Picnic at Hanging Rock with Jane Schoenbrun

On St. Valentine's Day in 1900, a group of podcasters set out to record an episode about Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock. Some were never to return...because they got addicted to the calming sounds of pan flute! Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun joins us to chat about this 1975 classic of Australian cinema, and we're getting into the eerie qualities that make this film such an enduring mystery. From Rachel Roberts' wig drama to frame rate manipulation...from the Aboriginal concept of "dream time" to the casting of actual private school girls...there's much to unpack. But don't worry, we also spend a lot of time discussing The Grabber from The Black Phone 2. Check out Jane's Dream Film Syllabus https://syllabusproject.org/dream-film-syllabus/ Watch the Virgin Suicides Zoom Reunion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVfdxMOqwcE&t=535s Read Australian Gothic: Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ at 50 by Tim Pelan https://cinephiliabeyond.org/picnic-at-hanging-rock/ Check out Jane's Sully Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/mysullyfanart Pre-Order Jane's Book Public Access Afterworld https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/782105/public-access-afterworld-by-jane-schoenbrun/ Pan flute accompaniment composed and performed by Alex Mitchell https://www.alexmitchellmusic.com/band 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.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

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

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 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.

• 1:10Speaker 03

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

• 1:38Griffin Newman?

  On St. Valentine's Day in 1900, a party of schoolgirls set out to podcast at Hanging Rock. Some were never to return.

• 1:48David Sims?

  That's the tagline.

• 1:48Griffin Newman?

  That's the tagline.

• 1:50David Sims?

  Apart from podcasts.

• 1:50Griffin Newman?

  This original poster, I think, is quite beautiful.

• 1:54David Sims?

  It's so good.

• 1:55Griffin Newman?

  But it is funny how much that tagline frames it.

• 1:58David Sims?

  How do you not want to see that movie?

• 1:58Griffin Newman?

  As so much more of a horror film.

• 2:01David Sims?

  Well, of course.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:02David Sims?

  But I love. The pink border.

• 2:05Griffin Newman?

  It's really.

• 2:05David Sims?

  I just think it's so good.

• 2:07Griffin Newman?

  It actually sells the aesthetics of the movie pretty well.

• 2:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  It visually represents.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  I didn't Google, or I think I clicked through on Wikipedia. Saint Valentine's Day. I was like, what is Saint Valentine's Day?

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  Is it different?

• 2:20Speaker 04

  No, it's just Valentine's Day.

• 2:24David Sims?

  Honors the Roman saint, Saint Valentine, guys. You guys, you know, we gotta, we gotta give it up for her.

• 2:29Griffin Newman?

  I, I, excuse me, I celebrate an agnostic Valentine's Day. The only god I respect on Valentine's Day is the Lord of Hallmark.

• 2:38David Sims?

  Okay, well, do you know who, um, what Saint Valentine is the patron saint of?

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  Fucking?

• 2:43David Sims?

  No.

• 2:44Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:44David Sims?

  Logistics.

• 2:46Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me?

• 2:47David Sims?

  Epilepsy and beekeeping.

• 2:49Griffin Newman?

  May I ask how the fuck this guy got the romance holiday? Cause this guy sounds like a bore.

• 2:55David Sims?

  He died in the year two seventy-three. I don't think he really knew this was all gonna happen.

• 3:00Griffin Newman?

  Offense to our epileptic listeners.

• 3:02David Sims?

  No, I just don't know why that.

• 3:04Griffin Newman?

  Isn't there like a more romantic saint? Isn't there like a Saint Pepe Le Pew or something? A character who has never done anything wrong. Pepe Le Pew, can I defend him? Twenty twenty-six?

• 3:14David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, he's back. He's back.

• 3:16David Sims?

  Is Pepe back?

• 3:17Speaker 04

  He's back.

• 3:17David Sims?

  Because, uh, cause woke died, so Pepe returned.

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  He's got a podcast on the gas network. He's headlining Skank Fest.

• 3:26David Sims?

  Here's my thing about.

• 3:27Griffin Newman?

  Also, Pepe the Frog is back, yeah.

• 3:29David Sims?

  I never liked Pepe Le Pew when I was a kid because I always found those, uh, those, uh, cartoons boring.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  There's another one of these.

• 3:39David Sims?

  Yeah, and it's like, okay, he's gonna try and kiss the, you know, street lamp or whatever it is that he's obsessed with this time, right?

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, no, excuse me, excuse me. He's trying to kiss a cat.

• 3:48David Sims?

  It's always the same cat?

• 3:49Griffin Newman?

  Who he thinks is a skunk.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  Or like, he's a street lamp and then he's too dumb to recognize that he's kissing a street lamp. Now that we're breaking it down, it, it's kind of very funny.

• 4:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, that's good.

• 4:02David Sims?

  It's actually really good.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  And I remember. Yeah, the paint, the paint on the tail.

• 4:08Griffin Newman?

  The paint was the good bit.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:10Griffin Newman?

  Um, I do think there was perhaps a conceptual flaw in the format where like Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  They had something to do. You could, you could do some variations on a theme.

• 4:23Griffin Newman?

  Change the exact word I was gonna use. Even if the structure was the same every time, the variation of the traps and the devices was huge. Pepe Le Pew, it's always the same cat.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  She's got like three moves and the more they bring them back, the more you just feel terrible for her.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  This hell she's living in.

• 4:41David Sims?

  Sure. Well, then fuck it. Pepe is canceled.

• 4:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay, we're gonna cancel Pepe.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  The Ice King is a post Pepe Le Pew cartoon character.

• 4:49Griffin Newman?

  You're saying Adventure Time?

• 4:50David Sims?

  Adventure Time. A great character.

• 4:52Griffin Newman?

  I like this take. Cause he's like incel Pepe.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing. He's, he's just kidnapping princesses.

• 4:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:00David Sims?

  But he's, he's got the sort of, I know we learned his backstory later, but current Ice King has the kind of, the deep insecurity, right? He's always shaking.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:09David Sims?

  Right? I loved Adventure Time. I admit, I have not thought about it in quite a long time.

• 5:14Griffin Newman?

  That might be an interesting one to throw at your daughter.

• 5:16David Sims?

  Uh, she, uh, she has tried it and she digs it, but it obviously disturbs her because Adventure Time's like, you know.

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  At a certain point, it becomes for adults.

• 5:26David Sims?

  Right, exactly. And, uh, my wife actually forbade me from showing it to her.

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 5:31David Sims?

  Because she was like, this is too disturbing right now. And my daughter was pretty interested in it, but I think we'll wait a year or two.

• 5:38Griffin Newman?

  She's also like deep into watching The Wire right now, right? You gotta finish that off.

• 5:41David Sims?

  Trolls World Tour is the one.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  What does she think about, uh, season two?

• 5:45David Sims?

  Of The Wire?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:46David Sims?

  She's like, why do I have to care about the sabbac? And then later she's like, you know what? Season two might be the best one. The journey everyone goes on with The Wire.

• 5:54Griffin Newman?

  Did you go through, I guess world tours too. Did you do the first Trolls?

• 5:58David Sims?

  She watched the first Trolls once. She loves Trolls World, World, something I really struggle to say.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Trolls World War?

• 6:04David Sims?

  Trolls World Tour because she loves the hard rock trolls. She loves the villainous, uh, you know, uh, heavy metal trolls.

• 6:12Griffin Newman?

  Rachel Bloom?

• 6:12David Sims?

  Rachel Bloom and Ozzy Osbourne. R.I.P.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  The minions are from a different, they're not in.

• 6:18David Sims?

  They are.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  They're not in that one.

• 6:19David Sims?

  So what Trolls is about a bunch of trolls.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Troll dolls.

• 6:23David Sims?

  Who sing, and then Trolls World Tour reveals that there are genres of trolls based on the kind of music that they sing, and the trolls we know are the pop trolls.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:32David Sims?

  But there's also classical trolls, country trolls, heavy metal trolls, techno trolls, funk trolls.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Was this post or pre Barbie?

• 6:40David Sims?

  It's.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Pre?

• 6:41David Sims?

  Pre Barbie.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 6:42David Sims?

  And the heavy metal trolls are trying to take over and turn all music into heavy metal.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Oh, that's fun.

• 6:47David Sims?

  Which is very.

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  Trolls?

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Oh, wait. What about, I feel like this is also like Spider, Spider-verse.

• 6:53David Sims?

  It's got a little of that.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  It's post Spider-verse, but it's just post?

• 6:58Griffin Newman?

  The big legacy of Trolls World Tour, already semi-forgotten, was it was the Canary and the Coal Mine.

• 7:04David Sims?

  It was the first straight to streaming.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  That's right, I remember that.

• 7:06Griffin Newman?

  It was supposed to come out end of March, and it was the first movie, like, 10 days into lockdown, that studios announced, this will be a $30 rental on Apple tomorrow.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  They probably made a ton of money.

• 7:19David Sims?

  I think they made a ton of money.

• 7:20Griffin Newman?

  Tremendous amount of money.

• 7:21David Sims?

  And now my daughter watches it on Peacock about twice a day.

• 7:24Griffin Newman?

  Wow, it sounds like you're living through a really fun time.

• 7:29David Sims?

  It's a little annoying.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  For some people, the pandemic is never-ending.

• 7:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you're stuck in pandemic hell.

• 7:36David Sims?

  It's okay, it's okay. I don't mind Trolls World Tour, although I do mind saying it.

• 7:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's terrible.

• 7:43David Sims?

  Um, welcome to Blank Check, uh, with Griffin and David.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Who the fuck are you? What is this?

• 7:47David Sims?

  I'm one of the hosts.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  You don't say that?

• 7:49David Sims?

  Well, you say it then.

• 7:51Griffin Newman?

  Can you say please?

• 7:52David Sims?

  Yes, please.

• 7:54Griffin Newman?

  This is Blank Check, a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby, one time we covered the first Trolls movie on Patreon. This is a mini-series on the films of Peter Weir. At David's insistence, it is called Podnik at Hanging Cast.

• 8:18David Sims?

  That's right.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  Because David thought podnik was a really funny word.

• 8:21David Sims?

  I don't think it's funny.

• 8:23Griffin Newman?

  I thought.

• 8:23David Sims?

  Podnik.

• 8:24Griffin Newman?

  Podster and castmander, the pod side of the cast.

• 8:27David Sims?

  Too much bullshit.

• 8:29Griffin Newman?

  That's a supreme slice of pizza. That's all the toppings.

• 8:31David Sims?

  Yeah, don't look at it.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Dead podcast society, simple.

• 8:35David Sims?

  Very, that's very melancholy, that makes you want to sit by the fire.

• 8:37Griffin Newman?

  It's powerful.

• 8:38David Sims?

  Or stand on a desk.

• 8:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  A noble tier.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Was that a big movie for you? You've mentioned it twice already.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  No, no, not at all, actually. Yeah, I've seen it once and I've seen it years ago. I just think Peter Weir is such an interesting, he's a weird, weird one.

• 8:55David Sims?

  He's a weird one.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  And I have to admit.

• 8:57David Sims?

  Kind of works in every genre, kind of couldn't pin him down.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  This is me being, I guess, reverse racist. I can't wait to hear this.

• 9:04David Sims?

  So thrilled for what I'm in this.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Cannot wait to hear this. I always get his filmography confused with Nicholas Rogues filmography.

• 9:12David Sims?

  Well, that's interesting. And I don't think that's reverse racist. It is kind of, what is the commonality between those two guys? They're just, they feel like guys who wear cravats but are freaks.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  There's something like Aboriginal going on.

• 9:27David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Or like, I think it's Walkabout is maybe the key.

• 9:32David Sims?

  You're thinking of Walkabout?

• 9:34Speaker 04

  That makes a lot of sense. And I'm thinking about like, there's this thing especially in the, because then I looked up the Peter Weir filmography and I was like, oh, I can't talk about, what's the one with Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe? Perform, no, not Performance.

• 9:48David Sims?

  Performance is one. Eureka?

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Eureka. No, no, not Eureka.

• 9:53Griffin Newman?

  No, it's not called Conversation. It's called.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  These are all movies, though.

• 9:57Griffin Newman?

  They are.

• 9:58David Sims?

  I'm gonna find it.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  That movie rocks.

• 10:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  But.

• 10:03Griffin Newman?

  That's one of the more quietly insane movies ever made.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  I think they.

• 10:06David Sims?

  Insignificance is the film.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Wonderful name, too.

• 10:10David Sims?

  And it was.

• 10:10Griffin Newman?

  Easy to remember.

• 10:11David Sims?

  Of course, Teresa Russell, I think, is Marilyn Monroe.

• 10:15Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 10:16David Sims?

  Gary Busey as, I think, Joe DiMaggio?

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Where have you gone, Gary Busey?

• 10:23David Sims?

  Who played DiMaggio in Blonde?

• 10:26Griffin Newman?

  In Blonde?

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Also Gary Busey.

• 10:28David Sims?

  They brought him back.

• 10:29Griffin Newman?

  Wasn't it Adrian Brody? No.

• 10:31David Sims?

  Was it?

• 10:33Griffin Newman?

  I remember thinking they got DiMaggio wrong.

• 10:38Griffin Newman?

  In Blonde, Gary Busey was Albert Einstein.

• 10:42David Sims?

  In Blonde, Gary Busey did come back. Is Gary Busey alive, or did he recently leave us?

• 10:46Speaker 04

  He's alive.

• 10:46Griffin Newman?

  He's alive, but let's just say, this episode's a month away.

• 10:50David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  As is Peter Weir.

• 10:52David Sims?

  Peter Weir is alive, retired, and I truly think like gardening and chilling out.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:57David Sims?

  Yeah, he seems to be taking it easy.

• 10:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. What was I gonna say? So, I think, I think the, because there's this thing, especially in like the Australian Peter Weir movies, at least the ones that I've seen, where there's like, there's like something grotesque, or there's some kind of like, like, like the guy from the, what's the plumber one?

• 11:17David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  The guy, the plumber, the plumber, the titular plumber.

• 11:20David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  I feel like I relate that to the like, there's a lot of that kind of guy in, in the Nicholas Rogue movies too.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Nicholas Rogue is like, I think, a classic dang ass freak through and through. Whereas Peter Weir, for a guy who became-

• 11:34David Sims?

  He left it behind a little bit.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  He left it behind, that's what's interesting.

• 11:37Griffin Newman?

  I do think there's a baseline darkness to his movies though.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 11:41Griffin Newman?

  I think part of what was good was he was able to jump over to Hollywood and work with big stars, but what they appreciated was that he brought a surprising amount of edge and depth and darkness.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  And in this way, there's a little bit of like Milos.

• 11:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Another guy like that.

• 11:56Griffin Newman?

  There is, he does have a kind of bifurcated, the Australian half and the Hollywood half of his career. This is absolutely his guarantor in the terms that we usually apply on this podcast.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  This film.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  This film.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  His, his second feature film, which is basically canonically accepted in Australian culture as the great Australian movie.

• 12:15David Sims?

  I think it was named the number one Australian movie in some survey.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Is that true?

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:20David Sims?

  Uh, I can, I can-

• 12:21Speaker 04

  More than a Mad Max or a Heavenly Creatures?

• 12:24David Sims?

  I guess the question is, right, now we're, now we get into the question of what's the competition?

• 12:28Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a little bit because this is seen as the supreme artistic achievement.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:33Griffin Newman?

  And, uh, Ben and I were watching some of the special features, producer Ben and I, on the Second Sight box set, and they, Weir was talking about that in the sort of reconstructed Australian new wave in cinema, they had like- Comedy breakthroughs. Mad Max, of course, is semi-inspired by The Cars That Ate Paris and comes after We're, but kind of concurrent in this time. Uh, but they were like succeeding in genre. They were succeeding in character-based comedy. And there was this feeling in the industry of can we identify our Ingmar Bergman? Can we have our like elevated auteur who we can point to the other countries and go, we got a guy? And this movie was sort of received as, I think we finally have.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  We have found that we found our guy.

• 13:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then, you know, Noise and other people come out kind of like simultaneous with him. But I think this is culturally seen as such an important breakthrough of kind of serious legitimacy.

• 13:31David Sims?

  I mean, who, who are, I mean, George Miller, obviously, we mentioned him. Who are the other big guys? Baz.

• 13:39Griffin Newman?

  Baz.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  Is Alex Proust Australian?

• 13:41Griffin Newman?

  He is.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:42Griffin Newman?

  He comes later.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  He's a little later.

• 13:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:44David Sims?

  Um.

• 13:45Griffin Newman?

  Let's see, who's identified as part of the Australian new wave?

• 13:49Speaker 04

  I feel like Waken Fright has been maybe reclaimed as a significant one.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  But he's interesting because that's Ted Kotcheff. He jumps over to America very quickly and then does like First Blood.

• 14:02David Sims?

  Yeah, he does like trashier stuff.

• 14:03Griffin Newman?

  Dallas 40.

• 14:05David Sims?

  Waken Fright is really cool though. That's like, but like that's, there are those Australian movies that would pass over that were basically like, you know, Australia is basically just like a burning wasteland filled with like people with sticks who will hit you. Yeah, people were like, I guess it is, right? You know, like the, uh, uh, and then Paul Hogan comes over and he's like, no, we're just a bunch of mates who love to have a big beer, you know, like there was that.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  Gillian Armstrong, yes, is part of that same wave, but I think a lot of.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  The Leftovers, season three.

• 14:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I do think, uh, Peter Weir, uh, kind of stands out as the guy who made the translation over to the studio system the best, as I was saying, right? Philip Noyce becomes first and foremost kind of like hired hand, elevated, adult thriller guy.

• 14:53David Sims?

  Thriller guy.

• 14:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. Um. Damon Lindelof has cited this film.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  Big Nick in Hanging Rock. That's right. I read that, actually. Season two of The Leftovers.

• 15:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And that's the other thing about this movie is like, the cultural tale of its influence on other major works is humongous.

• 15:11David Sims?

  Sure.

• 15:11Griffin Newman?

  This feels like such a turning point movie of helping to define.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  It's a fascinating, I was, I watched this movie for the first time. Hi, I'm Jane, by the way.

• 15:22David Sims?

  Yeah, I was about to say, Griff, who's our guest?

• 15:24Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is Jane Schomburg, returning to the show for the second time, director of I Saw the TV Glow.

• 15:30David Sims?

  We're all going to the World's Fair.

• 15:32Griffin Newman?

  We're all going to the World's Fair. The title of your next film is?

• 15:35Speaker 04

  It's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 15:38Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna get like 60% of that right, but I didn't wanna make it.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Somebody said teenage death camp.

• 15:44Griffin Newman?

  This is why I didn't wanna take the shot.

• 15:46David Sims?

  That sounds touchy. That sounds like we could be going in the wrong direction.

• 15:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:52David Sims?

  I definitely would have just said like Camp Miasma. I would have not been sure.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Camp Miasma for short. There was a moment early in like production or prep when some emails were being sent in. They were just being sent with the shorthand teenage sex. And I said, you know what? Go with Camp Miasma.

• 16:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Have you figured out what the acronym is? Is there a catchy kind of?

• 16:14David Sims?

  Tz.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, no, it's great.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  It's even better than ist.

• 16:22Griffin Newman?

  You have some good, yeah.

• 16:23David Sims?

  Yeah. But then your TV Glow, you could just call it TV Glow?

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:26David Sims?

  Or you could call it.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  It's Miasma. We, you know, we've been saying Miasma.

• 16:31David Sims?

  You do have a long title.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  I have been accused of this and, you know.

• 16:35Griffin Newman?

  You have things to say and you're gonna start saying them at the title.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Where does it come from? I think it comes from like Godspeed You Black Emperor album, you know? It's like, good.

• 16:44David Sims?

  Lift your skinny fingers to heaven.

• 16:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:47David Sims?

  Uh, or whatever that song was called. Uh, or album. Um, remember, um, Death from Above 1979?

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Sure, sure.

• 16:54David Sims?

  Remember them?

• 16:54Griffin Newman?

  They were great.

• 16:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  But Jane, thank you for coming here. Thank you for doing this episode. I.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  I'm stoked.

• 17:00Griffin Newman?

  We were trying to find the right person for this one because it feels like such a big one. And I forget what it was I stumbled upon first, but you citing this as kind of like an important.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Synthesizing of kind of dream language in cinema, in a modern way.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  What I was gonna say is I feel like I had this period in my twenties where like I took my like. Kind of like random film video, like video store teenage year film nerd-dom. And I was like, okay, I gotta like, if, if I'm gonna go toe to toe with like the boys at Metrograph, I gotta, you know, I gotta, I gotta watch them all.

• 17:36Griffin Newman?

  You gotta level up.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  I gotta, they shoot pictures, don't they? Top 1,000, uh, and just like work my way down. And, um, and this was very early in that for me. Like, I watched this one like pretty early on in like learning film history in the canon. And this was like an early one where I was like, whoa, there are films like this from the seventies?

• 17:56David Sims?

  What's interesting about it, cause I also like first watched it probably in college or whatever is like, it's so hooky.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:01David Sims?

  Like premise.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:02David Sims?

  That you, you do, like, there's no barrier to entry with this movie. Cause you're like, oh, fuck, what this is a mystery. And then you watch it and you're left with a completely different set of feelings than what you might've imagined of like, it's definitely not about like, you know, trying to figure out where the girls went in a meaningful way. Like, it's not a practical film in any sense.

• 18:22Griffin Newman?

  We'll dig into this further, but the great anecdote that Peter Weir tells about showing the film to an American distributor for the first time after it had like broken out in Australia and it was buzzy title. And the movie ends and the guy throws a cup of coffee at the screen.

• 18:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:36Griffin Newman?

  And goes, there's no fucking answer?

• 18:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Griffin Newman?

  But that's the whole reason he wanted to make the movie. The, the dream film syllabus that you wrote.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:47David Sims?

  So what was this for? Was this for TV Glow or was it just a general?

• 18:50Speaker 04

  This was before, I mean, maybe even before, yeah, this was definitely before TV Glow. A friend who had, had a site, I think called Syllabus.

• 18:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the syllabusproject.org.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. I was asked to write a syllabus of my choosing. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna write a short syllabus of movies that I think, I think I called it like the Onerik. You know, like, uh, film, film language.

• 19:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  And it, yeah, I would update it if I was, if I was writing it now.

• 19:16Griffin Newman?

  But I, I, I mean, I, I had seen this when I was, uh, scanning for potential guests. I hadn't looked at it in so long.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  I'm glad you did.

• 19:23Griffin Newman?

  And looking at this list again now, these were the things I was thinking about. Many of the titles I was thinking about while watching this, trying to understand. Or kind of place where this movie comes from. No, because, no, this is the point you were making, which I think is correct, which is like, there was a kind of dream logic that existed primarily in the silent cinema, when it was harder to tell more conventional narratives, because you didn't have dialogue, and things tended to be more visually expressionistic and dreamlike. And then there was a sort of formalizing and a normalizing of stories, that it does feel like Picnic at Hanging Rock started to break again. And to like, because you put in here like Trip to the Moon, Cabinet Dr. Calgari and Shangal

• 20:05Griffin Newman?

  Andalou, Meshes of the Afternoon, like, there is something very indebted to that era.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 20:12Griffin Newman?

  And I think like the Jean Vigo movies, which have sound, obviously.

• 20:15David Sims?

  The best movies ever made.

• 20:16Griffin Newman?

  But that's like, people watch those now and they're like, when the fuck was this made? Why, this feels so modern? And things start to get more narrow right after that.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  That's the golden age of like Cocteau and all those guys too.

• 20:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  But I agree that, that, um, looking at this movie now, like, I was thinking a lot about Antonioni, right? Like, this is like La Ventura.

• 20:38David Sims?

  It's La Ventura, but where people vanish.

• 20:40Speaker 04

  It's like La Ventura meets The Wicker Man.

• 20:43David Sims?

  Yeah, which, like, fuck, yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. No, totally. Yeah.

• 20:47Griffin Newman?

  But like.

• 20:47David Sims?

  Plus Australian accents, which just like, La Ventura will always have black and white and Italian in its back pocket, where you're like, this is classy. Whereas Australians, you're always like, this is earthier, because like, the way people talk in Australia is just feels different.

• 21:01Griffin Newman?

  But I think that's part of the fascinating juxtaposition of this movie, where you're like, oh, it's like dainty, upper-class, Australian period film.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:10Griffin Newman?

  At a time where everything else that coming out of the Australian new wave was like, earthy for first and foremost, like, dirty, ragged. Uh, there's an oddness to like, from a distance, is this a Merchant Ivory movie? And you're like, no, there's that like Australian chaos to it. Um, yeah, and like, there's, obviously, the line from this to all of Sofia Coppola's work is so direct and so short, straight to just like Virgin Suicides being her first movie.

• 21:42David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 21:43Griffin Newman?

  Feel so, not iterative of this, but influenced by this, and she has cited it as being like a big turning point movie for her. But I also think Malik is like on the same spectrum as this. And obviously is, is just a couple of years away.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  I thought of Memoria.

• 22:00Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Watching this movie?

• 22:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:02David Sims?

  That's maybe the other best movie ever made.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:04David Sims?

  Am I crazy?

• 22:05Speaker 04

  I love Memoria.

• 22:06David Sims?

  That movie is the best movie ever made.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  Certainly of the decade.

• 22:10David Sims?

  I should have put it on my Sight and Sound list. Like, what was I doing?

• 22:12Griffin Newman?

  I've shared my fuck up with that movie, right?

• 22:15David Sims?

  What?

• 22:16Griffin Newman?

  I went to-

• 22:16David Sims?

  Had it on mute?

• 22:17Griffin Newman?

  No. Even worse. I went to see it with an ex-girlfriend at the Almo Drafthouse. That is the worst movie to see as a dining experience.

• 22:27David Sims?

  God bless, yeah.

• 22:28Griffin Newman?

  God forbid an emotionally charged, are we getting back together?

• 22:31David Sims?

  Crunching my-

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  Or is this the end of everything?

• 22:33David Sims?

  Mozzarella sticks.

• 22:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It was like a reconnection point that ended with me, uh, bad night. Anyway.

• 22:38David Sims?

  That movie made me want to just run into the street. I was so happy with the ending. I was, yeah.

• 22:43Griffin Newman?

  Instead, I was just like very self-conscious about when I took bites of my chicken tenders.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  But this is a weird one. Like, this like feels like sci-fi, right? Like Picnic and Hanging Rock.

• 22:52David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  At moments. It is really flirting with that.

• 22:55Griffin Newman?

  It was one of the Coen Brothers movies where you said this, David, and I've thought about it a lot, where it's like-

• 23:00David Sims?

  Great point by me.

• 23:01Griffin Newman?

  Well, wait until you hear what it is. The point was, I'm big and smart. Um, no, the point was you said something like, this movie just feels like it has the answers.

• 23:13David Sims?

  What movie was I referring to?

• 23:14Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember. It might have been Lebowski.

• 23:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 23:16Griffin Newman?

  But these movies that somehow feel like, is there more going on? Is it like retaining secrets? It's not sharing with me? And beyond the fact that this movie is like pointedly unsolved.

• 23:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 23:28Griffin Newman?

  I think there's something to watching this where you're like, is this religious? Is this supernatural? Is it existential? Is it all of them?

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Is it like, there's something of like, like the sixties and the seventies, you know, there's something of like that generational moment that it's coming at the end of.

• 23:45Griffin Newman?

  But there's something really magical to a movie like this where you're like- You watch it and you get the feeling of confidence that it knows what it's about, but it's just not telling you. Versus sometimes, I think, when people try to affect the style of a movie like this from the outside in, and you're like, you're just being vague.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  There's the Lynch quote where he says, um, I wanted it to feel like the answer was like in the next room over.

• 24:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, perfect way of saying it. Yeah.

• 24:15David Sims?

  Isn't it crazy, though, to watch the John Vigo movies, all like one and a half of them?

• 24:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:20David Sims?

  And just be like, this, this was the best it ever got. Like, and not like a pessimistic way, just in a kind of like, oh, yeah, this is right. It was all there pretty early and we've never beaten it. That's how I feel about them.

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  I dropped out of film school very quickly, but my favorite teacher in my very short period of time was a guy named Gary Mayers at Cal Arts, who, uh, before screening us, Lot's a Lot said, uh, if, what was his phrasing? It was something, I'll paraphrase this, but it was something to the effect of if, uh, 1% of movies were 1% of, as good as Lot's a Lot, every year, we would be living in a perpetual golden age of cinema.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Jesus Christ.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  I think there, I think it's like, um, like who is, like, and I do feel that relationship between, um, La Ventura and this film, where like, like La, it's like, it's how I feel about the Blair Witch Project also, which is like, you did, you weren't like, let's make a found footage movie. You were, you were like, let's make a movie and here's like, like, like you invented the language and so.

• 25:24David Sims?

  Yeah, without even totally meaning.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  How I feel about like Elliott Smith's songs versus like, uh, like, like a litany of like other singer songwriters who are sort of like occupying a genre. You know, there's like something, um, like, like it, it was inside him and then everyone else copied it or something.

• 25:41Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  And, and.

• 25:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  La Ventura to Picnic at Hanging Rock. Cause I feel like I don't watch this movie and, and maybe it's just that I know we're not going to get the mystery solved, but La Ventura is like the essence of that. Like, what if the third act didn't come?

• 25:55David Sims?

  Right, yes, right, right. What if it's like, and that's that and. I leave you with your thoughts, like not with an answer or a explanation.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Whereas this almost feels like it's like playing in that genre, like that genre existed for this. So this could swim and run and make it a little sci fi.

• 26:12Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also that like.

• 26:13David Sims?

  Feels like a simulation sometimes.

• 26:15Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 26:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  Something to the fact that it is so seismic stylistically and in terms of what like contributes to the modern film language, and yet unlike what you're talking about, someone like Malik or Antonioni or Sofia Coppola or Elliott Smith or whoever, where you're like, this is the only way they would know how to make something. They're not looking to break the form. This is just the purest expression of the way they view the world and their emotional landscape and all of that. You get into the making of this movie and Peter Weir like just breaks it down logically. This is not a style that's really shared by any of his other films. He gets there incrementally in terms of problem solving, the best way to adapt this novel and like serve the material

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  and also make something that is sellable and ends up sort of like.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Stumbling into this.

• 27:07Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's like the guy who like creates silly putty while trying to remove wallpaper glue or whatever. Yeah.

• 27:14David Sims?

  Blair Witch Project is actually, it is a great comparison to this movie also because it is another movie that you watch where you're like, this isn't real, right? Cause like, my wife was like, is this based on a true story? And I'm like, no, like people didn't vanish like in like a mystical way, but you watch it and you're like, this is a real thing that happened in Australian history.

• 27:35Griffin Newman?

  It, it feels weirdly real and there also was the cultural reputation that preceded this movie of the book being framed almost as like a mini Fargo. Is this real?

• 27:45David Sims?

  Right. Like what inspired this?

• 27:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:47David Sims?

  God, Blair Witch is the best. How do we, I guess we would do the series on Patreon.

• 27:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what we've talked about.

• 27:53David Sims?

  It's a weird movie to talk over, but yeah, anyway.

• 27:56Griffin Newman?

  I can do it. Watch.

• 27:58David Sims?

  All right. We're not doing Blair Witch. I still maintain the scariest stuff in Blair Witch is at the beginning. I don't, or maybe that's crazy, but it, I do, I love that movie.

• 28:09Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 28:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:21Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 28:24David Sims?

  Is that the Cinehas cow?

• 28:26Griffin Newman?

  The Cinehas cow is back.

• 28:26David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 28:28Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:33David Sims?

  Okay.

• 28:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:38David Sims?

  Wow.

• 28:39Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 28:41David Sims?

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

• 28:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:59David Sims?

  Yes.

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 29:01David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:08David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 29:09Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:11David Sims?

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

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:16David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:18David Sims?

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

• 29:22Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 29:23David Sims?

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

• 29:25Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 29:26David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 29:28Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 29:29David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 29:30Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 29:31David 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.

• 29:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:56David Sims?

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

• 30:00Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 30:02Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 30:12David Sims?

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

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:35Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 30:35David Sims?

  Yes?

• 30:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:40David Sims?

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

• 30:45Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 30:47David Sims?

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

• 30:54Griffin 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.

• 31:03David 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.

• 31:26Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals, and checkout fast, all at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 31:58David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 31:58Griffin 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.

• 32:06David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 32:07Griffin 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.

• 32:15David Sims?

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

• 32:21Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:21David Sims?

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

• 32:28Griffin Newman?

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

• 32:31David Sims?

  No!

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 32:33David Sims?

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

• 33:22David Sims?

  I'm going to open the dossier about Picnic at Hanging Rock. Lady Joan Lindsay wrote this book. She was a painter. She studied art at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne. She wrote unpublished plays, and then she wrote a debut novel under a pseudonym and didn't, and this is all in like the 20s and 30s, and didn't become successful until she was in her 60s and 70s. She wrote a book called Time Without Clocks. Sounds cool. Fact Soft and Hard. I assume nobody has read these books.

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  Say that last one again.

• 33:56David Sims?

  Facts Soft and Hard.

• 33:58Griffin Newman?

  CTS? It sounded like you were saying fats, like fat dominoes.

• 34:05David Sims?

  No, I don't know what those books are about, but those were, those came before 1967's Picnic at Hanging Rock. She was labeled a bit of a mystic by her friends. Sort of said that she could see things others couldn't, knew things without being told, could tell what had happened in the past. I mean, what? Apparently, this is what her friends said about her. Time Without Clocks refers to the fact that she could sort of stop clocks and watches in her presence. I mean, cool. And I mean, she sounds cool.

• 34:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  Get her on the podcast.

• 34:41David Sims?

  I think she might be very dead, but maybe we can come, you know, summon her from another time.

• 34:46Griffin Newman?

  If there's anyone we can summon, it's her. And also.

• 34:47David Sims?

  Sounds like it.

• 34:48Griffin Newman?

  She probably likes League of Their Own.

• 34:50David Sims?

  Now, Hanging Rock is a real place. She'd had a weird dream about a picnic there. She knew this place well from her childhood holidays. And she wakes up from this dream and she can feel the breeze blowing through the trees and hear the laughter and like, she starts writing and wrote this in 10 days supposedly.

• 35:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  The novel.

• 35:11David Sims?

  As though possessed, correct?

• 35:13Griffin Newman?

  Now, the novel opens with, "Whether picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year 1900 and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important." And the book was warmly received, but much like the opening of Fargo, it like sparked a bunch of fucking conversation of, is she trying to convince us this is real? Is this a con? Is this like a scandal that's been covered up? Et cetera, et cetera.

• 35:44David Sims?

  Now, here is a painting called At Hanging Rock by William Ford that inspired her.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Clearly the film as well.

• 35:52David Sims?

  Exactly. And indeed, as you point out, she kind of does the Fargo thing of like, is it true or not? To her, true is different. That's how she puts it. And so, you know, the, Peter Weir had made Holmesdale, right, Griff? Which is like, is it a short film or is like a TV movie? It's like 50 minutes long.

• 36:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. He made a couple 50 minute guys. I haven't seen Holmesdale yet. I watched his section called Michael of an omnibus about young people in Australia.

• 36:25David Sims?

  Okay.

• 36:26Griffin Newman?

  That's very good. But Holmesdale is seemingly the one that got him on the map.

• 36:32David Sims?

  And it was the movie that attracted the attention of Pat Lovell, who is like an Australian sort of.

• 36:41David Sims?

  Show busy person.

• 36:42Griffin Newman?

  She was like a TV person.

• 36:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 36:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:44David Sims?

  And she kind of takes the book to Peter. He was writing Cars That Ate Paris, right? So he hadn't, you know, even started work on that. And he, she leaves the book with him. He reads it late into the night, can't put it down. He loved that it was open ended. Like, he's basically reading the book, being like, they better not solve this. And then they don't.

• 37:04Griffin Newman?

  The quote I heard him say-

• 37:04David Sims?

  That it's not Sherlock Holmes.

• 37:06Griffin Newman?

  He always thought about Hitchcock saying that a mystery was the hardest kind of story to crack.

• 37:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 37:12Griffin Newman?

  But in his experiences of viewer, he always felt disappointed when mysteries had to solve themselves.

• 37:16David Sims?

  Because Sherlock Holmes, it is annoying when he's like, actually, it was a robot, you know, and then-

• 37:20Speaker 04

  Sometimes it's awesome.

• 37:21David Sims?

  Sometimes it's awesome.

• 37:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, excuse me, David, if Sherlock Holmes said it was a robot, that would be awesome.

• 37:28David Sims?

  The Hound of Abascovilles was a big fucking robot.

• 37:30Griffin Newman?

  That would be cool. Um, no, but it's very hard to make the ending that is more satisfying than the anticipation and the mystery, which I think what he was saying, that often it feels like-

• 37:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:42Griffin Newman?

  Even if an ending is like surprising or catchy, that it still isn't as exciting as the tension at the center.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Kind of how I felt about Weapons.

• 37:50Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 37:51David Sims?

  Fair enough.

• 37:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I mean, these-

• 37:53Speaker 04

  You know, I was like, ooh, where are these, I hope I don't find out where these kids went. Then they're like, it was a witch.

• 37:58David Sims?

  It was a witch.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  It was a witch and she did a specific thing. I was like, damn it.

• 38:01Griffin Newman?

  She did some very specific things. She had a very particular set of skills.

• 38:05Speaker 04

  She does.

• 38:06Griffin Newman?

  Tangling hair around a stick.

• 38:08David Sims?

  Yep. Water's involved.

• 38:09Griffin Newman?

  A bowl of water.

• 38:10David Sims?

  Yep.

• 38:11Griffin Newman?

  Um, but yes, he read this and was like, I fucking love that this just doesn't have an ending.

• 38:17David Sims?

  Yes.

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  That it doesn't solve it. That's my perfect kind of mystery movie.

• 38:21David Sims?

  He meets with her?

• 38:22Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:22David Sims?

  Cause he has to be approved by her to make the movie. They meet and at a certain point, he says, forgive me, uh, but can I ask you, I'm not supposed to ask you this, but is it true?

• 38:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the novelist, you're saying?

• 38:33David Sims?

  He asks the novelist this. Yeah, yeah.

• 38:35Griffin Newman?

  He was in fact specifically warned going into the meeting, the only thing we forbid you from doing is asking her if it's real.

• 38:42David Sims?

  Hmm. And she said, I really don't want to discuss that. Please don't ask again.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 38:47Griffin Newman?

  But then she also said-

• 38:48David Sims?

  She still was into it. She was like, you can make the movie.

• 38:51Griffin Newman?

  I believe she said something to him to the effect of, "It feels true to me in a way." And that his interpretation of it was, this is in some way in conversation with some experience she had that she would not share. Obviously, it is set in a time she didn't, you know, would not have lived through in that way. But it felt like in the same way that it came out of a dream, it was some processing of something that she had deeply repressed, which is why she was so noncommittal always. Uh, and it was sort of a warped interpretation.

• 39:23Speaker 04

  And then for us, watching the movie, like watching someone else-

• 39:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Doing their best to like honor that experience that someone else had, that's interesting.

• 39:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and I, he also asked her, he said, "You don't need to explain it to me, but can you tell me, is there a definitive answer in your mind?" And she said, "Yes."

• 39:44Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 39:44David Sims?

  Ooh.

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 39:45David Sims?

  Supportal.

• 39:47Griffin Newman?

  Well, he was like, "Do they just fall down a crevasse?"

• 39:50David Sims?

  Fucking Dimension X.

• 39:50Griffin Newman?

  "Are there aliens? Is something supernatural hap- whatever?" And she goes, "I know what it is."

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:55David Sims?

  They knows.

• 39:56Griffin Newman?

  Which is kind of what he needed to know, even if he didn't need to be told.

• 40:00David Sims?

  Right. He needed that mood to exist in some way.

• 40:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:04David Sims?

  Um, uh, he's recommended David Williamson, an Australian playwright, to write the book. Doesn't happen, but that guy does end up writing Gallipoli and Year of the Living Dangerously, so they do work together. But he suggests a guy called Cliff Green, who wrote the screenplay, um, who said, "The whole thing was a magical experience." This is what I like about him. Uh, this is the quote I like that JJ highlighted. Uh, "The first 20 minutes of the film were easy to write because it's straight line chronologically, but the moment when Edith comes screaming down the hill becomes a more complex story. So much of it is atmosphere and setting. It's really a book about the atmosphere of Australia."

• 40:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:36David Sims?

  Love that that's, like, again, that this guy just reads the book and gets it, that like, I'm not-

• 40:44David Sims?

  You know, being asked to make this more linear or make this more about something in a way a movie needs to be about something, you know what I mean? Like, it'd be so easy to read this book and be like, okay, but, you know, it can't just be about the atmosphere of Australia, whatever that fucking means, right? Like, that it's, you know, gotta be more about like, no, and then a bunch of guys came with metal detectors and waved them around hanging rock. And then a bunch of, you know, spiritualists came or what, you know, like, however, the, I mean, there was a TV mini-series version of this recently, right?

• 41:13Griffin Newman?

  I kinda wanted to watch it.

• 41:14David Sims?

  What was that like? I mean, I don't know, like, what does that do to the story?

• 41:17Griffin Newman?

  There's a musical that has been like, it just finished a run here in New York. I was trying to get to it. But like, it's been like 15 years of like redevelopment. This is a story that people keep coming back to. I just want to throw out a little bit and like, just move back one step for one second. The, the bizarreness of this project coming together in the way that it did. Patricia Lovell, the person you mentioned who reached out to Weir after seeing his, his short film, was like, as a bad analog, like the Kelly Ripa of Australia. Like, someone who had started in radio and then was like a children's TV presenter, and then was like a morning television person, and like, did not have a footing in film,

• 42:00Griffin Newman?

  reads this book, decides, I should option this.

• 42:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 42:04Griffin Newman?

  And I've seen the short film from a guy who hasn't made a feature yet, and I'm gonna reach out to him, where Peter Weir's like, when I got the call, it didn't even fucking make sense what was being presented to me, why she was the person, why she would believe in me. And then when she brings him to meet with Joan Lindsay, he and Joan Lindsay hit it off immediately. And she was, by all accounts, a very kind of tough, guarded customer. And everyone's just like, this feels like the right combination of people, even though it belies any sort of traditional thinking.

• 42:35David Sims?

  They could barely scrape together a budget, obviously. They're promising to make a movie with no resolution. It's not an easy sell. The book was at least famous in some way. They get 220,000 pounds, is how he puts it, about 440,000 Australian dollars. You know, their money is laminated.

• 42:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 42:53David Sims?

  It's like plastic, because they all go in the beach, they all go in the water. Australians are gonna get so mad at me on this mini-series, because all, everything I know about Australia is from uninformed opinions that British people had, that I learned when I lived in Britain.

• 43:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 43:05David Sims?

  And Bluey.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say.

• 43:07David Sims?

  And like, and Bluey presents a very utopian vision of Australia.

• 43:09Griffin Newman?

  Bluey makes you think they're the best of us.

• 43:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 43:11Griffin Newman?

  And I have noticed anytime we talk about Australia on this podcast, your British upbringing comes in a point where you're like-

• 43:18David Sims?

  They're very, you know, they look down on them, like-

• 43:21Griffin Newman?

  But you describe them like they're a bunch of Looney Tunes.

• 43:24David Sims?

  That's how British people talk about them.

• 43:26Griffin Newman?

  Like they're always in the water.

• 43:28David Sims?

  Like, British people are ba- or English people, I should say, because it's not British people. English people are basically like, Scottish people are like drunk madmen, Welsh people are like simpletons, Australians are just, right, like raving criminals, living in this like semi-lawless landscape.

• 43:43Griffin Newman?

  You make sideswipe comments as if-

• 43:46David Sims?

  It's so, I totally apologize.

• 43:48Griffin Newman?

  -Beyond Thunderdome is toned down from the everyday life of the modern Australian.

• 43:53David Sims?

  And you're like, "Oh, what a fine place this is."

• 43:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. Have they solved emotional intelligence? Are they the ones? The McElroy brothers, uh, my brother, my brother and Peter Weir, Hal and Jim McElroy, who produced this and also produced Cars That Ate Paris.

• 44:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:12Griffin Newman?

  And later produces, uh, produced The Last Wave. They said they were having such a hard time getting Cars That Ate Paris off the ground. They knew how difficult it was for that movie not having like a clean hook and a weird title and like a murky plot. That one of the strategic decisions they make is, we're already thinking about how to sell this movie that's not gonna satisfy in a conventional mystery way. Let's make the girls who disappear as like ethereal and poetic and enticing as possible, not just so we can put them at the center of the poster, but so that the tension of the movie comes from the rug pull of, "Oh shit, they're gone."

• 44:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 44:56Griffin Newman?

  That the dreaminess, right, right.

• 44:58David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like really hook you into these girls.

• 45:01Griffin Newman?

  Right, a psycho framing that they pitched to Weir and he's on board with, with like, how do we make the first 30 minutes so intoxicating? And even just the visual language of-

• 45:10David Sims?

  Fucking pan flutes and-

• 45:11Griffin Newman?

  These girls in their flowing white dresses at the front of the poster with these dreamy color scheme, and then we're gonna freak you out.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  And I think that on rewatch, a thing that I kind of like vaguely remembered being left with, I, I, I, I think this movie maybe peaks in those first 30 minutes for me. It, it is-

• 45:31David Sims?

  There's nothing like it.

• 45:33Griffin Newman?

  That's the-

• 45:33David Sims?

  I don't know if you can sustain that mood.

• 45:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, 100%.

• 45:36David Sims?

  Right, so it's sort of unavoidable.

• 45:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 45:38David Sims?

  But you are a little bit like, take me back, you know, when it's right. Like, I just, it is a movie where I'm like, I'm not sure I care who's sleeping with each other or who's having a conversation right now.

• 45:49Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:50David Sims?

  Not, but that's not true, because I love the movie, you know, of course I do, you know what I mean? Like, you are kind of like, I want to go picnic again.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  I love the movie also.

• 45:55David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  And those first 30 minutes are like, that, that's the thing that if you don't watch it for four years, you're like, yeah, you're full in on.

• 46:03David Sims?

  It's also why her screaming is so upsetting.

• 46:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 46:06David Sims?

  Even though like, nothing, you know, violent happens and nothing, you know, nothing really at all happens. But it's like Grace Sabriski screaming in Twin Peaks.

• 46:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 46:16David Sims?

  Which Jane, of course, has discussed on the show with us.

• 46:19Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:20David Sims?

  Where you're just like, Jesus, why is she making that noise? I don't know, like, it, it snaps you out of the reverie, uh, in a really disturbing way, what, Grace?

• 46:28Griffin Newman?

  No, I also forget which ones are which, and hopefully JJ has answered this. No.

• 46:32David Sims?

  Oh, okay.

• 46:33Griffin Newman?

  I see women as different people.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  No, I definitely, I could not in this movie, you know, there, there are like- There are some characters at the picnic, you know, you're like, oh, glasses girl, but, um-

• 46:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, no, what I was gonna say is-

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Where is Jack, Jackie, Jackie in this?

• 46:49Griffin Newman?

  Jackie Weaver is the maid.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Where is Jackie Weaver?

• 46:51Griffin Newman?

  She's not one of the girls at the picnic.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 46:52Griffin Newman?

  She's, she's the maid getting a little something, something on the side.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  Oh, sure, sure, sure, yeah.

• 46:56Griffin Newman?

  Um, but it is, she is one of those people where you, you know Jackie Weaver in the present tense.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 47:02Griffin Newman?

  Right, reintroduced as like- You know, middle-aged character actress.

• 47:07David Sims?

  I'll fucking have ya. I spent ten million pounds or whatever.

• 47:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. Kind of like one of the weirdest two-time Oscar nominees. Oh, rules. But like, she's in this, she has a run of Australian work, then she kind of like disappears from Australian film for a long time.

• 47:21David Sims?

  What's the second nom for?

• 47:23Griffin Newman?

  Silver Lining's playbook.

• 47:25David Sims?

  Right. And she's like, I'll fucking have ya. Where's my money? Was she like in that one?

• 47:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's exactly what she said. She said, go Eagles.

• 47:32David Sims?

  I'll fucking have ya Eagles.

• 47:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Water Ice.

• 47:35David Sims?

  What? Water Ice?

• 47:36Griffin Newman?

  Water Ice. Uh, John. Um, what I was gonna say-

• 47:41David Sims?

  Just pissing off Philadelphians too now?

• 47:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I think Five Year Engagement is the movie she makes right after getting the Animal Kingdom nomination.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:51Griffin Newman?

  That was her first Hollywood film ever.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  Ever. Yeah.

• 47:54Griffin Newman?

  And even before Animal Kingdom, she hadn't done a movie in like a decade, had mostly been doing theater.

• 48:00David Sims?

  Sure.

• 48:00Griffin Newman?

  Like, she's in the most iconic Australian film in a supporting part, and then even still has this drips and drabs career. Doesn't even become like Australian character actor royalty until decades later. And, and you see her, you hear that she was in Picnic at Hanging Rock, and you, just looking at her face present day are like, it's gonna be so hard to pick out who she is, because there's no way she looked like this when she was supposed to be.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  I think I even like Googled like-

• 48:26Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  What character that she plays, and then was like, well, you're not Sarah, so.

• 48:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. Who, who fucking knows?

• 48:33Speaker 04

  You're not Irma.

• 48:34David Sims?

  Irma?

• 48:35Griffin Newman?

  Irma. Have you seen, uh, Fearless Jane, the Peter Weir movie-

• 48:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:40Griffin Newman?

  With Jeff Bridges?

• 48:41Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it is another movie where I think the whole thing is very good, and the first thirty minutes feel transcendent.

• 48:50David Sims?

  That's true. And similarly dreamlike. I mean, not similar to this, but just, you know, just in a, in a fugy kind of state.

• 48:56Griffin Newman?

  He's come to replicating this style and has a similar like, well-

• 48:59David Sims?

  That movie rocks.

• 48:59Griffin Newman?

  Reality needs a splash of water in your face. This tone can't maintain forever. And it is one of these movies where you're like, it's not like the movie falls off a cliff after the first thirty minutes, but the first thirty minutes are just activating something that is like-

• 49:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's thrilling.

• 49:13Griffin Newman?

  It's a miracle. It still feels- Otherworldly.

• 49:16David Sims?

  It's funny that we're saying that, right, the, oh, no, he never really replicated this tone again. And then I'm like, no, you're right about Fearless. And then like, The Truman Show is like that.

• 49:24Griffin Newman?

  Truman Show.

• 49:24David Sims?

  Especially before the, you know, it shatters.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  Kind of structure of like forty minutes of like, what is this weird transmission from space? Yes.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  And the reason I was thinking about Dead Poets Society is because I imagine, like, the big difference is that, like, this doesn't have, like, characters like that movie has, maybe, but.

• 49:43David Sims?

  But also.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  But it, it certainly has this, like, boarding school repression.

• 49:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 49:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:50David Sims?

  You watch Dead Poets Society now and you're like, that's Ethan Hawke, that's Robert Chalmers. But like, I don't know if you felt that way as much when that movie came out and it was a bunch of boys.

• 49:58Griffin Newman?

  Part of those guys becoming those guys was that movie takes its time to like, sell you on each of those guys individually versus the inverse of this, which is like, we need to sell you on a vibe and an energy of what these girls represent.

• 50:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 50:10Griffin Newman?

  That is enjoyable for you to watch because we don't have time to build them individually as characters.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  I don't even know if it's don't have time. Like, I feel like the movie is disinterested in, like, um, it's just kind of nasty all the way through. And like, even like those, those men, like the school mistress.

• 50:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  And then at the end of the movie, when you just like find out in quick succession that like the two main characters left, like, die.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  It's like, it's, it's not logical. It's not like emotionally logical, or it's clear that it's like clearing space to do something else than story.

• 50:43David Sims?

  When they're like, and everyone died, I'm like, yes, right. I suppose you would never get over this experience.

• 50:50Griffin Newman?

  Ravel already at this point. When you were saying like, I don't really care about the conversations towards the end of who's sleeping with who when it gets into the.

• 50:58David Sims?

  You know me, I hate gossip.

• 50:59Griffin Newman?

  You hate gossip. This movie is in that, like, somewhat limited canon of decade-plus-later director's cuts that take footage out.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 51:11David Sims?

  He trimmed it down about ten minutes.

• 51:12Griffin Newman?

  It is hard to find a theatrical version now.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 51:15Griffin Newman?

  Uh, like, Criterion has always only put out the director's cut, which is about ten minutes shorter. And the ten minutes that are cut out are mostly in the last thirty minutes of the film.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:26Griffin Newman?

  And are kind of shoe leather stuff. It's like more stuff with the coachmen and shit. And none of it's bad. But it does feel interesting that he makes this film in 1975 and then in like 97 or 98, he's like, in decades of rewatching this film as part of retrospectives, maybe we just get to the end faster. Maybe past the first act, I could have tightened this up.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Well, because it's like, it's such a spell for those first 30 minutes. And then it's not exactly that the spell is lifted. It's more that like the spell just has this like slow like denouement.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yeah.

• 52:02David Sims?

  Just to give you a little more context on the film. Obviously, uh, money comes from Australian Film Development Corporation and South Australia, you know, like government money.

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:11David Sims?

  Um, but, uh, he says like the Australian new wave is basically happening concurrently with indie dramas being made in Australia, if that makes, he's like, the people came first, then came the money. Like, I feel like the country starts to get aware of like, oh, there's something artistically happening here with Australian film that is brand new and we can give a little money to it, not like a ton of money to it. Weir calls it kind of like, like the sort of hippie hang, you know, like post hippie.

• 52:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:42David Sims?

  Kind of thing is, you know, like these people, the flower children, the anti-war movement are now kind of just rattling around, getting a little older and some of them are starting to make movies.

• 52:52Griffin Newman?

  It's similar to what like Easy Rider kickstarted over in Hollywood. And he said like, that's, they wanted to put the money into that, to angry young person movies, character studies, things that were kind of like sexually charged, uh, social comedies. And when they were pitching this movie, even though the book was successful, people were like, who the fuck wants to watch a period piece? That, that they were facing so much opposition to like, that's not what's going on in the culture right now. And that he was so frustrated that there was this limiting in a like film market, a film scene that had finally like opened up and they were already trying to pigeonhole it to this is the only thing we export.

• 53:33Griffin Newman?

  And that after Picnic at Hanging Rock, people were angry that he was making the last wave and that he wasn't sticking with period films because Picnic had had such a big impact that everyone flipped the other way.

• 53:45David Sims?

  Weir's take is that The Rock literally opened up and swallowed them, by the way.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  Whoa, he's got a, he's got his own solution.

• 53:51David Sims?

  Cause he says like, over the years, he talked with her a lot.

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:54David Sims?

  Over, you know, as, after she, he makes the movie, she sort of trusts him more. Where she's like, basically, like, of course she made it up, quote unquote, but there's some-

• 54:02Griffin Newman?

  She's like, listen, The Rock opened up and swallowed them.

• 54:05David Sims?

  Fucking rock, just eating people.

• 54:08Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 54:10David Sims?

  Right. Fucking hanging rock, more like Hungry Rock.

• 54:12Griffin Newman?

  Hungry Rock.

• 54:14David Sims?

  And like, then eventually, at one point, he's like, did a UFO get them? And she's like, maybe? And he's like, alright, you're too much. Like, and then she dies, but then Peter Weir is like, he's like, I just had to have an answer in my head and I've decided that like, they just got swallowed by essentially the earth.

• 54:31Griffin Newman?

  I love that.

• 54:32David Sims?

  Right. But I don't know, you know? And he also was basically like,

• 54:37David Sims?

  she was kind of shocked by the movie when she saw it for the first time and said, like, he kind of changed the tone. And I didn't really write it with that kind of feeling, which is interesting to think about, but like, you know, what, what she was imagining versus this sort of dreamy thing that she's seeing.

• 54:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:54David Sims?

  But they, they were friends for life.

• 54:56Griffin Newman?

  But, but that's part of the, this is a dream that felt really real to her.

• 55:01David Sims?

  Totally.

• 55:01Griffin Newman?

  You know, she doesn't need that translation in tone to sell the lapse in logic because it makes emotional sense to her, which is the part that I think made him, Weir, feel like this was in conversation with something real she had experienced.

• 55:18David Sims?

  Some emotional truth, yes.

• 55:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 55:20David Sims?

  Peter Weir's like, obviously, a bunch of girls didn't just vanish.

• 55:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 55:24David Sims?

  That would be in the news, even in 1900, like, and there's no evidence that that happened.

• 55:28Griffin Newman?

  But that's what I think he was smart about, talking about him like, kind of landing on the style pragmatically is like, she thinks of this like it's the French Connection. And if I present this as the French Connection, people are gonna ask 8,000 questions. What do you mean, where did they go? If it feels unreal from the beginning, that's part of the juice. He also said that when he went to the real location, once he had signed on to make the film.

• 55:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Griffin Newman?

  He was like, oh, fuck.

• 55:54David Sims?

  Everyone's-

• 55:55Griffin Newman?

  It's like an energy.

• 55:55David Sims?

  Everyone, when they shot there, said like, it was spooky as hell and we hated it.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  When you see it in the movie, No Offense, I was like, that's hanging rock?

• 56:02David Sims?

  It's not that good.

• 56:03Speaker 04

  It's just, it's like, they're like going on this long trip to hanging rock.

• 56:07David Sims?

  Yeah. It's like, Australia sucks, guys. No, I'm kidding, I'm totally kidding, it seems to rock. They get these girls mostly from Adelaide, from like fancy schools. Like, he basically like realizes, they looked at lots of girls, but they realized like, no, we need kind of like posh, private school girls who are 16 years old.

• 56:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh, this was the thing I was gonna say.

• 56:25David Sims?

  What?

• 56:26Griffin Newman?

  Before I lost my point, a thing that has never happened before in the history of this podcast. That he, they dubbed over a majority of the schoolgirls. Because for him, he was like, I'm ready to cast two different parts. The look and the energy is so important.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:43Griffin Newman?

  That I will cast based on that, even if they can't deliver lines.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  And there's a lot of them.

• 56:48Griffin Newman?

  And get voiceover actors to like sell the line delivery later, because it's not like they have that much dialogue.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  Well, it's one of the things that I love about the first 30 minutes of the movie is the, and the quality like continues on, but this, that like painterly quality where it's like, you're almost looking at these like wide shots that look like these old, these old like impressionist paintings. You know, like these like groups of, of, of girls in, in nature, you know?

• 57:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And, and like literally holding fabrics over the lens to make things feel more, not synthetic, but like pointedly artificial.

• 57:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:23Griffin Newman?

  And, and unreal. Yeah. I'm just gonna keep using the word unreal. This movie was made using Unreal Engine, right? This was the original.

• 57:30David Sims?

  It's actually an Unreal tournament.

• 57:32Griffin Newman?

  It is, yeah.

• 57:35David Sims?

  But like, they, the way the producers and we're describing, you know, it's like, they were a bunch of hysterical teenage girls, like in the best way, like they just had the right energy. Once you got them all together.

• 57:47Griffin Newman?

  Most of them never act again.

• 57:49David Sims?

  Yeah, one of them has a story about like the author seeing her and calling her Miranda and being like, "It's been so long." Everyone seems a little high on like how insane it was to make this movie and how it felt like it was real. Do you know what I mean?

• 58:02Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:02David Sims?

  Like, and I'm not being dismissive of this.

• 58:05Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I love your dance between loving movies more than anything.

• 58:09David Sims?

  I love it.

• 58:09Griffin Newman?

  And then sometimes you read shit like this and you're like, "Fucking get over yourselves." So what? You made a 10 out of 10 masterpiece. Fuck off.

• 58:16David Sims?

  It's not that, it's more just like, you're telling this anecdote of like, the author was looking at me with shimmering eyes, addressing me as this long-lost girl in her past or whatever. And like, that was obviously very meaningful, but it does feel like everyone got kind of like intoxicated by like, being in this location, being in these costumes.

• 58:33Speaker 04

  It's cool though.

• 58:34David Sims?

  You make movies.

• 58:35Speaker 04

  I make movies.

• 58:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, rules.

• 58:36David Sims?

  I bet you, that's exactly how it feels.

• 58:39Speaker 04

  You kinda need it too. If you're gonna make a fucking movie, you need to be like,

• 58:44David Sims?

  To be like?

• 58:44Speaker 04

  Well, like, it gets very tarot card-y, you know? It gets very like, "Whoa, this must be cosmic."

• 58:50David Sims?

  It's so funny how people only talk about movies like that, right? Like where it's like, "Yeah, we kind of got like in this weird other dimension." Or, they were like, "Yeah, making that sex scene was really weird. They had to like put baby powder on me every take." And like, "Every setup is really boring." You know, where you're like, "Isn't it awesome to do this thing of like, no, boring and technical?"

• 59:10Griffin Newman?

  It's like working in an Amazon fulfillment center.

• 59:11Speaker 04

  It's like, there is the like, um, like the Marvel, like the Robert Downey Jr. land?

• 59:18David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, Downey land.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Way of making a movie, you know? There's the like, "All right, we're, you know, call me out when you're ready for me. I'm gonna be in my trailer."

• 59:24David Sims?

  You have a Jane land, right?

• 59:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. The Jane, the Jane land is, is, is, is just a big box of jelly beans.

• 59:34Griffin Newman?

  You're inside the box, like it's a fucking ball pit of turkey cheese.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  But then, like, if you're, yeah, the other, the other option for making a movie is that, like, you care a lot and everyone is not sleeping and you enter a state that's like one step below war level psychosis. And by the end of that, yeah, you're gonna be like that fucking rock, man.

• 59:57Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I, I guess it was because I was, I was digging this movie and the surrounding stuff, but I ended up watching last night a peak pandemic Zoom, uh, 20-year reunion of the Virgin Suicides cast.

• 1:00:13David Sims?

  Sure, okay. Hartnett.

• 1:00:15Griffin Newman?

  Hartnett, Dunst.

• 1:00:17David Sims?

  Dunst.

• 1:00:18Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and the other daughters, most of whom.

• 1:00:20David Sims?

  Right, didn't really.

• 1:00:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. One of them was young Jenny and Forrest Gump, but that was kind of her last major, major role.

• 1:00:28David Sims?

  Isn't one of them A.J. Cook?

• 1:00:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:30David Sims?

  Who's like the Criminal Minds girl for the next, she's, she's still on that show.

• 1:00:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes, because I watched fucking Final Destination 2 and I was like, what happened to this person? She's really good. And you're like, oh, she made $47 trillion on 800 seasons.

• 1:00:43David Sims?

  She's been on Criminal Minds since I, like, started college and I'm 40 years old.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Here's what's so crazy about this, if I can go off for half a second here. She joins, like, four or five seasons in and you're like, oh, late. She only did 600 episodes of Criminal Minds? She's now on a Criminal Minds spinoff, I believe.

• 1:01:01David Sims?

  No, you are incorrect. Criminal Minds has merely been retitled Criminal Minds Evolution.

• 1:01:06Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:01:08Griffin Newman?

  Okay, and the other thing that happened is that one point.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Why, by the way?

• 1:01:11David Sims?

  Uh, because Criminal Minds went off the air for two whole years and CBS was just like, need it back! And so they just brought back the same cast, Montaigne is back, A.J. Cook is back. They called it Criminal Minds Evolution, I guess, to distinguish that something had happened.

• 1:01:24Griffin Newman?

  Because Charmander used to be on the show.

• 1:01:25David Sims?

  Right, now he's Charmillion.

• 1:01:26Griffin Newman?

  Charmillion, yeah. Um, but they at one point kicked her off the show because they were like, I gotta tighten the budget.

• 1:01:32David Sims?

  Yes, they kick her off.

• 1:01:33Griffin Newman?

  And fans protested so much, they brought her back and even still, you're like, she joined late, she was kicked off, the show died, and yet she's been doing it for.

• 1:01:41David Sims?

  Why are you bringing up the Virgin Suicide Zoom? I'm sorry, what was this, the original?

• 1:01:45Griffin Newman?

  They were talking about how, like, for, like, Dunst and Hartnett, they had done other things, but those things felt way more traditional up until that point. And this was the first kind of, like, cool artsy movie they had worked on. And the rest of the group were either, like, non-actors or actors who were kind of at the beginning of their career.

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  Right, or James Woods.

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  The young cast.

• 1:02:07David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:02:08Griffin Newman?

  And they were all like, it was kind of incredible how well you established an energy. Like, not in a woo woo way, but you created this feeling of like, we're all in this together. This is the vibe. It is safe. It is protected. It is experimental.

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  It's such a huge part of like, cause it's, you know, it's like circus shit.

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  And like, it's not just like for the viewers at home.

• 1:02:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  It's like, if you, you gotta, we talked about portals a lot on this new movie.

• 1:02:37Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  It's just like, we're going through a portal, guys. Welcome to the portal. We're on the other side of the portal now. And, you know, everyone is so sleep deprived. And also like in a manic state of something that like, people are ready to buy into that.

• 1:02:51Griffin Newman?

  I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson always talks about time travel. Uh, that, that like, that's what he's trying to push everyone through.

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Griffin Newman?

  And even less like, cause he's not literally depicting periods in

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:03:05Griffin Newman?

  A very accurate way, most of the time. Uh, it's like the feeling of that. But, but it is like, there are things that are just feel like the technical work and still through everyone being on the same page, have a consistent energy to them. But this is a movie where as much as it doesn't feel like we're trying to design that by purpose, everyone was kind of in this suspended state the whole time.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  There's something like uncanny in both.

• 1:03:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  In the energy.

• 1:03:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then part of that is, uh, Rachel Roberts, so we can talk about how she got involved in this. But like seemingly was a, uh, Gene Hackman and Royal Tannenbaum's-esque terror to this young cast and this young director in a way that like only helped the movie.

• 1:03:56David Sims?

  She's an Oscar nominee from The Sporting Life. And they structure everything around, um, it was gonna be this actress Vivian Merchant. She was the original, who's from Alfie.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  The like, the, the woman, the boarding school.

• 1:04:09David Sims?

  The, yes, the, um.

• 1:04:10Speaker 04

  The mean woman.

• 1:04:11David Sims?

  Miss, Mrs. Appleyard.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:13David Sims?

  Um, and Vivian gets ill, she can't come to Australia. She's a British actor.

• 1:04:19Griffin Newman?

  Was married to Harold Pinter?

• 1:04:20David Sims?

  And famously, super chill guy.

• 1:04:22Griffin Newman?

  And Weir was like, the way she would perform his material is what I was looking for in the intensity and the sharpness. Gets ill, they lose her like 10 days before she's supposed to arrive in Australia.

• 1:04:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:04:34Griffin Newman?

  They have to find someone in less than 24 hours, basically, to get him on a plane. Rachel Roberts says yes immediately, but also says, uh, I won't, arrives and says, I won't wear her wig.

• 1:04:47David Sims?

  Uh, correct.

• 1:04:48Griffin Newman?

  Which is fair. Right. She said, there's a supernatural kind of like, uh, tradition, uh, in the British theater. That if you wear a wig designed for another actor, your production is cursed.

• 1:05:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:05:00Griffin Newman?

  And Peter Weir's like, well, we're in Australia and this is a movie, so maybe that doesn't count. And they were like, she was so fucking strong headed about it. And beyond that, shows up in Australia with her own wig, which is the wig she wears in the movie. And everyone's like, well, we hate that.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm team her on this one.

• 1:05:18Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:05:19David Sims?

  She's right.

• 1:05:19Griffin Newman?

  But they all talk about being like, we gotta talk her down from this.

• 1:05:22David Sims?

  She's also just like fucking with their, you know, best laid plans and they're making this tiny movie.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  I'm sure she's pulling rank. Come on.

• 1:05:29Griffin Newman?

  That was the whole thing. Like, how much of this is pulling rank versus like, how much of this is she's on her own wavelength?

• 1:05:35Speaker 04

  But let's say, Griff, you're doing a movie.

• 1:05:37Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  Let's say, um, Thomas Middleton.

• 1:05:41Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:05:42David Sims?

  Good job casting that guy. Things are going good.

• 1:05:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  And he's got a, he's got his own wig.

• 1:05:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49David Sims?

  Probably does.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  Then they hire you.

• 1:05:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  Cause he drops out last minute.

• 1:05:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I would ask.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  Would you wear that wig?

• 1:05:56Griffin Newman?

  I, first I would ask, did he ever wear this wig in his personal life or is it only on camera?

• 1:06:01David Sims?

  Has this wig gone to any locations?

• 1:06:03Speaker 04

  Meanwhile, you've got the perfect wig sitting at home with you.

• 1:06:06Griffin Newman?

  No, I think she was creatively right. I don't think I'd have any hangups about it in the same way.

• 1:06:13David Sims?

  Beyond that, whatever this energy was, works in the movie so well because you are like, what's wrong with this woman? But in a perfect way.

• 1:06:20Griffin Newman?

  It's just so funny that the chain of it is like, what the fuck is she? She talking about, we don't have the money for another wig. And she's like, don't worry, I'm bringing my own. She shows up with the wig. Everyone's like, we hate this. How do we talk her down from the wig? And it's like the lady killers where they're submitting one person at a time to talk her down from the wig. And the person comes out the door bloody and is like, she's not moving on this. And they're all like, we hated the wig. We still hate the wig. It took 10 years to recognize she was right.

• 1:06:47David Sims?

  She was totally right.

• 1:06:48Griffin Newman?

  While we were filming, we were like, this wig's gonna fuck up the entire movie.

• 1:06:51David Sims?

  Flawless wig.

• 1:06:52Griffin Newman?

  But that they were all terrified by her. She had a reputation for getting dead drunk.

• 1:06:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  And doing an impression of a dog that she was apparently very skilled at. That would quickly turn into her just being committed to acting like a dog for the rest of a party.

• 1:07:09David Sims?

  My daughter does that a lot.

• 1:07:10Griffin Newman?

  Would start biting people on the legs and shit.

• 1:07:13David Sims?

  She doesn't bite people.

• 1:07:13Griffin Newman?

  She was like Rex Reed's third wife of six.

• 1:07:17David Sims?

  I'm sorry, what?

• 1:07:18Griffin Newman?

  And spent-

• 1:07:18David Sims?

  Rex Reed?

• 1:07:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, not Rex Reed.

• 1:07:20David Sims?

  Yeah, I was about to say.

• 1:07:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:07:23David Sims?

  Rex Reed don't have no wives.

• 1:07:24Griffin Newman?

  Rex Harrison. Excuse me. She was married to Rex Harrison, who then had three wives after her and spent the rest of her life trying to get Rex Harrison back in between divorces. She dies of suicide five years after this film.

• 1:07:41David Sims?

  That's super bad.

• 1:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but was-

• 1:07:43David Sims?

  She's 53 years old.

• 1:07:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes, was like an incredibly extreme, somewhat tortured woman.

• 1:07:48David Sims?

  Yes, totally.

• 1:07:48Griffin Newman?

  And like had this effect on everyone else working on the film. They viewed her the way she sort of, the energy she holds over all the characters in the film.

• 1:08:00David Sims?

  Rex Harrison, legendary stickman, seven wives.

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  But it's not like, but it's not like a nurse ratchet, you know? You're not like, whoa, she is the breakout, like, like all-

• 1:08:07David Sims?

  No, she's very woven into the movie, totally.

• 1:08:10Griffin Newman?

  The other, yes, yes. The other fascinating thing is there's the, the early scene, I think it's basically her introduction where she's on the steps of the school addressing all the students.

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  There will be a dinner served when you're home.

• 1:08:25Griffin Newman?

  And that was maybe her first scene she shot and she does like two takes and she goes to Weir. And she's like, could you just put a tape mark on a C stand and send all the actresses away? The way they are looking at me with the level of fear they have in their eyes is throwing me off and I can't concentrate in the dialogue because I feel too bad. And he sends them away and was like, she nailed it in one take. And like her theatrical training was like, oh, she can just do whatever you ask her to do. And he was like, she was the first time I'd worked with an actor where I could give such a specific note of, try doing it with a little more of this energy and she would make an adjustment.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  Dial change, sure.

• 1:09:05Griffin Newman?

  That would be almost like.

• 1:09:07Speaker 04

  It's, it's.

• 1:09:08Griffin Newman?

  Unnoticeable to anyone else.

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, when I went from working with like non-actors or early career actors to like trained theater actors.

• 1:09:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  It's a crazy thing to experience.

• 1:09:19Griffin Newman?

  That she was so fine tuned, she didn't need a created reality around her that she could just take what you asked of her and give it to you immediately. But that the energy throughout had the proper effect on all the other actors.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34David Sims?

  She's in one of my favorite movies of all time, which is Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

• 1:09:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:38David Sims?

  She's amazing in that movie.

• 1:09:41David Sims?

  She rocks and she's amazing in this movie, obviously. She is one of the few performances I remember versus the girls. Where you're right, you're more just like the vibe is so correct. Russell Boyd, the great cinematographer who shoots all of Weir's movies. As you said, Griff puts all these filters and nets, would shoot close-ups at 32 frames a second and then cut that together with 24 frame per second dialogue shots. To like, basically make things feel strange, like is, is the, like, cause he's basically like, we have no money.

• 1:10:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:10:13David Sims?

  And like, and Weir is saying to him, like, we have no money, you have to make things feel weird.

• 1:10:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18David Sims?

  Like, you just have to do tricks.

• 1:10:21David Sims?

  And so they would basically be like, can I shoot you a little faster? Don't blink. And then we'll like mix it with regular speed stuff and it'll, you'll barely detect what's going on, but it'll just feel odd. And that's, that's his big trick. Does this make any sense, Jane?

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did a little, we did a little frame rate stuff on my new one.

• 1:10:42David Sims?

  Frame fudging?

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  It's fun.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

  A little Wong Kar Wai, you know?

• 1:10:47David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. Yes. I mean, the king of that. They did very shallow depth of field. Obviously, they put like gauze over the lens.

• 1:10:56Speaker 04

  I mean, it's often literally like bridal veil fabric.

• 1:11:00David Sims?

  Right. They would go buy bridal veil stuff. John Seal is the camera operator on it. Obviously, John Seal isn't, you know, legendary cinematographer in his own right. And, you know, they just wanted to capture this kind of hallucinatory rhythmic, mesmeric kind of atmosphere.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  I have a question.

• 1:11:21David Sims?

  Please.

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  I'm gonna pose it to you, David, as the foremost expert on Australia.

• 1:11:25David Sims?

  Here we go. Jesus.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  Why? So, cool. She had this dream. He made this movie. They made it dreamy. They never solved the mystery.

• 1:11:35David Sims?

  No.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  But why does this capture Australia?

• 1:11:38David Sims?

  That is a great question. So like, what, what does that, what does he mean, the screenwriter, said this, of course, Cliff Green, by like, he must mean this mood.

• 1:11:50David Sims?

  I'm gonna take back that he must mean anything, because I am not definitive on anything here. But he might mean like this mood of the country, quote unquote, civilizing, right? Which is what these, this school represents. The school is so English, right? Like, it feels like, because like, I feel like so much of Australian culture is this push and pull of like, well, we're from England, like so many people who came to Australia to settle the country originally.

• 1:12:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:12:12David Sims?

  Are being sent there from England to the English empire, British empire. You know, and so like, we're gonna build our own England here. But it's like, you're in a completely different environment. There's people already here. You know, you're creating a culture that is not English. But then there's like Englishness that's being clung to with this, like, this school.

• 1:12:29Speaker 04

  Well, to be really blunt about it, it's like, here's second generation colonizers trying to be like, we got our boots on the ground, now let's start building Britain too. Different climate. And this is a movie that's literally about like the earth attacking that.

• 1:12:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 04

  In a way.

• 1:12:47David Sims?

  Right. They're like, right, they're violating this sort of- Hostile space, like natural space. Like, it's not like a inviting place that they're in.

• 1:12:57Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:12:58David Sims?

  It's pretty, I guess.

• 1:12:59Speaker 04

  It's hot.

• 1:13:00David Sims?

  But it's hot.

• 1:13:01Griffin Newman?

  There's snakes.

• 1:13:02Speaker 04

  They warn about those snakes about eighteen times.

• 1:13:04David Sims?

  I mean, it's the whole thing for me with Australia, where, again, my reasonable and correct opinion of what Australia is like is like, scorpions far from the sky on you every thirty seconds.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  They're like, girls, you're going on a picnic to Hanging Rock today. I'm like,

• 1:13:19David Sims?

  Bring your spear gun. Like, you know, yeah.

• 1:13:22Griffin Newman?

  Just for context, uh, just for the listener, my, my brother moved to Australia like less than two weeks ago.

• 1:13:28David Sims?

  He just got there.

• 1:13:29Speaker 04

  After watching Picnic at Hanging Rock.

• 1:13:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but he is, he is as of, uh, twenty-one days ago at the time of this recording. Did he get bit by a snake? No, I'm just saying.

• 1:13:39David Sims?

  Rala!

• 1:13:40Griffin Newman?

  It's just so funny to like, talk to my brother and be like, I'm loving it here. And David's like,

• 1:13:45David Sims?

  To be clear.

• 1:13:45Griffin Newman?

  Fucking hell has taken over the earth.

• 1:13:48David Sims?

  Well aware that Sydney, I think especially, is incredibly cosmopolitan. Sydney's very nice.

• 1:13:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52David Sims?

  I know Australia is nice. I live in America. We can barely feed people here. Like, most of these countries are doing alright.

• 1:13:59Griffin Newman?

  Quite a shitty place right now.

• 1:14:00David Sims?

  Compared to us.

• 1:14:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:01David Sims?

  Um.

• 1:14:02Speaker 04

  Look, Australia. To go to Hanging Rock.

• 1:14:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Australia maybe got.

• 1:14:05David Sims?

  Kept my ass to Hanging Rock.

• 1:14:07Griffin Newman?

  You got, you got snakes and bats in the woods. Here we got them in the fucking Oval Office. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:14:13Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 1:14:16Speaker 04

  I was told this was not a political podcast.

• 1:14:18Griffin Newman?

  We lied to you. And this is the most political podcast.

• 1:14:20David Sims?

  You want some whole and or raw milk?

• 1:14:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23David Sims?

  What if that's, I'm all in on that this year.

• 1:14:25Griffin Newman?

  The raw ass David. Um, I was going to say, it, it is a through line of Weir's work. The Australian films very much feel about that tension of Australia being a culture taken, built hostilely upon another land that can never totally be conquered, right? The history, the people, the actual like geographic landscape and the, the flora and fauna and all this sort of stuff. And then when he goes over to Hollywood, it does feel like his movies retain that. Core theme of the tension between two levels of society, you know, or two aspects of reality fighting each other.

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  That is true.

• 1:15:05Griffin Newman?

  It is true, is it not, David?

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  This one is like, I feel like everything that we're saying, yes, and it like, where is then the space for like, the thing that I actually remember about like, what this movie makes me feel like? And I presume for the Sofia Coppola, the same thing, which is just like, how about all that like, pent up sexual energy?

• 1:15:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the big thing we have to talk about.

• 1:15:25David Sims?

  Right, which I assume is another thing. I don't know much about Australia in the turn of the century, but there were sexual revolutions happening all over at that time. People were reckoning more with like, can we still keep women in a box? And teach them to be good, proper girls who, you know, never misbehave, right?

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  Have to wear those awful corsets.

• 1:15:43David Sims?

  Yes, and you know, there's, they're just, you know.

• 1:15:46Griffin Newman?

  God, we talk about how hot they must have been making this movie. When you see the guys in like, fucking four piece suits.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  Or the policemen in like, an all black uniform.

• 1:15:55Speaker 04

  Here's my line. I told you I had one line watching this movie. I said,

• 1:16:02Speaker 04

  "I don't think you should wear white to Hanging Rock."

• 1:16:04Griffin Newman?

  It's a bad choice.

• 1:16:06Speaker 04

  They're all, they're like, every girl.

• 1:16:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Speaker 04

  Flowing white dress.

• 1:16:11Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:16:12Speaker 04

  Even without, even if you're not gonna go on to Hanging Rock.

• 1:16:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Speaker 04

  And get lost on Hanging Rock, get swallowed by the rock, you probably don't want to be in that.

• 1:16:20Griffin Newman?

  Maybe wear like-

• 1:16:21Speaker 04

  For a picnic at Hanging Rock.

• 1:16:22Griffin Newman?

  A brown jumpsuit with Crocs.

• 1:16:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Maybe that's what you wear. Picnic at Hanging Crocs.

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  Oh man, those shoes too. Those are not shoes for the woods.

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  For Hanging Rock.

• 1:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 04

  No?

• 1:16:32Griffin Newman?

  I think, I think this movie is tapping into in a way that's like, very similar, very linked to Twin Peaks for me. Where it's like, it's got this dreamlike logic, it's got the central mystery. But, but the core thing is sort of interrogating the unspeakable like, uh, uh, tension of sexual danger for young women in society, right? Like, the whole movie is like, working off of this kind of dreamlike fetishization of the purity of the kind of young girl in a painting, frolicking on a countryside.

• 1:17:14Griffin Newman?

  And what no one wants to discuss, which is like, the threat of danger that is surrounding them at all time, just in their very being.

• 1:17:22Speaker 04

  But also their own, I mean, like, I think that the thing that's, that's interesting in this one, and that you see in Virgin Suicides is like, like, whereas something like, um, and there are elements of it here, yeah, when that, that guy, I see him in like a top hat, that guy, when he first shows up, he's like, in my brain, he's like, and he's like a real, like, Dickens kinda guy, and he's like, yeah, I'm like, I'm scared about what he's gonna do to those girls, for sure. But it seems like it takes a backseat to those girls being like, I'm taking off my knickers, like, I gotta get up on this rock.

• 1:17:56David Sims?

  They're in this like euphoric collective, you know, they cut the heart cake.

• 1:18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02David Sims?

  It feels like, you know, they're pushing against-

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  There's some pent up-

• 1:18:05David Sims?

  A transgressive boundary.

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  They're, they're pent up, they got some energy, they gotta get out of it.

• 1:18:09Griffin Newman?

  But that's definitely the paired Virgin Suicides thing, which is like, it's these swarms of young boys who are obsessed with the idea of these girls, their look, their energy, them being unattainable, yet, none of them are actually kind of the threat, or the answer, to what was going on inside of them, which is a little unsolvable, and this movie establishes such a web of men surrounding The Rock and observing them, where in a dumber movie, you could see it being a, not a whodunit in a traditional sense.

• 1:18:42Speaker 04

  No, I thought of like, I Spit on Your Grave, which would have been around the same time.

• 1:18:46Griffin Newman?

  You're pegging all these guys in the vicinity, who are all kind of clocking these girls, and yet, they're all at a pretty severe distance, and they're all just completely freaked out by what happened.

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  And if anything, are trying to rescue them, but it's like, in the Twin Peaks way, and Twin Peaks obviously like, provides straight answers at a point, but it's-

• 1:19:08Speaker 04

  Incredibly straight answers.

• 1:19:10Griffin Newman?

  The most normal answers, but it's more like, turning that-

• 1:19:15Griffin Newman?

  Sexual tension in both directions, what they're feeling internally and what is being projected onto them into a supernatural force that's just hanging over everything.

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  Which I think is pretty cool.

• 1:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Really.

• 1:19:27Speaker 04

  And pretty cool for like, like I, I, there are so many like, um, like Lindsay Anderson type movies about like boys going wild at school.

• 1:19:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:19:38Speaker 04

  Um, I can't think of a ton like, like between this and virgin suicides, like

• 1:19:42Griffin Newman?

  Or right, just in general.

• 1:19:44Speaker 04

  The pent up like female sexual energy.

• 1:19:47David Sims?

  Now, if I Google movies about girls at boarding school, is Google?

• 1:19:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 04

  I, I recently.

• 1:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Google will arrest you.

• 1:19:54Speaker 04

  I was, I, I recently asked Chat GPT, uh, which I try to not use, you know? I try, I try to not ask it, but I was like, I'm really curious about this AI. Like if I asked it based on all of the information online about my new movie, which is called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, to tell me the plot of the movie.

• 1:20:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:12Speaker 04

  In the style of a Jane Schoenburn movie, like I wanted to see how close it could get. Um, and it said to me, I can't tell you that because you're asking me for descriptions of teenage sex and that is lewd and indecent.

• 1:20:23David Sims?

  How? And, and it said, and it said, how dare you?

• 1:20:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, literally. And it said, and I put you on a list.

• 1:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Jesus Christ. We're like Chat Gentlemen PT. So above board.

• 1:20:44Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:20:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:20:50David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:51Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:21:02David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:21:03Griffin 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.

• 1:21:26David 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.

• 1:21:37Griffin 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.

• 1:21:46David Sims?

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

• 1:21:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:50David 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.

• 1:21:57Griffin 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.

• 1:22:11David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:22:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:22:15David 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.

• 1:22:31Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:22:48Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:22:48David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:22:49Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:22:53David Sims?

  When I was younger.

• 1:22:54Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:55David 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.

• 1:23:03Griffin Newman?

  Chime, that's where chime comes in.

• 1:23:06David Sims?

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

• 1:23:20Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee free. We love it.

• 1:23:21David Sims?

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

• 1:23:27Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:23:28David Sims?

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

• 1:23:41Griffin Newman?

  Fee free.

• 1:23:42David Sims?

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

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:24:18Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:24:19Griffin 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.

• 1:24:40David 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.

• 1:25:00Griffin 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.

• 1:25:16David Sims?

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

• 1:25:53Griffin Newman?

  Here's what I'll say, it passes the Bechdel test.

• 1:25:55Speaker 04

  This movie does.

• 1:25:56David Sims?

  It does.

• 1:25:56Speaker 04

  Pass the Bechdel test.

• 1:25:57David Sims?

  Now, I'm talking more talking about rocks than boys in this one.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 1:26:00Speaker 04

  Snakes.

• 1:26:01David Sims?

  And snakes.

• 1:26:02Griffin Newman?

  But, but I think you're right that like most, especially in a supernatural or vaguely like horror, mystery adjacent thing, there is almost always, largely because of how few women got to tell these stories ever in this medium, there was almost always this undercurrent of like, is this pointedly kind of salacious and titillating? Are we demonizing the sexuality? Is the sexuality something that's kind of scary that has to be punished? Versus it all happening in this kind of like, uh, it, it, the movie's like mercifully non-literalized in those ways.

• 1:26:40David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:26:40Griffin Newman?

  And non-judgmental in a way that now feels like saying that is an ultimate faint praise award, but in the seventies, you're like, this was not a thing anyone was fucking doing.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  Totally. And like, the, the like, you know, the, the sickness.

• 1:27:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:01Speaker 04

  If you try to like, find the culprit, obviously like the culprit is very diffuse and kind of comes for them all.

• 1:27:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:07Speaker 04

  By the end of the movie.

• 1:27:08Griffin Newman?

  Right. But that it's not a movie about like, these girls and their hysteria.

• 1:27:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:27:14David Sims?

  No, which you could easily become.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  Struck down in this weird, inexplicable tragedy.

• 1:27:19Speaker 04

  If anything, their like hysteria is the most humanizing thing about them.

• 1:27:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:23David Sims?

  You almost want them to be more hysterical, or anyone to be hysterical at a certain point.

• 1:27:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:28David Sims?

  Um, there's, uh, um, an article I read, I, I, I just called it up on something called Cinephilia Beyond by, uh, Tim Pelan, and I have no idea what that site is, but I'm reading it, uh, where he talks about like the, the, um, Aboriginal idea of, um, I want to find the exact thing, uh, dream time.

• 1:27:51Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:27:53David Sims?

  Where the like, there's this sort of four aspects of Aboriginal dream time. The beginning of things, the lifeline influence of ancestors, the way of life and death, the sources of power in life. He's like, he feels like this movie is about like, they are,

• 1:28:10David Sims?

  you know, encountering an ancient Aboriginal force that like, they can't understand in some way. That's like the sort of Australian-ness of this movie. That it's like, we continue to tamper with like a natural environment we, we never understood in arriving here. Right. And like trying to civilize it. He points out something that I certainly would never thought about, which is that the girls go right to left. When they enter the frame.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:28:37David Sims?

  And the hero journey is tends to be left to right. And right to left is more unsettling. Have you ever heard that before? I've never considered this like visual language.

• 1:28:47Griffin Newman?

  I'm thinking about reading Hebrew.

• 1:28:50David Sims?

  Absolutely, or farce. Those classic right to left languages. He's got a lot of other ideas like that, that are, that are sort of interesting to consider, but.

• 1:29:00Griffin Newman?

  I feel like when I hear people talk about that, directors talk about that with intentionality. It's usually in terms of establishing, a visual language of characters progressing versus regressing. It's interesting to make it a kind of like, are they going against cultural tides thing? Rather than like moving backwards in their own story.

• 1:29:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Speaker 04

  I think to me, it's like the thing, like that, like something like that is only as good as how much it like sticks with you subconsciously afterwards. And like, when I think about the like, language of the girls movement in this movie. I, I think the thing that sticks out more to me is just like how. They're really like, they're not really captured in close ups that much until pretty like far into the movie, or like, it feels much more interested in this like, um, yeah, this, this panoramic, painted

• 1:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Speaker 04

  Kind of aesthetic of like, you're, you're just seeing like 11 of them together wandering around.

• 1:29:59Griffin Newman?

  As, as sort of almost like a hive mind.

• 1:30:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're like animals, you know, out in their landscape or something.

• 1:30:05David Sims?

  Did anyone see this movie not knowing that they would disappear? Because it's so much part of the selling of the movie.

• 1:30:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11David Sims?

  Because it's lovely to think about the idea of just watching it being like, what is this?

• 1:30:15Speaker 04

  Hangout movie.

• 1:30:16David Sims?

  Before they disappear, right?

• 1:30:17Speaker 04

  It's a cool hangout movie.

• 1:30:18David Sims?

  Because the first 30 minutes are completely beguiling if you don't know that it's building to something, not beguiling, but like, you're just like, kind of squinting, looking for-

• 1:30:26Speaker 04

  Picnic at Hangout Rock.

• 1:30:27Speaker 03

  But they give it away in the beginning, too.

• 1:30:29David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, I feel like there's no, it's too bad.

• 1:30:31Speaker 04

  And it was the whole selling point, yeah. I'm sure on the, on the TV adaptation, the picnic lasts for six episodes and they only disappear in episode eight.

• 1:30:39Griffin Newman?

  Flashbacks to the picnic.

• 1:30:40Speaker 04

  Oh, fuck!

• 1:30:41David Sims?

  Are you serious?

• 1:30:42Speaker 04

  But, uh, no, I don't know. I haven't seen it.

• 1:30:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay, you're right, though, that's-

• 1:30:45Speaker 04

  It's, it's flashbacks to the picnic and you see it from a lot of different people's perspective. And by the end of it, you've learned something that wasn't clear in the beginning.

• 1:30:52David Sims?

  It sounds like someone knows how development process works for streaming television.

• 1:30:57Griffin Newman?

  Natalie Dormer plays the headmistress, right?

• 1:31:00David Sims?

  She does, yeah. She's Mrs. Appleyard.

• 1:31:02Speaker 04

  Let's see what the fucking superstructure is.

• 1:31:04Griffin Newman?

  Kind of wig did they get her in? Oh, god, it's, oh, my god.

• 1:31:07David Sims?

  Samara Weaving was in there?

• 1:31:08Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 1:31:10David Sims?

  Go ahead, please.

• 1:31:10Griffin Newman?

  The series starts with her purchasing the house and being like, I could build a school here. It's that one.

• 1:31:17David Sims?

  At least it's not like explorers from like 100 years ago being like, and what should we call this rock? Well, it's kind of hanging.

• 1:31:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:24David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:31:25Speaker 04

  Starts with the rock being straight and then you see the rock start-

• 1:31:28Griffin Newman?

  Hanging rock.

• 1:31:29David Sims?

  I mean, it sounds like the mini-series is a little more what I was describing of like, it's got a bunch of theorizing after.

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:31:36David Sims?

  It's like people digging into-

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  That's how you fill those hours.

• 1:31:38David Sims?

  Right, like, what did happen? Could it have been this? Could it have been that?

• 1:31:41Speaker 04

  And that's definitely how you improve on this movie.

• 1:31:43David Sims?

  The movie just screaming out for improvement. Look, uh-

• 1:31:46Speaker 04

  Tell me!

• 1:31:47Speaker 03

  There's this one element that I feel like sticks out to me a little bit.

• 1:31:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay, Ben's playing the music.

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  The panpipes.

• 1:31:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Speaker 04

  I believe someone mentioned it.

• 1:31:57David Sims?

  Throughout the entire movie.

• 1:31:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59David Sims?

  But damn, did I vibe with that shit.

• 1:32:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it rocks.

• 1:32:02David Sims?

  It made me actually really appreciate pan flute again.

• 1:32:05Griffin Newman?

  And just to be clear.

• 1:32:06Speaker 04

  I never stopped.

• 1:32:07Griffin Newman?

  Ben isn't playing this from his console. He's whipped out a pan flute. And he's blowing hard on that shit in between throwing in some hot takes.

• 1:32:17David Sims?

  I just remember it being such a thing in malls, pan flutes, you'd see them on the street.

• 1:32:23Griffin Newman?

  It's like when a triloquist can like drink a glass of water while the dummy talks. Like he's saying and playing the pan flute.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  I think the pan flute has gotten a much worse rap than it deserves.

• 1:32:34Griffin Newman?

  Agreed.

• 1:32:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Speaker 04

  And I think it's, I think it's like something about Enya and um, Pure Moods.

• 1:32:40David Sims?

  It's, that's exactly what it is. It's that 90s world music chill out compilation thing. The pan flute became associated.

• 1:32:47Speaker 04

  These are also the ones I'm hearing in my headphones are kind of like high note pan flutes. Like I love, I love a deep, you know, that like.

• 1:32:55Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:55Speaker 04

  Like Rainforest Cafe.

• 1:32:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're talking about the best restaurant in the world.

• 1:33:01David Sims?

  Uh, so basically they were looking for the sound of the movie to speak to the pan flute.

• 1:33:05Speaker 04

  And they found it.

• 1:33:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:06David Sims?

  And Jim McElroy said, like, he had just watched some, you know, documentary. That there'd been this weird haunting music. And he called the producer, they played it, they were like, we love this. It's George Zomfier. It's the flutist, flautist, pan flautist?

• 1:33:24Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:33:25David Sims?

  And apparently was like, I recorded all that shit years ago. You don't want that. You want some new stuff. And starts sending new stuff and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We want the like haunting pan flutes. Like that's why we're calling you, sir.

• 1:33:39Speaker 04

  I already missed the pan flute and we just played it for a little while.

• 1:33:42David Sims?

  I could listen to it all day.

• 1:33:44Griffin Newman?

  Ben's rolled up on the floor going through pan flute withdrawal.

• 1:33:47Speaker 04

  At this point, my main YouTube algorithm suggestion is like, it's, it's like an eight bit image of like a night by a fire. And it's just 10 hours of that pan flute music.

• 1:33:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:58Griffin Newman?

  Can I just say, I think, I think you folks are right that there was like a cultural. Throwing the baby out with the bath water because Enya and fucking Deep Moods and whatever was seen as.

• 1:34:07Speaker 04

  Which by the way.

• 1:34:08David Sims?

  I love Enya.

• 1:34:11Griffin Newman?

  And here's the thing, we actually never, we have not gotten anywhere further in relaxing music technology. That was the peak. Everything people have tried to do since then to chill us out backwards.

• 1:34:26David Sims?

  Jean-Michel Jarre.

• 1:34:27Speaker 04

  The X-Files theme with some drums underneath it. Fuck.

• 1:34:31David Sims?

  The X-Files theme is so good. There's gonna be a new X-Files, right? Ryan Coogler's producing this new X-Files.

• 1:34:36Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 1:34:37David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, that's fine. Like, I'm all for new X-Files. I don't care. Like, I'm not worried about the sanctity of the X-Files, which is one of the.

• 1:34:44Griffin Newman?

  Don't touch.

• 1:34:44David Sims?

  The messiest franchises to ever exist.

• 1:34:47Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  But it will be, it will be set in contemporary times?

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. But they better not mess with the theme.

• 1:34:54Speaker 04

  I asked Gillian Anderson on set if she was gonna go back.

• 1:34:56Griffin Newman?

  She's in your movie.

• 1:34:57David Sims?

  I've heard there's space for her.

• 1:35:00Speaker 04

  I forget what she said.

• 1:35:02David Sims?

  Oh, you forgot, huh?

• 1:35:03Griffin Newman?

  Hear me out.

• 1:35:04David Sims?

  I asked someone that question. I was like, is DeKony and Anderson back? And I was told, like, there's, there's room for them to be back. Like, it sort of can go either way.

• 1:35:11Griffin Newman?

  I got a blockbuster pitch.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  How about Skinner?

• 1:35:14Griffin Newman?

  What if all three of them try hooking up? It'll work this time, right?

• 1:35:18David Sims?

  Wait, wait, wait. All three? So are you saying Skinner's the third?

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  Who's the, is that, was that his name? Mitch Pledgie, yeah, Skinner.

• 1:35:24David Sims?

  He's still going.

• 1:35:24Griffin Newman?

  Who is the Robert Patrick character?

• 1:35:26Speaker 04

  Also, the cigarette smoking man.

• 1:35:27Griffin Newman?

  Dog it.

• 1:35:28Speaker 04

  That guy's still alive.

• 1:35:30Griffin Newman?

  He's with us.

• 1:35:30David Sims?

  It's why the Bills can't win the Super Bowl. Uh, cigarette smoking man is still alive. William B. Davis is the actor. I mean, the thing that happened with X-Files, which is like, I like the X-Files, it's like foundational to.

• 1:35:42Speaker 04

  Of course, me too.

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  Growing up and all that, is Chris Carter came back, did the new stuff. And it was, God bless it, so heinous.

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was rough.

• 1:35:52David Sims?

  Kind of like, can we take this guy out back?

• 1:35:54Griffin Newman?

  It is crazy.

• 1:35:56David Sims?

  Give the X-Files to anyone else.

• 1:35:57Griffin Newman?

  Three times, he was like, I think I'm ready to return. And people were like, yeah, movie sucks. He's like, got it. Took the feedback. We're returning with a new season. Yay. Fuck, that sucked. Don't worry, I heard your feedback. Next season's gonna be really different.

• 1:36:14Griffin Newman?

  Just three times in five years?

• 1:36:16David Sims?

  And every time Duchovny and Anderson bring it, like, it's not like they're, it's just him.

• 1:36:20Speaker 04

  There's like a sushi restaurant, you remember that one? They're in that sushi, they're stuck in that, and it's like, uh, technology kept, you know, it's like Siri, it's, it's Siri, it's X-Files doing Siri.

• 1:36:29David Sims?

  Sometimes you're, you don't have the rope of what people are thinking about anymore. You know, he let go of the rope.

• 1:36:35Speaker 04

  A hundred percent.

• 1:36:36David Sims?

  It's fine. And like, you watch The X-Files now, and you're like, if someone did like, Mulder falls into a coma and a Native American man revives him now, that wouldn't work, but I'm okay with it, because it's the 90s, right? Yeah, exactly.

• 1:36:51Griffin Newman?

  But also, is that a perfect example of a show that needed the churn and the pressure of being?

• 1:36:57Speaker 04

  Twenty-two episodes a season.

• 1:36:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and needing to like, spread out the work and bring in other voices.

• 1:37:01David Sims?

  But that's why.

• 1:37:02Griffin Newman?

  And knock it up your own ass and think about it too much.

• 1:37:04David Sims?

  That's why 22 episodes is how TV should be.

• 1:37:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08David Sims?

  Because then you have to make 10 random episodes about bullshit.

• 1:37:12Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:37:12David Sims?

  Which rocks.

• 1:37:13Speaker 04

  I asked for, no, no one will let me take a meeting on the Buffy reboot, but I've been asking, obviously. And, uh, and, and the thing I keep saying when I ask is, um, you have to do 22 episodes, and six of them need to be unwatchable.

• 1:37:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  Right, right. There should be six that are canonically skippable, but good, you know, in their bad way. Six that are just about like, some bullshit, like, they pick up a toy and they're like, oh, it's a haunted toy.

• 1:37:39Speaker 04

  Buffy's got like, a new cousin that you've never heard about anymore.

• 1:37:42Griffin Newman?

  This is my problem, is that now people go like, I'm gonna take four years to make 10 or eight episodes of a season with complete intentionality and control, and you watch it and you're like, still six episodes are bad. It's still, it's always gonna be six bad episodes, and it's better that you have a 22-episode season, and those six episodes are at least kinda like.

• 1:38:06Speaker 04

  Oh my god, a 22 ep- I mean, I've, I've been thinking about this, because I'm working on TV, and like, a 10, a 22-episode season, also like, the holiday episode of Dead Art?

• 1:38:16Griffin Newman?

  Well, yes.

• 1:38:17David Sims?

  Sweep's week is gone.

• 1:38:19Griffin Newman?

  Sweep's week is gone.

• 1:38:20David Sims?

  Like, Sweep's week is like, everyone wants to fuck each other for three weeks on the show and then, and then all the repression gets stuffed right back in the bottle, you know, like, we don't do it again for a while.

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  It is a crazy thing to consider, that even the biggest TV shows

• 1:38:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:38:32Griffin Newman?

  used to be able to go like, for one week only, Bruce Willis.

• 1:38:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Griffin Newman?

  And the ratings would spike up by 10 million people. It didn't matter if everyone else had like, I haven't watched that in two years. They're like, well, I gotta see the Bruce episode. I gotta see the episode where the, it's all dream sequences or whatever. The, the third Rock 3D episode after the Super Bowl or whatever.

• 1:38:52David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:38:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:53David Sims?

  I mean, also, episodes after the Super Bowl. Another thing that's gone. I know they still exist, but like, I want to see House watch the Super Bowl, right? Like, you know, did, or like, Terrell Owens appears, whatever, whatever dumb shit they would do to acknowledge.

• 1:39:08Griffin Newman?

  The calculation of, even if this episode isn't in conversation with the Super Bowl,

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  We need to nod to it.

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  The biggest episode we've ever done.

• 1:39:16Speaker 04

  A little something extra.

• 1:39:17Griffin Newman?

  It needs to be worthy of the post-Super Bowl slot.

• 1:39:20David Sims?

  TV used to be so good.

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Jane, the TV show that you were doing is based on a very specific fix work and one we've talked about for years because so many Blank Check filmmakers have like flirted with adapting it. And it's a thing that

• 1:39:32David Sims?

  Like Fincher.

• 1:39:33Griffin Newman?

  We are constantly telling Ben he needs to read. And when it was announced that you are adapting Charles Burns's Black Hole, Ben was like, fuck, it's finally time. If Jane's doing it, I gotta read it.

• 1:39:42Speaker 04

  Did you read it?

• 1:39:43David Sims?

  Not yet. But I'm gonna do it!

• 1:39:46Griffin Newman?

  He's saying he's gonna do it. Ben's not really in the comics lately.

• 1:39:49David Sims?

  And I will make a promise that within a month, when this episode is really solid, you'll read it.

• 1:39:55Griffin Newman?

  You'll devour it. Once you start it, yeah.

• 1:39:58David Sims?

  I love those Charles Burns tinted things. You ever read those?

• 1:40:00Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:40:01David Sims?

  Xed out.

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  Really good.

• 1:40:02David Sims?

  You know what's great too, I'll say, is Pan flute.

• 1:40:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's circle back to Pan flute.

• 1:40:07David Sims?

  It's just good.

• 1:40:08Griffin Newman?

  And maybe let's play it again.

• 1:40:10David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:40:16Speaker 04

  Lower.

• 1:40:17Griffin Newman?

  Okay, this is your thing, Jane? This is your jam?

• 1:40:20Speaker 04

  No, it doesn't.

• 1:40:21Griffin Newman?

  Not low enough?

• 1:40:21Speaker 04

  There it is, there it is.

• 1:40:22David Sims?

  Slightly, yeah, yeah, yeah, octave down.

• 1:40:25Griffin Newman?

  David, you love like spas and massages and shit like that.

• 1:40:27David Sims?

  I do, and this is what's playing, baby.

• 1:40:29Speaker 04

  I love this stuff.

• 1:40:30Griffin Newman?

  Cause I, I got a massage for the first time in a very long time.

• 1:40:33David Sims?

  Where'd we go?

• 1:40:34Griffin Newman?

  Somewhat recently, I'll tell you off mic.

• 1:40:36David Sims?

  Okay, fine.

• 1:40:36Griffin Newman?

  And they were playing like the fucking techno version of this.

• 1:40:40David Sims?

  Yeah, sometimes they'll do that.

• 1:40:41Griffin Newman?

  That's what I hate, is these hip places feel like, oh, pan flute is lame, I can't play it. And I'm like, you're stressing me out right now?

• 1:40:47David Sims?

  Yeah, it's time to return with a V, yeah.

• 1:40:50Griffin Newman?

  I will calm down.

• 1:40:51Speaker 04

  I think it has something to do with like, like some of that like Lilith Fair scorn.

• 1:40:57Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:40:58Speaker 04

  You know, like kinda spilled over into the pan flute.

• 1:41:00Griffin Newman?

  What else rules Lilith Fair?

• 1:41:03Speaker 04

  Bring back Lilith Fair, Sarah McLachlan.

• 1:41:05Griffin Newman?

  Good, and you're good.

• 1:41:06David Sims?

  Now, is this just that I'm growing older and I miss my youth?

• 1:41:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, are we lame now? Probably. Almost definitely.

• 1:41:13David Sims?

  So, the girls disappear.

• 1:41:16David Sims?

  Not to do the plot of Big Dick and Hanging Rock, which is a, you know, not a plotless film, but a loosely scripted film, I guess.

• 1:41:24Griffin Newman?

  They go up to the rock.

• 1:41:25David Sims?

  Yeah, they fucking-

• 1:41:26Griffin Newman?

  They take a nap, a kind of mysterious, eerie nap.

• 1:41:29David Sims?

  And you kind of wanna take a nap, in the best way, watching it.

• 1:41:32Speaker 04

  They, they, they seem like they're on drugs.

• 1:41:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes. They're in some kind of odd trance.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  It's like euphoric, right? Like they're in a state. They've worked themselves into this like, because they probably never get to do something like this and be like remotely independent.

• 1:41:45Griffin Newman?

  But it also, it looks like a cult-like ritual despite you knowing that there was not a kind of intentionality or planning. They all just kind of like, lay down at the same time.

• 1:41:54Speaker 04

  Except one of them knew she was gonna disappear.

• 1:41:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:41:57Griffin Newman?

  That's Glasses Girl had the premonition, right? Is it Glasses Girl?

• 1:42:00David Sims?

  And isn't she talking about a dream within a dream? She's like quoting Edgar Allan Poe or whatever.

• 1:42:04Speaker 04

  I wrote one line that I really liked. Um, what did they say? They said, uh...

• 1:42:08Griffin Newman?

  Joseph Gordon-Levitt was chasing me up the walls, isn't that what she's saying?

• 1:42:12Speaker 04

  Uh, where is it? I have it, I have it here somewhere. Uh, "Most human beings are without purpose, but they're performing some function unknown to them."

• 1:42:21David Sims?

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:42:22Griffin Newman?

  Shit.

• 1:42:23Speaker 03

  Shit rocks.

• 1:42:24Griffin Newman?

  That's like the pan flute of quotes.

• 1:42:27David Sims?

  Um, and then they wake up.

• 1:42:30Griffin Newman?

  The bugs crawl on them when they're sleeping.

• 1:42:32David Sims?

  Yes, although not on the girls who don't get taken and then eventually return.

• 1:42:37Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:42:38David Sims?

  Hmm. Um, but, uh, yes.

• 1:42:41Speaker 03

  It was Miranda, I think, is the one who.

• 1:42:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:42:44Speaker 03

  Says that she is gonna disappear.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:42:47Speaker 03

  To her roommate.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  Miranda's kind of the main one.

• 1:42:49Speaker 04

  That's so Miranda.

• 1:42:51David Sims?

  And she's a lawyer, right? And she's, you know, she's a little spikier than the other girls.

• 1:42:55Griffin Newman?

  Evan Handler?

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  Yes, that, no, that's Charlotte. I mean, Evan Handler plays Charlotte's husband.

• 1:43:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:43:01David Sims?

  That's what you're referring to.

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:43:02David Sims?

  Miranda's the one who, who marries the guy who's like, I'm like death.

• 1:43:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, with glasses?

• 1:43:06David Sims?

  And then in, in the new, the new show, she's, she's exploring her sexuality.

• 1:43:10Griffin Newman?

  She introduces a Trey Diaz.

• 1:43:11David Sims?

  There's Trey Diaz.

• 1:43:11Griffin Newman?

  Really? She explores her sexuality?

• 1:43:13David Sims?

  She sure does. You ever watched, uh, what's it called? Uh, and just like that? You didn't check it out?

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  I haven't seen an episode.

• 1:43:20Speaker 04

  How many episodes did they have per season?

• 1:43:22David Sims?

  Not enough.

• 1:43:23Speaker 04

  Twenty-two.

• 1:43:24Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna make this case, because people were like, it's kinda demented. And I'm like, imagine if they got twenty-two. Imagine the shit they would have done if they had to do twenty-two.

• 1:43:31David Sims?

  They did ten episodes a season.

• 1:43:33Speaker 04

  No, I think it's like America is waiting in bated breath to see like what the pit season eight feels like.

• 1:43:38David Sims?

  Yeah. Oh, God. That, but the pit is right. I mean, that's why people are freaking out about the pit, because you're, it's, you know, it's fucking like, it feels like old TV.

• 1:43:47Speaker 04

  Churn it out.

• 1:43:48Griffin Newman?

  Isn't this some of the juice of the Taylor Sheridan shows too? I keep reading these clickbait headlines where you're like.

• 1:43:52David Sims?

  I haven't seen.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  Billy Bob Thornton answers a door with a boner. And I'm like, this sounds like when TV was good.

• 1:43:58David Sims?

  Well, that's also that, even if those shows are ten episodes each, he's writing all of them. So he's getting so tired.

• 1:44:04Griffin Newman?

  He's found a way.

• 1:44:05David Sims?

  And everything is bad.

• 1:44:06Griffin Newman?

  To, to get into the psychological headspace of twenty-two episodes a season.

• 1:44:10Speaker 04

  Noah, not enough people, not enough main characters, but not lead characters dying in car crashes.

• 1:44:15Griffin Newman?

  Perfect.

• 1:44:16David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:44:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:17David Sims?

  Or maybe not die.

• 1:44:18Speaker 04

  Episode fourteen.

• 1:44:19David Sims?

  Episode ends with car acts, you know, just like a car like flipping over.

• 1:44:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:23David Sims?

  And then it's to be continued.

• 1:44:25Speaker 04

  The greatest. Native Americans.

• 1:44:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:27Speaker 04

  Bring, bring Mulder back.

• 1:44:28Griffin Newman?

  The greatest shit in the world was when.

• 1:44:30David Sims?

  That happened to the X-Files like season two. It didn't take them long.

• 1:44:34Griffin Newman?

  When TV was like produced on like a podcast schedule, where you're like, they're filming the episode now, I will see in a month.

• 1:44:39Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:44:40Griffin Newman?

  And you would read like Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watrous got arrested for drunk driving.

• 1:44:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  And then three weeks later, it's like, oh, both of them are dead.

• 1:44:48David Sims?

  Fuck, Anna Lucia bought it.

• 1:44:50Griffin Newman?

  Nothing was under wraps.

• 1:44:51David Sims?

  R.I.P. Anna Lucia. She was a wild one.

• 1:44:54Griffin Newman?

  She was, she was great.

• 1:44:55David Sims?

  Uh, did you watch Lost or were you not lost?

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 1:44:57David Sims?

  Okay. Um, I remember we once talked about, fuck, Firefly.

• 1:45:02Speaker 04

  Oh, of course.

• 1:45:02David Sims?

  You were activated by the save Firefly thing long ago.

• 1:45:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was my, uh, originary trauma.

• 1:45:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:09Griffin Newman?

  Was there, was there a campaign to like send in something? Were people sending in something?

• 1:45:14David Sims?

  It was kind of the, one of the original.

• 1:45:16Speaker 04

  Definitely was. What, what are they, the?

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  What was the object?

• 1:45:18Speaker 04

  Brown coats, maybe?

• 1:45:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's how, how Firefly fans identify themselves.

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  Yes, they call themselves brown coats.

• 1:45:26Speaker 04

  They might have also sent some coats in.

• 1:45:28Griffin Newman?

  I just always liked that thing where you'd be like, this network has threatened to cancel a show.

• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  And you're scared to re-watch Firefly in 2026.

• 1:45:35Griffin Newman?

  20,000 people sent in plastic knives because it's their way of communicating to the president of the network that they want their show back.

• 1:45:44David Sims?

  Jane, I haven't watched it since, yeah, since college. I wonder, I truly wonder, because I really loved Firefly so much and it was important to me. I can't deny this. It like lifted me out of a deep depression.

• 1:45:55Speaker 04

  Did they, is that, did they have a word that they used instead of fuck?

• 1:45:59David Sims?

  Uh, yes, they did. What is it? Uh, because they had the whole, like, they would speak Chinese as well.

• 1:46:05Speaker 04

  Oh, totally.

• 1:46:06David Sims?

  Um, I can't remember what they would say. Uh, but, um, what was, of course, Battlestar Galactica had frac.

• 1:46:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  Um, I remember the show, it was the CBS apocalypse show Jericho. Built a Ferris wheel.

• 1:46:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:46:22David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:46:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:23David Sims?

  There was some show that built a Ferris wheel outside the like office of whoever ran like CBS. And she was just like, fine, Jesus. And like, oh, another season.

• 1:46:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:33David Sims?

  What are you doing?

• 1:46:37Griffin Newman?

  That just felt like, there's something that felt so innocent to that versus like the Snyder cult is building bombs or whatever they're doing.

• 1:46:45David Sims?

  So the girls wake up and they walk-

• 1:46:47Speaker 04

  Anthrax in the mail.

• 1:46:49David Sims?

  The clock stops at noon, all this spooky shit happens and they walk in a trace like into a crevice, I guess.

• 1:46:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56David Sims?

  And Edith just screams and that's it.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  Well, I feel like the four girls break off before the rest falls asleep.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  And there's one who's like, no, no, we gotta go back.

• 1:47:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09David Sims?

  Um, and then they come back later and they're like, the girls are missing.

• 1:47:14Griffin Newman?

  Right. The rest of the, the class comes back late at night.

• 1:47:17Speaker 04

  I love that scene.

• 1:47:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18David Sims?

  With, with the like, like talking to the headmistress?

• 1:47:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. Cause you're like, if I was that headmistress, you're really in her shoes figuring out something's gone wrong.

• 1:47:27Griffin Newman?

  Well, she just like launches immediately into like reprimanding and like laying down the law. And then the other adults have to come and be like, you, you don't understand what just fucking happened.

• 1:47:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  But we're, we're also skipping over the rocks are talking kind of, they're like shaking and making noises.

• 1:47:42David Sims?

  There was like-

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  They're seeing vapor kind of coming out. It's so mysterious. I was really-

• 1:47:48Speaker 04

  It's awesome.

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  Like so hypnotized by it.

• 1:47:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's so awesome.

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  And there's no way to define even what it really is.

• 1:47:56David Sims?

  They got a recording of an earthquake that they use for like some of those weird primal noises. Like they would slow it down and fudge with it and stuff, you know, but like that was, that was what they're doing.

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  But maybe what it is, is it's, it's the rock's tummy rumbling because he's so hungry.

• 1:48:10David Sims?

  Oh, he's like, need girls.

• 1:48:13Speaker 04

  Again, the rock is not very big to my, to my eyes. When we see it in wide shots, it's, it's kind of like an aggro crag style set of, you know, or-

• 1:48:22David Sims?

  Thank you for acknowledging the importance of the aggro crag. And I do hope the aggro crag was specifically inspired by Picnic.

• 1:48:29Speaker 03

  And we should say that Mo will be on the next episode.

• 1:48:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Mo, Mo is on the next episode.

• 1:48:34David Sims?

  But like the kids who lost at guts should have just been like disappeared into a void.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:38David Sims?

  And it's like, they shall never return.

• 1:48:39Speaker 04

  But you're kind of like, where did these girls even find space to disappear?

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  The, right. That's what, like they just go behind a rock and like, you know, that's it. And then of course, one of them is eventually found like in there.

• 1:48:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Well, we'll get to that. Permission to make a bad joke?

• 1:48:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:54David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:48:55Griffin Newman?

  Is the ex, show a little excitement.

• 1:48:58David Sims?

  Yes, go make your bad joke.

• 1:48:59Griffin Newman?

  Permission to make a great joke?

• 1:49:00David Sims?

  Yeah, let's hear it.

• 1:49:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  Is the reason they disappeared because it was The Rock's cheat date?

• 1:49:06David Sims?

  Hmm. And he eats whatever he wants on his cheat day.

• 1:49:10Griffin Newman?

  Right, that after like six days of grilled chicken breasts and shit and taromonic tequila.

• 1:49:17David Sims?

  He gets to eat three Victorian girls.

• 1:49:19Griffin Newman?

  He has like a stack of 15 pancakes and.

• 1:49:22David Sims?

  Will The Rock even go to the Oscars? His masking machine just got the one nom.

• 1:49:26Griffin Newman?

  It did for makeup.

• 1:49:28David Sims?

  Which excellent makeup.

• 1:49:29Griffin Newman?

  Don't you think he'll go to fucking Plug Live Action Moana?

• 1:49:32Speaker 04

  Oh, I thought you were asking about Hanging Rock.

• 1:49:34Griffin Newman?

  My joke was I was conflating the two things.

• 1:49:36David Sims?

  That actually feels like a Conan, like I wish Conan could host in a Picnic at Hanging Rock year.

• 1:49:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41David Sims?

  Like he's like, now The Rock from Picnic at Hanging Rock.

• 1:49:44Speaker 04

  What was the last Picnic at Hanging Rock year at the Oscars? It's been a little while. I made this joke with the AR-15 from Weapons.

• 1:49:51David Sims?

  That should, that should host it. Where it's just like costume design is integral to, you know, it's just floating like this.

• 1:49:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, Dune stand where I'm playing the piano was fun. It was great, but I do want, now that like Conan's returning for a second year, I want him to go full like character parade.

• 1:50:09Speaker 04

  Oh, preparation H. Raymond.

• 1:50:11Griffin Newman?

  Right, like do, do like 20 anthropomorphized objects from Oscar nominated films.

• 1:50:18David Sims?

  No, the pitch is, and he should steal this, the fucking opening video is Amy Madigan makes him run like this through all of the other movies.

• 1:50:25Griffin Newman?

  That's good.

• 1:50:25David Sims?

  Right, like she just ca- and cause like Conan and Amy Madigan is cooking with gasoline. Like the two of them will be great together.

• 1:50:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:34David Sims?

  And then he's just doing this.

• 1:50:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 1:50:35David Sims?

  Running through Marty Supreme or whatever.

• 1:50:38Griffin Newman?

  It was their intent to bring back the.

• 1:50:41David Sims?

  They, they were gonna do it.

• 1:50:42Griffin Newman?

  It got foiled for a couple of reasons that make sense.

• 1:50:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:44Griffin Newman?

  But I, I'm hoping, I'm praying, this episode comes out the day after the Oscars.

• 1:50:49David Sims?

  I hope Conan did a great job.

• 1:50:50Griffin Newman?

  I hope he went through all the movies.

• 1:50:52David Sims?

  I hope he didn't like get up there and say the N-word or something. I'm sure he wouldn't.

• 1:50:56Speaker 04

  How did Blue Moon do in those nominations?

• 1:50:58Griffin Newman?

  Two.

• 1:50:59David Sims?

  Best actor, best screenplay.

• 1:51:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:51:01David Sims?

  Not bad.

• 1:51:01Griffin Newman?

  You like Blue Moon?

• 1:51:02Speaker 04

  I loved Blue Moon.

• 1:51:02David Sims?

  Blue Moon rocks.

• 1:51:03Griffin Newman?

  Fucking rules.

• 1:51:04Speaker 04

  I loved that film.

• 1:51:05David Sims?

  We need more bar movies.

• 1:51:06Griffin Newman?

  You know my favorite thing about Blue Moon? That they had to take an approach to shooting around him. Being fake short.

• 1:51:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:13David Sims?

  Being hobbit.

• 1:51:14Griffin Newman?

  That makes him feel like a muppet.

• 1:51:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:17Griffin Newman?

  That it feels like the visual strategy they employ for incorporating a muppet into a real world set.

• 1:51:22Speaker 04

  I mean, when, when, what's his name, E.B. White?

• 1:51:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25Speaker 04

  When E.B. White shows up as the like, um, you know, the celeb cameo.

• 1:51:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:51:30Speaker 04

  That's when you know.

• 1:51:31David Sims?

  Like, like, he's the fucking Captain America of Blue Moon.

• 1:51:36Griffin Newman?

  Crazy that that movie.

• 1:51:37David Sims?

  Where they're like, and he's like, and I'm thinking of writing a book about a little mouse.

• 1:51:40Griffin Newman?

  It is insane that movie is so good that it does like six walk hard.

• 1:51:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:45Griffin Newman?

  Like, here's little boy version of.

• 1:51:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:48Griffin Newman?

  And I, I don't ding it for any of them.

• 1:51:50Speaker 04

  No, it's awesome.

• 1:51:51David Sims?

  Blue Moon is a blast. That was just, I was hooting and hollering and feeling crazy about, you know, Lorenz Hart.

• 1:51:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:57Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 1:51:57Griffin Newman?

  I went through the arc of being like, yeah, you know, this is good for what it is. It's fun. To by the end being like, is this the most devastating thing I've ever seen? Does this rock and roll so hard?

• 1:52:07David Sims?

  Linklater's good.

• 1:52:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:08Speaker 04

  I went to see it. I did my own double feature at the Little Movie Theater upstate was playing both that and the, um.

• 1:52:15Griffin Newman?

  The Black Phone 2?

• 1:52:16Speaker 04

  No, New, yeah, I did see Black Phone 2.

• 1:52:18David Sims?

  No, New Vlog.

• 1:52:19Speaker 04

  New Vlog, yeah.

• 1:52:20Griffin Newman?

  Cause there were two different kind of Barbenheimers you could do. You could do New Val Moon. Or you could do Black and Blue.

• 1:52:27Speaker 04

  Blue Phone 2.

• 1:52:28Griffin Newman?

  You could do the two hops.

• 1:52:32Speaker 04

  Oh, that's true. That's true. Cause I forgot about Ethan. Ethan not really in Black Phone 2 that much.

• 1:52:36David Sims?

  I think he phoned that one in.

• 1:52:39Speaker 04

  Literally.

• 1:52:40David Sims?

  Did you like, uh, New Vlog?

• 1:52:42Speaker 04

  Not really.

• 1:52:42David Sims?

  Yeah. It was okay.

• 1:52:44Speaker 04

  Uh, you know what? I was also hungry and I knew I was doing the second one. And so I did leave halfway through to go get a chicken parm gyro.

• 1:52:51David Sims?

  Well, I mean, chicken parm gyro, that didn't put the movie over the line for sure.

• 1:52:55Griffin Newman?

  Delete on this.

• 1:52:58Speaker 04

  Let's talk about Black Phone 2 though, cause.

• 1:53:00David Sims?

  Please.

• 1:53:01Speaker 04

  I feel like I, you know, choose your battles in terms of like, I'm a filmmaker. It's not.

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  You don't wanna talk shit.

• 1:53:07Speaker 04

  You don't wanna talk too much shit about other filmmakers, but one film I feel comfortable talking shit about is Black Phone 2.

• 1:53:15Griffin Newman?

  I have to say.

• 1:53:16David Sims?

  Did you like Black Phone 1?

• 1:53:17Speaker 04

  I didn't, but.

• 1:53:18David Sims?

  Neither did I.

• 1:53:19Speaker 04

  I think that it's a whole different ballgame. Cause I, and I.

• 1:53:22David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:53:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:23Speaker 04

  I only saw Black Phone 2 because people were like, but this one's kind of fun. It's kind of like Nightmare, it like makes it Nightmare on Elm Street.

• 1:53:28David Sims?

  Cause he's dead, so he's just like a weird monster.

• 1:53:30Griffin Newman?

  Felt like a pretty complete statement.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Griffin Newman?

  And I was puzzled by them attempting to make a second one. And then I saw the trailer and I'm like, if you're using this as a way to backdoor the new.

• 1:53:41Speaker 04

  Black door.

• 1:53:43David Sims?

  A new kind of like plum house, like.

• 1:53:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:46David Sims?

  You know, whatever.

• 1:53:46Speaker 04

  There's a new.

• 1:53:47David Sims?

  Like Black Phone takes a nap.

• 1:53:49Speaker 04

  There's a bad guy.

• 1:53:50Griffin Newman?

  The phone goes to hell, like whatever.

• 1:53:52Speaker 04

  But I will say, the Grabber.

• 1:53:55David Sims?

  The Grabber.

• 1:53:55Speaker 04

  Try harder.

• 1:53:56David Sims?

  He grabbed.

• 1:53:56Griffin Newman?

  Absolute.

• 1:53:57Speaker 04

  Try harder.

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  He grabbed people.

• 1:53:58Griffin Newman?

  I understand that was his name in the first one, but if he's going to become supernatural, he's got to rebrand.

• 1:54:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03David Sims?

  So to what? Phony?

• 1:54:06Griffin Newman?

  Freddie Grabber.

• 1:54:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. He.

• 1:54:08Griffin Newman?

  Robbie Kruger.

• 1:54:10Speaker 04

  Full spoilers ahead for Black Phone 2.

• 1:54:12David Sims?

  Warning.

• 1:54:13Speaker 04

  No one dies.

• 1:54:14Griffin Newman?

  Hmm, good.

• 1:54:15Speaker 04

  He kills not a single victim.

• 1:54:17Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 1:54:17David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:54:18Speaker 04

  Everyone survives.

• 1:54:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:54:20Speaker 04

  Everyone is Christian.

• 1:54:22Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 1:54:23Speaker 04

  The Christian stuff in that movie is amazing. It's so, did you guys, neither of you guys saw Black Phone 2?

• 1:54:29Griffin Newman?

  You saw it, didn't you, David? I didn't see it.

• 1:54:31Speaker 04

  All right, I'm speaking into the.

• 1:54:32Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I heard, I heard about this. I think it's good because I, for too long, these horror films have presented lead characters with abominable behavior and actions that I don't condone. And these filmmakers are presenting it like they're heroes. I watch these Jason movies, I'm supposed to be rooting for this guy? He's killing people. I like to hear that the Grabber is, is obeying the law.

• 1:54:53Speaker 04

  But there's this kind of like, the attitude that the movie takes is that being a Christian is sexy.

• 1:54:59David Sims?

  What?

• 1:55:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:00David Sims?

  Like, in a good way?

• 1:55:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, that like, there's like one character who's like, and I believe in God. And then someone else is like, that's sexy. It's really, I, I, this would have been better if you guys had seen it, but uh.

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  Is the Grabber Jewish? Like, what, what is the framework here?

• 1:55:17Speaker 04

  The Grabber is basically, um.

• 1:55:19David Sims?

  Black Phone 2, it sounded like a camp, right?

• 1:55:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22David Sims?

  There's some element of that.

• 1:55:23Speaker 04

  They get him to a camp somehow. And guess what is lurking at this camp?

• 1:55:28David Sims?

  Grabber?

• 1:55:28Griffin Newman?

  A phone.

• 1:55:29Speaker 04

  A payphone.

• 1:55:29David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:55:30Speaker 04

  And guess who's calling on that payphone?

• 1:55:33David Sims?

  Grabber!

• 1:55:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:35David Sims?

  Okay, good, there you go, that time.

• 1:55:36Speaker 04

  And also the Grabber's victims again. That's because it's like-

• 1:55:40David Sims?

  Like they're just repeating the trope of Black Phone of like-

• 1:55:43Speaker 04

  Oh, the classic thing that happens with the grabber is that the dead-

• 1:55:46David Sims?

  They talk to you.

• 1:55:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, the victims help you and pump you up.

• 1:55:50David Sims?

  Right. Which I didn't really like in the first film.

• 1:55:53Griffin Newman?

  When they pick up the phone, is Ethan Hawke like, "They offered me 10% of first dollar gross, and I didn't even have to come to set."

• 1:56:02David Sims?

  This really worked out with Sinister and, uh-

• 1:56:05Griffin Newman?

  And The Purge.

• 1:56:06Speaker 04

  He did one day on set of Black Phone 2.

• 1:56:09David Sims?

  That's what I heard.

• 1:56:10Speaker 04

  He's grabbing, and he is grabbing on the storm.

• 1:56:15Griffin Newman?

  Also, like, honestly, like, do not bemoan Ethan Hawke pulling that off. Nice work if you can grab it.

• 1:56:22Speaker 04

  He's got, he's got one of those like, um, you know, like the grabby kinda hand things.

• 1:56:26Griffin Newman?

  Are you fucking kidding me?

• 1:56:27Speaker 04

  No, I wish.

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  Like, one of the toys?

• 1:56:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's, he's got a couple of those toys, you know, extender, he's grabbing.

• 1:56:34Griffin Newman?

  You're making this sound excellent.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  Most of the movie takes place on like a CGI frozen lake.

• 1:56:38David Sims?

  I will not be tricked into watching this movie, as I was tricked into watching the first Black Phone by some people being like, "It's kinda interesting," and I watched and I was like, "No, thank you."

• 1:56:49Speaker 04

  But it has the same, like, pretension of seriousness to it.

• 1:56:52David Sims?

  That's what I find is often true with Scott Derrickson movies.

• 1:56:54Griffin Newman?

  It's about trauma.

• 1:56:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:57Griffin Newman?

  The Black Phone is about trauma.

• 1:56:58David Sims?

  I recently watched his Day the Earth Should Still remake, don't know why I did that. It's not very good. He's made a couple of movies I like.

• 1:57:06Speaker 04

  Name them.

• 1:57:08Griffin Newman?

  Doctor Doctor, Give Me the News.

• 1:57:10David Sims?

  I, I like Sinister. I think Sinister is like pretty effective. Like, I don't think it's like some masterpiece.

• 1:57:17Griffin Newman?

  I never saw Sinister.

• 1:57:18David Sims?

  Sinister is like actually gnarly.

• 1:57:21Griffin Newman?

  Punted projector?

• 1:57:22David Sims?

  Yeah, fucked up, uh, home movies.

• 1:57:26Speaker 04

  It seems like there's something fundamentally at odds in the Black Phone 1 thing that, where it's like, it wants to be like, this guy is like actually just like a pedophile and we're just gonna like linger in his like absolute grotesque shit and also like-

• 1:57:44Speaker 04

  We don't like that. We want you to know that that-

• 1:57:46David Sims?

  The Grabber's no good.

• 1:57:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:47David Sims?

  I think the Grabber actually should be arrested and maybe like taken to court for some of his crimes. Maybe the justice system needs to have a say on the Grabber.

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  The Grabber meets Lady Gaga in prison.

• 1:58:00Griffin Newman?

  Someone's gotta save the Grabber.

• 1:58:01David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess that's kinda, I mean, I sort of enjoyed Doctor Strange, but like that, you know, the Marvel movies are always a grab bag of who really-

• 1:58:08Griffin Newman?

  Grabber bag.

• 1:58:09David Sims?

  Yeah, indeed. That's about it. Cause I didn't like Exorcism of Emily Rose, which is sort of his breakout.

• 1:58:14Griffin Newman?

  Never saw that one. Deliver Us From Evil?

• 1:58:16David Sims?

  That's a movie he made.

• 1:58:17Griffin Newman?

  Never saw that one.

• 1:58:17David Sims?

  No, I haven't seen that one.

• 1:58:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:19David Sims?

  That's an F cinema score, I think.

• 1:58:21Speaker 04

  I'm trying to figure out what movies to play at my birthday party and I was Googling, um, best comedies and I came across a Letterboxd list that he-

• 1:58:29Griffin Newman?

  That Derrickson made?

• 1:58:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, a Scott Derrickson Letterboxd list of the 100 best comedies of all time.

• 1:58:34David Sims?

  And you're gonna do those for your birthday?

• 1:58:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:36David Sims?

  All 100?

• 1:58:37Speaker 04

  Chronological. It was a good list, you know, it was-

• 1:58:39David Sims?

  He seems to have perfectly-

• 1:58:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was a good list.

• 1:58:41Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember his number one?

• 1:58:43Speaker 04

  It was a chronological. I don't think there was a number one.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 1:58:45Speaker 04

  It was more like 100 years, 100 laughs.

• 1:58:47Griffin Newman?

  Borkers exiting the factory was this-

• 1:58:49Speaker 04

  I was just, I was looking for, um, for inspiration. You know?

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  Do you do a theme for your birthday?

• 1:58:55Speaker 04

  You know, I did last year.

• 1:58:56David Sims?

  What'd you do last year?

• 1:58:59Speaker 04

  Well, actually this year I was like, thinking I might do VR as a theme and my best friend was like, wasn't that last year's theme?

• 1:59:06David Sims?

  So like Lawn Mower Man?

• 1:59:07Speaker 04

  And then I was like, no, last year's theme was time travel. And then my best friend was like, didn't you show Strange Days last year?

• 1:59:14David Sims?

  Great movie.

• 1:59:14Speaker 04

  There's no time travel in that movie?

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  No.

• 1:59:16Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:59:16David Sims?

  There is VR.

• 1:59:17Griffin Newman?

  Squids.

• 1:59:17Speaker 04

  I don't think I'm gonna do a, a theme this year.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Fair enough.

• 1:59:20Speaker 04

  I just, I wanna show Peewee's Big Adventure.

• 1:59:22Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it cannot go wrong.

• 1:59:26Griffin Newman?

  I like that Peewee and Picnic now get to sit next to each other in the criteriaing closet.

• 1:59:31David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Alphabetically?

• 1:59:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, close to.

• 1:59:34David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:59:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:35Speaker 04

  Performance in between.

• 1:59:38Griffin Newman?

  The peas, man, that's where it's at.

• 1:59:40Speaker 04

  Perfumed nightmare.

• 1:59:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:54David Sims?

  What do we discuss? Well, the girls are gone and it's been reckoned with, but I'm like, what are the other things?

• 2:00:03Speaker 04

  Okay, here's some, here's some things in this movie. Uh, there, there are these like late movie revelations that I kind of did a double take on. When we find out that, um, now we're getting really deep into the lore, but that Sarah, who's essentially the main character.

• 2:00:21David Sims?

  So Sarah is sort of the main character, the girl who doesn't get to go on the trip.

• 2:00:24Speaker 04

  Right. She's, is she the sister?

• 2:00:29Griffin Newman?

  Of, yes.

• 2:00:29Speaker 04

  Of that other guy?

• 2:00:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:00:32Speaker 04

  Why? How?

• 2:00:34Griffin Newman?

  That's, uh, one of the, uh, I will say the deleted scenes in theatrical cut.

• 2:00:39Speaker 04

  Maybe explain that.

• 2:00:40Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I watched them. They, they're more in depth on that.

• 2:00:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  And I think that feels more elusive in the director's cut where you're like, why is this kind of just nodded at without really being?

• 2:00:53Speaker 04

  There's like five minutes left in the movie and all of a sudden I'm finding out that those two characters who never interacted are brother and sister?

• 2:00:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's like earlier scenes in theatrical cut that are not bad, but I understand him just being like, no, this is not where the action is.

• 2:01:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:01:09Speaker 03

  But they basically just got separated when the, cause she was at the orphanage and then I guess somehow ended up at the school and they lost touch.

• 2:01:19David Sims?

  I think it is a- And then it turns out that she, her tuition hasn't been paid at a certain point, right?

• 2:01:23Speaker 03

  Like some benefactor.

• 2:01:24David Sims?

  Whatever guardian.

• 2:01:25Griffin Newman?

  Right, but it's, it's a reflection of like, if you are not born into class and wealth in this kind of society, right?

• 2:01:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:34Griffin Newman?

  Like there are two pathways. They can put a man to work and they can try to, uh, like finish a young woman to be married off to someone rich.

• 2:01:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  And so she's sort of sent into this like coddled training, uh, ground to try to make her a proper lady of value.

• 2:01:52Speaker 03

  Whereas he is sent to work for some well-off family.

• 2:01:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:58Speaker 03

  But befriends their son.

• 2:02:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  Whose son?

• 2:02:02Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 2:02:03Speaker 03

  The, the rich family that-

• 2:02:04Speaker 04

  That other boy.

• 2:02:05Speaker 03

  Bernie works for, that other boy. And they together in the woods when they witness-

• 2:02:11David Sims?

  Right, Michael is the rich guy.

• 2:02:13Speaker 03

  The top of the mountain.

• 2:02:14David Sims?

  And then, right, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:16Griffin Newman?

  And then, yeah, makes this effort to try to, if not rescue them, at least try to follow up and understand what happened.

• 2:02:25Speaker 04

  Did this come after The Go Between, the LoSi film?

• 2:02:28David Sims?

  Incredible movie, thank you for shouting it out.

• 2:02:30Griffin Newman?

  Good question.

• 2:02:31David Sims?

  Uh, that film came out in 1971.

• 2:02:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:34David Sims?

  It's also based on-

• 2:02:34Speaker 04

  I feel like there's some go-between bleeding into this one.

• 2:02:38David Sims?

  Uh, a movie that, uh, my father's favorite movie of all time, it was The Go Between.

• 2:02:42Speaker 04

  Oh, sensitive man.

• 2:02:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, no, Saturday Night and Sunday Mornings was his, uh-

• 2:02:47David Sims?

  No, that's the movie that my dad was like, that movie is about my life-

• 2:02:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:02:50David Sims?

  When I was that age.

• 2:02:51Griffin Newman?

  Right, the way my father reacted to Marty Supreme. Uh, that's you, that's the kid at the end.

• 2:02:56Speaker 04

  The way my father reacted to Black Phone 2.

• 2:03:00David Sims?

  Grabber!

• 2:03:01Griffin Newman?

  I always wondered why your name was Jane Grabber, something hyphenated.

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  Um, uh, but Go Between, Todd Haynes used the score from Go Between for May December.

• 2:03:11Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 2:03:12David Sims?

  Just used it, just one for, and when I brought it up to him, he was like, yeah, rocks, right? Doesn't that movie rock?

• 2:03:18Speaker 04

  It does rock. Also, that book is incredible.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  The book is incredible. I, I read it a few years back. It's, it is incredible. But, um, so, right, so you have Michael, who's the, the English boy, that, the rich boy, who is just like haunted by the, I guess haunted by that he can't fix it, right? Is that the simple way to put it? He's a, he has these vivid dreams of Miranda where she's sort of like a bird, right, or a swan? Like, but like, it's like, it feels like he's also just like, I was there, I was watching.

• 2:03:45Speaker 03

  He was the last, they were the last two people to see them.

• 2:03:47David Sims?

  And I like let them disappear.

• 2:03:49Speaker 04

  Say that like, it feels like the film, there's something like a little rapey with those two.

• 2:03:54David Sims?

  There's something at least like creepily voyeuristic about what they're doing. They're like, look, a bunch of girls. Like, they also just kind of appear in front of them.

• 2:04:02Griffin Newman?

  The movie is playing off the energy of something significantly worse and more inexplicable happening before-

• 2:04:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:10Griffin Newman?

  Anything bad is able to happen from their actions.

• 2:04:13Speaker 04

  Like if I was writing the mini-series. Those boys would be suspects.

• 2:04:19David Sims?

  Sure, right.

• 2:04:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:04:21David Sims?

  And it's, it's quiet in the movie, but it is, you know, it's not hard to read that in.

• 2:04:25Griffin Newman?

  And then instead, they become almost obsessed with.

• 2:04:29David Sims?

  Figuring it out.

• 2:04:30Griffin Newman?

  They almost feel a little emasculated by the fact that it's not a thing they can solve. They can't be like Prince Charming and save the princesses, but I also think part of it is the inexplicable nature of it is breaking their brains.

• 2:04:45David Sims?

  But.

• 2:04:45Griffin Newman?

  To witness something that they cannot even get their heads around.

• 2:04:50David Sims?

  But his buddy is Bertie.

• 2:04:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:04:52David Sims?

  Albert, right?

• 2:04:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:53David Sims?

  Who's like Australian. Albert's the one who finds Irma.

• 2:04:57Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:58David Sims?

  The one who doesn't disappear.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:05:00David Sims?

  Doesn't know what happened.

• 2:05:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:05:02David Sims?

  And like her feet are untouched, right? So it's like, it's not even, it's like, she does seem to have maybe been suspended and returned.

• 2:05:08Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't he go pass out, ends up with the same bruises? And then when they find him, he has the swath of cloth in his hand.

• 2:05:17Speaker 04

  Hmm, totally.

• 2:05:18David Sims?

  No, it's Michael who does that.

• 2:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  And then Albert goes to the rock after that happens, finds Irma.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:05:24David Sims?

  She doesn't know what happened. And then Albert is the one who, yes, recounts the dream where, yes, it's sort of revealed that Sarah was his brother, sister.

• 2:05:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:32David Sims?

  I guess. And that she, in this dream, essentially said, I've got to go. And then she, it's revealed that she, you know, threw herself off the building and crashed through the greenhouse. This is the end of the movie.

• 2:05:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, now you're, yeah, you're jumping all the way to.

• 2:05:45David Sims?

  I'm just telling you.

• 2:05:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, cause no, this whole, as, as we were saying, the whole other thing is that she's told, uh, Mrs. Appleby.

• 2:05:52David Sims?

  The headmistress, whatever.

• 2:05:54Griffin Newman?

  Um, that they're behind on the payments.

• 2:05:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:05:58Griffin Newman?

  And she's also doing the brass tacks of like, the great tragedy in her eyes of three girls going missing is that's three fewer tuitions.

• 2:06:07David Sims?

  Yeah, sucks.

• 2:06:08Griffin Newman?

  In the immediate, beyond even the fact that now.

• 2:06:11Speaker 04

  The reputation of the school.

• 2:06:12Griffin Newman?

  They're surrounded with these horrible fucking vibes and the business is never going to recover from this.

• 2:06:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:16Griffin Newman?

  So.

• 2:06:17David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't think I want to send my kid to the hanging rock school.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  But so just as a way to immediately cut costs, she's just like.

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  I'm sending them to looming rock.

• 2:06:26David Sims?

  Right, yeah. Maybe Black Phone 2 school or whatever.

• 2:06:29Griffin Newman?

  Let's kick this freeloader to the curb.

• 2:06:30David Sims?

  Yes. Right, you should no longer have any fun.

• 2:06:32Griffin Newman?

  Cruel and merciless in this.

• 2:06:34David Sims?

  And she's, you know, expresses she had a terrible experience at the orphanage previously.

• 2:06:40Speaker 04

  But she, I don't know, but then, but the headmistress in the end, it's like, she's like coping with something too. It almost feels like.

• 2:06:48David Sims?

  Well, I think she had a connection to her colleague, who we haven't really mentioned, is also one of the people that disappears.

• 2:06:55Speaker 04

  Hmm, totally.

• 2:06:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:06:57Speaker 04

  Oh, and there's some kind of like, um, maybe there, there's some sexual repressiony kind of stuff going on.

• 2:07:02David Sims?

  There's, it's very hard to read into some of this stuff, but it feels like it's there. McCraw, I believe is her name.

• 2:07:08Speaker 04

  Because then there's also, um, Jackie Weaver.

• 2:07:12David Sims?

  Yes, who's the.

• 2:07:13Speaker 04

  Who is sleeping with that guy.

• 2:07:16Griffin Newman?

  The, the sort of groundskeeper.

• 2:07:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, they kind of have like a Gosford Park upstairs.

• 2:07:20David Sims?

  This is the go-betweeny thing. Right, yeah, exactly.

• 2:07:23Speaker 04

  And you get the sense that the headmistress is kind of pissed off about that.

• 2:07:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:07:26Speaker 04

  You guys are having sex?

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:07:29Speaker 04

  But it's.

• 2:07:30David Sims?

  This is all stuff that's happening in the movie where you are like, what am I to grab on here?

• 2:07:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:35David Sims?

  Like, what's the plot? Like, what, what is the ongoing story here?

• 2:07:38Speaker 04

  Left the Hanging Rock.

• 2:07:40David Sims?

  Right, the girls are gone and now I'm with everybody who's sort of grasping on for an explanation or a way to proceed. The detail of the teacher who disappeared, sorry again, I don't remember her name. Miss McCraw. Miss McCraw is witnessed by the girl who runs off. Yes. That she is just in her underwear, walking around. Weird. What's going on there? What happened? Was she hypnotized, possessed? Like, it's, it's, I don't know.

• 2:08:05Speaker 04

  I think they were horned up. I think that rock was hornin' them up. It's a hot day. It's Saint Valentine's Day.

• 2:08:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:12David Sims?

  And then there's this.

• 2:08:13Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 2:08:14David Sims?

  You know, we discover Irma, and there's this moment where Irma is brought to say goodbye to the girls and they're all hanging there.

• 2:08:20Speaker 04

  That's a great scene.

• 2:08:20David Sims?

  They're doing like a dance lesson because it's like those wooden boards that they're all holding on to that are suspended from strings, right? To like do their posture, right? I assume that's what that is. Like their ballet moves. Their do ballet stuff. And then they all just go feral and start like screaming at them.

• 2:08:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:34David Sims?

  Because they're like, you did it. Like, it's your fault.

• 2:08:37Speaker 04

  They want, they are the American critics saying. Explain it to us. Solve the mystery.

• 2:08:43Griffin Newman?

  I, I think, not to, uh, simplify it.

• 2:08:49David Sims?

  We can just be like, we can't simplify it and we leave it to you.

• 2:08:54Griffin Newman?

  You're saying, we the podcast?

• 2:08:55David Sims?

  Exactly. Now that we've said that, you can also go ahead and simplify it. You know, we all acknowledge that, yes, part of it is just kind of like-

• 2:09:01Griffin Newman?

  I don't claim to have the ultimate reading, but this is what I, I feel while watching this movie. We talked about it a bit in our, uh, True Grit, uh, episode in our Coen series. But that, like, the ending of that film, which I find so powerful, is kind of like, this young girl is broken by this experience. Because after this, going on this fucking adventure that like leaves her down an arm, but also has these like high highs and low lows. The notion of like, great, and now go to finishing school and like make yourself-

• 2:09:32David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:09:32Griffin Newman?

  A proper wife for someone to buy and like, you know, funnel into the system is just a thing that she cannot wrap her head around anymore. And I think a lot of this movie is about, to me, in my view, a society that is not giving these women any outlet to ever like, express any emotions or autonomy. So all these things of like, what are these like repressed, unspoken things going on beneath the surface? It's not that the movie isn't communicating them to us. It is that these characters do not even see a pathway to being able to communicate them to each other, or perhaps even admit them to themselves. And what is like motivating them to go to that rock is like being horned up.

• 2:10:12Griffin Newman?

  But it's also this feeling of like, Jesus Christ, are we just like stuck on this conveyor belt for the rest of our fucking lives? And I think it's part of what makes everyone so freaked out about them disappearing, is to a certain degree, it's like, well, this is scary. What ominous kind of unknown thing is lurking around here? But also-

• 2:10:33Griffin Newman?

  Other than that, what's our future? We're all going towards the exact same fucking thing.

• 2:10:38Speaker 03

  Hmm, don't like it.

• 2:10:39Griffin Newman?

  No, and like, you know, this girl gets told that she's gonna get kicked out of the school. She immediately is like, well, I guess it's suicide. There's like no third option for these people. And not that the, the group of girls go to the rock with ideations of death to begin with, but it's more just this feeling of like exploration of is there anything else out there, even for a moment, before we have to return to like the straight line we're expected to walk on? Cause the world of this movie is very small. And you know, some of that you can say is like a budget limitations, but I think much like, you know, Halloween gaining power from not being able to afford extras.

• 2:11:22Griffin Newman?

  There's something about how limited the scope is of the world this is contained within. The fact that, you know, we see the police coming in and trying to solve it, but the movie doesn't zoom out to like this becoming a national news story in a way that really, really broadens its aperture. You're stuck in this like very kind of claustrophobic existence the whole time. And death is like kind of the only way out of it.

• 2:11:47David Sims?

  Sure. I mean, that is the way out for Sue. And we learn it's the way out for Mrs. Appleyard.

• 2:11:55Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:11:55David Sims?

  Right? Like.

• 2:11:57Speaker 04

  The rock comes for them all.

• 2:11:58David Sims?

  She goes to the rock, climbs it and dies is what we're told, right? Like her body was found.

• 2:12:03Speaker 03

  She friggin' jumps off.

• 2:12:05David Sims?

  Or she jumped off.

• 2:12:06Speaker 03

  She friggin' lost, lost her dang mind.

• 2:12:08Griffin Newman?

  Can I give you my read on what I think happens?

• 2:12:10David Sims?

  You're like the Australian cop at the front scene like chewing an apple.

• 2:12:14Griffin Newman?

  Lost her damn mind.

• 2:12:16David Sims?

  She lost her damn mind!

• 2:12:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I think, and this is just, you know, how I've always read the movie. They go inside the, the slit in the rock. And Bill and Ted are just there with their phone booth.

• 2:12:28Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 2:12:28Griffin Newman?

  And they're like, come with us.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  We're gonna go see Silk Crates.

• 2:12:32Griffin Newman?

  They bring them to Sandy, Miss in the eighties, and they have a grand old time. And they're like, if you don't mind, we'll stay here.

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  I mean, do Bill and Ted fuck?

• 2:12:38Griffin Newman?

  Each other?

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  Are they should?

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  The medieval babes, what are you talking about? They're married, they have children.

• 2:12:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, one of those played by Jack Haven.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:46David Sims?

  Cool.

• 2:12:46Griffin Newman?

  And some are weaving.

• 2:12:48David Sims?

  I saw that movie once in covid, it's it's gone, I'm sorry.

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  Not bad.

• 2:12:52David Sims?

  I remember having a totally fine time.

• 2:12:54Griffin Newman?

  I've been pushing to do it on Patreon, we had it on the schedule for a moment.

• 2:12:57David Sims?

  We did think about it.

• 2:12:58Griffin Newman?

  We did.

• 2:12:59David Sims?

  We can bring it back.

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I just love all three of those movies.

• 2:13:03Speaker 03

  Same.

• 2:13:04David Sims?

  Yeah, they're great, they're fun.

• 2:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so.

• 2:13:06David Sims?

  The second one is so good, the Bogus Journey one, that movie distressed me as a child.

• 2:13:10Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  Cause it's weird.

• 2:13:12Griffin Newman?

  It's very scary.

• 2:13:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:13David Sims?

  You like Bogus Journey? It's the one with the devil, the death.

• 2:13:16Speaker 04

  I don't think I've ever seen it.

• 2:13:18Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Jane.

• 2:13:18David Sims?

  Cool.

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  But.

• 2:13:20David Sims?

  It's cool.

• 2:13:21Griffin Newman?

  I would have guessed that Bogus Journey was like one of the most influential films on your work.

• 2:13:25Speaker 04

  I've like seen parts of it on Comedy Central, for sure.

• 2:13:28Griffin Newman?

  You clearly have gotten there without having seen it, but I would strongly recommend you see.

• 2:13:33Speaker 04

  You know what else I haven't seen?

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:13:34Speaker 04

  Princess Bride.

• 2:13:36David Sims?

  You know what? That's one for me too. I've seen The Princess Bride like once maybe, but like it's one of those movies that's canonical for people that I am like, I don't have much of a relationship with that movie.

• 2:13:46Speaker 04

  The other big one for me that I think it might finally be time for, cause I just had an idea yesterday for like, uh, like not a gender swap, like more of like a moral swap.

• 2:13:56Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 2:13:56Speaker 04

  Like make, take good and make it evil is Forrest Gump.

• 2:14:00Griffin Newman?

  Well. Hey now.

• 2:14:02David Sims?

  I mean.

• 2:14:03Griffin Newman?

  You're on to something.

• 2:14:04David Sims?

  That's a good, good starting point.

• 2:14:06Griffin Newman?

  Right, so your idea is to take Forrest Gump and turn him into a good character instead?

• 2:14:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 2:14:11Griffin Newman?

  See what I did there, Ben?

• 2:14:13Speaker 03

  I liked it.

• 2:14:14Speaker 04

  I've never seen Forrest Gump, but I know, I know the idea.

• 2:14:17Griffin Newman?

  It's quite a film.

• 2:14:17David Sims?

  Forrest Gump is fucking stupid and bad, but also, you know, pretty watchable.

• 2:14:24Speaker 04

  I watch, I've been on a Zemeckis kick, I watched, um.

• 2:14:27David Sims?

  He's made some amazing movies.

• 2:14:28Speaker 04

  Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I watched for the first time in a while, what a movie, what a picture.

• 2:14:32David Sims?

  The best.

• 2:14:32Griffin Newman?

  Unbelievable.

• 2:14:33David Sims?

  It's my favorite of his.

• 2:14:34Speaker 04

  I think I was actually, the last time I was on here, maybe talking a lot about the Polar Express, cause I had just watched it for the first time.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  We, so we covered him years ago, we covered him in deepest, darkest pandemic.

• 2:14:43David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:14:44Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and, uh, we, we, we spent a lot of. I'm thinking about the man. Uh, but David, I.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  My daughter loves the Polar Express and.

• 2:14:53Griffin Newman?

  David has been stuck in a hell of Polar.

• 2:14:55David Sims?

  It's not a hell. It's a, it's a strange world. I don't know.

• 2:14:58Speaker 04

  I love, I loved it. I loved it.

• 2:15:00David Sims?

  So, you know, I watched it before I had kids and I was like, what a weird, waxy movie. And then I watched it with my daughter on TV and I was like, yeah, but at least she likes it or whatever. Then I took her to see it in theaters. The Nighthawk had it. Some of it kind of rips.

• 2:15:15Griffin Newman?

  You're also skipping over 80 additional times she made you watch it at home.

• 2:15:18David Sims?

  I've seen it a lot.

• 2:15:19Speaker 04

  That's like, uh, that movie is like, um, whatever, what do they call this like thing this that, that, that people say my movies are like, where it's kind of like, um, like liminal, you know?

• 2:15:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:28Speaker 04

  Like, that's a liminal movie.

• 2:15:30David Sims?

  It, that Polar Express is a liminal movie. I don't think your movies are, although.

• 2:15:35Speaker 04

  They're not liminal like Polar Express. I'll tell you that.

• 2:15:37David Sims?

  Polar Express, like you're like, cause to me, liminal, which of course is in the eye of the beholder. But like, it's like you're in the train car of the Polar Express and you're like, I can imagine this going on forever.

• 2:15:47Speaker 04

  I'm in hell.

• 2:15:48David Sims?

  Right, exactly. Like I go to another train car, it looks the same.

• 2:15:50Speaker 04

  You know who would fit in that movie is Salad Fingers.

• 2:15:55David Sims?

  And now we're getting a liminal space movie this year, right?

• 2:15:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:15:58David Sims?

  The Backrooms.

• 2:15:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 2:15:59David Sims?

  Directed by like a 19 year old, which I'm all for. I'm like, yes, let's have 19 year olds make creepypasta movies.

• 2:16:05Griffin Newman?

  And the train conductor's in that, right?

• 2:16:06David Sims?

  Yeah, he's gonna be there.

• 2:16:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:08David Sims?

  He's gonna be like, welcome to the Polar Express.

• 2:16:10Speaker 04

  That little, that little hot, hot.

• 2:16:11Griffin Newman?

  Hot, hot.

• 2:16:13David Sims?

  I mean, it's something that my daughter has not clocked and I keep waiting to see if she ever does, where I'm like, this movie is sinister.

• 2:16:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:20David Sims?

  Like, he's not nice.

• 2:16:21Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:16:22David Sims?

  He's really weird and mean to them.

• 2:16:24Griffin Newman?

  He's quite mean.

• 2:16:24David Sims?

  Yeah. And I know that's sort of the bit of like, oh, he's kind of stern, but like, you know, he's got a heart.

• 2:16:29Griffin Newman?

  Your daughter's a sensitive kid who I feel like reacts to those things.

• 2:16:32David Sims?

  Yeah, but she likes the rules, you know, and there's a lot of rules in Polar Express.

• 2:16:36Griffin Newman?

  A tremendous amount of rules.

• 2:16:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:16:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh, one of them, of course, being feel free to put ice cubes inside your hot chocolate.

• 2:16:42David Sims?

  No, no, never, never let it cool. Uh, number, uh, this film came out, I'm doing the box office.

• 2:16:48Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's skipping so far ahead. He was about to tell us number five.

• 2:16:52David Sims?

  Number five, no. Uh, this film came out in Australia in 1975.

• 2:16:54Griffin Newman?

  Do we have any final thoughts on Picnic at Hanging Rock?

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, I had to create the space to leave it open.

• 2:17:01David Sims?

  Oh, should I just play pan flute?

• 2:17:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:03Speaker 04

  Get a little pan flute in there.

• 2:17:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:06David Sims?

  This film came out in Australia in 1975.

• 2:17:08Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:17:09David Sims?

  Um, but then, you know, sort of slowly works its way around the world. It does make a lot of money in Australia. It doesn't come out in America, as far as I can tell, Griff.

• 2:17:17Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:17:18David Sims?

  Until 1979.

• 2:17:20Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:17:21David Sims?

  February 2nd, 1979. The year of, there you go.

• 2:17:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there we go.

• 2:17:26David Sims?

  Number, so I'm finding that, I'm giving you the box office week for the 2nd of February, 1979, okay?

• 2:17:31Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:17:32David Sims?

  Number one at the box office is a superhero film. It's been number one for like two months. It's a big movie.

• 2:17:37Griffin Newman?

  It's called Superman.

• 2:17:38David Sims?

  Superman. Do you cover Superman, Jane?

• 2:17:41Speaker 04

  Who's that?

• 2:17:42David Sims?

  Christopher Reeve.

• 2:17:44Speaker 04

  Who's that?

• 2:17:44David Sims?

  Blue and red.

• 2:17:45Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of a superman.

• 2:17:46Speaker 04

  Is that the guy who played Atticus Finch?

• 2:17:48David Sims?

  No.

• 2:17:49Griffin Newman?

  He's a, he's a newspaper man.

• 2:17:50Speaker 04

  I've actually never seen the original Superman.

• 2:17:52David Sims?

  It's pretty good.

• 2:17:52Speaker 04

  I should watch it. Richard Donner?

• 2:17:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:17:55Griffin Newman?

  Seventy-five percent of it is the best shit on earth.

• 2:17:57Speaker 04

  Is it Brando?

• 2:17:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:58Speaker 04

  Oh, I gotta see it.

• 2:17:59David Sims?

  Brando, Brando has been tightly woven into a Kryptonian suit.

• 2:18:03Speaker 04

  Should I watch, and I haven't seen the new Superman, but I kinda wanted to.

• 2:18:07David Sims?

  Superman's fun.

• 2:18:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Maybe I should do them both back to back.

• 2:18:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and skip everything in between.

• 2:18:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:12David Sims?

  You'd be fine if you did that, absolutely. Number two at the box office is a, a comedy?

• 2:18:16Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 2:18:17Speaker 04

  A comedy?

• 2:18:19David Sims?

  Uh, an ensemble comedy anthology?

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  It's an ensemble anthology comedy.

• 2:18:24David Sims?

  From?

• 2:18:24Griffin Newman?

  It's not Kentucky Fried Movie, is it?

• 2:18:26David Sims?

  No, think

• 2:18:27Speaker 04

  Airplane?

• 2:18:28David Sims?

  Worse than those two movies, or think less cool than those movies.

• 2:18:32Griffin Newman?

  But it is anthology. It's not like

• 2:18:34David Sims?

  Yes, sort of.

• 2:18:35Griffin Newman?

  The Groove Tube?

• 2:18:36David Sims?

  No.

• 2:18:36Speaker 04

  Less cool than Kentucky Fried Movies?

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  It's too early for Amazon Women on the Moon.

• 2:18:41David Sims?

  No, so you guys, again, you're thinking cool.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  It's really lame.

• 2:18:44David Sims?

  No, it's not even lame. It's just like very mainstream comedy of the era.

• 2:18:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:48David Sims?

  One of the big comedy figures of this era.

• 2:18:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, is it the Neil Simon?

• 2:18:52David Sims?

  It's a Neil Simon.

• 2:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's the hotel one?

• 2:18:54David Sims?

  Yes, he made multiples, but this is one of them.

• 2:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes, um, it's called, is

• 2:18:58David Sims?

  It won an Academy Award.

• 2:19:00Speaker 04

  He made multiple hotel ensembles?

• 2:19:03David Sims?

  Correct, like we're at a hotel and there's gonna be like four mini stories about people at a hotel.

• 2:19:07Griffin Newman?

  Four rooms. This is California Suite, which Maggie Smith won her first or second Oscar.

• 2:19:13David Sims?

  Second.

• 2:19:13Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:19:14Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 2:19:15David Sims?

  She's good in it. Uh, I've seen California Suite. Um, Bill Cosby's in it.

• 2:19:20Speaker 04

  Great.

• 2:19:21David Sims?

  And Richard Pryor.

• 2:19:22Griffin Newman?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:19:24David Sims?

  Alan Alda, Michael Caine.

• 2:19:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:26David Sims?

  Jane Fonda, Walter Mathau, Elaine May.

• 2:19:29Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:19:30David Sims?

  Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith. Pretty fun. No, it's not. It's okay. It's like, one of the four stories is pretty good, the Maggie Smith one. One's okay, the Richard Pryor one. Like, it's like, and one of them's kind of bad. You know what I mean?

• 2:19:41Griffin Newman?

  Right. It made like three billion dollars adjusted for inflation.

• 2:19:43David Sims?

  Made forty-two million dollars.

• 2:19:45Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  It was a big hit. Number three of the box office is something I have never heard of. I'll have to look it up.

• 2:19:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay, that's exciting.

• 2:19:53David Sims?

  Okay, it's, okay, I'm not gonna tell you what it's called, because you have to guess, of course. Okay, so it's, there was a book.

• 2:19:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I like it so far.

• 2:20:01David Sims?

  A nonfiction book.

• 2:20:02Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:20:02David Sims?

  Twenty-eight million copies of it were sold.

• 2:20:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:20:05Speaker 04

  A secret.

• 2:20:06David Sims?

  It is a treatment of what I want to call dispensational premillennialism. Comparing end-time prophecies in the Bible with current end-time prophecies, right? Of the time.

• 2:20:19Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:20:20David Sims?

  So it's like, doing all that stuff. This book gets turned into a film narrated by Orson Welles.

• 2:20:27Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 2:20:28David Sims?

  That's just him being like, "No, the Old Testament," you know, like, and talking about all this shit.

• 2:20:33Griffin Newman?

  I know this movie.

• 2:20:35Speaker 04

  You do?

• 2:20:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cuz it's like a bizarre curio.

• 2:20:39David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:20:40Griffin Newman?

  Um, it's not called, ah, fuck. It's not called The Final Something, is it?

• 2:20:46David Sims?

  No, I'll tell you what it's called.

• 2:20:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  The Late Great Planet Earth.

• 2:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Whoa. Okay, that's a different movie than I was thinking of.

• 2:20:52David Sims?

  Okay, well, that's what it is.

• 2:20:54Griffin Newman?

  I just, when I watch, like, old Siskel and Eberts, they will rail about how, like, once a year, there's a movie like this.

• 2:21:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:02Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, the weird faith-based box office phenomenon of their time, which were like, quote-unquote documentaries that stoked, like, end-time spheres.

• 2:21:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:21:12Griffin Newman?

  There's, there's the, the Search for Noah's Ark, which is like, a really big one.

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:21:17Griffin Newman?

  A couple of years later.

• 2:21:18David Sims?

  They would also just, there would be movies that was just like, we have a hot air balloon and we took some fucking pictures at the ground from it. And people didn't have, like, you know, other ways to see that, in color.

• 2:21:27Griffin Newman?

  That's an earlier, more innocent time. By, the time you get to the seventies, there's a documentary that's like, "Did we film an interview with God?" It costs you $2 to find out. And people would rush out and they'd be like, "No!" And they're like, "Ha, ha, we got your money." And they'd run for the hills.

• 2:21:43David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is an action comedy that was a gigantic hit.

• 2:21:47Griffin Newman?

  In 1979, is it Silver Streak?

• 2:21:49David Sims?

  No. It stars a guy who didn't make a lot of comedies. And in fact, we wanted to talk about him indirectly with Jane and this is a way to do it.

• 2:21:57Griffin Newman?

  Here we go. It is one of the two Clyde the orangutan movies.

• 2:22:01David Sims?

  It is one of the two films in which Clint Eastwood acted alongside a monkey.

• 2:22:04Speaker 04

  Wanted to talk about Clint with me.

• 2:22:06David Sims?

  No, we want to talk about Sully.

• 2:22:08Griffin Newman?

  This is a building a bridge over here to Sully. Cause we forgot to do it last time around. We gotta do it before this episode ends.

• 2:22:14David Sims?

  But what the film is called?

• 2:22:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:22:15David Sims?

  It's the first one.

• 2:22:16Griffin Newman?

  I always fuck up on this.

• 2:22:18David Sims?

  Have you seen either of the movies where Clint?

• 2:22:19Griffin Newman?

  Which is kind of.

• 2:22:19Speaker 04

  No, I haven't.

• 2:22:20David Sims?

  Mucks it up with an orangutan.

• 2:22:21Speaker 04

  I haven't, but I know about them.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  It's actually insane that I haven't seen.

• 2:22:23Speaker 04

  A lot of my like, movie knowledge comes from The Critic.

• 2:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:22:28Speaker 04

  I feel like there are a couple bits on The Critic about this, yeah.

• 2:22:31Griffin Newman?

  I just feel like one of my top five favorite movie stars of all time is a monkey.

• 2:22:38Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 2:22:38Griffin Newman?

  Like just monkey on camera.

• 2:22:41Speaker 04

  Did you see the news yesterday about Keenan and Kel meet Frankenstein?

• 2:22:44David Sims?

  Yes, I did.

• 2:22:45Griffin Newman?

  Thrilling.

• 2:22:45Speaker 04

  I, I, yeah, I.

• 2:22:47David Sims?

  I just booked, I bought 100 tickets.

• 2:22:49Speaker 04

  This country's back on the right track.

• 2:22:51Griffin Newman?

  I, I hope they do them all.

• 2:22:54David Sims?

  There had better be a tie-in orange soda that I can buy for that movie.

• 2:22:58Speaker 04

  There had better be like a long exposé that drops eight months later about how much they were at each other's throats.

• 2:23:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes. Do you know what I love about it most of all?

• 2:23:07David Sims?

  They buried the hatchet within five days of shooting. They were not speaking.

• 2:23:11Griffin Newman?

  Those are their real names, right? They have the rights to use their real names.

• 2:23:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:23:16Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:23:16Griffin Newman?

  It feels like this movie is not legally affiliated with the Nickelodeon series at all.

• 2:23:20Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:23:21Griffin Newman?

  So I'm really fascinated to see how.

• 2:23:23David Sims?

  Will they play themselves in a new way, right?

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Like, are there gonna be like weird legal lines of like?

• 2:23:29David Sims?

  Maybe Kel fans love orange soda.

• 2:23:31Griffin Newman?

  Kel Mitchell can love soda, but orange soda is owned by Nickelodeon.

• 2:23:34David Sims?

  Well, I love orange soda. I hope Kel does.

• 2:23:36Speaker 04

  He was kind of stupid? Was that like, he was kind of the dumb one?

• 2:23:39David Sims?

  Kel's just excitable and like, was easily tricked.

• 2:23:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:23:43David Sims?

  And Keenan was the schemer. Keenan was always like, "Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do all this crazy stuff."

• 2:23:48Griffin Newman?

  It's very honeymooners.

• 2:23:49Speaker 04

  You can only imagine what's gonna happen when.

• 2:23:51David Sims?

  When they meet Frankenstein. Crazy.

• 2:23:53Speaker 04

  Frankenstein's monster, too.

• 2:23:54Griffin Newman?

  But also, I think the classic.

• 2:23:56David Sims?

  He better be a lordy. He's just doing the exact same thing.

• 2:24:01Griffin Newman?

  The classic Ken and Kel thing is that Kel's always a little smarter than you think he is.

• 2:24:05David Sims?

  Yeah, Kel has kinda like a sort of.

• 2:24:07Speaker 04

  Right, right. That's right at the end of the episode.

• 2:24:09David Sims?

  And Kenan trips himself up with.

• 2:24:10Griffin Newman?

  Right, he overthinks it.

• 2:24:12Speaker 04

  They should get a lordy and who's Maggie Gyllenhaal's bride?

• 2:24:16David Sims?

  Yeah, they should get Jesse Buckley as the bride. What's the film called, Griff?

• 2:24:22Griffin Newman?

  Uh, okay, so I always get the two titles are wrong.

• 2:24:25David Sims?

  Just try.

• 2:24:25Speaker 04

  It's called.

• 2:24:26Griffin Newman?

  It's called Any Which Way You Can.

• 2:24:28David Sims?

  That is the sequel. The original was called.

• 2:24:30Griffin Newman?

  Any Which Way But Loose?

• 2:24:32David Sims?

  Every Which Way.

• 2:24:33Griffin Newman?

  This is what I always mess, oh my god.

• 2:24:36David Sims?

  In which, yes, Clint Eastwood, a bare-knuckle brawler, roams the American West looking for a lost love, accompanied by his brother, manager Orville, who is played by Jeffrey Lewis, and an orangutan called Clyde.

• 2:24:47Griffin Newman?

  Clyde.

• 2:24:48Speaker 04

  It sounds like it was straight out of the Australian New Wave.

• 2:24:50David Sims?

  It does, kind of does.

• 2:24:52Griffin Newman?

  Humongous movie.

• 2:24:53David Sims?

  Uh, directed by James Fargo, who's one of his guys.

• 2:24:55Griffin Newman?

  Was like maybe Clint Eastwood's biggest hit at the time?

• 2:24:58David Sims?

  It made a hundred and five million dollars, which is a lot of money.

• 2:25:00Griffin Newman?

  Humongous. There were like ten movies in history that had made a hundred million at that point.

• 2:25:04David Sims?

  Uh, what did you want to say about Sully? Sorry? Uh, just to, this is the Sully space.

• 2:25:08Speaker 04

  This is your chance to talk to me.

• 2:25:10Griffin Newman?

  You used to run a Sully Tumblr, correct?

• 2:25:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Are you Nardwar? Am I wrong about this?

• 2:25:18Speaker 04

  You're correct about that, yeah.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  What was it called?

• 2:25:20Speaker 04

  Uh, it's My Sully Fan Art.

• 2:25:22Griffin Newman?

  Cause I told people you were doing our Twin Peaks return finale episode, and multiple friends of mine were like, you gotta ask Jane about the Sully Tumblr. And then when the episode came out, several people on the Reddit said, I cannot believe they didn't bring up the Sully Tumblr.

• 2:25:38Speaker 04

  I'm happy to hear this because I felt like the Sully Tumblr never got its due.

• 2:25:43Griffin Newman?

  This is your moment.

• 2:25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:25:44Griffin Newman?

  To reclaim it.

• 2:25:45Speaker 04

  I think.

• 2:25:45David Sims?

  It still exists. Tumblr.com slash MySullyFanArt.

• 2:25:48Speaker 04

  So basically, here's what happened.

• 2:25:51Griffin Newman?

  This is pre-movie.

• 2:25:52Speaker 04

  This is, oh yeah.

• 2:25:53Griffin Newman?

  This was the real man, the real hero.

• 2:25:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, this was pre-transition. This was, um, I, it was 2006. No, the movie had come out or was just coming out.

• 2:26:02Griffin Newman?

  Let me check the dates here.

• 2:26:03Speaker 04

  Um, I had just quit my day job.

• 2:26:07Griffin Newman?

  Movie's 2016.

• 2:26:09Speaker 04

  I kinda had these like dark years between 2016 and 2019, 20 that were sort of like.

• 2:26:17Speaker 04

  Am I trans? This is one of the main coping mechanisms. It was my Sully fan art.

• 2:26:23David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:26:25Speaker 04

  I think I, I saw something in it. I, I was try, I was trying to find my voice, that voice that people love so, so much now. And a lot of that was going into, um, the, the conceit was sort of like-

• 2:26:39David Sims?

  You're kind of tearing pages out of Moleskine notebooks.

• 2:26:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was tearing a page out of Moleskine notebooks and I was doing little one-panel comic strips where, um, Sully is like, I, I think as we now know him to be like, um, just, just like a hero of our time. But, but, but then, uh, yeah, I was interested in like the Sully backstory.

• 2:27:00David Sims?

  Sending you guys an image from it.

• 2:27:02Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:27:02David Sims?

  You're welcome.

• 2:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Do, do you know that Dave and I like, wholeheartedly-

• 2:27:05Speaker 04

  There's a big Sully thing.

• 2:27:07Griffin Newman?

  We, we, we defend that movie really hard.

• 2:27:09Speaker 04

  I don't think I ever actually saw the movie. That was the other thing.

• 2:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 2:27:12Speaker 04

  I hadn't seen the movie.

• 2:27:13Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the idea of him is so powerful. That imagine a whole movie of that.

• 2:27:17Speaker 04

  No, I think that, and that was where the comics came from. My Sully fan art was sort of like, um, you don't have a man like Sully who's real very often. It's a man and the mythology.

• 2:27:29Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that's the fucking, the drive songs about him.

• 2:27:32David Sims?

  You're a real human being.

• 2:27:34Speaker 04

  No, and, and it, um-

• 2:27:35David Sims?

  It's true.

• 2:27:36Speaker 04

  It's, I feel like it was a different time to have a, you know? A fascination with Sully in 2016. I feel like now, post the rehearsal, season two.

• 2:27:46David Sims?

  That's true.

• 2:27:47Griffin Newman?

  We were so fucking ahead of that curve.

• 2:27:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:49Griffin Newman?

  You know what drove me crazy? People texting saying, "You gotta watch the rehearsal. You're gonna love it." Why? Because someone else stood up for Sully?

• 2:27:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:56Griffin Newman?

  When we've been here doing the work for fucking years.

• 2:27:59Speaker 04

  And me as well.

• 2:28:00Griffin Newman?

  They tried to railroad us.

• 2:28:01Speaker 04

  2016 or 17.

• 2:28:04Griffin Newman?

  The three of us were doing the work.

• 2:28:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:28:05Griffin Newman?

  Boots on the ground.

• 2:28:07Speaker 04

  I gave Sully a sidekick named Tully, who is his-

• 2:28:11David Sims?

  There's also little Sully, who's also a child.

• 2:28:13Speaker 04

  Sully's dad gives him advice. Sully's dad is a character and his dad is kind of always like, "If you ever have to land an airplane on, cause there are bir-, you know, he, he's sort of, there's a lot of that."

• 2:28:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Oh, he's constantly fighting birds.

• 2:28:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:28:27Griffin Newman?

  Do you folks know, since we've already like spoiled Black Phone 2?

• 2:28:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:28:32Griffin Newman?

  Do you know the ending joke of, um, Daddy's Home 2?

• 2:28:37David Sims?

  Yes, we've talked about it on this podcast.

• 2:28:39Griffin Newman?

  Do you know it, Jane?

• 2:28:40Speaker 04

  No, tell me.

• 2:28:41Griffin Newman?

  The first Daddy's Home, obviously, it's like Will Ferrell.

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  Don't set up the first Daddy's Home, I have to go.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  Very quickly!

• 2:28:46David Sims?

  No!

• 2:28:47Griffin Newman?

  Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, stepdad versus birthdad coming back into the picture.

• 2:28:52Speaker 04

  Oh, I gotta watch this.

• 2:28:52Griffin Newman?

  And he's feeling emasculated. Sofia Coppola loves it.

• 2:28:55David Sims?

  It's okay.

• 2:28:56Speaker 04

  Hold on, because I actually didn't know, what's the movie called?

• 2:29:00David Sims?

  It's Daddy's Home.

• 2:29:00Speaker 04

  Daddy's Home. It's not called Stepfather, because it sounds a lot like Stepbrothers.

• 2:29:05David Sims?

  It's sort of that vibe.

• 2:29:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:29:06David Sims?

  But I mean, not as surreal.

• 2:29:08Griffin Newman?

  But like demented Nickelodeon family comedy.

• 2:29:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:29:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:29:11Griffin Newman?

  So the reveal at the end of the movie is that...

• 2:29:15Speaker 04

  They're actually father and son?

• 2:29:17Griffin Newman?

  Mark Wahlberg remarries, and she goes like, unfortunately, you are gonna have to meet the father of my children, my ex-husband. And he shows up, and it's John Cena. And it's like, oh, here's the guy who can emasculate Mark Wahlberg.

• 2:29:30Speaker 04

  Now, it gets passed down.

• 2:29:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. So in the second movie...

• 2:29:34Speaker 04

  Is Cena in there?

• 2:29:35Griffin Newman?

  They're a blended family. Cena's in there. They're all getting along, but there's a little tension between them. But now, the grandfathers come in.

• 2:29:42Speaker 04

  And so the chain is Will Ferrell, or...

• 2:29:44Griffin Newman?

  Will Ferrell's dad is John Lithgow.

• 2:29:46Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 2:29:47Griffin Newman?

  Mark Wahlberg's dad is Mel Gibson.

• 2:29:49Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 2:29:50Griffin Newman?

  And they save John Cena's dad for the end of the movie, and the reveal is that it is Captain Sully Sullenberger playing himself.

• 2:29:56Speaker 04

  That's good.

• 2:29:57Griffin Newman?

  And that...

• 2:29:57Speaker 04

  That's good.

• 2:29:58Griffin Newman?

  It's the only man who could emasculate Mel Gibson.

• 2:30:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:30:01Speaker 04

  I do like that, and I'm glad that Sully got a pitch.

• 2:30:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and probably like pretty good residuals.

• 2:30:07David Sims?

  Yes, some residuals.

• 2:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:08David Sims?

  Did you want to say anything about Wado before I move on to number five at the box office?

• 2:30:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you also, you're fluent in Wado.

• 2:30:14Speaker 04

  I, yeah.

• 2:30:15Griffin Newman?

  When you first came in here for the last episode, you clocked the Wado standee. There's a big Wado Pepsi standee. And you said, oh, we gotta talk about Wado, and then we forgot to do it.

• 2:30:25Speaker 04

  Now, we can write that wrong.

• 2:30:27Griffin Newman?

  It's the moment.

• 2:30:28Speaker 04

  It actually, I have a friend, my oldest friend, who is a big fan of the Blank Check Podcast, so shout him out.

• 2:30:34Griffin Newman?

  That's crazy, because that's the podcast you're on right now.

• 2:30:36Speaker 04

  Bob, what up, Bob?

• 2:30:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:30:37Speaker 04

  We grew up together, and it was like...

• 2:30:40Griffin Newman?

  Hi, Bob.

• 2:30:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, we had this sense of humor, right? Like, or like, a Wado, you know, you're looking for the things that don't quite add up in pop culture in the year 2000 or whatever, 99, when was it?

• 2:30:54Griffin Newman?

  99.

• 2:30:55Speaker 04

  99, yeah. And we were collecting those Pepsi cans.

• 2:30:59Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:31:00Speaker 04

  And, uh...

• 2:31:02Speaker 04

  I feel like it was like my brain was still small enough that and it was such a big event, those prequels. It was like, oh, this is gonna be like, this is, we're about to get our canon.

• 2:31:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:31:12Speaker 04

  Like, we kids, our parents got it. It was Luke, it was Chewie.

• 2:31:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:31:17Speaker 04

  We're about to get our canon. It's these guys.

• 2:31:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, and they were pushing Wado so hard, I think, because of him being a CGI, like, visual effects breakthrough.

• 2:31:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:31:26Griffin Newman?

  And you watch the movie and you're like-

• 2:31:27Speaker 04

  And he's a Jew.

• 2:31:28Griffin Newman?

  He is, in fact, a flying space Jew. He's a bit of a shy lock.

• 2:31:32Speaker 04

  Um.

• 2:31:33Griffin Newman?

  And he's like a very unsavory character in the film without having the coolness of a villain.

• 2:31:38David Sims?

  He is a slave owner.

• 2:31:39Griffin Newman?

  He's a slave owner and a gambling addict.

• 2:31:41Speaker 04

  There's a good Mad TV sketch. Do you remember that one?

• 2:31:44Griffin Newman?

  Oh, about Wado?

• 2:31:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, where they go to like, they go to like George Lucas's ranch and he's like showing them the new characters and it's just like, here's like Aunt Jemima Mada, you know?

• 2:31:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. The Jar Jar discourse was so loud at the time.

• 2:31:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:31:57David Sims?

  That Wado and-

• 2:31:57Speaker 04

  Wado kind of got drowned out.

• 2:31:58David Sims?

  And the Nymoedians almost got fired.

• 2:32:00Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I'd say the Nymoedians were second.

• 2:32:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:32:02Griffin Newman?

  And I think we all are like of the same broken brain where even in 1999, we were like-

• 2:32:07Speaker 04

  We were able to see that there was something going on.

• 2:32:10Griffin Newman?

  And then culture like circled back around 10 to 15 years later.

• 2:32:14Speaker 04

  I feel like Wado also has like, there's something like very Donkey Kong about Wado. Like, Wado feels straight out of the, like, not the Nintendo, the Rare universe.

• 2:32:24Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say-

• 2:32:25David Sims?

  Donkey Kong Hunter, you're speaking my language right now.

• 2:32:28Griffin Newman?

  There's some Banjo Kazooie energy to Wado.

• 2:32:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:30David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, thank you for-

• 2:32:32Speaker 04

  And let's, let's just, you know, put it in the parlance of these times, Wado is a scenery chewer.

• 2:32:38Griffin Newman?

  He, he is.

• 2:32:39David Sims?

  Eh, what do you mean by that?

• 2:32:41Speaker 04

  If you're in a scene with Wado, you're gonna get out acted.

• 2:32:44Griffin Newman?

  And let me-

• 2:32:45David Sims?

  Nissen admits that to this day.

• 2:32:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:47David Sims?

  That fucking thing blew me off the screen.

• 2:32:50Speaker 04

  And then you find out who Sully's father is.

• 2:32:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I mean, let me put it in the parlance of our day. Wado is straight up aura farming, and I don't say this to glaze him.

• 2:33:00David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:33:01Griffin Newman?

  But the man was absolutely serving.

• 2:33:03David Sims?

  So weird that Qui-Gon is like, I'll break any rule. I'll train. I'll train a kid. I'll gamble for his life, right? I'll bring him, you know, because and then the kid's like, can I have my mom? And he's like, you know, things are done a certain way here. All right. I'm not going to just take your slave mom from Wado.

• 2:33:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, this giant ship's a little crowded.

• 2:33:21David Sims?

  I won one slave in the bet. Okay.

• 2:33:23Speaker 04

  Does he Jedi mind trick Wado at one point?

• 2:33:25David Sims?

  Wado says that they don't work on him.

• 2:33:28Griffin Newman?

  My tricks don't work on me.

• 2:33:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:33:32David Sims?

  So he can't. He can't be. And of course, Wado, instead of flipping a coin, rolls a chance cube to produce a red or blue outcome.

• 2:33:40Speaker 04

  Part of the charm of Wado is that, like, I feel like the name Wado, that was the first draft.

• 2:33:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:50David Sims?

  I think we did a good job. Number five at the box office is a romantic drama about ice skating. What's it called?

• 2:33:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's not.

• 2:34:01Griffin Newman?

  Uh, The Cutting Edge.

• 2:34:03David Sims?

  No.

• 2:34:05David Sims?

  Famously, it stars Robbie Benson, who is best known as the voice of the beast.

• 2:34:09Griffin Newman?

  On the Video Archives podcast.

• 2:34:10David Sims?

  In Beauty and the Beast, they did. That's right. And recently, he's on Severance.

• 2:34:15Griffin Newman?

  Who is the female lead of this movie?

• 2:34:18David Sims?

  Uh, her name is Colleen Dewhurst.

• 2:34:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:22David Sims?

  Big sort of theater actor.

• 2:34:23Griffin Newman?

  Yep. Mm hmm. This movie is called, is it called the something?

• 2:34:29David Sims?

  No.

• 2:34:30Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 2:34:30David Sims?

  I'll tell you what it's called. It's called.

• 2:34:31Griffin Newman?

  Enchanted Hearts.

• 2:34:32David Sims?

  Castles.

• 2:34:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there we go. Okay.

• 2:34:36David Sims?

  So that's the top five. You've also got the Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family. What the hell is that?

• 2:34:44Griffin Newman?

  Sounds good.

• 2:34:44David Sims?

  That's a Janesque title.

• 2:34:47Griffin Newman?

  I fed it into ChatGPT. You should look into that IP. See if anyone's got a hold on it right now.

• 2:34:53David Sims?

  That is a sequel to a movie called Adventures of the Wilderness Family, perhaps unsurprisingly. I don't know. Looks like some kind of like, you know, the.

• 2:35:05David Sims?

  Little House on the Prairie adjacent shit. You've got the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings. Which rocks and is insane.

• 2:35:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:14Speaker 04

  Wait, he did Lord of the Rings too? I thought he just did The Hobbit.

• 2:35:17David Sims?

  No. So The Hobbit was Rankin-Bass. That thing is okay. And then there's the insane Ralph Bakshi, uh, what's, you know, where you trace over it. What's it called?

• 2:35:25Griffin Newman?

  Rosecope.

• 2:35:26David Sims?

  Rosecoped Lord of the Rings. It is so weird and nightmarish. It's got all kinds of cool stuff. It unfortunately ends in the middle of the two towers.

• 2:35:33Griffin Newman?

  And then he didn't do Return of the King.

• 2:35:35David Sims?

  And then there is a crappier Return of the King animated movie.

• 2:35:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:39David Sims?

  But that was all that ever existed until Peter Jackson. Number eight is the Sean Connery movie, The Great Train Robbery.

• 2:35:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:35:45David Sims?

  Number nine is a movie called Movie Movie?

• 2:35:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a Stanley Donan film. It's, it's sort of Stanley.

• 2:35:52David Sims?

  Two movies.

• 2:35:52Griffin Newman?

  It's Stanley Donan's grindhouse. I'm not kidding you.

• 2:35:56David Sims?

  Dynamite Hands, a boxing movie, and Baxter's Beauty of 1933 is sort of Gold Digger's movie.

• 2:36:01Griffin Newman?

  It's basically him doing two different golden age pastiche mini-movies.

• 2:36:06David Sims?

  Fake trailer in the middle.

• 2:36:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it is. I wasn't kidding. It's his grindhouse. Movie Movie is like, A, I think, an incredible title.

• 2:36:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:36:13Griffin Newman?

  And B, it is a fun concept, but it's also fascinating that anytime anyone's tried to do this, it has not worked. The public has said, fuck you.

• 2:36:21David Sims?

  Uh, and then number 10.

• 2:36:22Griffin Newman?

  Wrong every time.

• 2:36:24David Sims?

  Yeah, grindhouse rocked. Uh, number 10 is Across the Great Divide. What is that? It's a film, a western with Robert Logan, whatever. Doesn't matter. I have to go see the same Remy movie in a second, so we gotta wrap up.

• 2:36:37Griffin Newman?

  That's a humble brag.

• 2:36:39David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  You were saying I gotta go. This whole time I thought you gotta make pasta dinner for your family.

• 2:36:44David Sims?

  It's why I could do a later pod today, because I have a screening.

• 2:36:47Griffin Newman?

  Well, well.

• 2:36:48David Sims?

  I have to go to, um, the Fortress of Doom, AKA Disney headquarters.

• 2:36:52Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:36:53David Sims?

  You haven't been there?

• 2:36:54Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:36:55David Sims?

  They should let you in.

• 2:36:56Speaker 04

  They haven't invited me.

• 2:36:57David Sims?

  Let you mess around with some stuff.

• 2:36:59Griffin Newman?

  They should let you develop a live-action.

• 2:37:01David Sims?

  Where's Wado? Where do you keep him?

• 2:37:03Speaker 04

  Where's Wado is not a bad title.

• 2:37:05Griffin Newman?

  I'll tell, I'll tell you some Wado rights stuff off mic. But I feel like it's about time, Jane, that you attach yourself to some random live-action Disney remake that never actually happened.

• 2:37:15David Sims?

  Right, some IP play.

• 2:37:17Speaker 04

  That seems to work out well for my peers, yeah.

• 2:37:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's perfect.

• 2:37:23David Sims?

  Not nightmarish and annoying at all.

• 2:37:24Speaker 04

  It's like, uh, about as good mileage as everyone involved in that Hanging Rock case.

• 2:37:29Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those. A lot of people just kind of disappear.

• 2:37:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:33David Sims?

  Um, thank you for joining us.

• 2:37:34Griffin Newman?

  Thank you for being.

• 2:37:35Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me. This is always so fun.

• 2:37:37Griffin Newman?

  Very excited to see the new film, which will hopefully come out sometime in this calendar year.

• 2:37:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, this year.

• 2:37:43David Sims?

  And you are working on Black Hole?

• 2:37:45Speaker 04

  I'm in the hole.

• 2:37:46Griffin Newman?

  Cool as shit.

• 2:37:47David Sims?

  But which rocks. But yeah, that's what you're doing, right? Nothing else to plug?

• 2:37:50Speaker 04

  Uh, the, the book will be out in the fall.

• 2:37:52David Sims?

  That's right. That's, yeah, I knew you had another thing.

• 2:37:53Speaker 04

  It's like a 600, 700 page novel.

• 2:37:56Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:37:56David Sims?

  You wait, you wrote Ant Kind?

• 2:37:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wrote Ant Kind. It starts Richard Brody.

• 2:38:01David Sims?

  What's the book called? I'm sorry.

• 2:38:02Speaker 04

  The book is called Public Access Afterworld.

• 2:38:05David Sims?

  Very cool.

• 2:38:05Speaker 04

  I think it's good.

• 2:38:06David Sims?

  It's a novel.

• 2:38:07Speaker 04

  It's a, it's, it's, it's a novel. It's, it's, it's gonna be my dune. You know, this is my, this is my opus.

• 2:38:14David Sims?

  Music to my ears. Nothing better.

• 2:38:16Griffin Newman?

  And, and.

• 2:38:17Speaker 03

  It's like pan flute music.

• 2:38:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:38:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, play it up again. Uh, my, my Sully fan art still.

• 2:38:22Speaker 04

  My Sully fan art is still on Tumblr.

• 2:38:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. If you want to see my true first, first project.

• 2:38:29David Sims?

  Um, and yeah, I saw the TV glow, obviously, and, uh, we're all good in the world sphere.

• 2:38:34Speaker 04

  The best.

• 2:38:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, honor and privilege to have you here.

• 2:38:38David Sims?

  Seriously, thank you for coming.

• 2:38:38Speaker 04

  To be here. Oh, my God. It's so fun.

• 2:38:41Griffin Newman?

  Music's really chilling me out.

• 2:38:42David Sims?

  I'll see your ass tomorrow.

• 2:38:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, hey.

• 2:38:45David Sims?

  Not to spoil for the listeners, but we're recording episodes tomorrow.

• 2:38:48Griffin Newman?

  We are, in fact.

• 2:38:48David Sims?

  What are we doing tomorrow?

• 2:38:50Griffin Newman?

  Um, they'll have come out like two months earlier. We're doing Mailbag and Return to Oz.

• 2:38:54David Sims?

  Or no, we moved them out back. We're doing Cars Today Paris, right?

• 2:38:57Griffin Newman?

  Which you'll have heard, yes, last week. Great. Uh, thank you all for listening. Thank you, Jane, for being here again. Uh, tune in next week for.

• 2:39:07David Sims?

  For. Doop, doop, doo, doo, doo.

• 2:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Is it Gallipoli next?

• 2:39:13Speaker 03

  The Last Wave.

• 2:39:14Griffin Newman?

  The Last Wave, of course. Tune in next week for The Last Wave, uh, with our buddy, uh, Ben David Grabinski, returning to the show. Who also has a, a new movie coming out. And as always, I, I just gift to you the listenership. The opportunity to listen to some chill ass pan flute music.

• 2:39:47Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardis Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by L.A. Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, 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

• 2:40:28Speaker 03

  for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.