Fearless with Timothy Simons

Peter Weir's Fearless is about a man who survives a plane crash and finds that he is no longer allergic to strawberries. It's also a deeply affecting, soulful exploration on what it means to be alive. And, as David Sims says - it's the "final boss" of plane crash movies. "Hitmaker" Timothy Simons joins us to chat about Jeff Bridges, Rosie Perez, "pink cloud syndrome," and aerophobia in this episode, so fasten your seatbelts and brace for impact! 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.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Some podcasts are afraid of nothing. So the tagline for this movie is "Some People Are Afraid Of Nothing." I pulled that off of a low-res, barely-loading image on the Wikipedia page for Fearless because IMDb is down.

• 1:56David Sims?

  IMDb is down, but box office mojo is working.

• 1:59Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  We are recording this on the day of seemingly the apocalypse.

• 2:04David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:04Griffin Newman?

  It is stormy and dark as hell outside. It looks like the planet Camino.

• 2:08David Sims?

  Wait, wait. It was barely, it was like drizzling. Griffin's, okay, okay.

• 2:12Griffin Newman?

  It's looking overcast. There have gotta be, I mean like-

• 2:16David Sims?

  Griffin, you can't live in New York and be like, "It's gonna rain. I think the world, this is it. It's over."

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  Rain, I go, okay, I can put up with this.

• 2:22David Sims?

  Talk, you're like-

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  IMDb is down? My apps are down.

• 2:26David Sims?

  That that's tough for you. I'd be being down too.

• 2:29Griffin Newman?

  I did. Yes. Amazon Web Services, a terrible company. A terrible service as part of a terrible company has collapsed today. And like 60% of the internet has gone down with it.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  How did I not hear about this until now?

• 2:44David Sims?

  Cause you got your head in the clouds in your ivory tower.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  I am. I'm up in my ivory tower.

• 2:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  But usually they give me the broad strokes of what the pleads are dealing.

• 2:53Griffin Newman?

  They can't reach you because they're on the web service. Your team is on AWS.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  Well, I would have assumed that one of my handlers would have mentioned.

• 3:04Griffin Newman?

  That your handlers are AI and they're also backed up on AWS.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 3:09David Sims?

  Yeah, well, no, it's actually no, they're humans, but he won't let them look at him or see his face. So they have to communicate with him via the internet.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, even if they're in the same room.

• 3:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:18David Sims?

  Right, exactly. And if they look at your face, what do you do?

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Well, it starts with like, just like a hard or stern, like warning, like just like a look of like, you know that you shouldn't have done this.

• 3:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:31Speaker 04

  And then it proceeds from there to be more physical.

• 3:35Griffin Newman?

  It's also, here's the thing, you're so tall that making eye contact with you requires a lot of effort. You can't do it by accident.

• 3:41David Sims?

  Gotta crane that neck.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  You gotta crane a neck.

• 3:43Griffin Newman?

  There's no plausible deniability.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 3:46Griffin Newman?

  No, unless you're on top of a ladder.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Or if I'm sitting down.

• 3:49Griffin Newman?

  Even then.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  And then even then.

• 3:51Griffin Newman?

  Even then.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  You should have, you should have tried harder.

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  How tall is? Might be me standing. What? What was your question?

• 3:57David Sims?

  Chicken shop date, girl.

• 3:59Griffin Newman?

  Have you done the date?

• 4:00David Sims?

  You gotta do that. Cause I feel like that'd be, she feels short. You could do like a fun height differential.

• 4:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:04David Sims?

  You know, hit chicken shop date.

• 4:06Griffin Newman?

  I've only ever seen her sitting down. Dimonball?

• 4:08David Sims?

  Amelia something. I'm sorry. I don't want to mangle her name.

• 4:12Griffin Newman?

  She might be sneaky taller than you think.

• 4:14David Sims?

  Well, let me see if Amazon Web Services can answer my question. Uh, it says she's five three, so that's, you know.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Oh, that.

• 4:21David Sims?

  Okay.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, we would have a stark difference in our appearances.

• 4:24David Sims?

  Amelia Demoldenberg.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  One could even, one could argue that that could be used for comedic effect.

• 4:30Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is what she does. It, she's never, she, it's astounding.

• 4:34David Sims?

  Oh, my goodness, she went to Marlon.

• 4:35Griffin Newman?

  It's astounding what she's done.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  She went where?

• 4:37David Sims?

  I'm just, I'm doing the English thing that is, that is not acceptable, that I shouldn't do, or I judge someone based on where they went to secondary school. She went to a posh school.

• 4:45Griffin Newman?

  In my experience, in my life, all dates have gone well.

• 4:49David Sims?

  All of her chicken shop dates?

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  No, all my dates.

• 4:51David Sims?

  Oh, all your dates?

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:52Griffin Newman?

  And then I watch her and I go, wait a second, what if a date was awkward?

• 4:55David Sims?

  I, I, I'll actually say.

• 4:57Griffin Newman?

  I think she's very funny.

• 4:57David Sims?

  I find her incredibly charming.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  I think she's very funny.

• 4:59David Sims?

  She's, she's good at what she does.

• 5:00Griffin Newman?

  I was just mocking the premise, but she's really good.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  I have never watched like a full episode. I see clips. Is it supposed to be intentionally awkward?

• 5:08David Sims?

  Yeah, it's got the sort of YouTube comedy kind of, you know, the, right, the pauses and the harsh cuts and stuff. But like, it's really, it's good.

• 5:15Griffin Newman?

  Between two ferns with less of a character.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:18David Sims?

  Right, it's between two ferns, but you like the little moments, right, where they are, are really being humans.

• 5:23Griffin Newman?

  She's a person.

• 5:24David Sims?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:25Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 5:27David Sims?

  Chicken shop date.

• 5:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:28David Sims?

  Sometimes you're like, it's same with Hot Ones, you're like, the cream roast to the top here, baby. Like, I know there's like a thousand pounds of crap on the internet and I'm hearing about this one because she's pretty good at it.

• 5:37Griffin Newman?

  She's pretty good.

• 5:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You know what else is pretty good?

• 5:40David Sims?

  You ever done Hot Ones?

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  Okay, here we go.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  I haven't done Hot Ones, but I would not be.

• 5:44David Sims?

  Why are you on this garbage?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  Because I can, I feel like, and we'll see how this goes, I feel like I could succeed here in Hot Ones, like, I, I.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  You think? Do you not have the constitution?

• 5:53Speaker 04

  I do not have the constitution.

• 5:55David Sims?

  You don't like spicy?

• 5:56Speaker 04

  I cannot handle it. I, I, I, yeah, no, I.

• 6:00David Sims?

  I mean, that might be funny.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  I truly don't know if I would be able to physically continue. And I know that like people struggle there, and that's part of it.

• 6:10David Sims?

  DJ Khaled.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  But I worry about even like the very basic ones.

• 6:13Griffin Newman?

  So you're thinking. I gotta correct you there, he's never taken an L.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  Oh, me?

• 6:18Griffin Newman?

  You think he's struggling, but he just doesn't play like that.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Oh, no, he's, he's never taken an L.

• 6:23Griffin Newman?

  He's never taken it.

• 6:23David Sims?

  He tapped out about wing four or five, I think, right?

• 6:25Griffin Newman?

  He's never taken an L, he's never eaten a P.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  Is there?

• 6:30David Sims?

  And you don't mean them peas from a pod?

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  No, he's eating those.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Is there, is there any, uh, is there like a downside to not continuing?

• 6:41David Sims?

  Uh, I mean, you're kinda, kinda being a poopy pants, I guess, right? You're not, I mean, I don't think-

• 6:46Griffin Newman?

  Brought to the town square.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  A little commander poopy pants.

• 6:48David Sims?

  You're being a little bit of a commander poopy pants. I mean, I think that like the way through, if you're struggling, it's just like, take a little bite of each one or whatever, right?

• 6:57Griffin Newman?

  That's what people do.

• 6:58David Sims?

  No one's leaning on you to finish your wings.

• 7:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:00David Sims?

  Right? It's very few people really like actually leave bones.

• 7:04Griffin Newman?

  Have I shared my conspiracy theory?

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  That, because like DJ Khalid really like fucking ate shit and looked like a fool.

• 7:12David Sims?

  And you think they pulled it back a little bit because of that?

• 7:15Griffin Newman?

  I was talking to someone who was like, do you think they've nerfed the sauces? Do you think the sauces are watered down now because no one has-

• 7:21David Sims?

  No one really has much trouble until the bomb, which everybody reacts to, because that exists to make people react.

• 7:27Griffin Newman?

  And the guests keep on getting better, right?

• 7:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:30Griffin Newman?

  And I equate it to, uh, I, I think our buddy Lin-Manuel, to drop a name, told us this.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  Well, Lin-Manuel who?

• 7:38Griffin Newman?

  Miranda.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Oh, oh.

• 7:40Griffin Newman?

  That when big stars are doing like Chicago for like 10 days and you're like-

• 7:43David Sims?

  He said this on mic, didn't he? I can't remember.

• 7:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, oh, this person doesn't have musical theater experience. How the fuck are they gonna do the show? And the company has been doing the show for 25 years that they basically have A, B, and C tracks. Where they bring them in for their first rehearsal and see what their natural ability as a singer and dancer is and go like, okay, they're a C.

• 8:02David Sims?

  Right, they won't too much.

• 8:03Griffin Newman?

  We're doing the simpler version of the show. We move around them more. And the A, you're like, oh, they actually have the skills? I think they have like different intensities of the sauces. They try the first wing and they're like, uh.

• 8:16David Sims?

  You're a liar. I mean, you think they're lying.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  I think they don't know that they're getting an easier go of it, but I think the production's adjusting in real time.

• 8:25David Sims?

  Oh, here's this season's sauces and Ben did the hot ones challenge?

• 8:28Griffin Newman?

  For my birthday.

• 8:29David Sims?

  It was tough.

• 8:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was really, really fucked up.

• 8:32David Sims?

  Did you, uh, finish every wing? Like, did you try to like?

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I made it to the end.

• 8:36David Sims?

  Yeah. No, what I'm saying, I more mean like, were you taking a bite of each wing or like finishing the wing?

• 8:41Griffin Newman?

  I, I let the show inform-

• 8:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:44Griffin Newman?

  -my approach where I wasn't taking that whole fucker down.

• 8:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  I would take like-

• 8:49David Sims?

  Then I feel like it's-

• 8:50Griffin Newman?

  I would take like a reasonable bite.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Is the entire wing coated in that sauce? Or are they just putting a drop?

• 8:55Griffin Newman?

  No, no, it's totally coated.

• 8:57David Sims?

  Of course, the 10th wing, you get the dab.

• 8:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes, the wing is already coated, but.

• 9:01David Sims?

  Put an extra dab on it.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Then you get a little extra dab.

• 9:03Griffin Newman?

  The last dab.

• 9:04David Sims?

  And if you're Jennifer Lawrence, you say, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean?

• 9:07Speaker 03

  The thing I always think about, though, and I like hot ones, having done it myself, the next day, the shit that I took was so radioactive.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  That it was bad.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  It ruins multiple days.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  For you.

• 9:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Like, as far as your digestive tract.

• 9:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 9:22David Sims?

  Right, because you're not supposed to do that.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  I think about these celebrities having to then take a shit for the next few days. It's brutal.

• 9:29David Sims?

  Now, in Fearless, do you think he would do the hot wings challenge no problem while he's in fearless mode?

• 9:36Griffin Newman?

  Strawberry is kind of is his hot one challenge.

• 9:38David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, I mean, honestly, his life in fearless mode, which is what I'm referring to, his, like, sort of cognitive dissonance or whatever, is like, you know, hot wing.

• 9:48Griffin Newman?

  The final strawberry is like the bomb.

• 9:51David Sims?

  Beyond insanity.

• 9:52Griffin Newman?

  It almost becomes his last dab, if not for the power of love.

• 9:55David Sims?

  Very good.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  That was good.

• 9:57Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Did you see how he turned it around back to the?

• 10:00Speaker 04

  I really liked that.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  I tried to do that like five minutes ago and it was ignored. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  I'm David.

• 10:06Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby? Our guest is mouthing along.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Oh, what a cutie pie.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  I really like the baby part.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Our guest is such a cutie pie. I'll just say it. He's a cutie pie.

• 10:28Griffin Newman?

  This is a mini-series on the films of Peter Weir. It is called.

• 10:31David Sims?

  Also a cutie pie?

• 10:31Griffin Newman?

  Podnick at Hanging Cast.

• 10:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 10:34Griffin Newman?

  Although I want the opinion of our guest.

• 10:36David Sims?

  Oh, my god.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  What's, what were the other options?

• 10:38David Sims?

  Very fucking goes.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  Podster and cast man are the pod side of the cast. Now, I like.

• 10:43David Sims?

  Every time he says it, he pivots out of the title because he knows it's bad.

• 10:46Griffin Newman?

  Being able to get pod and cast in there two times each.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  I mean, I think maybe in theory rather than practice.

• 10:56Griffin Newman?

  Today, we're talking about Fearless.

• 10:58David Sims?

  Oh, he pivots right away.

• 11:00Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today, of course, from the hit movie Goosebumps. Previously known as Tim Simons, today introduced exclusively as Hitmaker.

• 11:08David Sims?

  Oh, my god. Hitmaker, he's here.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  Hitmaker Blonde Edition.

• 11:13Griffin Newman?

  You are here in New York.

• 11:15Speaker 04

  Hitmaker Frosted.

• 11:16Griffin Newman?

  You're here in New York.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Tim has blonde hair.

• 11:18Griffin Newman?

  Press gauntlet. You're doing all the morning shows. That's why we're talking about all these other fucking things. Because you're doing like every morning show here in New York.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:25Griffin Newman?

  To remote the new season of the Netflix show, Nobody Wants This. Which at the time this episode comes out will have premiered six months ago.

• 11:34David Sims?

  Right, his reheated oatmeal at this point, if you want to watch that on Netflix now. It's still there, I assume.

• 11:39Griffin Newman?

  Maybe.

• 11:40David Sims?

  Unless he got cancelled.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Everyone will have watched it 30 seconds at a time on TikTok by this point.

• 11:45David Sims?

  Oh, hell, yeah, exactly. And start me at like part 62, right? You know, like TikTok likes to just dump you in the middle there.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  Now, Tip, the show's called Nobody Wants This, but judging by the viewer data, it seems like a lot of people want this.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  I, uh, have I, have I told you this story before?

• 12:00Griffin Newman?

  Has that just sucked?

• 12:01David Sims?

  Interesting. You just got a, a job offer.

• 12:03Griffin Newman?

  I got a job offer.

• 12:04David Sims?

  NBC.

• 12:05Griffin Newman?

  How many, how many of those do you have to deal with now?

• 12:08Speaker 04

  A fair amount.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  A fair amount. But I, I don't know if I've ever told you this, or if you saw this at the time, but there was a lot of conversation around what the show was going to be called. It had, it had a working title and then it had a few other, like a few other working titles. One of which I thought worked. I think at one point it was going to be called, uh, it was initially titled Shiksa.

• 12:29David Sims?

  Sure.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  And then it was called, for a little bit, was called Heartburn.

• 12:33David Sims?

  Hmm, can't do that. It's a Norafra movie.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Well, no, that's the thing, is that ultimately, I think if it existed in a vacuum is a good name for the show.

• 12:40Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 12:41David Sims?

  Sure, but it's fucking a Norafra movie. It should have been called like, The Jewish Guy and the White Girl, or I don't know, just like the most obvious.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Wow, getting a text from Netflix that they want to hire you.

• 12:52David Sims?

  Hire me for a title brainstorming?

• 12:54Speaker 04

  You guys got to stop being so good at this. You're getting all these jobs.

• 12:58Griffin Newman?

  I just think that almost every time something is titled like that. It bombs and then the headlines write themselves and everyone's like, we should have seen this coming.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a rare case where a title has that much of a self-own in it and it fucking defies the haters.

• 13:15Speaker 04

  I don't know if you remember this, but when they announced the title and they gave, you know, they gave us like, here's your first look pictures if you want to post them. I posted on Instagram, hey, here is the show. It comes out on whatever day. This was for the first season and here's a picture of Adam and Kristen and they look amazing. And I said, I really hope that reviewers like this show. Otherwise they were, they are going to dog fuck us into the ground with our title.

• 13:40Griffin Newman?

  Dog fuck us is, is a great hitmakerism.

• 13:43David Sims?

  It's a hitmaker for sure. Yeah, that's you. That's you through and through.

• 13:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but like, I, I can't think of another case where-

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Where it's worked out?

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Like, what's the worst that could happen is a big one. I remember the, the Dane DeVito Martin Lawrence movie.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  Where that came out.

• 14:01David Sims?

  Buying a ticket to this piece of shit.

• 14:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. The reviews were just like a full page photo of the critic pointing at the poster, zero stars, like.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  There was, uh, this is a little bit more like, it's not as direct, but I remember like, how do you know ended up being like, how do you know this is a shitty movie? I watched it or whatever.

• 14:23David Sims?

  You just don't want like a vague question, any kind of negative statement, obviously. Yeah. Can I, I'm just, so you're in Nobody Wants This, so that's on Netflix. Well, anything else we should mention that you're, you're in Percy Jackson. I forget when that's coming out.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Oh yeah. Wait, when, when does this come?

• 14:39David Sims?

  So this is of course posting on May 10th, 2026.

• 14:43Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  Jesus, really?

• 14:46David Sims?

  Yeah. So we hope Trump at this point has solved six to eight more wars.

• 14:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And by the time you're listening to this, you're in month six of the AWS outage.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:55David Sims?

  Right. IMDb is the only thing that's still down though. Everything else is fine.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  I, I think at this point I will have been in Scream 7.

• 15:04David Sims?

  Oh, fuck yeah. There you go. Do you, wait, do you make it?

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Well, I can tell you that I am in the film Scream 7.

• 15:10David Sims?

  Okay, fine.

• 15:11Griffin Newman?

  Fantasy was asking like, are you Ghostface? You have to tell me now. And Tim was like, I can't say anything. And I was like, if the movie starts and Ghostface is seven foot three.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Yes, that it.

• 15:22David Sims?

  It is tough to, yeah, just kind of hide you as Ghostface.

• 15:24Griffin Newman?

  They're not gonna hide you. That's, this is the problem. I'm not asking you to reveal any spoilers, but I, I think I'm gonna know pretty quickly whether you are or are not.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  He's like hunched down.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, like he has to, he bumps his head on every door frame. It's like, I wonder.

• 15:38David Sims?

  Chicken shop date. And it keeps like, it's very obvious. Right. She's the other one.

• 15:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Uh, no, those are, those were, I'd say by and large, the things that are going on.

• 15:48David Sims?

  Is your Commander Belle on The Handmaid's Tale? And I'm seeing here that June stabbed you in the eye. Who's June?

• 15:53Speaker 04

  June is, uh, Lizzie Moss.

• 15:56David Sims?

  And she, she fucking stabbed your ass in the eye.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Dang. And there was a point.

• 15:59David Sims?

  And were you like in charge of all that, all the bad stuff happening?

• 16:02Griffin Newman?

  You played one of the good guys? Were you one of the good guys?

• 16:04Speaker 04

  I played one of the very.

• 16:06David Sims?

  I think if Elizabeth Boss is stabbing you in the eye, you might not be one of them.

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  Not all men.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  I was like the leader of like the resistance and she was just like, she thought I was like going at him too hard. And she was like, well, you know, we should.

• 16:17David Sims?

  Moderation.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, we need to be moderate about this.

• 16:20Griffin Newman?

  This is the problem. Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Um, no, I, I did, I played a bad person. I think I was kind of thrown in there as like, you know, the son of an unseen, very powerful voice.

• 16:31David Sims?

  You're like a nepo.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  I'm like a nepo. And, and there is like a, there is like a.

• 16:35Griffin Newman?

  A generational.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  A generational.

• 16:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  And, and I, I did take this, I don't, we don't need to talk about this.

• 16:42David Sims?

  Did you work with Max? No, probably not.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  I did. I, one thing that was very fun was that I kind of at some point crossed over with everybody in the show.

• 16:51David Sims?

  Looks like you were in like five episodes.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Yes, but I somehow managed to have at least a small scene.

• 16:57David Sims?

  Whitford?

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Whitford. Had some scenes with Whitford. Whitford fucking rules.

• 17:01David Sims?

  Are you kind of doing a Whitford thing with the blonde haircut? He's got the white hair, but you know, just kind of the, the shock of hair, you know?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  I, there, there's nothing intentional behind it, but if, if there is any way that I can be compared to him. I will take it.

• 17:14David Sims?

  He's someone you want to. It's a great career.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  It is an incredible career. And there is just something about his cadence.

• 17:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  That makes me happy. It's so specific and yes, it is in a lot of characters that he plays. But it never feels like a crutch. And also.

• 17:32David Sims?

  No, no, he can, he can kinda, he can moderate, you know, modulate it.

• 17:36Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't feel like a gimmick.

• 17:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  And one thing that I find amazing about watching Bradley Whitford is that there is a real subtlety about, like, he's not the most still, like, facial actor.

• 17:50Griffin Newman?

  No, he's not.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  But there is such a subtlety in his, like, facial movements that I think is so admirable.

• 17:57David Sims?

  In another Netflix show, The Diplomat, which is a hit show on Netflix.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 18:00David Sims?

  It's kind of a hit.

• 18:01Griffin Newman?

  Episode on Fearless, the Peter Weir movie from 1993. Go on.

• 18:04David Sims?

  Mm-hmm. Um, I'm watching season three. Season three just dropped, right? And so in season two of The Diplomat, it's about what if Carrie Russell was a diplomat?

• 18:11Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 18:12David Sims?

  And what if Rufus Seawell was her randy husband? Who just loves to almost have affairs? Like, kind of a plot point in The Diplomat is Rufus Seawell keeps being like, can I fuck you? And the lady's like, yeah, you should fuck me. And he's like, actually, I can only fuck my wife, but I'll fart with you. Like, he, like, can't actually have affairs, but he gets, like, he loves to get close.

• 18:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh.

• 18:31David Sims?

  And then he's just like, sorry, I actually am so in love with Carrie Russell. Season two introduces who's the vice president, Allison Janney. Okay.

• 18:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:38David Sims?

  We love Allison Janney.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  Another example, yeah.

• 18:40David Sims?

  And then, not to spoil The Diplomat, but some things happen, kind of Veep style, and she becomes the president.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 18:45David Sims?

  And then, in season three, we meet her husband, Bradley Whitford.

• 18:50Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 18:50David Sims?

  And it's like, that's the most gimmicky version of using Bradley Whitford, right? West Wing reunion, we're marrying two West Wing actors who were, you know, not married, right? And then even still, I was like, I'm happy to see him. It's nice to see Bradley walking. He's got a big beard or something. He's like, rrrr, it's great.

• 19:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  I, I just, he fucking rules.

• 19:11David Sims?

  He rules.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  I had to do a, there's a, a picture of us doing dance rehearsals on a Sunday.

• 19:17David Sims?

  Now, I hear you do a dance and nobody, he told me he keeps getting this question.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  I do do a dance.

• 19:22David Sims?

  He does a dance.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  I do do a dance. And, but we had to do, we also had to do dance rehearsals for The Handmaid's Tale. And there is a picture of Bradley Whitford and I.

• 19:31David Sims?

  For like ballroom dancing or something?

• 19:33Speaker 04

  We were doing the foxtrot.

• 19:34Griffin Newman?

  It was a Macarena at the end of the season.

• 19:35David Sims?

  I'm sorry, who do you do the foxtrot with? I'll admit, I never watched The Handmaid's Tale.

• 19:39Griffin Newman?

  Are you only on the last season?

• 19:41Speaker 04

  I'm only on the last season. There's a big wedding.

• 19:43David Sims?

  You were the big bad.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  There's a big wedding.

• 19:45David Sims?

  Okay, okay.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  And so people are like doing a sort of fancy dance during the wedding.

• 19:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  And we were at these foxtrot rehearsals and it's on a, a Sunday. And we are sitting at the, the studio that we're rehearsing in is called, the studio is called The Joy of Dance.

• 19:59Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  And we are sitting underneath, uh, like a TV that has the logo that says The Joy of Dance.

• 20:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  And I'm like so happy to be there. And, and Bradley Whitford is sitting next to me looking like the most miserable man.

• 20:13David Sims?

  Most cantankerous Whitford.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  Who has ever lived. And I have the biggest shit eating grin on my face underneath this sign that says The Joy of Dance. It is just two people in very different circumstances in their head and I love that picture.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  David, I have terrible news.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  What's up?

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Uh, Bradley Whitford is a graduate of Juilliard.

• 20:31David Sims?

  David, guys.

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Do you not like Juilliard?

• 20:33David Sims?

  No, this is a thing. I do not like people's lionization of Juilliard. I do not mind if people went to Juilliard. Griffin thinks I have a beef with Juilliard. I have a beef with the way that elite schools in this country and other countries get their dick sucked all day and night. That's all, that's all.

• 20:52Griffin Newman?

  Here, here's a normal feeling.

• 20:54David Sims?

  A little bit of top. You don't like too much top.

• 20:59Griffin Newman?

  Just work the tip a little. Don't go down to the shaft. The, the thing is, David loves to do this defense now, right?

• 21:06David Sims?

  I love to do this defense.

• 21:06Griffin Newman?

  We did the Superman movies on Patreon.

• 21:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 21:10Griffin Newman?

  Christopher Reeve, famous graduate of Juilliard. David Kornswit, current Superman, famous graduate of Juilliard.

• 21:16David Sims?

  Can you believe a guy who went to Juilliard would be Superman?

• 21:19Speaker 04

  Is he a famous graduate of Juilliard?

• 21:21Griffin Newman?

  He's a Superman now.

• 21:23David Sims?

  Well, I guess he's currently very famous.

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

  He's crazy.

• 21:25David Sims?

  He's currently very famous. He's currently becoming famous.

• 21:27Griffin Newman?

  He's holding the office of Superman.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  I don't know that you can say famously a graduate of Juilliard, because I did not know that until just now.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is why the podcast exists, to educate people.

• 21:36David Sims?

  Did Dean Cain get, like, is he in the office for a minute there? Like, if it's like, you're imagining like presidential terms, which is like Christopher Reeve until Superman IV, and then is it like, succeeded by Dean Cain?

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  I think he's almost more like, the US ambassador.

• 21:49David Sims?

  Or is it like, in Wikipedia, it would be like Superman, but it says like, acting beneath, like, it's sort of like, uh, you know, there's a qualifier? Right, right. And then we actually have Brandon Ralph or whatever.

• 21:58Griffin Newman?

  He's maybe Speaker of the House or some shit.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  He graduated from the Juilliard of like, going through those tubes pretending to be an ICE agent.

• 22:05David Sims?

  Oh dude.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  There was the Juilliard of fucking Proud Boy Training Centers.

• 22:09David Sims?

  He's like, watch me own the libs, and I'm like, you're doing an assault, you are owning yourself, my friend.

• 22:14Griffin Newman?

  So David now frames it as, I just have a problem with the lionization of upper institutions. I do as well, I fucking hate higher education, okay?

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:24Griffin Newman?

  When I bring it up-

• 22:25David Sims?

  I don't hate higher education, wait a second.

• 22:26Griffin Newman?

  When I br- I'm saying what I do.

• 22:28David Sims?

  Okay.

• 22:30Griffin Newman?

  When I bring it up in the episode, David goes from zero to eight thousand and goes, "If you bring up Juilliard again, I'm going to fucking murder you." That is the direct quote.

• 22:39David Sims?

  You deserve it.

• 22:40Griffin Newman?

  With no explanation of why he was spinning out of control. And then he goes, "I don't understand why people think I hate Juilliard."

• 22:46David Sims?

  You deserve it. You deserve it then and now. I'll murder you now.

• 22:49Griffin Newman?

  He only explains things eight to nine months ago.

• 22:51David Sims?

  It's because we're doing a commentary and I'm watching it, and you keep being like, and he went to Juilliard, and I'm like, "Stop fucking bring it up to you, who gives a shit? I don't care where someone went to school."

• 23:00Griffin Newman?

  If you get that iffy about it that quickly, people are like- Did Juilliard murder his parents in a back alley?

• 23:06David Sims?

  No, my dad was a working class guy who probably drilled this shit into me a little too hard, if anything. My dad didn't go to college.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  Did he drive a lorry?

• 23:16David Sims?

  No, my, I mean, maybe in his younger days. Did he drive a lorry? Just, just, just, just going for the lowest common denominator joke there.

• 23:25Griffin Newman?

  Hitmaker.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  I will say.

• 23:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  I, as, despite your feelings about Juilliard, going back to Bradley Whitford for one moment, the man is an amazing storyteller. He has a lot of great stories about being-

• 23:37David Sims?

  He's been on so many sets.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  So many sets.

• 23:39David Sims?

  Worked with so many cool people.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  He once told me a 20-minute breakup story that included a doctor's visit where he found out that the Challenger had exploded.

• 23:52David Sims?

  Holy shit.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  And that was, that was-

• 23:55David Sims?

  Sounds good.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  The smallest detail of the story. The man's an incredible storyteller.

• 23:59David Sims?

  So this is pre-Caxemaric?

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 24:02David Sims?

  How do you say, Cax, how do you say your last name?

• 24:04Griffin Newman?

  I always thought it was Casmaric.

• 24:05David Sims?

  Yeah, you're probably, no, Casmaric.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:07David Sims?

  Cause he was married to her.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  Yes, pre-Jane Casmaric. So it would have been like, you know, I think, college girlfriend.

• 24:13David Sims?

  Okay, all right.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, it would have been back-

• 24:14David Sims?

  All right, all right, coed Bradley.

• 24:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:17David Sims?

  Um, man about town Bradley.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  Wait, you were about to say something, Griffin?

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  Hitmaker.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 24:23Griffin Newman?

  The previous two appearances you have made on this podcast are-

• 24:26David Sims?

  And this is our guest, it's Timothy Simons, we've said that.

• 24:28Griffin Newman?

  Hitmaker.

• 24:29David Sims?

  Yeah, Hitmaker.

• 24:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh, The Shining and Joss.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  Wait, I, and also, only to digress, to digress, and I definitely want to, we have to talk about that. I am, am very, the, the nickname Hitmaker.

• 24:43Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm. Coined by Tracy Lutz.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  Coined by Tracy Lutz.

• 24:46David Sims?

  Who has a Pulitzer Prize.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  Who has a Pulitzer-

• 24:48David Sims?

  You got zero of those.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  I have zero of those.

• 24:51David Sims?

  Okay.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  I found out from Tracy Lutz that apparently you find out that you were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize at the same moment that you either win or lose it.

• 25:00Griffin Newman?

  That's why.

• 25:00David Sims?

  Yeah. You basically get notified, like, right, you made the three.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Yes, but they also give you a call, right? If they're like, hey, by the way, you didn't get it.

• 25:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  And like, you would just be enjoying your morning.

• 25:12David Sims?

  It's an honor to be, you know, shortlisted.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, to be shortlisted. But you're just like walking around and somebody calls you, oh, hey, by the way, you didn't win one today. I didn't even know it was an option.

• 25:22David Sims?

  If you're Tracy Letts, you're walking around probably a closet of discs somewhere, right?

• 25:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 25:26David Sims?

  Yeah, you get the call.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  So he coins that. And it feels like a nickname that I, I just don't know, based on my own personal constitution, that I can lean into it too hard. The reason that I am even...

• 25:41David Sims?

  He's making the joke because you were on a show that was a hit.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  But what I am known for nickname-wise, previous, the little part of me that leans into it is that every other nickname I am publicly known by has something to do with jizz. And it's just kind of nice.

• 26:00David Sims?

  Because I was assuming like your height might be, you know, like...

• 26:03Speaker 04

  Because of Veep, because of like the Jonad Files, because of all those nicknames.

• 26:07Griffin Newman?

  That show has a running gag of people coming up with the worst things to call you.

• 26:12David Sims?

  Because you're an objectionable little... I mean, not little, tall.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  Tall, little freak, weasel. And so it is nice, I think, just for there to be like one nickname out there that is like complimentary in a way. And I do like that, although I don't lean into it too hard. I would never refer to myself as such.

• 26:29David Sims?

  It would be funny if you went on like CBS This Morning and like handed a postcard like, and you shall refer to yourself as...

• 26:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm picturing you Joker-style leaning back in the chair. And one last thing.

• 26:37Speaker 04

  And one last thing.

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  When you bring me out, call me Hitmaker.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  And the Shining are the two previous.

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  We have an active group text with friends. You will text us once or twice a year and go, guys, I gotta come back on Blank Check.

• 26:52David Sims?

  Oh, now we're gonna roast him? I think this is good. I think this is good.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  Please.

• 26:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 26:55Griffin Newman?

  And then we're like...

• 26:56David Sims?

  Get some Foglers? We're making a roast.

• 26:58Griffin Newman?

  Tim, we'll have you on anytime.

• 27:00David Sims?

  Tim, we're doing this director.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  Well, first we'll say, we're booked up right now. The second we have new stuff on the schedule, we'll let you know. And then we go, Tim, here you go. It's the Glengarry Leads, right?

• 27:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 27:11Griffin Newman?

  Here's the first six months of a schedule.

• 27:13David Sims?

  Take your pick.

• 27:14Griffin Newman?

  You have first crack and you always go, eh, none of these really get my dick hard.

• 27:18David Sims?

  But it's like David Lynch and the Coen Brothers were the two where you were like flipping through... Blue Velvet, is that a movie?

• 27:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Oh, well, I, I, I'm sorry.

• 27:28Griffin Newman?

  Or we show you Spielberg and you go, eh, I guess I would do E.T., Raiders, or Jaws.

• 27:34David Sims?

  Jaws.

• 27:34Griffin Newman?

  You either only pick the three things everyone wanna do, or you go, none of these get my dick hard.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Let him defend it.

• 27:41David Sims?

  This guy's famous, he comes on our show, we're mean to him.

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  He's a hitmaker.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  Let me defend myself momentarily. When it came to Lynch and the Coen Brothers, I was, I was, I was very vocal about the Coen Brothers. And I, Grant, I know you like doing these things in person, so some of it is schedule wise.

• 28:00Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  I want to honor your commitment to doing it in person.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  I appreciate that.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  When it came to the Coen Brothers, I believe I threw out a list of all of them.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  I still haven't seen, ever seen Lady Killers, which I am sort of embarrassed by, even though I know it's like not a favorite or whatever.

• 28:16Griffin Newman?

  You're fine.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  I, I, thank you. I feel like maybe that was embellished a little bit when it came to the Coens, because I am such a huge fan of the Coens.

• 28:24Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  But I also want to, in a way, part of that is I don't want to take away something from the Lynch filmography that somebody feels passionately about. When I'm a little bit more, you know, oh, I'm gonna take that away from the...

• 28:37David Sims?

  I understand that, totally, totally, totally.

• 28:39Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a good call.

• 28:40David Sims?

  And the best directors, right, people are gonna be passionate.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  And then sometimes shit just doesn't get my dick hard, you know what I mean?

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  You do drop that phrase. I, I brings up, not to roast you as much as to say, thi- this episode came about...

• 28:52David Sims?

  Mark Anthony over, I'm not here to roast.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

  I'm not here to roast. This episode came about a different way.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:58Griffin Newman?

  We throw you the schedule.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  You go, honestly, I'm up for anything. You guys tell me where I could best be used.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah.

• 29:04Griffin Newman?

  And I say, have you ever seen Fearless? And you say, no. And I go, I feel like that might be a hitmaker movie.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 29:10Griffin Newman?

  Why don't you watch it? Throw it on, tell me what you think. If you sparked it in the way I think you will.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  It's yours. But you were a mensch about this.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  I was, and I think even on this list, there were things where I was like, I had just very recently seen Picnic at Hanging Rock for the first time, but there was a part of me that was like, I can't tackle...

• 29:30David Sims?

  That's kind of a big, yeah.

• 29:32Griffin Newman?

  That's a big one.

• 29:33David Sims?

  I think you're the one to speak to the sort of teenage girl experience and like turn of the century in Australia.

• 29:38Griffin Newman?

  Women going missing.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  But I think it, I think...

• 29:40David Sims?

  He has a lot of experience in weird, yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  To your credit, you recognize that, yes, I may have been the perfect person for that episode.

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  But then we're like, you know, maybe we should, uh, uh, maybe we should give another voice a chance on that.

• 29:53Griffin Newman?

  Also, look, Heavyweight's the crown.

• 29:55David Sims?

  And we loved having Hillary Clinton on that episode. I mean, we haven't booked that episode yet.

• 30:00Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be Hillary. You know, you do, you do a thing like Jaws or Shining, you're like, this has to be a three hour episode. We're gonna have to talk about fucking every element of this movie and we'll wedge in some tangents. But like Fearless is the kind of movie I love covering on this podcast where I'm like, I think this is an excellent movie.

• 30:15David Sims?

  Yes, but it is not, it does not require, right, like an oil level drilling, yes, no.

• 30:22Griffin Newman?

  And it, it offers many different tendrils of conversation.

• 30:27Speaker 04

  And I was excited to do something because I am passionate about The Shining and Jaws. And those are like totemic films in and of themselves. I, I am sort of excited to talk about one that I didn't have like much of an emotional, I had never seen it. So I didn't really have an emotional connection to it.

• 30:45Griffin Newman?

  You've seen it twice now.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  Didn't really look up, and I would say even broadly, I have seen a lot of Peter Weir's movies. But I wasn't, I'm not like familiar with his style throughout his entire career. And so, and I haven't looked up anything about this one. So I'm actually really excited to find out more about Fearless today, just as somebody who, as a listener.

• 31:09Griffin Newman?

  We're here to learn. I mean, I think Peter Weir is an ultimate, his style matches the material kind of guy, right? Not that he's a chameleon, I think there are through lines.

• 31:21David Sims?

  Sure.

• 31:21Griffin Newman?

  I think of him a little similar to Sidney Lumet.

• 31:24David Sims?

  Little bit, I mean, but I see, yeah, I don't know, I mean, I'm interested as we do the, cause like the thing with Ang Lee when we did him. We picked Ang Lee because he was a blank check candidate, obviously he'd made movies like Hulk that we were like perfect for the show. But we were also like, oh, he's kind of a chameleon, right? He's done a bunch of genres. Then you watch the movies and you're like, there are very obvious themes and through lines.

• 31:44Griffin Newman?

  Every single movie is about emotional repression and when it bubbles over, yes, yes.

• 31:47David Sims?

  Like, you know, made and found, all this shit, you know, like, and you're like, right. And I'm excited to see this with Peter Weir too. I do feel like he was a little bit more of a, I want to do something different, like, you know, consciously. Like as he was approaching projects as he's accruing fame. It's also an era in Hollywood when there were interesting scripts that you could pivot to.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:08David Sims?

  You could tell your team, like, I want, find me something that's more dramatic. Find me something that's more gonna cost this much money, right? Like versus like. Whatever, I'm Peter Weir, so I do this sort of movie. Like, that the story of this movie is he had made green card and he was like, well, I don't want to do something as light next time. Like, it's a broad, you know, sort of direction for him to go in, but he's thinking of directions to go in.

• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  The book comes out the same year as the movie, so this is a thing that gets optioned as a manuscript. It's not adapting a hit book, right? And it's not even like you read the galleys of this thing and you go like, holy shit, this is the Da Vinci Code, people are gonna lose their minds. I imagine you go, this is a good piece of writing, you know? And this is a good vehicle for a good actor. And Jeff Bridges is certainly a star at this period of time, but he's not Harrison Ford. He's not Mel Gibson, he's not Robin Williams. He's not the level-

• 32:59David Sims?

  Indeed, talk about it, the studio was unhappy.

• 33:01Griffin Newman?

  A-list box office, right? He's like, one of the best actors working in the studio system in the 90s. The studio system in Hollywood in the 90s. But he's a guy who kinda has a little bit of a box office ceiling while having like ultimate credibility. And you look at the poster for this movie, this isn't a blank check movie, but the top thing of the poster is from the director of Witness and Dead Poets Society.

• 33:24David Sims?

  Right, he's got these two big grown-up Hollywood hits that he can now like, you know, advertise off of.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  Even if he's not a household name, this is an era where you could put that at the top of a poster and people would walk by it and go like, I liked the way those movies made me feel.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  And also, it seems like, and this is a broad statement, I guess, and I don't want it to be detrimental to audiences right now. This also very much seems like a movie that could be made in 1993, where you see those two movies above the title. And this is not like necessarily a fun, exciting night out at the movies. It's a, it's a movie I really, really enjoyed.

• 34:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  But it also is not like, hey, let's go to the cinema. Like, an audience was willing to engage with a movie like this.

• 34:10David Sims?

  To some extent, yeah, it was a modest hit, I would say, right? Like, it made-

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, it did okay. Was the studio not happy with Jeff Bridges being cast?

• 34:17David Sims?

  Well, you'll just, I, I can go into the dossier, but, uh, like, um, Weir's first call was to Mel Gibson, who'd someone he'd worked with before, who's obviously a giant star. And Gibson was busy making his first film, The Man Without a Face, and probably doing other normal stuff. And, um, you know, like, he's your best friend, you can probably speak to it better than me.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was in the car when he got pulled over that one time.

• 34:39David Sims?

  Say more stuff.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  Say more stuff.

• 34:41Griffin Newman?

  You pitched him sugar tits.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  I did. I was like, it's gonna be like a little harsh, but they'll find it funny.

• 34:47David Sims?

  They're not recording this.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  They're not.

• 34:49Griffin Newman?

  You passed him a list of alts? Dog fucker?

• 34:53Griffin Newman?

  I know that's not how you use it.

• 34:55David Sims?

  Hmm. When he, uh, you know, Gibson passed, Peter Weir then went to the studio and was like, I'm thinking Jeff Bridges. And they were like, oh, we were thinking another Mel Gibson type.

• 35:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 35:05David Sims?

  Famous person. We like Jeff Bridges is fine, but that's not that tier of fame. So they were disappointed when, you know, they learned he was like, no, no, no, Jeff Bridges.

• 35:14Griffin Newman?

  We're talking about this a lot in this series, but because Weir was so much a guy who worked with the top A-list stars and was a guy that these stars trusted, either brought on to develop their projects or would sign on to the project because he was directing it. This is still a time where if you have one of the 10 guys above the title, you can basically sell the audience on whatever they're doing.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:38Griffin Newman?

  You can take something that seems a little challenging or a little uncommercial and a studio will give it tens of millions of dollars and full promotional support. And the audience will like go along for the ride. And you're like, across the nineties, he works with, and the eighties.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 35:53Griffin Newman?

  He works with Gibson, Williams, Ford and Carey.

• 35:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Griffin Newman?

  Right? And he works with two of those guys two times.

• 36:00David Sims?

  And let's not forget the other A-lister he worked with.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Draw the.

• 36:05David Sims?

  Another normal man.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  A normal man who definitely did not like pee in the, uh, the, the aisle of a plane.

• 36:12David Sims?

  I need to go.

• 36:13Speaker 04

  The bathroom is occupied.

• 36:14David Sims?

  The line is too long.

• 36:16Speaker 04

  I feel like that was also a very short flight.

• 36:19David Sims?

  The guy from Little Mermaid?

• 36:22Griffin Newman?

  It was a very short flight, yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  Are we?

• 36:24Griffin Newman?

  It was LA to San Francisco.

• 36:26David Sims?

  It was LA to San Diego and he's like, I gotta go. Just open the door and I will go outside. The Fearless sequel. The Fearless sequels have one taking off the plane like so shaken, except for one guy who's like, I feel fine. And it was like, you're a different, you're just pissed all over our plane.

• 36:41Griffin Newman?

  That was. They opened the doors and they pissed.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  The one thing. The one thing that I read was that initially it wasn't a plane crash. It was just they all witnessed a man pee in the aisle.

• 36:52David Sims?

  Yeah, they just saw it.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  And then they were like, I saw death in that moment.

• 36:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  Or have we planted a flag that Witness is the blank check? What is the blank?

• 37:00David Sims?

  Witness? Uh, I would say the guarantor is your of living dangerously personally, but we'll get there.

• 37:06Griffin Newman?

  I think that's the guarantor that gets him into Hollywood. I think Witness is the guarantor for the next.

• 37:10David Sims?

  For the rest.

• 37:11Griffin Newman?

  For the Hollywood career.

• 37:12David Sims?

  Cause like Witness is kind of a, that movie, obviously it's got Harrison Ford. So, you know, he helps. But the wild success of that film certainly means it's like, he is now the kind of director pretty much anyone would wanna work with.

• 37:25Griffin Newman?

  It's a big hit. He gets a Best Picture nomination.

• 37:27David Sims?

  Best Director, Best Actor.

• 37:29Griffin Newman?

  But also it is that thing where like, oh.

• 37:31David Sims?

  And then Dead Poets and, you know.

• 37:32Griffin Newman?

  He made Harrison Ford respected as an actor.

• 37:35David Sims?

  Yeah, and the same with Dead Poets and Robin Williams, I guess. Yeah.

• 37:38Griffin Newman?

  But there was a certain degree, the last guy who kinda had this, for better or worse, and mostly for worse, was David O. Russell.

• 37:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 37:46Griffin Newman?

  Where it was just like, people know it's automatic if you're in his movie, you have a really good shot at getting an Oscar nomination.

• 37:53David Sims?

  You've got an awards campaign, right? You won't get yelled at on set.

• 37:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  No.

• 37:57Griffin Newman?

  And I, I think a lot of these A-list guys really were just like, I trust this guy. He's, he's unlocking new corridors of movie stars, you know?

• 38:05Speaker 04

  I have two questions for, was, was Picnic at Hanging Rock a reclamation? Or was that something that really put him on the map at the time?

• 38:15David Sims?

  Very much put him on the map.

• 38:16Griffin Newman?

  Art house sensation.

• 38:17David Sims?

  Really big deal.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  And then?

• 38:18Griffin Newman?

  Australian cultural phenomenon and America and the States art house phenomenon.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:22Griffin Newman?

  Beyond respected.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  And then where was Jeff Bridges in his career at this point?

• 38:26David Sims?

  Okay, so we gotta talk about it because, alright, look.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Good, I wanna talk about it.

• 38:29David Sims?

  He's been building bridges for 20 years at this point. Amazing stuff. Like, you look at his career and you, you, you doff your cap.

• 38:36Griffin Newman?

  Is he one of your guys, Tim?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  He has always historically been one of those, one of those guys and probably because of Lebowski.

• 38:45Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Has been one of those guys that I have always loved. But as I have gone back and started filling holes, a huge one I had never seen The Last Picture Show. And then I was like.

• 38:55David Sims?

  Right at the start.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  I was like, oh, that's why. He's a fucking movie star.

• 39:00David Sims?

  Yeah, from the start.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  He isn't like this sort of schlubby.

• 39:03Griffin Newman?

  Or like he was a beautiful fucking movie star.

• 39:07David Sims?

  It's very true. He was beautiful, but I do feel like for such a cutie pie. He took these roles, the early stuff like Fat City, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. He's like, I will play the face. I'll play the young guy. But it'll be in a dark movie that's like, you know, tragic and sort of.

• 39:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 39:24David Sims?

  Playing against my handsomeness in a way, right? I mean, those are the two early ones post.

• 39:30Griffin Newman?

  But he's, he's the kind of cocky hot shot. You're right. Who gets taken down a bit.

• 39:35David Sims?

  Right. Cause he also does stuff we don't remember. Like he made a NASCAR movie called The Last American Hero, which I think is more probably just more direct. Like what if he was a cocky hot shot guy?

• 39:43Griffin Newman?

  He entered the grid, of course, in the eighties.

• 39:45David Sims?

  Well, we'll get there. But you know, in the seventies, just to do more of the seven, you know, Stay Hungry, he's really good. And that's a good movie, the Bob Raffelson movie. King Kong, he see gorilla.

• 39:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he see gorilla.

• 39:54David Sims?

  I don't.

• 39:54Griffin Newman?

  Crunchy. He environmentalist.

• 39:56David Sims?

  Winter Kills, a movie I know Ben enjoyed.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just saw it recently.

• 39:59David Sims?

  Which has had a bit of a revival of late.

• 40:02Griffin Newman?

  Winter Kills?

• 40:03David Sims?

  Yeah, dude, you would dig Winter Kills.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  It's kind of like a weird, like satire of the JFK assassination.

• 40:09David Sims?

  It's like a Parallax View spoof movie, kind of. It's a very strange film.

• 40:13Griffin Newman?

  That sounds like it fucking rules.

• 40:15David Sims?

  It does kind of rule. And then Heaven's Gate.

• 40:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 40:18David Sims?

  It's not, I don't think really held against anybody. He's not even a big part of that movie. That movie's held against Chamey. Like it's not held against Chris Christopherson or whatever.

• 40:28Griffin Newman?

  So here, this is the other thing we just have to call out if we're like even setting up the beginning of Bridges. His dad just fucking work a day, career actor, right?

• 40:39David Sims?

  Yeah, of course.

• 40:40Griffin Newman?

  And it is instilled in him and his brother, just the fucking work ethic of this is a job. This is how you treat people, right? This is how you show up. And he would throw his kids, little parts on the shows. He was working, see hunt and stuff, you know? Like Lloyd Bridges was just a guy, right? Without being a star. But had like a solid career and just really drilled into them. Like you can't take this for granted. Every job's a gift. You gotta show up and give it your best. And then he talks about Last Picture Show being the first moment where he's like, oh, I like see how I could build a life out of this.

• 41:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Griffin Newman?

  Where it went from being a thing of like, I don't know, this has kind of gotten thrown to me. Um, and he gets this Oscar nomination for Last Picture Show. It's a classic.

• 41:21David Sims?

  Got another for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

• 41:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, the last picture show nomination's the kind that doesn't happen that often anymore, where you're like, this is not some extreme dramatic part, but a guy just fucking nails it so hard. It's the sort of like Jude Law talented Mr. Ripley, like, welcome to the

• 41:37David Sims?

  He's popping, yeah.

• 41:38Griffin Newman?

  nomination. And then Thunderbolt is like, congratulations, you've graduated to two-hander with Clint Eastwood and you've held your own.

• 41:46David Sims?

  Not just held, I think he, Eastwood, I think was annoyed at it. He was like, this guy's fucking getting, having all the fun. Like, this guy gets the fun part.

• 41:54Griffin Newman?

  Which is that nomination of like, you might actually be like a fucking movie star.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  But are we in infrastructure week right now?

• 42:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Cause we're building bridges?

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, cause we're building bridges.

• 42:03Griffin Newman?

  We're building bridges.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  Build back better. Uh, we gotta build back better.

• 42:06David Sims?

  Bridges should play Biden.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  One thing that I love.

• 42:09Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. He got it. He actually went, good.

• 42:12Griffin Newman?

  He'd be really good.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Moving pretty slow.

• 42:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 42:27David Sims?

  Yes?

• 42:27Griffin Newman?

  Mmm.

• 42:30David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 42:32Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 42:33David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 42:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:38David Sims?

  Okay.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:44David Sims?

  Wow.

• 42:45Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 42:47David Sims?

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

• 42:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 43:07David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 43:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:14David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 43:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 43:18David Sims?

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

• 43:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:22David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 43:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:23David Sims?

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

• 43:28Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 43:29David Sims?

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

• 43:31Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 43:33David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 43:34Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 43:35David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 43:36Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 43:37David 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 movie.

• 43:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:02David Sims?

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

• 44:06Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 44:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:18David Sims?

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

• 44:30Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:35David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 44:41Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 44:42David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 44:42Griffin Newman?

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

• 44:50David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 44:51Griffin Newman?

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• 44:58David Sims?

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

• 45:04Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:05David Sims?

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• 45:11Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:15David Sims?

  No.

• 45:16Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 45:16David Sims?

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• 46:03Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 46:04David Sims?

  Yes?

• 46:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:09David Sims?

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

• 46:14Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 46:15David Sims?

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

• 46:23Griffin Newman?

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• 46:32David Sims?

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• 46:55Griffin Newman?

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• 47:29Speaker 04

  He won for crazy hard.

• 47:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 47:31Speaker 04

  Right?

• 47:32David Sims?

  You're jumping ahead there.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  I am jumping ahead a little bit. But one thing that is, one thing that I love about Jeff Bridges is when, I remember so clearly, he gets up there and just says, "What a groovy profession, man." And it's that thing-

• 47:46David Sims?

  It was so lovely.

• 47:47Speaker 04

  It was so lovely. Like, and I think that that work-a-day ethic that you're talking about is even present-

• 47:54David Sims?

  When he's doing that and and all of these, you get the sense that he was just like, yeah, I'm gonna take my career seriously, but also I'm gonna go work and I'm gonna be in a movie. This one might not win an Oscar, but-

• 48:06Griffin Newman?

  He's had like the same standard for like, I want to say maybe 50 years now, who's like his best friend. And there are amazing sort of like photo montages, you can see of them styled together across the decades. Of they just kind of like live in tandem. He's been like married to the same woman for decade. Like there's shit like this, but also I think it's like that Heaven's Gate moment doesn't knock him down.

• 48:28David Sims?

  Well-

• 48:28Griffin Newman?

  Cause this guy's reputation is just like, I think within the industry-

• 48:31David Sims?

  I want to speak to this. Well, within the industry, right. Professional, great, does interesting things.

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  Arguably until true grit, he was never seen as a guy who could like really guarantee box office. But I think he's like consummate pro.

• 48:44David Sims?

  Of course.

• 48:45Griffin Newman?

  Everyone likes working with him. He's never bad.

• 48:47David Sims?

  Well, except if you tell him that Tony Stark, you know, you can't build like the arc reactor and he knows that Tony Stark-

• 48:54Griffin Newman?

  We have limited pieces here.

• 48:55David Sims?

  Built it in a cave from a box of scraps. Who wouldn't get frustrated by that though? It's frustrating, it's frustrating.

• 49:01Griffin Newman?

  It's like if someone brought up Juilliard, you'd have to snap it.

• 49:03David Sims?

  You have to be like, no, I'm gonna build the arc reactor.

• 49:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 49:07David Sims?

  I just, when you look at his sort of post, what you're, you know, the first two noms, right? You look at the King Kong, Winter Kills, Heaven's Gate, Cutters Way, Tron. You are, I, I am like, right. He did a lot of interesting projects and none of them really like financially succeeded. And King Kong made money, but under well, right, things like that. So it's like, by the time he does Starman in 84, a film we've covered, a film that really, I was thinking about a lot. Uh, while I was watching Fearless.

• 49:35Griffin Newman?

  Performances in an interesting way.

• 49:36David Sims?

  Both about people who are a little outside of reality, right? Who are like one step removed from being normal humans.

• 49:42Griffin Newman?

  And so much of him observing, like watching him look at stuff.

• 49:46David Sims?

  And he's so tremendous in both movies.

• 49:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 49:48David Sims?

  But, but yeah, by the time he makes Starman, it's like, yeah, he's, you know, he's a little weird. And he's like the guy Carpenter would use to play like kind of a weird guy.

• 49:57Griffin Newman?

  And to your point, like two nominations before he's 25 and then it takes another 10 years before they give him the best actor. Nomination for Starman.

• 50:05David Sims?

  Then he did Jagged Edge, uh, you know, Morning After, he does these like thrillers.

• 50:10Griffin Newman?

  Kind of grown up thriller period.

• 50:11David Sims?

  Tucker, which he rocks in.

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  He's so good in.

• 50:14David Sims?

  God, he's, have you seen Tucker Man in His Dream, the FFC? Coppola? Megalopolis guy?

• 50:20Speaker 04

  Great though.

• 50:20Griffin Newman?

  Great Bridges.

• 50:21David Sims?

  About the guy who made the car?

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, I have seen it. I haven't. I watched that, I think, when I was in high school.

• 50:26David Sims?

  You ever seen Smuckers, the man in the stream about the guy who did the jelly?

• 50:29Speaker 04

  No, no, that one I missed.

• 50:30David Sims?

  Then he does peanut butter and

• 50:32Speaker 04

  And then it just

• 50:33David Sims?

  The wheels fall off.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  You ever seen the Peanut Butter Solution?

• 50:36David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a good

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  Severn Kids release? You got that? You got that balloon?

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Did they put it out?

• 50:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:43David Sims?

  You ever seen the Peanut Butter Falcon?

• 50:45Speaker 04

  People, I didn't see the Peanut Butter Falcon, but the guy that wrote and directed it used to go to my gym.

• 50:49Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Actually, still currently, I'm now

• 50:52David Sims?

  I thought you were gonna say high school or something, gym?

• 50:55Griffin Newman?

  You're lying.

• 50:56David Sims?

  You go to gym in Los Angeles.

• 50:58Griffin Newman?

  I could never believe such a thing.

• 51:00Speaker 04

  I, we actually used to go to one gym and now that gym, then that gym closed. And now we go to a new gym and he's at this new gym.

• 51:07Griffin Newman?

  Tim, this is, this is an honest podcast.

• 51:10David Sims?

  Also, it's just like, this is the kind of incendiary stuff. We can't put on like, you know, we need lawyers to check and get this.

• 51:17Griffin Newman?

  Tim, we're an independent podcast.

• 51:20David Sims?

  The liability you're exposing us to here. Look, my point is, after this weird kind of up and down eighties, and this is something Peter Weir says when he, in the dossier, when he says, like, I was drawn to Bridges. It's like, Fabulous Baker Boys eighty-nine, Fisher King ninety-one, like, it's kind of the like, this is an interesting actor, like, who, who is a real movie star. He is a real movie star.

• 51:46Griffin Newman?

  Undeniably.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  I would say the Fabulous Baker Boys, the Fabulous Baker Boys is the first time in my life that I was aware of Jeff Bridges.

• 51:53David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, well,

• 51:55Speaker 04

  I never saw it.

• 51:56David Sims?

  Rocks in it. You should see it.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  I should see it. It was like one of those movies that like my parents were talking about going to see.

• 52:01David Sims?

  My mom's favorite movie of all time.

• 52:02Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's always good, but there's something about when Bridges hits his forties in the nineties where you're like,

• 52:08David Sims?

  This makes sense.

• 52:09Griffin Newman?

  This makes perfect sense.

• 52:11David Sims?

  This is good.

• 52:11Griffin Newman?

  This is like, he's a grown up movie star with an interesting edge. I also think it's just to this point, right?

• 52:22Griffin Newman?

  This is an era where if there's a good script that a good director's interested in, if there's an interesting piece of material around town, the studio goes like, we want to make this. Let's offer it to Mel, both Toms, whoever.

• 52:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 52:35Griffin Newman?

  And then they pass and they go like, okay, let's move down a tier on the list.

• 52:39David Sims?

  Let's open it up, right.

• 52:40Griffin Newman?

  They don't go, well, then we're not gonna make it.

• 52:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 52:42Griffin Newman?

  And Bridges kind of becomes this guy where a lot of those movies he did, you imagine that the 10 guys above him all turned it down. And then the studio goes like, I guess we can get Bridges for cheap. And the director's like, great, I get to cast Jeff Bridges? Like, he's kind of the most interesting consolation movie star?

• 53:02David Sims?

  Yeah, I think that's fair.

• 53:04Griffin Newman?

  He's always gonna deliver.

• 53:05David Sims?

  Well, let me open the dossier, in fact, to tell you what happened here.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  And I also want to throw in a question. Whatever that list above him is, and we don't need to get into like the specifics of the movie quite yet.

• 53:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 04

  Is there any one of those actors that you think would have given as compelling a performance?

• 53:22Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  I kind of.

• 53:24David Sims?

  No, no, he's kind of perfect for this movie.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  He's kind of perfect for it.

• 53:27David Sims?

  Here's who I thought of.

• 53:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:29David Sims?

  Because of Unbreakable, Bruce Willis. Because Unbreakable is a sort of like, you know, very, very different movie, but sort of a similar idea of a guy who's kind of like, fucking, nothing happened to me, like, and who is recovering from an accident.

• 53:42Griffin Newman?

  But Bruce, I don't think was ready for this yet.

• 53:43David Sims?

  No, he'd be like, ooh, he'd be doing wisecracks.

• 53:46Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 53:47David Sims?

  But like, he makes sense as if Peter Weir had said, what about Bruce Willis? And the studio would have been like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, great, great, great. Like, we like that, you know, that'll, that'll sell.

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  I feel like you texted last night, like, all caps, what was it? Peak Bridges?

• 53:59David Sims?

  Bridges excellence.

• 54:00Griffin Newman?

  Bridges excellence. And I had.

• 54:02David Sims?

  He is, from minute one, you're just like, I am in good hands.

• 54:05Griffin Newman?

  Unbelievable hands. And also, the best head of hair I've ever seen.

• 54:09David Sims?

  Okay.

• 54:09Griffin Newman?

  A fucking lion's mane.

• 54:10David Sims?

  Ben, speak to this for a second. I want to throw something at you. The way he looks in this movie, especially the sort of first look, the jacket, the glasses. The hair.

• 54:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:19David Sims?

  This is how men should look.

• 54:21Griffin Newman?

  I kept thinking this.

• 54:22David Sims?

  Like sort of early 90s, like the suits are a little bigger.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  The suiting is so fantastic. It's very much that trend of that time. Where it was the, the sports jacket was like kind of a little bit longer.

• 54:35David Sims?

  Yes, yes, a little baggier.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  A little baggier.

• 54:37David Sims?

  Cause the 80s are over.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  There's the Armani influence.

• 54:40Speaker 04

  The hair and the sunglasses when he's leaning against the car.

• 54:43David Sims?

  Those glasses, get me them right now. Chat GPT, like shit, how do I buy them? Like this is what AI.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Truly, I like left watching that for the first time. I was like, all of those looks, like I need to start wearing sports jackets.

• 54:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 54:55Speaker 03

  He looks so, and then even the slacks, they're a little bit loose. They're kind of like a little bit higher waist cut.

• 55:02David Sims?

  Is this just like, do I just want to live in like 1992 and have like a Palm Pilot?

• 55:07Griffin Newman?

  It's beyond it. You want to, yes.

• 55:09David Sims?

  I want to be him. Well, I want to be him too. This is the thing. It is Jeff Bridges. Right.

• 55:14Griffin Newman?

  He's also, he's one of those guys where if you rough him up 10%, he gets 50% more handsome, right? Like him with like a little bit of dirt, looking a little hungover.

• 55:24David Sims?

  Yeah, he's a natural wine. He's funky.

• 55:26Griffin Newman?

  You're like, holy shit. If I am not mistaken, because I rewatched it recently. I believe that this was the main visual reference for creepy CGI Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy.

• 55:38David Sims?

  You know, it makes sense.

• 55:39Griffin Newman?

  That they identified this as, this is his physical peak. If you're trying to visually create the uncanny valley of, what's the Jeff Bridges Frozen in Time moment? It's this.

• 55:48David Sims?

  That makes sense.

• 55:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:49David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  You could try to Fran Lebowitz those glasses.

• 55:53Griffin Newman?

  Uh, go speak on that.

• 55:55Speaker 04

  It's where, did you ever read this interview with Fran Lebowitz?

• 55:58Griffin Newman?

  Which, you're gonna have to be more specific.

• 56:00David Sims?

  No, no, you know what, Griffin? Answer the question.

• 56:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay, yes.

• 56:03Speaker 04

  Where they're talking about her style and, and she was basically like.

• 56:09David Sims?

  Did you ever read this interview with Bruce Willis? I was just like, well, what?

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 56:13David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 56:14Speaker 04

  One of the most prolific interviewer givers that has ever been.

• 56:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  She had this interview about her style and she was basically like, I, the shirt that I wear. She wears like one shirt and she has her glasses.

• 56:26Griffin Newman?

  She's got a Doug Funny closet.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 56:28Griffin Newman?

  It's the same outfit fifty times.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  It's the same outfit every day. And she was like, at some point, the shirt maker that made those shirts stopped making them. So I had to start having them custom made. But then what also happened is the glasses maker that makes my glasses stopped making them. And I had to have those custom made. And Ben, you'll know about this, suiting custom made shirts, not inexpensive, but, but not insane. I think if you're Fran Lebowitz. They were like, well, how much does it cost to have glasses made? And it really, she would not give a number, but broadly was like, how much does a car cost?

• 57:08Speaker 04

  That was the number.

• 57:09Griffin Newman?

  If it's one of one like that.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  If it's like one of one, and I'm sure if they were making them, she was like, make me two or three while you're there. But I think that basically meant buying two or three cars.

• 57:18David Sims?

  But it's like the, right, when like they're making the bat suit in Batman Begins. Right. It's like, we bought 10,000 because we might as well, like, we're making them.

• 57:25Griffin Newman?

  But you're like, these parts now basically need to be uniquely machined for her.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  That's, I think that is what she referenced in the article. I'll go look up that interview. If you just want to Google Fran Lebowitz interview, I'm sure it'll be the first one that comes up.

• 57:40David Sims?

  Right, right. I'll just, I'll actually just yell it into my phone.

• 57:43Griffin Newman?

  She only did one.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  I think though, that now with 3D printing. I bet that it's actually a little bit more inexpensive, but I'm sure, you know, this is like a very recent technology.

• 57:55Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Uh, you, you definitely would have to get a mold created that then they would have to fill with plastic or whatever the material base is. So yeah, it was not a cheap process.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  Probably less expensive now. Can I just say, did you guys see the interview with Harrison Ford where he talked about Jay Leno?

• 58:13David Sims?

  Don't answer the question anymore.

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  We know, I guess.

• 58:15David Sims?

  Jay Leno? Uh, no, I don't think so.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  Where Jay Leno 3D printed him a toilet seat? This is the.

• 58:22David Sims?

  It's no big deal.

• 58:23Speaker 04

  This is the most. The, the, the most charming-

• 58:27David Sims?

  Something, that's what he said when he handed it to him.

• 58:29Speaker 04

  Celebrity interview I have ever seen.

• 58:31David Sims?

  Wait, who's interviewing him about this? Like, who is, it's not Jay Leno.

• 58:36Speaker 04

  No, he is, he is in an interview. I can't even remember which one. I think it was, it was, I, what, what, what's the movie? Oh, it was probably for Red Hulk. That was the name of the movie, right?

• 58:45David Sims?

  And he's being interviewed by, um, yeah, NPR, uh, the, the nice lady from NPR, not Terry Gross, another one.

• 58:51Speaker 04

  And-

• 58:52Griffin Newman?

  Tim, can you quickly just please pay respects to our president, salute, right here on the top shelf?

• 58:56David Sims?

  The president.

• 58:57Griffin Newman?

  You can't invoke him without showing some proper respect.

• 58:59David Sims?

  And, uh, Jay Leno calls him during the interview and is like, hey, your, your toilet seat's ready.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  And, and she's like, why is Jay Leno calling you? And he was like, oh, he's making me a toilet seat. And then goes on to explain that he has a, a, a rare toilet seat. And, or a rare toilet that does not have any new seats, but he loves the toilet.

• 59:21Griffin Newman?

  And Jay Leno has a 3D printer.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  Has the technology because of all the car shit that he does. And Jay was like, I'll take care of that for you. I'm not doing it justice, but it's a very charming interview.

• 59:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm just kind of reeling.

• 59:34David Sims?

  You know, Harrison Ford, as we've, I think, brought up on other episodes, he's, yeah, he's been given some charming interviews of late.

• 59:40Griffin Newman?

  We, we-

• 59:41Speaker 03

  It was a wild card with Rachel Martin.

• 59:44Speaker 04

  Okay, there you go.

• 59:45Griffin Newman?

  We did our, our witness episode with the great Amanda Dobbins very recently.

• 59:49Speaker 04

  Oh, that's gonna be great.

• 59:50Griffin Newman?

  And talking about how that's a, like, peak physical form, the best, one of the best looking men in the history of movies has ever looked, movies. And yet, watching this just a week or two later, I'm like, this might actually be the number one look a guy has ever had on screen.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 04

  This in a way, and I'm not saying any of us could attain it, this feels somewhat more attainable than peak Harrison Ford?

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  There is a possibility that another human being could look like this.

• 1:00:16Griffin Newman?

  There's something weirdly a little more everyman about him.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Griffin Newman?

  And his handsomeness comes from like- It is not an obvious chiseled perfection.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Griffin Newman?

  But I also think this era of him in the 90s, his work just feels so like, simple and effortless, while clearly being thoughtful.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  And like soulful, like deeply soulful in everything.

• 1:00:44Griffin Newman?

  This man is just like so comfortable on camera, understands the medium and has just like honed his fucking craft. And then Lebowski obviously like breaks something in him that leads to the next era of I'm a Billy Goat Gruff eating a tin can.

• 1:00:57Speaker 04

  I live under a bridge.

• 1:00:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. And like everything after that point becomes something else, which he's very good at.

• 1:01:04Speaker 04

  What were his 90s after this?

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  Jeff Bridges, it's a good question and I'm gonna here to answer it for you because I do think, it's not like, again, his, look, he made The Big Lebowski, so like he has a great 90s, right? But he does make a lot more stuff that goes over okay to bad. So The Vanishing remake, he's actually good in that, you know, but.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  I think ultimately pretty good movie, except for the fact that they.

• 1:01:27David Sims?

  Remake of a better movie or whatever. Blown Away, he kinda rocks in it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30David Sims?

  He does a lot of like yelling movies. So Blown Away, White Squall, Arlington Road, all kinda solid movies where he yells a bunch.

• 1:01:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:01:38David Sims?

  None of them classics.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40David Sims?

  Wild Bill, where he plays Wild Bill Hickok for Walter Hill was a huge failure.

• 1:01:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that felt like the first, the biggest stretch he had done in a while.

• 1:01:49David Sims?

  In terms of like a bit, yeah, exactly. Mirror Has Two Faces, a movie we've covered on this podcast.

• 1:01:54Griffin Newman?

  Very normal.

• 1:01:55David Sims?

  The issue with it is how normal it is.

• 1:01:56Griffin Newman?

  It's too normal.

• 1:01:57David Sims?

  Just regular and nothing weird happens.

• 1:02:00Griffin Newman?

  You forget you're watching a movie and not looking at a blank piece of paper.

• 1:02:03David Sims?

  Right. Or just like, right, watching your friends hang out.

• 1:02:06Griffin Newman?

  It is so reflective of the way normal people talk today.

• 1:02:09David Sims?

  But then the thing with Lebowski, right, dialogue, the way they're right, the way they interact and dress and behave. That's a bit like with Lebowski, it's like Lebowski, sure, doesn't do very well at the time, but very quickly you see love of Bridges, right? Like so, uh, The Contender, he plays the fucking president, he's great in that movie, gets another Oscar nomination.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  Oh, that was with, um, why am I blanking on the?

• 1:02:33David Sims?

  Joan Allen.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:02:34David Sims?

  Maybe you don't support women or good actors or whatever.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 1:02:37David Sims?

  Uh, no, you don't. Exactly.

• 1:02:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, thank you for bringing it up because I have my own dossier of things I wanted to make clear.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  And one of them was I don't support women.

• 1:02:46David Sims?

  Be the leads of movies.

• 1:02:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Sean Fancy coined a new term to describe when Tim goes off, which is movie MAGA mode.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  And like, I want to make it clear that movie MAGA mode is basically like a little bit of a nitpick of a movie that most people agree is perfection. And I feel like that's what my movie MAGA takes.

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  It's not actually right wing opinions expressed through movie culture.

• 1:03:10David Sims?

  But it's like the, the, the tone or tenor, the like energy.

• 1:03:13Griffin Newman?

  Tim leans in and says, am I crazy? And then throws out a, I'm just asking questions movie take.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  And am I proud of this?

• 1:03:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  No, but I do think every once in a while, I, I, I love a, a, an unbridled positivity toward the movie going and movie watching experience.

• 1:03:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  And David, I'm going to direct this to you.

• 1:03:37David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  And I don't, Griffin, I should be directing this to you, but every once in a while, Griffin will refer to a film that is not a masterpiece as a masterpiece.

• 1:03:46David Sims?

  Such as? Any, any in particular that you're thinking of?

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, well.

• 1:03:51Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I've ever been wrong about this, so I'd love to hear you pull one example.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  I mean, I feel like, look, this isn't the example, but a thing that has come up recently when we're talking about physical media is like Griffin would just sort of casually be like, oh, the movie Sliver, that's a masterpiece.

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  I don't think Griffin did that.

• 1:04:08Speaker 04

  No, but that's, no, that's not exactly.

• 1:04:11David Sims?

  Like, let's cite that as an example of like a

• 1:04:12Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:04:13David Sims?

  God bless it, bad movie.

• 1:04:14Griffin Newman?

  They announce, they announce Small Soldiers 4K steelbook and I go, obviously inarguable masterpiece.

• 1:04:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:21Griffin Newman?

  And everyone in the group text agrees with me and we move along.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  That is, I think that would be an example.

• 1:04:27David Sims?

  Um, right. And that makes you go movie MAGA mode. Uh, just to give you bridges 90s, you know, I'm sorry. Yeah. We gave you the 90s, but then like the 2000s, I just feel like.

• 1:04:35Griffin Newman?

  Kate Pax, he packs us it.

• 1:04:36David Sims?

  He tries to nail Kate Pax to the wall.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:39David Sims?

  That guy's like fucking jelly.

• 1:04:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes or no? Alien?

• 1:04:44Griffin Newman?

  He slips him a piece of paper. Are you an alien? Check one.

• 1:04:50David Sims?

  His face is like, I'll never tell.

• 1:04:54David Sims?

  Stuff like Seabiscuit, like, door in the floor, which he's really good in. Iron Man, obviously, even like less seen stuff like Tide and Land.

• 1:05:02Griffin Newman?

  He's becoming a little bit of elder statesman.

• 1:05:04David Sims?

  Right, he's entering young grandpa mode.

• 1:05:06Griffin Newman?

  Even if he's first billed, he's kind of supporting someone else.

• 1:05:10David Sims?

  And we all support him and love him, but then post Crazy Heart, he has the genuine, like, I guess he's a 60-plus-year-old movie star. Right? Like Crazy Heart, True Grit, Man Who's Derek Oates, the Tron Legacy, you know, he's all over that movie, good and bad. R.I.P.D. rounding up the Rest in Pieces, The Giver.

• 1:05:32Griffin Newman?

  We obviously talked about it on the Coen series, but True Grit and Tron Legacy come out a week apart from each other.

• 1:05:37David Sims?

  They sure do.

• 1:05:38Griffin Newman?

  The two movies are just like burning up the box office together. And Hollywood goes like, I guess he's box office gold now?

• 1:05:46David Sims?

  And then?

• 1:05:46Griffin Newman?

  And then he has this run of terrible, big-budget films.

• 1:05:49David Sims?

  Some of them are bad.

• 1:05:50Griffin Newman?

  Seven Son, R.I.P.D., Giver, all nightmares.

• 1:05:53David Sims?

  Giver, but The Giver is an example of it's like, he had been trying to make that movie for so long. And it's only post, like, True Grit.

• 1:06:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:06:01David Sims?

  Then he finally has the client, he's like, I'll be The Giver, you know, and they're like, alright, alright, alright, we'll make it.

• 1:06:05Griffin Newman?

  The crazier thing about The Giver, he read the book when it came out, excellent book.

• 1:06:09David Sims?

  It's the best book.

• 1:06:10Griffin Newman?

  Options it and goes, I want to make this as a movie starring my dad.

• 1:06:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:15Griffin Newman?

  That was his big thing, was he wanted Lloyd to play.

• 1:06:18David Sims?

  Giver's gotta be old.

• 1:06:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then eventually he, like Lloyd had died, he aged into it, he has an Oscar, he's seen his box office now. And then they fuck up every single aspect of the movie.

• 1:06:29David Sims?

  It's a real bummer.

• 1:06:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31David Sims?

  And so, you know, he's doing great. I think he's even great, I mean, obviously, Hell or High Water was like, what, his sixth Oscar nomination?

• 1:06:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38David Sims?

  And he rocks in that movie.

• 1:06:39Griffin Newman?

  But you're right, that True, not the True Grit, the Crazy Heart moment was bizarre, because there was this feeling of like, oh, I guess we never realized that he's overdue for an Oscar. He didn't have that same kind of narrative to him as like, when are they gonna give it to DiCaprio or Julianne Moore? Or some of these people, because his nominations were spaced out? And it was always a sort of like, oh, right, yeah. And then that movie like premieres at Toronto and everyone's like, fuck, we could just get him the Oscar. This movie is whatever. We could go full court press and he could probably win.

• 1:07:12Speaker 04

  And Hell or High Water, I feel like there's like that last moment where where I believe he shoots Ben Foster. Spoilers for the 2012.

• 1:07:25David Sims?

  Ben Foster has never played a character in a movie that would require shooting.

• 1:07:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29David Sims?

  I don't know what you're talking about.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  No, I would say broadly, yeah. No, he's always playing a guy who's on the right side of the law.

• 1:07:33David Sims?

  I'd like shake your hand, in fact.

• 1:07:34Griffin Newman?

  Let him cook, let him cook. Ben Foster, just let's hear what he has to say.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, is death a-coming?

• 1:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  That's a 30 days of night quote.

• 1:07:45Griffin Newman?

  Good, good.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  But I feel like everybody is gonna get.

• 1:07:47Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Masterpiece.

• 1:07:50Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:07:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm joking, I've never seen that movie.

• 1:07:53David Sims?

  I'm fine.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  You haven't seen it?

• 1:07:55Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:07:55Speaker 04

  Ben Foster is really good and scary in the opening scene. He's got like a

• 1:07:59David Sims?

  I can, he tends to play rom-com leads.

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  You hear that noise? That's death a-coming. And it's so good. I don't know if the movie's great, but Ben Foster-

• 1:08:06David Sims?

  That's not the kind of line I can picture coming out of his mouth. And certainly not with like an accent. He didn't like to do those.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  The, the, uh, the Jeff Bridges performance in that last moment, or in those later, in like that, in that scene in Hell or High Water, I feel like is indicative of Jeff Bridges broadly, which is, he gives you something that contains three emotions that you, that no one else could do.

• 1:08:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 04

  He finds a way to have a reaction to these situations that feels completely singular and also emotionally true for the entire audience watching it.

• 1:08:44Griffin Newman?

  That's a great way of putting it. And, and, you know, post-Crazy Heart, all these characters become a lot larger and more overstated. And he's obviously turned into like a bearded burpin' man. But when you see him in interviews present day, the dude is much closer to his cruising altitude as a guy.

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:03Griffin Newman?

  And then he loves playing these like ornery old coots or whatever, right?

• 1:09:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Griffin Newman?

  Um, but this 90s era where he's doing that in a movie like Fearless, where I think this movie is excellent. And I'm wondering if this is an episode to coin a term for- This kind of thing, but a movie that is uniformly excellent and yet there is a stretch of it that is like transcendent. Where I think the first thirty minutes of this movie.

• 1:09:28David Sims?

  To me, the bookends to me, it's the first thirty kind of last twenty are really what.

• 1:09:33Griffin Newman?

  The first thirty I like can't breathe.

• 1:09:35David Sims?

  The first thirty are basically like, why is this film not talked about constantly?

• 1:09:40Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:41David Sims?

  I understand like that Schindler's List came out in nineteen ninety-three, like or whatever, but like, why am I not always hearing about Fearless? And then the the middle is not bad at all. It is good. It is makes sense for the movie it's trying to be or whatever, but it's a little less thrilling, I guess, whatever, you know?

• 1:10:01Griffin Newman?

  And no point does the movie lose me, but the first thirty minutes I'm, as you're saying, leaning in going like, wait, is this actually one of the best films ever made?

• 1:10:09David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:10Griffin Newman?

  And it has a little bit of that picnic at hanging rock thing where you're like, what is this mood he's captured?

• 1:10:14David Sims?

  It's so spooky, right?

• 1:10:16Griffin Newman?

  What is this feeling with such kind of like invisible craft? I cannot think of another movie that feels like this, uh, and so much of it is him being able to do this, especially in the first chunk where he is inscrutable.

• 1:10:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  Where it's a while until we backfill kind of who this guy is.

• 1:10:34David Sims?

  Which is really smart.

• 1:10:35Griffin Newman?

  And you're just like, what the fuck is motivating his decisions? I understand he just walked off of a plane crash, but why is he doing this? And you're so locked into everything he's doing because every little moment is like three hyper-specific emotions that are legible without being like overly communicated to the audience, right? He's not doing anything like showy. He's not indicating.

• 1:10:57David Sims?

  And it's almost like the thing that he gets to, the emotion that he gets to.

• 1:11:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02David Sims?

  Is the one that in the script is supposed to be there or uh, other, maybe other actors could find their way to it. It's just he somehow manages to choose the most interesting path to it.

• 1:11:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:16David Sims?

  The film, just to give you the dossier a little bit, like I said, Peter Weir had done Dead Poets Society and Green Card basically back to back because he was trying to get Green Card made. Makes Dead Poets Society while he's trying to get that made and then goes right to Green Card. And he said he needed a rest. He was apparently covered in French piss. Not sure what was going on there.

• 1:11:39David Sims?

  Do your taxes for you. Here's the trick. You know file.

• 1:11:42Griffin Newman?

  We have not recorded our Green Card episode.

• 1:11:44David Sims?

  I have some ideas.

• 1:11:47Griffin Newman?

  The time we're doing this, I just like, I can't even imagine.

• 1:11:50Speaker 04

  That is going to be on.

• 1:11:51Griffin Newman?

  How many piss jokes our listeners will have heard at this point.

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

  It is going to be on-listening.

• 1:11:55David Sims?

  A movie, Green Card, to be clear, a movie I really love and like, like really is a movie that makes me happy, but the piss jokes that writes himself. So he's Peter Weir, kind of a wellness king, I'm gonna say, kind of a self-healing.

• 1:12:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:12:12David Sims?

  Because he's just like moving, going back to Sydney and I'm gonna chill. I am going to apparently spend this break reading, swimming, learning French and tending to my garden. That's right. Taking it easy. And he thinks, exactly. He, he never moved to LA. He thinks that like, it kinda helped his directorial eye stay sharper, just to stay out of the scene a little bit.

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  You end up in a lot fewer gyms with the directors.

• 1:12:41David Sims?

  That is true. And he does say this here, like, it's too bad I never saw like a 6'5" guy at a gym who was on an HBO show. What are you, 6'6"? How tall are you?

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

  6'5", yes. 6'5", 6'6" in that little range there. It's crazy that that's quoted there.

• 1:12:53David Sims?

  I know.

• 1:12:54Speaker 04

  Shout to JJ.

• 1:12:55David Sims?

  You said it in 1993 to Premier Magazine.

• 1:12:59David Sims?

  And he doesn't want to make another Green Card. He's like, Green Card had done, it was successful. It was a direction I didn't want to continue in. I was a little uneasy with the success. I wanted to do something a little more difficult.

• 1:13:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, Hollywood always wants you to do the thing you just did.

• 1:13:11David Sims?

  Of course. They're gonna throw those, those versions of the scripts they've got and.

• 1:13:15Griffin Newman?

  He wants to make a rom-com. People are like, you can't make a rom-com. He makes a rom-com well. And they're like, congrats, you've proven it. Make 10 more rom-coms.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Right, right. So he dips his toe back into the, you know, blah, like, situation. He's a big deal director. He's an Oscar nominee. And so he says.

• 1:13:30Griffin Newman?

  Two times now.

• 1:13:31Speaker 04

  Dos.

• 1:13:32David Sims?

  And he says he got sent, I think three, because he got a green card nom too for screenplay.

• 1:13:36Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you're right.

• 1:13:37David Sims?

  And he got sent a bunch of scripts, he said, that were basically like, go pictures, right?

• 1:13:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:41David Sims?

  You're a big shot. Like, what do you want to do? And he was like, these all suck. Like, not interested.

• 1:13:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46David Sims?

  Nothing edgy, nothing strange. Everything was clear and logical. Nothing was unconscious. And he said, all these films are out right now. They are films that were made. I'd love to know, like, you know? But, um, basically, he's like, these are scripts that Hollywood had cleaned up already. You know what I mean? And I just was bored by like, whatever notes get put through, you know, the studios, yada, yada. Fearless, however, right, is based, like you said, it's a spec script based on a book that hasn't even come out yet.

• 1:14:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17David Sims?

  Rafael Iglesias, father of normal man Matt Iglesias, uh, had written this book. It was like, I think his seventh book or something like, and it's the first draft script and we're is like, like, thank you. This has not been fucked with. This is weird.

• 1:14:32Griffin Newman?

  He adapts his own unpublished book. Yeah.

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  Uh, get me this right away. Now, Rafael Iglesias is inspired by, he was in a car accident. A long time, like in the seventies or whatever, and had like walked away, you know, no injuries. Shaken up. He's still got that kind of, like, it took him days to readjust to life. He starts getting obsessed with plane crashes, which normal people like me are also obsessed with.

• 1:14:57Speaker 04

  Oh, I feel like this really will lead to a, we have to have a sidebar about.

• 1:15:01Griffin Newman?

  We're pinning this on board. It's not a sidebar, it's a main bar.

• 1:15:03David Sims?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:15:04Griffin Newman?

  It's a salad.

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  This is the plane crash movie. And then he, in eighty-nine, reads about the notorious United Flight two thirty-two crash. I don't know if you know about it, which is like a famous crash in aviation history in that like, the thing that happened was a one in a million thing, like a crazy mechanical failure that fucked up the engines and the hydraulics. So the plane, you know, landed, but crash landed onto like, you know, they tried to get it on a runway, but not really. In like, uh, South Dakota or Iowa, some, you know, somewhere. And a lot of people died, but a lot did not. And some people walked out unscathed and other people died. It was like 100 people died, 180 survived, something like it's and it is in like a plane crash history.

• 1:15:49David Sims?

  Like they have simulated a million times and it's never this been that they've never gotten this good a result. They're like, we don't understand how like this actually went quote unquote so well.

• 1:15:59Griffin Newman?

  But also in an era of newly launched 24 hour news.

• 1:16:04David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:16:05Griffin Newman?

  I feel like plane crash culture explodes in the 90s, you know? If a plane crash goes wrong, it's like we're we're staying on this beat for days and following it. It just felt like, I don't know, the coverage of these things became a lot louder than it had previously been.

• 1:16:22David Sims?

  I'm sure, for sure.

• 1:16:23Griffin Newman?

  Is Hero the same year as this movie? Steven Fair's movie?

• 1:16:27David Sims?

  I think that film starred Jet Li and came out in 2002.

• 1:16:31Griffin Newman?

  Different film.

• 1:16:31David Sims?

  No, I think that film is.

• 1:16:32Griffin Newman?

  Fearless also, by the way, title of a Jet Li film.

• 1:16:35David Sims?

  Yeah, right. That's right. Good. Not a bad movie. Hero is 92, so the year before.

• 1:16:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay. A very different movie, but it's similarly kind of obsessed with.

• 1:16:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:16:43Griffin Newman?

  What happens to the people who walk off, walk out of a crash alive?

• 1:16:47David Sims?

  Yeah. So Weir likes the script, has some notes. Pretty much immediately, which is kind of his move, like that's what he did with Dead Poets Society as well. Initially, he's like, I really thought it was a daring movie, but it's two movies. The first 25 pages, the the original script was straight through, right? So plane crash, then aftermath.

• 1:17:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  So the first 25 pages are about the plane crash, how you cope with the knowledge you're gonna die, all this. And then the next part is that. So he's like, no, we're gonna intersperse the plane crash throughout, right? Like, we're gonna do the structure of the movie, which is basically like start after the crash. And then build the flashbacks out a little bit, little by little, which I think is why the movie works.

• 1:17:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33David Sims?

  Because you'd be too overwhelmed if it started with the plane crash.

• 1:17:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's too conventional.

• 1:17:39David Sims?

  And it's conventional.

• 1:17:40Griffin Newman?

  What's so striking about the opening?

• 1:17:41David Sims?

  It's about him reaching an emotional realization about what happened to him, right? Like, so it helps to see, I mean, another great film about a plane crash, Sully, does basically the same thing.

• 1:17:50Griffin Newman?

  Agreed. But also, this movie is about like a rebirth, right? That he walks off, he walks out of this crash feeling like a different person in a way. And so dramatically, the most impactful thing you can do is start the movie with that guy. And then slowly catch up to everyone around him being like, the fuck happened to you? Cause the first 30 minutes, he does feel like Starman.

• 1:18:12David Sims?

  Yes, 100%.

• 1:18:13Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, is this a person who's ever-

• 1:18:14David Sims?

  He's outside of reality.

• 1:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Been in a place before? Yeah.

• 1:18:17David Sims?

  What were you gonna say, Hitmaker?

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, it is like, no, I think you're-

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  Say it to Baby Joey.

• 1:18:21Speaker 04

  And who is that?

• 1:18:22David Sims?

  It's the baby from Superman, your favorite movie of 2025.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, it was my favorite movie of 2025.

• 1:18:29Speaker 04

  The, um-

• 1:18:30David Sims?

  And he did go to Juilliard.

• 1:18:31Speaker 04

  And he, well, you can see-

• 1:18:33Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna fucking murder you.

• 1:18:35Speaker 04

  I, I think there is something interesting about, like, yes, about that structure. And as he gets sort of closer back to real life, him remembering more and more of it. Or, or whatever, the audience learning more and more about it. You could also then say he's remembering more and more of it. If that, if you want to take that examination of it.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Speaker 04

  But also, like, the, the first 25 minutes are a little bit odd to cope with because you realize that he didn't call his wife.

• 1:19:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:19:08Speaker 04

  Like, that is-

• 1:19:09David Sims?

  Yeah, no, I mean-

• 1:19:09Speaker 04

  That is-

• 1:19:10David Sims?

  If I'm his wife, I have some notes.

• 1:19:12Speaker 04

  I have some, I have some questions.

• 1:19:14David Sims?

  Some cues.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  Wait, you mean to tell me you just went to go visit your college girlfriend?

• 1:19:20Griffin Newman?

  Let's just like speed round, okay? Movie starts, he's walking through a cornfield. It's like-

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  With a baby?

• 1:19:26Griffin Newman?

  Quiet Warner Brothers logo. And then it's like, cornfield, here's Jeff Bridges with a baby. He's very calmly like, ooh, who's missing a baby? Hands the baby back, says goodbye to the child. Goes to first responders, is like, I gotta get in a train. Gets on a train, meets up with his college girlfriend, orders a bowl of raspberries.

• 1:19:47David Sims?

  Well, he goes to the hotel, takes a shower- realizes that he's got a gash inside.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53David Sims?

  That should be like stitched, like it's a deep gash.

• 1:19:56Griffin Newman?

  But everyone else is like crying and screaming and he's just like-

• 1:19:59David Sims?

  They were in a plane crash.

• 1:20:00Griffin Newman?

  I need to get to a hotel.

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:02Griffin Newman?

  I need to find my college ex-girlfriend, check out my chest, eat the strawberry. She's like, aren't you fucking allergic? While she's like spiraling about her life has gone awry.

• 1:20:11David Sims?

  Deborah Monk, by the way, absolutely crushing that scene. She's so fucking good.

• 1:20:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:16David Sims?

  Uh, I, she, like, I just love someone like that, like a theater actor, who can just come in and be like, I'll give you a full picture of this person really fast.

• 1:20:23Griffin Newman?

  Derek O'Connell in this movie is out of control in two scenes.

• 1:20:27David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:20:27Speaker 04

  I did a, a short, I did like a, a, a short film that, uh,

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Have you heard of him?

• 1:20:34Speaker 04

  Huh?

• 1:20:34Griffin Newman?

  You're?

• 1:20:34David Sims?

  Short films?

• 1:20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little short film.

• 1:20:36Griffin Newman?

  Shorties watching shorties.

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  My friend, uh, my friend Dan Buller wrote and directed. He is a,

• 1:20:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, SNL.

• 1:20:41Speaker 04

  SNL writer.

• 1:20:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

  And there was, it's about a guy who thinks he wins the lottery and then just kind of goes off the rails. And at one point, there was a moment in this movie that I really liked, that if anybody's ever seen the short film Winners by Dan Buller, I, I wonder if it was when he's basically eats the strawberry and he, and she's like, I thought you were, I thought you were allergic. And he was like, I'm past all that. There was a moment in Winners where somebody says to me, you're not wearing shoes. And I, I just say, I'm done with shoes.

• 1:21:12David Sims?

  Good.

• 1:21:12Speaker 04

  And this is a very deep cut reference, but I, I really liked that moment just because he was like, it almost feels, you know what it feels like?

• 1:21:22Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 1:21:22Speaker 04

  And I think he should leave sketch. A Tim Robinson character where he's like,

• 1:21:25Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 1:21:26Speaker 04

  I'm past all that.

• 1:21:28David Sims?

  I'm past all that.

• 1:21:29Griffin Newman?

  People can change.

• 1:21:30Speaker 04

  People can change.

• 1:21:31Griffin Newman?

  People can change.

• 1:21:32David Sims?

  Mrs. Doubtfire.

• 1:21:33Griffin Newman?

  This guy used to slop up his steaks.

• 1:21:35David Sims?

  Mrs. Doubtfire is also 93.

• 1:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:21:37David Sims?

  So there's two movies about strawberry allergies in 1993, right? Right? Isn't it Mrs. Doubtfire strawberries? Right?

• 1:21:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43David Sims?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:21:44Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's fifteen.

• 1:21:45Speaker 04

  I just know the famous quote.

• 1:21:48David Sims?

  Which is of course, hello.

• 1:21:52Griffin Newman?

  It's 15 minutes before he returns home, but it feels like 30 because the movie is just operating like out of space and time almost.

• 1:22:00David Sims?

  It's very dreamy.

• 1:22:01Griffin Newman?

  But yeah, they find him outside the diner.

• 1:22:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:04Griffin Newman?

  The representative from the airline is like, this is the last guy we haven't been able to track down and do damage control with.

• 1:22:10David Sims?

  Right. And I mean, well, there's the two, there's the guys where he's like, am I under arrest? And they're like, I mean, no, you haven't done anything.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:22:18David Sims?

  They're just like, you're just being weird.

• 1:22:20Speaker 04

  Do you recognize this man?

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:22Speaker 04

  And it's his, like, the license of his business partner.

• 1:22:24David Sims?

  John Delancey.

• 1:22:25Speaker 04

  And he's like, yeah.

• 1:22:28Griffin Newman?

  They're trying to.

• 1:22:28Speaker 04

  I do.

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 1:22:29David Sims?

  They're trying to ID John Delancey because John Delancey's body was separated from his head.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  But also like, is this guy a liability?

• 1:22:35David Sims?

  I mean, that's what's going on.

• 1:22:36Griffin Newman?

  So much of this movie is.

• 1:22:37David Sims?

  Yes, of course, they're freaked out about it. What are you gonna do?

• 1:22:39Griffin Newman?

  All the insurance companies and the lawyers and how does all of this get settled? And this guy is just like beyond all of that.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  Right. And then the, right, the, the, I love the airline lady being like, so we booked you on Amtrak, of course. And he's like, no, I'll take a plane right now, baby, first class. And she's like, okay, like, cool.

• 1:22:55Speaker 04

  And she's gotta be thinking like, this is so great for us.

• 1:22:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58David Sims?

  Like, how can he sue us? Right, right, right, right.

• 1:23:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's all of these conversations are everyone walking on pins and needles, trying to make sure that they're, no one's gonna say the thing that costs them a hundred million dollars. Right? And they put him on the plane next to John Turturro, playing a very calm, dry.

• 1:23:18David Sims?

  This is great casting.

• 1:23:19Griffin Newman?

  Still a man.

• 1:23:21David Sims?

  Uh, him and Tom Olsey.

• 1:23:22Griffin Newman?

  Physically dried.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Griffin Newman?

  Not like, yeah.

• 1:23:25David Sims?

  I mean, this is like, it's a couple of years after Jungle Fever. Like, I think he's mostly at this point still a Spike Lee guy, right? Like, and like, you know, those early Woody Allen movies that he's in and stuff.

• 1:23:36Griffin Newman?

  But he's done Miller's Crossing already or is that the same?

• 1:23:38David Sims?

  Miller's Crossing is, yeah, what is that, 90? Yeah. So he's done Miller's Crossing as well. So yeah, God, he's just, so he's just a guy you like to see in a movie.

• 1:23:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but this, I feel like they're coasting off a lot of Look Into Your Heart in this.

• 1:23:48David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:23:48Griffin Newman?

  Of like, right, is this guy a fucking rat? Uh, he's, you know, a therapist hired by the airlines to manage the psychological kind of trauma of the survivors who they kind of sneak onto the plane next to him. Bridges immediately calls him out. And then like minute 15, he walks through his front door to his wife and child, who he has made no attempt to contact. And everyone is bawling, there are like 10 family members there.

• 1:24:17David Sims?

  Oh shit.

• 1:24:17Griffin Newman?

  That Tom Hulse is a lawyer.

• 1:24:18David Sims?

  I never thought, he's planted. I didn't even actually make that connection. I thought it was just random, but it makes more total sense that like they rushed him like last minute to get into that seat on that flight.

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. But because they're like, this guy says he wants to go back on a plane, but like 90% chance, the thing takes off and he starts screaming and ripping the chairs out.

• 1:24:40David Sims?

  Totally.

• 1:24:41Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's in such a like intense holding pattern of, right? How do we mitigate this situation?

• 1:24:48David Sims?

  He shows up back home.

• 1:24:49Griffin Newman?

  This is the beginning of him needing to butt up against the expectation of how he behaves. Everything up until that point in the movie is what's going on with this guy? Right? As an audience, but he's kind of like warping the world around him. The second he's back in his familial home, there's a sense of like, the fuck is up with you? Down to like how calmly he slaps John Turturro. That there isn't some ramp up, big explosive, I think you should leave type moment. He just in a very focused way is like, nope, not doing this.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  There was though, a thing that maybe just stuck out a little bit to me. Like, I don't know, I've been kind of, I've only seen it twice and I have kind of gone back and forth and it'll come up in all the conversations, what we're doing about the emotional, like the, what's going on emotionally, but there is something a little bit about him slapping John Turturro that feels maybe out of place in that moment?

• 1:25:46David Sims?

  Well, it's too much and Turturro reacts by just being like, I can't help him right now. You know, I'm gonna go rather than freak out, but yeah, I mean, but he, he was just in a plane crash where like half the people died or more. So like, he can really do anything and no one's really gonna call him out.

• 1:26:04Griffin Newman?

  That's the big thing.

• 1:26:05David Sims?

  That's not why he's behaving that way, but it's why everyone is walking around on tiptoes around him.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  It's the post strawberry moment. It's that here's this guy who had this allergy that almost killed him as a child. And he just goes like, fuck it, I'm gonna try eating a whole bowl and they taste delicious and he has no problems. And there is a part of him that thinks, maybe I am dead. This is not real. But even if it is real, then no rules apply to me anymore. And there's a sense of like testing the boundaries of just, I'm gonna do like no impulse control whatsoever.

• 1:26:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:26:39Griffin Newman?

  If this guy's annoying me, I'm gonna slap him in the face. And you need to do something that extreme for everyone around him to go like, what the fuck is going on here? Because everyone up until that point, especially Turo, who's been sitting next to him, is like, it's actually alarming how calm he seems to be.

• 1:26:54David Sims?

  Look, I mean, if we're doing the end of the movie, like, he, he basically looks into the other world or whatever. And then after that, he's calm, he's like, you know, whatever, he's shed of human feeling.

• 1:27:06Speaker 04

  I feel like that, that makes, the way that you just described that makes a little bit more sense. When I was rewatching it last night, there was a part of me that felt like that was the underneath of it bubbling up too early. In the performance, like, like the internal thing rather than a, like an external testing of boundaries. It seemed to me more like it was revealing what was going on, like, that there was this thing underneath him. He has this calm.

• 1:27:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  But that it almost feels like that's a little bit too early to show a crack in it. That was the way I read it last night.

• 1:27:43Griffin Newman?

  I think it's more like, we've watched for 15 minutes, this guy is in like accidental vacation mode, right? I'm gonna rent a car, I'm gonna stick my head out the window, I'm gonna like park it on the side of the road and just sit with my sunglasses on.

• 1:27:56David Sims?

  He's gonna rent a car, drive 80 miles an hour with his eyes closed.

• 1:28:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:28:00David Sims?

  He's going for it.

• 1:28:02Speaker 04

  That's how I, that's how I am.

• 1:28:03Griffin Newman?

  And his college girlfriend, someone he has this like history with, but hasn't seen in decades. Right, like, none of this is real. None of these are like real interactions that affect his daily life. And I think he's like having a really quick adverse reaction to entering a space where everyone is expecting him to be the guy he was before. And it's sort of like first idea, best idea.

• 1:28:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Griffin Newman?

  You know, the way if someone's annoying you, you're like, God, I wish I could hit this guy in the fucking face. And you knock that thought down immediately. He's like, well, what I'm gonna do is hit him in the face. And Totoro's response is, yeah, cool. Makes sense. You, you need to be doing something weird now because you just almost died.

• 1:28:44David Sims?

  But I don't think it's just that he, he's doing what we all wanted to do, which is give Totoro slap and a kisser. I mean, I've thought about it. I can't deny it. Um, it's that Totoro is picking at something he can't think about. And so he reacts, you know, he gets angriest, don't you think? Like, you know, he's, he has put it away. He can't think about what happened. When the boy comes to stay with him. Cause he's like, I just can't stop thinking about how good you were. Like, you know, how you helped me. He doesn't wanna confront what he did. He doesn't wanna talk about what he did.

• 1:29:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's like, I did nothing.

• 1:29:20David Sims?

  Yeah. Like, and again and again, he's just like, no, no, no, no, no, whatever, whatever, whatever, you know? And when he meets Rosie Perez, it's like, he's like, I feel like love for her. Like I, I'm connected with her in this element. He can't describe why, you know, like he can't talk about the plane crash.

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's, she is the other person that he comes across who treats that as the first day of a new life.

• 1:29:44David Sims?

  Sure. But for her, it's, she entered hell.

• 1:29:46Griffin Newman?

  It's hell. And he basically entered heaven, right? I mean, this is a, one of the most spiritual mainstream movies I have ever seen.

• 1:29:53David Sims?

  Without being.

• 1:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Without being religious in any way.

• 1:29:56Speaker 04

  It is also like second rewatch. I will say, I was like, uh, obviously there are gonna be a lot of like, feel a lot of religious imagery or talk about angels or whatever. But like the first thing, and this is just me not knowing a lot about.

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Speaker 04

  The Bible, but like the first thing he does, walking out of the cornfield with a, with a tiny baby. And the first thing, the first characters that you see are three, like field workers kneeling down and crossing themselves. I was like, oh, wait, was this movie like much more? Directly religious than I remembered it from the first time.

• 1:30:36David Sims?

  Right, but I don't think so.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 1:30:38David Sims?

  Yeah, like I don't.

• 1:30:39Griffin Newman?

  I think it's more that like the people around him keep trying to put that on him and on the situation. Right? And obviously like Rosie Perez's character comes from a more religious background, but both of them have like experienced something that goes beyond that.

• 1:30:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:55Griffin Newman?

  That that transcends the codex of being able to use this book to process experiences. And that's what their connection is, is like, we're going through different things, but we're the only two people who understand that something changed and we're not the person those people knew before. Which is really profound.

• 1:31:24Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:31:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:25Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:31:31David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:31Griffin 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?

• 1:31:42David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:31:44Griffin 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.

• 1:32:06David 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.

• 1:32:18Griffin 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.

• 1:32:27David Sims?

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

• 1:32:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:30David 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. Much more clear.

• 1:32:37Griffin 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.

• 1:32:51David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:32:53Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:32:56David 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.

• 1:33:11Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:33:28Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:33:28David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:33:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:33:38David Sims?

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

• 1:33:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:33:45David Sims?

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

• 1:33:48Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:33:49David Sims?

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

• 1:33:59Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:34:14David Sims?

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

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  Giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without that luxury price tag. And, look, it's starting to get chillier. You're gonna need layers, right?

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  How about you just do Quince for every layer, huh?

• 1:34:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:34:34Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:34:35David Sims?

  What?

• 1:34:35Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:34:37David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:34:38Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:34:40David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:34:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:34:47David Sims?

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

• 1:35:14Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:35:15David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:35:19David Sims?

  When I was younger.

• 1:35:20Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:35:21David 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.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  Chime, that's where Chime comes in. Chime.

• 1:35:32David 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?

• 1:35:46Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee free. We love it.

• 1:35:48David Sims?

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

• 1:35:53Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:35:54David Sims?

  Uh, 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.

• 1:36:08Griffin Newman?

  Fee free.

• 1:36:08David 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.

• 1:36:24Speaker 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.

• 1:36:48Speaker 04

  Do you guys want to talk momentarily about plane crashes?

• 1:36:51David Sims?

  Sure, anytime.

• 1:36:52Speaker 04

  And our generalized feelings about them?

• 1:36:54Griffin Newman?

  Main bar.

• 1:36:55Speaker 04

  Main bar?

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

  Main bar.

• 1:36:57Speaker 04

  We got a main bar here. Who starts? Who starts?

• 1:37:00David Sims?

  I don't understand. Like, what do you want me to say about plane crashes?

• 1:37:02Speaker 04

  Well, you don't fly on planes, or you?

• 1:37:05David Sims?

  Or you? I haven't flown on a plane since COVID. Now, I've got the excuse that I have young children, so like, there's been no, and I, and all of my extended family lives in New York, right? So I'm not compelled to travel afar to see family, which is like, any of my friends with kids, when they're getting on a plane, and you're like, Jesus, you gotta take a flight. Even you've taken kids on planes.

• 1:37:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:25David Sims?

  It's a pain in the ass, I'm sure.

• 1:37:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:27David Sims?

  Like, they're like, yeah, but I gotta see my, and I'm like, right, you gotta fly to wherever. I don't have to do that. I haven't flown for work. I don't like flying. I have flown on many, many, many planes. Like, this is not a, like, uh...

• 1:37:38Speaker 04

  So you will get on a plane.

• 1:37:39David Sims?

  Paralyzing thing, right? But I've been avoiding it. Uh-oh, it's gonna have to happen again sometime, and that won't be fun for me.

• 1:37:46Griffin Newman?

  Cause two things. In the years leading up to the pandemic, you started winding down your desire, I shouldn't say desire, your tolerance for covering anything that would require a flight.

• 1:37:58David Sims?

  That is not true.

• 1:37:59Griffin Newman?

  I feel like in the early years of us being friends, you flew more for work.

• 1:38:04David Sims?

  I flew twice in 2020. I flew to Utah for Sundance. I flew to Charleston to go on vacation. I used to get, I get, I just don't like it. I take drugs to calm myself down, and I deal with it, like, but I don't like it. I have been a-

• 1:38:20Speaker 04

  Throw a Xanny down?

• 1:38:21David Sims?

  I'm a Klani guy.

• 1:38:23Speaker 04

  Okay, a little Klani guy?

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  A little Klani boy? Okay, I got a little, I got a bunch of Klannys.

• 1:38:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:38:27David Sims?

  And if anyone wants them, come to my house.

• 1:38:30Speaker 04

  Well, I don't think you can, whoa, I don't think you can do that.

• 1:38:32David Sims?

  And the address is, the address is-

• 1:38:34Speaker 04

  Main feed, main feed.

• 1:38:36David Sims?

  No, I like, I have a prescription, a medical prescription for anxiety on planes.

• 1:38:41Speaker 04

  Right, but I don't think that legally gives you the right to be able to just hand them out or sell them.

• 1:38:46David Sims?

  They're $100 per pill at my house, if you come there.

• 1:38:48Speaker 03

  We're launching a new tier on Patreon.

• 1:38:51Speaker 04

  The Klani boy tier?

• 1:38:52Griffin Newman?

  No ads, free Klani. Technically, you're paying for the podcast. The Klani is free.

• 1:39:00Speaker 04

  It's like the Dallas Buyers Club.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:02Speaker 04

  Yes. The, are you somebody that-

• 1:39:04David Sims?

  But I know a lot about plane crashes because I'm an anxious flyer and I think a lot of anxious flyers do what I do, which is sort of like, "Well, okay, let me understand what went wrong with a plane to understand that it's very unlikely, yada, yada, yada."

• 1:39:14Griffin Newman?

  You research it, you talk about that you watch successful plane landings sometimes to calm yourselves down.

• 1:39:19David Sims?

  I haven't done that in a while. TikTok was showing me those for a while, you know?

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  This is you thinking out loud, but there was some conversation we had like this off mic with a guest where they were interrogating you, not interrogating, but asking you about the plane thing, right? And how high your level of anxiety was. And you did say out loud, "I don't know if I ever go on a plane again."

• 1:39:37David Sims?

  Fuck planes. Why would I go on one of those things?

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  You did say, exactly.

• 1:39:40David Sims?

  I gotta say, anytime a friend of mine takes a plane, there's always some bullshit happening, it feels like. Air travel sucks. It doesn't help that air travel sucks. It's delayed.

• 1:39:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:50David Sims?

  You know, like it's hard to get placed. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it just sucks in every way now.

• 1:39:55Griffin Newman?

  I love going to places. I find almost everything about flying annoying.

• 1:40:01David Sims?

  You used to be a big flying fan, I feel like. You were like, "I genuinely like flying."

• 1:40:06Griffin Newman?

  Um, well, my thing is I have no problems with the being in the air and a giant mechanical bird part of it. I find like the hell is other people part of it.

• 1:40:16David Sims?

  Right. Hard, hard. They're making it harder.

• 1:40:18Griffin Newman?

  I think airports basically bring out the worst in people.

• 1:40:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:21Griffin Newman?

  I think airlines keep on making everything worse and more expensive. I think post pandemic, everyone's lost their fucking minds and it just becomes like an ultimate-

• 1:40:29David Sims?

  People are just weirder around.

• 1:40:30Griffin Newman?

  Pressure cooker thing. Right. But I, I don't dislike the act of it once we're like in the air.

• 1:40:38David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:40:38Griffin Newman?

  I actually kind of find it relaxing. I have all my Piccadillo's of like, I need to be in the right seat.

• 1:40:45David Sims?

  Jerking off.

• 1:40:46Griffin Newman?

  I gotta jerk off four or five times.

• 1:40:48David Sims?

  Dick out. Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

• 1:40:49Griffin Newman?

  Uh, gotta drink seven bottles of white Zinfandel, gotta piss in the aisle.

• 1:40:53David Sims?

  Not do your French taxes.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, exactly. Need to not memorize my lines.

• 1:40:58David Sims?

  And will you be filing your Prince of Texas? They said, no, no, no.

• 1:41:01Griffin Newman?

  Piss on the taxes.

• 1:41:02David Sims?

  I owe them nothing.

• 1:41:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, but, uh, Jared Depardieu's also done worse things, just to be clear.

• 1:41:10David Sims?

  Yes, he's been accused of various things.

• 1:41:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a long rap.

• 1:41:14David Sims?

  On the green card episode briefly, just to address that we are conscious and we, we, we, we know that Jared Depardieu's been accused of bad things.

• 1:41:21Griffin Newman?

  You are both very tall men. I know you bring up David that on top of your like flying anxiety that you're also like, I don't like being in a small space. I don't like this and that, right? Like despite being a little guy, I can get claustrophobic really quickly. And I need like exit paths, more for bathroom than like, what if this crashes shit?

• 1:41:40David Sims?

  I'm with you on all that too.

• 1:41:41Griffin Newman?

  Gets to me. So I'm like very specific about like where my seat is and times of flight and routines and all that sort of shit. But anytime I'm on a plane and there's like extreme turbulence. For someone who like as a child was so all consuming and his obsession with death. Anxiety of death. Every time that happens now, I'm like, if this plane goes down, that is what it is.

• 1:42:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:04Griffin Newman?

  Like I, I have this absolute like, I guess maybe this is how I die kind of.

• 1:42:10David Sims?

  I don't like turbulence, but turbulence bothers me the least because that's, that's actually the least dangerous thing on a plane.

• 1:42:17Speaker 04

  Are you able to, like, are you able to engage with plane crashes in movies?

• 1:42:22David Sims?

  Yeah, but I mean, this to me, I said this on Letterboxd, this is the final boss plane crash movie. I have seen the plane crash in this movie. Like I've, you know, you know what I mean? But like, I do feel like until maybe flight, Griff, do you have any other takes? This was the like.

• 1:42:36Griffin Newman?

  Sully.

• 1:42:37David Sims?

  Well, but Sully is about a successful air, uh, forced water landing.

• 1:42:42Speaker 04

  A successful forced water landing.

• 1:42:44Griffin Newman?

  It's not a crash. It's not a crash.

• 1:42:45David Sims?

  Nobody died in Sully. Like, yes, it's intense and scary, but like, you know, Sully's obvious, you know, but like.

• 1:42:50Speaker 04

  One time I took my kids.

• 1:42:51David Sims?

  Obviously is also about, I guess it's sort of mostly people walk away from that one, right? It's also fictional. He did roll it. He was gonna roll it.

• 1:42:58Speaker 04

  One time I took my kids to like a Lego exhibition.

• 1:43:01Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 1:43:01Speaker 04

  And there was a Lego's miracle on the Hudson. It was like they had made the Hudson and they made the plane and all the people getting off on the wings. I just wanted to throw that in.

• 1:43:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, great place.

• 1:43:11David Sims?

  But I feel like, I mean, I guess Cast Away, but it's like that's a, you know, but that's like a, not a passenger plane.

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  When Cast Away came out, people were like, this is the best plane crash ever committed to film. And then when Flight came out, they were like, Zemeckis has topped himself.

• 1:43:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:28Griffin Newman?

  What's fascinating about this one-

• 1:43:29David Sims?

  But to me, Fearless was always the kind of like, that's the most like, sort of graphic, realistic, or whatever, you know, like a visceral plane crash scene in a movie. Obviously, it's also an entire movie about a plane crash. It's people wrestling with what happened on the plane crashes, the awful thing of what happened to Rosie's, Rosie Perez's character. Like, you know, like, uh, like, it's, it's the plane crash movie. This is the fucking plane crash movie.

• 1:43:54Griffin Newman?

  What is more, what is most interesting about Weir's approach to the plane crash to me, besides, aside from-

• 1:44:00David Sims?

  I think spacing it out is brilliant.

• 1:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I agree. And you're getting only these little slivers. He's holding off for so long. And in those little slivers, that are mostly about dramatizing the human reaction to this thing going wrong and getting worse. Which he does really, really well. Those moments are very intense. But cinematically, he is just using like Star Trek original series tricks.

• 1:44:23David Sims?

  Mostly.

• 1:44:23Griffin Newman?

  Until the final sequence, he's truly just like, kind of shaking the camera and shaking the set.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Griffin Newman?

  And it's well done and it's well acted. And I'm rewatching it and I'm going like, man, David texts that this is the ultimate plane crash movie. He gets it right dramatically, but it's not that visceral. And I forgot how extreme the end sequences-

• 1:44:41David Sims?

  It's why the end is so transcendent. Like, he's finally looking at it again.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  And you said realistic, realistic in the sense that it hits so many different beats of what would happen. It visualizes the different elements of what happens in a crash, but it also does feel stylized. It feels nightmarish. While also feeling like transcendent and almost holy.

• 1:45:03Speaker 04

  And, and I, I was remarking to myself last night that, again, to like the 1993 of like, from the director of Witness and-

• 1:45:13Speaker 04

  Dead Poets Society.

• 1:45:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:14Speaker 04

  The fact that they take the time to show not only the collection of sharp materials, but also high heels.

• 1:45:21David Sims?

  Well, that's a crazy.

• 1:45:22Speaker 04

  The moment where she just opens the bathroom door and throws all the hot.

• 1:45:26David Sims?

  And she's like crying.

• 1:45:27Speaker 04

  I didn't know this was part of the process.

• 1:45:29David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:45:29Speaker 04

  Until now.

• 1:45:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:30Speaker 04

  I still don't, but that feels like a really amazing dramatization of the fucking sort of absurdity of the terror of a moment like that.

• 1:45:41David Sims?

  She's doing her training or whatever.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:43Griffin Newman?

  It's one of my favorite moments, favorite things that can happen.

• 1:45:47Speaker 04

  What the, what do, what do I do with this baby? And they're like, I don't know.

• 1:45:51Griffin Newman?

  We don't know. I mean, one of my favorite experiences I can have watching a fictional scripted film is to go, that must be how it really happened.

• 1:46:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Even if I'm watching some phony.

• 1:46:03David Sims?

  They must have called somebody and checked, yeah.

• 1:46:04Griffin Newman?

  You don't make that up. That was research, that was experienced. And like, the, the flight attendant character is based on a real woman who had given false advice based on older protocols of what you should do.

• 1:46:17Speaker 04

  Jesus.

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:46:18Speaker 04

  Fucking freaks me out too.

• 1:46:19Griffin Newman?

  I, I won't get into the details of it, but basically gave the wrong advice. The child died and basically spent the next like two decades of her life fighting to change the laws and the protocols.

• 1:46:31David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:46:32Griffin Newman?

  To be like, this is like the unfortunate sacrifice in the cautionary tale. We need to change this. But basically the argument was, the sample size is so small, we don't know.

• 1:46:43David Sims?

  Right, this only happens every, right, very rarely. I mean, yes.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  And the, these variables are so extreme that you can't like simulate this and test the best way to handle, right.

• 1:46:55David Sims?

  But the point of this movie, obviously, the point of what he does with Rosie Perez, normal therapy stuff.

• 1:47:01Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:47:01David Sims?

  You know, they're, right, everything they would do, I would say is.

• 1:47:04Speaker 04

  I think everything they do is completely normal.

• 1:47:06David Sims?

  Medically recommended.

• 1:47:07Griffin Newman?

  We should also acknowledge Rosie Perez in a stellar performance.

• 1:47:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:10Griffin Newman?

  A very deserved Oscar nomination, coming off like an incredible four or five year run for her that basically ends with this. It is.

• 1:47:18David Sims?

  I mean, it's not like she's not a working actor, but you're right, it's a huge bummer that she did not like, you know, whatever.

• 1:47:24Griffin Newman?

  I went to the Wikipedia.

• 1:47:25David Sims?

  Fall to a higher level of sardom.

• 1:47:26Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, clearly it didn't sustain, but what were the post Oscar like bump? Nomination bump role she got and you're like, no, it kinda, all the best stuff is before this.

• 1:47:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:36Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like every five or six years, someone will clearly be like, I'm gonna bring Rosie Perez back. And she's always good.

• 1:47:42David Sims?

  Always good.

• 1:47:43Griffin Newman?

  And it's never totally hits.

• 1:47:44David Sims?

  She should have won the Oscar this year as much as I love Anna Paquin, but she's like, she to me, and she was sort of like, she won the critics awards, like she was sort of the, whatever, you know, the, the favorite. I think this movie is kind of, I'd say this positively, but like, kinda woo woo. And like,

• 1:48:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:01David Sims?

  Oh, for sure. Uh, is, you know, wasn't hugely successful. It was critically like, it got respectable reviews, like, but it didn't get, I don't think, like the kind of flat out raves you need. And like, it was the Schindler's List, piano, fugitive, there's all these fucking great heavy hitters.

• 1:48:18Griffin Newman?

  I remembered so confidently that Bridges did get nominated for this. And I was like, in what fucking universe does he not get nominated? And then you're like,

• 1:48:25David Sims?

  He is really good.

• 1:48:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the five nominees are Liam Neeson for Schindler's List, uh, Anthony Hopkins remains of the day.

• 1:48:33David Sims?

  I'm gonna keep going.

• 1:48:34Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Daniel Day Lewis in The Name of the Father.

• 1:48:36David Sims?

  Incredible performance.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I know, um, the, the sort of surprise nominee in the batch, was Laurence Fishburne for What's Love Got To Do With It, who hadn't gotten the precursors, but deservedly got the Oscar nom.

• 1:48:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:49Griffin Newman?

  And then fucking Tom Hanks for Philadelphia.

• 1:48:50David Sims?

  Who wins?

• 1:48:51Griffin Newman?

  Jesus. And you're like, yeah, you're right. That is the one year where Bridges wouldn't have made it in. And we said the same thing in Witness of like, how did fucking Ford not get nominated for fugitive? And you're like, that five, the Globe's even nominated Ford.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  Right. The, uh, there is one thing that I will throw out there that this almost feels like a movie and a performance that is, yes, there is the woo woo parts of it, but I could see people being like, I don't know that I really want to, and like, obviously incredible import, the performance that she gives, but one that,

• 1:49:24Speaker 04

  I could understand if people were like, I don't really want to engage with this.

• 1:49:27Griffin Newman?

  Is this movie too tough?

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  It's so sad! With what this woman is having to deal with.

• 1:49:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:49:33Speaker 04

  I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about a plane crash. I also really don't want to think about the death of my baby. I could see that being a factor working against it. You know what I mean?

• 1:49:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, I kept thinking about flight while watching this.

• 1:49:46Speaker 04

  Which I, which I will say.

• 1:49:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Speaker 04

  It's going back to main bar.

• 1:49:50Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:49:50Speaker 04

  I have broadly always been a pretty good flyer.

• 1:49:52Griffin Newman?

  Please talk about your plane experience.

• 1:49:53Speaker 04

  When our kids were born.

• 1:49:54David Sims?

  You gotta, you know, you gotta travel for work all the time.

• 1:49:57Speaker 04

  I gotta travel for work all the time. I feel like I'm pretty.

• 1:49:59David Sims?

  I can hear you're a hitmaker of some sort.

• 1:50:00Speaker 04

  You know, and you know what? Sometimes hits, they get, they get produced in other states or other countries.

• 1:50:06David Sims?

  And you fly to your town?

• 1:50:07Griffin Newman?

  Almost exclusively in Budapest these days.

• 1:50:09Speaker 04

  I fly to my gym.

• 1:50:11David Sims?

  You fly to your gym?

• 1:50:12Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 1:50:12Speaker 04

  But, um, but that is like, that's just a little two-seater, just like a little fun.

• 1:50:16Griffin Newman?

  It's your PJ.

• 1:50:17David Sims?

  They're like, hitmaker coming in?

• 1:50:20David Sims?

  Parachute out.

• 1:50:22Speaker 04

  The, um, there was a period of time, and I'm much better about this now, but right after my kids were born, it became a thing where I was like, all of a sudden terrified to fly in ways I cannot describe.

• 1:50:37David Sims?

  But was it just, okay, terrified to fly. So it wasn't just like, it is so difficult to fly with young children. It was also like, I'm existentially afraid for their.

• 1:50:46Speaker 04

  I am existent, I was honestly, I guess I've heard a lot of parents talk about this where I'm kind of okay with flying if we're all together.

• 1:50:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:50:55Speaker 04

  I was terrified when I was leaving them.

• 1:50:58David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:50:58Speaker 04

  And the, the sort of sharp focus that would get thrown into.

• 1:51:02David Sims?

  Like, this could be the last time I'm being.

• 1:51:03Speaker 04

  This could be the last time, and I don't like that.

• 1:51:05Griffin Newman?

  I remember you talking about this on draft day.

• 1:51:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Griffin Newman?

  Why you were even hesitant to like, take quick trips to go back and visit them if you had a couple of days off. Where you were like, limit the, they were less than a year. Am I wrong?

• 1:51:18Speaker 04

  That was, they would have been.

• 1:51:19David Sims?

  They'd just been born and you said, I'm out of here, I think, is what I'm seeing here.

• 1:51:22Speaker 04

  Yes, that was, I mean, like, look, yeah, that's like a paraphrase of what I said.

• 1:51:26David Sims?

  But the doctor was like, do you want to hold your baby? And you were like, I'm.

• 1:51:29Speaker 04

  Draft day.

• 1:51:30David Sims?

  Draft day.

• 1:51:30Speaker 04

  In theaters 2014. Do you not know who Kevin fucking Costner is?

• 1:51:34David Sims?

  Kevin fucking Costner. You were yelling that from your helicopter?

• 1:51:37Speaker 04

  I was in the.

• 1:51:38David Sims?

  Took off from the hospital.

• 1:51:42Speaker 04

  There was like, one of those like, life flights that got delayed because I was screaming at the NICU doctor being like, Kevin fucking Costner.

• 1:51:49David Sims?

  It's like Batman and Darky gets sucked up into the airplane.

• 1:51:52Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 1:51:53Griffin Newman?

  The other part of it is, it's not like you were a late in life success, but you had done a lot of theater. You had like worked in casting.

• 1:52:00Speaker 04

  You're old. I'm very.

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:52:03Speaker 04

  I mean, again, a paraphrase of what he just said, but yes, it was to the point.

• 1:52:07David Sims?

  Yeah, you were a little older and you'd had kids.

• 1:52:08Griffin Newman?

  Then you have children and then it's like, suddenly you like, you got it, right? It was like, you got Veep and like things started rolling and you stayed blessed and booked and busy since then. But I, I, draft day, I feel like was only after you had done the second season of Veep.

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  It was after, so the kids are probably right around two at that point. But it was still very much in that thing of like, I had to take Xanax, but I had this experience of like, it was either I was terrified for the entire flight if I didn't take it.

• 1:52:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:52:39Speaker 04

  Or I would take it and then halfway through the flight would wake up in, in like the Xanax haze. And it was like, I woke up to new, to know that we were flying through a city about to hit a building.

• 1:52:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, and, and right.

• 1:52:54Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 1:52:54Griffin Newman?

  Am I gonna create a single mother because I have to be in Goosebumps? Like that kind of shit.

• 1:52:59David Sims?

  And, and the attendant would lean down and say, we'll be at Riyadh soon and don't worry, your car will take you right to the comedy festival.

• 1:53:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, of course.

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  Meeting you at the.

• 1:53:06Griffin Newman?

  Headlining.

• 1:53:08Speaker 04

  And I, and I, I would tell, even the person on the plane, I have no qualms about what I'm doing.

• 1:53:13Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:53:13David Sims?

  You'd be like, I'm scared of the flight, not of the great people I'll be entertaining. The great royal family.

• 1:53:18Griffin Newman?

  These people deserve to hear comedy and I'm a truth teller. I just remember you talking about all this anxiety a lot, cause it was also the like, you're leaving your wife at home with twins, right?

• 1:53:28Speaker 04

  Yes, there's that.

• 1:53:29Griffin Newman?

  And there's the part of like, you never know when it's gonna stop. So if jobs are like lining up, and especially if it's like starting for the first time, you're like, do I have to like ride this out?

• 1:53:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:40Griffin Newman?

  As long as I'm like holding a hot hand? And then the other part of it was you're like, I have twins. I, like, this is gonna cost me for the rest of my life.

• 1:53:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  I gotta take all these small parts, but it means you're traveling all the time. But you do feel like you've.

• 1:53:54Speaker 04

  I'm like, kind of way past it now. My wife is a terrible flyer.

• 1:53:58Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:53:58Speaker 04

  And so I.

• 1:53:59David Sims?

  Is with her.

• 1:54:00Speaker 04

  I and so like we have talked about ways that we work through that and how I can be more supportive, which I do think she doesn't listen to this podcast, so she will not be here to rebut me.

• 1:54:11David Sims?

  Smart.

• 1:54:12Speaker 04

  That I do feel.

• 1:54:13David Sims?

  You don't listen to her and she doesn't listen to this podcast.

• 1:54:15Speaker 04

  Yes, I I have tried to become better at how I can support her, but I do feel like I never think about taking Xanax anymore. And frankly, like, I kind of enjoy it now. And even when I have to like fly, like recently I flew back from somewhere like in the 23rd row in the middle seat. I was like, you know what? I had a great time and I watched Slow Horses and this is fun.

• 1:54:36David Sims?

  Man of the people here. He's got a sagnum, but it don't matter. He's flying in row 23.

• 1:54:42Speaker 04

  Row 23, middle seat. Put my little iPad in the holder with my big old legs and but I will say I have never seen the movie Plane, because that came out in that period of time.

• 1:54:56David Sims?

  The plane?

• 1:54:57Speaker 04

  Sorry, no, Flight.

• 1:54:59David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:59Griffin Newman?

  Plane is the dry butler movie.

• 1:55:01David Sims?

  Plane is. They crash or they just kind of land in like Action Island or whatever, right?

• 1:55:06Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I never saw Flight.

• 1:55:09David Sims?

  Flight is scary, right?

• 1:55:10Speaker 04

  Flight came out in that period of time where I was like, oh, I am not going to be engaging engaging with this movie.

• 1:55:16Griffin Newman?

  My whole thing with Flight.

• 1:55:17David Sims?

  Other like plane crash classics, right? Like The Lost Pilot, but like, you know, movies like Cast Away, Flight. I'm trying to think of like.

• 1:55:25Griffin Newman?

  Flight of the Navigator, but I'm like things, you're saying things that like show a plane crash.

• 1:55:29David Sims?

  Yeah, like in like visceral detail of some sort, you know, like Fly Final Destination, I suppose.

• 1:55:35Griffin Newman?

  That that one doesn't turn out so well.

• 1:55:37Speaker 04

  Die Hard Two.

• 1:55:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:39David Sims?

  That stuff is so absurd, right? Like it's like, and it's like anything where it's like a terrorist blows up a plane.

• 1:55:46Griffin Newman?

  Air Force One level stuff.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  You're like, well, I think I'm okay. Like, you know, it's the one, the freaky ones are the ones that are depicting somewhat realistically, like a real ish plane accident.

• 1:55:55Speaker 03

  United 93.

• 1:55:57Griffin Newman?

  I that I would say kind of a historically bad plane incident.

• 1:56:01David Sims?

  That's it. That is a, I'll, I'm, I will speak truth to power and say that movie is a little stressful.

• 1:56:04Griffin Newman?

  It's a little stressful. It's a little stressful.

• 1:56:07Speaker 04

  There was a movie that I was watching recently that had a. Recently, this was probably 10 years ago. I watched on a plane.

• 1:56:13Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:56:14Speaker 04

  Had a very famous plane explosion in the, in the beginning of it. And I was watching it on a plane. They edited out the explosion.

• 1:56:23David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. Planes will, oh, yeah. Oh, movie on plane will get rid of a plane crash.

• 1:56:26Speaker 04

  They will just do.

• 1:56:27David Sims?

  Or not have the movie air at all.

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  You know what we're forgetting? And this is such a grounded, realistic take on the, the plane crash, Con Air.

• 1:56:36Griffin Newman?

  Con Air.

• 1:56:36David Sims?

  Yeah. And that is, and I do, I don't fly much, but I will fly Con Air regular. And I am a miles member of Con Air.

• 1:56:43Speaker 03

  I love a cage.

• 1:56:44David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:56:44Speaker 03

  They should have a cage more often as an option.

• 1:56:47Griffin Newman?

  I have to correct you, Ben. That wasn't a crash. That was a forced Vegas strip landing.

• 1:56:52David Sims?

  That's right. I mean, and Cyrus the Virus, I do think has been a pretty good Secretary of State for Donald Trump. I don't know what you guys think.

• 1:57:01Griffin Newman?

  We, we.

• 1:57:02David Sims?

  Good guy.

• 1:57:04Griffin Newman?

  We talked about Flight several years ago.

• 1:57:07David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  That is a movie where every time I watch it and I try to circle back to it.

• 1:57:10David Sims?

  Another movie about reckoning with aftermath.

• 1:57:12Griffin Newman?

  This is my thing, is that Flight for me, the first half is unbelievable.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Griffin Newman?

  And every time I watch it, I expect it to go down more smoothly, but I bump against how kind of pat it feels in the whole movie getting simplified to you gotta get sober and find Christ again.

• 1:57:28David Sims?

  It's not an incredibly well-written movie, despite its screenplay homage.

• 1:57:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. Whereas I'm like, this movie is spiritual because it's in conversation with the intangible.

• 1:57:36David Sims?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:57:36Griffin Newman?

  Whereas Flight is like, you gotta just buy into these two pre-established systems.

• 1:57:43David Sims?

  There's, there's one sort of supernatural thing that happens in this movie, which is he can eat the strawberries, right? That's the one thing where you're like, okay, we're going a little beyond science here.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:53David Sims?

  I guess maybe his body, his nervous system is in such a bizarre state.

• 1:57:56Griffin Newman?

  My read especially.

• 1:57:57David Sims?

  Right. But I don't know how allergies work.

• 1:57:59Griffin Newman?

  I was just like, I, when I watch it, I'm like, it must be something with his adrenaline.

• 1:58:04David Sims?

  We don't mind watching it, I feel. Right. Everything else in the movie, I mean, sure, he behaves badly. He walks into traffic. He drives too fast, like things like that. But you're like. It's not unbreakable where it's like he genuinely cannot be harmed.

• 1:58:20Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't seem magical.

• 1:58:21David Sims?

  No, exactly. But that's why Bridges is so good because, right, he just seems a little out of step with real life.

• 1:58:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:58:28David Sims?

  He just feels a little touched or a little angelic or a little whatever you want to call it.

• 1:58:32Griffin Newman?

  And I like that this movie is like, there aren't answers for this. There's nothing that can speak to what he's feeling or what she's feeling, you know? When I hear about people who have tragedies like what befalls the Rosie Perez character here, I go like, I literally don't know how you wake up the next morning.

• 1:58:48David Sims?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:58:48Speaker 04

  No, 100%.

• 1:58:49Griffin Newman?

  I don't understand how you could possibly ever move on from that.

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  And Turturro has a line where he says, because Isabella Rossellini, who's great, we love Isabella.

• 1:58:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:59David Sims?

  Remind me to talk about her in one minute, okay? Before I finish this thought. You know, she says, like, why are you doing this? Why are you putting them together to Turturro? And Turturro's like, if Rosie Perez is not reached, like, she will, you know, basically need help for the rest of her life.

• 1:59:12Griffin Newman?

  He's like.

• 1:59:12Speaker 04

  Like, she'll be institutionalized.

• 1:59:14David Sims?

  Yes, I mean, like, she will.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  These are my two problem cases. She cannot be pulled out of it and he's acting like nothing happened.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  Right, right. These are the two most severe reactions.

• 1:59:22Griffin Newman?

  They're basically at opposite ends of like the PTSD spectrum, which is like almost kind of complete disassociation from reality and like an inability to pull yourself out of.

• 1:59:34Speaker 04

  Oh, and one thing that I didn't really pick up on the first time, which I feel like stuck out the second was he mentions something early on about people that are dealing with PTSD, sometimes almost chase the feeling of indestructibility.

• 1:59:48David Sims?

  Like, he says it about Vietnam vets, yes.

• 1:59:50Speaker 04

  Yes, and there was a.

• 1:59:51David Sims?

  That they feel indestructible in some way because they didn't die.

• 1:59:54Speaker 04

  They didn't die, but then if they start to lose it, they start chasing it. And there was a moment where he agrees to lie. He's like, so you want me to lie to the lawyers? You want me to say, you know, the more minutes we spent in this, you want me to lie? And when he agrees to do it, he runs out and goes up to the roof.

• 2:00:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:12Speaker 04

  And that one, I feel like I noticed more of that. The moments where he could feel himself slipping away from it, he then ran.

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  When Real World is starting, like, Tom Hulse is talking to him and he's just like, I can't fucking deal with you.

• 2:00:24Speaker 04

  I can't fucking.

• 2:00:24David Sims?

  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

• 2:00:25Griffin Newman?

  It's the slap moment.

• 2:00:26David Sims?

  He's getting him back, you know, through the barrier, through the liminal barrier.

• 2:00:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. Because the Hulse moment is Hulse starts saying like, and look, if you could focus on this in the narrative, and he just screams abruptly. Hulse is like, what's going on? And he's like, no more lying.

• 2:00:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm not lying. I refuse to play by these rules.

• 2:00:45Speaker 04

  Do you want to talk about Isabella Rossellini?

• 2:00:47David Sims?

  Oh, I do. So she comes on screen. I'm talking to my wife about her.

• 2:00:51Griffin Newman?

  She looks quite good in this film. Her and Jeff Bridges are-

• 2:00:54David Sims?

  She's a beautiful vision, as ever. And I will say, we are cast her because he was like, I want his wife to be like from another country. Like, I can tell you about that later. But I was like, Isabella Rossellini, kind of in the Sean Connery zone, always sounds like that it's never a problem.

• 2:01:10Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:01:10David Sims?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to see Isabella Rossellini talking different. I want her talking Rossellini style, right? And because she's got the most beautiful diction, like this wonderful accent. It's always like melodic and interesting to hear her read dialogue.

• 2:01:25Speaker 03

  It helps-

• 2:01:26David Sims?

  She always is doing that.

• 2:01:27Speaker 03

  That she's a ballet teacher.

• 2:01:28David Sims?

  And if she's well-.

• 2:01:29Speaker 03

  It would be one thing if she was a lunch lady.

• 2:01:31David Sims?

  But I mean, hey, man, I'd be like, wow, interesting lunch lady.

• 2:01:34Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I were watching, a friend of the show, a past and future recent guest, Ben David Grabinsky, showed us End of Days, which we had never seen before.

• 2:01:42David Sims?

  Oh, good movie.

• 2:01:43Griffin Newman?

  And I couldn't stop making jokes about this movie that's like built on the premise of like, what if a, just a New York cop had to come face to face with Satan? And that New York cop is of course played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 2:01:53David Sims?

  I walk my beat in Brooklyn.

• 2:01:56Speaker 03

  Like, ah, this is my block.

• 2:01:58David Sims?

  I'm lieutenant's cop.

• 2:02:01Griffin Newman?

  And the movie just acts like-

• 2:02:02David Sims?

  I remember these streets from when I grew up here.

• 2:02:06Griffin Newman?

  His partner is Kevin Pollak, and the movie keeps acting like both of them look like that, in a way.

• 2:02:11David Sims?

  Late 90s Schwarzenegger, I feel like, is where this had gotten out of hand. It's like, yes, but yes, absolutely.

• 2:02:17Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, beyond the fact that he just looks like that, right? The bone structure and like the shape he was in and everything. It's not just that he's Austrian and I can't accept that someone could immigrate from one country to another and hold down an American job. I'm like, he just doesn't even sound like a human being. Other Austrian people don't sound like him, right?

• 2:02:34David Sims?

  There's nobody like him.

• 2:02:35Griffin Newman?

  Isabella Rossellini has this built in thing where anytime she enters a movie, you're like, cool, this character's backstory is she has lived in five different countries.

• 2:02:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:43Griffin Newman?

  And there's never a movie where it butts up against that, where you couldn't believe like, yeah, she had an interesting childhood.

• 2:02:49David Sims?

  Like a hundred percent.

• 2:02:50Griffin Newman?

  She's horrible.

• 2:02:51David Sims?

  The thing, I'm, I start just going on about like, well, Ingrid Bergman, Robert Rossellini, they had a famous affair. She's like this product of this notorious affair and it was so scandalous.

• 2:03:00Griffin Newman?

  She always plays a cultured woman who has experienced things.

• 2:03:03Speaker 04

  I, I was just talking about this last night with a friend that I bumped into.

• 2:03:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:03:07Speaker 04

  About the bone collector.

• 2:03:09Griffin Newman?

  Oh, of course.

• 2:03:10Speaker 04

  That when Angelina Jolie has to say, I moved to New York to be a model, but I found that unfulfilling. So now I am a police officer.

• 2:03:19David Sims?

  Someone had to insert that line when she was cast, you're saying, right?

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  They should have given that movie a special Oscar for putting in that one line. Cause that's the one thing those movies never do when you cast the most beautiful people in the world, especially with actresses, where you're like, has anyone ever like come up to you and said, maybe Gap catalog?

• 2:03:39Speaker 04

  The, Ken, I, I, one thing that was interesting about having never seen this movie before and, and then watching it a second time was the first time through, I kept struggling to figure out if I was supposed to be cheering for this new Jeff, Jeff Bridges.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  I think what he's doing is very seductive.

• 2:04:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:04:04David Sims?

  Because you're like.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:04:05David Sims?

  You know, obviously a character like Tom Hulse's character, you're like, well, fuck this blood sucking lawyer guy, right? And even what, you know, everyone like, you know, you're like, yeah, he's above it all. But then you are like, no, he, this is a man who's so traumatized. He's behaving in this way. Like he needs to engage with what's happened.

• 2:04:22Speaker 04

  You see the way that he's trying to help Rosie Perez and you're like, okay, what are we, what are we going for? Like I feel, I feel conflicted. He is clearly not doing a great job with his own family.

• 2:04:35Griffin Newman?

  Can I throw out a head of your take?

• 2:04:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:38Griffin Newman?

  And this is part of the power of Bridges in this movie is.

• 2:04:43Griffin Newman?

  The top tier movie stars in most eras, but I think particularly in the 90s in Hollywood, kind of represent the id that even when they're playing kinda every men in some sense.

• 2:04:56Speaker 04

  You want, they're doing what you could only dream of doing.

• 2:04:58Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:04:59Speaker 04

  Yes, behaving in a way that's alluring.

• 2:05:01Griffin Newman?

  It's not just they look better than you and they're more charismatic than you, but part of it is like you wanna watch them get away with it. You wanna watch them be awesome. You wanna watch them take control and say the things you can't say. And even if they have to learn a lesson at the end, you know, that was part of the juice. And Jeff Bridges is a guy who never feels like he's representing a fantasy version of a person.

• 2:05:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Even when he's in extreme circumstances and especially in this like 90s earthy era, where if it was Mel Gibson, there would be 30 minutes of this movie that felt like Yes Man, right? There would be, even if Mel was good, you know?

• 2:05:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:05:36Griffin Newman?

  Same with Bruce, where there'd be a little bit of like, ain't I a stinker? Isn't this awesome? I can drive the car this fast and like kiss Rosie Perez and do whatever I want, you know?

• 2:05:46Speaker 04

  To that point.

• 2:05:47Griffin Newman?

  Bridges is too grounded where the whole time you're like, what's happening here feels extreme, but it doesn't feel like wish fulfillment.

• 2:05:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:05:56Griffin Newman?

  And it doesn't feel fun.

• 2:05:57Speaker 04

  I thought about that when he, last night when he was walking across the street and he's like, you're trying to kill me, but you can't. And there is that part of me where it's like, it's not like he like walked through the traffic magically and it never slowed and he timed it right.

• 2:06:11David Sims?

  That's what's crucial. One of the cars has to swerve.

• 2:06:13Speaker 04

  Has to swerve and jam on its brakes. And it's like, no, God didn't let you survive. Somebody hit their brakes.

• 2:06:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:06:22Speaker 04

  Like you, it was not magic. The rest of the world helped out in this.

• 2:06:27Griffin Newman?

  What he is really representing is what if you choose not to buy into the rules of society, right? Not what if nothing could kill you?

• 2:06:35Speaker 04

  What if you casually mention to your wife, Isabella Rossellini, that you have never experienced a love, like the one that you feel for this other woman?

• 2:06:45David Sims?

  Which, I mean, again, Russel, he's gotta give him a lot of rope. He was in a plane crash.

• 2:06:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:06:50David Sims?

  He's got plane crash hall pass right now.

• 2:06:52Speaker 04

  But you know.

• 2:06:52Griffin Newman?

  He's obsessed with holes.

• 2:06:54Speaker 04

  You know, like five, six.

• 2:06:56David Sims?

  The Coronimus Bosch painting that they're, you know, ascent of the blast, you know, like this idea of like the light at the end of the tunnel.

• 2:07:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 2:07:03Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying, this guy's printing out all the holes he can find in history. If OnlyFans had existed, he would have never pulled back up for air.

• 2:07:10David Sims?

  Well, that's, that's a bit of an off-color joke, I'll say.

• 2:07:14Griffin Newman?

  Get a little ribald on this podcast from time to time.

• 2:07:17David Sims?

  That's a little shocking.

• 2:07:18Griffin Newman?

  Work a little blue if I want to.

• 2:07:19Speaker 04

  I do think that if like six years went by, Isabella would be like, he's still fucking dying and out on this plane crash?

• 2:07:28David Sims?

  Oh, should we have Fearless 2 where he's back to being normal and she's like, he brings it up a lot.

• 2:07:33Speaker 04

  God damn it, would you just fucking?

• 2:07:34David Sims?

  I have a life too. I fucking ballet school.

• 2:07:37Speaker 04

  I had, I had a bad day today. You had a bad day six years ago.

• 2:07:42David Sims?

  One of those girls is being mean to me and she said, whatever.

• 2:07:46Griffin Newman?

  It's such a good moment when the representative from the airline finds him, right?

• 2:07:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:07:51Griffin Newman?

  And says like, we know that you were already kinda like touchy about flying before the, the thing happened. She doesn't even wanna say crash. She's talked to Rossellini and his family before he has. And that's the first tell of like, the guy before this was actually deeply neurotic.

• 2:08:11David Sims?

  And you see it in Bridges in the flat, in the full flashback.

• 2:08:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:08:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:16David Sims?

  Before he looks out the window and basically obviously just has this like, I, this is it.

• 2:08:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is the moment.

• 2:08:21David Sims?

  And now I have crossed the barrier. But like before then, yeah, he's anxious. Yeah.

• 2:08:25Griffin Newman?

  And it's more that feeling of, I think, the surrendering of control, of being, I can't do any of this. I don't think he orders a bowl of strawberries because he thinks he's now invincible. I think he orders a bowl of strawberries because he's like, I almost just died. So what's the difference if I order a bowl of strawberries now and this kills me?

• 2:08:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:44Griffin Newman?

  And if not this, it could be crossing the street, right? He doesn't walk across the street because he thinks it's impossible for a car to hit him. It's that he keeps kind of like testing the limits of. All of this is so random.

• 2:08:58Speaker 03

  In a synopsis of the novel, I found this term that's really interesting. It's described as the character is experiencing an extreme form of pink cloud syndrome.

• 2:09:09Griffin Newman?

  Go on.

• 2:09:10Speaker 03

  And a pink cloud syndrome is a thing that you find when describing people who are getting sober.

• 2:09:17Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:09:18Speaker 03

  Early on, they have this feeling of elation.

• 2:09:21David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:22Speaker 03

  Of like just extreme high.

• 2:09:24David Sims?

  That doesn't like last forever.

• 2:09:25Speaker 03

  Doesn't last, but it's that initial period of like, it's not just like, I'm doing this. It's like, it's this incredible, like just heightened experience of feeling such positivity. But of course, life sits in the reality after a period of time.

• 2:09:42David Sims?

  Be an architect.

• 2:09:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:43David Sims?

  You gotta go back to fucking Rossellini.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Ugh.

• 2:09:47Griffin Newman?

  It's only a thing.

• 2:10:02Griffin Newman?

  I'm not gonna go into like a crazy tangent about this, but you know, I have my extended health problems that turned out to be this gallbladder thing. But for like six months was a medical mystery that after the fact, they were like, that would have killed you if it had gone on another three months. And hadn't been identified. And that was starting the beginning of 2021. So it's after nearly a year of being like in extreme lockdown where it triggered all of my worst anxieties and I lost my fucking mind. And then it's like vaccinations coming, wait a second. There's some problem in your body that we can't identify.

• 2:10:36David Sims?

  Something's up with you.

• 2:10:37Griffin Newman?

  Keeps getting kicked and I keep going back for tests and they're just like, we don't know, we don't know. And I'm stuck in a medical hamster wheel and I feel like I haven't been in person for like 18 months, right? When this thing finally got resolved and they got the bad shit out of my body in like July 2021, I had this feeling. Where it was like, okay, like the couple of days after the surgery, my recovery, you know, there was wonkiness. I of course checked out of the hospital, immediately went to a screening of F9. It was captured on our Patreon.

• 2:11:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:11:07David Sims?

  And if you're wondering, uh, when did he arrive for said screening?

• 2:11:11Griffin Newman?

  They like to complain about me being late to the screening. I was waiting to be checked out of the hospital.

• 2:11:16David Sims?

  No, we're actually just complaining about how you're late all the time. It's just a very funny example of you being late.

• 2:11:23Griffin Newman?

  But I had.

• 2:11:24David Sims?

  It was my first like thing I did after my kid was born, I feel like as well. It was a very like.

• 2:11:29Griffin Newman?

  It was early.

• 2:11:30David Sims?

  Right, crazy early, every society beginning to flower, whatever.

• 2:11:34Griffin Newman?

  But I had this thing where like, when the basic recovery had happened, let's say a week after the surgery, I was just like, oh my God, I'm taking nothing for granted ever again. I am so happy to be alive, able to walk out on the street.

• 2:11:49David Sims?

  But then you saw that movie Yes Man and you're like, oh, this covers it.

• 2:11:52Griffin Newman?

  What if I start saying no to shit? No, that, but even beyond that, and I felt a little bit of this with my fucking dental problems I've had recently, where it's like, this, this thing is weighing down on you, surgery happens, skies cleared up. I wake up one day, I'm like, holy shit, I slept properly. My executive function is in line. I'm like organized. I'm not feeling like stressed out by all this. There's just like a clarity to like, holy shit, I can just do stuff. Like the burden is gone. And every time I fall for the shit, the pink cloud syndrome of like, oh, this might truly be the first day of the rest of my life. What if like all the fucking bits about Griffin fucking shit up ended yesterday?

• 2:12:34Griffin Newman?

  And now I'm just like the best at being normal. And then like 10 days later, I'm like, oh, wait, wait a second. You know, it's crept back up on me.

• 2:12:45David Sims?

  I heard you say organized, so I imagine maybe day three, all of a sudden, your apartment appears to be like similar to the way your desk looks.

• 2:12:52Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 2:12:53David Sims?

  Now, we should share the listeners too, just before we start recording, Griffin immediately.

• 2:12:58Griffin Newman?

  Spilled coffee.

• 2:12:59David Sims?

  Walking into the office.

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Everything's going well.

• 2:13:00David Sims?

  Griffin wanted to be.

• 2:13:01Griffin Newman?

  Not coffee. I have two more dentist appointments this week. I have a bone spur in my jaw they need to remove.

• 2:13:07David Sims?

  You spilled what looks like green gray water.

• 2:13:10Griffin Newman?

  It was a matcha latte.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  You have a bone spur in your jaw?

• 2:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yet another thing me and our president have in common.

• 2:13:16David Sims?

  His are on his feet.

• 2:13:17Griffin Newman?

  Two great New Yorkers with bone spurs.

• 2:13:22David Sims?

  The fuck? You're gonna take something else out of your mouth?

• 2:13:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and then I'll have five days of feeling like Jeff Bridges in Fearless.

• 2:13:28David Sims?

  Well, good for you.

• 2:13:29Griffin Newman?

  And then I'll go back to fucking dropping coffee like Rick the intern.

• 2:13:33Speaker 04

  It is, I do feel like a pretty, uh, not in the trailer, by the way. I just didn't want to, I can't let that go unsaid. It was not, it was in, oh, sorry, in the trailer.

• 2:13:41David Sims?

  It's not in the film.

• 2:13:42Speaker 04

  It's a false advertisement.

• 2:13:43Griffin Newman?

  And wasn't on the Blu-ray in the deleted scenes.

• 2:13:45David Sims?

  And, and Kevin Costner heard that and got so mad that he started deep sea diving, looking for treasure.

• 2:13:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, because Rick spilled the coffee all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Exactly.

• 2:13:56David Sims?

  I needed that coffee.

• 2:13:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:59Speaker 04

  That is a very human response to these things of like, oh my God, I went through like, the moments like I remember getting like STD tests in college and that five days or whatever.

• 2:14:09David Sims?

  Were you up to anything in college?

• 2:14:12Speaker 04

  Well, do you just like, you know, whatever a normal.

• 2:14:15David Sims?

  Just being responsible.

• 2:14:16Speaker 04

  Being a responsible person.

• 2:14:17Griffin Newman?

  I used to call him Hitmaker for a different reason.

• 2:14:20David Sims?

  I'm sorry. It's good to get STD tested.

• 2:14:22Griffin Newman?

  Point across the room, go. I'd have hit that.

• 2:14:23David Sims?

  I'm not here to make fun of that. I'm sorry.

• 2:14:25Speaker 04

  But like, you know, I think, you know, I grew up in a time in which sex killed you.

• 2:14:30Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:30David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:14:30Speaker 04

  There was always like this little extra weight to those coming back.

• 2:14:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:14:35Speaker 04

  And, and in that period of time, you were like, all right, I'm never making another mistake in my life.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:39Speaker 04

  And then you get it.

• 2:14:40David Sims?

  Of course.

• 2:14:40Speaker 04

  You're like, I'm fucking good.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  I totally, or you go see the doctor and the doctor's like, hey, you gotta stop doing, and you're like, you're right, I will. And then like a week later, you're like, doctor what?

• 2:14:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:14:49David Sims?

  Doctor who?

• 2:14:50Griffin Newman?

  Well, I'm also.

• 2:14:51Speaker 04

  Doctor.

• 2:14:52Griffin Newman?

  Actually, his name is The Doctor. Doctor Who is just what they call the show because people ask, Doctor Who.

• 2:14:57David Sims?

  Who is he?

• 2:14:57Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I'm such a manic person in general.

• 2:15:01David Sims?

  What?

• 2:15:01Griffin Newman?

  That when I have these moments like post-surgery, it is the only time in my life where I feel level. That's the thing. It's not like I'm like, holy shit, I'm unstoppable. It is a little similar to the Jeff Bridges thing where I'm like, oh my God, I just feel like I can walk. You know, like my thoughts are like in order.

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  Given that we've hit two hours, can I give you a couple more things from the dossier?

• 2:15:24Speaker 04

  I would love that.

• 2:15:24David Sims?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:15:25Griffin Newman?

  I just think we need to talk more about Rosie Perez.

• 2:15:27David Sims?

  We, she's great in the film. Um, just the Mel Gibson thing I said of he was the first choice and Mel was like, look, I'm about to direct The Man Without a Face. And then Mel has said apparently like, who, who's your second choice? Like who else are you thinking of? And Weir says Jeff Bridges and Mel was like, fuck, I wanted to cast him in The Man Without a Face.

• 2:15:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:15:46David Sims?

  Which rocks, which is kinda cool.

• 2:15:48Griffin Newman?

  Mel wasn't gonna play the lead himself.

• 2:15:49David Sims?

  No, he was like, no, I fucking want Jeff Bridges.

• 2:15:51Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:15:52David Sims?

  Now, I mean, like maybe Mel was like, actually, what if I had no face? Like, I don't know. But, um, never seen that movie.

• 2:15:58Griffin Newman?

  Me neither.

• 2:15:58David Sims?

  Yeah, I hear it's pretty good. Um.

• 2:16:00Griffin Newman?

  What's it about?

• 2:16:01David Sims?

  Well.

• 2:16:03Griffin Newman?

  It's a man with some facial scarring.

• 2:16:05David Sims?

  He's actually, he's got.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  Who like tutors a boy in English.

• 2:16:08David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like a sort of heartwarming, uh, uh, movie about a, right, a sort of reclusive man.

• 2:16:15Griffin Newman?

  He's like a Phantom of the Opera.

• 2:16:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:16:17Griffin Newman?

  Uh, English teacher.

• 2:16:19David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:16:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh, English tutor where he's like, don't look at me, I'm hideous. And they're like, you're, you're Mel Gibson. You just got some shit on one side of your face.

• 2:16:26David Sims?

  He's got scarring, serious scarring.

• 2:16:28Griffin Newman?

  Pushed away from society, I think, basically has become a hermit.

• 2:16:31Speaker 04

  I feel like both based in and shot in Maine.

• 2:16:34David Sims?

  Uh, uh, I give it a favorite.

• 2:16:36Speaker 04

  Which is where I'm from.

• 2:16:37David Sims?

  Here he comes, the fucking Mr. Maine, the Maine event.

• 2:16:41Speaker 04

  The Maine event's a good nickname.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  That is a really good nickname.

• 2:16:43David Sims?

  Yeah, film set and shot in Maine. Uh, so the casting, Bridges, just to say, the film got, um, uh, sort of, the, the budget got right sized, you know, a little bit. It cost about 20 million dollars.

• 2:16:56Griffin Newman?

  I, wow.

• 2:16:57David Sims?

  Which is, uh, you know, a regular budget at the time, I feel.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Back to this sort of notion of like how these things used to be greenlit. It's like, this is a go picture. It's 40. If you can get one of these 10 guys, it goes up to 60.

• 2:17:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:17:08Griffin Newman?

  If you go for someone you like who's less of a name, it goes down to 20.

• 2:17:12David Sims?

  Yeah. Bridges called Gary Busey, one of his close friends, who had been in a serious motorcycle accident and survived.

• 2:17:18Griffin Newman?

  Came out normal?

• 2:17:21David Sims?

  Give me a bowl of strawberries. Uh, Busey said that he described the feeling, the sort of pink cloud feeling that Ben is referring to, as feeling like an angel in an earth suit.

• 2:17:29Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 2:17:30David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, you know, uh, the thing with Bridges was just like, he wanted to do it. He was really into it. Uh, but he had just made The Vanishing. He'd made a lot of movies like back to back to back. And he was like, I'm worried I'm gonna be like burnt out. And Weir was like, you know, take a break, get yourself right, and we're gonna make the movie. Um, the, the book is set in New York, but Peter Weir had just done Green Card and was like, I don't want to do New York. I want to do somewhere else. So they moved it to San Francisco. The Rosie Perez character is Italian in the book, like Italian American. And Peter Weir was like, well, if we're going to San Francisco, she should be Latina.

• 2:18:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:03David Sims?

  Uh, and so that's how that happened. She was the first choice, uh, for the role, essentially.

• 2:18:09Griffin Newman?

  Well, do you know who the studio wanted?

• 2:18:12David Sims?

  Oh, tell. Tell me.

• 2:18:13Griffin Newman?

  Winona Ryder, this is a story she has told to Jeff Bridges' character that they wanted her because she was big. This is the same year as Age of Innocence.

• 2:18:23David Sims?

  Yeah, it is.

• 2:18:24Griffin Newman?

  It was obviously before they had made that cultural swap, right? And they wanted her to audition with him and do the kissing scene. And he was like, I'm not gonna kiss her.

• 2:18:34David Sims?

  He's like, I'm way too old for this.

• 2:18:36Griffin Newman?

  Right, in front of like, the studio and everything. And she was just like, that's the only guy in Hollywood who would have done that.

• 2:18:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:43Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:44Speaker 04

  Also, good call, like, not just from like a creepiness factor.

• 2:18:48Griffin Newman?

  Wrong for the movie.

• 2:18:49Speaker 04

  It's, it's wrong for the movie. The moment isn't really like how, it isn't about their chemistry. It's about something weirder past, beyond that.

• 2:18:59Griffin Newman?

  So good.

• 2:19:00David Sims?

  It's not a really, right, their relationship is not romantic per se. It's more just like, they are, there's just like an embarrassing closeness or whatever. Like, they're the only two people who can understand each other in a weird way.

• 2:19:11Griffin Newman?

  I also love that the narrative reveals itself to be that for this guy who's like, I'm not a hero. I don't like to be looked at this way. I'm uncomfortable with all this attention. Locks in on like, actually, I might be the only person who can help her.

• 2:19:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:19:26Griffin Newman?

  That it starts as just like, you're the only person I feel like I can actually be heard by. And then becomes like, wait a second, there's a thing I can do here that no one else can help you with.

• 2:19:37Speaker 04

  And also, it doesn't even seem like he really knows what that is. And he would have never been able to figure out what it was unless he had been sort of untethered from the regular human life that, cause nobody's gonna, like, John Turturro in group therapy isn't gonna suggest, what if you drove your very safe Swedish car head on into a wall?

• 2:20:01Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever tried a car crash therapy?

• 2:20:03Speaker 04

  Have you ever tried that? It's a, it's coming up. Like, he needs to be.

• 2:20:08David Sims?

  It's David Cronenberg, with the big hair.

• 2:20:12David Sims?

  You ever fuck the scars in a car accident?

• 2:20:16Griffin Newman?

  Scars can be fun to fuck.

• 2:20:18Speaker 04

  I think, just to speak on Rosie Perez for a second, one thing that I did not notice the first time was how she kissed the toolbox, holding it in her arms.

• 2:20:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:27Speaker 04

  She is incredible in this movie, and that scene, I think, went unnoticed the first time, but I don't think I really realized how fucking good she is in that scene and embodying that fucking toolbox turning into bubble. You know what I mean?

• 2:20:48Griffin Newman?

  So she's, of course, a fly girl choreographer on In Living Color, right? Her first movie is Do the Right Thing.

• 2:20:55David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:20:56Griffin Newman?

  Then it's Night on Earth, White Men Can't Jump.

• 2:20:59David Sims?

  She's great in both.

• 2:21:00Griffin Newman?

  Untamed Heart, which I've never seen.

• 2:21:01David Sims?

  Neither have I.

• 2:21:02Griffin Newman?

  And Fearless.

• 2:21:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:04Griffin Newman?

  Fearless is her fifth movie ever.

• 2:21:06Speaker 04

  My god.

• 2:21:06David Sims?

  Yeah, and she's, yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:08Griffin Newman?

  And she basically was this person where it was like, well, she's got a really interesting vibe, but is she really like a technical actress, or is she just good at playing herself? Kind of thing?

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:21:17Griffin Newman?

  And then this felt like a movie where people were like, we cannot deny. There is like a level of emotional access and technique here. It's not just, oh, she's got an interesting dialect.

• 2:21:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:21:28Griffin Newman?

  Kind of thing. And then the run after this is like, it could happen to you.

• 2:21:33David Sims?

  She's the third lead of that.

• 2:21:34Griffin Newman?

  She's like the best friend character.

• 2:21:36David Sims?

  A hundred percent. Yep. Somebody to Love is the Alexandra Rock woman we've never seen it.

• 2:21:40Griffin Newman?

  That's a nice, a Kebira riff.

• 2:21:42David Sims?

  Right. She's like a taxi dancer. I think that that movie's probably like, you know, somewhat interesting.

• 2:21:47Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:21:47David Sims?

  But it was tiny. She does a lot of indie stuff. I mean, I think-

• 2:21:51Griffin Newman?

  Perdido Durango's, like, her one kind of like lead follow-up thing there, yeah.

• 2:21:56David Sims?

  Which, it's like, obviously like Hollywood is racist.

• 2:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:22:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Especially in the 90s, I feel like Hollywood had not calibrated how to tell like Latin stories on screen much at all, right? There's some movies, but there's very few.

• 2:22:08Griffin Newman?

  And to her credit, a lot of these indie movies we're saying that she does in the wake of the nomination are very low budget, independent, Latin stories told by Latin people that did not get support and attention.

• 2:22:20David Sims?

  Right. Rosie Perez is all- Also like, she's like five foot even.

• 2:22:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:24David Sims?

  Uh, she's got this amazing accent, like, but she is Rosie Perez, like, you know, and it's like, I feel like probably every casting person looked at her and was like, yeah, it's Rosie Perez, right? You bring, you're like, you're right. You bring her in as a spark plug or whatever. It's insane that no one watched this movie. And not nobody, she did movies after this.

• 2:22:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:41David Sims?

  That she's good in. Right? Nobody watched Fearless and was like, fuck, like, I gotta use her right now for period quilt of role, like, you know, like.

• 2:22:50Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. And I, I'm sure if you saw the list of things she was offered in the wake of Fearless, it would be like revolting, right?

• 2:22:58David Sims?

  Yeah. I assume it was a lot of like, do you wanna play, right, someone in like a Wesley Snipes movie or what? You know, it was like, probably a lot like fifth or sixth leads and like.

• 2:23:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure there were very big payday she turned down in things where she was like, I don't wanna fucking do that again. You know, like worse versions of the white man can't jump character and dumber, big budget things, whatever. And it does feel like she tried to use her clout to get smaller films made that didn't really, uh, hit. Uh, when she locked the gates, her episode WTF is incredible.

• 2:23:26David Sims?

  Not, not surprised to hear that.

• 2:23:28Griffin Newman?

  It's like very emotional and she talks about how traumatic her childhood was and she basically didn't process any of it.

• 2:23:34David Sims?

  She had a crazy childhood and you should listen to the WTF to talk, you know, like, you know.

• 2:23:38Griffin Newman?

  Right. Um, and, and that it was, Fearless was one of the things where everyone was just like, are you okay? During the scenes, like when they called cut and she was like, yeah, why? And they were like, that seemed like something really extreme was happening within you. And she was like, oh, really? I don't know. You know, that she like started only kind of after this movie, doing the work to be like, why are my emotions like this?

• 2:24:01David Sims?

  Right. She was Jeff Bridges-ing throughout the entire production of Fearless.

• 2:24:06Griffin Newman?

  Kind of. That's the way she sort of talks about it, where she was just sort of like, uh, I, I just accepted everything that happened to me my entire life as normal, uh, until other people made me realize it wasn't. Uh, very complicated family situation. She's incredible actor.

• 2:24:21David Sims?

  She's still around. I feel like it's like, she's also like just kind of a New York celebrity.

• 2:24:26Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 2:24:26Speaker 04

  I mean, she's in, uh, she's in highest to lowest as Rosie Perez.

• 2:24:32David Sims?

  Um, like, it's just like, she's like a forever personality. Like she was on The View for a while. You know what I mean? Like where it's like, she will always be Rosie Perez, but it does feel like a major missed opportunity that she did not have. A crazy career, or even like, whatever, just, yeah, like, more blockbusters, more kind of like mainstream shit. Maybe she turns some of it down, I don't know, like, I, yeah.

• 2:24:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm sure she did, but it, it's also, it's like, it's not a fait accompli where you're just like, why aren't the, like, the 10 hottest directors in Hollywood writing shit for her right now? She's one of those people, I feel like you talked about when you interviewed Ryan Johnson for Glass Onion.

• 2:25:15David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:25:15Griffin Newman?

  And asked him about, uh, Dave Bautista.

• 2:25:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:19Griffin Newman?

  And he said, like, one of these days, like, Paul Thomas Anderson or someone is gonna write a part that gets him an Oscar and they're gonna look like a genius.

• 2:25:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:25Griffin Newman?

  And I use that term a lot in my head now, where I'm like, actors who are kinda just right there, and someone just needs to write, like, the Frank T.J. Mackey for them. And it's not like, oh my god, I didn't know they could do that, it's like, you build the right frame for them, and you look like a genius for having them do the thing they always were capable of doing. And she's one of those where you're like, she's right there, there's no one else like her, and I think she's still got her fastball. Um, Benicio de Toro, we have not even mentioned.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Oh my god. No, I mean, it's that early run of his.

• 2:25:58Griffin Newman?

  Young, mumbly, tired looking Benicio.

• 2:26:00David Sims?

  This is even pre Usual Suspects, it's post, obviously, like, License to Kill and stuff like, but yeah, where I think, he was still just like, this young guy with a really interesting face.

• 2:26:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:12David Sims?

  That people kept being like, okay, like, what do we do with this guy? Cause he's so beautiful.

• 2:26:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:26:17David Sims?

  He's always been tired.

• 2:26:18Speaker 04

  He's always tired.

• 2:26:19David Sims?

  Always tired.

• 2:26:20Griffin Newman?

  He's been tired his whole life. He makes you look like Kelly Ripa.

• 2:26:23Speaker 04

  He, he, he looks.

• 2:26:27David Sims?

  I got a few pounds on Kelly Ripa, I think, she's pretty tiny.

• 2:26:29Griffin Newman?

  I just meant in terms of tiredness.

• 2:26:31David Sims?

  I know what you're saying, I know what you're saying, it was a good line, it was a good line.

• 2:26:33Speaker 04

  He is, his voice is interesting, he looks interesting, and emotionally, he is compelling even just standing there.

• 2:26:43David Sims?

  That, I think the thing with him all the way to traffic, like, you know, especially things like Usual Suspects, is, he is like a Philip Glass score in a way where you're just like, he's almost too interesting, I kinda can't stop looking at this guy.

• 2:26:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:26:54David Sims?

  I'm not paying attention to this story now.

• 2:26:56Griffin Newman?

  Had to limit how much of you you could put in a movie.

• 2:26:58David Sims?

  Right, and this is pretty subdued, but like sometimes he would just be like this kind of like wild, interesting, you know, energy like and just like fuck, it's Benicio. He has had a pretty good year.

• 2:27:09Griffin Newman?

  It's been pretty incredible.

• 2:27:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:11Griffin Newman?

  Uh, we're talking about the year 2025. I remind you.

• 2:27:14David Sims?

  Oh, my god. But it's not like Benicio ever left our hearts. We've always been here for Benicio, but.

• 2:27:20Griffin Newman?

  But like a kind of transcendent 2025 for him. Um, he, I'm trying to remember who it is, but someone who went to drama school with him.

• 2:27:28David Sims?

  Uh, Julia.

• 2:27:28Griffin Newman?

  Who also bec- of course, but of course, uh, who also became a successful actor tells the story of seeing him like do a scene on the first day and being like, Jesus fucking Christ.

• 2:27:38David Sims?

  What am I supposed to do now?

• 2:27:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, truly, just being like, immediately, this guy's the most interesting performer I've ever seen. And not just that he had an intelligence and a skill and a facility and whatever, but you're just like, I, I cannot look away from this guy.

• 2:27:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:51Griffin Newman?

  And it did feel like in the nineties, he was almost like, uh, plutonium or something.

• 2:27:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:27:57Griffin Newman?

  Where they were like, you gotta really like, kind of quarantine him and put him in a specific box and knock him out of the plot at a certain point. And he also does a lot of like very big stylized performances. This is like an early kind of him playing a normal guy kind of thing. And especially when so much of his work is kind of so heavy and haunted, uh, it feels like in a lesser version of this film, one that probably isn't directed by Peter Weir. This guy is a lot, this character is a lot more.

• 2:28:24David Sims?

  He's like a dirtbag. He's a dirtbag. He's like unsupportive.

• 2:28:27Griffin Newman?

  Looking for the paycheck.

• 2:28:28David Sims?

  Yep, 100%.

• 2:28:29Griffin Newman?

  And there are just these little brushstrokes in how the character's written and how he plays it where it's like, he's got his eye on the payout because this is amount of money that would change their fucking lives.

• 2:28:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:42Griffin Newman?

  And they're living through a horrible, horrible incident.

• 2:28:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  And they do deserve some sense of compensation for this. And he doesn't want to get screwed. They're the types of people who often don't have the proper representation in these types of situations. And he's trying to figure out how to support her emotionally, but he is so out of his depth on it. Uh, and I just think he plays that incredibly well.

• 2:29:06David Sims?

  Absolutely. He's very good in the movie. Everyone is good in this movie.

• 2:29:09Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's good.

• 2:29:10David Sims?

  John Delancey, my beloved John Delancey. The look on his face when Bridges leaves the seat really gets me every time.

• 2:29:18Griffin Newman?

  The scene where he goes-

• 2:29:19David Sims?

  Weird that he didn't use his Q powers to save the plane, but whatever.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  The scene where he goes to Deirdre O'Connor, that's mostly kind of extended one-

• 2:29:26David Sims?

  Q that's a Star Trek character, not the conspiracy theory Tim believes in.

• 2:29:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course. He's movie Q, Pilt, as well.

• 2:29:34Speaker 04

  The Q takes are completely different than the Mag- my Q movie takes are completely different than the Maga movie takes.

• 2:29:40David Sims?

  Yeah, right. That's a different mode to go in.

• 2:29:42Speaker 04

  That's a different mode.

• 2:29:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:44David Sims?

  What were you gonna say, Griff? Sorry?

• 2:29:45Griffin Newman?

  The movie Maga night was the same night, David, because we all, we got dinner in LA, right?

• 2:29:50David Sims?

  Yeah, I wasn't there.

• 2:29:50Griffin Newman?

  But you were on the group text leading up to it.

• 2:29:52David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:29:53Griffin Newman?

  Where Tim was freaking out, claiming-

• 2:29:55David Sims?

  Griffin was probably like, "I'm late, guys. Save me a seat."

• 2:29:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:29:57Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me.

• 2:29:57David Sims?

  Oh, oh?

• 2:29:58Griffin Newman?

  We were all in the same car.

• 2:30:00David Sims?

  And were you late in the car to get to the car?

• 2:30:05David Sims?

  Not too bad.

• 2:30:05Griffin Newman?

  Not too bad.

• 2:30:06David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 2:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Tim, that was the day of Tim's freak out of, "Is this a psy-op? You guys can't tell me that Lily Collins has been famous for 15 years."

• 2:30:14David Sims?

  Oh yeah, you were really insisting on this.

• 2:30:16Griffin Newman?

  Not that Lily Collins was an industry plant, but that he was calling bullshit on us knowing who she was.

• 2:30:21David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:30:21Speaker 04

  I was, it started with all capitals, "Lily Phillips is-"

• 2:30:25Griffin Newman?

  Got her name wrong.

• 2:30:26Speaker 04

  Wait, fuck, Lily-

• 2:30:27David Sims?

  Is he intentionally doing this?

• 2:30:28Speaker 04

  Lily Collins is Phil Collins' daughter? Like, all capitals.

• 2:30:33Griffin Newman?

  All caps in Tarabang.

• 2:30:34Speaker 04

  And everybody was like, "Yes, she has been famous forever." And I said, "This is a lie."

• 2:30:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you were like, "That is not true." And we were sending you movie posters from 2010 where she's above the title and you were saying, "These are fake movies in a fake movie."

• 2:30:46David Sims?

  Here, I can actually, uh, here we go.

• 2:30:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:48David Sims?

  "Lily Collins is Phil Collins' daughter." I reply, "Yes." Any other Qs?

• 2:30:55Griffin Newman?

  Not Q, Pilt. Q is in question.

• 2:30:57David Sims?

  Griffin replies, "Jane Fonda is Henry Fonda's daughter."

• 2:30:59Griffin Newman?

  Pretty good joke from Griff.

• 2:31:00David Sims?

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 2:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Griff dot com in a hot.

• 2:31:03David Sims?

  And I kinda started hitting you with like, she does kinda look like Phil Collins. Her father, I mean, like, it's like they have the same face.

• 2:31:12Griffin Newman?

  This is also not a thing that's kept under lock and key. And we're like, she's been famous for 15 years. This has always been a talking point.

• 2:31:18David Sims?

  But I mean, the thing that I found funniest is that like, I actually like Lily Collins. I think she's got eyebrows for days. She's been in some movies I enjoy. But the thing she's most famous for is a hit Netflix show, my friend. She's in Paris.

• 2:31:31Griffin Newman?

  She was the previous hitmaker under the Big Red Egg.

• 2:31:34David Sims?

  Exactly. Her house is in Paris.

• 2:31:36Griffin Newman?

  We're also like, we're sidebar-ing and going like, why is he getting worked up about this now?

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  Where'd this come from?

• 2:31:41Griffin Newman?

  What spurred this? Nothing was happening in the news to bring this on.

• 2:31:45David Sims?

  She hadn't gone on like a killing spree.

• 2:31:47Speaker 04

  My wife was listening to a lot of Phil Collins at that moment.

• 2:31:50David Sims?

  Uh huh. And in one of the songs you say. And my daughter will be in rules don't apply.

• 2:31:57Griffin Newman?

  We're throwing out Mank and Mirror Mirror. We're like, she was in fucking Warren Beatty's probably last movie ever. And you're like, none of this is real. You guys are lying.

• 2:32:05Speaker 04

  You guys are lying. It just feels like if she has been famous for this long, I would have come up.

• 2:32:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:11David Sims?

  It would have come up that she's famous?

• 2:32:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:32:15David Sims?

  Okay. Like someone would have just approached you in your jam, maybe.

• 2:32:17Griffin Newman?

  We're like, I heard that Lily Collins. And I go to my girlfriend, I go, I just gotta give you the heads up. Tim's coming in hot.

• 2:32:24David Sims?

  Tim's full of beans about Lily Collins.

• 2:32:27Griffin Newman?

  And I speak of you often, but she's never met you before. And she's like, oh no, did something happen? And I was like, no, I'm just saying.

• 2:32:33David Sims?

  Well, in 1989, she was born to Phil Collins and Jill Tavellman.

• 2:32:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm just saying, Tim's, Tim's gonna be on one tonight. And then we get there and within five minutes, he's unleashing movie MAGA.

• 2:32:43Speaker 04

  Well, you know what, you know what also came up? David?

• 2:32:46David Sims?

  What's up?

• 2:32:46Speaker 04

  Malibu's Most Wanted. Yeah, Malibu's Most Wanted.

• 2:32:49David Sims?

  This is, this is the fakest, uh, like, controversy.

• 2:32:54Speaker 04

  I still think about it. I don't like that movie.

• 2:32:57David Sims?

  It's fine.

• 2:32:58Speaker 04

  And I don't have a vibe that I do.

• 2:33:00David Sims?

  Do you like other bad movies that are on Comedy Central?

• 2:33:04Griffin Newman?

  Ben's rolling out. Ben's face is bright red.

• 2:33:08David Sims?

  I also don't think that movie is that bad. I remember it being kind of a two star general.

• 2:33:12Speaker 04

  Interesting. Baby, you're the Ben Hozsler of the group.

• 2:33:16David Sims?

  I'm doing much. I've only, isn't it fine? I mean, I've even seen it.

• 2:33:20Speaker 04

  Every accusation is a confession.

• 2:33:23David Sims?

  I didn't realize this is something I had to confess.

• 2:33:25Griffin Newman?

  Wait a second, David Sims went to the Juilliard School of Film Criticism?

• 2:33:30David Sims?

  Fucking assholes. Give me a B plus. Have you seen Malibu's Most Wanted, Griffin?

• 2:33:34Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:33:35David Sims?

  No?

• 2:33:35Speaker 04

  No, I haven't either.

• 2:33:36David Sims?

  Griffin, you cannot be scandalous. You do tend to see studio comedies that were released in theaters.

• 2:33:41Griffin Newman?

  I only see masterpieces.

• 2:33:43Speaker 04

  I could honestly see three weeks from now Griffin coming in and guys, him being like, you know what, Malibu's Most Wanted, kind of a masterpiece.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  Kind of a two and a half, three star.

• 2:33:51Griffin Newman?

  Vincent announces.

• 2:33:52David Sims?

  I don't know that I've seen it.

• 2:33:54Griffin Newman?

  Three discs.

• 2:33:55David Sims?

  I've seen a Jamie Kennedy film. Did he have others?

• 2:33:59Griffin Newman?

  A Kickin' at Old School?

• 2:34:00David Sims?

  That I might have seen. I've definitely seen one of them. What's going on in Kickin' at Old School?

• 2:34:05Griffin Newman?

  Kickin' at Old School, he's a B-boy who

• 2:34:07David Sims?

  Oh, God.

• 2:34:08Griffin Newman?

  Has

• 2:34:09David Sims?

  I don't think I have.

• 2:34:10Griffin Newman?

  A breakdancing incident in which he falls into a coma, I think trying to do a head spin.

• 2:34:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:34:16Griffin Newman?

  And then he wakes up 20 years later and still thinks it's the 80s and comedy ensues.

• 2:34:22David Sims?

  I mean, sure. I suppose it's similar to has a plane crash and is no longer allergic to strawberries.

• 2:34:28Griffin Newman?

  Kind of the fearless of the 2000s, yeah.

• 2:34:31David Sims?

  He's not in The Benchwarmers?

• 2:34:34Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:34:34David Sims?

  That Swartson and other, okay.

• 2:34:36Griffin Newman?

  But Swartson co-wrote Malibu's Most Wanted.

• 2:34:39David Sims?

  Okay, okay. I've definitely seen The Benchwarmers.

• 2:34:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:43David Sims?

  That Lovitz is in that.

• 2:34:44Griffin Newman?

  Benchwarmers is, it's

• 2:34:46David Sims?

  It's like it's passable.

• 2:34:47Griffin Newman?

  It's Happy Madison B-Team. It's Schneider, Spade, Lovitz, and then they try to work John Heater

• 2:34:54David Sims?

  Heater, right.

• 2:34:55Griffin Newman?

  In at the time where Hollywood couldn't figure out, is this a thing?

• 2:34:58David Sims?

  And they, then they figured, then they figured something out. No, he's not.

• 2:35:04David Sims?

  Cause he's in Blades of Glory.

• 2:35:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:35:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:07David Sims?

  And I remember that was one of those things where everyone was like, you know what's great about this movie? Will Arnett and Amy Poehler and not John Heater. Like, nobody cared about John Heater.

• 2:35:15Griffin Newman?

  The entire run of post Napoleon Dynamite movies, all flop.

• 2:35:20David Sims?

  Yeah, Just Like Heaven, he's in that one.

• 2:35:22Griffin Newman?

  And Blades of Glory was the last one in the can and was a big ass hit.

• 2:35:27David Sims?

  Yeah, cause of Ferrell and right.

• 2:35:28Griffin Newman?

  And even still, I was like, so are they gonna have to back around and give him another shot? And they were like, no, no, no, no, we feel settled in this. He's never starring in a studio movie ever.

• 2:35:38David Sims?

  He like took those like tickets to the, to the front desk or whatever. And they were like, these are no longer legal tender. Like, yeah.

• 2:35:44Griffin Newman?

  You're back down to zero.

• 2:35:46David Sims?

  Right, yes. I just remember the Just Like Heaven trailer, he's like the funny friend or whatever.

• 2:35:53Griffin Newman?

  It is Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, and Napoleon Dynamite's John Heater.

• 2:35:59David Sims?

  And he has some line where he's like, feeling a little parched, I'm gonna need a cola. Like, he had some weird line like that.

• 2:36:06Griffin Newman?

  But that moment of like-

• 2:36:07David Sims?

  Every time, crickets.

• 2:36:09Griffin Newman?

  That was, I think, the first one post Napoleon Dynamite. And they were like, we have to, no one knows his name and they're not gonna recognize him? We have to, in the trailer, announce that he's Napoleon Dynamite.

• 2:36:21David Sims?

  Right, yeah, cause they, he won't be dressed like him.

• 2:36:24Griffin Newman?

  Right, he won't be voting for Pedro.

• 2:36:26David Sims?

  Before we do the box office game, anything else we wanna talk about in Fearless?

• 2:36:29Speaker 04

  One thing that I wanna say-

• 2:36:31David Sims?

  It'd be funny if we hadn't like mentioned the plane crash yet or something.

• 2:36:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. One thing that I really loved about this movie was that when I was watching it, I couldn't really get my head around it. And some of the pieces don't feel like they fit. Again, this is like a Jeff Bridges, holy fucking shit moment, when he is brought back to life.

• 2:36:51David Sims?

  Right, to be, the end of the movie, of course, he eats the strawberries again.

• 2:36:55Speaker 04

  And says like, I, I think I need you to save me or something like that.

• 2:36:58David Sims?

  And then he's, has the allergic reaction, Isabella Rossellini resuscitates him and you get the feeling that he is back to normal. And they roll credits right there.

• 2:37:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:06David Sims?

  But it's like he, he is engaged with his human body again and fear of losing it.

• 2:37:12Speaker 04

  That- Moment is so incredibly brilliant on a performance level. But also in this way that it was and I and I just want to like this is I think like a Peter Weir thing. It was like it was like there were just puzzle pieces spread out over the table. And in that moment, he just shoved them all together and they all locked into place. Like it was like, I kind of didn't really get the movie. That moment happens and now everything has been perfectly clear. And I loved that part about it, how like it kept me guessing. And then all of a sudden, he just fucking locked it in so hard. And then was like, here are the fucking credits.

• 2:37:55Speaker 04

  It is a really brilliant, incredible ending.

• 2:37:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh, that's very well said. And for a movie that's not about like plot mechanics and doesn't have big story pushes. Is another experience I love while watching a film where you're like, how the fuck is this thing going to resolve itself? And to resolve itself quickly at a point where like.

• 2:38:14David Sims?

  Yeah, it feels like there could be 20 more minutes and then they're like, no, it's over.

• 2:38:18Griffin Newman?

  And be like, that's perfect. And in fact, it's the only way it could have ended. And I can't believe how exquisitely you built up to this moment without letting me see what you were doing.

• 2:38:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:38:26Griffin Newman?

  It's not a twist. It's not like it's some crazy overstated moment, but it's just like, that is how it ends.

• 2:38:33David Sims?

  Did you buy the blue?

• 2:38:34Griffin Newman?

  I did.

• 2:38:35David Sims?

  So did I.

• 2:38:35Griffin Newman?

  Warner Archive, I have it on my desk.

• 2:38:37David Sims?

  Me too.

• 2:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Got it in the pile.

• 2:38:40Griffin Newman?

  Alan Davio shot this film, who of course.

• 2:38:41David Sims?

  The first American cinematographer that Weir had worked with.

• 2:38:45Griffin Newman?

  He mostly kept his like, uh, above the line Australian crew.

• 2:38:48David Sims?

  John Seal and guys like that.

• 2:38:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but coming off the fucking ET, uh, what he did ET Empire.

• 2:38:56David Sims?

  Uh, he might've also done Last Crusade. He obviously, he worked with Spielberg a lot in the eighties. Yeah.

• 2:39:00Griffin Newman?

  Slocum does all the indies, but there was another, um, Color Purple.

• 2:39:06David Sims?

  Um, sure.

• 2:39:06Griffin Newman?

  It's, those are the three and we'll disregard Twilight Zone, the movie. But this film looks incredible and this is a movie that needs to just look good because it's so much about like absorbing textures of things and, and the space and the feeling in the air and yeah.

• 2:39:21Speaker 04

  There is one particular shot that I want to call out, which I feel like is, uh, I don't want to say it's a lost art, but. It feels like Peter Weir in this sort of like studio system gets this script and, you know, I didn't know about the history of it, but I was like, I didn't know exactly its developmental process. But, or its development process, but when he first sees Rosie Perez, the entire frame is filled with the shadow of Jeff Bridges standing in the doorway. And it is slightly overtaking her. And I love that moment of like visual storytelling of her being consumed by shadow.

• 2:40:04Speaker 04

  Like it basically is like a black stain that takes up and almost engulfs her in the frame. And it's a really incredible shot. And I just love that level of artistry in what is essentially Studio Fair.

• 2:40:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:40:16Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 2:40:17David Sims?

  Right. And what is a, I mean, I guess this crazy, it has a crazy plane crash sequence. So it's not just like a domestic drama, like it is a heightened crazy, but like, you know, it's largely about people dealing with their feelings.

• 2:40:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:40:31Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to find this quote.

• 2:40:32David Sims?

  Ben, what did you want to say that before I forget?

• 2:40:35Speaker 04

  The plane wouldn't have crashed if you were on it?

• 2:40:38Speaker 03

  No, I'm not going to claim that.

• 2:40:41Griffin Newman?

  If this were you, you would have eaten raspberries.

• 2:40:45Speaker 03

  The car crash scene.

• 2:40:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:40:47Speaker 03

  There's a U2 drama.

• 2:40:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you for bringing this up.

• 2:40:50David Sims?

  There is, yes, a wonderful U2. There's also wonderful music carrying the plane crash at the end.

• 2:40:54Speaker 03

  I had to, I have to give it up.

• 2:40:56David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:40:58Speaker 03

  It was really effective. And what I liked about it is that it's totally unhinged. And I think using U2 in an unhinged context, it really like opened that band up and that's that music for me in a new way.

• 2:41:13Griffin Newman?

  This is also.

• 2:41:13Speaker 04

  Are you anti U2?

• 2:41:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:41:15Speaker 04

  You know what, man? I'm gonna throw a little MAGA music take. I'm with you.

• 2:41:18David Sims?

  There we go.

• 2:41:18Speaker 04

  This would be a MAGA movie take. This is the kind of thing we're talking about.

• 2:41:22David Sims?

  Like, yes.

• 2:41:22Speaker 04

  Fucking U2, get out of here, go to shit.

• 2:41:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, just wear those big glasses. They always say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:41:28David Sims?

  I love U2 very much. I love their music. I love that song. It's where the. It's have no name, I believe.

• 2:41:33Griffin Newman?

  It uses a non vocal part. Most of the music in this film, there's a Maurice Stray score that's very good, but it's a lot of classical pieces.

• 2:41:40David Sims?

  Yeah, the big classical piece is the Henrik Gurecki Symphony Three, Symphony of Starhold Songs, which is playing over the plane crash montage.

• 2:41:49Speaker 04

  Which is fucking incredible.

• 2:41:50David Sims?

  It's pretty good. I mean, maybe you could have thrown in like, you know, uno, dos, tres, catorce, like that, that would be good. And like, maybe just like an Apple ad during the plane crash.

• 2:42:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm not cringing when the song starts.

• 2:42:03David Sims?

  Everyone gets an album.

• 2:42:04Griffin Newman?

  But the movie has been in

• 2:42:05David Sims?

  What's this on my phone?

• 2:42:06Griffin Newman?

  Such a specific register musically, and then Streets Have No Name, which is so recognizable.

• 2:42:12David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:42:13Griffin Newman?

  And it's one of those songs that has been so omnipresent for 30 plus years now, that obviously when this film is made, it's more of a recent song, Jesus Christ.

• 2:42:23Griffin Newman?

  You're just like, well, whatever the intended use of this song was in 1993, is it abstracted now to a point where you can't listen to it and not think of car commercials?

• 2:42:32David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:42:33Griffin Newman?

  Or football games or whatever the fuck. It's one of these songs that's everywhere, right? And I kept watching it being like, is the use gonna get cringy at any point? And it just, it is, it is a transcendent use of music. It is like,

• 2:42:47David Sims?

  It's really well done.

• 2:42:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. It's just like a perfect kind of, no, you couldn't actually write an original piece of score for this that would work as well as both the way the music syncs up and like the power you gain from the recognition of what's playing. And it clearly just feels like the kind of thing that only comes out of listening to the album and being like, oh, you know what? You could construct a good sequence too. Listening to that part of the song and visualizing something building.

• 2:43:17David Sims?

  This film came out October 15th, 1993.

• 2:43:21Speaker 04

  Can I ask a question about the box office game?

• 2:43:23David Sims?

  You sure can.

• 2:43:24Speaker 04

  Do you prefer or not, and maybe this is too Griffin, Griffin, I'm gonna direct this to you. Do you prefer or not when the guests try to also guess with you?

• 2:43:32Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm open either way.

• 2:43:34Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:43:35David Sims?

  I don't think Griffin really minds a guest jumping in.

• 2:43:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm not competitive, especially when I'm struggling. I, I, I love to be relieved of my misery.

• 2:43:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:43:42David Sims?

  Number one at the box office is a film I like a lot, and I think you enjoy, but I think it's more of a Sims favorite. It's an action film, a sci fi action film.

• 2:43:53Griffin Newman?

  Is this an era where you feel like you might be quick to guess some of these? Was this like peak movie going time for your hitmaker?

• 2:43:58David Sims?

  Fall 93. I mean, you would have been, you're not, you're not that much older than me. You're like four or five years older than me, I feel. Maybe you're older than that.

• 2:44:05Speaker 04

  I would have been in.

• 2:44:05David Sims?

  How fucking old are you?

• 2:44:06Speaker 04

  I would have been a freshman in high school, probably.

• 2:44:09David Sims?

  Okay, so you're a fair bit older than me, I guess.

• 2:44:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:44:11David Sims?

  Well, you're like seven years older.

• 2:44:12Speaker 04

  This was like, prime fucking movie going area.

• 2:44:15David Sims?

  You may well have seen this film. It stars two action stars.

• 2:44:18Speaker 04

  Oh, was it, uh, Independence Day?

• 2:44:19David Sims?

  No.

• 2:44:20Griffin Newman?

  Ninety-three.

• 2:44:21Speaker 04

  I suppose that would have come out on Independence Day?

• 2:44:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:44:24Griffin Newman?

  It's a Sims favorite.

• 2:44:25Speaker 04

  I'm not gonna jump in anymore.

• 2:44:27Griffin Newman?

  Which studio released it?

• 2:44:28David Sims?

  Uh, it is a Warner Brothers picture.

• 2:44:31Griffin Newman?

  It's a Warner Brothers sci-fi two-hander. Two stars. Is it based on anything?

• 2:44:37David Sims?

  No.

• 2:44:38Griffin Newman?

  It's original.

• 2:44:39David Sims?

  Yeah, based on some crazy idea somebody had.

• 2:44:42Griffin Newman?

  Ninety.

• 2:44:43David Sims?

  It's a good movie. It's sort of the, um, we're approaching the final years of, uh, one of the stars' original kinda A-list career, I would say. More common for him to link up with another star, maybe to help out. And the other guy's younger, up-and-coming, action star. Is in the middle of a hot run in the nineties. Has his own flame out later on.

• 2:45:05Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:45:06David Sims?

  I love him, but, you know.

• 2:45:07Speaker 04

  I always.

• 2:45:08David Sims?

  Seems like a complicated guy.

• 2:45:09Speaker 04

  Momentarily, I was thinking like Rumble in the Bronx.

• 2:45:11David Sims?

  No.

• 2:45:12Griffin Newman?

  Is it, is it a big two-face poster?

• 2:45:14David Sims?

  They're looking at each other.

• 2:45:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, they're looking at each other.

• 2:45:17Speaker 04

  Uh, Broken Arrow.

• 2:45:19David Sims?

  No.

• 2:45:19Griffin Newman?

  It's not Enemy Mine.

• 2:45:20David Sims?

  No. That is a real.

• 2:45:22Speaker 04

  Oh, it's Demolition Man.

• 2:45:23Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:45:24David Sims?

  There he is.

• 2:45:25Griffin Newman?

  One of the real Sims favorites.

• 2:45:27David Sims?

  It's a real favorite of mine. I love that movie so much.

• 2:45:29Speaker 04

  It's a masterpiece.

• 2:45:29David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 2:45:30Griffin Newman?

  I feel like those are the two different types of.

• 2:45:32David Sims?

  I like it, but like, you just don't have the passion.

• 2:45:34Griffin Newman?

  But it's the two different types of two faces. There's the sort of Broken Arrow two-half faces.

• 2:45:38Speaker 04

  Two-half faces.

• 2:45:39Griffin Newman?

  And then there's the face-to-face.

• 2:45:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:45:42Griffin Newman?

  It's on.

• 2:45:42David Sims?

  Absolutely true. Uh, so that's number one for the second week in a row.

• 2:45:47Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:45:48David Sims?

  Number two is new this week. It is a comedy film.

• 2:45:52Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:45:52David Sims?

  Uh, based on a TV show.

• 2:45:55Griffin Newman?

  Nineteen ninety-three.

• 2:45:56David Sims?

  It's a very popular TV show. I think this movie did okay.

• 2:45:59Griffin Newman?

  It's not a, is it a continuation of that show?

• 2:46:02David Sims?

  You know.

• 2:46:02Griffin Newman?

  Or is it a kind of a reboot or reimagining?

• 2:46:05David Sims?

  And I'm, I cannot speak, uh, I cannot answer that because I don't know the show very well beyond very, very basic, uh, information. And I've never seen the film.

• 2:46:13Speaker 04

  But it, it's not a Saturday Night Live?

• 2:46:16David Sims?

  No, it is not. Uh, it's, no, it's based on like a hit sitcom that ran for like ten years in the sixties, uh, and maybe early seventies. Uh, it's directed by a woman. Relaxed him, Jesus.

• 2:46:28Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Betty Thomas, is it?

• 2:46:29David Sims?

  Do I have to go back to the notes?

• 2:46:31Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Betty Thomas?

• 2:46:32David Sims?

  It is not.

• 2:46:33Griffin Newman?

  It's not Brady Bunch movie, it's not Beverly Hillbillies, it's not Leave It To Beaver.

• 2:46:36David Sims?

  It is Beverly Hillbillies, which is directed by Penelope Spheeris.

• 2:46:42Griffin Newman?

  I always think that movie is later.

• 2:46:44David Sims?

  1993, and of course, Diedrich Bader, Debney Coleman.

• 2:46:47Griffin Newman?

  Jim Varney.

• 2:46:48David Sims?

  Horace Leachman, Jim Varney. Is it a continuation or not? I have no idea. It's just, it's just like, it's like The Addams Family. It's like, let's just do this as a movie.

• 2:46:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:46:57David Sims?

  Have you ever seen it?

• 2:46:58Griffin Newman?

  Uh, no, I never have. Saving it for when we do spheres.

• 2:47:01David Sims?

  You like Beverly Hillbillies?

• 2:47:02Speaker 03

  I don't remember anything about it.

• 2:47:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:07Speaker 04

  Feel like they find oil, probably.

• 2:47:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 2:47:09David Sims?

  Number three.

• 2:47:11Speaker 03

  You know what? There's fun.

• 2:47:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:47:13David Sims?

  Number three, The Box Office. It's a family-friendly, modern, you know, hit movie, comedy. It's the movie that like, the video store rental guy would recommend to every parent, I feel, when I was a kid.

• 2:47:26Griffin Newman?

  This is actually a good kid's movie, like that kind of tone of?

• 2:47:29David Sims?

  It's a good movie.

• 2:47:30Griffin Newman?

  But like, the video store guy is like, you want a good family movie? Is that the tone of the recommendation?

• 2:47:34David Sims?

  I guess so. It's just a movie where it's like, it's pretty harmless, everybody kinda likes it.

• 2:47:39Griffin Newman?

  Straight down the middle, 93. It's not The Sandlot.

• 2:47:41David Sims?

  No, it's a sports movie, though.

• 2:47:43Griffin Newman?

  It is a sports movie. It's not Little Giants, it's not Little Big League, it's not Rookie of the Year.

• 2:47:48David Sims?

  No, but I mean.

• 2:47:49Speaker 04

  Angels in the Outfield?

• 2:47:50David Sims?

  These are all, these are all movies I saw in theaters.

• 2:47:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's not The Big Green.

• 2:47:55David Sims?

  No.

• 2:47:56Speaker 04

  Mighty Ducks.

• 2:47:57David Sims?

  No.

• 2:47:58Speaker 03

  Great movies.

• 2:47:58Griffin Newman?

  Not D2.

• 2:47:59David Sims?

  No.

• 2:48:00Griffin Newman?

  Certainly not D3.

• 2:48:02David Sims?

  Definitely not.

• 2:48:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, if you tell us the sport, will it give it away?

• 2:48:06David Sims?

  It will.

• 2:48:07Griffin Newman?

  It will. So it's a specific sport?

• 2:48:08David Sims?

  Very specific.

• 2:48:10Speaker 04

  Air Bud?

• 2:48:11Griffin Newman?

  It's Cool Runnings.

• 2:48:12David Sims?

  It's Cool Runnings! Uh, which is?

• 2:48:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a fun movie.

• 2:48:18David Sims?

  Totally fun, right? I mean, I haven't seen it in 25 years.

• 2:48:20Speaker 04

  I showed it to the kids, I think, when they were a little bit, like, this probably would have been five years ago. They fucking loved it.

• 2:48:26David Sims?

  Yeah. It's fun. Yeah, it'd be funny if I'm like, no, it's a Bob Sled movie. There's plenty of them!

• 2:48:31Griffin Newman?

  I just watched the Colin Hanks John Candy documentary.

• 2:48:34David Sims?

  Yes, I'd like to watch that, sure. Is it on Netflix or Prime?

• 2:48:37Griffin Newman?

  You gotta prime it up.

• 2:48:39Speaker 04

  Well, not today.

• 2:48:41David Sims?

  No, not today.

• 2:48:42Griffin Newman?

  Not today, and maybe never again. Uh, but they talk about how the, the final couple of years before his very untimely premature death, that it felt like the movies were starting to, was the guy overexposed?

• 2:48:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:48:56Griffin Newman?

  Tired. They show a lot of interviews of critics being like, so you've been in more turkeys than a fucking Thanksgiving dinner?

• 2:49:02David Sims?

  He was kind of similar to Belushi where it's like something, he felt like kind of less healthy, right? Like you could see him sort of.

• 2:49:08Griffin Newman?

  Although he's less of a party guy.

• 2:49:10David Sims?

  No, I know, but he's just like bigger and he was, yeah, he was just in poor health.

• 2:49:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And, and he was overworked and he was doing like four or five movies a year and they were like, is this too much of this guy? And that I was like, but wasn't like Cool Runnings like a late hit and it's one of the last movies? Had he died?

• 2:49:27David Sims?

  I'm not sure.

• 2:49:28Griffin Newman?

  I think it's maybe the last one released while he was still alive.

• 2:49:30David Sims?

  No, he was still alive. Yeah. Cause he died early 94.

• 2:49:32Griffin Newman?

  And Canadian Bacon Wagon's Easter, the two after his death.

• 2:49:35David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Um, and I was like, did he not get any credit for Cool Runnings being a hit? And then I looked it up and he's not on the fucking poster.

• 2:49:42David Sims?

  No, cause the poster is that like cool, like Jamaican kind of cartoon like of the bobsled and then.

• 2:49:50Griffin Newman?

  He's certainly the most proven movie star in that film and it felt like Disney was like, maybe he's actually a deterrent at this point, that we need to hide him in the marketing.

• 2:49:58David Sims?

  Uh, and also Cool Runnings is a lot to explain to its audience.

• 2:50:02Griffin Newman?

  That's a lot of press.

• 2:50:02David Sims?

  Jamaica's got a bobsled team.

• 2:50:05Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I, I don't know, I'm gonna negate what you just said, but it feels like that's not a lot to explain.

• 2:50:09Griffin Newman?

  You actually just explained it right there.

• 2:50:10David Sims?

  Bobsled team and so you need to engage with that news.

• 2:50:15Griffin Newman?

  It's a fun movie. Jack Candy's really good.

• 2:50:16David Sims?

  He is really good and it's a good movie. I mean, like it's a fun movie.

• 2:50:20Griffin Newman?

  One of the best. One of the best?

• 2:50:21David Sims?

  He, he's so funny. I mean, I grew up with him.

• 2:50:23Griffin Newman?

  One of my faves of all time.

• 2:50:26David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is, and this might shock you to hear this, is it a film where Alec Baldwin plays kind of an intense guy? In the nineties? Can you believe it?

• 2:50:36Griffin Newman?

  It's not The Edge.

• 2:50:37Speaker 04

  Nope. Is it Malice?

• 2:50:40Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:50:40Speaker 04

  I'm telling you, this is like prime fucking time.

• 2:50:44David Sims?

  The, uh, you know, it's a neo noir, Harold Becker thriller. Uh, Kidman is the love interest and Bill Pullman's in there and stuff, but it's the one where, um, he gives the I am God speech that Eric Sorkin wrote. Have you ever seen Malice?

• 2:51:00Griffin Newman?

  No, I've never seen Malice. I've seen that clip. Yeah.

• 2:51:05Speaker 04

  I feel like I remember it being good.

• 2:51:06David Sims?

  Solid, solid.

• 2:51:08Speaker 04

  Solid, yeah. Solid 90s thriller.

• 2:51:10Griffin Newman?

  Baldwin kind of an interesting counterpoint to the Bridges discussion. Obviously Bridges started so much younger, right? Had been a movie star for longer.

• 2:51:19David Sims?

  True.

• 2:51:19Griffin Newman?

  But in the 90s, I think they were like, Bridges has found his place. This is where he is. This is where he lives. And Baldwin was another guy you went to if the top 10 turned it down. But the difference was Hollywood was like, is Baldwin one movie away from becoming one of the 10?

• 2:51:36David Sims?

  Yeah, no, it kept being like, isn't he an A-Lister? Or is he not?

• 2:51:41Griffin Newman?

  Isn't he like an inch away from?

• 2:51:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:51:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:51:44David Sims?

  And then it'll, you know, movies like Malice, it'd be like, yeah, rack up 50 mil for it. Like, it's not like a nothing burger.

• 2:51:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:51David Sims?

  But it's not quite. Number five. Uh, this is a thriller, an action thriller.

• 2:51:57Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:51:57David Sims?

  Uh, I feel it is 100% best known for its soundtrack. It has an iconic.

• 2:52:05Griffin Newman?

  Is it Judgment Night?

• 2:52:06David Sims?

  It is the film Judgment Night. Uh, movie in which of course.

• 2:52:11Griffin Newman?

  Emilio?

• 2:52:12David Sims?

  Uh, yes, directed by Stephen Hopkins, in which of course Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jeremy Piven and Stephen Dorff are on the run from Dennis Leary?

• 2:52:20Griffin Newman?

  You could have just said The Boys and we would have known the cast. You didn't have to name them one by one.

• 2:52:25David Sims?

  But it's just one of those things where like you look at the poster and it's like Emilio and Dorff and Cuba looking stressed out.

• 2:52:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:30David Sims?

  And then behind them in silhouette is fucking Dennis Leary smoking a cigarette. I'm like, the man was everywhere. Like, he was out there saying like, whatever, coffee shouldn't have sugar in it or whatever. And everyone was like, ah, right?

• 2:52:43Griffin Newman?

  YouTube weirdly.

• 2:52:44David Sims?

  He's also in fucking Demolition Man.

• 2:52:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. YouTube algorithm, uh, served me up The Rich Eisen Show, my favorite show, which I complimented Tim for being on. And Tim said, I was never on that show. And then I sent him back his own clip.

• 2:52:56David Sims?

  Rich Eisen, he seems like a good interviewer. I love it.

• 2:52:59Speaker 04

  It was, it was a good time, yeah. I remember it now.

• 2:53:01Griffin Newman?

  I have fond memories from him being, him and Stuart Scott being my favorite guys when my brother Jamesy was watching.

• 2:53:07David Sims?

  Right, the SportsCenter iconic.

• 2:53:08Griffin Newman?

  Those two guys I found fun.

• 2:53:09David Sims?

  Stu Scott, absolute legend, rest in peace.

• 2:53:11Griffin Newman?

  The best.

• 2:53:11Speaker 04

  Do you remember when we were, uh, we're gonna bring him back to Dracte, you remember that night where we were?

• 2:53:15Griffin Newman?

  He's in the movie!

• 2:53:16Speaker 04

  He's in the movie?

• 2:53:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:17Speaker 04

  And there was this night where Griffin and I were like sitting looking at our phones and he came in and was like, "Everybody's on their phone these days, nobody talks anymore." And immediately Griffin and I like put our phones out and we're like, "Fuck Dennis," and then we're like, "Yeah, what's going on, man?" And he was like, "Oh, I didn't really have anything to say." So we kinda like, "Well, fucking tell us a story, man."

• 2:53:35David Sims?

  Come on, you're Dennis Leary, asshole!

• 2:53:37Speaker 04

  You definitely told us a story before, it's a great story.

• 2:53:39Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and this story apparently inspired the, uh, the Fox sitcom where he's a military general?

• 2:53:45David Sims?

  Yeah, did that keep going, no one?

• 2:53:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's still on the air.

• 2:53:48Speaker 04

  Is that the story that he told?

• 2:53:50Griffin Newman?

  The creator of that show listens to this podcast and was like, "Oh, someone should write a show where Dennis Leary has a reason to yell at people all the time."

• 2:53:58David Sims?

  I mean, he is good at it.

• 2:53:59Griffin Newman?

  What if he's a drill sergeant or whatever? I guess he's a general, I don't know.

• 2:54:02David Sims?

  I don't fucking know.

• 2:54:03Griffin Newman?

  Rude.

• 2:54:04David Sims?

  Sorry, I'm sorry, uh, to that show.

• 2:54:05Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm being rude.

• 2:54:06David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:54:06Griffin Newman?

  Um, uh, thing I was gonna say, Rich Eisen had Jeremy Piven on.

• 2:54:10Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:54:12Griffin Newman?

  And he asks him about the Larry Sanders show.

• 2:54:14Speaker 04

  Uh-huh.

• 2:54:14Griffin Newman?

  And that's a show he quit a season and a half in because he thought they weren't giving him enough material.

• 2:54:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:54:20Griffin Newman?

  And he keeps asking him, but like, "What was it like Larry Sanders?" And he keeps going, like, answering anything but Larry Sanders and being like, "And I'm on that show and I got cast on Seinfeld and I've never even watched Seinfeld because I don't even own a TV." And they're like, "Right, but Larry Sanders," and he won't answer it. And I think he's trying to talk around how much of a brat he was on Larry Sanders. And he goes, "Look, I was just so young, I was so green, I'm right out of college and suddenly I'm on a TV show and it was crazy." And then I was like, "Did the years line up for that?" I look it up, he's 27, he'd been in seven movies!

• 2:54:53David Sims?

  Jeremy Piven, I'll, yes, I'll just say.

• 2:54:56Griffin Newman?

  What is the story?

• 2:54:57David Sims?

  I feel like he massages the. Truth once in a while.

• 2:55:00Griffin Newman?

  Unfortunately, not the only thing he massages with that permission.

• 2:55:03Speaker 04

  I, I, I think that you are right, like, like for all the credit that, uh, the hot ones guy gets for like, his questions, I feel like. Rich Eisen is not a softball guy, like.

• 2:55:16Griffin Newman?

  He's a really good interviewer.

• 2:55:16Speaker 04

  He's a really good interviewer.

• 2:55:18Griffin Newman?

  And he loves movies and TV.

• 2:55:20David Sims?

  He's a real nerd about it, right?

• 2:55:22Griffin Newman?

  I don't watch his show when he has a fucking athlete on.

• 2:55:24David Sims?

  Why not?

• 2:55:24Griffin Newman?

  Anytime he has an actor on, I'm like, he's asking really good questions.

• 2:55:28David Sims?

  He's, he's good.

• 2:55:29Speaker 04

  When he has, uh, when he has Ray Liotta on and he's got that signed Goodfellas poster and Ray Liotta's like, I never signed that.

• 2:55:37Griffin Newman?

  That's a fake.

• 2:55:37Speaker 04

  It's not my signature. Make him smash it open and sign it.

• 2:55:41Griffin Newman?

  It's good shit.

• 2:55:42Speaker 04

  Ben Hozley is fully checked out.

• 2:55:45David Sims?

  Ben, have you, you know the Judgment Night soundtrack? If not, queued up on Spotify, you're gonna love it. Great hip hop soundtrack from the early nineties. I'm serious.

• 2:55:53Speaker 03

  Uh, all right, I'll check it out.

• 2:55:54David Sims?

  I'm serious, you will, you will. I'm not like.

• 2:55:56Griffin Newman?

  Sims, I like it.

• 2:55:59Speaker 04

  Hozzy's got the Sims posture right now.

• 2:56:01Griffin Newman?

  He does. And Sims is leaning in.

• 2:56:04Speaker 04

  Sims is leaning in.

• 2:56:05Griffin Newman?

  Sims is wide awake.

• 2:56:06David Sims?

  What is happening? Number six at the box office.

• 2:56:08Speaker 03

  It's because of Amazon.

• 2:56:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:56:10Griffin Newman?

  Amazon.

• 2:56:11David Sims?

  Is, uh, Jesus, we almost spent three hours on Fearless.

• 2:56:13Speaker 04

  On Fearless, hell, yeah.

• 2:56:15Griffin Newman?

  An excellent film. David, what's number five at the box office?

• 2:56:18David Sims?

  Number five is Judgment Night, number six is The Good Son, Macaulay Culkin thriller.

• 2:56:21Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 2:56:22David Sims?

  Number seven is.

• 2:56:23Speaker 04

  They had to overdub him swearing. Cause they didn't want it to, if they wanted to be able to say he's still like, he is not sullied by the swear words.

• 2:56:32Griffin Newman?

  It would have broken America.

• 2:56:33Speaker 04

  It would have broken America, so they overdubbed it when he was like, don't fuck with me.

• 2:56:37David Sims?

  Number six is, uh, yeah, I said already, Good Son, number seven is, uh, The Joy Luck Club, great movie.

• 2:56:43Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:56:44David Sims?

  Uh, number eight is, go away, uh, Age of Innocence, pop up. Uh, number, Age of Innocence, great movie as well. When the writer Oscar made it, of course. Number nine, The Fugitive, which we love.

• 2:56:55Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:56:55David Sims?

  Number 10, A Bronx Tale, which was a flop at the time and has become quite a beloved classic, obviously.

• 2:57:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:57:01David Sims?

  And there's that scene where Chaz Palmentary fucks up the Hells Angels in the bar. The TikTok is like, you wanna watch this scene? I'm like, I fucking watched it yesterday. And they're like, mm, give it another ganda.

• 2:57:12Speaker 04

  At dinner last night, having this conversation about how.

• 2:57:15David Sims?

  It's dinner.

• 2:57:16Speaker 04

  I do all sorts of crazy shit.

• 2:57:19David Sims?

  What dinner were you eating?

• 2:57:20Speaker 04

  Just like a dinner in the lobby of the hotel. I was in New York.

• 2:57:23David Sims?

  So lazy, he can't even leave his lobby. New York needs tourism.

• 2:57:28Speaker 04

  That.

• 2:57:29David Sims?

  I love it. I just heard anything he says on him. Take the long legs out for a walk. Gotta move that platter out.

• 2:57:35Speaker 04

  NYC needs to see those gams.

• 2:57:37David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:57:38Griffin Newman?

  Our sidewalk isn't good enough for you?

• 2:57:40David Sims?

  I need a four inch inseam on your shorts. We really gotta get all the gams out.

• 2:57:43Speaker 03

  How are people gonna know if you're walking here?

• 2:57:45David Sims?

  Exactly. What else does one do in New York?

• 2:57:49Speaker 04

  That, like, they're now doing, they'll do it with like the shitty horror movies that were made in like 2011 that you've never seen, where it's like, the man wants to go into the bathroom, but he does not know that there is another man behind with a knife. You know what I mean? Like where they have like a shitty AI.

• 2:58:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:58:07Speaker 04

  But they're starting to do that with like Titanic and like movies that everybody, like, they've been doing it with Goodfellas. Like, they tried to enter the bar, but instead of going through the front door, they go through the kitchen where they.

• 2:58:20David Sims?

  I'm intrigued and I will be clicking on your link.

• 2:58:22Griffin Newman?

  Sounds like they might have fixed Goodfellas.

• 2:58:26David Sims?

  Given it a clearer title.

• 2:58:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:27David Sims?

  Like, I don't know, is it about pizza? I don't understand.

• 2:58:31Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Tim, you're the best.

• 2:58:32Speaker 04

  Guys, I love this so much.

• 2:58:34David Sims?

  It's so nice that we got to do this, cause you're not in town that often.

• 2:58:37Speaker 04

  That often.

• 2:58:37David Sims?

  And hopefully you'll be back in town soon, though.

• 2:58:39Speaker 04

  One of the.

• 2:58:40David Sims?

  And we don't have to do a podcast.

• 2:58:42Speaker 04

  And I love New York City.

• 2:58:44David Sims?

  Hey.

• 2:58:44Speaker 04

  And like, there are, there are dreams that I have of staying here for longer periods of time. All include, and this is 100% true, all include my ability to be on this podcast more often.

• 2:58:57David Sims?

  I would love you to have you on more often, but unfortunately, we're booked up, so. Uh, no, no, yes, we, but also I'd love to just get dinner with you.

• 2:59:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:59:04David Sims?

  Hear tell of a dinner you guys all got in LA.

• 2:59:07Speaker 04

  Oh, get on a plane.

• 2:59:08Speaker 03

  It was a nice dinner.

• 2:59:09Griffin Newman?

  I had some pizza, it was fun.

• 2:59:10David Sims?

  That was good.

• 2:59:11Speaker 04

  It was a fun time. We shut it down. They were like changing the light bulbs in the restaurant. Somebody had a ladder out. Like, we had to apologize. Like, thank you so much for letting us go.

• 2:59:20Griffin Newman?

  We were supposed to go see Mars Attacks of Vidians, and we ran past that by like two hours.

• 2:59:24David Sims?

  You arrived while the credits were rolling, or whatever. Sounds good.

• 2:59:27Speaker 03

  Fantasy made fun of me. He's like, "You're wearing linen pants and drinking orange wine? Who are you really?"

• 2:59:32David Sims?

  That sounds awesome to me, my friend.

• 2:59:34Speaker 03

  That was LA Benny.

• 2:59:35Speaker 04

  LA Benny.

• 2:59:36Griffin Newman?

  LA Benny.

• 2:59:37David Sims?

  Well, I don't wear a lot of linen pants, but orange wine, I mean, like, you know, let's do it.

• 2:59:40Speaker 03

  Love it.

• 2:59:42Griffin Newman?

  What used to be several different group texts, we combined into sort of a mega, not MAGA, mega group text that we call News and Deals, that's ostensibly designed for us to share physical media announcements and discounts, and becomes a bit of a garbage plate of every other opinion we have.

• 2:59:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:59:59Griffin Newman?

  But my favorite thing is when... Because we're all gang up on each other, and so, yeah, everyone gets their turn in the barrel to be the butt of the joke, right? And every-

• 3:00:08Speaker 04

  Lowry seems to be broadly unscathed at this point.

• 3:00:11David Sims?

  How can you make fun of David Lowry? Jesus Christ. He's like a creature from another universe.

• 3:00:15Griffin Newman?

  He's got the eyes of an angel.

• 3:00:16David Sims?

  Exactly. Beautiful.

• 3:00:19Griffin Newman?

  People will pile up on Sims, and then David will go like, "I'm sorry, in my defense, I'm the only one in here who has to raise twins." And like, three times he's dropped this, and you go like, "Excuse me."

• 3:00:33David Sims?

  I have never done that.

• 3:00:34Griffin Newman?

  It has happened.

• 3:00:35David Sims?

  I do have you beat, though.

• 3:00:36Griffin Newman?

  And you go-

• 3:00:36Speaker 03

  You have me beat.

• 3:00:37David Sims?

  I didn't have that other twin parent. I meet more twin parents now. My kid's in school with two twins, right? Like, with the other kids in another class, right? Because they split them up.

• 3:00:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:00:45David Sims?

  And I'll be like, "I have twins too," and they're like, "Oh, you do? Where's your sibling?" And I'm like, "No, I have twins in addition," and they'll go, "Oh, fuck." Like, literally, like, other parents have been like, "Jesus."

• 3:00:55Griffin Newman?

  The reason I remember that this did in fact happen-

• 3:00:58David Sims?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 3:00:59Griffin Newman?

  Is you said this, right? And Tim was like, "I have twins as well." And you were like-

• 3:01:04Speaker 03

  I was like, "Take a hike."

• 3:01:05Griffin Newman?

  Yours aren't babies.

• 3:01:06David Sims?

  Yeah, take a hike. Well, it's true.

• 3:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they're 13. Famously easy age.

• 3:01:10Speaker 04

  Famously easy age to parent.

• 3:01:12David Sims?

  Before you got here, you were late. Uh, Tim and I-

• 3:01:14Griffin Newman?

  I was getting coffee, and Amazon was down.

• 3:01:17David Sims?

  Griffin said the best, best excuse ever. Usually his excuse is, "The train is late," or whatever. So, they had to brew a new pot.

• 3:01:25Griffin Newman?

  They did!

• 3:01:28Griffin Newman?

  I said, "Three cups for me and my friends, please," and they said, "We can only give you one."

• 3:01:33David Sims?

  It'll take us so long here at the coffee shop.

• 3:01:35Griffin Newman?

  The POS is down, the coffee shop's on fire, I couldn't place a mobile order.

• 3:01:39David Sims?

  Tim and I were talking about this, guys. His, I have, uh, I have immediate child problems, which are, "Feed me, change me, I can't sleep, whatever, my teeth hurt." You have, uh, you have complex emotional problems dealing with teenagers.

• 3:01:51Speaker 04

  I have like the Jeff Bridges in Fearless level of problems with mine, like, "I don't know if this is solvable, man."

• 3:01:59David Sims?

  Maybe stop driving your car into a wall while your kids are in the car.

• 3:02:02Speaker 04

  I've tried that.

• 3:02:03David Sims?

  That is not the best way to address every issue.

• 3:02:05Griffin Newman?

  The lesson of Fearless is that's how you teach lessons.

• 3:02:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:02:08Griffin Newman?

  It works.

• 3:02:09Speaker 04

  I've got an idea. Nothing else is working.

• 3:02:11David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 3:02:12Griffin Newman?

  Just blast where the streets have no name.

• 3:02:14Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:02:16Griffin Newman?

  Make your twins hold on to their toolboxes for dear life, give them a little kiss, and just pedal to the metal.

• 3:02:24Speaker 04

  What a pleasure.

• 3:02:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:26Griffin Newman?

  Nobody Wants The String now on Netflix.

• 3:02:27David Sims?

  Thank god you did this today and not tomorrow when you were like sandwiched between Kelly Clarkson and whatever other, like, you know.

• 3:02:33Griffin Newman?

  We were truly gonna have to do it in between two fucking talk show appearances.

• 3:02:36Speaker 04

  Yes, and I was, I was stressed out about getting to this point of being like, "We haven't even spoken about the movie and I now have to leave two and a half hours in."

• 3:02:45David Sims?

  Which is a, yeah.

• 3:02:45Griffin Newman?

  A disaster.

• 3:02:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:02:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you all for listening. Is there anything else you want to plug? No?

• 3:02:50Speaker 04

  No, I think we did it all.

• 3:02:52Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 3:02:52Speaker 04

  Nobody Wants This came out six months ago.

• 3:02:55David Sims?

  You have a T- I mean, sorry, a podcast.

• 3:02:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, that is a good thing to plug.

• 3:02:58Speaker 04

  I do a podcast with Matt Walsh where we now cover movies that have presidents or vice presidents in them, and it's called Second in Command, and you can find us on Patreon.

• 3:03:06Griffin Newman?

  I did an episode on Dave, the penis, uh, question, the big central penis question of the Ivan Reitman film Dave, was discussed in depth.

• 3:03:15Speaker 04

  In depth.

• 3:03:15David Sims?

  Time to get into it.

• 3:03:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for... Is next week Truman?

• 3:03:26David Sims?

  Yeah, this is the thing about Peter Weir. You're like, damn, fearless, like, this rocks. He's really hitting this amazing Hollywood stride. And it's like Truman Show, Master and Commander way back. Like, his career's almost over.

• 3:03:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, and we'll talk-

• 3:03:38David Sims?

  And he's gonna make great movies.

• 3:03:39Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about it next week, but the whole thing with Truman is they're like, great news. Jim Carrey wants to do the movie. Bad news, he is actually booked for the next two years straight.

• 3:03:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:03:48Griffin Newman?

  He will do it, but you're sixth in line. So he has like two years of prep on that movie.

• 3:03:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:03:53Griffin Newman?

  Which is part of why that movie's-

• 3:03:55David Sims?

  I was gonna say, it probably helped, right?

• 3:03:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:03:58David Sims?

  But, yeah.

• 3:03:59Speaker 04

  Who's your guest?

• 3:04:00Griffin Newman?

  J.D. Amato.

• 3:04:00David Sims?

  I think J.D.'s gonna be on that one, barring-

• 3:04:02Griffin Newman?

  The great J.D. Amato returned to the show.

• 3:04:04Speaker 03

  Over on the Patreon, tomorrow, we release an episode on Devil Wears Prada 2.

• 3:04:09David Sims?

  That is true. We will definitely be doing that. That schedule, right, in general, who knows?

• 3:04:14Griffin Newman?

  Assuming no release date changes.

• 3:04:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:04:15David Sims?

  No, that thing feels like it is gonna eat at the start of summer, right? Like, that thing's gonna crush.

• 3:04:20Griffin Newman?

  Destroy.

• 3:04:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. And we're gonna have a special guest.

• 3:04:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, my sister, Romley Newman, longtime sister, returned to the show for the first time in many years.

• 3:04:29David Sims?

  That's cool.

• 3:04:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Uh, anyway, and as always, movies are great again. Maga.

• 3:04:46Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas. And our associate producer is 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 for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 3:05:31Speaker 03

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.