband Balls, Bradley Cooper, who is a struggling actor.

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:17:01Griffin Newman?

  And then, uh, Will Arnett and, uh, Laura Dern. They, I, I feel like don't really drop the volleyball reveal until like 40 minutes in.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. It takes a while on that.

• 1:17:13Griffin Newman?

  That feels like it's a random like, where he's like, why don't you go train for a fucking, a gold medal? And then in her getting insulted by it, she explains like, you know that, that's behind me. And I'm like, wait, what? All I'm saying is, at like minute fifty, he says something about, I think it's the scene where he says to Bradley Cooper, like, I've been doing stand-up. Cause the kind of a running joke in this movie is that everyone thinks he's got like a secret girlfriend, cause he's being mysterious about what he's doing at night. But he's actually going and doing these infamous Comedy Cellar mics with packed, warm crowds. And he-

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  I didn't, like, I've only been to the Comedy Cellar like, once. I'm gonna just come out and say it.

• 1:17:56David Sims?

  Louis CK's your favorite comedian?

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  I really don't like stand-up.

• 1:18:00Griffin Newman?

  What? Right, you like his personal life when he's your favorite comedian?

• 1:18:03David Sims?

  You like his novel!

• 1:18:06David Sims?

  Did you see the author photo?

• 1:18:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  Oh wait, is this a new thing?

• 1:18:09Griffin Newman?

  He wrote a novel.

• 1:18:10David Sims?

  Yeah, but everyone's ripping on his author photo because it makes it look like he's fucking, you know, Tolstoy at his desk.

• 1:18:15Griffin Newman?

  He's like at a typewriter, right?

• 1:18:17Speaker 02

  Oh, oh.

• 1:18:18David Sims?

  It's the most jerk-off.

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  It's a novel like, literally about like a Dust Bowl child.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Wow, oh my god, wait.

• 1:18:23David Sims?

  Is it? I don't know.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  He looks fucking old, too.

• 1:18:25David Sims?

  Well, he's not a young man, I mean that's-

• 1:18:27Griffin Newman?

  It's like a character study of like, I wanna say like a young boy in Oklahoma who like grows up to work on the railroad.

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  Wow, that's crazy. Does like, the young boy like, get jerked off?

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  Okay, so wait, you don't like stand-up? Why don't you like stand-up?

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  It makes me-

• 1:18:43Griffin Newman?

  Mostly divorced dads, kinda just like-

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Stand-up makes me really uncomfortable.

• 1:18:47Griffin Newman?

  Free-flowing, like not really hitting hard jokes, just kinda doing a therapy session on stage.

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  I like, don't mind, I know. I don't mind like, watching clips of stand-up. I don't like being in the audience. Like-

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  Is it because of the trend of crowd work?

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  It's the crowd work thing. It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

• 1:19:04David Sims?

  Crowd work sucks.

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  I think crowd work, this trend-

• 1:19:06David Sims?

  It also seems to be like, right, it's a growing thing. Cause it's TikTok, right?

• 1:19:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11David Sims?

  It's like, you need like, a viral clip where you're like-

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  Like, I'm not coming here to be roasted. I'm not, like, I'm not, I'm not interested in that. I also feel deeply uncomfortable with, um, I don't know, people bombing, like-

• 1:19:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, it's not fun to watch.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  It's really, yeah.

• 1:19:27David Sims?

  Right, I mean, I don't think- A lot of people take pleasure in watching that.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  So when I say like, I don't like stand up, like the idea of going to

• 1:19:34David Sims?

  What about like a-

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  A comedy club.

• 1:19:36David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  In New York. That to me is not like, I don't enjoy that.

• 1:19:41David Sims?

  But what about like a, you know, very established stand up doing like a show at like a theater or whatever? Is that of interest?

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 1:19:49David Sims?

  Okay, well, fair enough.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  Honestly, the only like major stand up show I saw was Louis C K. At Madison Square Garden, which is the absolute worst venue.

• 1:19:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  For that stand.

• 1:20:00David Sims?

  MSG's great for stand up. I love it. The acoustics are great. You're right on top of the guy.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 1:20:05David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:20:05Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I, do you remember in the, in our twenties, we used to always do the MSG open mic?

• 1:20:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:11David Sims?

  Well, you wanted to see the Knicks games.

• 1:20:13Griffin Newman?

  And then you didn't have to pay the fifty dollar cover charge by popcorn. You could just get up on stage.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  Chris, when we got out of the movie, I was like telling Ben, I was like, I really want to talk to you guys. Like, cause I have a, I don't know this world that well.

• 1:20:25Griffin Newman?

  You were asking me a lot of questions and you were like, but you, did you do shit like this? And we're like, yeah.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  But like, they do.

• 1:20:30Griffin Newman?

  At the depths of our depression.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  You can just do, you can just do the Comedy Cellar as a complete rando? No, no, no!

• 1:20:37David Sims?

  Yes, you can. You can do it.

• 1:20:39Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:20:39David Sims?

  You can do it. No, right. Obviously, the real guy this is based on is a British comic.

• 1:20:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, can you talk about him a little bit?

• 1:20:45David Sims?

  I, I mean, sure. Uh, John Bishop is his name and, and I, yes, I mean, obviously, uh, the Brits, what, what do the Brits love more than a fucking, you know, uh, stand up comedy? They, they adore it and there's open mics everywhere. And he did a mo- open night at the Frog and Bucket in Manchester, which I assume is not as esteemed as the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, New York.

• 1:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:09David Sims?

  So I think that may more be a place where, yes, if you put your name down, you can like get a seat at the bar and then you'll get to do your open mic or whatever.

• 1:21:17Griffin Newman?

  I saw there is a interview.

• 1:21:19David Sims?

  It was a four pound. Entry fee.

• 1:21:21Griffin Newman?

  He did an interview on the Graham Norton Show.

• 1:21:24David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:21:24Griffin Newman?

  Recently, in the last couple of years, that is a pretty good encapsulation of the real life story that inspired this movie, right? And I'm not holding this movie to that, but like the changes made within it destroy any internal reality of understanding of how the comedy scene works versus what he describes. First of all, it was 30 years ago. Second of all, he was in, I think, either his late twenties or early thirties. He's telling this story as like, I've been in comedy for 30 years and you'll never believe how I got my start. It's a really bizarre story, right?

• 1:21:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:21:55Griffin Newman?

  He got married young. He like married a childhood sweetheart. After a couple of years, they had a sort of fizzle out in their relationship like this. They broke up and he was just like, I'm super depressed.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  I think similar, they had a bunch of kids fast and it, you know, whatever. Their marriage ossified.

• 1:22:12Griffin Newman?

  Can you double check that, that they had kids?

• 1:22:14David Sims?

  The quote is, after having three kids so quick.

• 1:22:16Griffin Newman?

  Got it, okay. And he's just sort of like, I don't know what to fucking do. I like made my bed in this and now I have nothing, right? I have no sense of self. He just wants to drink. It is not a comedy club. It is a bar that has an open mic.

• 1:22:29David Sims?

  No, it's a comedy club. It's the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club in Manchester.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  The Frog and Bucket?

• 1:22:33David Sims?

  Is it their open mic? He performed well in front of an audience of seven people, was encouraged to return every week, which he saw as a form of counseling. One of his regular jokes is about how he missed his ex so much that he kept her severed head in the fridge. Bit of a dark joke.

• 1:22:50Griffin Newman?

  The comedy, yes, it sounded like.

• 1:22:51David Sims?

  And then one day, he says this joke and he realizes his wife is in the audience. She meets him after the gig and she's like, wanna fuck? No, I don't know. They, they laugh about it and they, he says it saved their marriage.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  They got back together and they've stayed together since then.

• 1:23:07David Sims?

  As far as I know.

• 1:23:08Griffin Newman?

  I wanna, I wanna make a distinction on a thing here, okay? In the, in the Graham Norton interview, he said that he goes up, it's seven people, which is what open mics are like. It's not a real audience, right? You're either performing for like less than 10 people or there are a bunch of other comics there who are all impatiently waiting as one of 40 names on a list who had to like camp out hours early. Or to get on that list. And they are all so in their head about their own material. So jealous of how everyone else is doing. Very few people play well at mics. And no one like brings like a non paying friend audience, obviously.

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  It's like rare.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  British clubs in the 90s, the scene might have been different. I can't speak to this with authority, right? But he is saying definitively, I performed for seven people. I did not get a big response, you know?

• 1:23:55Speaker 03

  Right, right. Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:57Griffin Newman?

  I, that line got a laugh.

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  But it was a form of therapy, like you said. It was just, I just kept going.

• 1:24:02Griffin Newman?

  And that's something really raw came out of him. As shown by like him making a joke that dark, right?

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:24:08Griffin Newman?

  And this guy comes up to him and is like, you should do this again. And he was like, oh, you thought I was funny? And they were like, no, but like, there's something kind of interesting that just happened on stage. And the conversation that happens pretty late in this movie. After he's already seemingly become like a Comedy Cellar regular. And is hanging out with the guys upstairs every night where someone goes like, you're not good, but you're interesting? Was basically what was said to him the second he walked off the open mic. And gave him the encouragement to be like, let me figure out how to actually do this well. Versus this movie basically has him stumble into the most coveted stage in New York City. To a crowd of people who just seem like a regular comedy going audience.

• 1:24:53Griffin Newman?

  Who give him a pretty fucking polite response in a way that feels totally inaccurate for what I think is like. An incredibly mediocre set. Like that set should be received more harshly than the set that turns the Joker into the Joker. On the same Comedy Cellar stage.

• 1:25:09Speaker 02

  That is a little extreme.

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  No, I, you know.

• 1:25:13Griffin Newman?

  It's very awkward and embarrassing and like this guy's having like an emotional breakdown.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  No one really laughs. I mean, I, I thought that like, it was a polite response. I mean, this was another question I had is like, do, because again, haven't been to a lot of open mics. Do people boo?

• 1:25:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, not even that.

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  It's like more. Be wild if someone did that.

• 1:25:33Speaker 02

  Like no one's gonna be like.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  Get off the. But someone would be like, ugh.

• 1:25:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:37David Sims?

  If they make something really off color.

• 1:25:39Griffin Newman?

  Especially if someone's like running the lights, or if they're like really like stirring people up. And I think Ben, you'll agree with me on this, like the polite response is not a fucking thing.

• 1:25:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:25:49Griffin Newman?

  Like now there are more.

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  Cause that's not helpful.

• 1:25:52Griffin Newman?

  Now there are more comedian curated, like I made a deal with a bar to get like an afternoon in a back room. And I'm working really hard to try to make this a positive mic. And that feels like a peer to peer thing. But these sort of club mics, it's like, especially in New York City, and even going lower than Comedy Cellar. It's like, you're probably paying to get up on stage, or there's a drink minimum, right?

• 1:26:16Speaker 03

  Well, there's bringer shows.

• 1:26:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but that's a real audience, which this movie almost feels more like he's doing a bringer show.

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:24Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, no, he's drunk stumbling after like a night when he goes out with the old friends. They hide the fact that they're getting divorced.

• 1:26:30David Sims?

  And then his wife gets on the train.

• 1:26:32Griffin Newman?

  He has a little piece of a weed cookie.

• 1:26:34David Sims?

  He does.

• 1:26:34Griffin Newman?

  And he's just like, oh, what am I doing? He puts his nose up against the glass. It's this famous restaurant that exists, The Fig Tree.

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:26:42Griffin Newman?

  That is owned by the same people at the Comedy Cellar. It is upstairs, upstairs.

• 1:26:46David Sims?

  It's upstairs from there.

• 1:26:47Griffin Newman?

  Upstairs? It's upstairs from the Comedy Cellar. It is connected, but you cannot see the show from the restaurant, right? And the guy's like 15 buck cover charge. And he's like, why? Because there's comedy in there. So I have to pay $15 to have a drink? Yes. Jordan Jensen walks by, or I think it's Chloe Radcliffe at first, very good comedian. Uh, and he goes, why didn't she have to pay? Cause she's performing. Well, how do I do that? You just put your name on a list. Why the fuck is anyone paying $15 to go to that bar? And that it's a sign up for what seems to be like a weekday night at a legitimate stage with a packed house. And you guys are saying, well, it doesn't feel like he does that well. But I think Ben and I would agree that like it doesn't pass the sniff test.

• 1:27:33Griffin Newman?

  No one is that polite in open mic. No one, no one is that polite, and especially that kind of stage.

• 1:27:38Speaker 03

  I mean, even at these club mics, they don't even turn the same lighting on for what you would have if you were.

• 1:27:44David Sims?

  To go to a regular show, they put on like the worst like fluorescent lighting.

• 1:27:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49David Sims?

  Like, they don't even bother with like, you know, creating the ambiance.

• 1:27:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:27:54David Sims?

  For those kinds of mics.

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  It is so much more depressing than this. It is like so much more like no one is putting a good face on this, right? If you get like a huh, you're like, oh, fuck, that joke's a keeper, right? The idea that he could be up there and be this sloppy and not go into something that is so raw and so dark that it would get some kind of shocking response from someone like my wife's head is in a fridge.

• 1:28:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:17Griffin Newman?

  And would get this much of a like polite thing. I'm just like, no one starts out that well. And what I wanted to grant them. The like, the kindness of assuming they were doing is a lot of comedians talk about being like, I was the funny guy at the office. And one night we were at a bar and an open mic started and they all pushed me to get up and I got up and I kinda killed. Like, it wasn't like amazing, but I like, there's a bunch of shit and I got some laughs.

• 1:28:41David Sims?

  Bounce, right.

• 1:28:42Griffin Newman?

  And I thought I was good. And then I went up the next day and I bombed. And I bombed for a straight year.

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  He never bombs.

• 1:28:48Griffin Newman?

  I didn't get another laugh for a year. And a lot of people talk about that dead count bounce thing where it's like, you have some beginner's luck and then you can't replicate it. And now you're like, fuck, well, I've had a taste. I'm addicted to this. And now I have to learn the craft of knowing how to do it. And he never bombs. And the movie tries to explain to him the process of iterating. You gotta go up six times a night. You need to work a bit out to get it honed. Every set we do, see him do is entirely new, feels like a stream of consciousness. We see his binder full of notes. I understand the movie doesn't.

• 1:29:22David Sims?

  Yeah, Griffin, it would be so boring if we watched him do the same material over and over again. And it's not what the movie's about.

• 1:29:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:28David Sims?

  The comedy scenes are just him exploring his feelings for the viewers.

• 1:29:33Griffin Newman?

  I've seen other people say this on Letterboxd, but it is literally a men will literally do stand up to avoid going to therapy movie.

• 1:29:39David Sims?

  Yes, they will. And that's something that's interesting to explore. That's what most stand up comedy feels like.

• 1:29:44Speaker 02

  Can I bring up another film, which I would like to recommend?

• 1:29:46Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  That I think is a really nice exploration of like.

• 1:29:50David Sims?

  I love you Daddy, directed by Lucy.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  Of like a middle aged, straight guy decides to get a hobby that he like, kind of keeps separate from the rest of his life and then how that ends up affecting the rest of his life.

• 1:30:06David Sims?

  All right, it was a good joke.

• 1:30:07Speaker 02

  Is Josh Hurley at middle aged?

• 1:30:09Griffin Newman?

  He is. I regret to tell you he's 45.

• 1:30:12Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:30:13David Sims?

  Uh, 47.

• 1:30:14Speaker 02

  Oh my, he's almost 50?

• 1:30:16Griffin Newman?

  He's gonna get there.

• 1:30:16Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:30:17Griffin Newman?

  God willing.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  I am so old.

• 1:30:20David Sims?

  You're not, it's fine. It's just like these guys who were famous when we were teens. It's like, they're 10 years older than us.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be 37.

• 1:30:26David Sims?

  That's great.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  No, it's not.

• 1:30:28David Sims?

  It is. Is this thing on?

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I should start doing stand up.

• 1:30:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a good time. It's a good time.

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  So, the movie-

• 1:30:34Griffin Newman?

  The industry's in a really good place.

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  The movie's called Shall We Dance?

• 1:30:38David Sims?

  Oh yeah, yes, movie.

• 1:30:40Griffin Newman?

  You just saw this for the first time.

• 1:30:41David Sims?

  The gear.

• 1:30:42Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:30:42David Sims?

  The original movie is better.

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  The original movie, the Japanese movie, uh, with Koji Ashuko, who's in Cure and Perfect Days. But he's like a salary man who decides to start taking ballroom dancing lessons.

• 1:30:54David Sims?

  Look, there's no country red in Japan for that vibe too.

• 1:30:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:59David Sims?

  Of the sort of broken down salary man having a, yeah.

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  And, but it's, it's such a nice exploration of like, I don't know, sometimes it's nice to like, start a new project that's just for you. And like, interrogating that and also like, why can't you bring other people in your life into, into it? Like, why are you hiding this from your wife? Like, you're not having an affair, you're just exploring.

• 1:31:21David Sims?

  Right, why wouldn't you say this?

• 1:31:22Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:31:23David Sims?

  Right, why wouldn't you admit you're doing this?

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  So, like, that to me is like, so, so interesting.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  But, this movie, it's like, okay, she finds out about the stand up a lot sooner than I thought.

• 1:31:34Griffin Newman?

  And then the second half of the movie is-

• 1:31:35Speaker 02

  And then she's just like, I'm horny for you.

• 1:31:37Griffin Newman?

  Truly, the full second half of this movie is, they sleep together again, and then they're like, so are we back together or what? And then starting to have like, a little bit of heat between them, they finally start having the conversations about like, what went wrong? And there's some like, very charged-

• 1:31:53David Sims?

  He breaks their thing open.

• 1:31:56Griffin Newman?

  Right. Was I sad in the relationship, or was I sad in a relationship? Did I fall out of love with you, or did I fall out of love with you falling out of love with me? Like, a lot of that kind of litigating.

• 1:32:05David Sims?

  The thing that's happened, that, it's the therapy thing that you just said, it's like, right, she's finally watching him process.

• 1:32:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:12David Sims?

  And talk about how he feels. And I guess that wasn't happening, which I mean- Makes sense. People just, things go unspoken or whatever, right? And that's exciting for her.

• 1:32:22Griffin Newman?

  She's also very angry at Slash turned on that he does stand up about having slept with another stand up.

• 1:32:28David Sims?

  He does, he does.

• 1:32:29Speaker 02

  But he also acknowledges that he misses his wife.

• 1:32:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:32David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  I think there is.

• 1:32:34Speaker 03

  He sleeps with, uh, Jordan Jensen.

• 1:32:35Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:32:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36David Sims?

  This all happens.

• 1:32:37Speaker 03

  Another stand up that appears in this.

• 1:32:38Griffin Newman?

  That every other stand up in this movie is a real stand up. And you're mostly watching him do real acts.

• 1:32:43David Sims?

  Comedy and goes to the cellar all the time, I believe. Right. So he knows these guys.

• 1:32:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:46David Sims?

  Um, uh, this is all happens while, um, fucking Laura Dern is on a date with Peyton Manning.

• 1:32:53Griffin Newman?

  Almost insane.

• 1:32:54David Sims?

  He's playing a character.

• 1:32:56Speaker 03

  Oh, he's not playing himself?

• 1:32:58David Sims?

  He's not.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  I thought he was actually quite good in this film.

• 1:33:01David Sims?

  I think he's incredible in this movie.

• 1:33:03Griffin Newman?

  I thought he was fun. I wanted him to stay in this movie. I ran into Patrick Williams.

• 1:33:08David Sims?

  How many movies can you do?

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  And Dave Weskes, head of Nebula, who works with Patrick.

• 1:33:12David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:12Griffin Newman?

  At this screening, sat with them. Uh, it cuts to this date night, right? There's this whole parallel thing. Oh, Bradley Cooper's been getting deeper in, into this. Comedians are letting him hang out with them. He's performing only there. They say this thing, you need to go up six times a night. You see him go to one open mic, just put his name in a bucket. But otherwise, it feels like this guy's just doing the cellar every night. At some point, pretty late, I think when he admits to Bradley Cooper, he's been doing this. He goes like, so what? Now you're just gonna like be a stand up? And he goes, well, I'm not gonna quit my job. And I think that was the first moment in the movie that I clocked, he had a job.

• 1:33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:46David Sims?

  Yes. He has some boring financial job.

• 1:33:49Griffin Newman?

  You see that he wears a suit sometimes, but the movie can't even bother to be like, what is his job? And how does it affect his life? It does feel like this is a guy who can kind of just drop everything and then like knows when to show up for his kids, right?

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02Griffin Newman?

  But there's this one thing where they call him and they're like, we got a show tonight.

• 1:34:06David Sims?

  There's the one dilemma of like, you're gonna get a, an actual slot versus, but you have to, you know.

• 1:34:12Griffin Newman?

  I think the movie fails to in any way present how this slot is. In any way different from what he's been doing the entire movie.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  I think it is very understandable that you're hung up on all these details. I do think most viewers don't care.

• 1:34:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm not even calling out like, lack of realism based, relative to what I know about comedy. I'm like, shouldn't that show feel different if the energy around it is, this one matters, the other ones were all fucking training wheel shows?

• 1:34:34David Sims?

  That worked for me just fine. All the stuff you're complaining about, I'm like, none of this.

• 1:34:38Griffin Newman?

  Bumped on super fucking hard. He goes to her, he's like, I know it's not supposed to be your night.

• 1:34:43David Sims?

  Right. Can I drop the kids? They also have Irish twins, is the joke?

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was having.

• 1:34:48Griffin Newman?

  In vitro. They had them very late, because clearly like, Bradley wanted to cast his two friends in the movie, and then they were like, huh, the math on them having kids who are under 10.

• 1:34:56David Sims?

  58 and 55, right. Yeah, but the idea, I guess, being she was an athlete, honestly, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but whatever.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  I like a lot of the kid stuff. The one thing I don't, the one thing I didn't like, was the musical performance.

• 1:35:10Griffin Newman?

  The under pressure?

• 1:35:10Speaker 02

  Those kids would not be that good.

• 1:35:12David Sims?

  Yeah, it also just kind of felt like a movie in need of an ending.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  It felt like a forced camera, Griffin.

• 1:35:17Speaker 02

  Which I'm like, oh.

• 1:35:18David Sims?

  Love Actually, a lot of movies are like, kid plays the drums, you'll love that, right?

• 1:35:22Griffin Newman?

  But even the, the aloha ending, which is the most successful part of aloha, with Bradley watching her dance routine.

• 1:35:27David Sims?

  Bad shit rocks in aloha.

• 1:35:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:30Speaker 03

  How embarrassing when the kid finds his stand-up book.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  I was gonna bring that up.

• 1:35:34Speaker 03

  That gives me shivers, Griffin, to think about, like, having to explain to any child that age, just the madness that I've written down.

• 1:35:44Griffin Newman?

  A moment that rang true for me when he's like, these are just jokes, and they were like, they're really sad.

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 1:35:49Speaker 03

  What do you mean jokes? These are not funny at all.

• 1:35:52Speaker 02

  I loved that part, because I think that, that happens before Laura Dern sees him. And so I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I'm expecting it to be about the wife finding out about the stand-up, but it's actually way less well-tread ground and more interesting to me to talk about the kids discovering that part.

• 1:36:11David Sims?

  You a little bit, that, I don't know how to explain that, sure.

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  There's no, there's no, like, easy way to explain it, but it's not about that. So I was like, oh, okay, we moved past that real fast.

• 1:36:21David Sims?

  But then, right.

• 1:36:22Griffin Newman?

  Compared to Shall We Dance, right, where you're like, it makes sense, in the 90s, culturally, that this character would have a secret shame about the idea that he's doing ballroom dancing, and doesn't want people to know, right? And he's finding some form of self-expression.

• 1:36:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  And there's like, a little kind of dancing around, like, and, and it's the Bradley Cooper scene, I think, is good, where he's like, Fuck, I'm annoyed that you're going for it.

• 1:36:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:46Griffin Newman?

  Like, everyone always thought you were funny and talented, and my thing was just that I'm the only person who decided to, like, be pot-committed to living the artist's life, and that the rest of you gave up and took boring jobs, right?

• 1:36:59Griffin Newman?

  But there's a degree of, like, shame and hiding he has around the stand-up thing, as if he is, like, doing ballet.

• 1:37:07David Sims?

  No, I think it's just that he's talking about his personal life. I think, I think that's it, right? That's the conflict.

• 1:37:13Griffin Newman?

  I feel like, whenever it comes up with people, they're like, "Stand-up? What do you mean, stand-up?"

• 1:37:19Speaker 02

  Well, no, that's-

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  Oh, Karen Hines says that, and he says, like, "Oh, stand-up, what are you doing?"

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  And, like, that is how I would react.

• 1:37:25Griffin Newman?

  While he's, like, drinking juicy juice out of a-

• 1:37:27David Sims?

  Yeah, you know-

• 1:37:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a weird character detail.

• 1:37:29David Sims?

  No offense to people who have practiced stand-up comedy in a professional way, but if I had a random friend, you know?

• 1:37:33Speaker 02

  Tell me, I would be like-

• 1:37:34David Sims?

  Be like, "Hey, I've been starting to do open mics."

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  I'd be like, "Are you okay? Like, there's something wrong with you."

• 1:37:40Griffin Newman?

  And I think he'd be like, "Oh, God, I don't want to see their show, it's probably really awkward." But I feel like this movie has everyone be like, "What do you, what is stand-up? What are you talking about?" When I'm like, "Stand-" We are arguably living in a time where the problem is that stand-up is too culturally powerful, and this movie kind of treats it like this weird, shameful, underground thing.

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  It's in a cellar.

• 1:38:01Griffin Newman?

  At a time where, like, it dominates all of social media.

• 1:38:04David Sims?

  Just to reassure you, look, okay?

• 1:38:06Griffin Newman?

  I feel really good.

• 1:38:07David Sims?

  He won, okay?

• 1:38:08Griffin Newman?

  He won.

• 1:38:08David Sims?

  It's okay.

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  He won really hard.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  I would say more if, like, if someone was like, "I'm actually, um, becoming an influencer." That would be more scary.

• 1:38:18David Sims?

  I started a YouTube, you need to follow, you need to subscribe and like.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  That is what I'm living right now.

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  Oh, your husband's becoming an influencer?

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  No, my dad.

• 1:38:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:28David Sims?

  Your dad's got a lot of projects, okay?

• 1:38:30Griffin Newman?

  Kind of the Bradley Cooper of the podcast.

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  My dad is kind of the Bradley Cooper of playing chess.

• 1:38:33David Sims?

  I don't know, I don't know.

• 1:38:34Griffin Newman?

  Your dad is actually a great follow.

• 1:38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, my dad considers himself an influencer on social media.

• 1:38:40Griffin Newman?

  He's pitch intent.

• 1:38:41Speaker 02

  He'd be posting.

• 1:38:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Speaker 03

  Your dad went to the Vatican?

• 1:38:44Speaker 02

  My dad went to the Vatican.

• 1:38:46David Sims?

  We shouldn't laugh, we shouldn't laugh.

• 1:38:48Speaker 02

  No, no, we can laugh about it, we have to laugh about it.

• 1:38:50David Sims?

  I feel like your family listens to this.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  They do, and you know what?

• 1:38:54Speaker 03

  Shout out, John.

• 1:38:55David Sims?

  No, your dad didn't get to meet the Pope, right? I felt bad for him.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  So he was supposed to meet the Pope. He was supposed to get a handshake, or a blessing.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  And he was supposed to do, do the backpack dance with him.

• 1:39:05David Sims?

  And instead the Pope was like, "Hang on, gotta pop off five more fire twe-

• 1:39:09Speaker 03

  About how JD Vance can suck my dad.

• 1:39:11Griffin Newman?

  That would have been the funniest thing.

• 1:39:12Speaker 03

  I love woke Pope.

• 1:39:13Griffin Newman?

  If your dad was in line to meet the Pope and he was like, hold on one second. I just have to meet JD Vance quickly. Five minutes later, dead.

• 1:39:20Speaker 03

  Bitch slap his fucking ass.

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Dead.

• 1:39:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, my dad, uh.

• 1:39:23Speaker 03

  Oh, right. That was the old guy.

• 1:39:24Speaker 02

  That was the other guy.

• 1:39:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, this was your.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  This is Pope.

• 1:39:27Speaker 02

  New Pope.

• 1:39:27Speaker 03

  Chicago Pope.

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  My dad.

• 1:39:28Speaker 03

  Chicago Pope.

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  My dad was going to meet Chicago Pope. There was like a, uh, some thing where it's like a bunch of people get to go to the Vatican. It's like they did this, they did this for comedy. They're doing it for.

• 1:39:39Speaker 03

  They did? Yeah.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  For filmmakers and actors.

• 1:39:42Griffin Newman?

  Only underlining my point. The idea that the Vatican is like, we must invite the comedians. Is like, this is seen as like one of the most powerful forces in bro. Communications. Yes.

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  But yeah, my dad gets to go to the Vatican. He was supposed to get every, you know, get a blessing. It doesn't happen because of security concerns.

• 1:39:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  Because they knew my dad was gonna try and like take a fucking like TikTok video with the Pope.

• 1:40:03Griffin Newman?

  But he was also holding a giant chicken parm sub.

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  The best.

• 1:40:09Griffin Newman?

  Taking big crunchy bites with steam lines coming off.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  My dad had never been, we're like, we're Italian American. My dad had never been to Italy.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  That's so crazy. He'd never been to Italy.

• 1:40:18Speaker 02

  And so we had been talking.

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  Dad is a real mystery wrapped in a riddle sometimes.

• 1:40:23Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot of stuff going on.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  Bradley Cooper's next movie will be about my father.

• 1:40:28Griffin Newman?

  Really? It feels like he's trying to get your dad's attention.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  I know. There's like so much them, like rich thematic material there.

• 1:40:35Speaker 03

  Now I'm imagining, I admit that I'm like, just check out this guy's Instagram. I'm, we're gonna watch some stories together.

• 1:40:40Griffin Newman?

  He did post pictures of him meeting Will I Am.

• 1:40:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:40:45Speaker 03

  Who is, to be clear, Deputy Pope currently. Leo the fourteenth was like a number two Pope now, Will I Am? And Apple D app is unavailable.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  You didn't finish his name then. It's Will I Am the Pope.

• 1:40:58Speaker 03

  Will I Am the first. Is it the fourteenth that he is? Leo the fourteenth?

• 1:41:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  The, the Will I Am story, just to add, this was not posted on social media, but this is like really fucking embarrassing. So during COVID, when they would have, uh, musical performances on late night, but they would be like, they'd film weird things for them.

• 1:41:17Griffin Newman?

  Pre-taped. Yeah.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  Yes. So I did a Vince Staples performance for the Colbert show.

• 1:41:23Griffin Newman?

  What? This is the first time I'm hearing this. Major lore drop.

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  Wait, didn't really? Do we not?

• 1:41:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm.

• 1:41:27Speaker 02

  No, sorry. Not Vince Staples. Vic Mensa. See, whatever.

• 1:41:30Griffin Newman?

  Even still, I haven't heard of this.

• 1:41:31Speaker 02

  Rapper guy. But he.

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  Wyclef.

• 1:41:35Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  Like guested on the track. So Wyclef was there.

• 1:41:40Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:41:41Speaker 02

  And so I like, I told, you know, my family, cause I'm like, they won't fucking know who Vic Mensa is, but they will know who Wyclef is.

• 1:41:49Griffin Newman?

  You also called your family and said, someone please call nine one.

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Uh, but.

• 1:41:54Griffin Newman?

  Wyclef Jean.

• 1:41:54David Sims?

  Yep. Yep. I was trying to think like, what's the best one?

• 1:41:57Griffin Newman?

  Someone please call nine one one.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  Uh, but my mom told my dad. She got Will I Am and Wyclef confused. So my dad starts talking to Will I Am about how his daughter worked with him on a film shoot.

• 1:42:11Griffin Newman?

  That's tough if he's like, no, I swear to God, my daughter knows you.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Right. So that was pretty embarrassing. Um, but also my dad was like FaceTiming the whole family from the roof of, of like St. Peters or whatever, that whatever the Vatican building is. And like.

• 1:42:28David Sims?

  Marie, your family's gonna get really mad.

• 1:42:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  No, it was great. But I was like, isn't this amazing? Look, I'm on the roof.

• 1:42:35David Sims?

  I know, but no, more at you being like, yeah, wherever the Pope's lives, whatever it's called. Yeah. What is he living at Chick-fil-A?

• 1:42:41Speaker 02

  Whatever. But yeah, but he might, all of a sudden my dad was like, sorry guys, I gotta go. I'm not supposed to be filming up here.

• 1:42:47Griffin Newman?

  That rules.

• 1:42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, anyway.

• 1:42:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh, breaking news, uh, La Boo Boo movie in early development at Sony.

• 1:42:54David Sims?

  Interesting. And Scorsese is signing on or is he just circling?

• 1:42:58Griffin Newman?

  He, no, he's attached. There's a lot on his plate.

• 1:43:01Speaker 02

  Well, I feel like Scorsese is a La Boo Boo.

• 1:43:04David Sims?

  He is turning into a La Boo Boo.

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  Turning in.

• 1:43:08David Sims?

  I, I.

• 1:43:08Griffin Newman?

  He's been a couple of different types of La Boo Boo, but I'd say he's always been a La Boo Boo.

• 1:43:12David Sims?

  I say that with all love and respect for the wonderful, wonderful, great Martin Scorsese.

• 1:43:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You saw the, the George Lucas La Boo Boo thing?

• 1:43:19David Sims?

  Yes, I did.

• 1:43:20Griffin Newman?

  He was on a red carpet with his lovely wife, Melody Hobson. And he was holding a La Boo Boo dress like him in a little flannel shirt and.

• 1:43:27Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry. I, thank you. So Ben's just sending us the screen grabs that he took of my dad's Instagram story.

• 1:43:33Speaker 03

  Which I had meant to send to the group text and then I got distracted and I just was looking through my photo roll.

• 1:43:39David Sims?

  If I sent every funny John Barti, like Instagram. Story to the group text, the group text would be flooded.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Had a chat with John Legend and his wife, which is another good one.

• 1:43:49Griffin Newman?

  Is she even visible in the, okay, she is there.

• 1:43:52David Sims?

  She's, uh, yeah.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  There's a lens flare, JJ Abrams shot this one.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Her name is Chrissy Teigen.

• 1:43:57David Sims?

  She's quite famous.

• 1:43:57Speaker 02

  She is quite famous.

• 1:43:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  But yeah, shout out to my dad's adventures. My dad would do stand up.

• 1:44:06David Sims?

  I bet he'd be good at it. I think the clock is ticking on him going to the Comedy Cellar and somehow getting on stage.

• 1:44:12Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna happen.

• 1:44:13Speaker 03

  When I did the fashion show, your dad was lovely enough to volunteer to be a participant and he was eating.

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  I mean, the man, the man is a ham sandwich.

• 1:44:23Griffin Newman?

  He is.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  He's a performer.

• 1:44:24Griffin Newman?

  Well, hey, don't say that too loudly.

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  That's gonna get hungry again.

• 1:44:27David Sims?

  Griffin, have you performed at the Cellar Griffin?

• 1:44:30Griffin Newman?

  No, it's incredibly difficult.

• 1:44:32David Sims?

  What do you mean? Isn't it just some old lady called like Mitzi or whatever who's like, all right, kid, I'll give you a shot.

• 1:44:37Griffin Newman?

  Mitzi Shore was Paulie Shore's mother and she was, uh, whatchamacallit, the, not the improv, uh, the Comedy Store.

• 1:44:44David Sims?

  Comedy Store, one of the, yeah, I knew she was.

• 1:44:46Griffin Newman?

  In LA, she's an LA person. Uh, no, it's like one of the hardest places to get past. It is not a place that has open mics as they show in the film.

• 1:44:54Speaker 03

  You almost have to like graduate from other clubs to get there.

• 1:44:57David Sims?

  Completely understand that. Now, do you think maybe that Bradley wanted to use it because it's, you know, cinematically, it's an interesting space and all that?

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  I think this, I think all, I think the story would have been exactly the same.

• 1:45:07David Sims?

  Everything in the movie tracked for me in a sort of logical way, even if it's not real. Yes.

• 1:45:12Speaker 02

  Old Man Hustle, Brooklyn Comedy Club, alright.

• 1:45:15David Sims?

  I think they should have done it at Old Man Hustle.

• 1:45:16Griffin Newman?

  Or like the fucking, what's it called?

• 1:45:18Speaker 03

  Or Eastville.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  The Grizzly Pear, any of these fucking places.

• 1:45:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. Grizzly Pear is really where you would do open mics. That was basically like a few buildings down from the Cellar.

• 1:45:27Griffin Newman?

  It's like, what if we have comedy every night because it helps bring in an audience?

• 1:45:30Speaker 03

  And it smells like a urinal cake.

• 1:45:32Griffin Newman?

  You're not getting paid for any show, like, I just.

• 1:45:35David Sims?

  Crashing obviously did it best.

• 1:45:39Speaker 03

  Hold on, let's all just take a moment of silence.

• 1:45:43Griffin Newman?

  A moment of applause.

• 1:45:45David Sims?

  And there's a, there's a show where the actor was the correct age for the role he was playing.

• 1:45:49Griffin Newman?

  One, I know we're doing fucking like, you know, grumpy inside baseball shit.

• 1:45:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:45:54Griffin Newman?

  But I also think if you're gonna do this, despite the fact that Comedy Cellar is like a good space to depict visually, it looks as comedy clubby as a comedy club could look.

• 1:46:02David Sims?

  It is the comedy club.

• 1:46:03Griffin Newman?

  Right, the kind of like collective unconscious idea of going down to a basement in New York City.

• 1:46:07Speaker 02

  I feel like every comedy club I've been to, except maybe the like weird ones in Bushwick, just replicate that.

• 1:46:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:12Griffin Newman?

  Same, yes, absolutely.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  It's like you need a fucking brick wall.

• 1:46:14Griffin Newman?

  Or they're like way too shiny and kind of like corporate looking.

• 1:46:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  But I, I think it's like a mistake to depict the one comedy club that gets depicted in media. To your point, it's like, that's the club that Crashing uses. That's the place that Marie's best friend Louis C.K. is walking up to at the beginning of every episode of his TV show. Like, if you are someone who does not live in New York City and you visually know one New York comedy club, it's that one. And every other depiction of that, it is the place where the Joker bombs. Every other depiction of it is like, this is the ultimate stage you wanna get to and this movie makes it the entry point, which I think is kinda stupid.

• 1:46:52David Sims?

  You know where the Joker walked though? Those steps.

• 1:46:54Griffin Newman?

  He walked the, well, he danced them.

• 1:46:56David Sims?

  Nope.

• 1:46:56Griffin Newman?

  And then in the sequel, he walked up them to be told, fuck you.

• 1:47:00David Sims?

  Don't remember.

• 1:47:01Griffin Newman?

  Remember when God got dumped?

• 1:47:03David Sims?

  That's a movie I saw in a fugue state.

• 1:47:05Griffin Newman?

  I'm focused.

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  I know, I will get back on the plot. I had a question for you. What do you think is the worst open mic that you would go to? Cause I have my answer. So I'll go first while you think about it, is the Alligator Lounge.

• 1:47:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  Oh, I've made out with people there.

• 1:47:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:47:20David Sims?

  But I don't think I ever saw a comedy show.

• 1:47:21Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I did a bar show there.

• 1:47:24David Sims?

  That's a Paul David in his twenties.

• 1:47:25Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I did a bar show there, but I never did a, a mic there.

• 1:47:30Speaker 03

  It's, so it's, uh, the location in Manhattan, right? Cause Crocodile is the Brooklyn location. And so the deal is you could go there as a regular person and you get a beer and then you get a free pizza.

• 1:47:41David Sims?

  The terrible pizza.

• 1:47:42Speaker 03

  Terrible.

• 1:47:42Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  But people, you know.

• 1:47:44David Sims?

  Airplane pizza.

• 1:47:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's food. Truly, you're right. Airplane, like not cafeteria pizza actually makes this look like gourmet, right? I, so I would go to that mic occasionally. It was like a weekly mic, I believe. And so you would get though, actual people, audience members, not just like open micers. But here's the deal, they were essentially your prisoners.

• 1:48:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:08Speaker 03

  Because they were there to eat cheap pizza, drink beer, hang out. And instead, they were, you know, it's like when you go to a bar and it's like, alright, it's trivia night. You're like, get me the fuck out of here.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:48:19Speaker 03

  But this is 10 times worse.

• 1:48:21Griffin Newman?

  I think it is a failure of the movie to not depict this. When I, I don't want to see the same set six times. But I do think the movie doesn't give you the sense of how he is building or developing.

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  They should have had a fucking Rocky montage.

• 1:48:35Griffin Newman?

  A, there should be like one montage of him doing six mics in one night.

• 1:48:38Speaker 03

  A montage.

• 1:48:39Griffin Newman?

  Where you see the same line getting refined, right? But I even feel like every set is so holistically different. And he basically starts at a point and stays exactly there the entire time where he's just kind of okay. You told me when you saw it, you were like-

• 1:48:52Speaker 03

  I was like, he goes from being bad to being like, maybe okay for 10 minutes.

• 1:48:57Griffin Newman?

  I was relieved that he's never killing it. But he starts way too-

• 1:49:00Speaker 03

  At no point does he go viral and have someone say, "You're going viral."

• 1:49:03Speaker 02

  Right, thank god.

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  He starts way too warm and gets like 5% better, right?

• 1:49:09Speaker 03

  Like, instead of like, people laughing or clapping, there should just cut to like the audience and the sound of a glass bottle falling on the ground and kind of just like rattling.

• 1:49:17Griffin Newman?

  It's obviously not-

• 1:49:18Speaker 03

  That's more true to what I don't like so far.

• 1:49:20Griffin Newman?

  It's obviously not the main concern, even though that's where the movie started. We should also acknowledge this film has a screenplay credit. Story by Will Arnett, John Bishop, who it's based on, and another man, I'm forgetting the name of-

• 1:49:30Speaker 03

  Mark Chappelle, who also wrote, got a screenplay credit.

• 1:49:33Griffin Newman?

  Right, inspired by John Bishop, but then the screenplay credit-

• 1:49:35Speaker 03

  Mark Chappelle did the, um, that show, um, the increasingly poor decisions of Todd Margaret.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  Which Will Arnett was a part of.

• 1:49:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:49:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the screenplay credit is Bradley Cooper and-

• 1:49:47Speaker 03

  Will Arnett and Mark Chappelle.

• 1:49:48Griffin Newman?

  So they wrote a script together and Bradley rewrote it. It makes sense that Bradley was like, "I really only took a couple things."

• 1:49:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, Bradley really liked, right, the, my friend Brad.

• 1:49:57Griffin Newman?

  Took it even further in a different direction, your friend Brad. But I think like it's not this movie's primary concern. Bradley clearly pushed it even more towards the marriage and the divorce, right? But I feel like it is a waste to even set it in stand-up at all if you are not showing some arc of how he comes to understand, A, how to be like better at doing it. And I don't need it to be like fucking brass tacks accurate, right? And B, like some greater emotional understanding of what he's expressing and like how he is gaining emotional intelligence through doing this, which is what the movie is really trying to do. And he starts out getting out there, just kind of making soft, barely above take my wife please jokes about being sad and divorced. And just kind of stays there.

• 1:50:42Griffin Newman?

  And she sees him and she's like, it's kind of like attractive to see that you were on stage confident and that you mentioned you had sex with somebody and the audience was laughing. And she's a little turned on by like you have the ability to speak, which is certainly the starting point of the movie is this guy's so closed off, they don't know how to talk to each other, all the passion's gone. Really what she seems into is this guy can say what he's feeling.

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  Right, the stand-up, it's not about him learning to be good stand-up, it's not what the movie's about. It's just the therapy scenes in The Sopranos, it's just us being leveled up on his journey through his marriage, through his feelings. It's just a way to dramatically reveal that, in my opinion. It's just, that's just not what the movie's about.

• 1:51:21Griffin Newman?

  I agree, but to relate it back to Shall We Dance, you're like, you want the dancing to be good. He doesn't need to be Fred Astaire at the end of the movie, but I think it being translated through a new hobby, a new form of expression.

• 1:51:34Speaker 02

  I don't find that stuff in the movie that bad, yeah. I also don't think that like, again, like, again, I'm talking about a movie that like not a ton of people have seen, but like the dancing and he doesn't become like, it's not, he's not the best dancer, it's more about him like getting a hobby and what that means to get a hobby and how that affects you emotionally.

• 1:51:51Griffin Newman?

  I just think this film absolutely fails to show any arc of what is happening through him doing stand-up until the moment where Laura Dern sees it. And then it's all just about what she's receiving from.

• 1:52:03Speaker 02

  What I loved about Peyton Manning's performance.

• 1:52:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:52:07Speaker 02

  Is he impressively plays a guy who's just getting a drink.

• 1:52:11David Sims?

  With an old friend realizes halfway into the date, he's gonna fuck her.

• 1:52:15Griffin Newman?

  This could be.

• 1:52:16David Sims?

  I was like, great actors could not do what he is doing right now. The way his eyes shift, it's like Peyton Manning is like reading an offense or a defense. And he's suddenly like, wait, this pocket's open. I think I'm gonna fuck Laura Dern. I thought I was just saying hi to her. And then she's like, I am, you know, getting, you know.

• 1:52:35Speaker 02

  But she also was realizing it too.

• 1:52:38David Sims?

  And Laura Dern, very good actor. The whole thing with Peyton Manning in this movie is I'm seeing this at the New York Film Festival. Cut to Peyton Manning on the date, but he's sort of from afar and I'm like, is that fucking Peyton Manning?

• 1:52:50Speaker 02

  Did no one else know who that was?

• 1:52:52David Sims?

  None of these virgins at the New York Film Festival. And I go like, is that Peyton Manning? I like say it to my seat, to Emma. I was with Emma Stefanski. And she's like, huh? And I'm like, god damn it, nobody knows who like the most famous football player of my lifetime is.

• 1:53:06Griffin Newman?

  I clocked it immediately.

• 1:53:08David Sims?

  You know Peyton because you love SNL.

• 1:53:10Griffin Newman?

  Exactly, exactly. And they talk about him so lovingly on the Lonely Island podcast.

• 1:53:15David Sims?

  I think the best regarded athlete host of SNL.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a good, he's a good actor.

• 1:53:20Griffin Newman?

  And that digital short with the, him and the kids and being such an asshole.

• 1:53:23Speaker 02

  People for the United Way or whatever, yeah.

• 1:53:24Griffin Newman?

  They're like, this is like deceptively difficult.

• 1:53:26David Sims?

  Yes, and they do a good job on that episode breaking down like, right, why it's hard.

• 1:53:31Griffin Newman?

  His skill set.

• 1:53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:32Griffin Newman?

  I, as I was sort of 40 minutes ago, before I got waylaid by seven other ideas I had. Was setting up, I run into Patrick and Dave Whiskis there, right? I'm sitting next to them. My like level of frustration with the movie is growing, right? Will Arnett's like, I need to take the kids tonight. She's like, I can't, I have a thing, right? He drops off with his parents, Christine Ebersole, who I always love.

• 1:53:54David Sims?

  We love to see it.

• 1:53:55Griffin Newman?

  Kieran Hines, who's super solid and is doing something in this movie I couldn't quite pin down.

• 1:53:59David Sims?

  It was, his casting, it felt like the Andrew Dice Clay thing where you're like, did Bradley just sort of like? Have a vision and kinda just wanted him there.

• 1:54:08Griffin Newman?

  But down to like the juice box and his like little toy soldier like train set shit.

• 1:54:12David Sims?

  There's gotta be a guy, maybe Bradley's own father, I don't know.

• 1:54:15Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, are there 20 minutes cut out? Cause it felt like he came in with a bunch of ideas and none of them come across on screen.

• 1:54:21David Sims?

  Captivating always.

• 1:54:23Speaker 02

  He's like an immigrant.

• 1:54:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:54:24Speaker 02

  They're, they're, they're, they try to like allude to a lot of backstory there.

• 1:54:29Griffin Newman?

  Very virile still.

• 1:54:30Speaker 02

  But also like.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:32Speaker 02

  But also like Eastern European.

• 1:54:36Griffin Newman?

  They make it very clear as an immigrant and I could never pin down. He's not doing his own native dialect.

• 1:54:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:54:42Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:54:43Speaker 02

  But whatever. Um, okay.

• 1:54:44Griffin Newman?

  So then they both have these parallel nights out where they're not letting the other one know about the thing, right? And we cut into the restaurant. I immediately, like the sound of his voice being filmed from the distance, three quarters. I like turned to Patrick, I'm like, it's fucking Peyton Manning? And he's like, what, what are you talking about? And then they cut in and he's like tilting his head and I'm like, that's Peyton Manning? This is so bizarre. And I was feeling the way you were feeling during the amazing grace scene where I was like, Bradley's doing something weird here, right? And then I'm locked into how good Peyton Manning is, as you're saying. And you hear her on the phone with Andrew Day. There's this whole side plot that Andrew Day and Bradley Cooper's marriage like sucks.

• 1:55:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:23Griffin Newman?

  And they kinda actively hate each other, but make a bit out of fighting all the time.

• 1:55:27David Sims?

  They're having a parallel crisis and not acknowledging it in a way.

• 1:55:31Griffin Newman?

  And, and they unbeknownst to them, as Dern and Arnett are about to rekindle things secretly.

• 1:55:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:55:39Griffin Newman?

  They're looking at them and going like, man, they seem pretty happy being divorced.

• 1:55:42Speaker 02

  We should get divorced.

• 1:55:42Griffin Newman?

  We should get divorced. So they're starting to like.

• 1:55:44David Sims?

  They're starting to.

• 1:55:45Griffin Newman?

  Buttonhole them separately.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:47Griffin Newman?

  Right. So, um, uh, she says to Andrew Day, like, it's not a date. He's married. He has kids. I'm just thinking about getting into coaching and he's gonna give me advice. And then you're like, oh, fuck, the cast Peyton Manning, this guy wants to fuck her, right? But then the surprise is.

• 1:56:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:04Griffin Newman?

  He's playing it like, no, actually, you know, this and that.

• 1:56:07Speaker 02

  And then she does get it. She gets a job. She gets a coaching job.

• 1:56:09Griffin Newman?

  She gets the coaching job. It's nice that she feels like she's found this new avenue.

• 1:56:13David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 1:56:13Griffin Newman?

  And then they both realize in real time that the other one is divorced and he's locked in and his suggestion is, she says. Do you want to get another drink? Because I'm actually not tired at all.

• 1:56:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:23Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, open for business, right?

• 1:56:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:25Griffin Newman?

  Neon sign.

• 1:56:26David Sims?

  And God bless.

• 1:56:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I'm down to watch this happen, right? And then he goes, he says, "Oh, I know a good place around the corner." And I turn to Patrick and I go, "I swear to God, if the place around the corner is the comedy club,

• 1:56:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm going to arrest this movie."

• 1:56:45David Sims?

  Why?

• 1:56:46Griffin Newman?

  In what universe? He basically says, "Do you want to go get a nightcap? I know a good place."

• 1:56:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:52Griffin Newman?

  And the good place is taking her to a show?

• 1:56:55David Sims?

  Like, you know, if he like, I guess, knows the owner and you can just get in, that's kind of a cool look.

• 1:57:01Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of a cool thing. It would be just as insane if he went, "Yeah, I'm down to get another drink. I actually know a really good place around the corner. Hard cut to them at Film Forum seeing a movie."

• 1:57:12David Sims?

  Sounds like a great place to see a movie.

• 1:57:15Speaker 03

  Hard cut to they're at a noise show.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  That's where you would go.

• 1:57:19Griffin Newman?

  She sees him perform. You think she's gonna like flip out and like revenge fuck Peyton Manning.

• 1:57:25David Sims?

  Because of that, right? Because.

• 1:57:26Griffin Newman?

  I think it's good because of their two performances.

• 1:57:28David Sims?

  And their performances, yeah.

• 1:57:30Griffin Newman?

  And then she like.

• 1:57:31David Sims?

  And, and the way it swerves in an interesting way.

• 1:57:33Speaker 03

  And he does have kind of a good joke about her in that set.

• 1:57:37David Sims?

  Yes, it's, it's, it's, it all works fine.

• 1:57:39Griffin Newman?

  Chloe Radcliffe.

• 1:57:40David Sims?

  That's when I was like energized because I'm like, the movie's doing something.

• 1:57:42Griffin Newman?

  Who had clowned.

• 1:57:43David Sims?

  And then they're back to.

• 1:57:44Griffin Newman?

  Had literally done a clown routine at their son's birthday party.

• 1:57:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:57:48Griffin Newman?

  So met Laura Dern, sees her on the way out.

• 1:57:51David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  You know, Peyton Manning goes, "Do you want to leave?" And she goes, "No, I'm not leaving. I wouldn't, I, I, I wouldn't leave for anything on earth right now."

• 1:57:57David Sims?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:57:58Griffin Newman?

  And then she storms out the second the set's done.

• 1:58:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:58:00Griffin Newman?

  Chloe Radcliffe's like, "Cool of your wife to come." He's like, "What?"

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  What's going on?

• 1:58:04Griffin Newman?

  Goes upstairs.

• 1:58:05David Sims?

  Oh, Jack Horseman.

• 1:58:06Griffin Newman?

  She's put Peyton Manning in a car.

• 1:58:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:58:08Griffin Newman?

  She's chain smoking. Or is he coming out with a cigarette and she asks for a puff?

• 1:58:11David Sims?

  This I cannot tell you.

• 1:58:13Griffin Newman?

  They're sharing a cigarette.

• 1:58:14David Sims?

  That sounds right.

• 1:58:14Griffin Newman?

  And just immediately the vibe is like, "So are we gonna fuck?" And then it cuts to them in bed.

• 1:58:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:58:31Griffin Newman?

  And now you're like, huh, second half of the movie is...

• 1:58:34David Sims?

  Is it them like coming back together, which it is, but...

• 1:58:38Griffin Newman?

  It's a little, it's complicated. It's a little, The Lovers, a movie I like quite a bit, the Tracy Letts.

• 1:58:43David Sims?

  Tracy Letts, bad bitch.

• 1:58:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But that's a movie that's like, just tired, loveless marriage. They're both having affairs. They find out about each other's affairs and it kinda turns them on.

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  Right. They start to have an affair with each other.

• 1:58:55Griffin Newman?

  And it's fun that they're like keeping secret the idea that they've actually reconnected.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  It's very, it's complicated.

• 1:59:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:59:02David Sims?

  Yeah. It's a good, very spare little movie, The Rachel Jacobs.

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. This is like area where I was like, okay, I'm a little more interested in the movie going in this direction.

• 1:59:10David Sims?

  Me too.

• 1:59:11Griffin Newman?

  And then it just felt like kinda the same conversation getting repeated over and over and over.

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  This was the thing where I was kind of like, am I about to be in on this movie? I like that. And then, yes, I, I do think it's interesting to try and mundanely portray the, the sort of stuff that sets in with marriage. That's fine. But at the end of the day, it's just kinda them talking about stuff where I'm like, oh, I don't know. I suppose you both were a little right. This is a little boring. You guys are both like well off. Like, I don't feel a crisis here.

• 1:59:41Griffin Newman?

  Their lives, right. Their lives are like...

• 1:59:42David Sims?

  The amazing Gracie and I loved.

• 1:59:44Griffin Newman?

  We have these three friends, these two couple friends and oh my God, how is you getting divorced going to affect our like time share?

• 1:59:52David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:59:52Griffin Newman?

  Cabin, weekend getaway.

• 1:59:55Speaker 02

  Well, it's not really a cabin. It's like a mansion.

• 1:59:57David Sims?

  It's pretty big.

• 1:59:58Speaker 02

  And I keep, I keep like mixing up details of this movie in Splitsville.

• 2:00:04Griffin Newman?

  I love Splitsville.

• 2:00:05Speaker 02

  Splitsville's good, but both of those movies, we did. Both those movies are like about New York people getting divorced. There's like a Long Island home. There's also a child's birthday party. So I'm just like, wait.

• 2:00:18Griffin Newman?

  And, and that movie is very exaggerated at times.

• 2:00:21Speaker 02

  Nicholas Braun is in which movie?

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  He's in Splitsville.

• 2:00:24Speaker 02

  But he's playing a magician?

• 2:00:26Griffin Newman?

  He's playing a mentor.

• 2:00:27Speaker 02

  A mentor. Yeah, right. So it's like a...

• 2:00:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That movie gets into more exaggerated territory. It goes into sort of like...

• 2:00:34David Sims?

  That movie's very stylized, yeah.

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it goes into almost like magical realism at times.

• 2:00:39David Sims?

  Which is what those guys do, which I like.

• 2:00:41Griffin Newman?

  Right. But I was like, I kept feeling like the bigger they swung, the more they were kind of identifying interesting human dynamics where I'm like, huh, haven't kinda seen that, which I just kept wanting this to burrow deeper.

• 2:00:54David Sims?

  Like the whole thing where-

• 2:00:55Griffin Newman?

  Not deeper and heavier.

• 2:00:56David Sims?

  There's a whole thing where he blows up the poster of her being a volleyball player.

• 2:01:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:00David Sims?

  And he's like, "Look at this awesome thing I did." He doesn't even say it in that way, but he's-

• 2:01:03Griffin Newman?

  He shows her on his phone. She goes, "What's that?" He goes, "It's an old picture I found of you in the volleyball days, and I blew it up and I got it the size of my wall in my bachelor pad so the kids can see-

• 2:01:14Speaker 02

  How awesome that is their mom was.

• 2:01:16Griffin Newman?

  And I turned to Patrick, I go, "That's the most insane thing a human being has ever done."

• 2:01:21David Sims?

  Zoran won the election.

• 2:01:22Griffin Newman?

  Now narrowly beating Peyton Manning saying, "I know a cool place around the corner."

• 2:01:26David Sims?

  Like, it was like an eight or nine point victory, all the votes had come in.

• 2:01:28Griffin Newman?

  It took another two hours to have that release.

• 2:01:29Speaker 02

  They announced it three minutes after the polls.

• 2:01:33Griffin Newman?

  I got off the subway and I heard people cheering as I was walking up the stairs. And truly, it was like heroin had been injected into my veins.

• 2:01:39David Sims?

  But unfortunately, you were in the Upper East Side because Cuomo had won and the Cuomo-sexuals were out.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:45David Sims?

  No, actually, Sliwa won. You heard the cats screaming.

• 2:01:50Griffin Newman?

  And the annoying part was my red beret was at the cleaners and I couldn't even celebrate.

• 2:01:54David Sims?

  I can't even go on the subway with this thing.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, Marie.

• 2:01:56Speaker 02

  Kind of a hot take. I get why she was upset.

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  No, I do too. Yeah, it was interesting.

• 2:02:03Speaker 02

  But I also was like, "Oh, that's kinda nice."

• 2:02:07David Sims?

  So she says, like, "I understand, but this is not who I am anymore. You can't see my face." Like, "This is making me feel like you loved the person I was, not the person I am." That's interesting. If I'm her, I'm kinda like, "You went to a store and got a thing done? Good job, buddy. We're making some progress here."

• 2:02:28Speaker 02

  You want like our two young male sons?

• 2:02:32David Sims?

  You made a decision about decorating?

• 2:02:33Speaker 02

  Right. Good for you. But also, like, you want, like, you're our boy. I'm so concerned about the crisis of like raising young boys right now. Sorry, David, to like, you know.

• 2:02:44David Sims?

  I ain't worried. It's fine.

• 2:02:45Griffin Newman?

  He's only got two.

• 2:02:46Speaker 02

  You got two of them.

• 2:02:47Griffin Newman?

  Only.

• 2:02:48Speaker 02

  And but no, I think it's it's nice to have be like, look, your mom is was an athlete. And she was super badass and she's a woman and she's also your mom and she does all this stuff and we're gonna celebrate her. And I was like, that's nice.

• 2:02:59David Sims?

  Right. And then she's like, it hurts my feelings. And I was just kinda like, at that point, I was also just like, you know, this movie ain't short. I'm kinda ready to go. I think they both just need to, why don't they just go figure this out privately?

• 2:03:12Griffin Newman?

  I I had this, I had this larger thought of like, you know, all the shit against Maestro was like, this is so pretentious. What is he doing with this? Is this self indulgent?

• 2:03:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  Like, what is he saying about himself or not saying about himself?

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  He wants an Oscar so bad, which I, you know, we debated that.

• 2:03:28Griffin Newman?

  We push back on so many times of like, if you want an Oscar, you don't make a film that strange, right?

• 2:03:32David Sims?

  I completely agree.

• 2:03:33Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like he actually got wounded by this narrative that happened. And it was a similar thing that happened to like DiCaprio in the J Edgar period, right? Where it feels like his Oscar movies start becoming weirder because people were making fun of him doing these kind of straight down the middle Oscar baity things. And it's like, I gotta win an Oscar for doing a thing that's different than what I've done before, right? And Bradley Cooper's getting dinged as if he made Bohemian Rhapsody, but also for being pretentious and like, you know, inaccessible and whatever. And this movie feels like a real like, oh, I'll show you how unpretentious I can be, right? And I'm just gonna make something that's small scale and focused and character based.

• 2:04:11Griffin Newman?

  And yet I just feel like this movie feels very representative of being like the byproduct of a bunch of older, very rich people who've been successful for a very long time, who just like cannot totally relocate normal human behavior.

• 2:04:27David Sims?

  I agree a little bit.

• 2:04:27Griffin Newman?

  And Star is Born and Maestro, you're just like, he can say shit in these worlds that other people can't access. He has an experience. I'm not even talking about like, write what you know.

• 2:04:38David Sims?

  But those are also operatic movies.

• 2:04:40Griffin Newman?

  Which I think is what he's so good at.

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 2:04:43David Sims?

  And they're very different types of operatic. Other stuff.

• 2:04:46Griffin Newman?

  I don't either.

• 2:04:46Speaker 02

  This movie, this movie didn't make me angry.

• 2:04:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:04:49Speaker 02

  And like, I was just like, it was fine, you know?

• 2:04:52Griffin Newman?

  So this scene with the the poster, I'm like, there is a version of this in which it's like, her birth. There or whatever. And he goes like, hey, I want to surprise you. I got you something cool. And he unwraps this framed thing and she's like, what is this? And he's like, I thought you'd like this. I found this photo. And she's sort of like, why are you giving me a photo of the back of my head?

• 2:05:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  The notion of him delivering it to her as like, can I show you something cool on my cellphone? I've had this hanging up in my apartment already for two months. I found it and blew it up because I want it to be an inspiration to your sons and I haven't told you. And she just in real time gets so mad and processes everything about what's weird about it. Where I'm just like, the way in which that happens is so bizarre that I wouldn't even understand what the fuck he was saying. You know, where I'm like, there's an idea in that I agree with you that I think is like, kind of dramatically interesting. And I keep feeling this movie like absolutely botch the execution of how these events play out, of how people interact with each other, where I'm just like feeling any sort of like Cameron Crowe moment of magic,

• 2:05:58Griffin Newman?

  being strangled out by like logic bumps of just like, I don't think anyone talks like that.

• 2:06:04David Sims?

  I mean, I, I hear you. I, I, I was a little, I do think it's really funny when Bradley Cooper says it just, he goes like, just flip it. And he's like, what do you mean? Like it's

• 2:06:12Griffin Newman?

  So it's the front of her face.

• 2:06:14David Sims?

  And he's like, just flip it. Take it to the store. Like, I just love the, if, as someone said, someone said this to me, I forget who. That if Will Arnett is, you know, BoJack, that Bradley's playing Mr. Peanut Butter.

• 2:06:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you said that to me and I was like, that's great.

• 2:06:29David Sims?

  The guy who's just kind of like in another dimension, like, you know, got a different way of looking at things.

• 2:06:33Griffin Newman?

  I was talking to a friend about this movie and saying like, it is really fascinating as a sort of study in like, what is a movie star and what isn't a movie star, right? And I love Will Arnett at doing the Will Arnett thing. And I'm not someone asking him to just do the same thing over and over and over again. But I was like, is he the right person for this? Can I like buy this sort of like depth and nuance of emotion? And this guy who's putting on a brave face, but is kind of quietly crumbling inside.

• 2:06:58David Sims?

  Podcast is over.

• 2:06:59Griffin Newman?

  Episodes going into OT.

• 2:07:01Speaker 02

  Two hours.

• 2:07:02Griffin Newman?

  It's tied. The episode's tied.

• 2:07:04David Sims?

  Cause I gotta go home.

• 2:07:05Griffin Newman?

  And then I remember fucking BoJack, where I'm just like, I actually feel the pain of that fucking cartoon horse.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:12Griffin Newman?

  More than I do this guy.

• 2:07:13David Sims?

  And I, I, I did, at least for a while. That show really got on my nerves at a point, but initially.

• 2:07:19Griffin Newman?

  Like, I don't think Arnett, I don't know if he's not vulnerable enough. I don't know if there's an ego he's protecting here. I don't know if the material isn't diving deep enough. But I just like, never cared about this fucking guy.

• 2:07:31Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:07:31Griffin Newman?

  And I did not feel like the movie was letting me in. And if the point is, this guy doesn't let anyone in and he's a brick wall. I don't think it's playing that well enough either. And, and on the opposite end, like Laura Dern is someone I basically like, can never not love. I think she like, never misses. And she is always engaging and has just kind of like an automatic, perfect balance of like comedy and like, human realism. And I'm just sort of like, this feels like a waste of her energy. She's doing everything you're asking her to do here well, but you're really not gonna ask her to go deeper than this.

• 2:08:06David Sims?

  So you love the film five stars?

• 2:08:08Griffin Newman?

  They get back together.

• 2:08:10David Sims?

  Yeah, they get back.

• 2:08:10Griffin Newman?

  The kids learn how to play under pressure.

• 2:08:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:12David Sims?

  Yeah, that I was just like.

• 2:08:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, come on.

• 2:08:15Griffin Newman?

  You haven't earned this. Yeah.

• 2:08:16David Sims?

  I mean, I was just like, it's time for me to go. I, I, yes, I, you have not earned a transcendent cry.

• 2:08:22Griffin Newman?

  Can this thing end?

• 2:08:23Speaker 03

  I had a question.

• 2:08:23David Sims?

  Little bit.

• 2:08:24Speaker 03

  What do we think about Balls and his wife, who are also equally having marital issues? There's a scene later where I guess Bradley Cooper's character got cast in some cowboy thing.

• 2:08:37Griffin Newman?

  I like this bit. And he stole the hat from costume and they killed his character off.

• 2:08:41David Sims?

  It seems like he's like in a Taylor Sheridan show or something. Yeah.

• 2:08:44Griffin Newman?

  But it was like a two-episode arc that for him was just like the magic. And then he stole the hat. Cause he thinks if they have to call to ask for the hat back, they'll also be like, maybe there's a way to bring the character back.

• 2:08:57Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm confused about like, in what world are Bradley Cooper and Andra Day and Will Arnett and Laura Dern friends?

• 2:09:06Griffin Newman?

  And Sean Hayes and his husband.

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  Well, Sean Hayes, I get, like, she was a fucking Olympian jock.

• 2:09:12David Sims?

  So?

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  They're not, she's.

• 2:09:13David Sims?

  They all went to Penn. Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:09:15Speaker 02

  Brad, no, he's too stupid to go to Penn.

• 2:09:17Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you that none of them feel like friends. None of them feel like friends.

• 2:09:20Speaker 02

  Like, you know?

• 2:09:21Griffin Newman?

  But it's the same as like, oh, he's wearing a suit, so you know he has a job. Where I'm just like, the movie asks us to believe like, of course, they were friends when they went to college 30 years ago. And I'm like, I have no sense of history between these people. There's no sense of like ease and familiarity.

• 2:09:37Speaker 03

  But I guess what I'm saying is like, Will, Will Arnett's character influences Bradley Cooper to kind of consider maybe separating from his wife.

• 2:09:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and she does the same.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Conversation.

• 2:09:47Griffin Newman?

  Where he's like, oh, no, we bended everything. We're great.

• 2:09:49Speaker 03

  That to me felt so deflating, but at the same time, I'm like, is that realistic maybe?

• 2:09:54Speaker 02

  That's not real.

• 2:09:54Speaker 03

  Or like, what's the juxtaposition?

• 2:09:55David Sims?

  There's no way they're getting divorced. Yeah.

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know. It just, it stuck with me in a way where it wasn't like I was annoyed by it. I just was like, I don't know what to feel about this.

• 2:10:05David Sims?

  Divorcing balls.

• 2:10:06Griffin Newman?

  Everything.

• 2:10:07David Sims?

  You have to like call a lawyer, tip forever.

• 2:10:09Speaker 03

  You kind of can't too. He's too hot.

• 2:10:11Griffin Newman?

  And they have like an 18 year old son who's a basketball prospect or some shit.

• 2:10:14Speaker 02

  They're not serious people. Like, they're just not serious people. So it's just like, okay.

• 2:10:19David Sims?

  You are not a serious person.

• 2:10:20Griffin Newman?

  But maybe to this point of like, what I want to see Bradley Cooper write about and what I don't, I'm like, this movie feels so locked in and perceptive about the kind of unserious people they are. Like, it's not just that like Bradley is playing like a struggling actor. I'm like, oh, he knows this guy.

• 2:10:39David Sims?

  He knows this kind of guy.

• 2:10:40Griffin Newman?

  Everything that character says, and in a movie that he wrote, and Will Arnett also has a screenplay credit on, everything he says feels improvised. And feels like this guy could go off for fucking six hours in this character.

• 2:10:51Speaker 02

  He knows, he knows those people. I don't know if Bradley Cooper knows finance guys who live in Westchester. Whose fathers drink from apple juice boxes.

• 2:11:01Griffin Newman?

  I felt the same with Andre Day, and I, I was more interested in like, what's going on with their relationship, honestly.

• 2:11:09Speaker 02

  I definitely thought that that Andre Day and Will Arnett were gonna hook up.

• 2:11:12Griffin Newman?

  That scene on the couch where she's like insulting him, but is like, it's a shame because I used to think you were so fucking hot.

• 2:11:18Speaker 02

  I'm like, oh, great. They're gonna make out.

• 2:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:11:20Speaker 02

  This is gonna be the wrinkle in everything.

• 2:11:21Griffin Newman?

  That's an interesting fucking like the French farce. They're all in the house together. No one can talk about who's sleeping with.

• 2:11:27David Sims?

  They all have sex with Sean Hayes at some point.

• 2:11:30Griffin Newman?

  Did you also feel like Arnett was kind of playing Bateman in this? Part of it's the hair and the stubble.

• 2:11:37Speaker 02

  Oh, the hair was bad.

• 2:11:38Griffin Newman?

  But even just.

• 2:11:39Speaker 02

  The hair was so bad.

• 2:11:41Griffin Newman?

  It is his hair now, which is identical to like, that's what Bateman looks all the time like now.

• 2:11:45Speaker 02

  But Jason Bateman looks good.

• 2:11:46Griffin Newman?

  Bateman looks great.

• 2:11:47David Sims?

  Bateman, Bateman looks pretty terrific.

• 2:11:50Griffin Newman?

  The floppy, sort of like getting a little grayed, salt and pepper perpetual, kinda like one week beard.

• 2:11:57David Sims?

  Like kinda cowlick thing where it's like more whereas Bateman has the.

• 2:12:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and a very different shaped skull.

• 2:12:02David Sims?

  Sure. You know, I did try to measure his skull at the dinner, but they wouldn't let me. It was weird. I was at him with some calipers.

• 2:12:09Griffin Newman?

  You got the calipers before I did. Um, no, I just even felt like the energy of what he was trying to go for in the performance is this kind of like world weary, winsome kind of sadness that Bateman can do really well.

• 2:12:23David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, maybe. Uh, Bateman's a better actor, although sometimes Bateman will phone it. But like Bateman gives performances every so often where I'm like, yeah, Bateman, you know, Bateman can be good.

• 2:12:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:35David Sims?

  Uh, and obviously I bank with Smartless, so I do need to acknowledge that.

• 2:12:39Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  They're, they're my financial services provider.

• 2:12:41Griffin Newman?

  Right. And they're my healthcare provider.

• 2:12:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:12:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm on Smartless dental right now. That's why I had to have two teeth removed in the last year.

• 2:12:48David Sims?

  My fucking dentist is a podcast producer. He's engineering while he's doing the surgery. Uh, what's Bradley Cooper's next directorial effort going to be? Do we know?

• 2:12:57Griffin Newman?

  There's certainly things.

• 2:12:58Speaker 02

  A La Booba movie?

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, no, he's circling La Booba movie. There are certainly things that I feel like he's kinda called dibs on, but has anything been lined up to be next?

• 2:13:08David Sims?

  It seems like he likes to pick like a certain creative occupation.

• 2:13:13Speaker 02

  So what's next?

• 2:13:14David Sims?

  Dig into it. And dig into it.

• 2:13:16Griffin Newman?

  And a different kind of.

• 2:13:17David Sims?

  He's directing Super Mario 3.

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  A different kind of tense romantic relationship. Well, of course, it has recently been rumored that he would do the, uh, Ocean's prequel film.

• 2:13:29David Sims?

  Right, but he's. Not directing.

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  Directed by Lee Isaac Chung.

• 2:13:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:13:32Griffin Newman?

  There's the bullet movie that Spielberg would do.

• 2:13:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:13:35Speaker 02

  But what's he gonna direct?

• 2:13:36Griffin Newman?

  Was Matt Helm supposed to be him directing when they announced that?

• 2:13:40David Sims?

  What is that?

• 2:13:41Griffin Newman?

  Matt Helm is like a classic, uh, like a pulp paperback.

• 2:13:45David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, I think I heard about that, right? So that's him sort of like trying like a kind of actiony thing.

• 2:13:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it's like a little bit more of a real world kinda, yeah.

• 2:13:54David Sims?

  Dime store paperback secret agent.

• 2:13:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember if that was supposed to be, uh, him directing.

• 2:14:02David Sims?

  Yeah, it's at Paramount. That's that. That might be some, I don't know.

• 2:14:05Griffin Newman?

  Tom Shepard attached to write, no director announced. Uh, and then wasn't there the CIA one that got announced? That was like a big fucking hot property.

• 2:14:16David Sims?

  Well, that was called Alias and it was, uh, you know, it's one of her aliases. No, I don't know.

• 2:14:22Griffin Newman?

  I think there's another one, but it doesn't seem like there's a clear next thing lined up.

• 2:14:26David Sims?

  Yeah, well, I'm excited for whatever it is. Um.

• 2:14:29Griffin Newman?

  Best of Enemies, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale. MGM bought it after a, a battle two years ago now.

• 2:14:37Speaker 02

  Is that the like Gorgor?

• 2:14:38Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, it's the same title, but, uh.

• 2:14:41Speaker 02

  What is that about?

• 2:14:42Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's a spy thriller. It's a CIA movie.

• 2:14:45Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 2:14:45Griffin Newman?

  Um, but I think there was a rumor. I don't know. Like all the stuff he's attaching himself to as an actor. Every time there's another story, they're like, maybe Bradley might direct this. It feels like he's weighing.

• 2:14:56David Sims?

  He's at that status.

• 2:14:57Griffin Newman?

  His options. Yeah.

• 2:14:58Speaker 02

  I just want him to, you know, I think maybe one of the reasons why I really loved Balls. Is because.

• 2:15:10Griffin Newman?

  He's a great actor.

• 2:15:10Speaker 02

  Well, he's a great actor, but he also, he had the beard, he had the long hair and he had the hat. And I just feel like I miss Jackson Maine.

• 2:15:17Griffin Newman?

  We all miss Jackson Maine.

• 2:15:18David Sims?

  I do miss him. He's dead, though.

• 2:15:20Griffin Newman?

  But.

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  Uh, somehow you returned.

• 2:15:23Griffin Newman?

  What if?

• 2:15:24David Sims?

  Him and Ben Solo?

• 2:15:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:26Speaker 02

  What if?

• 2:15:26Griffin Newman?

  The hunt for Jackson me.

• 2:15:30Griffin Newman?

  How crazy is it? I heard that like four or five months ago. A listener of the show told me in confidence like, hey, don't repeat this on Mike, but I worked at-

• 2:15:38Speaker 02

  What you're gonna do right now?

• 2:15:39Griffin Newman?

  Like Lucasfilm for the last like seven years and you wouldn't believe the shit I've seen. And I was like, like what? And he was like, like in the last year, they killed both a Fincher movie and a Soderbergh movie. And I was like, that's nuts.

• 2:15:50Speaker 02

  Wait, so you knew about the Soderbergh thing before?

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  Know about that. And now both of those things have come out in the last month.

• 2:15:54Speaker 02

  Wait, I didn't know. I didn't read the Fincher thing. I saw the Soderbergh.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  It came out that like, yeah, he was also trying to develop stuff and that they were like, I don't know, too much control.

• 2:16:02David Sims?

  Right. And they need to fucking, well, look, I think Mandalorian and Grogu is gonna underperform and it might lead to a bit more of a come to Jesus, but we'll see.

• 2:16:11Speaker 02

  I don't think it'll underperform.

• 2:16:13Griffin Newman?

  Cause Grogu is little.

• 2:16:14Speaker 02

  He little.

• 2:16:15David Sims?

  A little baby.

• 2:16:16Speaker 02

  And when, you know, when he eats things, sometimes he throws up.

• 2:16:19David Sims?

  He takes a ball, he throws the ball.

• 2:16:21Griffin Newman?

  Also, look.

• 2:16:21Speaker 02

  He got big ears.

• 2:16:22Griffin Newman?

  Not to bring things back to Fran and, uh, Franesco, uh, Bernoulli, uh.

• 2:16:27David Sims?

  Oh?

• 2:16:30David Sims?

  You're always doing that.

• 2:16:32Griffin Newman?

  They won't like make a billion dollars in Grogu merchandise in 2026. It's like the Cars franchise where even if the movie underperforms a little bit, it's like so good for Disney corporate.

• 2:16:42David Sims?

  I, I'm not.

• 2:16:43Griffin Newman?

  I certainly think it could kill excitement at a time where they don't need people getting more cold on Star Wars.

• 2:16:48David Sims?

  I just wonder if the universal reaction to the Adam Driver, Steven Soderbergh thing of everyone being like, why wouldn't you fucking do that? Why not? Like, what do you have to lose? Like, it's not like episode nine ended so well that you're like, and yes, his canonical death was so good.

• 2:17:05Griffin Newman?

  Especially when the, right. And they're like, we just.

• 2:17:07David Sims?

  Fuck you.

• 2:17:07Griffin Newman?

  We can't get past this. I'm like, it's fucking Star Wars.

• 2:17:10David Sims?

  You'll figure it out. You just did somehow Palpatine returned.

• 2:17:14Griffin Newman?

  Well, especially if it's like.

• 2:17:15David Sims?

  Announce it in Fortnite. Just announce it.

• 2:17:18Griffin Newman?

  Especially, especially when it's like, oh, they passed on it. But what? It was just like Soderbergh going in with a rough pitch and they were like, no, finish script. And they were like, but the script wasn't good. They were like, no, everyone really liked it. And they were like, but Driver was on the fence. And we're like, no, no, he was the one who really liked.

• 2:17:37David Sims?

  And we checked him.

• 2:17:38Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, but sort of her schedule was busy? No, no, he was ready to go. It was gonna be really expensive though, right?

• 2:17:45David Sims?

  Like a character that pops, right?

• 2:17:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's the one who stuck. But that they were also like, we think we figured out how to make a Star Wars movie that feels exciting without a burdensome budget. Where you're like, they made the risk lower. The fuck is your problem? And beyond the fact that that character is popular, they've invested so much into like Kylo Ren permanently being in theme parks all across the world. These are like the reasons that like fucking like How to Train Your Dragon got rebooted immediately, you know? And you're telling me that like the corporate side of Disney is the one who's like, I don't know.

• 2:18:16Speaker 02

  You guys?

• 2:18:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:17Speaker 02

  I think I could fix him.

• 2:18:19David Sims?

  Kylo Ren?

• 2:18:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:20David Sims?

  I could fix him.

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  That's.

• 2:18:21David Sims?

  Does that mean blow him? Sorry.

• 2:18:23Speaker 02

  David.

• 2:18:24David Sims?

  What?

• 2:18:25Griffin Newman?

  But he's got the cross saber thing. It's hard to blow him.

• 2:18:28David Sims?

  Oh, his dick is three ways?

• 2:18:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a three way thing.

• 2:18:31David Sims?

  Alright.

• 2:18:31Speaker 02

  Ew!

• 2:18:32Speaker 03

  That's insane. That's an insane visual.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  A virgin's in the forest.

• 2:18:36Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry for reporting the truth. Don't shoot the messenger. I don't like it. It's just his body.

• 2:18:45Speaker 03

  In that last movie, I'm learning, cause I've started watching all of the series and I've watched the, not The Advocate, what's the?

• 2:18:55Griffin Newman?

  The Acolyte.

• 2:18:55David Sims?

  The Acolyte.

• 2:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 2:18:56David Sims?

  The Advocate is coming up though. It's just about Star Wars court.

• 2:19:01David Sims?

  They would do that.

• 2:19:02Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought you were gonna make a gay joke.

• 2:19:04David Sims?

  No. I already did. I was about blowing Kylo Ren and it was great. I'd love to do it. Let me at him.

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  LGBT. He's technically in the Star Wars universe, yeah.

• 2:19:13Speaker 03

  Palpatine's like fucking dungeon, whatever, are all references to past Sith, past Sith lords.

• 2:19:21Griffin Newman?

  Sith ODS, bro.

• 2:19:22Speaker 03

  I'm kinda interested.

• 2:19:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, man.

• 2:19:24Speaker 03

  I want a Sith series. I've been saying this.

• 2:19:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's a Louis CK statue. There's a Bat Techie statue. An Alugashu statue, Jeff Ross.

• 2:19:33Speaker 03

  Darth stupid idiot.

• 2:19:35Griffin Newman?

  I'm combining like two different silos of bits here. Silo Ren.

• 2:19:39Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a question, Griffin?

• 2:19:40Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:19:41David Sims?

  What's wrong? You didn't like talking about this movie?

• 2:19:44Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing great. This is a great episode.

• 2:19:46David Sims?

  The question, by the way?

• 2:19:47Speaker 02

  Is this thing on?

• 2:19:48David Sims?

  It's on, kind of.

• 2:19:49Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if you guys saw my letterbox.

• 2:19:51Speaker 02

  This thing's off.

• 2:19:52David Sims?

  It was like, turn it off.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  I said, please turn it off.

• 2:19:54Speaker 02

  Um, I wanted to.

• 2:19:58Griffin Newman?

  You want to ask?

• 2:19:59Speaker 02

  I wanted to ask you, but also open the floor to everyone else. What films have gotten comedy right? In your opinion?

• 2:20:07David Sims?

  We're wrapping this episode.

• 2:20:08Griffin Newman?

  Funny people.

• 2:20:09David Sims?

  That's interesting. But I like that movie a lot.

• 2:20:12Speaker 02

  I have, I've only saw it, saw it once.

• 2:20:13David Sims?

  I rewatched it recently. The stand-up in it is not good.

• 2:20:18Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:20:18David Sims?

  It's not like, right, it, it's sort of somewhat realistically bad.

• 2:20:22Griffin Newman?

  I, I, yeah, I think it's part of what it gets right.

• 2:20:24David Sims?

  But, um.

• 2:20:25Griffin Newman?

  I think it gets.

• 2:20:26David Sims?

  I do love that movie.

• 2:20:27Griffin Newman?

  It gets the dynamics of it and the energy of it correct. I, I think Big Sick does a good job.

• 2:20:33David Sims?

  Yes, Big Sick's, yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:35Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to think of anything else I like would.

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  I mean, King of Comedy gets it right in that most stand-up comedians are crazy psycho. Now, if it was me, now he would have a podcast.

• 2:20:46Griffin Newman?

  Those are most of the people you meet at open mics. Oh, can I end the episode with my open mic story? Cause I already teased it.

• 2:20:53David Sims?

  Yeah, and then we'll end there. There's no, um, box office game, obviously, this is coming out against Avatar, I'm sure it's gonna beat it.

• 2:20:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. They're predicting 200 mil domestic, we're recording this a little bit.

• 2:21:05David Sims?

  The tracking is functioning.

• 2:21:07Speaker 02

  Laura Dern would be such a good Navi.

• 2:21:10David Sims?

  She would.

• 2:21:11Speaker 02

  She'd be so fucking good.

• 2:21:13Griffin Newman?

  Marie, this episode might have to go on a little longer now, cause I don't know how soon I'll be able to stand up.

• 2:21:21Griffin Newman?

  Some very powerful imagery has just entered my head.

• 2:21:25Griffin Newman?

  A kind of cross-section of things that bewitch me.

• 2:21:29David Sims?

  I ate all of my Hiroshima, uh, carp nuts, they're good.

• 2:21:32Griffin Newman?

  Congratulations, I'm so proud of you.

• 2:21:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, but I didn't do this, I didn't do this on mic, but, um, I gave everyone little presents from Japan.

• 2:21:39Griffin Newman?

  You got me, you got me my, uh, my Samurai Woody, and look at him.

• 2:21:43Speaker 02

  Griffin, pull the string.

• 2:21:44Griffin Newman?

  He's so handsome.

• 2:21:49David Sims?

  That rock.

• 2:21:50Griffin Newman?

  They got Tom Hanks to do that, that's the craziest part. Not even Jim, he said, let me do the Japanese one. Call me Shiwa Buzz.

• 2:21:59Speaker 03

  What was your question to him that was gonna end the episode?

• 2:22:01Griffin Newman?

  He said worst open mic, right? And I'm sure I could think of like a one-off of like a bad room I did at some point. But this is like the best bad open mic story. You know, there are just many times I bombed, many times I would do okay. And then the five guys after me just got up and made gay jokes and everything was good. The early 2010s were great, really, really healthy time. And now we fixed everything and comedy is set right. We've made them our thought leaders.

• 2:22:25Speaker 03

  Can you imagine now like open mics? They people test out crowd work on other comedians. I'm sure that's happening. It sounds like an absolute fucking nightmare.

• 2:22:34Griffin Newman?

  It's great. It's great. Um, the Eastville mic was the main one I would do.

• 2:22:39Speaker 03

  Eastville?

• 2:22:40Griffin Newman?

  Eastville, which would basically have mics, I want to say four days a week.

• 2:22:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I used to go to that room as well.

• 2:22:46Griffin Newman?

  It was a terribly depressing mic, but was one that like, you know, it was a very long signup list. You would see people, you know, I was regularly seeing like Anthony DeVito, who's a really good comic, you know? And like Mike Racine, whoever, like people who've become successful. So there would be like bright spots in it, but it tended to be a list of like 30 plus names. And the people who get there first are lining up before noon to come back at three. So you have to structure your entire day around it. And if you're not getting in that early, you're like, oh, fuck, I'm probably waiting two to three hours before I do my bad five minutes. But I go, I guess they must've had a Friday mic too, but it was usually less attended because people were trying to get good bar shows on Friday night.

• 2:23:28Griffin Newman?

  And I went to the Friday mic one time and there were only like three other people there. And whoever it was who was hosting it was just like, yeah, it's just casual. We're all just like, do our five minutes and leave, you know? Let's just try to be like good energy supportive. And there was like one random guy there who wasn't performing that maybe someone brought as a friend, right? And like the host gets up, he does okay. Other guy gets up, does okay. I get up and I felt like I did really well, all considering. And it was one of those moments where I felt kind of proud where I'm like, there are four people in this room. If a joke gets like too hass, I know how to convert that.

• 2:24:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:24:01Griffin Newman?

  And I know how to like perform with the energy as if there's a real crowd here and not be like deflated by it. And like take the notes I need of what I'm doing well and doing poorly. And it was a moment where I felt like, I think I understand the machinery of how to get better at doing this, right? And I walked off and this, the one guy who was like not a comedian was like really laughing. He was like, hey, man, that was really great. And I was like, thank you. It was like really, really funny stuff. I'm like excited to see you like perform more. And I was like, oh, thanks. And then the final comic gets up and thi- this is a strict light at four minutes. You're off the stage at five, Mike, right? Even when there are only four people, they're like, let's stick to the time.

• 2:24:40Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 2:24:41Griffin Newman?

  This final guy gets up, never seen him before, never see him again. Big burly guy and gets up and just basically starts exclusively doing material about pussy juice.

• 2:24:52Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 2:24:52Griffin Newman?

  And, and equating himself to Popeye. And how he gulps it like spinach and his muscles pop out and he gets strong. And the guy who had just been so kind to me.

• 2:25:03Speaker 03

  Is like, yes!

• 2:25:05Griffin Newman?

  He is laughing harder than anyone has.

• 2:25:08Speaker 03

  Finally, someone says it!

• 2:25:10Griffin Newman?

  I have never heard anyone laugh harder at anything. He is losing his mind. He is like rofflecopter-ing on the floor.

• 2:25:17Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I think he was the host of the mic. I'm sorry. And then at, at like seven minutes, he goes like, but they want to remember to like time me? I must have blown the light already. And that guy goes, keep going, never stop. And I watched this guy do 20 straight minutes just about pussy juice. To this dude basically like in real time calling up at the Kennedy Center and being like, Mark Twain Prize now, here.

• 2:25:47Speaker 02

  Were there any women in the room?

• 2:25:49Griffin Newman?

  That night, absolutely not. Very often, uh, it would be like two. And it was, it was a very, very male dominated space that felt very.

• 2:26:01Speaker 03

  It's gotten better since we did it. I think the Brooklyn sort of all scene opened up a lot more.

• 2:26:07Speaker 02

  I did, there was a joke that I did laugh at.

• 2:26:09Speaker 03

  Which is?

• 2:26:10Speaker 02

  And I think it was a Jordan bit in, is this thing up where she's talking about getting a bikini

• 2:26:16Griffin Newman?

  That is a good bit.

• 2:26:16Speaker 02

  Folds the paper and then the triangle gets smaller. And I was like, oh, that's funny.

• 2:26:21Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:26:22Speaker 02

  That was a really clever use of a prop.

• 2:26:24Speaker 03

  Yep, it's weirdly in her special.

• 2:26:26Speaker 02

  Oh, it is.

• 2:26:27Speaker 03

  Like her Netflix special.

• 2:26:27Speaker 02

  I'm only familiar with her from this movie and being a turf on Stavie's.

• 2:26:33David Sims?

  Getting kind of shut down by Stavie.

• 2:26:34Griffin Newman?

  She can argue a huge L on Stavie's world, but she is a good comedian and it's frustrating and it's a whole complicated discussion about the ecosystem that I don't want to get into.

• 2:26:44Speaker 03

  Outspoken, that was just like her trying to be contrarian and was really stupid.

• 2:26:49Griffin Newman?

  Mentality shit with this like collection of five guys in Austin who are the kingmakers.

• 2:26:53David Sims?

  And what rocks is that Stavie's like, not just like, you know, correcting her and talking to her in a way, not correcting, you know, like, you know, addressing what she's saying. But then he's like, you just are fucking Austin brain, right?

• 2:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:27:04David Sims?

  This comedy poison.

• 2:27:05Griffin Newman?

  It's like, you're a real fucking comedian with real material. What are you doing here? There's like no punchline. You're just being like ignorant, you know?

• 2:27:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, but she, she has good material.

• 2:27:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought that bit was quite funny.

• 2:27:17Griffin Newman?

  I think like it's another way in which mics have changed is I think that the common mics were very hostile environments for women, like similar to the fucking like slurs guys would throw at me. Like despite being a straight male, performing at these things that women would basically notice stay away. And if like someone like Ali Wong dropped in and just like a machine gun destroyed, you were like, oh yeah, they know not to touch her, right?

• 2:27:41David Sims?

  Yeah, and she's going to destroy them too.

• 2:27:43Griffin Newman?

  And I think over time is like, there was a comedy upswing that Ben and I were sort of like getting out of right before it got big. Uh, more women came to it and we're just like, fuck this, we're going to start our own mics.

• 2:27:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:27:55Griffin Newman?

  And these like better mics that exist now where they like find a bar and they're like, this is a warm room and we're actually trying to like be a good crowd and not be antagonistic assholes.

• 2:28:05Speaker 03

  It sounds like woke bullshit.

• 2:28:06David Sims?

  What I need is for people to be mean and racist.

• 2:28:09Griffin Newman?

  David beat me to the conclusion of my story, but go woke, go bro. Comedy is ruined now.

• 2:28:14Speaker 02

  Well, I thought woke was back.

• 2:28:16David Sims?

  That is actually true. Woke is back. You better put those pronouns in bio.

• 2:28:19Griffin Newman?

  It's weird. Woke is back, but comedy is also legal again now?

• 2:28:21David Sims?

  I'll tell you that woke, I'll tell you one way woke is back. Dasha just got dropped by her fucking agent for interviewing Nick Fuentes on her normal podcast. Yeah. Her getting dropped by her agent is a little bit Claude Rains going like, I'm shocked there's gambling.

• 2:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, thank you all for listening. Tune in next week for the new Park Chan Wook film, No Other Choice with our guest Nick Fuentes.

• 2:28:42David Sims?

  Fuck, fuck.

• 2:28:43Speaker 02

  Don't joke, guys.

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  We denounce Nick Fuentes.

• 2:28:45Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be on that episode. I really, I really liked that movie.

• 2:28:49Griffin Newman?

  Night and day experience. I think it currently sits at my number three for the year. I fucking love this movie.

• 2:28:54Speaker 02

  Although I will say Ben and I-

• 2:28:55Griffin Newman?

  Hooting and hollering.

• 2:28:56David Sims?

  Hooting and hollering.

• 2:28:57Speaker 02

  And I sat together in the back of the screening room and someone ripped a fart in the middle of the movie.

• 2:29:02David Sims?

  Multiple times. It was stinking.

• 2:29:04Speaker 02

  And we both were looking at each other like-

• 2:29:06David Sims?

  So the fart detective made an appearance, you're telling me? What was the screening room? Which, which where did you see it? Oh, you saw it at Post One.

• 2:29:12Speaker 02

  It was in Chelsea, yeah.

• 2:29:13David Sims?

  Did you get candy?

• 2:29:14Speaker 02

  I did.

• 2:29:15David Sims?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:29:15Griffin Newman?

  Raisinettes.

• 2:29:16Speaker 02

  I got raisinettes and I got popcorn. And then I started, started reclining my chair, but it made a fart noise.

• 2:29:24David Sims?

  Dude, when you recline your chair at Post One, it's like.

• 2:29:28Griffin Newman?

  You're telling me someone ripped a nasty fart, but also you kept making fart noises?

• 2:29:33Speaker 02

  No, but when the person who actually-

• 2:29:35David Sims?

  We can, we can hash this out on No Other Choice. I've gotta go home.

• 2:29:38Speaker 02

  Okay, I know. I'm sorry. But I'm just saying, like, it was a silent but deadly fart. I didn't hear the fart.

• 2:29:43David Sims?

  So it wasn't right.

• 2:29:44Speaker 02

  We just smelled it.

• 2:29:45David Sims?

  And this is a detective situation.

• 2:29:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:29:47David Sims?

  For sure.

• 2:29:47Speaker 02

  But I don't think I really-

• 2:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Marie looks over, little mustache, pipe cap already on.

• 2:29:54Speaker 02

  But I also like, it was like one of those things where both Ben and I were looking at each other kind of like suspicious of each other, like, wasn't it? It wasn't me. And I was like, I thought it was Ben. And I wasn't gonna say anything, cause like, he's my friend.

• 2:30:09Speaker 02

  But then we, you know, we exchanged a look like, okay, it wasn't us. We need to find out who did this.

• 2:30:14David Sims?

  It's like a 20-seat room. I mean, how many people could have ever been in it?

• 2:30:17Griffin Newman?

  Twisted mystery out of a Park Chan Wook film, only from, uh, yeah, I can't wait to talk about that one.

• 2:30:23David Sims?

  Next week, Park Chan Wook's No Other Choice, and then we're doing Lynn Ramsey.

• 2:30:26Speaker 03

  And we will start with her film Rat Catcher.

• 2:30:29Griffin Newman?

  Ben, have you ever seen it?

• 2:30:31David Sims?

  No.

• 2:30:31Speaker 03

  Get them subtitles on, Ben.

• 2:30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30:34Speaker 03

  You think that movie's in English?

• 2:30:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:36Speaker 03

  It is, and it's right.

• 2:30:37Griffin Newman?

  A form of English.

• 2:30:39Speaker 02

  It's real Scottish.

• 2:30:40Speaker 03

  You will like it.

• 2:30:40Griffin Newman?

  But Ben, I mean, just the title alone, what are you thinking?

• 2:30:45David Sims?

  I mean, I'm into it.

• 2:30:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:47David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm into it. You know why? Because I'm like, is this a job?

• 2:30:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:52Speaker 03

  It's a dark movie.

• 2:30:53David Sims?

  It's a very good movie. I haven't seen it in years. I saw it when it came out, which is.

• 2:30:57Griffin Newman?

  That's wild.

• 2:30:58Speaker 02

  How old were you?

• 2:30:59David Sims?

  I was thirteen or fourteen. My mom interviewed her and yeah.

• 2:31:03Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:31:03Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 2:31:04Griffin Newman?

  I'm excited to do the series.

• 2:31:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:31:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:06Speaker 03

  Over on the Patreon, we're in the midst of doing our commentary series on the films of The Wizard of Oz.

• 2:31:14Griffin Newman?

  Getting ready to ease on down the road, right? In a week or so?

• 2:31:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, we just kicked off the year with The Wizard of Oz, obviously.

• 2:31:20David Sims?

  Kind of low-key hyped to watch The Wizard of Oz, I gotta say.

• 2:31:24Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that movie rules so fucking hard?

• 2:31:26Speaker 02

  Why aren't we going to the sphere?

• 2:31:28Griffin Newman?

  Marie, Marie, Marie, get the fuck in here.

• 2:31:31David Sims?

  Yeah, you guys have.

• 2:31:32Griffin Newman?

  This thing on.

• 2:31:33Speaker 02

  When are you recording these Oz episodes?

• 2:31:35Griffin Newman?

  We'll loop you in.

• 2:31:36David Sims?

  Yeah, we'll loop you in. We're doing some right before Thanksgiving, I think.

• 2:31:40Speaker 02

  Oh, well, then I'm gone.

• 2:31:40David Sims?

  No, you might be here.

• 2:31:41Griffin Newman?

  But it's The Wizard, The Wiz.

• 2:31:44David Sims?

  Is that the order?

• 2:31:45Griffin Newman?

  Return to Oz and the Two Wiccies.

• 2:31:47David Sims?

  Yes, that's what we're doing.

• 2:31:49Speaker 03

  But the Wiz is about a week out, so around the time that our.

• 2:31:54Speaker 02

  I'm excited to listen to you get excited about The Wiz. I think that's an interesting, I think you have an interesting.

• 2:32:00Griffin Newman?

  One of my ten favorite movies.

• 2:32:02Speaker 02

  To that movie that I think is cool.

• 2:32:04Griffin Newman?

  Up there amongst the films I've watched the most.

• 2:32:06David Sims?

  Do you love that movie so much?

• 2:32:07Speaker 03

  Who's who?

• 2:32:08David Sims?

  Oh, tag yourself?

• 2:32:10Speaker 02

  Um, well, clearly I'm Dorothy.

• 2:32:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, David's the lion.

• 2:32:14Speaker 02

  David's the lion, the cowardly lion.

• 2:32:16Griffin Newman?

  You're the scarecrow and I'm the green man.

• 2:32:18David Sims?

  Why are you the lion?

• 2:32:19Griffin Newman?

  You are the lion.

• 2:32:20David Sims?

  No.

• 2:32:20Griffin Newman?

  You big scaredy puss.

• 2:32:22Speaker 02

  You.

• 2:32:22David Sims?

  I'm not.

• 2:32:22Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 2:32:23David Sims?

  Definitely not the lion.

• 2:32:24Griffin Newman?

  Let's see what happens when you get on a plane.

• 2:32:25David Sims?

  We'll figure it out.

• 2:32:26Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna start lion-ing really hard.

• 2:32:27David Sims?

  Fun of a phobia does not make me the lion, just to stick up for myself a little bit. I do not.

• 2:32:32Speaker 02

  You also are the most. Lion.

• 2:32:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:32:36Speaker 02

  Like looking.

• 2:32:37David Sims?

  I kinda think maybe.

• 2:32:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I don't have a Burt Layer thing going. I'm sorry, it's just not what I'm looking.

• 2:32:41Griffin Newman?

  Do you have a Ted Ross?

• 2:32:42David Sims?

  I think that's what Ted Ross is going.

• 2:32:44Speaker 03

  Cause I'm kinda goofy, maybe?

• 2:32:46David Sims?

  You're, who are you?

• 2:32:46Griffin Newman?

  The lion, cause I'm goofy.

• 2:32:48Speaker 03

  I think you're, yeah, like.

• 2:32:49Speaker 02

  But here's the thing, there's, we have no Tin Man.

• 2:32:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm the Tin Man.

• 2:32:52Speaker 02

  You're the Tin Man?

• 2:32:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:53Speaker 02

  You're the Scarecrow.

• 2:32:54Griffin Newman?

  No, Ben's the Scarecrow.

• 2:32:55Speaker 03

  I'm the Scarecrow?

• 2:32:56David Sims?

  This is becoming a strange conversation. Why is Ben the Scarecrow?

• 2:33:00Speaker 02

  Ben's not the Scarecrow.

• 2:33:01Griffin Newman?

  First of all, Ben is loyal as hell.

• 2:33:03Speaker 03

  I am loyal, sure.

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  But he's not like wily, you know?

• 2:33:07Griffin Newman?

  You're saying Ben can't be wily?

• 2:33:09Speaker 02

  Not in the way that you are. You're like mister like, you know, rubber bones.

• 2:33:13David Sims?

  Why are you the Tin Man?

• 2:33:14Griffin Newman?

  Brokenhearted.

• 2:33:16Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 2:33:17Speaker 03

  Get the fuck out of here.

• 2:33:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm doing great.

• 2:33:20Speaker 03

  Jesus. Alright, well, anyway, this is the end of our episode.

• 2:33:24Griffin Newman?

  Sad clown.

• 2:33:27David Sims?

  I don't, you know what? It's probably not a very good tag yourself foursome, I'm realizing, cause you're also basically like, who's brainless? Who's art?

• 2:33:35Griffin Newman?

  Who, who needs a brain?

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:37David Sims?

  Sure, he needs a brain.

• 2:33:40Griffin Newman?

  Anyway, this episode was supposed to end four hours ago?

• 2:33:43Speaker 03

  About a half an hour ago.

• 2:33:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:44Speaker 02

  Not that bad.

• 2:33:45Speaker 03

  But we did okay.

• 2:33:45Speaker 02

  Two and a half hours?

• 2:33:46Speaker 03

  I gotta go.

• 2:33:47Griffin Newman?

  It's so good. Everything's so good.

• 2:33:48Speaker 03

  Alright, close this out, and then you'll hear a clip of me eating a sandwich at the end.

• 2:33:52Speaker 02

  End as always.

• 2:33:53Griffin Newman?

  End as always, I hope you all enjoy what David wanted to start the episode.

• 2:33:58Speaker 03

  It was funny!

• 2:33:59Griffin Newman?

  Of recording of Ben eating a sandwich and us fighting about it.

• 2:34:02Speaker 03

  No, it's him saying, "I wasn't hungry."

• 2:34:05Griffin Newman?

  They'll hear it right now!

• 2:34:10Griffin Newman?

  I'm not saying we need to, I'm just saying we might want one.

• 2:34:13David Sims?

  Well, who? What mama?

• 2:34:15Griffin Newman?

  Mamas out here doing it for themselves.

• 2:34:16David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:34:19Speaker 03

  I'm just eating a chicken parm before we get started.

• 2:34:22David Sims?

  Ben, why did you do this?

• 2:34:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a perfect timing. What's this? You said I'm recording, I said.

• 2:34:28Speaker 03

  Anyway, I'm ready to go. Produce is a gigantic sandwich. Well, because you guys talked for so long.

• 2:34:33David Sims?

  Could've eaten my way of talking.

• 2:34:34Griffin Newman?

  Let me, let me just re-

• 2:34:35Speaker 03

  I wasn't hungry.

• 2:34:36Griffin Newman?

  Let me just recap. Are we, are we recording right now?

• 2:34:39Speaker 03

  Quit mid-show.

• 2:34:40Griffin Newman?

  Are we recording right now? Are the mics rolling right now? Can we put this at the end of the episode?

• 2:34:44David Sims?

  I think we should put it at the start of the damn episode.

• 2:34:46Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no.

• 2:34:47Speaker 02

  This, this should go in the clip, the clip show.

• 2:34:49David Sims?

  I really think this is the start of the episode.

• 2:34:51Griffin Newman?

  It's not!

• 2:34:52Speaker 03

  Why not? This is funny!

• 2:34:53Griffin Newman?

  Fucking sandwich on mic!

• 2:34:54Speaker 03

  He can mute his audio?

• 2:34:55David Sims?

  I'm just gonna have a couple bites.

• 2:34:57Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  It's not the start of the episode. It's not the start of the episode.

• 2:35:00David Sims?

  Why? It's incredibly funny, unlike-

• 2:35:03Speaker 03

  Like, most of the things we'll be discussing this week.

• 2:35:05Speaker 02

  Also-

• 2:35:05Griffin Newman?

  It can also not be the start of the episode.

• 2:35:07Speaker 02

  I just wanna say-

• 2:35:08Griffin Newman?

  What are you talking about? What is this argument here?

• 2:35:09Speaker 02

  I think Ben is allowed, like, his own moments of misophonia. Because he's normally so good. Like, he's not- Ben is never the problem, in my opinion. Sorry.

• 2:35:20Griffin Newman?

  I say this is-

• 2:35:20Speaker 03

  Quote.

• 2:35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:21Speaker 03

  I- I love it. I thought that was funny. Ben is never the problem.

• 2:35:27Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas. And our associate producer is 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.

• 2:36:12Speaker 03

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.