We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino

The time has come for us to talk about Kevin. The New Yorker's Jia Tolentino joins us to talk about Lynne Ramsay's depiction of every parent's worst nightmare - 2011's We Need To Talk About Kevin. We need to talk about how Griffin grew up with Ezra Miller, and even auditioned against them to play Kevin. We need to talk about Lionel Shriver's awful politics. We need to talk about Tilda Swinton comparing her performance here to Buster Keaton. And we need to again explain the whole Fantastic Beasts franchise to another guest who is blissfully unaware of Credence Barebone. Read Jia's Profile of Jennifer Lawrence https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/03/jennifer-lawrence-profileand her other work at the New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jia-tolentino. Check out the r/HowIsLivingThere https://www.reddit.com/r/howislivingthere/ 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. Yes. You can get it at dynasty.tv. Dynasty.tv. It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work. Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  It's like this. You wake and you watch podcasts, get in your car and listen to the podcasts. You go to your little jobs, your little school, but you don't really hear about that on the six o'clock news. Why? Because nothing is really happening. You go home and you watch some more podcasts and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and you watch a podcast. I mean, it's got so bad that half the people on podcasts, inside the podcasts, they are listening to podcasts.

• 2:06David Sims?

  It's TV? Oh, sorry, sorry, you're not done.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, and what are, what are these people watching podcasts like me? It's TV.

• 2:13David Sims?

  He's talking about TV.

• 2:14Griffin Newman?

  But also it's sense of radio. I was replacing a couple of different words there.

• 2:17David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18David Sims?

  Oh, cuz we, yeah, he also, that's Kevin.

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  That's the titular character Kevin in a movie that is called, We Need to Talk About Kevin.

• 2:25David Sims?

  But he's doing the talking. Hey, well, shut up. Usually he's just, you know, jacking it and locking eyes with you or whatever.

• 2:31Griffin Newman?

  Here's a question.

• 2:31David Sims?

  I'm sorry, I can only defeat this movie with humor or like confront this.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  You strongly dislike this movie.

• 2:36David Sims?

  That's not true. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I, I'm not a huge, it's the only movie of hers that I'm, I'm pretty mixed on.

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  It is my least favorite, and I, I still think it's very good. But I feel like you've always been kinda on it, and then like two days ago, you barged into a recording and said, by the way, the belt has been handed over, the number one least pleasant thing I've had to watch.

• 2:57David Sims?

  Movie I was least, and you can, and guest, please, you can weigh in, but like the least pleasant, like the movie I was least in the mood to watch for work, essentially. This is a job of mine.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Well, can I tell you about when I just rewatched it?

• 3:08David Sims?

  Yes, you can, and I think I know this, but please.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  I may, might have texted you this. So I, um, I was on the plane to Sundance, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna read the book, cuz I've actually never read a Lionel Shriver book because of her personality, and.

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  Normal, you mean normal?

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, like most people, I've never read a Lionel Shriver book, and, and so I was like, okay, I'm gonna read it, cuz I was curious, I mean, cuz I, I had been thinking about Lynn Ramsey, cuz I had profiled Jennifer Lawrence or Die My Love.

• 3:35David Sims?

  This is why you're here.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  So, why I'm here, because I was like.

• 3:38David Sims?

  Kick the ball rolling.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Cuz I was texting David, and I was like, have y'all done Lynn Ramsey yet? And.

• 3:41Griffin Newman?

  He was like. You're the only person who's ever asked that question versus us announcing we're doing Lynn Ramsey, and me getting 800 texts, why are you guys doing Lynn Ramsey?

• 3:50Speaker 03

  No, I actually am curious, is, this is your least favorite, including Die My Love? Like, are we saying like, least favorite, or you think like?

• 3:57David Sims?

  Yes, I think I prefer Die My Love to this, but Die My Love would probably be second least, not to preview.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Would you, you don't think this movie is better than Die My Love?

• 4:04David Sims?

  I don't.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Really?

• 4:05David Sims?

  Am I, am I crazy?

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  I need to rewatch Die My Love.

• 4:07David Sims?

  We can debate.

• 4:08Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's obviously. The freshest and I've only seen it the one time and I will be rewatching it shortly.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:12Griffin Newman?

  It's it's these two at the bottom position for me, but I basically think she's only made great films. Like, that's my opinion.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 4:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, this is the maybe the least masterful of her masterful movies.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  I think it's so good, but I hate it because it's Kevin.

• 4:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Like, it's because we have to look at Kevin the whole time.

• 4:29Griffin Newman?

  I've been making the argument throughout this mini series, trying to uh console listeners who are perhaps scared by the idea of engaging with these movies.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Oh, they're so good.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  That they are not as punishing as they might sound if you read the synopsis.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  No, this movie, I had no interest in watching this movie. I had never seen it before researching this profile. But anyway, so I was on the plane to Sundance and I was like, okay, I'm gonna prep for the podcast. I'm gonna read, we need to talk about Kevin. And I had been reading it at home and I was hoping to finish it before I left. I had like a hundred pages. I was like, okay, take it on the plane. So I get in the plane. It's a middle seat because I had rearranged my flight for the snowstorm. Settle into my middle seat, pull out my book, we need to talk about Kevin. Read the last hundred pages, shut it. And I was like, well, now's a good of a time as any to do my rewatch. So I opened my laptop and then watch, start to finish, we need to talk about Kevin.

• 5:19Griffin Newman?

  So deep in it.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  And I was like, so like, I was like.

• 5:24David Sims?

  It's a little embarrassing. Anyone's clocking you do this.

• 5:26Griffin Newman?

  You were Kev maxing.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  And like the girl next to me was talking to her, like the girl across the aisle, they were really good friends. And I was like, they probably like are gonna get on the plane. They're like, did you notice what that three?

• 5:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  So I was so, I was so self-conscious.

• 5:40David Sims?

  Is this what she does like every day? She rereads the book and then rewatches the movie? It's just your plane.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  Is she stimming? Like, is this like, does she need to do this?

• 5:47David Sims?

  Yeah, you only, you know, it's how I combat my plane anxiety is I just, right, I just squeeze Kevin into the brain.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  It's a really.

• 5:54Griffin Newman?

  However, bad things could be.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Multimedia, Kevin.

• 5:57Griffin Newman?

  It could always be worse.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  It's one of the worst movies to watch with people like

• 6:00Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  one inch from you.

• 6:02Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, this is the one.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Scene, I mean, ah, every scene.

• 6:06David Sims?

  This is the one. The many pooping in the diapers scenes.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  The blowjob poop scene?

• 6:11David Sims?

  That one.

• 6:13David Sims?

  I swear to God.

• 6:14Griffin Newman?

  This is the one that feels a little punishing, in my opinion. I love it. But it is the one movie that's kind of rubbing your nose in it a little bit.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  100%.

• 6:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Much like Kevin does.

• 6:26Griffin Newman?

  Kevin does. The movie treats you the way Kevin.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Like Kevin treats his mother.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  But you were not crazy about this when it came out. Previously, a part 10 Wook series, which has a lot of child murder.

• 6:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Griffin Newman?

  Was one where you were really kind of on edge.

• 6:42David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was, uh, which is so funny because I re, I think I said this at the time.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  There are a lot of child murder? I listened to that series.

• 6:49David Sims?

  A fair amount of his movies, especially the vengeance movies. I mean, it's especially, um, sympathy for Mr. Vengeance revolves around the death of a child. And then Lady Vengeance.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  No, Lady Vengeance.

• 7:00David Sims?

  Lady Vengeance is the stuff film one.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I can never watch that.

• 7:02David Sims?

  Right. Those are the two.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  That was the one that I feel like broke you and has held the, the belt.

• 7:07David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  Since then.

• 7:08David Sims?

  Where it's just, it's, you know, it's not so much like, I have no problem engaging with incredibly challenging work. It's a little bit more like when it's like, fuck, I need to squeeze this into my schedule because I got to record on this.

• 7:19Griffin Newman?

  When am I going to be in the mood?

• 7:20David Sims?

  So it's kind of like, unfortunately, mood or no.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Scrap in.

• 7:24David Sims?

  Time for me to think and talk about Kevin.

• 7:26Griffin Newman?

  To inform you, it is time to talk about Kevin.

• 7:28David Sims?

  And sometimes, of course, my wife is sitting in the bed next to me being like, what have you put on our television? Like what on earth?

• 7:34Griffin Newman?

  This movie is also so like, um, expressionistic that it is a thing where like, if you're watching it over your husband's shoulder in bed or you're sitting next to her on a plane.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  It's like that first scene with the squirming tomato.

• 7:48Griffin Newman?

  Any image for three seconds, it's like, what the fuck are you watching?

• 7:51David Sims?

  Which is, of course, she's such a great conjurer of images.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  That's actually when, as soon as the, as soon as the squirming tomato, like, it's like, it, one of the most joyful scenes in the entire movie is like thousands of bodies squirming and tomato flesh, you know? And, and it really sets the bar for like, this is what joy is going to look like is squirming tomato flesh. But it, it was so beautiful that I was like, actually, I think I'm going to like this movie despite having never wanted to watch it.

• 8:14David Sims?

  The beginning is so fucking good. She's such a good filmmaker. It, it's La Tomatina. That's what it is.

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  That's the name of the festival?

• 8:21David Sims?

  It's in Spain. It's the biggest food fight in the world. You, you, you know, you get in your swimwear or your undies and you throw tomatoes at each other and ride around.

• 8:29Griffin Newman?

  Is it tomatoes only though?

• 8:30David Sims?

  Uh, I think it's, I mean, La Tomatina.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Think people sneak some other stuff in there?

• 8:34David Sims?

  I brought a pepper. Is that okay?

• 8:36Griffin Newman?

  No one's going to notice, right?

• 8:38David Sims?

  I like.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Murder at the La Tomatino is kind of a good.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Yeah, no, right. Like, it's like, oh, fuck, this guy is shit. This guy's been bleeding the whole.

• 8:45Griffin Newman?

  You make a great, like, Giallo film.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:49Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I like that in the grocery store scene where you see her, like, framed by the wall of tomato sauce cans. It's Ma Ramsey's tomato sauce.

• 8:59David Sims?

  Uh huh. Yeah, now that's a reference to.

• 9:03Griffin Newman?

  Lynn Ramsey.

• 9:04David Sims?

  Uh, Lynn Ramsey.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  Director and writer of this picture.

• 9:06David Sims?

  Did Ma Ramsey, I don't understand. I mean, like.

• 9:09Griffin Newman?

  Ah, she's made it her own tomato sauce. You know what I'm saying?

• 9:11David Sims?

  Sort of Tarantino.

• 9:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just fun.

• 9:13David Sims?

  Okay, there you go. She's, she's fun. Did you talk to her? We'll talk about it.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  I did. I did talk to her. Um, I talked to her and afterwards, I mean, I, you know, I hope this doesn't come off anti-Scottish, you know? But I, I couldn't understand a word she said. And so I was.

• 9:33David Sims?

  You're on the phone, I assume.

• 9:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I needed an interpreter and I didn't have one. So I was just saying, oh, yeah.

• 9:39David Sims?

  Fighting for your life.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  That's, that's fascinating. Oh, my God. Like, could you say more about that? Like, I've always wondered. And I was, I was totally blind by the end. I had no idea.

• 9:47Griffin Newman?

  Did you have to, like, like, feed, like, the dictation into Babbel fish?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  It was so quick and the connection was so bad. Like, she was, like, we were on a bad connection, plus the accent, plus she's a quick, you know, discursive talker. And, and at the end, I was like, okay, you know, shamefully, the only use of AI in my life is like, I use AI transcription. But I was like, I actually think AI, I was like, would a human or would AI translate?

• 10:14David Sims?

  Who's more up to the task here?

• 10:16Speaker 03

  And, and I was like, actually, AI always do hu, I, I often do human as a backup for anything important, obviously. And, and I was like, actually, I think AI is better equipped to do the pattern recognition. Like, unless, like, a human is, you know.

• 10:29David Sims?

  Scottish or has an ear for it.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, at the, like, when I had to give it to the, like, when the New Yorker fact checker was like, okay, I need the trans, I need the audio. I was like. Do we know anyone? Do we know anyone that?

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  It's fat. Is Fat Bastard still freelancing?

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:46Griffin Newman?

  We, uh, doing this mini series, uh, have discovered that we have more, uh, Scottish listeners than I would have thought. We've all been coming out of the woodwork and saying, uh, let me check my notes here, really kind things about our accent attempts.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  But also that they're like, the guys keep talking about how hard it is to parse out the dialogue in these movies and needing to watch it with subtitles. Like, are they overselling this? Like, what are they talking about? I just want to restate, when Rat Catcher was released theatrically in the United States of America, subtitles burned in. The distributor made that decision. There was no option to watch it without subtitles.

• 11:25David Sims?

  In America, for sure. Yes. And, uh, yeah. I mean, look, I, uh, went to school in Newcastle. I dated a Scottish person. I have an ear for a Scottish accent. It's tougher on, um, on the phone. And, uh, and I'm rusty, obviously, but I'd love, now I want the challenge. Now I want to talk to Lynn.

• 11:42Griffin Newman?

  She also.

• 11:42David Sims?

  And be like, how'd I do with her?

• 11:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:44David Sims?

  I don't know. I don't know. She seems like a very interesting person to talk to.

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  You need to talk to Lynn.

• 11:49David Sims?

  No, I don't think so. What's her?

• 11:50Speaker 03

  She didn't have kids. She didn't, she didn't become a mother till after Kevin.

• 11:54David Sims?

  Interesting. Wow. Sure. She has one kid, right? With her, with her, um, her co-screenwriter, Rory.

• 12:00Griffin Newman?

  On this film?

• 12:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Wild. You write this movie and you're like,

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  let's move to Greece and have a baby.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  Well, okay. I mean, interesting. Pinning that, it does feed a little bit into my read of this movie. This movie feels like a film of anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  More than it is a film about the experience of being a parent, in my opinion.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  But all of her movies, right? Like, all of her movies are about innocence, kind of, right? Like, all of, and, and, and they're pinned on children, right? Like Rat Catcher, um, the Joaquin, we were never really here. This.

• 12:35David Sims?

  Diamond love. Yeah, Mor- Morvern is the least, and even that, she's a fairly.

• 12:40Griffin Newman?

  She's young and she is sort of an innocent creature in a way. Playing with the tension of, is she an innocent?

• 12:45David Sims?

  Yeah. She does chop her boyfriend up, but he already was dead. Yeah. So you know what?

• 12:49Speaker 03

  I always forget. I forget she chopped the boyfriend up.

• 12:52David Sims?

  He's gotta go somewhere.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  I'm like, I'm like, look at this beautiful road movie. What chopping? Like, you know?

• 12:57Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing I didn't bring up in the episode. Do you think Robert Durst got his?

• 13:01David Sims?

  His, the jinx?

• 13:02Griffin Newman?

  His defense from?

• 13:03David Sims?

  I love Scottish cinema.

• 13:04Griffin Newman?

  But do you remember in The Drinks, he's like, his landlord, his downstairs landlord at like the place he lives, when he's on the run and is like pretending to be an old woman? They like find the garbage bags of the separate body parts chopped up and they were like, so you killed him? And he's like, no, I just chopped him up. And you're like, so how was he dead? And it was like, he shot himself in front of me. And then I took out a saw and I chopped him up and I put it in separate bags. And they were like, why would you do that? And his response was like, I'm standing here. I'm a fugitive. There's a dead body. What else am I gonna do?

• 13:33Speaker 03

  He's like, you ever seen Morven Caller?

• 13:35Griffin Newman?

  Right. It kind of felt like a

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  hard to fit it into a rubbish bin.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  I have one important thing to say about Morven Caller. You know, um, the week between Christmas and New Year's? I haven't listened to the entire episode.

• 13:45David Sims?

  You mean the worst week of the, in the world?

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got an annual group. Well, yes.

• 13:50David Sims?

  Anyway.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  We can't even go there. We can't even go there. But, um, I have a group chat that is only active that week every year called Crimbo Limbo, which is, I think, a really good name for the year.

• 13:59Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  And then this year, my friend Emmy brought up that, that Morven Caller is

• 14:02Griffin Newman?

  Is in that week.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  It's the official Crimbo Limbo movie.

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  No, that's a great take.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, like there's not that many movies, like it's a really ripe space for weird things to happen. And more movies where things get chopped up might exist in Crimbo Limbo. Yeah, just, just throwing that out there.

• 14:17David Sims?

  It truly, my Crimbo Limbo this year was, yes, was, um, was quite, um, disassociative, to use a word.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  I think anything can happen.

• 14:26Griffin Newman?

  Even, even sans kids. I think it's just a terrible time.

• 14:29David Sims?

  Well, there's nothing, there's a dog shit week. You're like, what's the plan?

• 14:32Griffin Newman?

  Get this over with.

• 14:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  You might as well go to another country, leave everything behind, you know?

• 14:37David Sims?

  The vibe is to travel and then disassociate, like on a beach or whatever.

• 14:41Griffin Newman?

  But the point is you need somewhere different to disassociate.

• 14:44David Sims?

  You're not gonna be like, you know what? It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and get everything done.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, what it says, get out of your apartment during Crimbo Limbo.

• 14:50David Sims?

  Crimbo Limbo. I didn't fucking get anywhere.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  I distinctly remember like being five or six and, and my parents having to explain to me that there was actually a week between Christmas New Year's and I was like, why would there be?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  That's a good question.

• 15:02David Sims?

  It's all a question.

• 15:03Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't it just go from like 25 to one?

• 15:05David Sims?

  Why not just wrap the year December 26th?

• 15:07Griffin Newman?

  Truly, let's just fucking.

• 15:08David Sims?

  And for me, New Year's Eve was January 4th. I don't know about you, but like when New Year's Eve happened, I was like, who cares? There's still five more days of this fucking break. January 4th, I was like, my kids going to school tomorrow. We're done. The new year begins like we're at half, things are happening.

• 15:22Griffin Newman?

  I'm ready to talk about Kevin. Come on, let's get things going.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  We gotta talk about Kevin.

• 15:26Griffin Newman?

  Our podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am.

• 15:30David Sims?

  David, oh, fuck. I'm really off guys. I was late. I had a whole city bike thing happen.

• 15:37Griffin Newman?

  New York is.

• 15:38David Sims?

  Down a, you know, Mediterranean taqueria thing.

• 15:41Griffin Newman?

  But kind of hits, right?

• 15:42David Sims?

  Oh, it's so good. That's my new spot.

• 15:43Griffin Newman?

  We got a new, a new work lunch spot. David, yes, came in very frazzled, still wet from swimming.

• 15:51David Sims?

  Yeah, you know.

• 15:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:54David Sims?

  I exercised.

• 15:55Griffin Newman?

  Having dug a city bike out of the snow.

• 15:57David Sims?

  And then dug it back in.

• 15:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that's the real problem. I'm Griffin.

• 16:01David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 16:02Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers or make a couple of well-regarded European art house films.

• 16:09David Sims?

  Sure, right.

• 16:10Griffin Newman?

  And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Kind of.

• 16:17Griffin Newman?

  And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a very important turning point film in her career. But more than that, this episode is an opportunity to talk about a really weird period in her career surrounding and leading up to this movie. Cause it's nine years in between films.

• 16:33David Sims?

  Nine years, yeah, 2002 to 2011. It's the break between this and Morven Color, but obviously there's right movies in between.

• 16:39Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff to talk about.

• 16:40David Sims?

  And stuff like that.

• 16:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes, we're talking about the films of Lynn Ramsey. It's a mini series called We Need to Pod About Caspian. And today we are talking about We Need to Talk About Kevin. Now here's a big question. Is this the first movie we've covered where the title is bigger than the film?

• 17:00David Sims?

  The title is bigger than-

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  I feel like we've talked about certain movies where it's like, oh, people forget that like teenage dirtbag is from Loser. That music video is bigger than the movie.

• 17:10David Sims?

  Oh, like that we need to talk about X has just become-

• 17:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:14David Sims?

  Like a phrase people use all the time.

• 17:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:18David Sims?

  I guess I know what you mean.

• 17:19Griffin Newman?

  You know, and sometimes you're like, this meme is like, like Jeremiah Johnson is more known as the, the nodding gif than as a movie as a whole at this point.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie.

• 17:31Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Like, it's like, there aren't, there's almost nothing like this.

• 17:34Griffin Newman?

  Very few examples in history like that.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Where everyone knows the phrase.

• 17:38David Sims?

  Had no one used it before? Did Lionel-

• 17:39Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 17:41David Sims?

  I mean, obviously people have said to each other at times, like we, but like, did Lionel Shriver, genius that she is, think of this?

• 17:48Speaker 03

  The book became a bestseller and I think the title became memed fundamentally.

• 17:52David Sims?

  Almost immediately.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Kind of pre-meme terminology. Cause the novel was-

• 17:56David Sims?

  Oh, three. I was in high school. I remember. Cause it was a big hit in Britain. Cause it won the orange prize.

• 18:01Griffin Newman?

  Movies 11.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  And then it became kind of like the kind of book that when I was an elementary school student and I was at like Walmart and my mom needed to buy a fridge, I would sit down in the like Oprah's Book Club, you know, bestseller aisle and I would read the sort of weirdly commercial literary fiction.

• 18:18David Sims?

  That's what it was. It was like a-

• 18:20Griffin Newman?

  Become popular with.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. That always involved violancers actually.

• 18:23David Sims?

  It had, right. It had feet into, and that wasn't especially a thing when I was a teenager, those books that were like, you're like, what's it about? It's like, well, a person whose parents were horrible to him. You're like, that's the whole book. And they're like, yeah, that's the whole fucking book. You just feel bad.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  A child called it. She's come undone.

• 18:37David Sims?

  A child called it. That's the one I'm thinking of. Right.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, is it biography? And the answer is kind of?

• 18:41David Sims?

  Sure, maybe.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. They're like on the shelf next to like Jules' poetry book, A Knight Without Armor, you know? And it's just like, this was what we were doing then.

• 18:48David Sims?

  You know what Jewel was up to though? Living in that boat.

• 18:51Griffin Newman?

  It is interesting that that is such a like fertile, commercial area for publishing.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  That's SVU core, kind of. It's like, yeah.

• 18:57Griffin Newman?

  But then like, when you pitch a movie like this, people are like, why the fuck would I sit down for two hours and watch that? Like, people want to read 20 pages at a time over weeks or months. And selectively like dip in and dip out.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Was this movie successful?

• 19:11David Sims?

  Um, I would say for a movie about a mass murder of children, it was pretty successful. And for a movie directed by Lynn Ramsey, it was pretty successful.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  Is this your most commercially successful film?

• 19:22Griffin Newman?

  Die My Love, I think, outgrossed this, but also.

• 19:25David Sims?

  Die My Love might have outgrossed it through sheer force of like, they just put it on so many screens.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:31David Sims?

  And made people so angry. I mean, it made, this made $10 million worldwide.

• 19:36Griffin Newman?

  But it made much more overseas than here.

• 19:38David Sims?

  It did.

• 19:38Griffin Newman?

  It was an oscilloscope film, who's a distributor I love, but is very small.

• 19:42David Sims?

  Tiny distributor.

• 19:42Griffin Newman?

  And this was sort of the biggest film they had had up until that point.

• 19:46David Sims?

  So it made, I would say, it made 500 grand more than Die My Love did worldwide.

• 19:50Griffin Newman?

  Wow, okay.

• 19:50David Sims?

  That's how bad Die My Love.

• 19:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:52David Sims?

  God bless movies' attempts to show it to the masses there, but how bad that did.

• 19:58Griffin Newman?

  But I think oscilloscope getting this movie over $1 million domestic was seen as like, they broke through their own glass ceiling.

• 20:06David Sims?

  Well, yeah, and this was a movie that got a genuine Oscar buzz, got precursor, you know, she got, Tilda got every.

• 20:12Griffin Newman?

  precursor until the Oscars.

• 20:13David Sims?

  She didn't get the Oscar nom. She got beaten out. I think that was the year where, I guess, honestly, I guess it's Rooney Mara kind of sneaks by her at the end for Dragon Tattoo.

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  That was seen as kind of a dead campaign.

• 20:27David Sims?

  You Were Never Really Here made 10.8 million worldwide, which is 100,000 more. So that's kind of her ceiling is 10.

• 20:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:35David Sims?

  She makes a, but then like.

• 20:36Griffin Newman?

  10, but like domestic is under 2. Yeah, they're masterpieces.

• 20:40David Sims?

  They're good, right, and they do get a lot of critical discussion and.

• 20:46Griffin Newman?

  A-listers want to work with her.

• 20:47David Sims?

  People, right, good actors want to work with her. And I imagine this one had a decent tale.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:53David Sims?

  On like, at home viewing, because like, people like this creepy shit.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  There was a stickiness to it. I could imagine.

• 20:58David Sims?

  Even though this movie is.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Maybe her funniest movie?

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  See, interesting, I, huh.

• 21:03David Sims?

  Now, that's a really interesting. Morgan Callere is pretty funny.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Morgan Callere is funny. I think this is her funniest movie though.

• 21:10David Sims?

  I mean, Dime I Love is pretty funny.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  I think Dime I Love is funny.

• 21:12Griffin Newman?

  J Lo's got like bits in it.

• 21:14David Sims?

  J Lo has such great comic energy, right? Like even and so like the shit, like where she just starts taking her clothes off when like the suburban mom's trying to talk to the rural mom, right? Wherever the fuck, like, that's funny.

• 21:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 21:26David Sims?

  I guess a lot of Dime I Love is her like throwing herself through plate glass windows.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that part's really funny. No, that part's really funny. Are you kidding me? That part's so funny.

• 21:34David Sims?

  I mean, all the shit of just them like crawling towards each other with knives. You know, like, isn't there a baby over there? And the baby's like, I'm over here.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  This movie's funny for a different reason though, right? It's like the, like, Tilda, she's so dead. The way she plays it is so funny, in my opinion.

• 21:50Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is Jia Tolentino.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 21:54Griffin Newman?

  So happy to have you, honored privilege to have you here.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Long time, long time listener.

• 21:58David Sims?

  You are, I mean, you are.

• 22:00Griffin Newman?

  We found a quote in something else leading up to this episode that Tilda Swinton said she felt like this was her opportunity to give her Buster Keaton performance.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 22:11David Sims?

  That is very, that's.

• 22:12Griffin Newman?

  I think it was a quote that JJ sent me. Maybe he text, pulled it out for an interview in Texas.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 22:17Griffin Newman?

  But, but it, she was just like, I'm gonna try playing as still as possible against the chaos of what's happening against me.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 22:25Griffin Newman?

  And Buster Keaton is the image I have in my mind. And I'm going for funny.

• 22:29David Sims?

  The British tagline, by the way, is Mummy's Little Monster. That is the British tagline.

• 22:34Griffin Newman?

  Is it spelled M U N S T E R?

• 22:37David Sims?

  No.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Mummy's Little Munster?

• 22:39David Sims?

  It is not about Mummy's Little Munster. If he was just dressing up like a Frankenstein.

• 22:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:43David Sims?

  And reciting sitcom one liners, I would have no concerns about him.

• 22:47Griffin Newman?

  If he was a little monster.

• 22:49David Sims?

  He was just a little monster.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  You guys, can I tell you something? When I watched this movie for the first time, again, which was pretty recently, I did not know, I've been trying to break myself of the habit of I M D being like every single thing in the middle of the movie, which is so hard to do. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it with, with these Lynn Ramsey movies when I'm rewatching them or watching them for the first time. And I did not know till the movie was over that this was Ezra Miller.

• 23:14David Sims?

  Oh, that's so. So is that because Ezra Miller is just not really like a face you see a lot?

• 23:18Griffin Newman?

  Ezra Miller object.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  So I have, I have a.

• 23:21David Sims?

  You're not a DC Universe viewer, I don't think. And you probably never met the Fantastic Beasts.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  I love to, I love to not know. I love to not know. You know, like I would say like in general, like, you know, epistemologically, like, I simply love to not know. And, and so it's like, I love when things are none of my business. And like, and often franchises are simply none of my business.

• 23:41David Sims?

  And Ezra Miller pivoted pretty much straight to stuff that is not your business, right?

• 23:45Speaker 03

  And I remember like, and often like, and celebrity, like, the celebrity news, knowing, I love, I'm a gossip, like, like every, you know, journalist, whatever, like, I'm a huge gossip. I love to know stuff about people I know or that I kind of know. But do, I never want to know anything about someone I do not know.

• 24:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Their personal life. I don't fucking care.

• 24:07David Sims?

  Oh, so you're right. You're not someone who cares about celeb gossip, like, oh, boy, I was spotted.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Only, only, only non-celebs, only whos. Well, but, but that it's, you know, it's, that's why it's so existential. It's inherently meaningless. It's all inherently meaningless. And, and when, when celebrities are thems, and people, it's, this is because like, as, when I first started hearing about Ezra Miller, I learned about them as the allegations of violence and abuse were coming out. And I was like, this is none of my business.

• 24:33Griffin Newman?

  That's your entire framework.

• 24:34David Sims?

  And it's not a great way to first be introduced to a celebrity, right?

• 24:38Speaker 03

  I don't need to know what they're up to. This is just none of my business. And so I, I just deliberately was like, I, I will not learn about this story or this person. And then, and then I was like, oh, oh, it was, it was all real.

• 24:54Griffin Newman?

  It is such a big part of this movie's weird legacy, where you're like, okay, so there's the meme ability of the title. And then there's like, eight years after the movie, it feels like now there's like a second screened experience. There's like an augmented reality game happening in our universe, where the actor who played Kevin is doing Kevin-esque shit.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  Which was so bizarre, and I think like, put more attention on the movie previously, but it also speaks to the weird arc of Ezra's career, which is like, you know, a sort of like, building steam of stuff. But then this feels like the movie where, in a very Zack Snyder-y move, he watches a very intense drama about like, a psychopathic teenager and is like, "That's my Flash, the funny guy." Like, and the whole defining of the Snyder aesthetic is like, "These are serious."

• 25:42David Sims?

  Yes, I need, I need very, very serious way. I mean, because Ezra Miller, it's this, I know Ezra had done a couple things before this, but nothing-

• 25:51Griffin Newman?

  Does Perks of Being a Wallflower come out after this?

• 25:52David Sims?

  No, that's the year after, right?

• 25:54Griffin Newman?

  Right, exactly.

• 25:54David Sims?

  Which is, I guess, sort of, the more gentle emo side of this young teen actor, who's like, so pretty and like, right, like, has like-

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  After School is, is the debut film, the Antonio Campos movie, which is a similarly intense film.

• 26:06David Sims?

  Oh, right, I've never seen that.

• 26:07Griffin Newman?

  I will say for our listeners, and also for Jia, because this does need to be acknowledged.

• 26:10David Sims?

  Please.

• 26:11Griffin Newman?

  I went to summer camp with Ezra. I kind of grew up with Ezra. I was very close with Ezra for a number of years. We were on a sketch comedy and improv teams together.

• 26:20David Sims?

  And you're in a great and very widely seen film.

• 26:23Griffin Newman?

  Was in one of the sort of Ezra Millers on the movie Star Trek films called Beware the Gonzo, that is a quite bad teen comedy, in which I played a character named Horny Rob, and Ezra played Eddie Gonzo Gilman, I think.

• 26:37David Sims?

  The Gonzo, I mean, let's just-

• 26:38Speaker 03

  The titular Gonzo.

• 26:39David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, like, look.

• 26:40Griffin Newman?

  But Zoe Kravitz was in it as well.

• 26:42David Sims?

  And Jesse McCartney.

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  A lot of people were in it.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Oh, is that the movie where they started dating?

• 26:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 26:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes. A lot of Colby Minthi, a lot of great actors, that's like, an early role for them. It's a weirdly stacked cast.

• 26:54David Sims?

  Campbell Scott, one of his first roles.

• 26:55Griffin Newman?

  Plays one of Ezra's parents. So it's like, a thing when we started this podcast, that I would evoke, especially when Ezra would come up and we were like, covering the DC films and such. I have not spoken to Ezra in like, 10 years. And there is this weird kind of, almost disassociative thing of like, you can know someone, have them become famous, and stay in touch with them, and it feels like you're adapting to their reality shifting, right? Like, they change the way- People perceive them perceive them changes, but you're still kind of like in the narrative. You can meet very famous people who to you feel abstracted as icons and then get to know them as a person and be like, oh, now you're like

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  humanized to me. But to have someone who you did know very closely for a while, then become very famous at the point that you sort of lose contact with them, which was not, you know, like any dramatic split off, but at the point that the public kind of spiral is happening. I have not spoken Ezra in years and I'm reading the news as if it's just a person. It almost like doesn't bear.

• 28:02David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  A resemblance to the person I knew. And it also was this weird byproduct of like, this movie is such a flashy statement. Zack Snyder says you Warner Brothers, as often happens when like a studio casts a on the rise person in a big franchise role. They're like, we're going to tie you down to two other things. So it's like Ezra's The Flash and Ezra's also this developing villain across the Fantastic Beasts.

• 28:27David Sims?

  Ezra did three Fantastic Beasts movies.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  And then they're a villain.

• 28:32David Sims?

  Yeah, it's sort of like the tragic. I mean, those movies are not.

• 28:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a bit like Wizard Kevin, honestly.

• 28:39David Sims?

  Yes, it is. But it's like, what's up with this weird kid? And it's like, turns out there's like a magic cloud inside him of his emotions.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  But it also felt like they were trying to.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Those movies are bad, though. Should I watch them?

• 28:49David Sims?

  They are horrendous.

• 28:51Griffin Newman?

  It felt like they were also going for Kylo Ren.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Kind of cool for me.

• 28:54David Sims?

  If you get high and watch them, you will fall asleep right away and have.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  I could do that too.

• 28:59David Sims?

  Sweet dreamless sleep.

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  I say with some confidence, what you should do is get high and read the Wikipedia synopsis and then that is it.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  That's that'll do it.

• 29:07Griffin Newman?

  Watching them is a worse experience. But it's like a Wizard Kevin who then also has like Wizard Kylo Ren, like is he gonna be redeemed character?

• 29:15David Sims?

  Right. Cause he's like the character where Creedence bare bone, I believe.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Creedence bare bone?

• 29:21Griffin Newman?

  And his mother is.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Creedence.

• 29:23David Sims?

  Samantha Morton.

• 29:24Griffin Newman?

  Marvin Keller herself.

• 29:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 29:26Griffin Newman?

  But she's his adoptive mother.

• 29:27David Sims?

  Yeah, because she's sort of like a Bible beating type. Like the whole thing is that it's all like religious repression has made Creedence.

• 29:35Griffin Newman?

  Creedence, Credence barebone.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Religious repression, like Christian religious repression?

• 29:38David Sims?

  Yeah, cuz you know what J.K. Rowling is like? Like, she identifies these villains, you know?

• 29:42Speaker 03

  There's religion in the Harry Potter universe?

• 29:44David Sims?

  Yeah, she's very, she's very-

• 29:46Griffin Newman?

  Cause it is our world.

• 29:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Oh, so it's taking place in the Muggle world?

• 29:49Griffin Newman?

  And the Fantastic Beasts movies take place during like the Great Depression? Are they the-

• 29:53David Sims?

  Don't make me, once again, go deep on these. Yes, the first one, the whole joke that I, as a, right, like, you know, when these were announced, where they were like, Fantastic Beasts has been announced and it will build to the big battle between Grindelwald and Dumbledore.

• 30:11Griffin Newman?

  Well, that was the later announcement.

• 30:12David Sims?

  Well, but like, there's sort of like, that's vaguely the idea, maybe, you know, and you're like, oh, okay, and that's in like the 1945, the idea is that it's like World War II. And they're like, anyway, the first movie's 1926. So I'm like, how long is this planned for?

• 30:25Griffin Newman?

  When it was announced, people were like, oh, fun, a standalone story in the Harry Potter universe.

• 30:29David Sims?

  We're pretending it wasn't.

• 30:30Griffin Newman?

  And then right before it came out, J.K. Rowling was like, actually, it's a five movie saga that takes you right up to the starting-

• 30:36Speaker 03

  There have been five movies?

• 30:37Griffin Newman?

  No, they gave up!

• 30:38David Sims?

  They made three and ran out of patience.

• 30:40Griffin Newman?

  At one point, she was upping to six and they were like, how about the last one was the one you just made?

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Credence barebone, that's like a blues singer name. That's great. That's good.

• 30:48David Sims?

  I don't know if you know this, but J.K. Rowling is famously horrendous at naming her characters.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, like Cho Chang, yeah.

• 30:54David Sims?

  Like Cho Chang being the most iconic version of that. But Credence barebone is another one. I feel like she spent two minutes on that.

• 31:00Griffin Newman?

  Right, Heimel Menorah, isn't that the Jewish?

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Samantha Morton, wow. The Lynn Ramsey universe.

• 31:05Griffin Newman?

  I mean, like, great cast in that movie. It's so fucking boring, but here are these like, big Warner Brothers movies that all have like, productions that will last a year in foreign countries. And even though none of these movies are like Ezra vehicles, they've basically like tied Ezra down for the better part of a decade.

• 31:21David Sims?

  Yeah, no other movies.

• 31:22Griffin Newman?

  And it's just shuttling like off the grid.

• 31:24David Sims?

  Flash Creedence, Flash Creedence, except-

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Except I'm sure y'all saw, I guess Ezra was doing- Like at a Die My Love premiere and, and gave the thing about how they're working on a

• 31:35David Sims?

  They, they claim they're working on a movie with Lynn Ramsey.

• 31:37Griffin Newman?

  Together. Ezra has a small part in the Mary Herron Salvador Dali movie, Little Ashes, where, where I believe Ezra plays young Salvador Dali, but most of the movie is Ben Kingsley.

• 31:49David Sims?

  That's right.

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  And there was a Stanford Prison Experiment movie with a bunch of young guys in it.

• 31:53David Sims?

  That's from 2015. That's a long time ago.

• 31:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying within, I'm saying post heaven.

• 31:58David Sims?

  Yeah. And apart from that, just Trainwreck.

• 32:01Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 32:01David Sims?

  Ezra's in Trainwreck.

• 32:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:03David Sims?

  Don't remember.

• 32:04Griffin Newman?

  Ezra plays the kind of like young, pretty assistant at the magazine who Amy Schumer tries to have an affair with and then finds out is like 15 years old. But yeah, it was like, the industry was like Warner Brothers is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on this being a star. And the public had so little relationship to them outside of like, like tumblers that were obsessed with Ezra's bone structure.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Right. Which is unbelievable.

• 32:31Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Unbelievable.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  But it was a lot of that. And it was a lot of

• 32:34Speaker 03

  They're so pretty.

• 32:34Griffin Newman?

  It was a lot of like this movie where it's like, well, there's like a pretty astonishing level of intensity here. And then Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I think is Ezra's best performance and is the one where there's like a good balance of, of humor and pain and feeling and what have you. That's the one that I felt. Anyway.

• 32:52David Sims?

  The thing about this movie is, and we were talking about this with Drew McQueeney, like, there's actually a lot less Ezra than you remember. It's more just like a striking performance, obviously, when it's, but a lot of it's the little Kevin.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  The little Kevins are

• 33:06Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is

• 33:07David Sims?

  Get rid of them too.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  We gotta talk about these little Kevins.

• 33:09Griffin Newman?

  More than.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  We gotta talk about the little Kevins.

• 33:11Griffin Newman?

  My second piece of necessary airing of context for this movie is like, I auditioned for this movie like four times.

• 33:17David Sims?

  To play Kevin.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 33:19Griffin Newman?

  And speaking to how much less teen Kevin there is than you think. Anytime I watch a movie that I auditioned for over a decade ago, there was the weird thing where every line of dialogue comes back to me. You know, back when I was fucking diligent would be off book for auditions when I gave a shit. And it'll like come back where I'm like, oh, right. At one point, I knew all of this and I knew the cue lines and whatever.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Do you remember any, like, what was the most intense of the sides?

• 33:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, what I was gonna say is I auditioned so many times that I kept hitting different scenes and I think I basically

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Did the whole thing.

• 33:52Griffin Newman?

  Did every one of these scenes for Lynn Ramsey.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 33:56Griffin Newman?

  Cause in my memory, I think I did two auditions with casting and then two with her and Kinnear, what's his name?

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Rory.

• 34:04David Sims?

  Rory Stewart.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  But not, yeah.

• 34:06Griffin Newman?

  Not, that's why I was doubting myself. And every one of the teen Kevin scenes, I had some memory of how I played it.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 34:13Griffin Newman?

  Maybe I'm misremembering, but it also speaks to like

• 34:16David Sims?

  It's not that many.

• 34:16Griffin Newman?

  In reality, it's like five dialogues.

• 34:18David Sims?

  So they were like jerk off and lock eyes.

• 34:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, that you didn't have to do, but I did like the TV monologue. I did the final speech at the end.

• 34:26David Sims?

  The right, where you're like, I don't know why I did it or whatever.

• 34:29Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. At the diner trying to connect over like, you know, who your crush is or whatever. Like, I just remember doing all of them. But I, I read this script and was like, young and, and hadn't read that many scripts, had seen Ratcatcher, but also like hadn't seen Morven Keller at this point. This person hasn't made a movie in like close to 10 years. I read this script and I'm like, the fuck is this? Because it's written in like visuals where some of it felt like bad poetry. And I was like, well, this feels like the worst student film scripts I read, where people are too in love with the idea of the images they have in their head. How will this work? But then when I got to the dialogue scenes, I thought they were so funny and engaging. And I was like interested.

• 35:13Griffin Newman?

  And then meeting her, I found her so funny and so collaborative and so loose where I was like, fuck, this person rules. And then saw the movie and was like, it is almost exactly what she wrote in a way where movies like this sometimes shoot with a very traditional script. And then they do a bunch of B-roll shooting. And then in the edit, they constructed whoever. They want the structure of this in my memory and I couldn't find the PDF was this on paper.

• 35:38David Sims?

  I believe it.

• 35:39Griffin Newman?

  It opens.

• 35:39David Sims?

  That's how she works.

• 35:40Griffin Newman?

  Four pages of describing the tomato festival.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Four pages.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, truly. And like, you know, explaining what the visual metaphors are, which on paper makes it feel clunky because you're like, don't explain the metaphor to me. But also it's like, she's going, this is the movie I want to make. If you want to give me money to make it, I'm going to shoot it exactly like this. And this is why, like, in retrospect, I now having read a bunch of other scripts, understand it's a really fucking good blueprint of making sure your vision is inarguable on paper.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Well, I was, when I was rewatching it, I feel like this is, it's one of the tightest, sort of the, the stream of consciousness, like it, everything is daisy chained, really, really closely scene to scene. Like there's no, every associative link, every, the, all of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose, like it's unbelievably tight. You can feel where in the script there would be like this circle is like this circle that evokes this feeling that's with that feeling.

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  That's, it would literally say like, and then we like push in on a circle, cut to an egg is the same shape as the object we've just seen.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  You can feel it. And I, I think it has to be that tight. Otherwise, like the movie would be annoying almost like it.

• 36:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:49David Sims?

  You've read the book.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:51David Sims?

  The, the book doesn't have that fine.

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  The book is all letters, right?

• 36:54Speaker 03

  So.

• 36:55David Sims?

  Right. It's sort of epistolary.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  I was curious, but I had been curious about the book when I was, because I, I think it's interesting that Lynn adapt, like all of her movies have been adapted.

• 37:03Griffin Newman?

  Rat Capper is the only original.

• 37:04David Sims?

  She usually is working off a book. Often it's something you haven't heard of, but then of course the, and like the lovely bones is the other book around this time. And we'll talk about it where you're like, right. A book that was sort of like highbrow trash.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Like, yeah, that's the other one.

• 37:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:18David Sims?

  But like clearly she saw like, well, I know what I would make this look like on screen.

• 37:23Griffin Newman?

  She makes very specific, personal adaptations of books that aren't like the obvious literal.

• 37:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 37:28Griffin Newman?

  Transcription.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Right. And, and this book I think seemed to me like it was, you know, it's, yeah, it's epistolary. It's written to, um, it's written to Franklin.

• 37:38Griffin Newman?

  The husband.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  Yes. It's, it's.

• 37:39Griffin Newman?

  Who doesn't die in the book?

• 37:41Speaker 03

  No, who does, but you don't find that out till, till two thirds towards the end. You find out that he's dead. Sooner than you find, it's not the punch that it is in the movie, but you're writing to Franklin. You think that he has custody of Celia and they've just been separated. And then, and then you find out like, yeah, maybe two, two thirds of the way through and it's her. It is non chronological in that she's thinking about like her life traveling around and them fucking so bohemianly, you know, all this stuff, but it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty concrete. And actually, can I read you guys the one line that I? Yes, of course. So the jerking off scene famously, um, in, in the movie, he's just jerking off with the door open

• 38:24Speaker 03

  and locks eyes with his mother as one never does.

• 38:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I would, I would in fact.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Honestly.

• 38:31Griffin Newman?

  Recommend not to.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Simply never does. That's an 0.0 percenter for me. Never does.

• 38:35Griffin Newman?

  You've never done it?

• 38:37Speaker 03

  That's really crossed my mind. So.

• 38:40David Sims?

  I'd like to also just say that's not a thing I've ever.

• 38:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm gonna.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Guys, I've never done it either.

• 38:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, No Bits Podcast, I have not done it.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Never done it. We've never done it.

• 38:47Griffin Newman?

  I've not, I've never done it. And I actually, you know what? It's weird. I don't have the desire to.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  I don't think I do either.

• 38:52Griffin Newman?

  It's never kind of like slid across my desk and made me stroke my chin and consider.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Don't say slid across, I'm like, don't say slid across your desk.

• 38:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  So you were thinking about it.

• 39:03David Sims?

  In the movie, that's what happens.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  So here's, here's what, so it's a repeated action. It's a very, very, very repeated action in the, in the book. And um, here's the description and here's the one line that I transcribed. Actually, I transcribed two lines, but um, here's the phrase. It's, it being Kevin's dick is quote, purple and gleaming.

• 39:24Griffin Newman?

  Jesus.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Not that. Purple and gleaming with what I first assume is KY jelly, but which the silver wrapper and on the floor suggests is my land of lakes unsalted butter. There we have it, folks.

• 39:38David Sims?

  Oh my goodness.

• 39:39Griffin Newman?

  So I'd say like right off the bat, that's a great little like snapshot of uh, why Lynn is good at adapting.

• 39:48David Sims?

  Lynn's just like,

• 39:50Griffin Newman?

  garbage.

• 39:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Griffin Newman?

  Nothing but net.

• 39:51David Sims?

  I don't know. I mean, I don't like, I will dig into the dossier to see like what Lynn thinks of this book. I know Lionel Shriver is like, kind of almost like, I don't like talking about that book. Like, like, like, almost dismissive of the book in a way because of its success.

• 40:04Griffin Newman?

  Lionel Shriver, who also now has gone like full turf, anti-woke,

• 40:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 40:08Griffin Newman?

  anti-identity politics.

• 40:09David Sims?

  Is she British or not?

• 40:11Griffin Newman?

  No, she's American.

• 40:12David Sims?

  She's sort of pseudo-British?

• 40:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, because all the good turf shit was happening over there. It seems like she reclaimed it.

• 40:16David Sims?

  But she got their way before, but then you're right, then she really started mixing it up.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Her name is something like Kellyanne.

• 40:21David Sims?

  Her name is, so like, I will say this, here's my, I didn't know this until I opened her Wikipedia, which is just, I thought that she was called Lionel Shriver because there's this thing in Britain sometimes where like evil old rich guys have a daughter and they're like, ugh, a daughter. I'll just give her my name anyway, just because like, I wanted a son. Like Nigella Lawson, her insane name is because Nigel Lawson was like, oh, I had a daughter. Well, I guess I'll just call her Nigella, which is a made up name. And, but no, her name is Margaret Ann Shriver. She's from North Carolina and she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she felt, wanted a tomboyish like.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. And she writes, so there's an afterword to my addition.

• 41:03David Sims?

  Lionel is like, to me, like the name of like an old professor in like a fucking Narnia book, like not, like, I don't think of that as tomboyish.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  Can I also, just before I forget, that the quote you read was quite disturbing. It only serves to remind me of my least favorite thing that has ever been said to describe such an act, which is in the Glenn Close movie, The Wife, when Jonathan Pryce says, uh, stroke my tumescent cock.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  He says that out loud?

• 41:25Griffin Newman?

  He says that out loud and that movie almost won an Oscar.

• 41:29David Sims?

  Thank God.

• 41:29Griffin Newman?

  It was in a pretty serious conversation. Many people spent months like at a chalkboard being like, can we give this an Oscar?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Was he, was he, was that a directive or was he saying that someone had like?

• 41:41Griffin Newman?

  I dare not re-watch that film. I can't remember if he's asking her to do it or thanking her for having just done it, but it's one or the other. They're lying in bed together with the lights off.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  It's real nasty.

• 41:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And he puts a lot of English on the delivery. Um.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Tumescent, it's like even saying it is sort of like a vomit.

• 41:55Griffin Newman?

  Sucks. It's a terrible word. I never want to hear that word ever.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:08Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 42:09David Sims?

  Yes.

• 42:13David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 42:14Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 42:15David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 42:16Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:22David Sims?

  Okay.

• 42:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:27David Sims?

  Wow.

• 42:27Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 42:29David Sims?

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

• 42:36Griffin 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.

• 42:48David Sims?

  Yes.

• 42:48Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 42:49David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 42:50Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:56David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 42:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:00David Sims?

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

• 43:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:04David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 43:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:06David Sims?

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

• 43:11Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 43:11David Sims?

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

• 43:14Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 43:15David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 43:17Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 43:17David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 43:19David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, one that queer Paul McCann, if you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on MUBI.

• 43:30Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:44David Sims?

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

• 43:48Griffin Newman?

  What happened? 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.

• 44:00David 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.

• 44:12Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:18David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 44:23Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 44:24David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 44:25Griffin 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.

• 44:32David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 44:33Griffin 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.

• 44:41David Sims?

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

• 44:47Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:47David Sims?

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

• 44:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:57David Sims?

  No.

• 44:58Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 44:59David Sims?

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• 45:46Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 45:46David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:51David Sims?

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

• 45:56Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 45:58David Sims?

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

• 46:05Griffin 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.

• 46:14David 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.

• 46:37Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals and check out 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.

• 47:10Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Lionel Shriver basically had made like, had written a couple of books that hadn't really hit. Uh, but sort of like, is this like an interesting book to write from?

• 47:18David Sims?

  Damn, she endorsed DeSantis. She's deep in the fucking weird shit.

• 47:23Griffin Newman?

  She had voted Democrat her entire life.

• 47:25David Sims?

  She cited apoplectic loathing for Kamala Harris. I mean, like.

• 47:29Griffin Newman?

  But like, how grown, how, how brain broken do you need to be to not only like switch parties, but also go like, I think DeSantis has the juice. She kept arguing that DeSantis was so charismatic.

• 47:41David Sims?

  You can just be like, I kinda hate, you know, woke people and I've gone insane. You can just say that. You can't be like, I'm really, really into Ron DeSantis.

• 47:49Griffin Newman?

  Buying as much stock as she could in DeSantis.

• 47:51David Sims?

  Even like right wing racist psychopaths are like, he's fine. Let's relax. Like, he's not that good.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  There's an afterword to this, to the heaven novel. And she talks about, so when did it come out, you said?

• 48:02David Sims?

  Uh, oh, five in Britain. Uh, no, sorry. Oh, three in Britain. It won the orange prize, which was the, it doesn't exist anymore now. It's called like the Women's Prize for Fiction, but was the, it's the, the. Literary Prize in Britain given to a novel by a woman. And which was a prestigious award like, and it was, and it was a bestseller. So it was that kind of thing that we're talking about of like, it was the somewhat lurid bestseller, but it was like somewhat well regarded.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  It's well written, but I, but it's like, the, the movie is much more pleasant to watch than the.

• 48:35David Sims?

  I imagine.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  It's, it's a better movie than the book as a book, but Lionel Schreiber is a, is a smart, perceptive, nasty intel, like the intelligence behind the book, you know, maybe we'll pin it on the, on Eva Katchadorian, not the author, you know, but it is, it is a nasty type of intelligence at work. And, and there's an afterword where she talks about being raised by like hardcore, like Carter Democrats or something, and that all of her life she had had, I think she describes it as a violent right wing streak. And she, and so she like owns it. She's, she's proud of it already in the mid, in the mid aughts, when she's writing this, which is kind of an amazing time to be proud of your violent right wing streak. I mean, anytime is, but

• 49:17Speaker 03

  especially then. And she, um, she hated the book because everyone wanted, like it's the kind of book that makes you psychoanalyze the author, obviously.

• 49:24David Sims?

  Of course, right. It's just about you. Or yeah, right. What, what is your relationship with your family, your kids, whatever? Yeah.

• 49:30Griffin Newman?

  But she also seemed to have this baseline in like, reading interviews with her, uh, this baseline resentment that it was so much more successful than the book she had written before it, and that the book she wrote after it never came close. That she was like, I hate that everything is about this one book.

• 49:46David Sims?

  She doesn't have kids.

• 49:47Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. And then by the time they made, they were making the movie, she's like, I don't want to fucking deal with that thing anymore. Was like, it was treated like it was her Hotel California. And she's like, I hate that they only asked me to play this one song. The quote I found from her that I thought was interesting was, I'm often asked, did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin? Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience. So she like hates that it was successful. And it's like, oh, what? Because I wrote a book about a thing that people are perversely curious about? You all bought this one?

• 50:28Speaker 03

  Right. I wrote a thing about a sensational national news event that keeps recurring and no one will write novels about because it's so.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. And even her, like, people asked what I was going through when I wrote the book. She wants to just be like, no, I'm just a skilled writer and I sit down and have the same process every time and nothing personal is going on. I am the same level of good writer every time.

• 50:47David Sims?

  Also, you don't want to admit like, you know, look, I wrote a fucking school murder. It's not shooting because it's bone error, but like a school murder book, because I knew that's like hooky and would get people's attention. Like, no one wants to say that.

• 50:58Griffin Newman?

  The greater hook of this is, it is one of those things that people.

• 51:00David Sims?

  Like, what if your kid was crazy? Like, another hook that everyone, like, is drawn to.

• 51:05Griffin Newman?

  What is it like to be a parent in the aftermath of that? Right?

• 51:08David Sims?

  Right, totally.

• 51:09Griffin Newman?

  What do you do? How do you live if your child is the one who?

• 51:12David Sims?

  It's only half about that, right? In the book too, like, it's only somewhat about her life posts, because it's mostly her sifting through her memories.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. It feels like half and half, right?

• 51:22David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 51:22Griffin Newman?

  But it's, it is like a memory play. It's from the perspective of, and I think it's what this movie is trying to get at, is like, the basic structure of this movie is like a couple of days of her life upon getting this new job.

• 51:36David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe a week.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  And everything that happens within the body of the movie feels like the constant churning of, in her head that happens on a daily basis of everything.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  Starting when she's in her twenties and they're de-aged by she's got bangs and John C. Reilly's wearing a beanie.

• 51:50David Sims?

  I mean, Tilda, John C. Reilly, it's a little tougher. Tilda is fairly ageless, although young Tilda is so striking. Like, when you see 90s Tilda, like, there is nothing like her.

• 52:01Griffin Newman?

  But when we've come across young John C. Reilly in movies, you're like, oh, so he was 45 then? And you're like, no, he was like 15 here.

• 52:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Interestingly, in the book, he's supposed to be a Republican. Like, he's like a hardcore Bruce Springsteen, like, farmer guy.

• 52:15David Sims?

  Uh huh. He, I, I don't think he's bad in the movie per se, but he is weird casting.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  He's weird casting. It's super weird.

• 52:21David Sims?

  He doesn't really, you just, I'm like, a million times out of a million, I don't think Tilda marries John C. Reilly. I'm sorry. Like, no matter what characters they're playing.

• 52:31Griffin Newman?

  It feels like they cast him less for the marriage and more for the function of the father.

• 52:35David Sims?

  And I think also it's just like.

• 52:36Griffin Newman?

  It's like this guy reads as chill and fun.

• 52:38Speaker 03

  Or just like a tragic.

• 52:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  Earnestness.

• 52:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 52:41Griffin Newman?

  Just kind of like. Mr. Cellophane.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:43David Sims?

  Right, a guy where you're like, right, he may be, he would be easily duped. But like, it's probably also just, he's a fairly daring actor. He has good taste. And he was like, sure, I'll do that. And they were like, oh, well, he's an Oscar nominated sort of well-known guy. He's like in fucking Talladega Nights. If you got him.

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:00David Sims?

  You get two extra million dollars.

• 53:01Griffin Newman?

  This is still in the period where he sort of seems to be semi-bankable in an ensemble.

• 53:05David Sims?

  Yeah, kind of. He's not nobody.

• 53:07Speaker 03

  And it's true, like their, their relationship isn't supposed to make sense. Like in the, it's, it's not.

• 53:11David Sims?

  Makes no sense.

• 53:11Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  It's not supposed to make sense. Having the kid is always kind of a marginal, like 51% we're doing it.

• 53:18David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right, right. We, we weren't sure up until the kid was born.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the things I think this movie kind of gets right, in my opinion, which is like, it feels like this guy really wants to be a dad because he likes the idea of being a dad. And she does not feel that innate drive and sort of goes like, I guess so.

• 53:35David Sims?

  Which is, is a lot of people do that.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  Maybe if I have a kid, it'll produce it.

• 53:38Griffin Newman?

  I'll feel it.

• 53:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:39David Sims?

  Right. And I, and I know people who felt exactly that way where they're like, yeah, I was kind of on the fence. And then I had the kid and I liked the kid. Like, you know, like I, I like my kid, even if I don't like all kids.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  I think the choice Ramsey makes here that is why this movie works so well for me is that it's like, sort of a nature, nurture, chicken and egg movie. Right? Whereas like the obvious version of this story is, oh my God, what do you do if your child turns out to be a psycho? And it's a ticking clock and it's a matter of time. And Lynn Ramsey's like, no, the question is like, what do you do if you just don't love your child? If you just can never connect with your child? And then if your child ends up becoming a murderer, are you going to spend the rest of your life going like, was it always that way? And is that what I was negatively reacting to?

• 54:25David Sims?

  You're gonna ask the oracle question.

• 54:27Griffin Newman?

  Or did I somehow do something?

• 54:28David Sims?

  But you are asking the oracle question.

• 54:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:30David Sims?

  Did I do that?

• 54:31Speaker 03

  I, I thought.

• 54:32Griffin Newman?

  I thought you said the oracle question.

• 54:34David Sims?

  No, it's the oracle question.

• 54:34Griffin Newman?

  Which is which vase?

• 54:35David Sims?

  Did I do that? I'm sorry, Jia, what were you gonna say?

• 54:37Speaker 03

  Well, I, I think in the book, it's not like them looking exactly alike.

• 54:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. Right. Which is what? They also have very similar bone structures.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  That's like one of the reasons this movie is so funny.

• 54:46David Sims?

  Riley's jeans bounced right off of that fucking over.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  It's like a constant visual joke, starting with the bathwater.

• 54:53David Sims?

  Yes.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  You know, it's like, it actually is so funny. Like when they're sitting across from each other at the restaurant, just looking exactly the same, like the, the hair decision. Like it's really funny.

• 55:01David Sims?

  I am imagining like the poor casting agent on this movie, like the casting director. Hey, can you find me someone who looks like Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley at it? And she's like, no, I fucking cannot.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  And Tilda's Armenian, like Tilda's Armenian. Can we get that working like at all?

• 55:16David Sims?

  Can you mix that in?

• 55:17Speaker 03

  You know, but I, when I watched the, like, I, I found it really like the most, the most sort of dramatically effective chilling thing about the movie was that Kevin, as a literal baby, and this was the other quote that I wrote down from the book, the, the cry is described like a rape whistle.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  And the cry, the cry in the movie, it's like, oh my God. I mean, I would, I would be, I would be at the precipice of self harm within 36 hours.

• 55:45Griffin Newman?

  The moment when she goes to the construction site and stand by the jackhammer.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  And her shoulders go down.

• 55:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it's perfect, like Tilda Buster Keaton shit where like she's conveying the emotion through her body language. Her face from the moment he's like quiet, to the moment he's crying, to the moment she's able to drown it out, basically stays the same.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Her face is incredible in this movie. Like it is kind of, her face is like a Gumby, you know, like when she's like trying to get the job, the way like her jaw hangs and her, like it's, it's unbelievable. But, but the thing that chilled me was that Kevin is such a malignant baby, such a profoundly malignant evil baby. Straight up evil. I'm gonna say it. I've got, I've got small children. You like, that would be an evil baby. That, that Kevin creates her. It's like, it's nature versus nurture, but it's also in reverse, right? That like, the, the child has produced the mom of a school shooter.

• 56:39David Sims?

  Right. Which is a great way of thinking about it.

• 56:41Griffin Newman?

  It's like a really tangled knot.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like they're continually producing each other as this, these cold twins.

• 56:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. But it's basically one.

• 56:49David Sims?

  Riley's like, anyway, here's a bone arrow.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  Like, what, the baseball? Like, do the baseball outside?

• 56:54Griffin Newman?

  But this movie implies that like. Every week of her life is like this, right? Like in the present tense, she's like, the fuck do I do with myself? And then in every like, kind of idle moment, she's replaying everything. She's constantly like a detective trying to like, look back on the scenes and make connections.

• 57:13David Sims?

  Okay. Yeah. Cause this is the thing about this movie, and I think the book too, right? Is like, the, the other thing you have to consider is like,

• 57:21David Sims?

  if someone experienced a tragedy like this, their child or committed a tragedy, you know, they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way. And it's completely unreliable. Now, I watched this movie and I'm like, right? I'm like, couple of years in orphanage or whatever. Drop this kid into a river. No good, evil kid. But I'm, the whole point is that every memory she has now is the bad memory. And the struggle I have with this movie is that Kevin is so nakedly discordant with like, and you know, reality, like whatever, with, with politeness, with like society, that I, I struggle with that. I want it to be a little more ambiguous as to like, was it there all along? Cause you watch a movie and you're like, yeah, it was there all along.

• 58:05David Sims?

  He fucking gerbil went in the dumpster. He blinded his sister. Like this is, these are no good things. Jerking it. Too messy, purple buttercock. Fucking, what else? You know, there's a few other things, right? The pooping.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  The pooping.

• 58:20David Sims?

  I mean, I know children struggle with body. I'm not trying.

• 58:24Speaker 03

  No, but this kid.

• 58:25David Sims?

  Hurt room. Yeah, right, right. The maps. Yeah, right.

• 58:29Griffin Newman?

  Although Ben, you have to admit, that's kind of like a cool artistic strategy. To put paint inside a super soaker.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  It kind of looks cool.

• 58:34Griffin Newman?

  It kind of looks cool. It's kind of a good room.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  It looks a little cool. But the way that the, the middle Kevin is sitting when they're rolling the ball and, and the middle Kevin is sitting like, like Kate McKinnon in the Barbie movie. Like, it's just like, it's just like, what?

• 58:47Griffin Newman?

  The legs.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Like, what would you do if you had? I, I like it that, that Kevin is like that. I, I, I like the decision that. He's unredemably malignant from literally day one.

• 58:59David Sims?

  There's not really ambiguity.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  You're their, you're their parent.

• 59:02David Sims?

  You're not allowed to just be like, hey, I kid.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  Throw them in the river.

• 59:05David Sims?

  I think my kid's a school shooter in.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, like what needs to happen to Kevin is like, he needs to go into a Black Mirror egg or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, like that episode where he just gets egg.

• 59:14Griffin Newman?

  Also, we need to talk about him. We do need to talk about him.

• 59:17David Sims?

  Well, but maybe then we could use this killer to invade countries.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah, he needs to be like. He needs to be in like a VR cage, you know, like there's no other place. It's like anti carceral for everyone except for Kevin, you know? And we can make it really good for him. We can do like a K-3 to kill someone every minute.

• 59:32David Sims?

  And this like very liberal judge who has that appreciation. And I know Kevin's when I see him. No one else needs to go to jail, but Kevin.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Kevin, yeah.

• 59:38Griffin Newman?

  I got a pitch for what we could do with the Kevin IP. What about, what about?

• 59:41David Sims?

  This is a tough movie if you're called Kevin. Shout out to all the Kevins out there. I am sorry. It's like being called Karen or whatever. Right. You know?

• 59:48Griffin Newman?

  What about Alien: Kevin? And Waylon Utani.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  discovers Kevin and they're like, stop going to fucking space. Well, we just got to clone Kevin.

• 59:57David Sims?

  Well, no, but the thing is Waylon Utani finds Kevin. It's like, oh, angular features. You know, kind of charm. Like, how bad could Kevin be? Let's unfreeze him.

• 1:00:05Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you think they make Kevin the captain of a ship?

• 1:00:07David Sims?

  Oh, no, I'm saying they let Kevin out and they're like, so what's up, Kevin? And then, yeah, Kevin goes wild. Look, I mean, we are, luckily, this is not about a real thing that happened. Otherwise, we would be making light of a tragedy.

• 1:00:18Griffin Newman?

  Also, as we said, this movie is like funny. It is, it is like pitch.

• 1:00:23David Sims?

  It's very, very, very darkly funny.

• 1:00:25Griffin Newman?

  Gallows humor.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  It has to be. It would be unbearable if it was straight.

• 1:00:28Griffin Newman?

  This is the other.

• 1:00:29David Sims?

  And it would be kind unbearable in that also that way of like, what's the point? You can't just make a movie about, like, it's the rabbit hole, the book, uh, the, sorry, the play in the movie, which I don't like.

• 1:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Another thing I was, that, that I was.

• 1:00:41David Sims?

  You were in the mix for, I well know.

• 1:00:43Griffin Newman?

  And like, yeah, basically boiled down to me and Miles Teller.

• 1:00:46David Sims?

  Is, but is Miles Teller?

• 1:00:48Speaker 03

  With the play in the movie?

• 1:00:48Griffin Newman?

  Rabbit Hole is Miles Teller.

• 1:00:49David Sims?

  I've never seen the movie.

• 1:00:50Griffin Newman?

  That was his first breakout. Yeah.

• 1:00:52David Sims?

  So it's a David and Lindsay, a bear play. And someone asked him like, hey, what'd you write? And he's like, well, I thought that like, wouldn't it be interesting how sad it was if your kid died? And they're like, is that it? And he's like, yeah, that's it. Like, I just figured that'd make for like a really sad play. And I'm like, there's gotta be something else like, cause nobody really just wants to sit there with that. You know, and it's the same with like, oh, it would suck if your kid with this was a school shooter. Everyone's like, yeah, I know that. Like, so, but, and this is why this is good. This is why the movie succeeds.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  I actually think too, like most people, you know, like you.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  People, friends of mine who are lawyers, like people who are in prison settings, like are know people who have done a stint, you know, violent things. It's like, people are not like Kevin.

• 1:01:33David Sims?

  No.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  You know, like people, people are, Kevin is not a human character, really. And that's why, like, it, allowing Kevin to be so extreme sidesteps, like, kind of usefully, the, the, what you would, Kevin's just not human. You don't.

• 1:01:51David Sims?

  Yeah, there's a different movie that's a process movie of like, why did we not stop this?

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56David Sims?

  Or whatever. Like, that's like a, a very practical movie about a tragedy like that of like, the signs were that, you know, like, and then there's like movies like Gus Van Stent's Elephant where it's like, I don't know, why'd they do it? Like, and if I think back, sure, there was a little of this and a little of that, but I'd never put anything together because the whole point of Elephant is like, you're grasping different parts of the elephant.

• 1:02:15Griffin Newman?

  This part was always Ezra's to lose, like 50% just look, right? And like fitting into the stylization of Len Ramsey's universe. But when I remember auditioning for this and really trying to crack it, and I was like, well, the choice is to go for a kind of like, vacant sociopathy, like the, the shooters in Elephant, right?

• 1:02:34David Sims?

  Right, where it's tough to project much onto them.

• 1:02:37Griffin Newman?

  Right, and especially because the dialogue is so intense in the scenes where Kevin really confronts her and locks in, that I was like, I think you need to kind of pull back or else it will feel over the top. What I didn't understand was that, like, that's what she wants. He needs to feel like almost a satanic force. He needs to feel like a stylized evil, where it's kind of absurd for anyone to be behaving this way and like so gleefully.

• 1:03:02David Sims?

  But only, only Tilda's character is seeing it.

• 1:03:04Griffin Newman?

  This is the other thing I was gonna say to your point, is that it is so much a memory play and her perspective and her replaying it. And when we see Kevin in the present moment in the facility, he is markedly different. And certainly the final scene is like, right, this is a person. This is a person who is like.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  The first scene in which he's a person.

• 1:03:22Griffin Newman?

  Troubled and has like committed like.

• 1:03:24David Sims?

  Looks different, he's.

• 1:03:25Griffin Newman?

  Horrendous, indefensible acts, but the energy of the performance is totally different. And you can go, well, did something break in heaven once they finally committed the evil?

• 1:03:34David Sims?

  And also, it's like Kevin's about to go to a grown up jail and is scared of that, right? Like, it's like, yeah, right.

• 1:03:40Griffin Newman?

  Or is this the only stuff we're seeing that is actually representative of an objective reality versus a subjective reality? Which is, if her playing in her mind, she's just like.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  But you believe it, though, right?

• 1:03:52Griffin Newman?

  The baby crying felt like this all the time.

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  But I think you're supposed to believe that it's like, I don't think you're supposed. I mean, I personally don't think that you're supposed to think, is she retroactively diluted because of this great act of violence? Like, you believe the kid sounded like that.

• 1:04:06Griffin Newman?

  You believe it, but it's also, I think the movie is playing in the, you could never really know for sure. And I think she's, she's so good about making these kind of like, the way memory and present consciousness works, kind of tapestries where you're not doing dumb flashback devices. It's all interwoven. And outside of like, their young, young meetings, Tilda basically looks the same in all segments. Her age is basically only conveyed by her body language.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  The hair.

• 1:04:35Griffin Newman?

  And the hair.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  The hair. Hair is key. Hair is key.

• 1:04:37Griffin Newman?

  And so you're sometimes starting a scene not knowing which temporality you're in until you see if Kevin's there or not, or where she's living, or things like that. So she's building it in a way where those scenes can meld together. They don't feel like, here's an over the top scene and here's a real scene. But it is all kind of a soup. What were you?

• 1:04:53David Sims?

  I was gonna open the dossier. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, okay. But sure, just to get some research on, on this movie. Okay, so Anne Lynn Ramsey's career in between Morvern and this, obviously, nine years, nine years of her trying to make a movie after Morvern is, which is essentially like, that should be the entree to a slightly bigger art film or smallish Hollywood film.

• 1:05:15Griffin Newman?

  At this time, at the very least, you're like, that gets you a like, eight to 10 million dollar Miramax or like Fox Searchlight movie with some major actors who want to show off that they can really act.

• 1:05:27David Sims?

  Right. First thing she does is write a script called Rocking Horse, a dark comedy, as you can imagine, a twisted thing, never been made. She still has it somewhere. Next thing is Lovely Bones. Okay, Film Four, who is, which is the sort of British indie channel, attached to Channel Four, at the time was sort of like a hot company, has Lovely Bones, gives her a galley of just the first few chapters. They don't even give her the whole book and she's like, I'm all in. This sounds great. I think it's super interesting. In July 2002, so this is even before Morven Callar, like that she's like getting sort of moved, moved on to this. The book comes out and is just a smash hit. I mean, that book was so huge. I've never read it.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  Right. She got it before. Yeah.

• 1:06:11David Sims?

  Before it even came out. And like then people start circling it in like an insane way. And, you know, they initially, Channel Four, Film Four is like, no, we're, you know, we have Lynn Ramsey set up and we're gonna do it. And she's an exciting young director.

• 1:06:28Griffin Newman?

  If you've seen Ratcatcher and Morven Callar, at that point in time, it makes a ton of sense to go, if we give her this book, this is the kind of thing that might like level her up like crazy. She might be ready to deliver like a masterpiece.

• 1:06:39David Sims?

  Ramsey's basically like, look, I was handed the, like, the first part of a manuscript. I have a very loose adaptation I want to do. And now people seem to want, you know, the book that is now a huge hit on, on screen. Like, they just want a translation. I don't really want to do that. She doesn't like the second half of the book, which is like where the girl comes back to her.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  She's also like, I think.

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  I mean, I've seen the movie once and read the book O times.

• 1:07:02Griffin Newman?

  She is arguing that a lot of stuff that works in the book would not work on film. And they're pushing back and saying, people love the book. You gotta do the book. I would argue that history proves her correct.

• 1:07:15David Sims?

  I, well, right, because of course Peter Jackson, Spielberg is one guy who's trying to horn in. He never actually does. And then when Ramsey is sort of pushed off eventually because they don't like her drafts, Peter Jackson takes on the project, obviously. It's his post King Kong movie. It is, in my opinion, it's certainly the worst film he's ever made, like by a long shot. It's an embarrassing work. It is so fucking bad.

• 1:07:40Griffin Newman?

  It was the worst idea he could have made at that point in time. And I feel like in our send help episode, we equated this of like, this is a guy who no longer knows how to make a movie that isn't at the pitch and scale of King Kong and Lord of the Rings again. You see him going, oh, I want to do like another like.

• 1:07:56David Sims?

  Like a Heavenly Creatures again.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. And he just cannot get his head around how to make a movie about complicated issues.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  I also think there's something baked into this book, though. Do you remember that New Yorker piece that came out a couple of years ago about Alice Sebold? The author of The Lovely Bones, right? Like, it's like, there's something actually truly malignant about that book in general.

• 1:08:15David Sims?

  Yes, the surety of that book of like, she knows what happened to her and she can like, from beyond the grave, get this guy or whatever the fuck.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  The luridness of that is coming from an entirely different angle than the luridness of Kevin, which at least is voiced from like, a pitiless, you know, like, like, that, I'd take that any day over the, like.

• 1:08:34Griffin Newman?

  Do you know about this, Ben? Just very quickly, there was.

• 1:08:37David Sims?

  I don't know if we can do it quickly, but I mean, you could try.

• 1:08:40Griffin Newman?

  No, I just, the quickest version of it is, basically, four or five years ago, Alice Sebold had to admit that she wrongfully accused a man of a heinous crime and sent him to jail for decades.

• 1:08:52David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, 100%, because it was, and it was a big part of her, because she'd written a memoir about the crime called Lucky.

• 1:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:59David Sims?

  Before Lovely Bones.

• 1:09:01Griffin Newman?

  It was, it was an assault that she endured and she.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  And she like, pointed at a guy in a lineup and, you know.

• 1:09:07Griffin Newman?

  With complete confidence, and he was completely innocent of it.

• 1:09:10David Sims?

  Right, it was crazy.

• 1:09:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so it just has cast a whole pallor on her whole work up until this point, and certainly the narrative of like, a dead girl trying to solve her own murder and.

• 1:09:19David Sims?

  But she doesn't even make that movie. Instead, we need to talk about Kevin, I'll write about the book.

• 1:09:24Griffin Newman?

  I was just gonna say, too, that like, Jackson had kind of as much weight as anyone in Hollywood at that moment. You could argue, he's even like, the heat is, is greater than Spielberg at that moment of what does he want to do next? And he kept, like, optioning different properties that were similar to this of like, that's weirdly touchy, difficult literary material. There's this book, As Nature Made Him, that's this very complicated nonfiction book about this whole medical incident, gender identity and whatever, which I remember just being like, how the fuck is he gonna tackle this? There were other things like this where it felt like he wanted to touch the third rail, but also clearly couldn't get out of his super commercial

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  instincts when it actually came to making the movie. Lynn Ramsey also talks about that she feels like, when they started saying like, we're not happy with these drafts, we're not happy with these drafts.

• 1:10:16David Sims?

  Right, that they were basically trying to push her off.

• 1:10:18Griffin Newman?

  They knew that Jackson was already sniffing and they were looking for a way to be able to legally end the contract they had with her.

• 1:10:24David Sims?

  Total.

• 1:10:24Griffin Newman?

  But so she feels super fucking betrayed.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  She feels bummed out. She's like, it ding my confidence, made me feel bad.

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  And that she had put so much into this and felt like this is the perfect vehicle. As the book gets bigger and bigger, even when they're arguing about the way to adapt it, she's like, I now have a crack at like a brand name piece of material. This movie's gonna get seen by more people. The one other thing I just want to call out quickly, because I saw someone asked this on the Reddit, and it is a good question. Like, when a filmmaker has nine years in between movies, how the fuck are they staying alive? Right? Like, how are you actually making a living during that period of time? And this is a career where there are big gaps, there aren't a ton of films, and it's big gaps in between movies that aren't super commercially viable. So it's not like Peter Jackson takes 15 years off.

• 1:11:14Griffin Newman?

  He has a hundred million dollars. Who gives a shit? Like, when she's working on Lovely Bones, she's getting paid to develop Lovely Bones. You know, if you're getting hired to write, to direct, to meet, yes, you do get paid for these sorts of things.

• 1:11:28David Sims?

  She did a music video.

• 1:11:29Griffin Newman?

  You do music videos, you do commercials, you do a lot of like uncredited like punch up work on other things. But yes, basically, you know, you might have your own passion project that you're trying to get off the ground, but by and large, you try to sell it to a producer quickly so that someone is paying you to do that work, so you can pay the bills until the movie actually gets made, hopefully. Just wanted to answer that.

• 1:11:59Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Griffin 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?

• 1:12:17David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:12:18Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:12:41David 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.

• 1:12:52Griffin 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.

• 1:13:01David Sims?

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

• 1:13:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:05David 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.

• 1:13:12Griffin 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.

• 1:13:26David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:13:27Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:13:30David 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.

• 1:13:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:14:02Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:14:02David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:14:03Griffin 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.

• 1:14:24David 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.

• 1:14:43Griffin 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.

• 1:14:59David Sims?

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

• 1:15:34Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:15:34David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:15:39David Sims?

  When I was younger,

• 1:15:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:41David Sims?

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

• 1:15:49Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:15:52David Sims?

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• 1:16:06Griffin Newman?

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• 1:16:07David Sims?

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

• 1:16:13Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:16:14David Sims?

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• 1:16:28Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free?

• 1:16:28David Sims?

  So, join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/blankcheck. That is chime.com/blankcheck. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 1:17:07David Sims?

  We need to talk about having the book comes out 2003 in the United States. Word of mouth hit, a genuine word of mouth hit, gets the orange prize in 2005. So it takes a while to even get that like, but it was like the way Lionel Shriver, unreliable narrator, though she may be describes it as like Upper East Side mom started like passing the book around and it like, yeah, exactly. Because it's because of the topic matter and Lynn Ramsey is a fan and basically like bids for it herself, I think, right? Like she was just like interested. She got it through her agent and was just like, I want to do this. And the BBC who are helped fund this movie, right? This is a national, yeah, I believe it was a UK film council movie.

• 1:17:49David Sims?

  Like, you know, it's got British government money is like, oh, like, you know, school murders, like this is too dark, but she wants to do it. Lionel Shriver passes on like Lynn's like, do you want to collaborate? And Lionel Shriver was like, fuck, no.

• 1:18:05Griffin Newman?

  I don't want to talk about you. We need to talk about that. Basically, it's her answer. Yeah.

• 1:18:09David Sims?

  She does like the movie. She says it's excellent. It's beautifully shot, well cast, thematically loyal to the novel. Like she, she was like totally happy with the movie. But as you, you know, telling us with like, it's not like the book is like, just is easy to adapt because it's letters, like it's not right. Like, it's not like a translatable work without whatever Lynn is doing to make it this impressionistic feeling of the path this, you know, mom and kids take.

• 1:18:39Griffin Newman?

  It's also what we talk about of like, how she seems to have a better method of visualizing internal monologues than like any other filmmaker in history, in my opinion. And here's a book that's basically just like what this person is telling themselves without any like objective, and she understands how to like transmute that into something that is the opposite in form, but kind of contains the same core ideas and feelings.

• 1:19:07Speaker 03

  It's funny, if, if the, if the book had been titled anything different.

• 1:19:12David Sims?

  Such as?

• 1:19:12Speaker 03

  I don't know. Like it's.

• 1:19:13David Sims?

  Bad kid. The bow and arrow killings.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  It wouldn't have. Yeah, actually the New Yorker fact checker, we, we, we spent like 15 minutes being like, can we call it a school shooting? I was like, guys.

• 1:19:23David Sims?

  I mean, he shoots the bow and arrow.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  That was my argument. I was like, we don't have any word space to do.

• 1:19:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  Actually, it was a bow and arrow. I was like, it's a shooting.

• 1:19:31David Sims?

  Yeah, I find the bow and arrow thing to be a hat on a hat. I don't like it. I will be honest.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  In the book, it's because like, he's like, I don't want to play into your political games. Cause the thing about the book is like, all of this is taking place, the present day timeline is like three months while the Chads are hanging in Florida. And so it's all taking place against this really specific and, and so.

• 1:19:52David Sims?

  That's crazy.

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:19:54David Sims?

  She's mixing all these ideas up together.

• 1:19:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, really.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  Hanging Chad drama? It's a hanging Chad drama. I was looking at, I had, I unbeknownst to myself, um, cause I was trying to, right when we got into this room, I was looking, I was like, didn't, what was the thing that Lionel Shriver, like put on a sombrero to give a speech?

• 1:20:09David Sims?

  That's right.

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  At a literary conference and I was looking, I Googled Lionel Shriver sombrero and found a piece that I had written about her.

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Yep, 2016.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  I didn't remember it.

• 1:20:17Griffin Newman?

  You had to remind yourself, like Bill and Ted style.

• 1:20:20David Sims?

  I assume as she was tiptoeing up to her later turfy turns or whatever.

• 1:20:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:24David Sims?

  She's mad about some like kid getting canceled at Bowden, you know, for having sombreros. I don't know.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  She just written a novel where a white man has, is married to a black woman who is intellectually disabled and at one point she ends up on a leash. So, you know, it's all, it's all pretty.

• 1:20:40Griffin Newman?

  God, really?

• 1:20:41David Sims?

  I'm sorry. At one point she ends up on a leash. It's not what I expected.

• 1:20:45Speaker 03

  Yes, but she calls herself a renowned, like this is in the second line of the speech. She calls herself a renowned iconoclast.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  Me whenever I talk about myself.

• 1:20:55Griffin Newman?

  It's one of these things where they always are just like, I'm going to write something really provocative. And then people go like, hmm, is it okay for them to have written this thing? It's like, oh, so now I'm being attacked.

• 1:21:07Griffin Newman?

  Well, now you're forcing me to become radical. Truly, but it's always this like, okay, well now I'm gonna wear a sombrero. Does that make you upset? And they're like, yes.

• 1:21:17David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Right, right. She, she put out, like, the thing that I found so funny about it then was that she put on the sombrero.

• 1:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  To make a statement.

• 1:21:24Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  That any, that ma- that wearing a sombrero should be less of a statement. I was like, what are we, what are we doing? What are we doing here?

• 1:21:31David Sims?

  It feels quaint.

• 1:21:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:33David Sims?

  For a sombrero to be like, you know.

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  It feels like Shakespeare compared to like what we're dealing with now. Like it's like.

• 1:21:38Griffin Newman?

  But it was her version of the Scarlett Johansson, if I want to play someone who's pink or purple or a tree.

• 1:21:44David Sims?

  I mean, but right.

• 1:21:45Griffin Newman?

  Except it was more like, fuck you.

• 1:21:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  But you know what I was just thinking when you were talking about the book? I, I find, I actually, I've, I've come around to finding the sort of, I'm still on Kevin being like un-freezing in the alien ship. Like, I think it's actually a bit of mercy on her part and like an enormous source of, of comic relief that Kevin is so cartoonish because, because like basically what the whole story is about, it's like, what if you were a woman, a kind of woman that I am and have been, which, who is ambivalent about having children.

• 1:22:16David Sims?

  Sure. Has an ambitious, interesting career, does things.

• 1:22:19Speaker 03

  Carries their independence, wants to be able to go, you know.

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  Wants to go fucking throw tomatoes.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Go throw tomatoes. And you're like, what if the transcendence and love that awaits me is not there? Like, what if you don't know who your kid's gonna be? Well, you don't know. And then people are like, you know what? You, you have your kid, caring for your kid makes you fall in love with them, or the moment of birth makes you fall, like, like everyone assures you, like, you're gonna have an amazing kid. You two are gonna produce an amazing kid, no matter what.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  They're gonna have you as parents.

• 1:22:45Griffin Newman?

  He's so much fun. You're so smart.

• 1:22:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Like, please.

• 1:22:48David Sims?

  He was in Chicago.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  They're gonna have you guys. Like, they're gonna be so, and, and, and you're like, well, yeah, you're right. Like, I guess there's no way he's gonna be, you know, a generational satanic, you know, channel of every, you know, like, it's, it's, it's beyond every parent's worst nightmare to be, it's, it's past the realm of anything that's possible. And in that way, it's a bit of a relief, a mercy.

• 1:23:12Griffin Newman?

  He becomes like supernatural, almost science fiction level of evil, like, like an alien.

• 1:23:16David Sims?

  Lynn refers to it as like Rosemary's baby, but no devil.

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:23:20David Sims?

  Like, what if you had a devil baby, but it's not because you fucked the devil?

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:25David Sims?

  Like, you know, by, you know, like, you not, there's no. You just happened, you got the devil baby. Everyone else didn't.

• 1:23:31Griffin Newman?

  I think that's a great point, though, that the real life version of this type of kid who ends up committing these types of acts is usually like, has anger issues, but also is like incredibly sad, is struggling, is bullied, like has wild emotional swings.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  Has hugged you more than once.

• 1:23:51Griffin Newman?

  It's introverted or whatever it is, you know, and you're like a parent fighting through the outbursts going like, how do we get him level? And the fact that this kid is just from the beginning, basically like playing chicken with her on every single thing?

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  And only respects her when she breaks his arm.

• 1:24:09Griffin Newman?

  There's no level, right? There's no level of vulnerability other than when he is sick and or broken.

• 1:24:15Speaker 03

  Well, about the sick thing here. So I was watching them when I was rewatching them. I was like, what would, what would I do? What would we, what would I do if I had a Kevin? I would phantom thread the shit out of that kid.

• 1:24:24Griffin Newman?

  It works.

• 1:24:25Speaker 03

  I would munchausen him so fucking hard and I would be so justified.

• 1:24:29Griffin Newman?

  But that's the terror. It's not like I'm.

• 1:24:31David Sims?

  But this is, you're kidding because.

• 1:24:34Speaker 03

  I'm serious. No, I'm not kidding.

• 1:24:35David Sims?

  I know you're not kidding, but you're kidding because we're not allowed to do this in society to essentially say like, nope, this kid is a bad egg and there's nothing like society now is just like, no, no, we, we have interventions, like we have things you do. There's people you see, there's medicine you take, like, you know, you can't just be like, I'm stamping a kid, psycho kids.

• 1:24:57Speaker 03

  Speaking of what would actually happen is he would actually be medicated into a stupor.

• 1:25:00David Sims?

  A hundred percent. That was another thing I do. Right. I do bump on it a little bit where I'm like, once again, like, once, once the daughter is getting blinded, like, do you imagine, like, someone's coming to the house, like, and like, you know, who knows? But.

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. When he's, when he's fucking eating the lychee, just like a normal lunch with Kevin, where you're eating lychees and the parents are drinking wine at 10 a.m.

• 1:25:23David Sims?

  And there's this weird. Like, I like this sort of like, their house is so ridiculous.

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  The house is so scary.

• 1:25:31David Sims?

  Their life is so like, you know, like her pretension of like, the map room and like her past and like the world, it almost feels like this punishment, like, oh, you thought you could have it all, like, you could still be the fancy person, the cool person and raise kids. Well, too bad. Like, you get it, Kevin. And then you get the worst thing of, then you have another kid who's cool. Like, so you actually-

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  So sweet as an angel, an angel on earth.

• 1:25:54David Sims?

  You know that it's possible that there actually is a kid you could have that you like.

• 1:25:58Griffin Newman?

  And there's tension between-

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  Only makes Kevin worse.

• 1:26:01Griffin Newman?

  At even having a second kid. And then it's like, immediately, she feels connected to the second kid. Watching this now, I was like, relating certain things to the Nick Reiner situation, which is certainly the most like, public sort of disgust version.

• 1:26:15David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:26:16Griffin Newman?

  But I think that's a perfect case study in how these things often now do happen in our world, which is like, you just read that it was 36 years of them being like, fuck, how do we help him? You know? What is so tragic about that story is everyone says like, they just did everything. They wouldn't give up on him. And they were just like, when is it tough love? When do we need to support him? When do we need to bring in professionals? When is it medication? When is it this? And like, nothing worked. And like, the situation goes as horribly as it possibly could have. And everyone goes like, there was a feeling that someday, something like this was gonna happen. But no one kind of seemingly did anything-

• 1:26:53David Sims?

  Well, because no one wants to say like, hey, I think you're, oh, right. Well, yeah.

• 1:26:56Speaker 03

  Well, also, there's-

• 1:26:56Griffin Newman?

  You can't just write off a kid. You can't just be like-

• 1:26:59Speaker 03

  But also, it's garbage. Because kids aren't like this, though, right? Because it's like, there's not, like, Kevin is not schizophrenic. Kevin is not dealing with addiction issues. Like, like, Kevin, there is no diagnosable, you know, the-

• 1:27:11David Sims?

  And Kevin can perform like, as he does for others. Like, niceness.

• 1:27:16Speaker 03

  I don't know if it's like, there's, there's no treatment for it. There's no treatment.

• 1:27:20Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like, in all the discussion of Nick Reiner, they were like, he was good for a couple of years. And we were like, happy. And then he fell off the wagon, and we thought we could get him back on. Versus like, Kevin comes out with a like, little pitchfork and horns. And it's like, eh eh eh eh.

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  I actually think that the most compassionate and restorative- Justice thing to do would be to constantly phantom thread hit like constantly expose him to norovirus every two weeks. So that he's weak and loves you.

• 1:27:42Griffin Newman?

  I think he would build up a superhuman intolerance.

• 1:27:47Speaker 03

  You could just change. I would just be like giving him little norovirus pills, you know?

• 1:27:51Griffin Newman?

  I don't think we have those.

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  I would invent them. I'd invent them. Someone could do it for me. And then he, cause I found that so beautiful. Like, like, I think it's so beautifully acted. That scene where, where Kevin is sick. And, and, and leans his head on her and for the first time in her entire life, her child has expressed some sort of physical even comfort with her. And you can tell how much it means to her and how sincerely, sincerely like kidding.

• 1:28:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She's not like, okay, all of a sudden.

• 1:28:21Speaker 03

  If every day this was like this, she would have been the happiest woman in the world. I found it so moving.

• 1:28:25Griffin Newman?

  Even if like two days a month were like this, she'd understand what she were fighting for. I think part of why she doesn't know how to take like more extreme actions is that he comes out and she's just immediately like, something's really wrong here. But to say that would make her sound crazy.

• 1:28:41Speaker 03

  And he's, and because Kevin is pretending for, as a child.

• 1:28:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. But even as a baby to be like, honey, I think our baby's evil.

• 1:28:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Griffin Newman?

  You can't say that, right? So as like the signs start to pile up that to her, like self fulfilling prophecies, I told you so. It just feels like she's like, it's a self confirming bias in his eyes and he's so oblivious to shit. And then there is stuff of like, sometimes he's really sweet with the sister. And you're like, so is he doing that just to spite me?

• 1:29:08Speaker 03

  And he's always with the dad. He's like, yeah, let's throw around that baseball.

• 1:29:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. Do they have a connection? I don't understand. Or does he just know?

• 1:29:15Speaker 03

  That's part of the deal.

• 1:29:16Griffin Newman?

  That it's part of it.

• 1:29:17Speaker 03

  Like, cause he's what she would be thinking.

• 1:29:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that's what she's thinking. And I also think that, I, I remember her saying that they really kind of built the performance around the middle kid. And had Ezra study the middle kid. And that part of her conception of the character and how it was even written in the script is like, he reaches this kind of like unresolved anger menace as like, whatever it is, a seven or eight year old. And then when he gets to high school, he's just a taller version. Of that kid, like part of what is so eerie about him is that he's wearing the undersized T shirts, that he's got these like childlike behaviors, that it's now in this kind of like pouty sulky, sulky menace, but everything about him just feels like a stretched out

• 1:30:00Griffin Newman?

  little boy who's now just being taken somewhat more seriously. Uh, cause that kid, it's at that age, it's still a little like, what's going on here?

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  I look, I had a colicky baby. I've had three kids, so I was gonna.

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Colicky baby?

• 1:30:14David Sims?

  Colicky.

• 1:30:14Griffin Newman?

  What does that mean?

• 1:30:15David Sims?

  A colic is when your baby cries for no reason. Uh, and it's like, you know, it's like torture. Like, I mean, right. I mean, you didn't, neither of your kids are colicky, but like, but your, your second kid had like, had the asthma. I mean, I've talked a lot about parenting. Which is, but I had a colicky baby and it is like, it is sort of this feeling of like, the devil is in this baby, like that you cannot.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  I've, I've had to walk away. I've had.

• 1:30:41David Sims?

  Right, right. Where maybe you have to, and sometimes the advice is that it's like, you know what? The baby's fine. Yes, it's crying, but like, it can't hurt itself. If you put it in a bassinet and you just take five minutes or whatever, you know, like.

• 1:30:53Griffin Newman?

  But what does that feel like to be in the other room just away from?

• 1:30:56David Sims?

  The whole thing, like a baby crying.

• 1:30:58Speaker 03

  Better than yelling, what the fuck is wrong with you?

• 1:31:00Griffin Newman?

  But when you're doing that, I'm sure you're also like, what, why am I feeling, why am I getting angry at the baby?

• 1:31:04David Sims?

  A baby crying, like, like especially your baby, like just like pushes a button in your brain, right? Like it's just like, help the baby, you know, like, and yeah, I mean, like the answer is he was underbaked. He's the littlest twin, you know, he gives up preemie and like, he just, this shit wasn't working.

• 1:31:21David Sims?

  He's, um, sorry, he's rock steady.

• 1:31:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay. We use code names for David's children. We named him after, yeah.

• 1:31:28David Sims?

  You know, and like, you know, he was just underbaked, like whatever, something, it's always like, there's something going on with him. Colic is this made up word the doctors came up with to just be like, sorry, like, I'll get better.

• 1:31:40Griffin Newman?

  I thought you were just saying like cowlick, like your daughter was born with hair.

• 1:31:43David Sims?

  I know you do.

• 1:31:44Speaker 03

  That's so cute.

• 1:31:45Griffin Newman?

  They're probably gonna inherit it.

• 1:31:45David Sims?

  I have an insane cowlick. I am waiting, one, Rock City has a widow's peak, which my dad had one of those. Don't run, be off. Could rocket cow. Like, he's got curly, kinda wavy curly hair.

• 1:31:58Speaker 03

  But also what babies are like, it's also, it's shocking to be alive. It's terrible to be alive.

• 1:32:03David Sims?

  Right. And you're not supposed to be alive yet. You came out too early. Even if you came out at a regular time, we come out too early.

• 1:32:08Speaker 03

  And none of us chose to be alive. I'm quite thankful to be alive every day, but I, but I,

• 1:32:14David Sims?

  No one asked me.

• 1:32:15Speaker 03

  It's hard to fault people for-

• 1:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Definitely was not it.

• 1:32:18David Sims?

  I got, I got no Google survey.

• 1:32:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:20Speaker 03

  And Kevin, like, it's like the only source of, the only source of pleasure he's ever seems to access in life is making someone else hurt.

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:29Speaker 03

  And, and in a way, like, you know, what do you do if, like, like, I, you know, I feel no sympathy for Kevin, but he makes, like, even as a somewhat demonic character, he, there's some sort of emotional logic where, like, he didn't ask for that, the monologue, where he's just like, you guys are all here just watching screens all day, wrapped in front of acts of fictional and real violence. Like, what's the fucking point? All of you are just being fake to each other and not saying, like, he, he loathes his mother for never being honest about the fact that she fucking hates him.

• 1:32:59Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. When you get the flashback of the arm breaking, he was like, that was finally, finally an honest moment from you. That you wanted to throw me against a wall. I respected you for the first time and I felt comfortable. Like, we're not playing-

• 1:33:09David Sims?

  You know what I would say to him then?

• 1:33:11Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  Jesus, enough with you. You're fucking, jeez, you're a lot.

• 1:33:14Griffin Newman?

  I need to stop talking, Kevin.

• 1:33:16David Sims?

  You're really exhausting.

• 1:33:18Griffin Newman?

  Me up the wall.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  But don't go to the other kid. Take your norovirus pill. Take your pill. Time for your pill.

• 1:33:24David Sims?

  Norovirus is like, then they're barfing all the time. You gotta deal with the barf.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  I would take an immunity pill.

• 1:33:29David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:33:30Speaker 03

  It's all being invented for me.

• 1:33:31Griffin Newman?

  Smart. Uh, that's where this really feels like a pre-parental anxiety tale, though, especially from her perspective, which is, like, do I wanna have kids unless I'm 100% sure that I'm ready to be a parent?

• 1:33:43David Sims?

  What if I get the one in a million?

• 1:33:44Griffin Newman?

  You don't know what you're gonna get. Right. And there's the version of this is, you know, you, you have a child who has, like, different needs, and there's nothing malicious within them, but you're just like, the job is immediately exponentially more difficult than you thought it was gonna be, you know? You just don't know what you're going to get in any way, and you need to be so sure, and people shouldn't have kids who aren't sure that they wanna have kids. And that's the fact that she's just like, as you said, it's like, am I 49% or 51%? Like, where am I on this? The kid comes out and immediately, it's just like, fuck.

• 1:34:17Speaker 03

  And I think she has the kid, like, she, you can kind of, it's kind of presented in the movie. She's just, it's really like- It was a spur of the moment decision. Like, she's blackout drunk and she's just like, it's fine.

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  And

• 1:34:30Speaker 03

  It's fine. What's whatever.

• 1:34:31David Sims?

  What's one?

• 1:34:32Griffin Newman?

  It's the kind of shit that like Lynn Ramsey can get away with because she mostly deals in these scene fragments. And if this was a line of dialogue at the end of like five pages of conventionally written scene, I'd be like, boo, fuck you. But when you cut to her in the delivery room and the doctors are saying, stop resisting. And she's like, oh, she doesn't want the baby to come out. You know, there's something right there from that moment, which then in her mind, the second the baby is a problem is like, did I kind of like will this into happening? Is there some sort of like energy I've passed on to this child of you're unwanted?

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  Should I have been giving him a blowjob when he might wake up and have to poop? Also, like the way, sorry, like the way

• 1:35:13Griffin Newman?

  David's head is in his hands.

• 1:35:14David Sims?

  Lock your door or something. I don't know, man.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, just, but also like that scene is also so funny because of just the way her head is moving. Like, it's so funny.

• 1:35:24David Sims?

  It's incredibly well staged.

• 1:35:26Speaker 03

  It is such a, it is such a perfunctory blowjob. Like, it's, she's, she's like, she's got her, she's looking at the, at her watch, you know? She's

• 1:35:34David Sims?

  Well, I mean, it's, again, this is the tilt of John C. Rye. I'm, I mean, now I feel like I'm being mean to John C. Rye.

• 1:35:39Griffin Newman?

  No, but it's a weird relationship.

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

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

• 1:35:57Speaker 05

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:35:58Speaker 04

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

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

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

• 1:36:06Speaker 04

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

• 1:36:09Speaker 05

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:36:13Speaker 04

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye bye. Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:36:27David Sims?

  To get back to the research just a little bit, Summer Entertainment has just made a ton of money off of Twilight. They're like, we will make this movie for you. We've read your script. She had like a spec script. We'll give you $12 million. You can cast whoever you want. Then after, according to Variety and Lynn Ramsey, they back out after a year essentially being like, eh, this is too weird. It's so funny when studios do this like, where they're like, it's about like a kid who kills other kids. And it's just like, yeah, bro, you read the script. You know, like when they fun suddenly back on, they get called beat.

• 1:36:59Griffin Newman?

  The wild like quick arc of like, here's this new like upstart like distributor. What are they gonna make? They're gonna make the stuff that the studios don't want to make. Let's get like action scripts that the other studios have passed on.

• 1:37:10David Sims?

  What's a little edgy?

• 1:37:11Griffin Newman?

  Twilight was supposed to be an MTV movie. They were like, fuck it. They get it for like no money. It makes half a billion dollars. They have a franchise and suddenly they're like, great, now we have the money to make a bunch of shit. But also in real time going like, is it worth the fucking risk of making a school?

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  And then they call her and they're like, we kind of are thinking we're gonna make more Twilight movies. So that's kind of what we're gonna do.

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  And within six years, they're bought by Lionsgate. They don't exist anymore.

• 1:37:35David Sims?

  Sucked into Lionsgate, right. So she doesn't give up. She retools it. She cuts the script, essentially the budget of the script in half by like fucking with the script. So she had it, you know, at about a 12 million number. I think the movie was made for seven. And she just kind of pieces the money together. UK Film Council, Artificial Eye, all these like, you know, Euro sort of indie companies, BBC Films, obviously.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  I think Paramount had UK on this. Like, it has like 20 different companies.

• 1:38:04David Sims?

  Soderbergh is like an executive producer on it. Acelia Scope releases it in America.

• 1:38:11Griffin Newman?

  A distributor I love who doesn't get out nearly enough.

• 1:38:14David Sims?

  Shout them out.

• 1:38:14Griffin Newman?

  Co-founded or founded by MCA.

• 1:38:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:20Griffin Newman?

  From Beastie Boys.

• 1:38:21David Sims?

  That's right.

• 1:38:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But they, they put out great stuff.

• 1:38:23David Sims?

  She knows Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton essentially is just like a fucking magpie for freak directors.

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  It makes sense.

• 1:38:29David Sims?

  Like Tilda's basically like, I've been hearing about you.

• 1:38:31Griffin Newman?

  Has been blowing. Up her inbox for 10 years, be like, give me something.

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  Um, and the Buster Keaton thing, uh, you know, like she, she's very into that. Uh, Buster Keaton's her favorite. She says, I'm not good at being articulate. I'm much more wired for looking dumb. And she just liked, like, I can just stand around looking dumb in this movie.

• 1:38:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like a numbness.

• 1:38:52David Sims?

  I think Tilda, I think is very like, oh, who knows what I do, like who me? And I'm like, you're one of the most interesting actors who's ever lived.

• 1:39:01Speaker 03

  The way, when she's walking down the courthouse steps, her, her heels, you know, like it's, she's so funny with her body in this. She really is.

• 1:39:08David Sims?

  Dude, I just watched the Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, cause I've decided this year to.

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  It's your Narnia.

• 1:39:15David Sims?

  To, to read all the Narnias.

• 1:39:17Speaker 03

  Oh, they're good.

• 1:39:18David Sims?

  I know. They're totally like, they're totally interesting. I was like, you know what? Greta's doing the movie this year. I'm going to read them all. I haven't really interacted with this since I was a kid. And then out of interest, I'm like, I'll watch the fucking movie, which is not that good, but anytime she's on screen, may, may I say it.

• 1:39:33Speaker 03

  She's acting.

• 1:39:33David Sims?

  Serving cunt. I mean, I mean, when she's like riding around in a chariot pulled by like a polar bear with like crazy makeup, you're like, she was born for this. Like she, no acting required.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Like it's the funniest thing when you consider like that unsurprisingly, that movie's announced Disney's going to make a big fucking Narnia, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

• 1:39:53David Sims?

  Right. It's post Lord of the Rings. They're like, what can we, you know, what fantasy thing can we?

• 1:39:56Griffin Newman?

  Immediately the story is Nicole Kidman in talks for.

• 1:40:01David Sims?

  For White Witch. Right. Easiest. Yeah. Who's the iceiest blonde out there?

• 1:40:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. You're like, there you go. Slam dunk. She drops out. They're like Tilda Swinton. Film freaks are like, cool. Tilda Swinton, get that bag. Isn't that like a major, like, did the scale of this movie just go way down?

• 1:40:17David Sims?

  Well, because it was like, they got the, I mean, Tilda had been in a couple of things when they got her, but like, it's the fucking lady from like Derek Jarman movies, like not like, you know, an Oscar winner yet.

• 1:40:27Griffin Newman?

  Voldemort in a movie where like the stars are children and you don't have a big name actor above the title. It comes out within a week of King Kong. Everyone thinks King Kong is going to dominate. Narnia fucking suplexes it. And suddenly Tilda Swinton is bankable.

• 1:40:42David Sims?

  Yeah. And she's wins an Oscar two years later. Like she's, it happens really fast.

• 1:40:46Griffin Newman?

  Do like a little zoom out here?

• 1:40:47Speaker 03

  What did she win the?

• 1:40:48Griffin Newman?

  Michael Clayton, which is a great performance.

• 1:40:50David Sims?

  Awesome win.

• 1:40:51Griffin Newman?

  And like went in seeming like it's an honor just to be nominated. Everyone thought it was down to Amy Ryan or Cate Blanchett in I'm Not Here.

• 1:40:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:00Griffin Newman?

  And then.

• 1:41:00David Sims?

  Bob Dylan.

• 1:41:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then like Tilda wins in a total surprise.

• 1:41:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Year after that, she has Prince Caspian, the second Narnia.

• 1:41:07David Sims?

  She's on, that's a cameo.

• 1:41:08Griffin Newman?

  After reading.

• 1:41:09David Sims?

  She's barely in that one.

• 1:41:10Griffin Newman?

  Benjamin Button.

• 1:41:10David Sims?

  Yeah, Benjamin Button, she's good in that.

• 1:41:12Griffin Newman?

  Movie she obviously signed up for before winning the Oscar.

• 1:41:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:15Griffin Newman?

  Then it's Limits of Control, she's doing another jarmush. I Am Love, she basically is the first person to be a guarantor for Guadagnino.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  Yeah, she's really, that's a really great.

• 1:41:24Griffin Newman?

  She's got an Oscar, she can be the lead, she like launches him as a director. Then third Narnia, shown up for another cameo, probably pocketing $2 million.

• 1:41:32David Sims?

  She's a dream in that one.

• 1:41:33Griffin Newman?

  We need to talk about Kevin.

• 1:41:35David Sims?

  I mean, like literally someone has a dream.

• 1:41:36Griffin Newman?

  Sure. 2011, Moonrise Kingdom, First Wes.

• 1:41:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Griffin Newman?

  Only Lovers Left Alive, another jarmush, maybe her best performance in the convo.

• 1:41:45David Sims?

  Have you seen that movie, Gina? I've never seen it. It's about two fucking bored vampires hanging out in Detroit, just being like, man, we've been to so many concerts. We're 500 years old. Is there anything left for us to do?

• 1:41:55Griffin Newman?

  It turns vampires into heroin addicts.

• 1:41:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:58Griffin Newman?

  Like a vampire would just feel like Keith Richards times a thousand.

• 1:42:01David Sims?

  It's just till this one, Tom Hiddleston, just like laying on top of each other. Oh, it's that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never seen it. And thin and just like, huh, should put on some sunglasses and go see some jazz.

• 1:42:11Griffin Newman?

  Snowpiercer?

• 1:42:13David Sims?

  Yeah, she's great in that.

• 1:42:14Griffin Newman?

  Zero theorem is a wash.

• 1:42:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:42:16Griffin Newman?

  And then Grand Budapest Hotel, Trainwreck, Bigger Splash, Hail Caesar. Like that's, not only is it her clearly just being like good filmmakers, I don't care the size of the role, I'll show up, I'll do it. Almost all of those movies work?

• 1:42:30David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, but no, and also she's always striking. And I mean, I love her. I like, I love her so much. I mean, I love that she eventually turns this into, let me start working with Joanna Hogg, my original collaborator again. And like they have such a rich thing now and like, you know, she was. In the, you know, what else has she been in lately?

• 1:42:50Griffin Newman?

  No, but I mean, Memorial and stuff.

• 1:42:52David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:42:53Griffin Newman?

  She's so loyal to filmmakers.

• 1:42:55David Sims?

  The George Miller movie that I love.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  She's done like five Wes Andersons now.

• 1:42:58David Sims?

  So good in Problemista, like that was like a really like, like she didn't have to do that.

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  That's the kind of swing.

• 1:43:03David Sims?

  And like, that's, I'm sure the thing where Julia Torres was like, Tilda, I'm obsessed with.

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  You are my god.

• 1:43:08David Sims?

  And she was like, okay.

• 1:43:09Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like she will equally like help launch a filmmaker who doesn't have that level of exposure and also be like, yeah, Jarmusch, I'll show up for half an hour and do whatever you want of me. And almost all of the movies work.

• 1:43:24David Sims?

  I'm going to read a story that Tilda said on the press tour a lot. Until recently, I had a reputation in my family for having saved my younger brother's life as a child. Actually, I was going to kill him because he was a boy, naturally. I already had two brothers and that was just too much to bear. She was four and a half, entered his room, morbidly determined. And then she noticed that he had a ribbon from a baby bonnet sticking from the corner of his mouth. And I started to pull it out and then was witnessed in this great act of love of nurture. So she's claiming like, oh yeah, I wanted to fucking kill my baby brother when I was four years old. And instead I was seen as saving his life.

• 1:44:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so she's pulling some.

• 1:44:01David Sims?

  Saying that on the press tour.

• 1:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:44:02David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:44:03Speaker 03

  Tough press tour.

• 1:44:04David Sims?

  Yeah, crazy.

• 1:44:05Speaker 03

  Tough, tough press tour, one imagines.

• 1:44:08David Sims?

  It is probably, yeah, where people sit down like, hi, I'm from, yeah, I'm from Hollywood tonight and I love the movie. Really interesting, you know, like, what do you?

• 1:44:17Griffin Newman?

  Can I call out who is ostensibly the fourth lead of this movie? If we, you know, or fifth lead at least.

• 1:44:23David Sims?

  Can we talk about Siobhan Hallen? Sorry.

• 1:44:27Griffin Newman?

  Hogan Fallon.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  Is the, the boss.

• 1:44:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:30Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:44:31Griffin Newman?

  One of our favorites.

• 1:44:32David Sims?

  A deadpan, you know, she's very good at the kind of like, all right, you know, like doing that kind of thing in a movie for two minutes.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  Like an incredible character actress who fits equally well in a Lynn Ramsey movie and a Farrelly Brothers movie. Like who else is like that where you look at her career and it's half like very serious dramas where they're like, you won't be too over the top, but this movie maybe needs a little levity.

• 1:44:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like Bridget Everett. In the

• 1:44:58David Sims?

  Totally.

• 1:44:59Speaker 03

  Do you

• 1:44:59David Sims?

  Knives out.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  Or she can just go as big as anyone if she wants.

• 1:45:02David Sims?

  Do you truly buy that she is just kind of like, yeah, you can have a job. I don't give a shit.

• 1:45:06Speaker 03

  Well, the whole office.

• 1:45:07David Sims?

  Waiting for a turn.

• 1:45:08Speaker 03

  The office doesn't make it any

• 1:45:09David Sims?

  I know for her being like, by the way, I hired you because like, I'm fascinated by who you are like.

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, the office.

• 1:45:15David Sims?

  Doesn't really come up.

• 1:45:16Speaker 03

  The office in general is almost like, like that is, that this was one of my, this was my main issue with Time I Love is that it's like, you know, it's, it's out of time and place despite being so rooted in the place. Like it's like the characters. You know, they don't have friends. They don't have cell phones. They don't have, you know, like they.

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  Where are we?

• 1:45:34Speaker 03

  Where are we? What time is it?

• 1:45:36David Sims?

  Right. What is she just affected by?

• 1:45:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:45:39Speaker 03

  And, um, and the, I mean, I think it works because like aesthetically, the, the office party, when they're stringing up the tinsel and the sad little. But it's like, you know, you, you go to the office. It's also like the first time you flashback to her present life where she's like in that strip mall. It says like, it's like Asian restaurant. And then it's like 1-800 travel or whatever. And then you go in and the first poster you see is like Tampa awaits you.

• 1:46:04David Sims?

  Hey, man.

• 1:46:04Speaker 03

  It's incredible. It's an incredible detail, but it's like, what year is it inside the office? We don't know.

• 1:46:09Griffin Newman?

  I think that's

• 1:46:10Speaker 03

  What do they do?

• 1:46:11Griffin Newman?

  Part of it. I mean, maybe I'm being generous, right? But like she starts out as a fairly successful travel writer. And you're kind of like, that industry is going to radically transform. Travel writers will still exist, but the idea of a person who can spend like two years writing a book very thoughtfully. That sells enough to support a family is like over. And when she's basically cast out of that because no one's going to buy her book because she's the mother of Kevin. She then has to get a job at a travel agency, which is even closer to death. This is a business that no longer needs to exist. That's basically just for a clientele that like the last generation that refuses to use the internet.

• 1:46:53Griffin Newman?

  Who are all going to die in five years. And so are they so desperate that they're like, anyone who fucking wants to work here, whatever.

• 1:46:58David Sims?

  Should we bring travel agents back?

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  I think they're kind of being brought back.

• 1:47:02David Sims?

  Coming back a little bit because people are like, I don't want to fucking deal. Right?

• 1:47:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Our friend Stuart Wellington.

• 1:47:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Griffin Newman?

  Swears.

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  Like you'll, yeah, secretly, we've all have friends that probably.

• 1:47:10David Sims?

  My, my mom always used.

• 1:47:12Griffin Newman?

  Save a lot of money.

• 1:47:13David Sims?

  Right. Well, that's their ostensibly one of their jobs.

• 1:47:16Griffin Newman?

  And you just no stress, everything sorted out for you. You get a better deal.

• 1:47:19David Sims?

  My mom used one when we were a kid, like travel agents would help plan our vacations. And she was always like, they knew this, these fucking awesome places to go like, and I'm like, I guess that's what they're.

• 1:47:28Griffin Newman?

  They make the reservations, all this shit. Yeah.

• 1:47:31David Sims?

  John C. Riley, just to acknowledge essentially what we already guessed. She cast him because she thought he could bring some more warmth to the role. You know, sort of like a warm, cuddly, American guy, like, like he was just in her head.

• 1:47:43Griffin Newman?

  He's like a teddy bear. Yeah.

• 1:47:45David Sims?

  And he'd like made a list of like cool directors he wanted to work with and she was on it. So like he, when approached, he was like thumbs up, like, yeah, I want to work with Liam Ramsey.

• 1:47:52Griffin Newman?

  And if you look at his career at this moment, it's like Walk Hard didn't work. So the notion of him being a guy who can carry a movie single-handedly kind of dies on the vine right there. But he's still clearly like a value add. If you're trying to raise your money piecemeal from so many different places. He would still look like a guy where you're like, John C. Riley's worth like a million dollars. If he's willing to do the movie for scale. Yeah.

• 1:48:17David Sims?

  They shot it in Connecticut, Stanford, Connecticut. They shot it in Cinemascope, which sounds crazy, but she's essentially like, you can do shit, two shots instead of one single. Like she just wanted that kind of like epic, everyday sort of thing. Just unusual, I would say. They had $7 million. So, you know, everything was really fucking hard.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  They shot in like 30 days.

• 1:48:39David Sims?

  Yep. La Tomatina, though, they did go.

• 1:48:41Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 1:48:42David Sims?

  Cause they were like, we can't really fake that. Like we have to just go. Here's Ramsey with a great story about the masturbation scene. I knew that scene really worked when we were checking the focus in post-production in Connecticut and we had to watch it over and over. The projectionist was pissing himself. He kept going motherfucker every time he reran the scene. It was magic. You know, you've nailed it when you get a, a reaction like that. And then Johnny Greenwood does the score, very cool score, as Johnny Greenwood's wants. Uh, it's all wirestrung harp. I love like the idea of calling him being like, hey, it's about a kid who murders people with a bone hair. And he's thinking, I'm thinking harp.

• 1:49:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. You're like, all right, Johnny, whatever you want to do. What else would it be? Yeah.

• 1:49:21Griffin Newman?

  Can I go back to your, is the bow and arrow gilding the lily?

• 1:49:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:25David Sims?

  No, I don't think it's cool. I'm just sort of, I actually am like, I found it almost implausible. A little corny and like a little implausible that, uh, that he, uh, he could kill that many people. I was like, it's a bow and arrow, run up to him, you know?

• 1:49:37Griffin Newman?

  I like that it's so fucking weird.

• 1:49:40David Sims?

  It's weird.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  That it makes it a more distinct, like what the fuck was going on here? Down to even like the bicycle locks and whatever. It also helps that she's the type of filmmaker where you watch this movie the first time and you're like, we're cutting ahead to these little flashes and I'm dreading the scene where suddenly it's going to like play out in real time. Right?

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  Yes, you're, you're dreading a massacre.

• 1:50:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Of like an hour in, we're going to see 20 continuous minutes of the massacre. And she keeps it abstract. It is one of the things I like the most about her is that in her movies, you will have these sort of like flashes. When Atilda runs into the classmate who is now a paraplegic in the wheelchair and he's so friendly to her. And clearly is like, we both have suffered from this. I'm relating to you as another like victim of this tragedy or.

• 1:50:28David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  You know, someone who has to live in the wake of it.

• 1:50:30David Sims?

  That's how I took it.

• 1:50:31Griffin Newman?

  And she keeps flashing back to him being wheeled out on the stretcher. And you're trained from watching so many worse movies.

• 1:50:38David Sims?

  We're going to see the rest of that scene. We're going to see more of.

• 1:50:41Griffin Newman?

  And she just has this confidence, you were never really here, does this super well as well? Where you're like, oh, these flashbacks that are teasing the trauma of his past. And you're dreading the scene that's going to literalize it and spell it out. And it never does because you're like, I get it. I see this one image. I know exactly what it's conveying. You don't need to show me the rest. I can fill it in.

• 1:51:02Speaker 03

  You know what the bow and arrow is actually like in the book? It's bow and arrow because in his 24 hours of psychological pliability from his flu.

• 1:51:12Speaker 03

  He reads Rob, she reads Robin Hood.

• 1:51:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  And that's how he gets.

• 1:51:15Speaker 03

  And, and he becomes enamored with a bow, with a bow and arrow from Robin Hood. And so, but I, I do think that's a little bit corny, like it's giving MFA, like it's.

• 1:51:24David Sims?

  Lionel Shriver's a bad writer.

• 1:51:26Griffin Newman?

  But also, if you had to see him do it on screen, it would totally break. You'd be like, this is fucking like seven pounds jellyfish in the bathtub shit.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:51:34Griffin Newman?

  The fact that you don't see it.

• 1:51:36David Sims?

  Touch the jellyfish.

• 1:51:37Griffin Newman?

  Don't, don't.

• 1:51:37David Sims?

  That's what they say in that movie.

• 1:51:39Griffin Newman?

  And coax him, you have to keep it hot.

• 1:51:40David Sims?

  Cold as hell.

• 1:51:41Griffin Newman?

  Um, I'm sorry, we're just getting caught up in our bullshit. The fact that you don't see it helps it.

• 1:51:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:48Griffin Newman?

  And that it feels like a thing that you read about in the newspaper and you're like, he did what? He like, he ordered 50 bicycle locks and then took a bow and arrow into a gymnasium?

• 1:51:59Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's also right, we're supposed to, we're supposed to kind of perceive that he sees himself as an artiste, you know? Like he's not.

• 1:52:05David Sims?

  Yes, he's.

• 1:52:05Speaker 03

  That it requires, it requires like finesse and.

• 1:52:08Griffin Newman?

  He's making a statement.

• 1:52:10Speaker 03

  And in the book, he makes actually a list of 10 kids, gives them fake, um, certificates saying they're getting an award, lines them up in the middle of the gym, shoots them and, um, and like some of them he kills immediately. But because it's only 10 of them, like some of them bleed out in front of him for an hour. And it's like, I'm not.

• 1:52:28Griffin Newman?

  Love that none of the shit's in the movie.

• 1:52:30Speaker 03

  None of that needs to be in the movie.

• 1:52:31Griffin Newman?

  I also love that we just like never see him interact with contemporaries really. Where you're just like, we don't know if he's bullied, if he is bullying, if he just keeps to himself. If he puts on like a sociable face at school that he doesn't when he's at home.

• 1:52:46David Sims?

  Right. You gotta fill in all those gaps. You never know. I mean, Ebert's review is actually really clever where he's like, in an ordinary movie, there would be meetings with counselors. There would be stuff in the classrooms and all that. In this movie, they don't talk about Kevin, like nobody's talking about Kevin, except for her saying, we need to.

• 1:53:02Speaker 03

  But she doesn't.

• 1:53:03David Sims?

  But, but even she is mostly being ignored by John C. Riley and we assume other people, but we don't really see that. I mean, I guess we see the nurse say something like, he's such a brave boy. Yeah. When he breaks his arm. Until she should just do it, she should do a jack off motion when he, she says.

• 1:53:22Griffin Newman?

  So.

• 1:53:22David Sims?

  But you're right. Yeah, no one is really talking about Kevin.

• 1:53:27Griffin Newman?

  Which is a shame because we were all put on notice.

• 1:53:30David Sims?

  I know. Yeah, it's a, you know, the first time I saw it, I didn't read the book. I avoided the book when it came out. Like, it was a time when I was certainly like reading winners of, yeah, winners of literary prize. I was like, you know, old and pretentious enough to do that. And I'd like the subject when I was like, oh, I don't want it, you know, and I'd like that, that, that he killed the rest of the family. Like, I'm sure that's the big audience gasp, right? I don't really remember anymore.

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, I mean, that is wild.

• 1:53:58David Sims?

  It's no good.

• 1:53:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's no, it's no good.

• 1:54:01David Sims?

  It's just no good. I don't like it. I don't like it.

• 1:54:05Speaker 03

  It's really, it's, it's also such a beautiful shot, like it's so beautiful.

• 1:54:11David Sims?

  It's, it's, it's looks like a fucking painting of a saint that got killed.

• 1:54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:15David Sims?

  Like, you know, like, yes, exactly. It's give, it's giving Saint, Saint Sebastian, that guy. What did, and why'd they do that to him?

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:54:23David Sims?

  He liked Jesus.

• 1:54:25Griffin Newman?

  He was leading a hot crustacean band, wasn't he? Gee, here's the thing you need to understand. We now record this podcast often so many months ahead of schedule and out of order. This episode, we're recording the same week.

• 1:54:38David Sims?

  This one's coming out next week.

• 1:54:39Griffin Newman?

  Fast turnaround. I make an almost identical joke in some other episode that will probably come out in September.

• 1:54:44David Sims?

  You know, I've been going to a lot of museums. I've been seeing a lot of Saint Sebastian art.

• 1:54:47Speaker 03

  Who gets arrowed in a different, what, what is it?

• 1:54:50David Sims?

  No, just, yeah, why was arrow coming?

• 1:54:51Griffin Newman?

  It was just a hot crustacean band joke. Something else made me think of a hot crustacean band. We'll find out.

• 1:54:59David Sims?

  We'll find out. Who knows? You know, uh, the pooping. I'm trying to think of anything, any Kevin stuff we haven't, uh.

• 1:55:07Speaker 03

  Well, I have a question for you guys.

• 1:55:08David Sims?

  Kevin behavior.

• 1:55:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  So Lynn, Lynn Ramsey for me is like, I, I had friends, I liked Die My Love, I like everything Lynn's ever done. But you kind of know more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces, I. I would never like urge someone to see it who I don't know would, you know what I mean?

• 1:55:27David Sims?

  A hundred percent. That's not a thing where it's like, you know, you know what? I really dug Die My Love. I'm going to tell all my friends to go see that.

• 1:55:32Speaker 03

  You would never tell all your friends to see Die My Love.

• 1:55:34Griffin Newman?

  To communicate this whole mini series is I, I think these movies are less punishing than they sound.

• 1:55:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:41Griffin Newman?

  And I would encourage you to give them a shot, but also I will never judge anyone for being like, oh, come back.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  Not my tempo.

• 1:55:47Griffin Newman?

  Six weeks, I'm back.

• 1:55:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And, and you, and you kind of know, like, you kind of know, when, when my friends were like, I don't know if I'm going to like that. And I was sort of like, I don't think you're going to like it, you know, and, and that's cool. Like, I'm not going to try to convince you it's good or even pleasurable. I find it hard to articulate what I find so pleasurable about the movies besides the fact that they, you know, like they conjure this kind of interior psychological texture in a way that not, you know, so few, like, what do you think? I have had a hard time explaining to friends why this movie is good and why it's actually enjoyable, why I actually enjoy it. Like, what, what can you guys articulate?

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  Griff might have to speak to that, read this movie. Read her movies and show, they are beautifully made in an unsubtle way. And I'm not saying that like she's an over the top filmmaker. I'm just saying like her control of the frame is pretty unusual. And so like, it is just an aesthetic pleasure watching her movies, right? Like it is just, it is straightforwardly awesome to see the kind of visuals she wants you to see. Would you agree with that?

• 1:56:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:56:53David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like,

• 1:56:54Griffin Newman?

  That's a big part of it.

• 1:56:55David Sims?

  Before we're getting to, yes, okay, J. Law will be crawling towards you with a knife and you might be disturbed or whatever. I'm, you know, whatever.

• 1:57:01Speaker 03

  If you were never really here, pretty at all?

• 1:57:03David Sims?

  Really pretty.

• 1:57:04Speaker 03

  Is it? I mean, I love that movie. I've only seen it when it came out.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  Arguably the prettiest one.

• 1:57:08Speaker 03

  It's so dark, right?

• 1:57:08Griffin Newman?

  It is, it is visually dark.

• 1:57:10David Sims?

  It's less dark than you remember. I think you're thinking of,

• 1:57:13Speaker 03

  I remember loving it and I, but I've never seen it again.

• 1:57:15Griffin Newman?

  It is my favorite Griffin movie.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  Griff will throw that movie on. So you really should speak to it.

• 1:57:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but that, that is a movie.

• 1:57:21Speaker 03

  Just throw it on?

• 1:57:21David Sims?

  He throws that movie on.

• 1:57:23Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 1:57:23Griffin Newman?

  But that is, uh, we'll talk about our length next week. That is a movie that for me is like unbelievably poetic, even in how it's sort of depicting, or more often just sort of like talking around or exploring the psychological angles of unfathomable things.

• 1:57:38David Sims?

  I, I think it's a vibe.

• 1:57:40Speaker 03

  Right. And that's what she does.

• 1:57:41David Sims?

  She's incredibly good at a vibe.

• 1:57:43Griffin Newman?

  I also think,

• 1:57:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's,

• 1:57:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. This is my larger theory that I, every episode, I feel like I'm taking a different strike at trying to get across. I keep saying this thing that people think is insane, which is that I find her movies very life-affirming. And what I find very life-affirming about them is that she understands how to depict the inner life, or the internal, subjective, emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don't want to fucking think about. And I think part of what she's able to get at versus, these books we're talking about, "Adapted" and "Worst Hands" just becomes a kind of like arms-length, emotionally punishing, "Look at how much this character's suffering" thing.

• 1:58:24Griffin Newman?

  And I think what she's so good at is like showing, you would still just be a person. You'd just be a person living through this. And whether it's structured as a memory, or whether it's structured like Morvyn Keller, where it's like a day-by-day thing, like, part of what's funny about Morvyn Keller is the balance between the banality of some of the things she's going through, and the intensity of the motions that she's not really processing. And the same with this, you know? And I think especially in this one, where it's so much dealing with a fictionalized version of the kind of true crime thing we're obsessed with. Kevin gives his whole fucking monologue about the world rotates around watching people like me on TV. In the 15 years since this movie's come out, that has

• 1:59:06Griffin Newman?

  become a million times more true. Like, multiple industries are all basically balanced on people's bloodlust for this type of story, but it's usually in this very sensationalist way that is just presenting to you and pushing on you the most extreme facts, in the most salacious way, with the most kind of ominous, what's the word I'm looking for? A very kind of like- This is the emotionally intense score and the slow zoom on the image and it's just, can you imagine what a fucking nightmare in a way that I think basically flattens there being any real human experience inside of those events. It turns it just into,

• 1:59:51Griffin Newman?

  can you imagine how terrible that would be? It turns it into like a scary story to tell you in the dark, except for grownups because it really happened. And now it's true crime shit. And like part of what this movie gets at is just like, well, if you're the person who raises a kid who goes on to commit this kind of like insane school shooting incident, it's like 16 years of your life. And when you're on the other side of living through that, you still have to fucking go to the grocery store and buy shit.

• 2:00:20Speaker 03

  And then eat 12 eggs.

• 2:00:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  And then you gotta eat 12 eggs.

• 2:00:25Griffin Newman?

  And like her avoidance. I mean, that moment's really funny of like,

• 2:00:29David Sims?

  How many eggs could I eat?

• 2:00:30Speaker 03

  She's like, I'll take them. I'll take them. I'll take them asses.

• 2:00:33Griffin Newman?

  All 12 are broken.

• 2:00:35Speaker 03

  She's picking them out of her teeth.

• 2:00:37Griffin Newman?

  That moment at the holiday party for the travel agency where the one guy who's sort of been nice to her at the office.

• 2:00:43Speaker 03

  Horrible.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  And is like flirting with her and trying to get her to dance.

• 2:00:46Speaker 03

  And he's like, you dumb bitch.

• 2:00:47David Sims?

  I mean, hysterical that that guy's like, I think I'm gonna try it on with Tilda. Even depressed Tilda, I'm like, look, man, this guy, this is Tilda Swinton, you're reckoning with here.

• 2:00:56Speaker 03

  Is there comfort in these bones for you?

• 2:00:58David Sims?

  You know, like she looks like she just walked through like, you know, from another dimension. Like, come on, but yes.

• 2:01:03Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like when you see these like screenshots of guys on dating apps who are like politely rejected and they're like, fuck you. You're not even hot. I would never even date a person like that. Where he just feels like, fuck, well, like I'm a six and she's a 10, but she was responsible.

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  But like, school shooting gets her to like four, right? I mean, she's this, right?

• 2:01:23Griffin Newman?

  I'd be doing her a favor.

• 2:01:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:25Griffin Newman?

  And he just so quickly like flips out on her. That scene is like so ugly, but also funny in the absurdity of it.

• 2:01:33David Sims?

  She, she's right. Lynn is exceptionally good at looking at the darkest things we can imagine.

• 2:01:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like misery, misery is kind of the subject of all, like, like kind of accidental misery.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  And having to actually live in the things that we don't even want to think about. Or if we think about it, we want to think about it only in the major incident, in the didactic ways.

• 2:01:53Speaker 03

  That's like inherently sort of dehumanizing because it is, it's categorizable or whatever.

• 2:01:58Griffin Newman?

  And like, and she's not going to show you that shit.

• 2:02:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Or focus on that shit. It's like implied. And it's like, that scene tells you more than the idea of her like going home at night and crying.

• 2:02:08David Sims?

  Not, not to, you know, paint with a broad British, but Scottish people, but it's, it's a cold, dark, oft conquered country that like loves gallows humor, loves to like, think about the sort of like nasty parts of the world in a funny way.

• 2:02:25Speaker 03

  I learned, I learned a new word from Scotland. I, I'm a fan of the Reddit that is like, what is, it's like, what is it like to live there? And it's like a lot of, it's really good. It's often about remote places, really deeply my shit. And there was something about some, some corner of Scotland and I learned for, I learned the word dreek.

• 2:02:44David Sims?

  I love it. I don't know, no.

• 2:02:45Speaker 03

  It's, it's like, apparently, I mean, you said you had a lot of Scottish listeners. I'm sorry.

• 2:02:49David Sims?

  It's sort of, it's dark and wet.

• 2:02:51Speaker 03

  It's, no, I think it's like gray and wet. It's the kind of dreek. Yeah. Where it's like, it won't, it's where it's cold and it's drizzly and it's freezing and just miserable.

• 2:03:00David Sims?

  Relentlessly overcast, cold and drizzly.

• 2:03:02Speaker 03

  That's such a good word, dreek.

• 2:03:04David Sims?

  That just sounds like the entirety of Britain. God bless it. I love that weather.

• 2:03:06Speaker 03

  Which is so good that there's a word.

• 2:03:08Griffin Newman?

  Dreek. Or slash, how is living there?

• 2:03:11Speaker 03

  How, what is it like to live there? I think, or how is living there? Maybe that is it. Yeah.

• 2:03:15Griffin Newman?

  I tried searching for what is it like to live there?

• 2:03:18Speaker 03

  You're right. That's more efficient. How?

• 2:03:19Griffin Newman?

  And Reddit auto completed with, what is it like to have a girlfriend?

• 2:03:24David Sims?

  What, and what is it like?

• 2:03:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure many Redditors are asking.

• 2:03:28David Sims?

  Scotland's my favorite place on earth.

• 2:03:29Speaker 03

  I want to go whenever.

• 2:03:31David Sims?

  I've already been called out on the Reddit for not knowing how to pronounce like the names of various like neighborhoods in Glasgow. I'm sorry, guys. My accent, you know, is not, I'm not about to pretend that I can like, you know, deliver a Scottish dialect perfectly. But the greatest vacation I ever took, my mom talks about it all the time. It's like, we, we moved to England, right? And then she's like, we're going to the Highlands. Like we're going to go to, you know, on vacation to Scotland. I'm probably, I'm 10 years old or whatever. And I'm like, okay. Then we get to the train station and she's like, FYI, we sleep on this train. This is sleeper train because it's so far north. And I think my reaction, as she describes it, the age of 10 was basically like, I was told I was taking the Polar Express to see Santa. I was so happy.

• 2:04:12Griffin Newman?

  That's your dream.

• 2:04:13Speaker 03

  I mean, it's sexy to sleep on it. It's so sexy to sleep on it.

• 2:04:15David Sims?

  Especially when you're 10 and like, you can just jump into a little bunk bed, you know, without it being like, what the fuck is this? Like, this isn't a real bed.

• 2:04:23Griffin Newman?

  My room is on wheels.

• 2:04:25David Sims?

  I love that his glowing recommendation of Scotland.

• 2:04:28Speaker 03

  Is that you can get there.

• 2:04:30David Sims?

  He took a sleeper. The Highlands being one of the most beautiful. That we took a sleeper train to Inverness, a wonderful city, stayed there. And then we went all over Scotland. We went to the Isle of Skye. We went to Loch Ness and we went to the, you know, all kinds of cool places. And then like, as a kid, I just, I mean, I love that weather, love that landscape. I like the food. I like the food a lot.

• 2:04:51Speaker 03

  Why have we not gotten like a David Lowery Loch Ness movie?

• 2:04:54David Sims?

  Let's, I'll text him right now.

• 2:04:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's text him right now.

• 2:04:57Speaker 03

  I just watched, when I was at Sundance and kind of depressed, Richard Lawson told me to watch, or I was talking about actually good kids movies. I mean, we'll talk, we have a long conversation to have about this on the side.

• 2:05:07David Sims?

  And we're going to keep talking about it because our kids are all getting older.

• 2:05:09Speaker 03

  The Car on Little Princess. That was Paloma's first movie cry. It was her first movie cry. And I found it so, and, and she was almost as like, she was like, why do I feel so happy? But like, when she was, like, she was like, why do I feel so happy when I cry? I was like, girl.

• 2:05:23David Sims?

  That was a huge theater movie for me.

• 2:05:26Speaker 03

  When the dad is being pulled away in the rain and he finally remembers, and then she's been yelling daddy and she, and he remembers why, and they run together in the rain. I actually cried when the, when the attic becomes transformed.

• 2:05:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:43Speaker 03

  I wept at that scene.

• 2:05:44David Sims?

  It's still my favorite of his movies. It was such a Thunderball movie for me as a kid.

• 2:05:49Griffin Newman?

  I had the same experience.

• 2:05:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's unbelievable.

• 2:05:53Griffin Newman?

  And emotionally intelligent than all the kids movies I'm seeing.

• 2:05:58Speaker 03

  The study, you know, and then it suddenly, you know.

• 2:06:01Speaker 05

  Boss baby.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  I'm sorry, uh, fucking.

• 2:06:03Griffin Newman?

  Boss baby.

• 2:06:04David Sims?

  Boss baby. I don't see.

• 2:06:06Griffin Newman?

  Can I do, can I do a clean pickup so Ben can place it in the previous moments?

• 2:06:10Speaker 05

  Boss baby.

• 2:06:11David Sims?

  Great, there you go.

• 2:06:12Speaker 03

  I watched the David Lowery, um, Pete's Dragon last night for the first time. We all laid on the floor and watched it. And now I need a Loch Ness one for adults.

• 2:06:21Griffin Newman?

  Huge question, two part. One, have you ever considered making a Loch Ness?

• 2:06:24Speaker 03

  I want that so bad.

• 2:06:26David Sims?

  Cause there is, of course, the Loch Ness movie with Ted Danson and Kristen Scott Thomas. I saw it in theaters.

• 2:06:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:31David Sims?

  It's very, very bad.

• 2:06:32Speaker 03

  Don't know what that is.

• 2:06:33David Sims?

  Never, I don't think it was even released in America. I think America was like, pass.

• 2:06:37Speaker 03

  I want a three hour David Lowery.

• 2:06:40Griffin Newman?

  Is, is the Water Horse movie a Loch Ness movie or is that a different?

• 2:06:43David Sims?

  No, that's a, that's a, you know, a Kelpie or whatever. Like it's a different kind of figure of Celtic.

• 2:06:47Griffin Newman?

  It's called like legend story of the water horse.

• 2:06:50David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:06:51Griffin Newman?

  Or story legend of the story.

• 2:06:53David Sims?

  I, Loch Ness is very cool. That was cool. I wanted to go in and my parents were like, it's like fucking minus million degrees. You can't go in that water. I was like, let's go, let's swim, baby. Um, anyway, Scotland's great. Oh, right, right. But of course this movie's American.

• 2:07:10Speaker 03

  We were talking about like why we like these movies.

• 2:07:12David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why we like.

• 2:07:13Speaker 03

  They're like impossible to convince anyone.

• 2:07:14David Sims?

  I would love her to make another Scottish movie, actually, because she hasn't since Rat Catcher. I mean, Morven Calor, I guess, is Scottish, but like, it's mostly not set there. Like, I'd love her to go back there. I have no idea what her, you know.

• 2:07:26Speaker 03

  God, what if it's the Scottish vampire?

• 2:07:29Griffin Newman?

  What were you gonna say about it?

• 2:07:30Speaker 03

  I don't know. I was actually wondering because I, like, the only, I mean, I'm inarticulate about, like, I, I was just like, they're, they're so good. And either you think the movies are masterpieces or you're like, I, not for me.

• 2:07:43Griffin Newman?

  I, yes, I think it's a wavelength thing.

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  The simple thing of like, no one else, it's, it's, you're delivered something in a package that you'll never get anywhere else in any way. That's remotely close to the way she's doing it.

• 2:07:54Griffin Newman?

  She is one of one.

• 2:07:55Speaker 03

  For that alone, she's so unbelievably one of one.

• 2:07:57Griffin Newman?

  I would argue she basically has her own language. You can see certain influences, but there's not even like. Lynne Ramsey runoff filmmakers. And we were arguing, like Barry Jenkins has talked about how important Ratcatcher was for him. And you see some of her language in Moonlight in particular, but I think all of his work, but it's very much turned into something different. And that's just one of the pieces. She exists.

• 2:08:21Speaker 03

  Nothing ever feels anything like it.

• 2:08:23Griffin Newman?

  No. And she arrived fully formed and she's been able to take multiple different pieces of material, work in different genres, all filtered through her identity. I also think, I mean, I'm every episode fighting to figure out how to verbalize this thing that has been like 10 years of my friends being like, why do you fucking re-watch that movie all the time? Movies that feel like fundamental, one-time-only watches. And I, you know, in like people trying to write cultural studies on the rise of true crime shit and like the endless power of SVU and everything. It's like, it releases some tension to watch the stories about the worst things possible that you live in fear of, right?

• 2:09:04Griffin Newman?

  I think a lot of people have that relationship to crime books, podcasts, TV shows, movies, what have you. Exactly. And those are the fact-based versions of it where it's like, and now we're presenting to you the solved case, it's over. And for me, I have no interest in living in that shit. I do find some kind of relief in watching someone explore the emotional dynamics of those things. Because if anything, that's what scares me more. And I feel like when there are horrible tragedies, whether they're large scale or small scale that I read about in the news, my question is always, what the fuck does that person do the next day? Like, how do you fucking wake up the next morning and decide what you want to eat for breakfast?

• 2:09:45David Sims?

  Yes, I know what you're talking about. That sort of, that thought you want to dismiss of like, okay, can I put myself in that person's shoes? And then usually you're like, I can't, I don't want to, I can't like live there.

• 2:09:54Griffin Newman?

  And she can place you in that in a way that doesn't feel like, like a, an endurance test.

• 2:10:01Speaker 03

  I also think it might be, it might have, the reason I like her so much is, might have something to do with the fact that like, you describe these movies from the outside. You're like a hitman in the worst day of it. You know, you're like, what? Like, and then, you know, like a school shooter mom, like, what? And then you watch it and it's a, you know, it's like, kind of a, there's some kind of incandescent quality to it and also a real like severity in the narrative editing. Like, there's some, something about it that-

• 2:10:28Griffin Newman?

  There's a rigor.

• 2:10:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, that's so, so rigorous in some ways, and then it is so loose in others, that this thing that, like, I, but I think the thing I enjoy about it is almost, it is, it's almost impossible just to describe the contrast between what these movies sound like-

• 2:10:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:10:42Speaker 03

  And what they feel like to watch-

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  They are truly experience-

• 2:10:45Speaker 03

  If you're a person of a specific temperament.

• 2:10:46David Sims?

  Yeah, yup. Look, I mean, I recommend To Die My Love to any friend of mine I had, who likes movies, right? Like, and I don't mean like, other film critics. I mean, like, anyone I know who's like, you know what, I'll see anything weird, I can handle it. And they all largely came out being like, I had a good time with that, or like, that was interesting. Like, no one came out being like, why the fuck did you tell me to watch that movie? But, right, this is, this and others of hers are not movies I recommend to just anyone. Like, oh, it's good, you should see it because it's good. No, I mean, not everyone's gonna vibe with this.

• 2:11:16Griffin Newman?

  You know, it's, it's a shame-

• 2:11:18David Sims?

  It's fine.

• 2:11:18Griffin Newman?

  That, like, retroactively, Alistair Bold feels like completely toxic, because the Peter Jackson movie is such a fucking wipeout, that in another universe, she could have just made a second Lovely Bones movie-

• 2:11:32David Sims?

  She can make another thing.

• 2:11:33Griffin Newman?

  For five million dollars.

• 2:11:34David Sims?

  Sucks ass. Fuck that thing.

• 2:11:36Griffin Newman?

  I mean, maybe she makes that-

• 2:11:37David Sims?

  You know who's in that movie? Mark Wahlberg.

• 2:11:38Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 2:11:39David Sims?

  What was happening there?

• 2:11:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like deeply dark sided in every, like, I've never seen it.

• 2:11:43David Sims?

  It's so weird.

• 2:11:43Griffin Newman?

  It's even stranger when you just remember that it was like-

• 2:11:46David Sims?

  It's Gosling, yeah.

• 2:11:47Griffin Newman?

  He cast Gosling. Gosling was like 25. The character was supposed to be in his late 30s, married to Rachel Weisz.

• 2:11:54Speaker 03

  And who's the girl?

• 2:11:55Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Saoirse Ronan.

• 2:11:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:11:57Griffin Newman?

  And it was like-

• 2:11:58Speaker 03

  What's up with Saoirse Ronan in these sort of- Why isn't Saoirse Ronan in a fucking Lynn Ramsey movie?

• 2:12:03David Sims?

  I'd almost

• 2:12:04Griffin Newman?

  Saoirse would be

• 2:12:05David Sims?

  If Lynn Ramsey made more movies, I feel like she would have worked with her by now because, yes.

• 2:12:10Griffin Newman?

  And still might happen.

• 2:12:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:11Speaker 03

  Like all of, like the exact guilt innocence sort of, uh.

• 2:12:15David Sims?

  Exactly. I mean, that's what Saoirse has been good at since she was a child is like taking on those kinds of roles. Yes.

• 2:12:21Griffin Newman?

  It's like Gosling post Half Nelson. He's so self-conscious about being too young for the character that he just chugs ice cream until he gains 50 pounds.

• 2:12:29Speaker 03

  For lovely bones?

• 2:12:30Griffin Newman?

  No, yes. And grows a big burly beard and he shows up to rehearsal and Peter Jackson's like, this is not how I envisioned the character.

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  Why do you look like this?

• 2:12:37Griffin Newman?

  Fires him. They offer the role to Mark Wahlberg on a Friday. He shows up on a Monday. He basically casts him off of how good he was in The Departed, which does not feel like a one to one. And then Mark Wahlberg shows up, puts on like a fucking seventies wig and it's like, you killed my daughter?

• 2:12:52David Sims?

  Hey, where's my daughter? Where, where are my lovely bones?

• 2:12:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm surprised my daughter's dead. And the movie's a disaster.

• 2:12:58David Sims?

  It's a terrible movie.

• 2:12:59Speaker 03

  His name is Jack Salmon?

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right. Cause she's Suzie Salmon.

• 2:13:03David Sims?

  She's Suzie Salmon, of course.

• 2:13:04Speaker 03

  Jack Salmon?

• 2:13:05David Sims?

  Yeah, it's not Jack Sam. You want some salmon?

• 2:13:07Griffin Newman?

  She's dead.

• 2:13:08David Sims?

  I'll sell you some salmon.

• 2:13:09Griffin Newman?

  They smoked it like that.

• 2:13:10David Sims?

  I'm married to Rachel Weisz. She's a total fox. 2011 Rachel Weisz.

• 2:13:14Griffin Newman?

  Nice work if you can get it.

• 2:13:16David Sims?

  So it came out 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Um.

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  Most of her films.

• 2:13:20David Sims?

  Which was.

• 2:13:21Griffin Newman?

  Go there. Yeah.

• 2:13:21David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, this first time it was in competition though.

• 2:13:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:13:24David Sims?

  Uh, in the main, and I loved, uh, you know, you know, who's the jury president that year?

• 2:13:27Griffin Newman?

  Hmm. No.

• 2:13:29David Sims?

  Palme d'Or goes to Tree of Life, uh, Terrence Malick.

• 2:13:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:33David Sims?

  Jury president was De Niro.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:13:35David Sims?

  Who is obviously not a stupid person. For one, he doesn't like our president very much. He's not afraid to say it.

• 2:13:42Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me. If he felt any negative emotions towards the president, I'm sure he would let me know anytime he was at an award show in front of a microphone.

• 2:13:49David Sims?

  But for two, anytime Robert De Niro is interviewed about anything, he's like, yeah, that's pretty good. And so just imagining him like hosting, like, he's like, okay, you are the president of the jury. And he's like, I thought this movie was pretty good. What does everyone else think? Like, just not saying anything.

• 2:14:02Griffin Newman?

  Just 20 consecutive pretty goods.

• 2:14:04David Sims?

  Like, do you think he was like discoursing with whoever was on the jury? Like, you know, Olivier Assais and. Uma Thurman, Johnny To, Jude Law, who the fun group.

• 2:14:14Griffin Newman?

  Major update. David Lowery texted back. I said, have you ever considered making Loch Ness Monster movie? If not, why not? Two part question. His response was had to give this movie time to recede in the public consciousness. And then he texted the poster for The Water Horse, Legend of the Deep, the movie I was just joking about.

• 2:14:32Speaker 03

  Well, his Pete's Dragon, my five year old has never like, I was like, this is actually such a good lesson in dramatic tension because she can watch anything. Like I was, I watched Insidious Upstate with Andrew and a friend and.

• 2:14:46David Sims?

  That was after an hour of texting with Andrew about what horror movie to watch.

• 2:14:49Speaker 03

  And thank you for leading us towards Insidious. And we were like, we were like, is that the one with the red guy? And we're like, yeah, it's the red guy. And she saw the red guy. She was like, what's that guy? And she talked about it all week. Like she still really wants to know what the red guy is. Like she's not, she's a fearless, she likes sensation, she likes conflict, she likes violence. Like she's a little freak.

• 2:15:07David Sims?

  My daughter is not like that at all.

• 2:15:09Speaker 03

  She, she wants intense, like her mother, she seeks intensity. And, and in Pete's Dragon, as soon as Pete and the dragon are separated, she became physically apoplectic because she was like, I, she was like, I think I need to stop watching this because I think something might happen that might make me really sad for a really long time.

• 2:15:25David Sims?

  Right. She's not upset about like a villain being scary. She's upset about something like emotionally like wrenching happening.

• 2:15:32Speaker 03

  Powerful to her, like immediately that she was like.

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  That's a good movie where you feel for it. Even though it's also like Redford going like, there's a dragon. And you're like, this is crazy.

• 2:15:41Griffin Newman?

  I think it was, uh, Joe Reed's tweet that I quote all the time of, uh, Robert Redford's really great in Pete's Dragon, but it was a little bit, uh, mean of them to not let him know he was in a movie. And just imagine old man Robert Redford, there are dragons in this forest.

• 2:15:56Speaker 03

  And he's just driving. He's like, they're like, please stop. And he's like, nope.

• 2:15:59Griffin Newman?

  They're just catching him on traffic cameras.

• 2:16:03David Sims?

  So yeah, film, uh, film, uh, premiered in competition, got no awards. Uh, it's kind of a hot can year. Um, but, uh, gets good reviews and like we said.

• 2:16:15Griffin Newman?

  Told to get sagged back to Golden Globes.

• 2:16:18David Sims?

  Right. You know, like, it's not like, I don't think this was ever really like a, you know, major critics, but I feel like it was like a. Minor critics favorite like it got like very good notices and

• 2:16:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:30David Sims?

  And attention.

• 2:16:31Griffin Newman?

  There's also now.

• 2:16:32Speaker 03

  People got it.

• 2:16:33David Sims?

  People got it. Exactly. People were not like, what a and it felt like it was weirdly almost uncontroversial. Like for like such a quote unquote hot button movie. No one was like, this is sick shit. How could you make this?

• 2:16:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:16:45David Sims?

  People were pretty compelled by it.

• 2:16:46Speaker 03

  Amazing feat.

• 2:16:47David Sims?

  And again, fucking studio execs see it and they're like, I, yeah, the flash. Creedence bare bone, you know, fuck.

• 2:16:55Griffin Newman?

  Line them up.

• 2:16:56David Sims?

  Let's put this lady in Doctor Strange.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:59Speaker 03

  Is the flash sinister?

• 2:17:00David Sims?

  No, the flash is like joyful and goofy.

• 2:17:04Griffin Newman?

  The young goofball comic relief. That's what's so weird about it, but Snyder is so intense minded. That clearly even the comic relief character in his movie needed to have like a demon eyes.

• 2:17:16Speaker 03

  Is Ezra Miller this good in every movie?

• 2:17:19David Sims?

  Um, I've never been the, it's interesting. Like so.

• 2:17:24Speaker 03

  Cause they're really good in this movie.

• 2:17:26David Sims?

  It's a very like, it's a skillful performance or a skillful use of humor, whatever.

• 2:17:31Speaker 03

  I think it's laid on a little thick in the restaurant scene, but otherwise I think it's pretty much perfect.

• 2:17:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I, I think this was kind of

• 2:17:40Griffin Newman?

  beyond being friends with them at this time, it was like amongst like the young, early twenties, late teens actors in New York City. It just sort of felt like, of course Ezra's gonna get this. This is like the obvious. This is designed. This is the perfect role. Right. The look was so much of it and whatever. But it, it felt like Ezra had had a background that was mostly comedy. And then because of the look was getting cast in these intense like auteur driven movies where it's like, I can get a lot of mileage out of a close up of Ezra looking at something. And then it felt like this bifurcation of the funny side and the just intense side. And I would say like the Fantastic Beasts movies.

• 2:18:18David Sims?

  That's all just intense.

• 2:18:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. And they're like, what if we amp the intense up to 8,000 and you're like shivering and it becomes really overdone?

• 2:18:26Speaker 03

  What are these movies?

• 2:18:27Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 2:18:27David Sims?

  They're so weird. They're so.

• 2:18:29Speaker 03

  You're describing something incomprehensible to me.

• 2:18:31David Sims?

  Those movies are incomprehensible.

• 2:18:32Speaker 03

  Crank up the intensity.

• 2:18:33David Sims?

  Well, because the whole thing about those movies is that the main character, ostensibly Newt's commander, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an introvert who doesn't want to like be doing anything.

• 2:18:42Speaker 03

  Is this the one that Johnny Depp's in?

• 2:18:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:18:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:46David Sims?

  Yes, indeed.

• 2:18:47Griffin Newman?

  In the first movie, the villain is played by Colin Farrell.

• 2:18:50David Sims?

  He's quite good.

• 2:18:51Griffin Newman?

  In a pretty fun performance.

• 2:18:52David Sims?

  He's quite good.

• 2:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Oh, awesome. Great. Colin Farrell is gonna be the villain across these movies. At the end of the first movie, there's a twist where they're like, this isn't Colin Farrell. He's wearing a magic disguise. They wave a wand in front of his face and he turns into Johnny Depp with like one albino eye and like a Van Dyke. And like, like pointy fucking white Brian Grazer hair. And you're like, this is the villain for the next fucking six movies?

• 2:19:16David Sims?

  Get ready for this guy.

• 2:19:18Griffin Newman?

  The audience like, like fucking sighs.

• 2:19:21David Sims?

  I mean, honestly, a gigantic win for Colin Farrell that he got to peace out. Yes.

• 2:19:26Speaker 03

  I feel like I could develop a real sort of narcotic, sort of hypnosis relationship with these movies.

• 2:19:31Griffin Newman?

  Then the second one is called Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald.

• 2:19:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:19:35Griffin Newman?

  Who in the books is the not, is like the-

• 2:19:37David Sims?

  He's Wizard Hitler.

• 2:19:39Griffin Newman?

  Wizard Hitler, who predates Harry. And now they're like, we're gonna show him. He's in the second movie, he's the title character. Everyone's like, boo. They green light third movie, recast him with Mads Mikkelsen.

• 2:19:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  And just give Mads Mikkelsen the Johnny Depp look.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  Which sucks.

• 2:19:56David Sims?

  No, they don't, no, they don't give him a look.

• 2:19:57Griffin Newman?

  They don't?

• 2:19:57David Sims?

  No, they completely dropped the look.

• 2:19:59Griffin Newman?

  I thought they gave him a look.

• 2:19:59David Sims?

  Nope, he looks like Mads Mikkelsen. No blonde hair, no weird eye. He just looks like Mads Mikkelsen. It is, they do not address it at all.

• 2:20:05Griffin Newman?

  The look truly feels like-

• 2:20:07David Sims?

  And obviously Mads Mikkelsen is like 15 years younger too. Like, they do no work on it. They're just like, it's fucking Mads Mikkelsen now, who cares?

• 2:20:13Griffin Newman?

  The look feels like, like a theater camp game where they're like, you have 30 seconds in the prop closet. And come out in your characters, whatever you look like.

• 2:20:23David Sims?

  It's, it's, it's a, only interesting to someone like me who cares about how these franchises just sputter out and die. It's not interesting. I would recommend it to nobody.

• 2:20:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Put butt, get stone and read the Wikipedia.

• 2:20:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, now I'm gonna, yeah.

• 2:20:37David Sims?

  I mean, if you want me to come over, like, and I can just sort of commentate.

• 2:20:42Griffin Newman?

  The other thing I was, I was gonna say about this movie and like it being kind of weirdly uncontroversial is we've like finally in the last 10 years, the pendulum has swung. But for decades, there was basically a thing where like best actors- Actress rarely lined up with Best Picture at all. That the movies that were like driven by women first and foremost as a lead character were seen as like performance showcases.

• 2:21:07David Sims?

  Right, not Best Picture.

• 2:21:08Griffin Newman?

  Were not really considered in other categories. And so it makes sense for like a smaller distributor to buy a movie like this and just be like, we are just laser focused on Best Actress campaign.

• 2:21:18David Sims?

  Of course.

• 2:21:18Griffin Newman?

  If you have a beloved person like Tilda and she's giving a like great performance like you've never seen her before, the public knows what they're buying. And it doesn't need to be a major crossover hit.

• 2:21:30David Sims?

  But it is interesting that there was no Ezra campaign, really. Let's do the box office game. This film came out December 9th, 2011. Limited release, obviously.

• 2:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Definitely saw it opening weekend.

• 2:21:44David Sims?

  I gotta be honest with you. This is such a weird top five. Just in that like now I think of December, you know, like that there would be like kind of serious stuff in the box office. And this is just like a bunch of trash.

• 2:21:56Griffin Newman?

  2011?

• 2:21:57David Sims?

  2011.

• 2:21:58Griffin Newman?

  Is...

• 2:22:00David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 2:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Is this the weekend the tourist comes out?

• 2:22:02David Sims?

  No, this is not the tourist. So number one is a holiday movie. Sort of geared towards a holiday that's coming up the end of December.

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Christmas, I would have to guess is the holiday.

• 2:22:13David Sims?

  You have guessed wrong, my friend.

• 2:22:14Griffin Newman?

  I believe this is a movie I just recently saw in theaters again. It is one of the most demented movies.

• 2:22:19David Sims?

  If you saw this film in theaters, then I am calling 911.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  I saw it in theaters on the day that this film commemorates. Regal was weirdly, they put it back in theaters just for that one day. If I'm correct, I have to be correct about this. Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve?

• 2:22:32David Sims?

  You are correct.

• 2:22:33Griffin Newman?

  I am bumping up to the top of the want list Gary Marshall Holiday Trilogy on Patreon.

• 2:22:38David Sims?

  Yeah, those movies are insane. Have you ever seen Valentine's Day or Mother's Day?

• 2:22:42Speaker 03

  You could never get me.

• 2:22:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Mother's Day should get stoned and watch.

• 2:22:46David Sims?

  Mother's Day would, you would vibe with.

• 2:22:48Speaker 03

  The wigs on the posters alone are too scary.

• 2:22:51David Sims?

  The wigs?

• 2:22:52Speaker 03

  They can hurt me.

• 2:22:53David Sims?

  The wig that Julia Roberts wears in Mother's Day is she should sue whoever made it.

• 2:22:58Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what it is?

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  I don't. Why would I know what it is?

• 2:23:01Griffin Newman?

  Because you're gonna fucking laugh so hard when I tell you this. A lot of major actresses write into their contracts that they get to keep their wigs.

• 2:23:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:23:08Griffin Newman?

  Because wigs are so fucking expensive to be made well. And especially if they're fitted to their head, they're like, I could reuse it on a lower budget production or whatever. It is the wig from the cutaway two in Notting Hill, her being in a shitty sci fi movie.

• 2:23:22David Sims?

  Oh, right.

• 2:23:24Griffin Newman?

  That's what it is.

• 2:23:25David Sims?

  To give you a reminder.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  It's the wig from the fake Notting Hill movie that she repurposed.

• 2:23:30David Sims?

  Well, why'd she go and do that?

• 2:23:32Griffin Newman?

  That's funny.

• 2:23:33David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:23:33Speaker 03

  Have they, they've stopped making like, I'm.

• 2:23:35David Sims?

  Well, Gary Marshall died.

• 2:23:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that was kind of a brutal hit for the franchise.

• 2:23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but like, weren't there other?

• 2:23:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you're right.

• 2:23:42Speaker 03

  The people just tried to like, even.

• 2:23:43David Sims?

  There's definitely.

• 2:23:45Griffin Newman?

  The two Think Like a Man movies, what to expect when you're expecting.

• 2:23:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:23:48Griffin Newman?

  And he just not that into you.

• 2:23:49David Sims?

  Let's get a bunch of name actors. They don't have to work very much because it's a vignette movie and we'll just write, we'll just kind of like make an easy 60 mil.

• 2:23:57Speaker 03

  I've never liked one of them.

• 2:23:58Griffin Newman?

  They're all fascinating.

• 2:23:59Speaker 03

  They're awful. But even like Love Actually or whatever, you know, like.

• 2:24:02David Sims?

  Love Actually sucks.

• 2:24:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:04David Sims?

  It's a satanic.

• 2:24:04Speaker 03

  Toilet movie.

• 2:24:05Griffin Newman?

  It's the Kevin of movies.

• 2:24:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:24:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It is interesting, that entire trend was like, can we like, it's a Mad Mad World towering inferno rom coms.

• 2:24:14Speaker 03

  But no one's ever liked any of them except for Love Actually two, right? It's like they made so many of them, no one has ever, but people will watch them.

• 2:24:20Griffin Newman?

  Almost all of them were successful.

• 2:24:21Speaker 03

  I guess you're, this is number one at the box office.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23Speaker 03

  People will watch them.

• 2:24:24Griffin Newman?

  Gary Marshall, this one had a major drop off from Valentine's Day, which was a big hit.

• 2:24:28David Sims?

  Valentine's Day had Taylor Swift in it. It was about Valentine's Day.

• 2:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Fucking cast.

• 2:24:33David Sims?

  I know, but nobody gives a shit. Everyone wants to go like on Valentine's Day, you want to go on a date and see the movie called Valentine's Day. On New Year's Eve, not that many people are like, oh, there's an ensemble comedy.

• 2:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what like, kind of the like central plot thread, the thing that ties the whole movie together is?

• 2:24:47David Sims?

  Is it a New Year's Eve?

• 2:24:49Speaker 03

  That New Year's is happening?

• 2:24:50Griffin Newman?

  Hilary Swank, a two time Academy Award winner, Hilary Swank plays the woman who's in charge of dropping the ball.

• 2:24:56Speaker 03

  Oh, that's actually good to me.

• 2:24:58David Sims?

  I mean, that's, that is.

• 2:24:58Speaker 03

  That's pretty good.

• 2:24:59David Sims?

  That is where I would start.

• 2:25:00Griffin Newman?

  And then like.

• 2:25:00David Sims?

  I were like, all right. I read a New Year's Eve movie.

• 2:25:02Griffin Newman?

  And at like eight thirty PM, one of the bulbs dies.

• 2:25:07Speaker 03

  That's good. I would love a real time sort of like TikTok, like we got ninety five minutes and Snooki's in the ball.

• 2:25:13Griffin Newman?

  It's that, but then it like cuts away to Katherine Heigl as like a pastry chef catering, a record label party.

• 2:25:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, we don't need that.

• 2:25:20Griffin Newman?

  Jon Bon Jovi is her ex boyfriend who's a rock star who isn't Jon Bon Jovi.

• 2:25:24Speaker 03

  No, I want speed, but with the New Year's Eve ball.

• 2:25:26Griffin Newman?

  It's, this movie is deranged. And I will not ruin for you the twist of who ends up showing up to repair the New Year's Eve ball, but it's, it's the greatest cameo you could possibly drop.

• 2:25:37David Sims?

  Is it Hector?

• 2:25:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it.

• 2:25:39David Sims?

  Fucking, I just nailed that. I didn't even have to look.

• 2:25:42Griffin Newman?

  My name is Kaminsky. I dropped the ball.

• 2:25:44David Sims?

  Uh, so New Year's Eve is opening to thirteen million dollars. So pretty, pretty port. Number two at the box office also new this week is a.

• 2:25:50Griffin Newman?

  Valentine's open to fifty.

• 2:25:52David Sims?

  You know, I know.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  The drop off is insane.

• 2:25:54David Sims?

  Uh, but also they're not opening it on New Year's Eve. Like they fucked up in every way. Number two is a comedy. Um, it's been being released after I think being, it's sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.

• 2:26:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, interesting.

• 2:26:05David Sims?

  Um, you have a lore with this movie, but I can't remember what it is. Like your sister auditioned for it or something.

• 2:26:11Griffin Newman?

  In twenty, is it The Sitter?

• 2:26:12David Sims?

  The Sitter.

• 2:26:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  David Gordon Green's The Sitter, starring Jonah Hill, but like, I feel right, was filmed a couple of years prior or whatever, right? It was sort of a post super bad project that comes out like four or five years later.

• 2:26:25Griffin Newman?

  It's not that extreme, but it's, it comes out after, uh.

• 2:26:29David Sims?

  After like Moneyball.

• 2:26:30Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say after Jump Street, but it's still pre Jump Street weight.

• 2:26:34David Sims?

  Right, right, right. It doesn't actually come out after, but he's already debuted his new look.

• 2:26:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 2:26:41David Sims?

  No. Have you seen The Sitter with Jonah Hill?

• 2:26:42Speaker 03

  Certainly have not.

• 2:26:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It was one of those things where it was like the hottest fucking script in Hollywood and you read it and you were like, this is so fucking funny. And then the second you have actual kids on screen doing it, you're like, now I just kind of feel bad for the kids. Like reading it, you're like, oh, he's cursing at these kids and the kids are doing fucked up shit. It's R rated adventures and babysitting.

• 2:27:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:27:02Griffin Newman?

  And then you watch it and you're like.

• 2:27:03David Sims?

  It was a bummer.

• 2:27:04Griffin Newman?

  Disgusting.

• 2:27:06David Sims?

  Number three, the box office has been number one for a couple of weeks. It's made $259 million. It's a sequel. It's a big, the big franchise of the moment.

• 2:27:16Griffin Newman?

  Is it Potter?

• 2:27:17David Sims?

  No, it is a, we've, we've, we've discussed this film on our Patreon. It is a fucked up movie. It's, it's, it's pretty good in my opinion, but it is fucked up.

• 2:27:27Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Twilight.

• 2:27:28David Sims?

  It sure is.

• 2:27:28Griffin Newman?

  It is?

• 2:27:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:30Griffin Newman?

  Is it, is it Breaking Dawn part two?

• 2:27:32David Sims?

  No, no, Breaking Dawn part one.

• 2:27:34Griffin Newman?

  A very fucked up.

• 2:27:35David Sims?

  Which is, have you seen the Twilight?

• 2:27:36Speaker 03

  Never.

• 2:27:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a pregnancy.

• 2:27:38David Sims?

  It is funny, Jia, how you are sometimes just like, that's just not any of my business. Like Twilight, you're just like, I, I don't need to be part of that.

• 2:27:46Speaker 03

  There are so, I, I never, I also don't watch things that I think will be bad. Not, I don't watch anything that I think will be bad.

• 2:27:54David Sims?

  Right. You're, you don't really like, I will text your husband. I am going to watch all of the, you know, name of a terrible, what's the?

• 2:28:01Speaker 03

  I'm gonna do this right along with you and I'm starting tonight.

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  Just bought him.

• 2:28:06Speaker 03

  He's put the paranormal diaper on.

• 2:28:10David Sims?

  I'm like, he's not like, are any of them supposed to be bad? He's like, we, the, the, the idea is to see all of them.

• 2:28:16Speaker 03

  Out here on paternity leave, watching bad moms on Netflix, you know? Like, he's like, watched all of them. And I'm like, and I just, I, I, I either, we have got too much information in our damn mind, you know?

• 2:28:26David Sims?

  I'm not objecting. You are, you are allowed to stare at a wall. You are allowed to let things pass you by. I will say, I only saw this movie after my, you know, after having children. Breaking Dawn part one, I had never seen.

• 2:28:39Speaker 03

  Where she gives birth to the crazy ass.

• 2:28:40David Sims?

  It's the one where she's pregnant.

• 2:28:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:28:44Speaker 03

  I know about Renesmee.

• 2:28:45David Sims?

  We all know about Renesmee. And where they have this kind of tricky thing to thread of like, oh, the baby has to look mature and lock eyes with a person. And they totally land that. Definitely isn't really weird at all. But the whole movie is basically just her being sick and wanting to die because she's got a vampire in her, in her womb. And it's a pretty good movie about pregnancy. About what it's like to be pregnant is how I feel about it.

• 2:29:08Griffin Newman?

  You, I, I support you doing whatever you want in your life, Jia, but I will say, I think time has been kind to the Twilight films.

• 2:29:15David Sims?

  You find them interesting.

• 2:29:16Speaker 03

  I'll watch them at some point.

• 2:29:18Griffin Newman?

  And with distance now, like a decade on from their like peak, you know, kind of cultural like relevancy, it is wild to watch them and just go like, this was the most popular thing in the world.

• 2:29:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:30Griffin Newman?

  And all of them are demented.

• 2:29:31Speaker 03

  I'm always waiting for like a just see, this is like, I kind of am trying to munchausen myself. Like clearly I have sort of a new parents desire to be, you know, um, under medical care, but for nothing serious, you know? So that I can finally.

• 2:29:43David Sims?

  Right, just commit me. Just like, I'm in a bed.

• 2:29:46Speaker 03

  I want to be committed. Like I want someone to be, we need to talk about Jia and just get, you know, get me like a, a nice 72 hour. But what I want for the, what I, my dream scenario for the Twilight movies. Well, actually my friends and I, some, two of my girlfriends sometimes will, I have one of their college bongs on my mantelpiece.

• 2:30:03Griffin Newman?

  What, any, any particular? Okay, just a giant bong.

• 2:30:06Speaker 03

  Just the kind of bong that used to hit every day in college and you're like, I can't believe I used to live like that.

• 2:30:10David Sims?

  How did I have the lung capacity to breathe that much air, let alone smoke?

• 2:30:15Griffin Newman?

  It is crazy as a former pothead.

• 2:30:18Speaker 03

  Fucking ice every day.

• 2:30:19Griffin Newman?

  Hit in a bong first thing in the morning.

• 2:30:22Speaker 03

  It's so crazy. Going to class. It's so crazy.

• 2:30:25Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 2:30:26Speaker 03

  But so we do it like once a month. We, and we're, we're on the avid, we watched Avatar. We're gonna do the way of water.

• 2:30:31David Sims?

  I've been, I've been hearing about this.

• 2:30:32Speaker 03

  We're gonna lay on the floor and watch Avatar, The Way of Water. And it's either gonna be, that's where we're watching Twilight, or I'm gonna be on a work trip to the other side of the globe. I'm having a clean 17 hours.

• 2:30:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:43Speaker 03

  Couple of wines and watch all of them in a row.

• 2:30:45Griffin Newman?

  If Delta has them all and you could just knock them out.

• 2:30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's my dream scenario. I'm gonna watch them all at once.

• 2:30:51Griffin Newman?

  Let, let the Zinfundel flow.

• 2:30:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:55David Sims?

  Number four at the box office, Griffin, is a film I'm sure you were deeply invested in. Uh, it's a reboot of a popular, uh, property.

• 2:31:02Griffin Newman?

  Is this a, a joke deeply invested or it's earnest?

• 2:31:05David Sims?

  I'm sure you were deeply invested.

• 2:31:06Griffin Newman?

  It was some stupid shit I care about?

• 2:31:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:31:09Griffin Newman?

  Is it baby shit?

• 2:31:10David Sims?

  No, it's good. It's good. It's good stuff. I don't, I mean about it.

• 2:31:15Griffin Newman?

  But I have strong opinions about.

• 2:31:16David Sims?

  Certainly. Yeah, of course.

• 2:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Is, is it The Muppets?

• 2:31:20David Sims?

  It's The.

• 2:31:20Griffin Newman?

  It's The Muppets.

• 2:31:21David Sims?

  Jason Segel's.

• 2:31:22Griffin Newman?

  Megan The Muppets.

• 2:31:23David Sims?

  Yeah, The Muppets with Jason Segel and Amy Adams.

• 2:31:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:26David Sims?

  A solid hit.

• 2:31:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a movie that I had a very, very.

• 2:31:30David Sims?

  You were.

• 2:31:31Griffin Newman?

  I, I had a lot of emotions tied up in it.

• 2:31:33David Sims?

  Whereas I saw it and was like, that's pretty good. I kind of wanted it to be better. Like, that was like my immediate reaction.

• 2:31:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think the, the following one is significantly better.

• 2:31:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:31:42Griffin Newman?

  And it has a little bit released, erased The Muppets in my mind. At the time, I would say my relationship to it was like, if suddenly it looked like the Mets had a good lineup.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:31:54Griffin Newman?

  And you were like, can I fucking, can I start feeling like this might actually?

• 2:31:58David Sims?

  Right, like.

• 2:31:59Griffin Newman?

  The next 10 years won't be punishing.

• 2:32:02David Sims?

  I assume you don't care about The Muppets, do you?

• 2:32:03Speaker 03

  I never saw it. I never, whenever you guys play this guy, I've never seen any of the movies.

• 2:32:07David Sims?

  Number five at the box office is an animated film. Um, never seen it. It's a CG film from a company that prior to this was not, from a company that's not famous.

• 2:32:18Griffin Newman?

  It's an Ardenman film.

• 2:32:18David Sims?

  It's an Ardenman.

• 2:32:19Griffin Newman?

  Is it Arthur Christmas?

• 2:32:20David Sims?

  It is Arthur Christmas.

• 2:32:21Griffin Newman?

  Anytime I talk about Christmas movies, I like, some people pop up in the Reddit and they're like, where's the respect for Arthur Christmas? I have never liked it.

• 2:32:28Speaker 03

  What is, what are you talking about?

• 2:32:29David Sims?

  It's an animated film. James McAvoy.

• 2:32:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:32David Sims?

  Plays Arthur Christmas.

• 2:32:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:34David Sims?

  Who is, uh, I have no fucking idea. I've never seen it.

• 2:32:37Griffin Newman?

  Jim Broadbent maybe?

• 2:32:38Speaker 03

  It's animated?

• 2:32:39Griffin Newman?

  It's animated.

• 2:32:40Speaker 03

  They're all playing people?

• 2:32:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:32:41David Sims?

  Yes. Jim Broadbent, it looks like Jim Broadbent is playing Santa.

• 2:32:44Speaker 03

  No relationship to Arthur.

• 2:32:46Griffin Newman?

  Arthur is one of the sons.

• 2:32:47David Sims?

  No relationship to horny old Arthur, no.

• 2:32:49Griffin Newman?

  Right. Arthur is like twinkie Santa son, and then Hugh Laurie plays like militaristic Santa son, and there's maybe another one. This is what I don't like. It's in this subgenre I would call the, the Christmas industrial complex, which is like, hey, you know Christmas, that magical shit kids believe in that doesn't make any sense? What if we start explaining it with like business-like precision?

• 2:33:10David Sims?

  Yeah, well, it's like, it turns out Christmas is a job that people have.

• 2:33:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. Santa's got a fucking app and they work in a, I hate this shit. It is the least not. Version of this, which like I put Fred Claus and like Red One into just like cursed bullshit territory, but I, I still just kind of rejected.

• 2:33:29Speaker 03

  Arthur Christmas.

• 2:33:30Griffin Newman?

  It's like one girl's letter to Santa gets lost and Arthur's the son with her like you'll never do Christmas because his brothers like figured out how to turn Christmas into like, I don't know, fucking Blackrock or whatever.

• 2:33:41Speaker 03

  Wait, so the joke is that he's like the fail son named Arthur Christmas?

• 2:33:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and he's like twinkie and he wears an oversized sweater and then he like decides to save Christmas for this one.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  I better not have to watch this movie eventually.

• 2:33:51Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's like, it's all like, what if Elon Musk went in and like dogged the North Pole? Like all these movies have that attitude of like, certainly there's a more like economic way to streamline this process. I'm like, I don't know, how about he's got fucking like reindeer and he flies around, wiggles his nose and goes down. Who gives a shit? Let Santa deliver presents.

• 2:34:10David Sims?

  Do you care about Christmas?

• 2:34:11Griffin Newman?

  Let him eat cookies.

• 2:34:13Speaker 03

  I'm a huge Grinch. I'm a huge Grinch about all holidays. I've never, we don't do presents in my house. We don't do a tree. I've got two children. Don't do a tree or Christmas presents.

• 2:34:23David Sims?

  It's amazing that you resisted this.

• 2:34:24Speaker 03

  Spoiled, upper middle class fucking children in Brooklyn. They don't need any more shit.

• 2:34:27David Sims?

  Your kids who are wonderful and beautiful, they, they want for nothing. They're very, they're very, yes, they've got all kinds of wonderful things.

• 2:34:33Speaker 03

  Our, our friend like suggested to Andrew, my partner, that he get me a Kindle for Christmas. I'm, I'm reading entire books on my phone to break myself of reading article on phone.

• 2:34:41David Sims?

  I'm doing the exact same thing.

• 2:34:42Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:34:43Speaker 03

  The Kindle's amazing. I had one in Peace Square and I fucking hated it. Now I'm, love my Kindle.

• 2:34:46Griffin Newman?

  So just anytime you have the impulse to read an article, you go back to whatever book you're in the middle of.

• 2:34:51David Sims?

  App or whatever. I'm just like, no, I'll just load the Kindle app.

• 2:34:53Speaker 03

  Except for Reddit, what is it like to live here? Whatever? How is it here? Or whatever you actually, and, and Andrew was like.

• 2:34:58David Sims?

  I know, I know Amazon's bad.

• 2:34:59Speaker 03

  And Andrew was like, we don't get presents in my house. I can't get her and like, that's how deep it is.

• 2:35:03David Sims?

  How do I get her a Kindle?

• 2:35:05Speaker 03

  I, I don't think I've ever, I'm, I hate Chris. I don't like holidays. I don't like enforced anything, you know?

• 2:35:10David Sims?

  Yeah, you don't like, right. Enforced joy. Like today is the day we will.

• 2:35:13Speaker 03

  I have to be freely chosen.

• 2:35:15David Sims?

  I, look, I never had a Christmas treat till I, you know, married a Christmas lover. So it's new. It's new to me.

• 2:35:20Griffin Newman?

  I am.

• 2:35:21Speaker 03

  Well, I'm like, this is often traditionally women's labor and that's not something I'm gonna take part in.

• 2:35:25Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I'm, I'm like a Christmas loving Jew. I basically no longer.

• 2:35:29David Sims?

  I'm a Christmas.

• 2:35:30Griffin Newman?

  I'm a Christmas loving Jew.

• 2:35:31Speaker 03

  It's like a Creedence bare bones song.

• 2:35:33Griffin Newman?

  It is a Creedence bare bones. Creedence bare bones revival.

• 2:35:36Speaker 03

  He's a Christmas loving Jew.

• 2:35:38Griffin Newman?

  I thi- I think Ben is the only person I received a Christmas present from this year. That's not true. My girlfriend got me a lovely present.

• 2:35:44David Sims?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 2:35:44Griffin Newman?

  But my family is shattered.

• 2:35:46David Sims?

  Your family's being a little dramatic right now.

• 2:35:50Griffin Newman?

  My family's being.

• 2:35:51David Sims?

  Family's kind of like an April 8/24 release. It's the drama.

• 2:35:55Griffin Newman?

  It is in fact, but that's been like several years in the making now. So like, I no longer celebrate Christmas in any meaningful way. And yet I am such a sucker for like.

• 2:36:05Speaker 03

  A feeling of warmth.

• 2:36:06Griffin Newman?

  The pop culture Christmas.

• 2:36:07David Sims?

  What did you get him? I got him a Terminator shirt.

• 2:36:09Griffin Newman?

  It was.

• 2:36:09Speaker 03

  That's so nice.

• 2:36:10David Sims?

  The thing about Griff is I don't, I don't buy Griff Christmas presents. I don't really buy anyone Christmas presents, so it's no personal.

• 2:36:17Griffin Newman?

  I did get you Christmas presents.

• 2:36:18David Sims?

  You do. You, you love to give a present, which is great, but you are, you've struck me as a pretty easy person to buy a gift for. Cause there's just a lot of like, you know, goofy pop culture shit I see where I'm like, the only question would be is, does Griff already have it?

• 2:36:31Speaker 03

  Fun person to buy like eBay sort of like.

• 2:36:33David Sims?

  Yeah, like odd trinkets.

• 2:36:35Griffin Newman?

  Would I, would it surprise you that that is often the risk that most times I'm handed a gift?

• 2:36:40Speaker 03

  You might already have the trinket.

• 2:36:41Griffin Newman?

  I hope you don't already have it.

• 2:36:43David Sims?

  Look, this is a 1970s Kinder toy, but you might have it. Like, you know.

• 2:36:48Griffin Newman?

  There's no kind of thing, it isn't possible I might have if connected in any way to my interests. It was a great shirt. I got told fly shirt the other day while wearing it.

• 2:36:58David Sims?

  There you go. I mean, who doesn't love the Terminator?

• 2:37:01Griffin Newman?

  It's a really good shirt.

• 2:37:02David Sims?

  Sure. We gotta post a pic. I also just wanna say Sims, I know better than to get you a gift.

• 2:37:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's a box of presents.

• 2:37:11David Sims?

  Because there's already a sort of box. My house is not a present. Seeking additions right now in terms of goods.

• 2:37:19Griffin Newman?

  I just wanna call out that one of the things in that box is a Lego X mansion.

• 2:37:23David Sims?

  Yeah, I bought that.

• 2:37:24Griffin Newman?

  That you bought for yourself 18 months ago and then to help cushion the blow of you bringing this giant Lego. Set home. You also bought a Lego set for your daughter and wife and all three are still in this box.

• 2:37:35David Sims?

  Daughter's not ready for Legos yet, but we're getting close. But now I have these babies and I can't let them near.

• 2:37:39Griffin Newman?

  I got, I got your daughter the Duplo set though.

• 2:37:41David Sims?

  Yeah, well, that's a huge.

• 2:37:42Griffin Newman?

  But these aren't Duplos.

• 2:37:43David Sims?

  She does the Duplos all the time. This is Legos. She, my daughter can probably handle Legos now. I don't know. I mean,

• 2:37:47Speaker 03

  I think she can handle.

• 2:37:48David Sims?

  But the problem is the boys, you know, those are the right.

• 2:37:50Speaker 03

  Well, the real problem is that she's gonna ask you for help and you're like, that's not what this is about. This is not.

• 2:37:56David Sims?

  I am resigned to, it'll be a year to two of me building Legos for her. I, I, I get.

• 2:38:01Griffin Newman?

  You also basically from the moment she was born have said like,

• 2:38:05David Sims?

  I love.

• 2:38:05Griffin Newman?

  The second she's into Lego, I'm gonna become a Lego.

• 2:38:07Speaker 03

  Andrew loves Legos.

• 2:38:09David Sims?

  Well, Andrew's an architect.

• 2:38:12David Sims?

  But I love Legos and I can't wait to do Legos. What my daughter will do self-directed the most is draw. That's the thing where you can really just like leave her drawing. And so clearly that's where she's gonna go. Like that's where her brain is. Legos is a little more fiddly. She might, may or may not care. I don't know.

• 2:38:27Griffin Newman?

  You can be creative with Legos.

• 2:38:28David Sims?

  You totally can. That's what I would do. I would make little soap operas happen. That was my thing, baby. I didn't care.

• 2:38:32Griffin Newman?

  Make little.

• 2:38:33David Sims?

  Like I would build a spaceship, but then I'd be like, what's going on with everyone who lives on the spaceship? Like I wouldn't build a very elaborate spaceship.

• 2:38:39Speaker 03

  Two Legos are going closer to each other. You're like, uh oh.

• 2:38:41David Sims?

  It was a lot of that, except one's like a wizard and one's a robot. Cause it's like whatever I've got rattling around.

• 2:38:45Griffin Newman?

  And the robot's the wizard's superior. So it's not really clear.

• 2:38:48David Sims?

  Yeah, this is, this is a weird dynamic, you know, we need to talk about robot. Number six of the box office is Hugo.

• 2:38:54Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:38:55David Sims?

  A, a good movie.

• 2:38:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:56David Sims?

  Number seven is The Descendants. Kind of a bad movie?

• 2:38:59Griffin Newman?

  A movie I've never cared for.

• 2:39:01David Sims?

  Uh, number eight is Happy Feet Two.

• 2:39:03Griffin Newman?

  A movie I love.

• 2:39:04Speaker 03

  That's a good movie.

• 2:39:05David Sims?

  Pretty good movie. Do you have seen that one?

• 2:39:07Speaker 03

  First one on the list that I've seen.

• 2:39:08Griffin Newman?

  And like better than.

• 2:39:09Speaker 03

  And arguably the first one that's been good. The first good one.

• 2:39:12David Sims?

  I think it is. I mean, The Muppets is okay, but well, Hugo I like.

• 2:39:16Griffin Newman?

  Disrespectful of Hugo. I prefer Happy Feet Two.

• 2:39:18David Sims?

  Happy Feet Two is, is a special movie.

• 2:39:20Speaker 03

  Hugo again.

• 2:39:21David Sims?

  Hugo's the Scorsese movie with Paris and the boy.

• 2:39:25Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese magic of film history. 3D.

• 2:39:28David Sims?

  It's not really a GM movie. Number nine is Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler.

• 2:39:33Griffin Newman?

  We've both come way around and people think it's a bit, but actually.

• 2:39:36David Sims?

  Big fan of that movie.

• 2:39:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the culture has finally caught up.

• 2:39:39David Sims?

  The gag where Pacino is dressed like a Hasidic guy to not get noticed at the Lakers game. Really good.

• 2:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Sitting next to Grindelval, number two himself.

• 2:39:46David Sims?

  Yep. Uh, and number 10 is Immortals, the, uh,

• 2:39:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:39:50David Sims?

  Tarsim Singh, right?

• 2:39:51Griffin Newman?

  The movie that basically functions as Henry Cavill's audition tape for Superman.

• 2:39:54David Sims?

  Right. That's like, it's like a Greek gods movie with a bunch of.

• 2:39:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:58David Sims?

  Uh, Half Naked Men, covered in bronze.

• 2:40:00Griffin Newman?

  It was Tarson Singh trying to make a 300 style movie because 300 had taken so long to figure out how to make a sequel.

• 2:40:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:07Griffin Newman?

  And then, of course, the Empire rose.

• 2:40:09David Sims?

  Huh?

• 2:40:10Griffin Newman?

  300: Rise of an Empire.

• 2:40:12David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Never saw that one either.

• 2:40:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:14David Sims?

  So that's the box office. Weird junky box office is all I'm saying.

• 2:40:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's odd.

• 2:40:18David Sims?

  Yeah, like, you know, I think a lot, it's a, it's a year when a lot of shit didn't fly, like J. Edgar was a bomb, you know, a lot of the awardsy stuff.

• 2:40:25Griffin Newman?

  It's a point you often make, which is the Marvel dominance was able to happen because things were so shitty for the couple of years leading up to the Marvel dominance. And this is the year that Thor and Captain America come out and both do okay. And the next year, The Avengers comes out and it felt like the culture was like.

• 2:40:44David Sims?

  We're just doing this now.

• 2:40:45Griffin Newman?

  This can just be the only three movies I see a year. Fine. This feels safe.

• 2:40:49David Sims?

  It's a comedy. It's a drama. It's an action movie. Great. So I'll find.

• 2:40:53Griffin Newman?

  Fine, whatever. I'll sign up in advance.

• 2:40:55David Sims?

  And I know you love Marvel movies, Gio, and you have a lot to say about them, and I'll just give you some space to do that right now.

• 2:40:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:41:00Griffin Newman?

  You're mostly a Kingo person, right?

• 2:41:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Kingo?

• 2:41:03Griffin Newman?

  Kingo.

• 2:41:03Speaker 03

  That's a person?

• 2:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Pew pew pew.

• 2:41:05Speaker 03

  Kingo?

• 2:41:06David Sims?

  Kingo's the character that.

• 2:41:06Griffin Newman?

  He's got fingers that go like this.

• 2:41:08David Sims?

  Kumail Nanjiani played in one Marvel movie.

• 2:41:10Griffin Newman?

  You remember all the eternal.

• 2:41:11Speaker 03

  The one he got Jack.

• 2:41:12David Sims?

  He got Jack.

• 2:41:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's just list them together. Kingo.

• 2:41:15Speaker 03

  Kingo.

• 2:41:16Griffin Newman?

  Druids. Ajax. Fastos.

• 2:41:24David Sims?

  There you go. And Fastos isn't the one that's fast.

• 2:41:27Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:41:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:41:29Griffin Newman?

  Fastos is the one who creates.

• 2:41:31David Sims?

  Who makes atomic bombs.

• 2:41:32Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's what he does.

• 2:41:33Speaker 03

  Creates 9/11?

• 2:41:34David Sims?

  Well, he's like super smart and there's a scene where he's like, Hiroshima happened.

• 2:41:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:41:41David Sims?

  And people made fun of that scene.

• 2:41:42Griffin Newman?

  I think Ikari is the faster. I'm sorry. Ikari.

• 2:41:49Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 2:41:50David Sims?

  There's like three more. Yeah, there's a lot of.

• 2:41:52Griffin Newman?

  Gilgamesh.

• 2:41:53David Sims?

  Gilgamesh, yeah.

• 2:41:54Griffin Newman?

  Sprite.

• 2:41:56David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:41:56Speaker 03

  Sprite?

• 2:41:57Griffin Newman?

  Sprite. She's really fun. She's a centuries old.

• 2:42:01Speaker 03

  This is none of my business, guys.

• 2:42:04David Sims?

  That one is none of, was none of anyone's business.

• 2:42:06Speaker 03

  None of my business.

• 2:42:07Griffin Newman?

  She's a centuries old robot that's still stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl. So adult man won't hate her and she has a real complex about that.

• 2:42:14Speaker 03

  Who plays her?

• 2:42:15Griffin Newman?

  Some kid.

• 2:42:16Speaker 03

  You guys must, you guys must have such an escalated, like, one of the reasons that I'm like, Ezra Miller's legal trouble slash violence, not, none of my business, you know, whatever, is because like, surely you guys have this thought so much more than most people do, because you have such encyclopedic jobs in this podcast, where it's like, you're gonna be, we're gonna be on our goddamn deathbeds. You know what I mean? And we're just gonna, it's like, we're gonna be Zendaya's Mucci on our deathbeds.

• 2:42:41David Sims?

  I truly am going to be Zendaya's Mucci.

• 2:42:43Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? I'm gonna be remembering like some guy on r slash meth talking about like, you know what I mean? Like some, like it's.

• 2:42:50David Sims?

  Yeah, it's so, I think about this all the time.

• 2:42:52Speaker 03

  And it's like, I can't.

• 2:42:53David Sims?

  In my waning days, will I just be like, look at my TikTok faves from 2019. These were funny.

• 2:42:58Speaker 03

  No, you won't even, like, they will be playing in your head.

• 2:43:01David Sims?

  Right, right. I'll just be like.

• 2:43:02Speaker 03

  Like, we need to talk about Kevin. That will be you, except instead of la, you know, la tomato Ria or whatever, it's gonna be like, your TikTok reels from 20 fucking 19 and Arthur Christmas.

• 2:43:16Griffin Newman?

  It's all in there.

• 2:43:16Speaker 03

  And you know what I mean?

• 2:43:17Griffin Newman?

  It's permanently in there.

• 2:43:18Speaker 03

  My brain is an overstuffed club that is over capacity, that is, the lights are flashing at full, you know, it's strobing every second of every day. And if I allow myself to know that it was Ringo, that he got jacked for Ringo, like, it's just gonna burn down.

• 2:43:33Griffin Newman?

  I do, it was Kingo. Just, no, I appreciate your point, but let's not be rude to Kingo. He goes poo poo with his fingers. No, I feel the same way. I also am like very deliberate about which things I decide I'm going to completely opt out of.

• 2:43:47Speaker 03

  What is it for you that you opt out of?

• 2:43:48Griffin Newman?

  I feel like most of pop music I'm now out of.

• 2:43:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:43:51Griffin Newman?

  And I just like, can't keep up with it. And it feels like that's always the center of the like drama reading, the fucking social media.

• 2:43:57Speaker 03

  None of this.

• 2:43:57Griffin Newman?

  None of this. I'm just like, I'm not engaging with the two heated rivalry guys.

• 2:44:01Speaker 03

  Reality TV.

• 2:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Reality TV.

• 2:44:02Speaker 03

  It's like, I'm out. Never seen a single one.

• 2:44:05David Sims?

  I am the exact same way where it's, reality? TV and anime are the things where I'm like,

• 2:44:09Speaker 03

  Never gonna learn.

• 2:44:10David Sims?

  Those are bottomless.

• 2:44:10Speaker 03

  Oh, you gotta watch Arco, though.

• 2:44:12David Sims?

  I saw Arco. I liked Arco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Arco was good.

• 2:44:14Speaker 03

  But you're talking. Did your child see it?

• 2:44:16David Sims?

  No, I, well, because I saw it like at an award screening or whatever. And I've been wondering if, Boss baby. Fuck, I did it again. I'm sorry. I keep saying. Excuse me. Boss baby. If Boss Baby would like it.

• 2:44:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:44:25David Sims?

  Yeah, because it's cool.

• 2:44:26Speaker 03

  It's, I thought it was really good.

• 2:44:27David Sims?

  I think, I think she would dig it. Yeah. Cloud people.

• 2:44:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 2:44:30David Sims?

  Rainbows.

• 2:44:31Griffin Newman?

  The text I sent to David Lowery was in a group chat that Sims and I are on with Sean Fantasy, Tim Simons, and Alex Ross Perry. And the testiest things ever get in that group chat is if someone goes, "Hey, wild fact, in 2015, this person was supposed to make this movie or gave this interview quote, and one of us will inevitably respond with."

• 2:44:51Speaker 03

  That's not a wild fact.

• 2:44:52Griffin Newman?

  No, we'll respond with, "I'm so fucking insulted that you think I wouldn't remember that."

• 2:44:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:44:57Griffin Newman?

  Of course I remember that. I think about that every hour of my life.

• 2:45:01Speaker 03

  I can imagine.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  And it's always 10% joke, 90% real. Don't underestimate me. I, my brain is full of garbage.

• 2:45:09David Sims?

  Gee. Oh, God, it's so real what you're saying about the dumb shit I'm gonna continue to remember years from now and yet not remember my life.

• 2:45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:18David Sims?

  Someone was talking to me about traitors and mentioned.

• 2:45:21Griffin Newman?

  The traitors, or just the general abstract concept of.

• 2:45:24David Sims?

  Oh, no, the traitor. Sorry. Um, I've never watched any reality TV as well.

• 2:45:30Speaker 03

  People love to talk to you about the traitors, don't they?

• 2:45:32David Sims?

  They do.

• 2:45:32Speaker 03

  They love to talk to you about.

• 2:45:34Griffin Newman?

  Michael Raff.

• 2:45:35Speaker 03

  About the villa, about the villa on whatever one there's a villa on.

• 2:45:38David Sims?

  Kings and they have swords or whatever the fuck is going on.

• 2:45:41Griffin Newman?

  Call me when they're all kingos. Then you have my interest.

• 2:45:44Speaker 03

  Or the one that's like Costa Benita, like Costa, never mind.

• 2:45:47David Sims?

  I know.

• 2:45:47Griffin Newman?

  Costa Benita, a reality show I haven't watched.

• 2:45:49Speaker 03

  Well, same. But do you know what I'm talking about? The, the Costa island where they, never mind. I don't even know. Anyway, traitors.

• 2:45:54David Sims?

  So someone mentioned Britney Spears' ex is on the show. And I'm like, oh, Kevin Federline? And they're like, no, her other ex.

• 2:46:02Griffin Newman?

  The guy she married at Vegas?

• 2:46:03Speaker 03

  Jason Alexander, but that's not Jason Alexander.

• 2:46:05Griffin Newman?

  Good pull. Perfect example of why do I still know the.

• 2:46:08David Sims?

  This is the thing. I pulled Kevin Federline immediately. And I'm like, I don't remember being 27.

• 2:46:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 2:46:15Griffin Newman?

  What the fuck?

• 2:46:16David Sims?

  Gone. Gone. That was

• 2:46:18Speaker 03

  Like, I don't know what happens in The Odyssey.

• 2:46:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:21Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 2:46:21Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:46:22David Sims?

  He takes a boat.

• 2:46:23Speaker 03

  Like, my own brother's birth year often escapes me.

• 2:46:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:46:27Speaker 03

  You know?

• 2:46:28Griffin Newman?

  My therapist was trying to ask me about like traumatic incidents last week and I was like, I'm having trouble remembering stuff. And then I was like, I know that seems like a psychological overcompensation. I'm blocking out the memories I can't touch. It really is just, I have like too many Marvel characters in my head. It's just filled with nonsense.

• 2:46:46Speaker 03

  And yet we all court this professionally. I'm like, oh, let me see how much I can learn about, you know? Yeah.

• 2:46:51Griffin Newman?

  It's great. It's great. We fixed it.

• 2:46:53David Sims?

  I feel great. I'm guts. I'm so good. I'm doing so great.

• 2:46:56Griffin Newman?

  We're doing so great.

• 2:46:56David Sims?

  And this year I decided to add Narnia to the old cauldron. So now I'm reading A Horse and His Boy.

• 2:47:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing like six things at the same time.

• 2:47:04Speaker 03

  That one's weird.

• 2:47:04David Sims?

  That one is weird.

• 2:47:05Speaker 03

  It's weird.

• 2:47:06David Sims?

  It's kind of bracing because you are, because like the first four Narnias, it's basically like C.S. Lewis is like, meet these fucking British kids. I'm like, what are they like? And he's like, they need to go to Narnia. They need to be lying, Jesus.

• 2:47:17Speaker 03

  Horse and His Boy, and there's another one, they're like vaguely Orientalist.

• 2:47:20David Sims?

  Horse and His Boy ain't vaguely Orientalist. That one is extremely Orientalist.

• 2:47:26Speaker 03

  I just reread Gone with the Wind because that was like my favorite book in fifth grade and

• 2:47:29Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 2:47:30Speaker 03

  Let me tell you, it took, nothing else I can think about, but Gone with the Wind. And I was like, oh. I guess growing up in Texas and being eight years old when I read this, the extent of the racism is the the jet fuel that powers this.

• 2:47:45David Sims?

  Right. It's not just background dressing for this one.

• 2:47:49Speaker 03

  The racism is the

• 2:47:50Griffin Newman?

  It's

• 2:47:51Speaker 03

  It's the very air we breathe. It's the juice. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, great book.

• 2:47:56Griffin Newman?

  Is it known what the other two Narnia books Gerwig would be adapting on?

• 2:48:01David Sims?

  Is she planning on doing three?

• 2:48:02Griffin Newman?

  I think they contractually have her to three. I don't know if there's wiggle room for her to be like,

• 2:48:06David Sims?

  I don't, I've decided to hand off.

• 2:48:08Speaker 03

  I hope it's like first, fourth and ninth. Those are whatever it is. Like those are, are there nine?

• 2:48:12David Sims?

  It's like There's seven. She's doing

• 2:48:14Speaker 03

  One, four and seven are the big ones.

• 2:48:15David Sims?

  What she's doing for

• 2:48:17Speaker 03

  With the cousins.

• 2:48:17David Sims?

  Netflix, with the fucking cousins. Again, it's just like, he's like, you meet this cousin. I'm like, okay, what's up with her? Well, she goes to a school where she doesn't learn about Jesus. And I'm like, Let me guess, Aslan's got a roar in her until she fucking gets some manners. It's like, yep.

• 2:48:32Griffin Newman?

  Folding table.

• 2:48:33David Sims?

  Aslan's coming to roar.

• 2:48:34Griffin Newman?

  Ask me about Jesus.

• 2:48:35David Sims?

  And then they're just like, yeah, oh, what's going on with this picture? Oh, we're in fucking Narnia again. Okay, what's going on this time? But they're still good. I mean, the way, the thing I like about them is they sound like he's making them up as he goes along, which is kind of a cool bedside story framing, you know. She's doing The Magician's Nephew, which is the sixth book.

• 2:48:51Speaker 03

  I love that one. I love that one.

• 2:48:53David Sims?

  But is, right, is the chronol, you know, chronologically the first. And I do think it's cool and weird.

• 2:48:57Speaker 03

  Love that book.

• 2:48:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:58Griffin Newman?

  Her deal is-

• 2:48:59Speaker 03

  It's like The Magicians, the Lev Grossman book, which is also really good.

• 2:49:02David Sims?

  Which is also really good.

• 2:49:02Griffin Newman?

  Her deal is specifically two. Contractually, she is supposed to both write and direct two movies.

• 2:49:07David Sims?

  So she'll probably do this, and then I guess the next one would be Lion Witch in the Wardrobe.

• 2:49:12Speaker 03

  No, she should do one of the weird, she should do like Silver Chair or something.

• 2:49:14David Sims?

  Silver Chair is so weird, dude.

• 2:49:16Speaker 03

  That one's actually too like BDSM-y, like-

• 2:49:18David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:49:19Speaker 03

  It's, she should do the one about the ship.

• 2:49:21David Sims?

  That's, that one's really nice, Don Tretter. That one's really fun. That one's very odyssey, very Homeric.

• 2:49:25Speaker 03

  Not that I would know.

• 2:49:27Griffin Newman?

  But that's my big question is, does she circle back to the ones that already were done?

• 2:49:31David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe she's like, and let me know when you get to the seventh one. I'm sure you guys will. See you later. No, I don't.

• 2:49:36Speaker 03

  What's the one that's like, um, speaking of David, what's one that's like Green Knight, where it's like the lady and the-

• 2:49:41David Sims?

  That is, that is, um, The Silver Chair. That's the one where they go into like the subterranean land and there's a guy who's like, don't mind me, I have to be like tied to the silver chair every night and I go insane.

• 2:49:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's so BDSM-y.

• 2:49:52David Sims?

  And they're like, oh, okay. And then he's like, ah, let me out of the chair. Oh, my God, you have to get me out of the chair.

• 2:49:56Speaker 03

  And then the demon, like the snake is a sexy woman, right?

• 2:49:59David Sims?

  The sexy woman is a snake.

• 2:50:00Speaker 03

  Sexy woman, yeah.

• 2:50:01David Sims?

  And I assume if they had made that movie when they, because they were gonna make it, Tilda would have played that role. They would have just had her do it. Okay. Because they never say that it's the same witch, but it's sort of the same vibe. Like another witch.

• 2:50:13Griffin Newman?

  Ella Mackay is the White Witch now?

• 2:50:15David Sims?

  Correct. She'll be good. I mean, she'll be fine. I don't know.

• 2:50:19Griffin Newman?

  Imagine her trying to fix her heel.

• 2:50:20Speaker 03

  Imagine a Lynn Ramsey, like, Don Tretter.

• 2:50:22David Sims?

  That'd be great. She'd be so good at, like, with a budget. You know, no one would ever give her a budget because, like, she's a lot. And-

• 2:50:29Griffin Newman?

  And she makes movies in an unconventional way that scares money people.

• 2:50:32David Sims?

  But like, she'd be cool making like a movie with monsters in it and stuff. She would rock.

• 2:50:36Griffin Newman?

  You could see her- Doing a good little princess style.

• 2:50:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:50:39David Sims?

  Like a Gothic kind of kid's story.

• 2:50:41Griffin Newman?

  Inner life.

• 2:50:42Speaker 03

  Like a secret garden.

• 2:50:43Griffin Newman?

  Of a lonely child.

• 2:50:43Speaker 03

  Like a, like a Lina Ramsey secret garden would be kind of sick. I was reading an interview with her at some point, maybe looking at Kevin stuff and, um, and she was talking about the funding thing. She was like, yeah, hopefully I just signed with an agency. Hopefully someone can get me a perfume commercial. And I was like, damn.

• 2:50:59David Sims?

  Hey, man.

• 2:51:00Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 2:51:00David Sims?

  I get it.

• 2:51:01Speaker 03

  I get it too. I mean.

• 2:51:01David Sims?

  She's got to make that bread, but yeah.

• 2:51:02Griffin Newman?

  It's the thing I always love to say.

• 2:51:04Speaker 03

  But I was like, they should be throwing perfume commercial offers at Lina Ramsey. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, at the very least, she should have a hundred Dior, you know what I mean?

• 2:51:11Griffin Newman?

  That whole world is so weird to me. And you, when you find out which respected filmmakers direct which commercials, it will boggle your brain.

• 2:51:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:51:18Griffin Newman?

  Where like someone told me that like.

• 2:51:20Speaker 03

  It was Sofia Coppola that was busy doing the Dior commercials, so she couldn't, yeah.

• 2:51:22Griffin Newman?

  You know that it's like James Gray directed all the Maybelline commercials for like five years. You're like, there's not a match of style? Like occasionally you'll see a like Wes Anderson commercial where you're like, clearly they like, broke out the checkbook to get Wes Anderson to do his Wes Anderson thing. And other times you're like, Sofia Coppola directed the like, like.

• 2:51:41David Sims?

  Dior.

• 2:51:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:51:42David Sims?

  Right?

• 2:51:43Speaker 03

  But those you can kind of feel, it's like.

• 2:51:44Griffin Newman?

  Those you can feel.

• 2:51:45Speaker 03

  Like Lina Ramsey is doing like the Delta, like, you know, everyone in the seats on the beach.

• 2:51:50Griffin Newman?

  It's more, I guess it's more like you find out that Nancy Meyers directed like a Jeep Grand Cherokee commercial. That's just like the car running through.

• 2:51:57David Sims?

  Todd Field. There's some where you go like, right, that's how they make their money.

• 2:52:00Griffin Newman?

  And they just do the assignment.

• 2:52:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:52:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Jia, thank you for being on here.

• 2:52:04David Sims?

  We gotta get you out of here. This is crazy. I was half an hour late.

• 2:52:06Griffin Newman?

  We're having a great time. Well, that.

• 2:52:08David Sims?

  That was a fuck up, I mean.

• 2:52:09Griffin Newman?

  I, I would never do something like that. Jia, anything you want to plug?

• 2:52:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:52:13Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:52:14David Sims?

  Not at all?

• 2:52:14Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:52:15David Sims?

  Wow.

• 2:52:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:52:16David Sims?

  You don't have like a podcast?

• 2:52:19David Sims?

  You do plenty of work, I guess it is. You're always doing the coolest shit.

• 2:52:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna plug the, the Jennifer Lawrence profile.

• 2:52:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I guess I did kind of write about Lina a bit.

• 2:52:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Which is, I think, good reading for any listener getting ready to watch, uh.

• 2:52:32David Sims?

  I'm really.

• 2:52:32Speaker 03

  No, I'm, no, I'm, no.

• 2:52:34Griffin Newman?

  Nothing.

• 2:52:35David Sims?

  I think it was too weird a movie.

• 2:52:36Speaker 03

  Crowded race.

• 2:52:36David Sims?

  Crowded race.

• 2:52:37Speaker 03

  I do think she's really good in it.

• 2:52:39David Sims?

  I think she's so good in it. I'm really into what she's clearly gearing up for right now. You know what I mean? Like this being the start of whatever. Phase in her career she's interested in doing. And she's with you and like in press stuff, it's just like, she's so fucking funny. Like, and then not in an annoying way anymore.

• 2:52:56Griffin Newman?

  The big thing.

• 2:52:56David Sims?

  She's very self-aware.

• 2:52:57Speaker 03

  She's too, like, I had so much material from that piece that like, there's like an entire different piece I could have written. That was the, you know, the kind of piece that I have written before for Vogue where it's like, you know, I mean, she has so much, her personality is so high octane and so that like, you could have filled it with just like, ah, can you believe it? She's so beautiful and she says this, you know, like.

• 2:53:19Griffin Newman?

  But that entire profile was just like, just gold everywhere.

• 2:53:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I was like, okay, let me try to write a profile of Jennifer Lawrence that isn't about her amazing personality. Because it's like, we all know she's unbelievably charming and she, and it was almost like with me, she was trying to be less because she knows, like anytime we would see each other off record, it was a, like, her, her, she was free to be as charming as she actually is.

• 2:53:39Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying not to play into the Jennifer Lawrence thing.

• 2:53:41Speaker 03

  And what a, what a horrible thing to have to do.

• 2:53:43Griffin Newman?

  The public got tired because of overexposure.

• 2:53:45Speaker 03

  But just because I'm actually like that. Like she is, like, what a painful thing to actually be like that.

• 2:53:50Griffin Newman?

  Like after that profile, she just started like doing it everywhere and everyone was like, oh, right, this rules. And there's a frustrating disconnect of then it not leading to anyone going to see the movie. But all of those interviews she did over the last five months, you're just like, right, she is like the most powerful movie star. And just like pure raw charisma and like, no one's more interesting than her.

• 2:54:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like watching her face, like, like she, she never articulates what she's thinking or feeling once in that movie. And did you guys like Pattinson in the movie or no?

• 2:54:19David Sims?

  I felt like he was in service of the movie. I didn't love his performance because it did not feel like the guy he's supposed to be.

• 2:54:27Griffin Newman?

  I think if that character were a little more cracked, I'd be like, this movie, 10 out of 10, perfect.

• 2:54:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. I feel like there were script issues with the, just the situation of them.

• 2:54:35Griffin Newman?

  It just feels a little unsettled.

• 2:54:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:37David Sims?

  He's just way too handsome and interesting to be doing that.

• 2:54:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:42David Sims?

  I get that. Again, I think Pattinson's probably like, no, no, no, I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. I am happy to be second banana here. I'm happy to fuck around, but I'm just kind of like, I'm interested in you.

• 2:54:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:52David Sims?

  And in the movie, like, we're not really allowed to be that interested in him.

• 2:54:55Griffin Newman?

  He could more easily play. The J Law character in a wig than play just like a guy who's like, maybe I get into like

• 2:55:01David Sims?

  Drinking beer on my porch.

• 2:55:03Speaker 03

  With unspecified part time like truck stop job.

• 2:55:08David Sims?

  She's like, I think you're having an affair with him. I'm like, he's fucking, of course, he's Robert Pattinson in like rural Montana.

• 2:55:14Speaker 03

  You see seven different condom brands in the, in the, in the thing.

• 2:55:17David Sims?

  Like he's being a

• 2:55:19Griffin Newman?

  He's just in his wire cutter phase. He's trying to figure out which ones to

• 2:55:22Speaker 03

  To try on with not you.

• 2:55:24Griffin Newman?

  No, just put them on in the bathroom.

• 2:55:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the butter.

• 2:55:27Griffin Newman?

  Throw them out with the butter. This tall, mess and cock. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for You Were Never Really Here, my favorite.

• 2:55:40David Sims?

  Yeah, with Sean Clemens.

• 2:55:41Griffin Newman?

  Our buddy Sean Clemens, the Clem Dog.

• 2:55:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:43Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me on, guys.

• 2:55:44Griffin Newman?

  Oh, such a pleasure.

• 2:55:45David Sims?

  Come on back.

• 2:55:45Griffin Newman?

  So long overdue.

• 2:55:47David Sims?

  I mean, you don't have to. Maybe you had a horrible experience.

• 2:55:49Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know any of the movies in the box office.

• 2:55:50David Sims?

  Oh, please. We'll find something.

• 2:55:52Griffin Newman?

  We'll find something. And as always, I just want to call out that on the IMDB page for We Need To Talk About Kevin, in the FAQ section, the top question is, is Kevin a psychopath? And the answer is yes.

• 2:56:09David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:56:13David Sims?

  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 Bardy 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

• 2:56:57David Sims?

  episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.