Disclosure Day

This is "Spielberg Face: The Movie." This is radical empathy. This is Emily Blunt Supremacy. This is DISCLOSURE DAY. Griffin, David, Ben, and Marie break down Steven Spielberg's latest offering, his first sci-fi film and his first contemporary-set film since War of the Worlds in 2005. It's bound to be divisive. We mostly love it. We've got trains, Fableman dynamics, car chases, Janusz Kaminski pools of light, expressions of awe and wonderment - all of Steve's greatest hits! Join us for a wide ranging discussion about aliens, cynicism, and Michael Caine riding a giant bee (completely unrelated to this film). Listen to Regina Hall on Good Hang with Amy Poehler. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/regina-hall/id1795483480?i=1000728025659 Check out who is getting this year https://press.oscars.org/news/academy-honor-glenn-close-floyd-norman-ridley-scott-and-christine-vachon-pamela-koffler-2026’s Honorary Oscars. https://press.oscars.org/news/academy-honor-glenn-close-floyd-norman-ridley-scott-and-christine-vachon-pamela-koffler-2026 Watch the Close Encounters SNL Sketches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfPdYYsEfAE Listen to The Rewatchables in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ With Bill Simmons, Steven Spielberg, and Sean Fennessey. https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-rewatchables/2026/05/31/2001-a-space-odyssey-with-bill-simmons-steven-spielberg-and-sean-fennessey Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12Speaker 01

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31Speaker 01

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 01

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

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53Speaker 01

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 01

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

• 1:51Griffin Newman?

  Podcast.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Uh, very good. Very good.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I perfectly understood all of that.

• 1:55Griffin Newman?

  You knew that?

• 1:56Speaker 02

  I understood all of it.

• 1:58Griffin Newman?

  Everything out there. Yeah, I was speaking mathematics, David. It's easy. You couldn't hear that? That didn't sound like anything to you?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  That's so crazy.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  That was me saying two plus two plus 10 minus one.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Equals?

• 2:14Griffin Newman?

  This is.

• 2:16Griffin Newman?

  And get a lot of sleep last night. I lost the traffic. But I said, two plus two plus 10.

• 2:22David Sims?

  14.

• 2:22Griffin Newman?

  Minus one is 13. And then I was gonna add one more thing to it. I was gonna do times zero. Tricky. This is my bit I do with Asa Erlich, son of David Erlich. I did it one time.

• 2:34David Sims?

  He loves math.

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm now three years into him insisting I do it every single time. He loves math. He thinks math is the best thing and the funniest thing. And my bit is that I take out the calculator on my phone and I come up with the biggest number I can. And then I go, watch how big this is gonna be. And then I times it by zero. And then when the number disappears, I go, what are you doing? You using some kind of prank calculator?

• 2:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  You spoofing and goofing me?

• 2:55Speaker 02

  And he hasn't caught on yet?

• 2:57Griffin Newman?

  He likes pointing at me and saying, you're so bad at math.

• 3:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:02Griffin Newman?

  That's what he likes.

• 3:03David Sims?

  Just kinda like roasting.

• 3:04Griffin Newman?

  He likes that I become the fool.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Ah, okay.

• 3:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm hoisted by my petard.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  I will say, in the, in the film Disclosure Day.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm moving about math.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  You have the reveal that there are two people that have been gifted, you know, the knowledge from extraterrestrials. And one of them got math and the other person got empathy. I was just like, fuck, if I was the math person.

• 3:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  I'd just like kill myself.

• 3:30David Sims?

  But, but, but, wouldn't, I feel like you're, you're thinking of this as a, cause I'm bad at math.

• 3:36Griffin Newman?

  And you're an empathetic person.

• 3:38David Sims?

  Well, true. But it's like, but then you'd be good at math.

• 3:40Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  I don't wanna be good at math.

• 3:43David Sims?

  Well, but you're already empathetic.

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  I actually do wanna be good at math. There are a lot of things I'm not good at that I don't care about. It would be great to be good at math.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  For me, that's dancing.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I'd love to be great at dancing.

• 3:52David Sims?

  My, my number one thing is languages. Like if I could like snap my finger and suddenly be able to speak like 50 languages, that would be so cool.

• 3:59Griffin Newman?

  Which Emily Blunt can do in this movie.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yes. So I was like, she definitely, and also I'm nosey as hell. The fact that she like, could be like, David Sims, tonight's your wife's birthday. You're gonna take her to a musical.

• 4:09Griffin Newman?

  Apologize.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Like, you know?

• 4:11Griffin Newman?

  All of that's actually true.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  For me, play all the instruments.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  You want a one man band?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  I can just like grab a violin.

• 4:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Grab a guitar, pick up, well, I could play a tuba, but you know what I'm saying?

• 4:25Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, what?

• 4:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Ben Whales on the tuba.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I, I was a band kid in middle school.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  I feel like I might've known this, but I forgot that it was the tuba.

• 4:34David Sims?

  He's a tuba guy. Oh yeah, Ben, big tuba.

• 4:35Griffin Newman?

  You've never seen the picture of Ben in his school band where he looks like a little porcelain Christmas ornament?

• 4:42Speaker 02

  He does. It's like ruddy cheese. He's ruddy faced.

• 4:45David Sims?

  He's very ruddy faced and we love that about him.

• 4:47Griffin Newman?

  We love that about him.

• 4:48David Sims?

  You're not really a ruddy guy now, but.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  No, thank God.

• 4:51David Sims?

  I mean, I suppose if you get a few beers in you, a few pints in you, you might get a little ruddy.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56David Sims?

  Right?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  If the Irish whiskey starts flowing.

• 4:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  But the emotions kick in. I feel like if you're, you're laughing really hard, you're proud of a joke, you're getting emotional.

• 5:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  It'll happen.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  I referred to you as a ginger recently and you took umbrage.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  It's not a ginger.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  I'm not a ginger.

• 5:10David Sims?

  I thought he was.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I feel like. I've got some like little.

• 5:14David Sims?

  You're not like a proper, as the Brits would call it, ginger, but you've got reddish hair.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Wait, what?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  It really sounds.

• 5:21Griffin Newman?

  That sounds offensive.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  It sounds violent.

• 5:24David Sims?

  In like, in a weird way.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:26David Sims?

  Cause it's like.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Are you, I don't believe you.

• 5:29David Sims?

  You don't believe me?

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  It's real. It is real.

• 5:31David Sims?

  That is totally real.

• 5:32Griffin Newman?

  It's real and we're disclosing all of it.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  They call them gingers?

• 5:35Griffin Newman?

  They call them dirty gingers.

• 5:36David Sims?

  And like, so I think, I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, I came home from school when I was like 10 and I was like to my mom, I'm like, they're so mean. Everyone is so mean to this kid who has red hair. You know, and she's like.

• 5:49Griffin Newman?

  That's what he deserves.

• 5:50David Sims?

  Yeah. She was like, you listen to me. That's what you call him. And no, no, no. She was like, it's 1,000 years of hating Irish and Scottish people. Like she was just like.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 5:59David Sims?

  Cause I was like, why do they? And she was like, they don't even know it, but it's just, you know, decades, centuries of like, well, those are the, you know, the Gallic, you know, we don't want them.

• 6:08Griffin Newman?

  It all traces back to a couple of missing pots of gold and that they, just no one has ever gotten. No, I'm trying to be empathetic and explain this.

• 6:14David Sims?

  It was so shocking to me as a child of like, what the fuck? He's just got red hair. You're all.

• 6:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:21David Sims?

  You're all pasty English people.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  You know, it's, I don't think it's just the red hair. It's the red hair and the freckles.

• 6:27David Sims?

  It's the freckles. It's the, that you look a little different. You know, I mean, what do, what do children do then? Children's, what do childrens do? They make fun of people who look different? It's not nice. They shouldn't do it.

• 6:35Griffin Newman?

  I think.

• 6:35David Sims?

  Do it.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  They're, they're.

• 6:37David Sims?

  Cut it out.

• 6:37Griffin Newman?

  They're obviously not playing literal siblings in this, and I think they're both very good at American accents. But does it not kind of help that Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt are both British in this movie?

• 6:50David Sims?

  A bit little removed from reality.

• 6:51Griffin Newman?

  That they both have the same exact kind of like pitch of their performance.

• 6:56David Sims?

  Mm hmm. I think that's very fair. I'm trying to think of, I feel like there's a lot of other examples recently of this, of the. Like two Brits in the lead, both doing.

• 7:05Griffin Newman?

  You want two fake Americans.

• 7:07David Sims?

  Like.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  Who are paired.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  I feel like I just watched a movie.

• 7:10David Sims?

  Like, I mean, obviously, everyone's always complaining about the Brits getting the plum roles, but.

• 7:15Griffin Newman?

  Sure. Yes.

• 7:16David Sims?

  There something on that. I mean, the one that's crazy that I think about all the time, of course, is Daisy Ridley not doing an American accent. And John Boyega doing an American accent in Star Wars, which is not set on Earth.

• 7:28Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 7:28David Sims?

  But they decided like, only one of you can do your own voice.

• 7:32Griffin Newman?

  Tribute to Carrie Fisher. They were like, what if this doesn't line up? I think what you were thinking of actually was the Mandalorian and Grogu. Because Pedro Pascal is not actually a Mandalorian.

• 7:44David Sims?

  Or acting, or in it.

• 7:46Griffin Newman?

  But Grogu is a Yoda's species. Talk about nice work if you can get it.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm looking through my.

• 7:53David Sims?

  Pedro Pascal and the Mandalorian in Grogu? Sure.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  My, I'm looking through my Letterboxd diary.

• 7:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Backrooms.

• 8:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Although Renata is, she's not.

• 8:04David Sims?

  A Euro.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  She's not British, but she's also not really doing.

• 8:07Griffin Newman?

  Something.

• 8:08David Sims?

  Another good example of a movie where it's like, they should feel a little off. Everything about this movie is a little off. Like, right? And it's sort of set in like, before.

• 8:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:18David Sims?

  But like, we're not going to get too into like, you know, those kinds of details.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Very old in that way, where you're just like, both of them talk a little strange.

• 8:26David Sims?

  And with the original, it was originally someone else.

• 8:28Griffin Newman?

  It was, um, Krista Milli- Milliotti.

• 8:32David Sims?

  It was Krista Milliotti and Renata was going to be in Weapons. I just think like all the shuffling of the sort of, you know, intriguing actresses.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Julia Garner part? Interesting.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Which I'm sure she would have crushed, but Julia's great.

• 8:43Griffin Newman?

  Tyree Henry was going to be Benedict Wong.

• 8:47David Sims?

  Sure.

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  And why am I forgetting his name now?

• 8:51David Sims?

  The original cast of Weapons.

• 8:52Griffin Newman?

  Tom Burke was going to be Alden Hare, Rick.

• 8:54David Sims?

  Which like, I mean, these are all good actors and then.

• 8:57Griffin Newman?

  And then Pedro Pascal was gonna be Brolin.

• 8:59David Sims?

  Yes, Pascal was gonna be, he probably would have been pretty good, but Brolin's really good in Weapons. Cause Brolin's really good at playing a fucking masculine guy who's neutered. Like, he's really good with that.

• 9:10Griffin Newman?

  And also just kind of sad.

• 9:12David Sims?

  Playing a tough guy too, but like, he's better if you kind of neuter him a little bit.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a Brolin related question?

• 9:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  This is an installment of Brolin with the homies.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Brolin with the homies. Um, I have not watched the trailer for Whale Fall.

• 9:28Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I haven't yet.

• 9:29David Sims?

  What if there was a whale?

• 9:30Griffin Newman?

  But I'm hearing great things.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I wanted to ask. If anyone has seen the trailer.

• 9:34David Sims?

  I have, yes.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Does a whale fall?

• 9:37David Sims?

  Yes, thank you.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  From where?

• 9:39Griffin Newman?

  Higher up in the water.

• 9:41David Sims?

  Correct.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  To just deeper in the water?

• 9:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:44David Sims?

  Yeah, like what if a whale came up, went oop, and then like, you know, starts going back down and you're inside of it?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 9:52David Sims?

  How do you get out?

• 9:53Speaker 02

  They're, so they're Jonas.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:55David Sims?

  Very much so.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  It's a drone.

• 9:56David Sims?

  Austin Abrams is looking for Brolin, I think is what's going on.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Inside, inside a whale?

• 10:03David Sims?

  In the ocean.

• 10:04Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't know.

• 10:05David Sims?

  Whale get him.

• 10:06Griffin Newman?

  You don't know.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  And then they both deep in the whale.

• 10:09Griffin Newman?

  They both in whale.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  And then they gotta get out of the whale?

• 10:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 10:12David Sims?

  And it's Brian Duffield.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  Deep in whale, gotta get out of a whale movie.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Are tickets on sale yet?

• 10:17David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, you have to, you have to go to a whale.

• 10:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah, Marie, Marie, it's really easy to get the tickets. Just go down the bottom of the ocean and nothing bad will happen. Get really close to whale.

• 10:27David Sims?

  Liked that guy's last movie, No One Will Save You.

• 10:30Griffin Newman?

  Brian Duffield.

• 10:31David Sims?

  Which was a movie that I was, that was on Hulu where I was just like, this should be in a movie theater.

• 10:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:36David Sims?

  And so I'm glad that his next movie is in a movie theater.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, sure. I mean, you're thinking in a very traditional kind of elitist way. Hulu was merely trying to wish you a happy Hulaween, and you were not appreciative.

• 10:50Griffin Newman?

  And a happy Hulaween to you all.

• 10:51David Sims?

  Happy Hulaween.

• 10:52Griffin Newman?

  Disclosure Day, but I want to wish all of you a happy Hulaween.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Oh, disclosure day.

• 10:59Griffin Newman?

  Disclosure Day. There's a new film by Steven Spielberg, who we've covered on the podcast twice. One plus one equals one in this case.

• 11:07David Sims?

  Should we do it?

• 11:08Griffin Newman?

  We've now covered one complete filmography.

• 11:09David Sims?

  Should we do two episodes of this? Just because we've actually covered Spielberg on two separate mini series.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  I feel like we could.

• 11:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Cover it once through the prism of early Spielberg and once through the prism of late Spielberg.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  That's fun.

• 11:20David Sims?

  Indeed.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Cause there's definitely like a post Fabelman's reading and then a pre Fabelman's reading, in my opinion.

• 11:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 11:26David Sims?

  True of almost anything he ever made.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:28David Sims?

  David, this is great. More work.

• 11:30Griffin Newman?

  You love it, David. You keep going, add more episodes.

• 11:33David Sims?

  Let me clear my schedule. And like, it's like me trying to find new spots in my schedule. I was just like fucking like, you know, like my shovel hitting rock. Like I dug to the bottom of Minecraft. Do you know there's another Minecraft movie coming out next year?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:47Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what it's called?

• 11:48David Sims?

  Minecraft movie squared.

• 11:49Griffin Newman?

  Pretty, pretty fucking good.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  I love that. That's fine.

• 11:52David Sims?

  The next one can be cubed, right?

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You get that, Ben?

• 11:58David Sims?

  I was just building out my first 2017 list.

• 12:03Griffin Newman?

  Your first of?

• 12:05David Sims?

  Sorry, 2027.

• 12:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay, okay.

• 12:07David Sims?

  You know, of like, all right, let me, it doesn't really matter, but what's gonna be coming out? And yeah, I was, I was like, oh, they, they got that fucking done quickly.

• 12:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they're filming it right now with Kirsten Dunst, who's about to start a kind of historic, finally getting that bag run.

• 12:23David Sims?

  Yeah, give her the bag.

• 12:25Griffin Newman?

  She's got Housemaid.

• 12:27David Sims?

  Yeah, the Housemaid secret.

• 12:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:30David Sims?

  So like, that's another one where they were like, roll this back as fast as possible.

• 12:33Griffin Newman?

  She's got three sneaky sequels of things that weren't obvious slam dunks.

• 12:38David Sims?

  So she's doing kind of The Rock in like 2010?

• 12:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Except she's not like franchise Viagra, which is what he of course loved to call himself.

• 12:46David Sims?

  Was in G.I. Joe 2, Journey to the Mysterious Island. There's another one. He kept being in sequels to movies that he was not in.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  And there was one, what was the other one? You're right.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Journey to the Mysterious Island, of course, is the one where he's like, you know, the, the Twitter joke was like, hey, we got a part for you. Journey to the Mysterious Island is like, I'm not interested. And it's like, okay, well, how can we sweeten the deal? I want to ride a bee.

• 13:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  What?

• 13:08David Sims?

  You're on the poster riding a bee.

• 13:10Griffin Newman?

  The poster was him riding a giant bee. Now it's Michael Caine.

• 13:12David Sims?

  Want to ride a bee?

• 13:14Griffin Newman?

  This is one of those classic Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson vehicles, the big three.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Hold on.

• 13:21Griffin Newman?

  And the plus a bee, the big three plus a bee. It was a bee movie.

• 13:24David Sims?

  It was a bee movie.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Um, I'm not seeing him riding a bee. I'm seeing him running away from a giant lizard creature. Oh, I got the bee.

• 13:34Griffin Newman?

  You found it.

• 13:34David Sims?

  Here he is.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 13:36David Sims?

  People said, my daughter was reading her rock book just last night. People said he couldn't, he couldn't ride a bee. He does it.

• 13:44Griffin Newman?

  Vanessa Hudgens too.

• 13:46David Sims?

  Of course.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  The billing order is-

• 13:47David Sims?

  He was like, get Hudgens, get a B, then I'm interested.

• 13:51Griffin Newman?

  The billing order is Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine's second build. I assumed he'd be the and, but he's second build.

• 13:57David Sims?

  I want second build.

• 13:58Griffin Newman?

  Josh Hutcherson returning from the first film.

• 14:00David Sims?

  Yeah, he's like, hi guys. And everyone's like, what is the first film called?

• 14:04Griffin Newman?

  Vanessa Hudgens-

• 14:04David Sims?

  Brendan Fraser was in it.

• 14:06Griffin Newman?

  Maybe returning.

• 14:07David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 14:07Griffin Newman?

  Luis Guzman and Kristin Davis. She got the and.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Kristin Davis, okay.

• 14:13Griffin Newman?

  Kristin Davis got the and.

• 14:13David Sims?

  Charlotte herself.

• 14:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Good for her.

• 14:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Journey to the Mysterious Island.

• 14:17David Sims?

  Vanessa Hudgens is not in Journey to the Center of the Earth.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Was Brendan Fraser, yes. So did she replace Brendan Fraser?

• 14:24David Sims?

  Yeah, she's replaced. The Rock is actually replacing Seth Meyers, who's also in there. No, Journey, as I've, I'm sure said on this podcast before, has one of my favorite trailer jokes, which is-

• 14:35Griffin Newman?

  The pecs?

• 14:36David Sims?

  No, no, no, with Brendan Fraser.

• 14:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, oh, yes. How are we still falling?

• 14:39David Sims?

  No, it's just they fall, ah, then they stop. And then Brendan Fraser goes, we're still falling. It's so funny.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  Both of those movies made 100 million dollars.

• 14:49David Sims?

  Yeah, it was a hit.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Next time we're looking for like, end of year, like, what's a fun, like, two, a two slot? Like, you guys should just Journey to where-

• 14:58David Sims?

  The two journeys. There must be an original, like, because it's the H.G. Wells, like, was there like a 50s Journey to the Center of the Earth or whatever?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, sure.

• 15:08David Sims?

  So you could fall back in.

• 15:09Griffin Newman?

  Because Journey 2 is adapting a different H.G. Wells book, retrofitting it in fairy faithfully. No, I think there's an H.G. Wells book called The Mysterious Island.

• 15:16David Sims?

  I think you're right. I'm just saying, like, I don't know if they really even opened the book.

• 15:21Griffin Newman?

  The book opened, the opening line of the book is, Dwayne Johnson was riding a bumblebee. And at the time, audiences were very confused. They went, I don't get what this means. Is this a foreign language? Is he speaking in tongues like Emily Blunt in Disclosure Day? And then decades later, it became clear.

• 15:37David Sims?

  Well, it's not H.G. Wells, of course. I'm sorry. It's Jules Verne. What if we did a Jules Verne- Patreon series. Okay. What are some film adaptations of?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Two thousand leagues under the sea around the world.

• 15:48David Sims?

  So 20,000.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Twenty thousand.

• 15:50David Sims?

  You just knocked off 18,000 whole leagues.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  So you're so like the whale started at 2,000.

• 15:56David Sims?

  Yes.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  And then he fell to 20,000 leagues under the sea.

• 16:01Griffin Newman?

  There are too many hunchbacks.

• 16:03David Sims?

  Okay.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  My back is Victor Hugo.

• 16:05David Sims?

  You guys are out of control. Okay, so 20,000 leagues under the sea. You got the Kirk Douglas, James Mason movie. So there you got that. Okay, there was also a James Mason journey to the center of the earth in 1959.

• 16:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Do any of you guys have a good James Mason?

• 16:23David Sims?

  I'm sure I could work on one.

• 16:28Griffin Newman?

  I'm thinking we do.

• 16:30David Sims?

  Then there's, oh, this is a problem.

• 16:32Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 16:32David Sims?

  We have a huge problem.

• 16:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 16:33David Sims?

  There's a huge problem now that we're doing this mini series, which I've committed us to.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  We've been having a serious problem.

• 16:39David Sims?

  In serious problem. There are two works, two, two versions of another work of his around the world in 80 days. So there's the interminable best picture winner.

• 16:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 16:49David Sims?

  And then the horrendous Steve Kugan Jackie Chan one.

• 16:52Griffin Newman?

  Cecil DeFrance, another big three. When's the last time those three made a movie together? Kugan, Fan and DeFrance?

• 17:02David Sims?

  DeFrance is great.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  I like Cecil DeFrance.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Who is?

• 17:05David Sims?

  She's a French actress.

• 17:07Griffin Newman?

  Do you ever see? Attention?

• 17:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  No. I like skipped over all of the French horror from the new French extremity.

• 17:16Griffin Newman?

  She was the barbed wire lady in.

• 17:20David Sims?

  There's also a Ray Harryhausen mysterious island.

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:23David Sims?

  Along with the, you know, and then

• 17:27David Sims?

  there's a Joseph Cotton from the earth to the moon from 1958.

• 17:32Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 17:32David Sims?

  That could be fun.

• 17:33Griffin Newman?

  That could be fun. So this sounds like a really quick 12 movie series.

• 17:36David Sims?

  It's like nine.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  I think we're over complicating it.

• 17:39David Sims?

  The moon is the one in the book where they just get in a bullet and shoot it at the moon, which I always thought was pretty cool.

• 17:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what happens in the Maliers.

• 17:46David Sims?

  Yeah, well.

• 17:46Griffin Newman?

  So maybe we break.

• 17:47David Sims?

  And we throw that in too.

• 17:48Griffin Newman?

  We break these into sub franchises. We go from the earth to the moon. We go journey. We go leagues, we go days.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Maybe they save time, we can play them at 2X.

• 18:01David Sims?

  Yeah, or 4X, or just play them on simultaneous screens.

• 18:04Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:06David Sims?

  And just be like, I see, I think there's a bee over there. Okay, we're moving on.

• 18:10Griffin Newman?

  I'm going to ride this bee. I can't, how would he say it? Supposed to ride the bee, the bloody bee.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I don't know if Michael Caine actually rides the bee because he's not riding a bee on.

• 18:20David Sims?

  Uh, he does.

• 18:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, there's a character poster right here.

• 18:24David Sims?

  Yeah, he does.

• 18:25Griffin Newman?

  Look at his face. He's got kind of.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  I'm on a fucking bee.

• 18:29Griffin Newman?

  I'm riding a bee. He doesn't talk like that. The bee doesn't talk like that. We're talking about Disclosure Day.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Yes, directed by Steven Spielberg.

• 18:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Steven Spielberg decided to jump a little off of his comfort zone and make a movie about our relationship to aliens.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 18:44Griffin Newman?

  This time he's blowing the doors wide open on this thing.

• 18:47David Sims?

  This film is called Disclosure Day.

• 18:49Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:49David Sims?

  It is directed by Steven Spielberg.

• 18:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:53David Sims?

  It is written by David Koep, his frequent collaborator. Story by Steven Spielberg.

• 18:58Griffin Newman?

  Pretty rare that he takes a story credit.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  I remember everyone getting really excited when they saw that credit.

• 19:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  They're like, ooh, Spielberg, alien story, let's go.

• 19:08Griffin Newman?

  Has been a real mystery box movie. It was just sort of announced Spielberg Koep, Alien Film. It was untitled for a while, then it was called The Dish, which was a terrible title. The cast was known. Everything else was kind of a mystery for a while.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Wasn't there like another project that was also announced and like, we weren't sure which one was going to come first? There was like the more historical drama about like Lindbergh, Plot Against America type folks in New York.

• 19:35Griffin Newman?

  There was the bullet. Um, yeah, but it felt like he was unconventionally slow to land on a new project post Fableman's. Usually he.

• 19:45David Sims?

  That's true. The four year gap is long for him these days.

• 19:48Griffin Newman?

  Really long.

• 19:49David Sims?

  Really, for any days, I guess.

• 19:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but usually he has, I mean, I think he said this in an interview, that basically, uh, the longest gap he had taken previously was the one in between his crazy 93 and his crazy 97. Because even in the pandemic, he had a movie come out and Fableman's came out quickly after. Uh, and that was both him building DreamWorks and building a family. There was that feeling of like, usually he's got like 10 movies in development. And the second he's promoting one movie, you hear that he's already starting the next one.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  We're never gonna see that kid Pope kidnapping movie, are we?

• 20:24David Sims?

  No, he dropped that. That got made. Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  It got made?

• 20:27David Sims?

  There's like an Italian movie that came out about that story. I feel like he just kind of let it hit. You know, he was like, forget it. Now he's supposedly working on a Western.

• 20:35Griffin Newman?

  Now he's, he's saying he's working on a Western, but it doesn't feel as, it feels like he slowed his clip down. And I think it's getting into a little bit more of a, I don't want to work for the sake of working. I want to make a thing I feel an overriding desire to do. He's 79 years old. It is crazy how old all our young guys are getting.

• 20:53David Sims?

  I have a correction for you. He's 79 years young.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  You are right.

• 20:58David Sims?

  He's a pretty sprightly fella.

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  He just moved to New York. He's a New Yorker.

• 21:01David Sims?

  He's a New Yorker now. I'm sure he's living 42nd Street, 8th Avenue. No, I don't know.

• 21:06Griffin Newman?

  My old stomping grounds.

• 21:08David Sims?

  Uh, I don't think it's pretty crazy that all the boomers are old. I mean, that's, that's life.

• 21:13Griffin Newman?

  No, it's life. It just does feel wrong to me. I think of them as being the whippersnappers, even though they, I was born into a world that they had already claimed.

• 21:23David Sims?

  Right. They're the movie Bratz or whatever, where they've grown up by the time you were watching movies.

• 21:30David Sims?

  Stevie Spielberg, he's 79. He'll be 80 in December.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  This is 40th feature film? What number are we looking at here?

• 21:38David Sims?

  Oh, he's gonna make me count. Let's see. Now we're not counting Firelight.

• 21:44Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 21:44David Sims?

  But we are counting Duel.

• 21:46Griffin Newman?

  This is very much a return to, I wouldn't say return to form, but it was framed as a guys Spielberg is gonna do the Spielberg thing again for the first time in a while. Down to a thing I saw our Redditors post about, which was a good point. The poster for this movie is Spielberg last name only above the title.

• 22:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 22:06Griffin Newman?

  It is hard to think of another case where the director's name is above the title, not yet as a Steven Spielberg film. And there's also not an actor name above the title. He is, it's as if it's Schwarzenegger.

• 22:18David Sims?

  You're, you're, you're totally right. I mean, Nolan is that, but he. He loves the film by Christopher Nolan.

• 22:24Griffin Newman?

  And a big, long billing block.

• 22:26David Sims?

  Yeah, although, but the Odyssey's teaser poster is just a film by Christopher Nolan.

• 22:30Griffin Newman?

  It's not that, you know, other people couldn't do that, but it's rare that there's a marketing campaign that is just Spielberg.

• 22:38David Sims?

  Spielberg.

• 22:39Griffin Newman?

  I.

• 22:39David Sims?

  I mean, there's.

• 22:40Griffin Newman?

  Disclosure Day.

• 22:41David Sims?

  Look, there's the number one, Lee Cronin. We all know.

• 22:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:44David Sims?

  He can't be touched.

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  But that's not a billing issue. It's his mummy, David.

• 22:49David Sims?

  What if he revealed, I found this mummy. That's why it's called Lee Cronin's The Mummy. It's my mummy. I didn't direct the film.

• 22:55Griffin Newman?

  I was so scared during that movie. I was screaming. I was shaking. I was convulsing. And then someone pointed out to me, don't worry, Griffin. It's Lee Cronin's mummy. And I went, oh, my God. I didn't know who it belonged to. Oh, my God.

• 23:06David Sims?

  Waiting for the HBO Max drop.

• 23:07Griffin Newman?

  Oh, so worried. I didn't know whose mummy it was.

• 23:10David Sims?

  Whatever it's gonna be on.

• 23:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I feel bad for Lee Cronin. That was, that was a tough break.

• 23:14David Sims?

  I mean, maybe it is his fault. Maybe he was like, my name has to be about the title.

• 23:17Griffin Newman?

  Like a real Daffy Duck shirt thing.

• 23:19David Sims?

  But I think more like, I mean, what I heard was essentially they were like, they want to make it clear it's not.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  The Brendan Fraser.

• 23:24David Sims?

  Brendan Fraser.

• 23:25Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, I would do anything else to make that clear rather than making the public.

• 23:29David Sims?

  They should have just called it Haunted Child.

• 23:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:31David Sims?

  Just call it something else. We found a fucked up thing in the desert.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  We found a fucked up thing. They're like, the focus features or whatever, like Twitter account kept like, they tweeted like, once a day for two weeks.

• 23:44Griffin Newman?

  It was New Line, I think.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Or whatever it was, Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin's The Mummy.

• 23:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  And I thought they were doing a bit.

• 23:52Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Where they were leading up to like a surprise cameo.

• 23:56David Sims?

  Right. I think they were not initial, they were initially gonna tweet that once. Then they were like, let's make it a bit. And then it was kind of a classic like, well, you made it a bit. And that's kind of like, now there's smoke. And people think there will be fire.

• 24:08Griffin Newman?

  It was classic. Just to be clear, this is not a movie based on the toy.

• 24:13David Sims?

  My T-shirt that says Brendan Fraser is not in The Mummy.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  They did it like in all caps. I was like, come on. You're like.

• 24:20David Sims?

  They did.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  You're, you're, you're asking for it.

• 24:23David Sims?

  They were asking for it. Lee, Steven Spielberg, Lee Cronin has made, I think, three films. Steven Spielberg has made 35.

• 24:28Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 24:28David Sims?

  36 if you count Twilight's on the movie, which I don't.

• 24:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, if you're nasty.

• 24:32David Sims?

  Uh, but this is his 35th feature from my count.

• 24:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, and

• 24:37David Sims?

  Pretty good.

• 24:38Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was, there was the, just sort of, he's doing a UFO movie. He's doing some sort of alien movie. Why is Spielberg going back to this? Well, we were debating this with our editor, Alan Smithy. How many alien films does Spielberg count? If you include Crystal Skull, which you have to, it's five.

• 24:57David Sims?

  So the five are?

• 24:58Griffin Newman?

  Close Encounters.

• 24:59David Sims?

  Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

• 25:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:02David Sims?

  ETV Extraterrestrial.

• 25:04Griffin Newman?

  Uh, War of the Worlds. Mm hmm. Then, uh, Indiana Jones and?

• 25:10David Sims?

  The Kingdom of the.

• 25:12Griffin Newman?

  And Disclose.

• 25:13David Sims?

  Your Day.

• 25:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:15David Sims?

  Remember gay ET? Bring him back?

• 25:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. We did like 45 hours of bits about gay ET and we never landed on LGBT.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Sometimes if something's like right in front of you, you just can't see it.

• 25:27David Sims?

  Well, also we did, but we definitely did say that he was the extra extraterrestrial.

• 25:31Griffin Newman?

  We did, we said that. Okay. Right. And we won many awards for that?

• 25:35David Sims?

  A thing I also noted when I was writing my review is this is his first contemporary film since War of the Worlds.

• 25:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 25:42David Sims?

  And then I, so then I started thinking about it a little bit more. So you do have the terminal. That's a contemporary, a fully contemporary film by him with no funny business.

• 25:50Griffin Newman?

  It takes place in an alternate reality.

• 25:52David Sims?

  In which Tom Hanks is funny? No, he's very funny.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  It does have an alien.

• 25:56Griffin Newman?

  It does. It has an illegal immigrant.

• 25:58David Sims?

  That's so true. That is so true.

• 26:00Griffin Newman?

  From preclosure.

• 26:01David Sims?

  Ah, and normal voice, normal accent on that.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  Victor Navarski.

• 26:06David Sims?

  Um, because a lot of his, when I was thinking about it, a lot of his contemporary set films, um, so here we, you know, disclosure day. War of the Worlds. Uh, let's, let's set aside terminal for a second here. The Jurassic Park movies.

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 26:23David Sims?

  I mean, is always contemporary. I guess it is.

• 26:26Griffin Newman?

  Always is contemporary.

• 26:27David Sims?

  It's obviously very old fashioned, but it is set, I think in the present day.

• 26:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Sugarland Express.

• 26:34David Sims?

  Sugarland Express and ET.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  It's dual.

• 26:37David Sims?

  So it's like, and dual, sure. But and Jaws.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  And Jaws.

• 26:40David Sims?

  But like, you know, things like Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Disclosure Day, it's like, yeah, they're set in the present day, sort of. But Disclosure Day is kind of set in a slightly different world from our own. It's got alien tech and kind of, you know, like, it feels like Jurassic Park's a little bit the same, where it's like, yeah, yeah, this is our time. But you're like, yeah, but it's not. We've got a couple of made dinosaurs in it. Right?

• 27:04Griffin Newman?

  I think that was part of the pitch on this movie is Spielberg's gonna talk about our times. This thing that we all love, that Spielberg could make these very emotional, character-driven blockbusters that felt like they were in conversation with our world.

• 27:19David Sims?

  It's also just the thing of like, hey, so few people get to do an original big movie like this, so it's awesome that he wants to.

• 27:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:27David Sims?

  Like, when he was like, I might remake Bullet. I was like, I bet you will do a good job if you do that. I don't really want you to do that. I'd rather you took a weirder swing.

• 27:35Griffin Newman?

  I also, I think.

• 27:36David Sims?

  And now I'm so emotional about it.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you're, you're gonna burp. There are, I would say, two modes that Spielberg has been operating in since this century started. One is him sort of trying to become a classicist, right? Trying to become like a Hawks or a Hughes or a Ford and to focus on maybe sort of neglected genres or more classical filmmaking styles and making kind of grown up movies. And this whole feeling that he and George Lucas are complaining about IP culture and franchise blockbuster movies, but that there's some guilt about maybe what they created and Steven is trying to actively put the opposite type of movie into the system, which

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

  for so long, his name was so big that no matter what, basically, anything he did became a massive success. And that has fallen off the last 15.

• 28:29David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 28:30Griffin Newman?

  A little bit. He's still Steven Spielberg, but there's no longer a guarantee, which there used to be.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Like, Lincoln made.

• 28:35Griffin Newman?

  Lincoln was humongous.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Like 300 million dollars or something crazy, right?

• 28:38Griffin Newman?

  Lincoln was like 180 domestic.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's like crazy.

• 28:42Griffin Newman?

  That's, that's when he still was like, anything he does becomes a blockbuster.

• 28:47David Sims?

  Obviously, right. West Side Story and Fableman's were not blockbusters. West Side Story was very much the COVID hangover. Fableman's was one of those things where it's like, I think that movie should have done better.

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:00David Sims?

  Because it did quite like nothing.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

  Nothing.

• 29:02David Sims?

  But it was right and it was still, you know, 2022 and it was that thing where Universal put it on.

• 29:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:07David Sims?

  Fucking streaming.

• 29:08Griffin Newman?

  Schedule was bad.

• 29:09David Sims?

  After 17 days and they were like, well, this is what we do with all our movies now. And it was just like, guys.

• 29:14Griffin Newman?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 29:15David Sims?

  Steven Spielberg made this.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:16David Sims?

  Like have a lot of respect.

• 29:17Griffin Newman?

  Running for Oscars.

• 29:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Griffin Newman?

  What was the other one I was gonna throw out? I mean, The Post and Burgess Spies both did well, but sort of like well for adult dramas. They both did like 60, 70 domestic, 100 worldwide.

• 29:30David Sims?

  Oh, well, you know what? I'm gonna look this up on a website where it's easy to look it up. Just kidding, they don't exist.

• 29:35Griffin Newman?

  Great. There are two modes. There's that. And then the second mode is for the last 25 years, he's constantly tempted by, can I go back and do a classic Spielberg family blockbuster? And varying levels.

• 29:46David Sims?

  81, Bridge did 72.

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Those are both good numbers. Yeah. Yeah. There have been varying levels of success and people disagree about which ones work better than others. But I would say like Tintin, Crystal Skull, Ready Player One. These are sort of.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  The BFG.

• 30:04Griffin Newman?

  The BFG, these are like, he's trying to go back home again and also trying to find a new, modern mode of how can I be in conversation with what's happening right now in blockbuster movies? But like Return for My Crown. And this feels like him making a 70s movie. It's what's fascinating about it.

• 30:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 30:22Griffin Newman?

  Is that it doesn't feel like him being like, fuck, what did the kids like today?

• 30:26David Sims?

  No, totally. He's not, Ready Player One was a little bit more of him being like, let me get in the current sandbox and see what I want to do about it.

• 30:33Griffin Newman?

  Tintin is, I want to use these new tools. Indiana Jones is, what does this look like in a modern context?

• 30:37David Sims?

  This is, you're right. This is more like Close Encounters. It is a blockbuster, adult, you know, drama.

• 30:45Griffin Newman?

  Now, the. The other sort of qualifier here is we talked about when we did our original series is that when he does the two, well, I just got an insane text message. When he does the two, would you believe it's about my grandmother? When he does the two Tom Cruise movies where it's like the biggest director and the biggest star in all of Hollywood are doing something together. They make these two very haunted, dark movies. They're awesome, but they're not traditional audience pleasing blockbusters, right? He makes haunted films. So this is like the promise of kind of Spielberg face wonder, humanity driven, character driven, performance driven,

• 31:27Griffin Newman?

  classic Amblin blockbuster was was from the moment they start actually putting out trailers posters, the promise of what this movie was. David, I think you and I pretty unabashedly loved this.

• 31:39David Sims?

  Huge fan of this movie. Think it's fantastic.

• 31:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm curious to see it a second time because it is a movie that is, you know, like 80% slow burn. And I was loving the unraveling.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  I would disagree with you.

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:51David Sims?

  This is a very fast movie.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  It drops, first of all, the craziest opening shot of any fucking Spielberg movie ever.

• 31:59Griffin Newman?

  It's a true, you could bet a billion dollars, what do you think the opening frame of this movie is?

• 32:06Griffin Newman?

  I would sooner bet that than

• 32:08Speaker 01

  I would sooner bet his

• 32:10Griffin Newman?

  I would sooner bet that than that it is, the opening shot is

• 32:13Speaker 02

  A like

• 32:14Griffin Newman?

  An AEW wrestler kicking the camera.

• 32:18David Sims?

  It really is so fun.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  But it's, it drops you in media res and then you're on the run the whole time.

• 32:24Griffin Newman?

  You're on the run.

• 32:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  It's very propulsive.

• 32:26David Sims?

  It reminded me of Minority Report. Yeah. And like, and obviously it has that Minority Report vibe also of like, I want to talk about what I'm thinking about right now, but with a sci fi lens.

• 32:35Griffin Newman?

  But it's got the Twilight Zone thing of where is this going?

• 32:38David Sims?

  Yeah, sure, sure, sure. We're in the middle of the story. We'll tell you stuff as we're moving.

• 32:42Griffin Newman?

  How are these things connected?

• 32:43David Sims?

  But we gotta keep moving.

• 32:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 32:44David Sims?

  Gotta keep moving.

• 32:45Griffin Newman?

  And that's what's smart about the construction of the movie is that it's able to play both sides of the coin.

• 32:50David Sims?

  It does the thing that I'm sure, you know, people don't like where no, you know, everyone's like, so what's Going on the guys like, I'm gonna tell you, we gotta get to this house. And then I'm gonna tell you one more sentence.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  It's also.

• 33:02David Sims?

  And then we gotta do another thing.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  It's also mirroring the characters themselves who.

• 33:06David Sims?

  Yes.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Don't actually know.

• 33:08David Sims?

  This is why.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Why they're being compelled to go somewhere.

• 33:11Griffin Newman?

  What you're describing, David, usually pisses me off. And in this movie, why it works.

• 33:15David Sims?

  Pisses me off too.

• 33:15Griffin Newman?

  Is that no one has the complete picture. Everyone has pieces of it and they're trying to strategically use what they know. To get the support and the allegiance of the others. But no one has the full view of everything. Not even Colin Firth.

• 33:30David Sims?

  Not even Colin Firth.

• 33:32Griffin Newman?

  Richard T is holding on to a stick.

• 33:35David Sims?

  I'm grumpy today.

• 33:37Griffin Newman?

  Do you think Spielberg's jealous that he's probably only gonna end up being the second most powerful stick? Of the summer movie season?

• 33:44David Sims?

  Uh, go ahead.

• 33:46Griffin Newman?

  One wish Willow fucking whipping the disclosure stick.

• 33:49David Sims?

  That's a bundle of sticks.

• 33:51Griffin Newman?

  It's one stick.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  No, it's one wish Willow.

• 33:53David Sims?

  But it's kind of like the little kind of.

• 33:54Griffin Newman?

  It's got some thorns.

• 33:55David Sims?

  Through it.

• 33:56Griffin Newman?

  It's not a bundle. It's got thorns. It's got little thorns. It's one wish Willow. It kisses. These kids are obsessed with these one wish willows.

• 34:02David Sims?

  That movie, I saw it with no hype.

• 34:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 34:05David Sims?

  Beyond like fantasy being like, it's pretty, it's good. Like you should check it out.

• 34:09Griffin Newman?

  Your finger, you walked out of the screening, you held up to the wind and you went, I think three forty domestic.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  More than baby Oda.

• 34:17David Sims?

  I just walked out being like that. I was very like unpleasant and effective. That was like a pretty, yeah, yeah, sure. I get it. I get it. Right. I did not walk out being like, well, the world just changed.

• 34:27Griffin Newman?

  Generationally, everything is changing.

• 34:29David Sims?

  But, uh, I'll also admit, it's not my vibe of a movie, I suppose. So I was maybe never gonna feel that way.

• 34:35Griffin Newman?

  Back in my day, kids were using chat GPT to do their homework. Nowadays, they're using one wish willows. They buy a one wish Willow and they say, my one wish is to write my next paper for me. Just one paper.

• 34:47David Sims?

  Okay, so Trump administration.

• 34:51Griffin Newman?

  Heard of him.

• 34:52David Sims?

  Is actually like releasing UFO files.

• 34:55Griffin Newman?

  Well, they love releasing files. That's all they do is release files. Every file that anyone would wanna see, they're releasing.

• 35:00David Sims?

  So if you go to war.gov slash UFO.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  War.gov?

• 35:07Griffin Newman?

  We live on stupid earth.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  It's so stupid.

• 35:10Griffin Newman?

  The dumbest planet.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  So he just actually did a second release on May 8th of like a bunch of stuff. I haven't gotten through it and all of the like images and video. It's, you know, what the fuck is?

• 35:24David Sims?

  It's something we need to talk about right away because people have been like, there's already been the disclosure day and like, no one cared. And I'm like, well, the images are basically just like some blobs where they're like, I don't know. These blobs were weird.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  It's so weird how people have not cared.

• 35:37David Sims?

  Because there's nothing to look at.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  I know, but still they're acknowledging weird phenomena.

• 35:43David Sims?

  It's why that's not the same as we aliens crashed.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:47David Sims?

  We took the aliens who were alive to a room and tortured them. And then stole their spaceship to make technology.

• 35:57Griffin Newman?

  Make cell phones and shit.

• 35:58David Sims?

  Sorry, we didn't tell anyone.

• 35:59Griffin Newman?

  We used the old spark.

• 36:01David Sims?

  Versus like, yeah, a plane was flying in the air and it's all blob and the blob was weird.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:06David Sims?

  And the blob kind of moved in a weird way. And we do have a video of that if you'd like to see, which is sort of currently.

• 36:11Griffin Newman?

  This is why I think the ending of this movie has to go as hard as it does because it needs to be like, what if all networks were co-opted by 15 minutes of just decades of footage? You know, so much shit.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Of it looks like little guys in little alien costumes.

• 36:27Griffin Newman?

  There was the moment in the film where you start to see, and we're getting into spoilers and all this, but there was the moment in the film where you start to see the aliens for the first time. I forget what the first image is. You've seen it more recently than us, Murray.

• 36:38David Sims?

  The first image is for like the torture.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  It's the torture.

• 36:41David Sims?

  You know, sequence.

• 36:42Griffin Newman?

  I started pump, right, right. It's Josh O'Connor showing Eve Hewson on the laptop, right? And I started pumping my fist and I was like, so he's just fucking doing it. He's just putting a gray almond eyed.

• 36:54David Sims?

  Right, like a classic man.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  I did, I did really appreciate that.

• 36:59Griffin Newman?

  He's not overthinking this at all. The aliens are looking like everyone's default cultural cartoon alien. And he's just rendering them realistically. And it's like, yeah, you know, aliens.

• 37:18Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 37:18David Sims?

  Yes?

• 37:19Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 37:22David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 37:25David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 37:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:31David Sims?

  Okay.

• 37:32Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:36David Sims?

  Wow.

• 37:37Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 37:39David Sims?

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

• 37:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 37:58Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 37:59David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 38:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 38:06David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 38:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 38:09David Sims?

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

• 38:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:14David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 38:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:16David Sims?

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

• 38:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 38:21David Sims?

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

• 38:23Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 38:24David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 38:26Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 38:27David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 38:28Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 38:29David Sims?

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

• 38:39Griffin Newman?

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

• 38:53David Sims?

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

• 38:58Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 39:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:10David Sims?

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

• 39:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:27David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 39:33Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 39:33David Sims?

  Yes?

• 39:34Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:38David Sims?

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

• 39:43Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 39:45David Sims?

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

• 39:52Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:01David Sims?

  Uh, got stocking stuffers, maybe. The sickest luxury items. Cookware, to kicks, toys, to high-tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once, okay? That's shop.com. You can just go, click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 40:24Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:55Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 40:56David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 40:56Griffin 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.

• 41:04David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 41:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:13David Sims?

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

• 41:18Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:19David Sims?

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

• 41:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 41:29David Sims?

  No!

• 41:30Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 41:31David Sims?

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

• 42:19Speaker 02

  So disclosure day, you were saying that you both are, you know, fully on board?

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  I feel like you and Ben are moderate positive. Yeah, yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:30Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 42:30Speaker 02

  It was not, I was not like, holy fuck, this is like a perfect movie. There were moments of it where I was like, really emotionally affected and like, very enraptured. And there were other moments where a like, nurse asks Emily Blunt, did the trauma that happened in your childhood, did you ever seek help for that? Or like, the last, you know, 15 minutes of the movie?

• 42:56Griffin Newman?

  The last 15 minutes, I was on the edge of my seat. I mean, I, this is the thing, we saw it with a bunch of people, you know, the great, the king, the king of TikTok himself, Reese, I was sitting next to Reese. Alan Smith, he was there, a lot of our critic friends, Esther and her soon to be husband, Bob. So we were all talking after the movie. And it was one of these things where like, I really think this boils down to the last 15 minutes. Either you're 100% on board and that wins you over, or you push back on it a little bit. Because it's Spielberg going full Spielberg. It's him going hard, not in spectacle, but in his emotionality, in his worldview.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  And we'll get into it, but I just want to say. The religious stuff at the end.

• 43:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  And the, and the

• 43:45David Sims?

  The nuns.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Nun being like, aliens are also God's children. I was like, boo, that stinks.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  I loved that part.

• 43:54Griffin Newman?

  And I usually, that's usually a thing I bristle at in movies because I'm a dirty leftist coastal elite heathen. But like, like, that's a thing on Shyamalan movies where they get too spiritual. And I'm like, this stopped being my language. I just, this is not an in for me. I feel like I'm being recruited. In this, like, I bought it as a storytelling thing. It didn't feel like being, like it was being pushed on me.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  They also got me, like, when Elizabeth Marvel's like,

• 44:24Speaker 01

  She's so good.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  In Genesis, the line is, you know, God, God's greatest creation on earth.

• 44:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  I'm like in the theater, I'm going like, oh shit. Like, I never thought about that.

• 44:37Griffin Newman?

  It was right there in the text.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Oh, fuck.

• 44:39Griffin Newman?

  God was writing about aliens. God was like, you think about fucking aliens? That's fucking crazy. That's what God was like.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  I think the movie, like, what religion is supposed to do, historically it has not, but it's supposed to make you love your fellow human and have respect for humanity and other people. So like, believe that there, there is some sort of higher power out there that is governing all of us and bringing us together.

• 45:09Griffin Newman?

  I think it's

• 45:09Speaker 02

  And like, the aliens in this film are used as a device, as a, this is now the thing that is bringing everyone together.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  And I love that unity.

• 45:20David Sims?

  That's totally true. I think it's also just kind of like, he's running at the idea of like, the answer to weird shit isn't aliens or God. You know, it can be both, you know what I mean? It's sort of like, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like, we could find out that, I mean, sure, that, right, that aliens exist on Earth.

• 45:41David Sims?

  And that doesn't mean like you have to abandon your belief system or like the way you think the world was ordered or whatever like that. It's like, you know, God can fit into that however you like.

• 45:50Griffin Newman?

  I think this movie's about-

• 45:51David Sims?

  God can fit into a lot of stuff.

• 45:52Griffin Newman?

  In my reading, this movie's about two things primarily. So Marie, what you were saying about like what, what religion in theory serves to do, right? I think even beyond that, it serves to give us a language, a shared language of understanding for how to be alive, right? That is the basic underlying purpose of any organized religion is a set of codes and ethics and morals and values through which to understand human existence. That gets distorted and weaponized in a million different ways, which is why I get really uneasy with religion. And when movies feel like they're pushing religious text on me. I don't think this film is pushing a theological reading of the universe. I think it is using characters with theology to explore what it's actually saying, which to me is two things, right?

• 46:37Griffin Newman?

  There's a kind of personal story in this of what Spielberg's going through in his life. And then there's a sort of larger, this is what Steven wants to say about the current state of the world. The personal story is Spielberg has always said that he doesn't like therapy or that rather, he went to one therapy session and didn't find it useful. And that for him, working through his issues through his movies is always what felt productive to him. And that's why you got these movies where people went like, huh, Steven Spielberg still seemed really hung up about this divorce thing because it was basically men will become the most successful director in the history of Hollywood to avoid going to therapy. All this time, he's avoiding making the movie about the real thing, which is the Fableman's. He gets that out of his system. He makes the movie where everyone who works on that is like, he was crying on set all the time. It was a really difficult process. He exercised

• 47:20Griffin Newman?

  something from his system and he's promoting that movie and he's like, I actually don't know what I make next. To a certain degree, I've been avoiding making this movie my whole career and I don't know what I have to say. And this is a movie about two people processing trauma. It is a movie about two characters who end up being the ones who can serve to create a catharsis. For people at large through reckoning with their own trauma and their own history, things that they have pointedly just been saying like, I don't want to fucking think about that shit anymore. I don't need that. I'm fine. I'm functional. That's thing one. Thing two in this movie is Spielberg talks a lot about having his existential crisis during the pandemic, as many of us did. What do I fucking do now? I've just been work, work, work, work, work. And now I'm slowed down. I can't make movies.

• 48:04Griffin Newman?

  If I only make one movie again, what is it? What's the one movie I have to make? Fable mince, but also really reckoning with the world. And he said he would leave his home and just drive around for hours because he didn't know what to do with himself. And I think what this movie is commenting on is we are living in obviously a very fractured world in which people live in alternate realities. And it's very impossible to get any agreement on anything. Religion is one of these things that's supposed to unify people. It has only pushed people further apart. It has only made things more violent. And we went through this collective trauma of this horrible global pandemic that affected literally everyone on the planet to some degree. And it fractured us even further. And I think he's creating a simulation of, is there anything that could happen?

• 48:47Griffin Newman?

  A form of communication that actually unified all of humanity for a minute. And I think this movie builds to a note of, and what happens now? The last word of this movie, I believe, is listen. Listen, of course. And it's sort of like, the next step is, what do we say now that we have everyone's attention? Because for one brief moment, for 15 minutes, we have collectively gotten everyone onto the exact same page. There is now a reality that has just adjusted that we all have to understand. And I think it's basically saying there's now something new that's like replacing religion. Not that the aliens will become their own religion, but that part of it is that the Elizabeth Marvel character is someone who's not fighting this.

• 49:25Griffin Newman?

  Is saying like, this doesn't negate my worldview because my worldview is less about the dogmatic text here. Than it is about the ideas of what we're trying to get at, which is a unification of empathy. Which this movie is about, like, is there any fucking way that empathy could win again?

• 49:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 49:42Griffin Newman?

  Is there any fucking way that we could all just get on the same page about everything?

• 49:47David Sims?

  Fantasy from a lot of movies of like, if we learned about, you know, extraterrestrials, would that somehow unite us? Cause I think Spielberg is a sort of, I mean, is he religious? Is he spiritual? He talks about this like.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  He's spiritual. He's also, he's not Catholic.

• 50:05David Sims?

  But he was raised, you know, a little more religious than he was. And he says he kind of reconnected with it. And, you know, like, there's a lot of spiritual thought in his movie and kind of like, how do we reconcile, you know, spirituality with, you know, science and modernity and right?

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's the dynamic of his parents, you know, a computer programmer and a musician.

• 50:26David Sims?

  And the artist.

• 50:27Griffin Newman?

  There's that incredible clip.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  In the Josh O'Connor.

• 50:29Griffin Newman?

  I mean, truly, it's one of them. It's, it's a communicator and a mathematician in this movie. Right?

• 50:35David Sims?

  And it's as he's confronting or thinking about what you're talking about of like, could empathy triumph? And how could this, you know, go over today? And he's picking a whatever DOD subcontractor, whatever Josh O'Connor is basically someone who got sucked into the deep state because he's good at math.

• 50:53Griffin Newman?

  Cause he was a hacker and it was the one way he was going to get his prison sentence.

• 50:57David Sims?

  Hack the planet. Obviously we all agree.

• 50:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:00David Sims?

  And then, and then she's, what is she? She's a weather girl. She's a, you know, local meteorologist. Yeah. She's a meteorologist, of course. But, you know, like she's a, you know, she's a media figure. She's a TV person. It's almost old fashioned at this point, but like, I don't need Spielberg making a movie about like an influencer anyway. You know what I mean? Like, I'm fine with him alighting on like, she's this kind of mainstream TV face.

• 51:22Griffin Newman?

  We're going right to the end in certain ways, but I think one of those moves that this movie makes that is so smart and is a move indicative of a Spielberg level of confidence and intelligence is that she breaks the story. And very quickly it gets transferred over to the actual like national network news.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was something, I'm sorry. A lot of my issues with this movie were like, yes, I am aware that I am watching a movie about aliens. So already there's a level of suspension of disbelief.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  But there were other things where I was just like, you know, like, kind of squinting and screaming, like, is something doesn't pass the smell test? Like, I haven't watched local news in years.

• 52:07David Sims?

  Same. I can't say I watch a lot of local news. Sure.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Do, do, like, the news people in Kansas City, report on what's going on in North Korea?

• 52:18David Sims?

  I mean, if nuclear war was about to break out, possibly. Yeah, I would think so.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  They don't just hand it over to the national news?

• 52:26Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, they're, they're competitive. I think it's both. And I, I think, I think this movie, you know, it's this other fascinating thing that you hear for years, and it's been more and more open secret lately, that like Steven Spielberg is obsessed with SNL and attends most tapings of SNL, and now has moved to New York. He is a New York resident.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  That was my first thought of why he moved to New York.

• 52:48David Sims?

  Best season.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  He's like, he was like, I can't keep doing the, like, weekly flights.

• 52:52Griffin Newman?

  I would hear that from people that he would fly in just, and he'd sit behind the monitor with, you know, the people who like work on SNL are like, it's weird. Spielberg's just always weird.

• 53:01David Sims?

  He said like the words Doja Cat, or whatever, right? You know what I mean? Like, if he's having to watch like current SNL.

• 53:07Griffin Newman?

  Also, why isn't he hosting?

• 53:09David Sims?

  He's been like, I love, you know, Anita, or whoever.

• 53:14Griffin Newman?

  Steve as Domingo's dad or some shit?

• 53:17David Sims?

  Didn't Cole, uh, didn't Domingo host SNL this year? He did an SNL, didn't he?

• 53:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Coleman Domingo. I meant Domingo, our favorite character.

• 53:25David Sims?

  So, the great character of Domingo?

• 53:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 53:27David Sims?

  Wait, did they address that on the Coleman Domingo episode?

• 53:30Griffin Newman?

  Didn't. Coleman Domingo was great in that episode.

• 53:32David Sims?

  I believe it.

• 53:32Griffin Newman?

  You know Coleman Domingo was a cast member of the Big Gay Sketch Show on Logo?

• 53:36David Sims?

  Uh, I did know that, of course. I know every single thing about the Big Gay. No, I didn't.

• 53:40Griffin Newman?

  Coleman Domingo is like a five pool player.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  I didn't know he had a comedy background.

• 53:43Griffin Newman?

  Every kind of experience you could possibly have as an actor. And it took him like 40 years to hit as one of our undeniable guys.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  I love him.

• 53:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes, McKinnon, yes.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  I love him in this movie.

• 53:52Griffin Newman?

  I think he's great in this film.

• 53:54David Sims?

  He's great. Of course, he's in Lincoln. I'm trying to think if he's.

• 53:57Griffin Newman?

  Right, he's got a small part in that.

• 53:58David Sims?

  He's like, he's like the first thing you see in Lincoln.

• 54:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  Is it David Oyelowo, too?

• 54:03Griffin Newman?

  He's also, yeah, in that opening battle.

• 54:05David Sims?

  I don't think he's worked with Spielberg since then.

• 54:09Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so. And since then, he has been nominated twice for Best Actor.

• 54:12David Sims?

  Yes. Um, once, I think.

• 54:16David Sims?

  You know, I think he kind of snuck in there. He's a great actor.

• 54:20Griffin Newman?

  The other one wildly deserving.

• 54:21David Sims?

  Very good.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  He's incredible in things.

• 54:23David Sims?

  Very good in Sing Sing. I did not love Rustin.

• 54:27Griffin Newman?

  I didn't either. That felt like a sort of.

• 54:30David Sims?

  It felt like a kind of you made it.

• 54:31Griffin Newman?

  The visitor.

• 54:32David Sims?

  Yeah. Kind of a, you know, better performance with Colin Firth in A Single Man back in the day where it's like, you know what? You've been around for a long time. You're a great actor. Here's a nom. And then the next year they're like, oh, you were even better in this thing.

• 54:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:44David Sims?

  Here you go.

• 54:45Griffin Newman?

  Colin Firth was the opposite arguably, but he's good in both of those films.

• 54:49David Sims?

  I think The Single Man's a silly movie.

• 54:51Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a silly movie. I think it's incredible performance.

• 54:53David Sims?

  He's good.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  I like that movie a lot.

• 54:56David Sims?

  Fucking bad. Oh my God. Tom Ford. He's got a new one coming.

• 55:00Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Very much looking forward to it.

• 55:03Griffin Newman?

  About like a guy who wears pants or something?

• 55:05David Sims?

  How fat women are disgusting.

• 55:08Griffin Newman?

  Remember he was gonna make The Whale with James Corden?

• 55:11David Sims?

  I do remember that.

• 55:11Griffin Newman?

  What? Yes.

• 55:12David Sims?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 55:13Griffin Newman?

  He had the rights option.

• 55:15David Sims?

  The UN intervened on that one.

• 55:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Honestly, I might have.

• 55:18Griffin Newman?

  Full disclosure on that one.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  I might have preferred that.

• 55:21Griffin Newman?

  Possibly.

• 55:22David Sims?

  You know what? I'll see it. I'll see it. I'll evaluate. Could it be better?

• 55:27Griffin Newman?

  Can I ask?

• 55:27David Sims?

  Please.

• 55:28Griffin Newman?

  What do you think that would look like?

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Wait, can you do it towards me so I can capture this?

• 55:36David Sims?

  Trying to do like a sort of a Corden face.

• 55:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:39David Sims?

  His new movie

• 55:43David Sims?

  is called Cry to Heaven.

• 55:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 55:45David Sims?

  And it's an adaptation of an Anne Rice book.

• 55:48Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 55:49David Sims?

  So I imagine it'll be rather sumptuous.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 55:52David Sims?

  Fun. Nicholas Holt.

• 55:54Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 55:55David Sims?

  Aaron Taylor Johnson. So, so far, former collaborators.

• 55:57Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of guys.

• 55:59David Sims?

  Adele.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 56:01David Sims?

  Kieran Hines.

• 56:02Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 56:03David Sims?

  George McKay, who I always like.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:05David Sims?

  Mark Strong.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 56:07David Sims?

  Colin Firth.

• 56:07Griffin Newman?

  Colin Firth.

• 56:09David Sims?

  Grabbing the.

• 56:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the stick.

• 56:11David Sims?

  Paul Bettany.

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  Our guy.

• 56:13David Sims?

  Hunter Schafer.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 56:15Griffin Newman?

  Love her.

• 56:15David Sims?

  Julianne Moore.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 56:17David Sims?

  A lot of his guys.

• 56:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Love that. Um, I, this is interesting. I didn't know that you were anti Tom Ford, David. I feel like that is because maybe you're not gay enough.

• 56:29David Sims?

  Uh, I don't think that's true. I'm gonna be honest with you. I really don't think that's the problem here. I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure that's not why I don't like his movies.

• 56:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna throw it out.

• 56:39David Sims?

  He's a pretentious asshole.

• 56:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna throw out a counter argument. Here's my counter take. His movies are not, not bad enough.

• 56:47David Sims?

  Yeah, I, I, both of his movies, they look pretty good and I kind of respect that about them, but they're pretty stupid. A, a single man is like, Firth kind of really convinces you it's a good movie.

• 56:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:58David Sims?

  And then when you kind of lay out the plot, you're like, this was a little silly.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  But it's so much just the Firth performance. It gets a lot further.

• 57:05David Sims?

  Nocturnal Animals truly was one of those classic.

• 57:07Griffin Newman?

  Not, not Dangerous Animals.

• 57:08David Sims?

  Yeah, like one of those things where I'm like, so he took a script written by an 11 year old, right? And then he cast like really good actors and, you know, got like, you know, got it looking really slick and fancy. But like, that is a really, really silly movie.

• 57:21Griffin Newman?

  Every time I bring this up, there are always nocturnal animal defenders who get mad at me. But when I, I think I saw that movie with Joe Reed, Reading Ray and Joe. And when I realized, oh, the structure of this movie is just gonna be Amy Adams where, reads a chapter of a manuscript.

• 57:36David Sims?

  Then something crazy happens.

• 57:37Griffin Newman?

  While wearing a cocktail dress and then it cuts to her going like, whoa. She makes a phone call. She gets a voicemail. She's like, hey, I read this crazy chapter. I just want to talk to you. Anyway, call me back. Reading glasses back on. Time for another chapter.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Sounds great. We love, we love women who read.

• 57:53David Sims?

  That's true. We do support literacy.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Just to get us a little bit back on the rails here.

• 57:58Griffin Newman?

  I want to talk about.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  That's giving me the thumbs up. Can I throw out a take and I want to get your read on it? I'm currently holding the photo of Mike Myers, uh, naked and Austin Powers.

• 58:09Griffin Newman?

  Looking pretty cut, actually.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Looking pretty cut.

• 58:12Griffin Newman?

  Deep V.

• 58:12David Sims?

  And we're getting back on track.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  We are getting back on track.

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  This is about Disclosure Day.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  My first thought, when I see Colin Firth in Disclosure Day with the beard, with the turtleneck.

• 58:23Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  I'm like, is this kind of the hottest he's ever been on screen?

• 58:26Griffin Newman?

  It's a good look.

• 58:27David Sims?

  I'm gonna go with no.

• 58:29Griffin Newman?

  When did you think?

• 58:30David Sims?

  Because I think Colin Farrell's been very handsome.

• 58:32Griffin Newman?

  Firth, Firth, Firth.

• 58:33David Sims?

  I think Colin Firth's been very handsome in a lot of movies. I think he's very handsome. And I guess we can't count Pride and Prejudice because that's not a movie.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  And I'm like, okay, maybe not ever, but like.

• 58:43Griffin Newman?

  It's a great look.

• 58:44David Sims?

  But like of late.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Of late.

• 58:46David Sims?

  Well, I was honestly kind of thinking like, where's Firth been? Because he's obviously very good in this movie because he's good at this kind of shit.

• 58:55Griffin Newman?

  And this is an installment of First Things First.

• 58:58David Sims?

  And I was just, and I was like, I know if I look it up, it's not like there'll be gaps. Like, I'm sure he works consistently and I'm sure there's some weird TV and stuff.

• 59:07Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, there is some weird TV in there.

• 59:10David Sims?

  And like, forgive me for forgetting about Empire of Light, you know, which was only a couple of years ago. And like, you know, he does a lot of British shit that barely makes it over here. Like movies called like Mothering Sunday or, you know, where you're kind of like, well, I assume that was fine.

• 59:26Griffin Newman?

  It's a real title, just so people know. That's not a thing that David made up.

• 59:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Griffin Newman?

  Love of Jobless.

• 59:30David Sims?

  But I feel like we've not been, you know, using our Firth well enough of late.

• 59:37Griffin Newman?

  It's a great take. I mean, just looking here, it's like, God, yeah. I mean, like Kingsman two, he is, you know, kind of the lead. But then you're like, he's in five movies in 2018.

• 59:52David Sims?

  The Happy Prince, in which he played Oscar Wilde's friend. That's Rupert Everett's Oscar Wilde.

• 1:00:00Griffin Newman?

  The Mercy.

• 1:00:00David Sims?

  The Mercy, where he's on a boat.

• 1:00:02Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:03David Sims?

  That was directed by James Marsh, who did Theory of Everything.

• 1:00:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06David Sims?

  Mommy, here we go again, obviously, you know.

• 1:00:09Griffin Newman?

  A small, smaller part.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Have you, have you guys seen Rylan?

• 1:00:13David Sims?

  Yeah, Rylan's.

• 1:00:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Rylan's good.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, he has a cameo in Rylan.

• 1:00:16David Sims?

  Tiny role, yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  As a tortilla chef at a Mexican restaurant called Love Guachuli.

• 1:00:20Griffin Newman?

  They crater, they credit him, crater him. They credit him as burrito maker.

• 1:00:24David Sims?

  Yes, it's very funny. That movie's really cute. If you want to see a picture of him in it, I will.

• 1:00:30Griffin Newman?

  But like Mary Poppins Returns, he's the villain that's kind of Thanekless, 1917, it's like an extended cameo.

• 1:00:35David Sims?

  I mean, this is kind of a better version of his Mary Poppins thing.

• 1:00:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38David Sims?

  Of kind of like, can you just come in and kind of go like, well, I don't know about that.

• 1:00:41Griffin Newman?

  Play against it.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  It's just very. Specifically, it's the amount of gray in his hair.

• 1:00:46David Sims?

  Operation Mince Meat was good fun.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48David Sims?

  That one's good fun.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  But is he hot in it?

• 1:00:50David Sims?

  Oh, no, no, I was just.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  This is what I'm talking about. Where Wendy shows up.

• 1:00:54David Sims?

  I mean, wait, wait, wait. He's not unhot. He looks, he looks lovely.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  But, but I'm just saying. I, the, the turtleneck, the beautiful lines of his, of his shoulder.

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  In the last Bridget.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  The grooming.

• 1:01:05Griffin Newman?

  No, I think it's a great look.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:01:07Griffin Newman?

  The last Bridget Jones, was he a ghost?

• 1:01:09David Sims?

  Yeah, he's dead. He's dead. He gets eaten by a fucking shark.

• 1:01:13Griffin Newman?

  If you're not considering like.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  He fell inside a whale.

• 1:01:16David Sims?

  Do you think he's hot in Fever Pitch way back when? A movie that was very formative for me as a child.

• 1:01:19Griffin Newman?

  I think he looks pretty doofy.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21David Sims?

  He's got this sort of like puffy hair.

• 1:01:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23David Sims?

  I mean, the idea is he's doofy?

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  There, but without the interesting bone structure.

• 1:01:28David Sims?

  Well, yeah, I was gonna say, Be Still My Heart. I mean, Sessa.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  I mean, yes, I, we're big, we're, we're big Sessa fans, but again, he's got like striking features and.

• 1:01:36David Sims?

  The, the idea of him in Fever Pitch was kind of like, yeah, he's a bit of a dork. Like he needs to clean up his act. Like, you know who's next in there in Fever Pitch?

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  Mark Strong.

• 1:01:44David Sims?

  Yeah, they're great.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  From the way back.

• 1:01:45Griffin Newman?

  If you discount what are basically cameos, Rileane, he's credited for Barbie where they reused footage. There's a documentary he narrated and Bridget Jones. He doesn't make a movie in between Empire of Light and Disclosure Day. What he does do in that time.

• 1:01:58David Sims?

  Some TV shows.

• 1:01:59Griffin Newman?

  The Staircase I Forgot About, the Antonio Campos.

• 1:02:01David Sims?

  It was pretty fun.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  I liked it. I thought he was good in it.

• 1:02:03Griffin Newman?

  Never watched it, obsessed with the documentary. He did something called Lockerbie, A Search for Truth.

• 1:02:08David Sims?

  That was a British, you know, Lockerbie is a very famous British, you know, a plane was blown up over Scotland.

• 1:02:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Over the town of Lockerbie.

• 1:02:16David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:17Griffin Newman?

  And then this is really important.

• 1:02:19David Sims?

  It's a big deal. What you're about to say.

• 1:02:21Griffin Newman?

  Plays Mycroft's employer, Sir Bucaphalus Hodge.

• 1:02:27David Sims?

  Bucaphalus, I believe.

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Bucaphalus Hodge in Young Sherlock, a Guy Ritchie, Amazon Prime original series that has no connection to the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes franchise. Guy Ritchie has two different Sherlock Holmes.

• 1:02:41David Sims?

  Yes, in which there's boxing in both, I think. And Hero Finds Tiffin played, uh, Young Sherlock.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna say that he shows up in Watson.

• 1:02:52Griffin Newman?

  No, Watson, unfortunately.

• 1:02:54David Sims?

  Watson! He plays his boss. Yeah, Watson's been canceled.

• 1:02:57Griffin Newman?

  It's been axed, but now Young Sherlock is here to pick up.

• 1:03:01David Sims?

  And now fucking Doctor Who's been axed like I'm like,

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Has it?

• 1:03:05David Sims?

  Britton's got it. Yeah.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  I thought they just were like, oh, we're just not bringing back and shooty got one. We're gonna start over.

• 1:03:10Griffin Newman?

  It's well, back to the starting board.

• 1:03:12David Sims?

  It's back to even right. You know, the, the last episode ended with him turning into Billy Piper. And then when everyone asked like, oh, so what's the plan there? They're like, yeah, we don't know. We just kind of filmed that and figured out.

• 1:03:23Griffin Newman?

  Placeholder.

• 1:03:24David Sims?

  Figure that out later.

• 1:03:25Griffin Newman?

  Next year.

• 1:03:25David Sims?

  And they're like, is she the next doctor? And they're like, maybe we're maybe it's possible.

• 1:03:30Griffin Newman?

  And Russell T Davies was supposed to stay on for many more years.

• 1:03:33David Sims?

  A hundred percent. And the fan backlash to that moment was so intense.

• 1:03:37Griffin Newman?

  They also clearly just didn't have anything.

• 1:03:39David Sims?

  And, and then of course, right. The lack of a plan was so apparent. And finally BBC was just like, I think we're gonna just like blank slate this. Like Doctor Who's sort of out to pasture right now. And if someone's got a pitch, let us know.

• 1:03:52Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about the most important thing here?

• 1:03:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Are we gonna get back to disclosure day?

• 1:03:56Griffin Newman?

  Is this Emily Blunt's best performance ever?

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  Uh, ooh.

• 1:03:59David Sims?

  Ever?

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Ever.

• 1:04:00Griffin Newman?

  Possible.

• 1:04:00David Sims?

  It's conversation. She's very good in the film. Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  She's phenomenal. I would, I immediately was like, okay, this is edge of tomorrow level.

• 1:04:09Griffin Newman?

  It's, I mean, that's the conversation. But for me, it's like.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  I haven't seen my Summer of Love.

• 1:04:14Griffin Newman?

  That's the other one. Those are the three.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Apparently she's quite amazing in, but I haven't seen it. So.

• 1:04:18Griffin Newman?

  And she's obviously like unbelievably good in Devil Wears Prada, but I'm giving those other three movies the advantage because she has more screen time.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  She, uh.

• 1:04:27David Sims?

  For me, it's all about pain hustlers. No, I don't.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  She totally blew me away. Like.

• 1:04:32David Sims?

  Yeah, she's really, really incredible in the movie.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  We got, we.

• 1:04:34David Sims?

  Little bit of a we take her for granted moment.

• 1:04:36Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  I, I have to address the elephant in the room, which is she's one of those actors who comes up a lot when you're talking about how.

• 1:04:46Griffin Newman?

  Everyone looks like a member of the Duracell family now.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Lots of cosmetic procedures have made actors, specifically actresses.

• 1:04:56David Sims?

  Struggle to emote because they don't have.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  They are less expressive.

• 1:04:59David Sims?

  Right. They don't have as.

• 1:05:00Griffin Newman?

  More and more leading men these days.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  That's why I was like, you know what? It's happening. It's happening to Gosling, you know?

• 1:05:06David Sims?

  Fucking Rosie O'Donnell, when she was like, everyone wants to see my face list. I'm like, yeah, it looks great. Like you look incredible. Yeah.

• 1:05:14Griffin Newman?

  I haven't seen her. She's looking good.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  She's great.

• 1:05:16David Sims?

  Great.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  She looks great.

• 1:05:17Griffin Newman?

  Congrats to Rosie.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  But I, I think, one, it works for the character.

• 1:05:22Griffin Newman?

  I agree. I was.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  That she is a.

• 1:05:25Griffin Newman?

  A meteorologist. She's someone on television.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:05:27Griffin Newman?

  When I saw the trailer.

• 1:05:28David Sims?

  It really fits the kind of like, uh, local news famous.

• 1:05:31Griffin Newman?

  I bought it.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  There is something so affect, like affecting about having someone who looks kind of plasticky.

• 1:05:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  End up being the most empathetic.

• 1:05:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Connector.

• 1:05:44Griffin Newman?

  And that you see her face ultimately, her, her emotions transferred to her muscles, break through all of the work she's had done.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Seen in this movie that took my breath away, and that is after a pretty crazy action set piece where they are in a car, where Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor are in a car chase, and then the car ends up hitting the side of a train, and then they get pulled along in the train, and then another train is coming in the opposite direction, and they have to like, get, they have to survive. And they end up like, climbing inside a train car at the last minute, and it is a train car full of like, pianos being delivered.

• 1:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  And she has a panic attack.

• 1:06:29Griffin Newman?

  It's really good.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Which, it, it was crazy to see a character have a really understandable human reaction to surviving an action set piece.

• 1:06:40Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  You never get that. And as she's, as Josh O'Connor is like, helping her breathe, and she's like, I can't feel my hands, I can't feel my hands. He's rubbing her hands against piano wires.

• 1:06:53Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  I was like, I, I, I was like, on the edge of my seat, like, when I'm like, I've had panic attacks.

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  Me too.

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Many times, and I'm like, this is the most accurate, like.

• 1:07:05Griffin Newman?

  It's a really hard thing to perform and not look hammy as hell. It's hard to not make it just feel like a ton of fucking business.

• 1:07:13David Sims?

  What I also liked about that scene before is just like the first minute of it, you're like, okay, what's happening now?

• 1:07:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:07:18David Sims?

  Like you had that thought like, well, she's got magic power.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Right, like what is something, is something happening to her alien ability?

• 1:07:24David Sims?

  And then you sort of settle, start to settle down with Josh, right? You know, as the viewer and you're kind of like, no, no, right. She's just having a human reaction, right? As Marie said.

• 1:07:33Griffin Newman?

  It also helps that the guy he hired to play the mathematician is naturally one of the most empathetic actors alive, is like the most sensitive bedside manner guy.

• 1:07:43David Sims?

  He's doing that Spielberg thing of like, he's the co-lead, but he's very much like, I am very happily the second lead, kind of the off-ball, like, you know, right? The emotional support character, because it starts with him and the actions invested in him, he stole the data, he's on the run.

• 1:08:00Griffin Newman?

  He's the snow guy.

• 1:08:00David Sims?

  Oh, he's the hero. And then as Emily Blunt's story unfolds, you're like, oh, she's kind of right.

• 1:08:05Griffin Newman?

  He's the conduit.

• 1:08:06David Sims?

  She's the alpha here.

• 1:08:06Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:08:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Should we start, should we start to talk about the plot?

• 1:08:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so an A W wrestler kicks in the camera. We see Josh O'Connor is at a match, he's with a backpack, he's trying to negotiate a handoff, but he's surrounded by government agents. Colin Firth does show up here, or is it all his underlings?

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  Colin Firth shows, he's there. He shows up in like the back alley.

• 1:08:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Eve Houston, who, if you don't know, is Bono's daughter.

• 1:08:32Griffin Newman?

  She sure is. Oh, okay.

• 1:08:33David Sims?

  I told you, Ben, but you didn't listen. Because whenever I talk about you two, this is what you hear.

• 1:08:40Griffin Newman?

  And you know what's funny?

• 1:08:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Griffin Newman?

  You know what's funny, Ben, is she actually, she's biologically Bono's daughter, but she wasn't conceived in the traditional sense. One day she just showed up on an iPod.

• 1:08:52David Sims?

  That's a pretty good joke.

• 1:08:53Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. I started thinking about it and I was like, I better not trip over this wording because I'm sitting on a fucking hot hand. Suddenly I got a royal flush. I just got to slap this thing down on the table.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  You know, she's, she's been acting for a while.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's phenomenal in The Nick, which was, I think, most people's first exposure to her.

• 1:09:11Griffin Newman?

  Bridge of spies, she's worked with Spielberg before.

• 1:09:14David Sims?

  She's one of the daughters being like, Dad, I got a date.

• 1:09:16Griffin Newman?

  She's the one who's got the boyfriend.

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  She's recently, well, she was on Bad Sisters on Apple TV. She was in Flora and Son, which is half a good.

• 1:09:25David Sims?

  Never saw that.

• 1:09:26Griffin Newman?

  Everyone liked her in that.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  She's great in it. It's half a good movie, all the parts with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it made me want to throw something at my screen, but she's great.

• 1:09:34Griffin Newman?

  Marie, you don't want to hear me play music? I just want to share my music with you.

• 1:09:38David Sims?

  I liked her.

• 1:09:39Griffin Newman?

  I wrote a song. And why don't I have a conversation about AI?

• 1:09:43David Sims?

  Why did I like her?

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  Wow, your, your joke left is really good.

• 1:09:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's my one good impression.

• 1:09:48David Sims?

  I don't really remember her in Jake Kelly.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  She plays the woman, the actress in the flashback.

• 1:09:54Griffin Newman?

  She's the one they fought over.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Griffin Newman?

  She's the one who left, uh, right.

• 1:09:58David Sims?

  Crude up.

• 1:09:59Griffin Newman?

  She's good in it. She's got that one big scene.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I think she's a good, she's definitely like a.

• 1:10:02Griffin Newman?

  I saw of the daughters, right? I think it's implied that she's the mother of the daughter.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 1:10:08Griffin Newman?

  Or at least one of them. I think.

• 1:10:09David Sims?

  Yeah, we watched Jake Kelly.

• 1:10:11Griffin Newman?

  I like Jake Kelly.

• 1:10:11David Sims?

  My guy. Yeah, he's a good movie. JK, remember who?

• 1:10:15Griffin Newman?

  That's a movie that.

• 1:10:15David Sims?

  Bring him back. What is it? This is like JK Kelly 2. It's on the schedule.

• 1:10:18Griffin Newman?

  It's not a perfect film, but I think that film's a lot darker and meaner than people think it is.

• 1:10:23David Sims?

  Hundred percent. The movie ends with him crying, saying, you fucked up, but.

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I enjoyed it. Okay, so back, back to the disclosure. Uh, Eve Hewson plays Jane, the girlfriend of Daniel, played by Josh O'Connor. And she has been, uh, held hostage. She uses a bargaining chip.

• 1:10:43David Sims?

  Yes, because he's stolen some.

• 1:10:45Griffin Newman?

  He's got an alien stick.

• 1:10:46David Sims?

  Right. He's stolen a bunch of data and an alien.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  We don't know what any, at this point in the movie, we don't know what the hell's going on. We just know that he's got a stick and you can't touch it with bare hands.

• 1:10:55Griffin Newman?

  He's gotta use a glove. They all go, you don't know how to operate that thing.

• 1:10:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:10:59Griffin Newman?

  And he tries to do this handoff and get her back to safety. And she basically is like, I just had to fucking survive being kidnapped because of you. I'm not leaving your fucking side. It is such a great Spielberg kind of setup to be like, here's a relationship that's at a bit of a crux point of is this about to get really serious or not? And now they're being tested in like a world altering event. And they're trying to use this event to establish better lines of communication, right? Like, it's basically a young couple being like, are we really gonna make this work or not?

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  They also, you realize that they don't really know anything about each other.

• 1:11:36Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  So she did not know that he was, she doesn't know any, why any of this is happening. She also didn't know that he was previously in jail.

• 1:11:44Griffin Newman?

  Didn't know that, she knew we had a mysterious government job.

• 1:11:47Speaker 02

  He didn't know that she was, uh, a novitiate. So she had spent the time to potentially become a nun.

• 1:11:54David Sims?

  What would you think if you're dating someone and they dropped that info? Like, I actually was almost none. I almost went none.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Honestly, I think it's kind of hot. Yeah.

• 1:12:04Griffin Newman?

  I think it depends on like, what's, what's your relationship to all of that today?

• 1:12:09David Sims?

  Uh, it's all true.

• 1:12:10Griffin Newman?

  Would be my first question.

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  But I think, you know, it's like, oh, most people who I know, like, are no, the whole, like, oh, I lost the calling thing. I'm like, nah, you wanted to have sex.

• 1:12:20David Sims?

  She says, we've had sex.

• 1:12:22Griffin Newman?

  It's a brutal, they're never going to overcome that in the marketing, right?

• 1:12:29Griffin Newman?

  The vow of chastity thing is just a horrible sell.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32David Sims?

  Sure. Well, I mean, but like, I mean, I really liked when Regina Hall, yes, Regina Hall, yes, was on Amy Poehler's podcast and she talked about how she almost became a nun.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Regina Hall almost became a nun?

• 1:12:45David Sims?

  I really recommend it. It's really funny.

• 1:12:47Griffin Newman?

  Amazing.

• 1:12:47David Sims?

  And she talks about how like, a lot of convents, not every convent, but a lot of convents, they guard against the like, we're not your backup. So if you're like 38, they sniff you out of like, hey, just because you're not happy with like, however, things have gone, you don't get to just like be a nun now. Like, you know, just kind of be like, well, I wanted to just live with you guys and who cares about dating or like, you know, having a job or whatever.

• 1:13:10Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of like a Saving Silverman situation, if that helps translate it, you know, where the, where the nuns can kind of sniff out, oh, you, you're not, you're avoiding something.

• 1:13:19David Sims?

  And then at one point Regina's like, and some of them, like, if you've had more than three sexual partners, which I don't know about you, Amy, but, and Amy's like, oh, I've, you know, and it's very funny.

• 1:13:28Griffin Newman?

  There's that moment where Amy Poehler goes, what was it like working with Leonardo DiCaprio? And she like scratches her eyelid and she goes, the problem is he's just very green.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did see that clip.

• 1:13:37Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't have a lot of experience.

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  Speaking of Regina Hall and Leonardo DiCaprio, I was thinking about One Battle After Another a lot during this movie.

• 1:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Beyond the run nature.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  Beyond the run nature, the alien sticks kind of look like the device, the music devices. There's a lot of, they hide out with nuns. There, there's a lot of like dodge, like car chases.

• 1:14:00Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  And so I was like, oh, okay.

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  It's cool.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  I know Spielberg liked One Battle.

• 1:14:06Griffin Newman?

  This movie has like four or five kind of classical set pieces that are like beautifully Spielberg.

• 1:14:12David Sims?

  Yeah, it's got some proper, you know, right, like blockbuster stuff.

• 1:14:16Griffin Newman?

  But they're not super long in a way where we've gotten so used to a creep of if a sequence starts.

• 1:14:21David Sims?

  It's gotta be like 20 minutes.

• 1:14:22Griffin Newman?

  20, truly. And I kept thinking like, I know your big takeaway, David, was like, it's so tender. I was surprised by how tender it was. I think was the word you used.

• 1:14:31David Sims?

  Tender, tender ass movie.

• 1:14:32Griffin Newman?

  And I was just like, it's, it's really like classical. It feels like really kind of like simple and focused in its own weird way down to like, oh, they're trying to like cross this train comes, it's clipping them. The train is being, the car is being dragged by the train and you're like, this is fun. Is it going to be 15 minutes? And you're like, no, it's four.

• 1:14:53David Sims?

  It's, it's pretty brief and it's, yeah. They, they handle it in a way that regular people at their absolute adrenaline limit might be able to handle it. And then they're really freaked out after.

• 1:15:04Griffin Newman?

  There's a.

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  They're not like, whoa, that was crazy. Anyway, you know, like.

• 1:15:07Griffin Newman?

  A car turns invisible and you're seeing the effects of water and stuff.

• 1:15:11David Sims?

  I really like.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  I like that too.

• 1:15:13David Sims?

  It's so 50s.

• 1:15:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, so is he gonna do 15 minutes of invisible car chase now? You're like, no, three.

• 1:15:19David Sims?

  Another day did. Another day handled that.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  It's so funny too, the physical comedy of it where they keep running into the invisible stuff.

• 1:15:27David Sims?

  I really enjoyed that.

• 1:15:28Griffin Newman?

  The guy falling into the window.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I loved it.

• 1:15:30Griffin Newman?

  It's that, but that's Spielberg tonal management.

• 1:15:32David Sims?

  Can I tell you?

• 1:15:33Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:15:34David Sims?

  Just derailing the pod here, but I just want to tell you the four winners of this year's honorary Oscars.

• 1:15:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  Were they just announced?

• 1:15:42David Sims?

  Just announced.

• 1:15:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Did Harrison Ford get it?

• 1:15:44David Sims?

  No.

• 1:15:45Griffin Newman?

  Can you give us the, can you give us the categories of profession?

• 1:15:47David Sims?

  First, okay, she just guessed one of them.

• 1:15:49Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  They're finally giving Glenn the award.

• 1:15:52Griffin Newman?

  It's a little rude to Glenn. It's actually a little rude.

• 1:15:54David Sims?

  Show up in November.

• 1:15:56Griffin Newman?

  It's maybe the meanest thing anyone has ever done to her.

• 1:15:58David Sims?

  She's not gonna win a competitive Oscar or she will in the classic like, well, now that we gave you an honorary, the Paul Newman.

• 1:16:05Griffin Newman?

  I threw out to Marie, is there any chance that there's a stealth candidate in Sunrise on the Reaping?

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I was like, I don't think she's probably in it enough.

• 1:16:13David Sims?

  And my whole thing is like, she was really good in the fucking Wake Up Dead, man.

• 1:16:17Griffin Newman?

  And they just didn't.

• 1:16:18David Sims?

  You know, they didn't even try. Cause it's kind of like, all right, so Glenn Close is one.

• 1:16:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:16:22David Sims?

  Another is a producing team.

• 1:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Is it Kennedy and Marshall?

• 1:16:26David Sims?

  No, you probably won't get indie producers, legendary indie producers.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  Christine Vashon?

• 1:16:32David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Oh!

• 1:16:33David Sims?

  And Pam Winkler.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  Pam Winkler, oh, that's awesome. Oh, that makes me so happy.

• 1:16:38David Sims?

  Another is a very, very esteemed workaholic director who's still working even though he's old and he's a bit of a grump and he has no competitive Oscar. Similar, similar to Glenn Close.

• 1:16:48Griffin Newman?

  But a lot of nominations.

• 1:16:49David Sims?

  I can't believe he doesn't have an Oscar, yes.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  Ridley Scott.

• 1:16:51David Sims?

  Ridley Scott.

• 1:16:52Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:16:53David Sims?

  And I'm sure his speech will be sunshiny.

• 1:16:55Griffin Newman?

  Well, the problem is they're gonna have Grover present the award to him and get his order wrong. David's doing the face.

• 1:17:02David Sims?

  The fourth, I think, might excite you, Griffin Newman, because it's an animator.

• 1:17:07Griffin Newman?

  It's an animator?

• 1:17:08David Sims?

  An animator. He makes the cartoons.

• 1:17:12Griffin Newman?

  Feature films?

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Don Bluth.

• 1:17:14David Sims?

  No.

• 1:17:14Griffin Newman?

  Don Bluth, what's, what medium of animation is this?

• 1:17:17David Sims?

  He worked at Disney for very many years and he's worked at Hanna-Barbera and

• 1:17:22Griffin Newman?

  Is it Glenn Keane?

• 1:17:23David Sims?

  Pixar, no. He's also a pioneer in his field, an African American animator.

• 1:17:29Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, it's Floyd Norman?

• 1:17:30David Sims?

  Floyd Norman.

• 1:17:31Griffin Newman?

  A legend.

• 1:17:32David Sims?

  Ninety years old.

• 1:17:32Griffin Newman?

  A legend. Worked on Toy Story 2.

• 1:17:34David Sims?

  Yes, but also worked on like, you know, Sleeping Beauty or whatever.

• 1:17:38Griffin Newman?

  He's a bit of a Forrest Gump in animation. That's a very cool, that's a very cool one.

• 1:17:42David Sims?

  It's a good four.

• 1:17:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:44David Sims?

  Or five.

• 1:17:44Griffin Newman?

  Marie just had a really funny reaction, which is I pulled the name Floyd Norman and she looked stunned that I could know a name of someone that obscure. And then I saw her face settle into like, if he doesn't know that, then who is he?

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, kind of.

• 1:17:56Griffin Newman?

  That was the arc. You were like, how did you pull that? Well, right, you're fucking you. That's the shit in your brain. Floyd Norman, that's awesome.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Really excited to learn about this guy.

• 1:18:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's a really cool guy. I think he's written a book. He might have been the first African American animator at Disney.

• 1:18:10David Sims?

  It's something, you know.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  He worked on Sleep, he was a cleanup artist on Sleeping Beauty.

• 1:18:14Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's, he's been everywhere.

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  But also like Alvin and the Chipmunks in the eighties and Robot Chicken? That's so fucking cool.

• 1:18:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was like when they, when Pixar got big enough that they needed to hire more animators. It was such a big deal that it was like, we can get Floyd Norman. And I think he worked on like two or three at that point in time.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  Disclosure day.

• 1:18:33Griffin Newman?

  Disclosure day.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  Okay. So Josh and Eve.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Escape.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  And then we got to talk about our introduction to Emily Blunt.

• 1:18:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  That's where it's kind of taking us. So they escape and they hide out in a convent. We now jump over to meeting Emily Blunt.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  So her and her boyfriend.

• 1:18:50Griffin Newman?

  Played by.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Wyatt Russell.

• 1:18:51Griffin Newman?

  David's boyfriend.

• 1:18:52David Sims?

  Uh. I see mine. I mean, I do love the guy. Yeah, he's great.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  He's great. They're hanging out in their cool loft in Kansas City, Missouri.

• 1:19:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  And she is.

• 1:19:03David Sims?

  I'd be a royal season ticket holder. It'd be fun.

• 1:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Hmm. That sounds like it'd make the movie a lot more interesting.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say.

• 1:19:09Griffin Newman?

  If you were this character and you had season tickets.

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  Has anyone here ever been to Kansas?

• 1:19:13David Sims?

  No, never been to Kansas. Uh, Norman to Kansas City of Missouri.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  My, my Aunt Dawn and Uncle, Uncle Ken, uh, moved out there for a bit and I went to visit them as a child. A lot of fun, like art museums and stuff for kids there.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  Kind of like an underrated art city.

• 1:19:26David Sims?

  I'd like to go. I want to go to Kaufman Stadium before it closes. I want to get some of that BBQ. I think they got a big old zoo and aquarium. Like, I think they got some cool stuff.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right, because they have their own BBQ. Which is it like, it's a rub?

• 1:19:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Uh, less saucy based?

• 1:19:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Friend of the show, past and future guest, Heidi Gardner.

• 1:19:44David Sims?

  Oh, no, has a fix.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. She's, and she has like a house there.

• 1:19:48Griffin Newman?

  But, but invest a lot into the community and, and has a lot of cool projects in particular, uh, coming up.

• 1:19:53Speaker 02

  Shout out to Kansas.

• 1:19:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  Um, but Emily Blunt.

• 1:19:56David Sims?

  Why didn't you ask him? He's the barbecue guy.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck, Ben.

• 1:19:59Griffin Newman?

  That's not my school.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  How did you not pick that up?

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  What's your school?

• 1:20:02Griffin Newman?

  What's my school? Low and slow.

• 1:20:14Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:20:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:20:21David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:21Griffin 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?

• 1:20:32David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 years later, a reel of 16mm film discovered in a safe changes everything.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:20:43Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:20:56David Sims?

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

• 1:21:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:21:17David Sims?

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

• 1:21:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:21:20David Sims?

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

• 1:21:27Griffin 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.

• 1:21:41David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:21:46David Sims?

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

• 1:22:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:22:18Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:22:19David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:22:19Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:22:23David Sims?

  When I was younger, 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.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:22:36David 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?

• 1:22:50Griffin Newman?

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• 1:22:52David Sims?

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

• 1:22:57Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:22:58David Sims?

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• 1:23:12Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free!

• 1:23:12David Sims?

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

• 1:23:28Speaker 04

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

• 1:23:48Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:23:49David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:23:49Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more. That is an all-star cast.

• 1:24:10David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and Killing testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 1:24:30Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 1:24:46David Sims?

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

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  Emily Blunt, she is a meteorologist. She wants to be a serious news reporter.

• 1:25:28Griffin Newman?

  She's trying to get that break. I like this couple.

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's, he seems to be, Wyatt Russell seems to be like a little laid back.

• 1:25:35Griffin Newman?

  Slacker musician, younger dude.

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  She witnesses a cardinal.

• 1:25:41Griffin Newman?

  Lands on their open window.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  Comes in the room.

• 1:25:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  And then all of a sudden she starts speaking in Russian.

• 1:25:47Griffin Newman?

  This scene rolls.

• 1:25:48David Sims?

  It's a really cool scene.

• 1:25:49Griffin Newman?

  Our buddy Sean Fantasy was talking on Big Picture about the end of Oak Street coming out.

• 1:25:56David Sims?

  Yeah, the David Robert Mitchell.

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  I kind of think that looks good.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  I think it looks awesome.

• 1:26:00Speaker 02

  Okay, cool.

• 1:26:01Griffin Newman?

  And he was talking about his optimism for that movie. And he put his finger on a thing that I've, I've felt for a long time and I've never been able to verbalize, but like, he's like, my single favorite thing in the movie is the best feeling I can have is that sort of extended Twilight Zone thing of where is this going? Like, pieces are being laid out and I don't understand how they fit together. And even if a movie sticks the landing and satisfies me with the answers, he was like, there's no feeling I like more than being in the middle of a movie like that.

• 1:26:29David Sims?

  Totally.

• 1:26:29Griffin Newman?

  And this movie is so good at doing this shit where like, why is suddenly everyone reacting really weird to this bird? The movie gets really quiet. The John Williams score in this film is excellent.

• 1:26:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:41Griffin Newman?

  Barely kicks in until the second hour.

• 1:26:43David Sims?

  But it is a very good score.

• 1:26:44Griffin Newman?

  The first hour is kind of silent.

• 1:26:46David Sims?

  You know, after, you know, like his post score is so minimal.

• 1:26:51Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:26:51David Sims?

  Right? And it's sort of like, and. Didn't he not do, obviously West Side Story, like?

• 1:26:56Griffin Newman?

  He did Dial of Destiny, which-

• 1:26:58David Sims?

  That score, as I've said-

• 1:26:59Griffin Newman?

  Fucking rules, X and the Rocks.

• 1:27:00David Sims?

  Yeah, but that wasn't for Spielberg, but I'm like, did he do, I mean, his Fableman score, I just kind of remember being like, lovely.

• 1:27:06Griffin Newman?

  I think it's really lovely.

• 1:27:07David Sims?

  Um, but not like, I don't like, I can't summon any themes from it or like, you know, not like sticky in my head. And I was like, I wonder if he's just kind of moved to this, you know? Right. Like, he does softer, quieter stuff. This requires a little more.

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  It felt, it felt like the, I felt the jazz slash atonal-

• 1:27:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  Sort of stuff come, which-

• 1:27:26Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:27:26Speaker 02

  I have always appreciated about, about him. Um.

• 1:27:30Griffin Newman?

  But this moment with the cardinal landing, you could imagine a version of it in which the Williams score starts swelling already and the camera pushes in on the face of wonder. And instead, everything is just kind of slow and eerie and quiet. And then this moment of her speaking Russian goes on way longer than you'd think.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  They also, like, okay, so to talk a little bit about the trailers for this movie, they revealed that she does the speaking in a weird alien dialect.

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  That was the first trailer, which was otherwise pretty vague, but was built around the set piece of-

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  Did, I had, I, that might've been the only trailer I saw. Did they show her speaking other languages?

• 1:28:06Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:28:07Speaker 02

  Like that to me, I was like, oh.

• 1:28:09Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:28:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:10Griffin Newman?

  And, you know, that, that, the scene of her speaking in the alien language while live on air recalls so many videos that tend to go viral now of like, local newscaster has stroke.

• 1:28:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Griffin Newman?

  That are always so strange and odd to watch.

• 1:28:26David Sims?

  Right. Yes. Like, we found, there's an odd, and it's like, it's not even so much that you're watching someone suffer, but it's kind of like, watch reality break.

• 1:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:35David Sims?

  Right? Like, watch everything just be normal and then not normal. You know, like, yes.

• 1:28:40Griffin Newman?

  I think it has to be inspired by that. And I even wonder if that was the starting point for this character being a broadcaster. But the things that are so strange about those moments is not just that reality is breaking, but it's people who are so trained and polished and composed. And you see their survival instincts kicking in where they're still kind of like- Carrying themselves correctly, but what they're saying no longer makes sense. And so we know that moment's coming because it's in the trailer. She starts speaking Russian, which is this other thing you hear that sometimes people have these bizarre medical side effects where they wake up and they're fluent in another language, or they start speaking tongues or whatever it is. And the scene's just very odd. She gets in her car to drive to work.

• 1:29:22Griffin Newman?

  She's running behind, a cop pulls her over and then she does this fucking emotional reading of him. You're, you're trying to arrest me because you got in a fight with her and she knows every specific detail. And for a second you're like, is this this character sort of like party trick? That she's learned how to read people and she doesn't know it for a fact.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  A mentalist thing, right?

• 1:29:42Griffin Newman?

  But she's getting close enough. Yes. And instead she like is shaken by it. What just came out of me? And then she goes into her workplace and starts the broadcast and.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  Well, first she starts speaking to someone in Korean.

• 1:29:56Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right. There's, there's a Korean war that's, uh, we're on the brink of, and they have a Korean guest who's speaking as an expert and they're having trouble with the translator. And she jumps in and like clarifies everything. And everyone's like, since when do you know Korean? She's like, what are you talking about? I don't know Korean. All this is fascinating where you're like, you're watching Emily Blunt pivot so fast to do things hyper competently and then immediately have no memory of what she just did or understanding of how it came off.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's not that she's hearing it as English.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  She doesn't know she's doing anything weird.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's not like forgetting.

• 1:30:31David Sims?

  It's similar to later when Josh O'Connor is like, I know what she said. And everyone's like, no one knows what she said.

• 1:30:36Griffin Newman?

  They've been given the codex.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  The way that information is revealed in the movie is, I think is really cool. Because like, we don't learn that Josh O'Connor is someone who has also had an alien encounter until further in the film. We don't learn that he was able to understand her alien language on the TV broadcasts until a little later. Um, and we also, the way that they reveal that this stuff, like, I think I assumed that Emily Blunt always had this power, especially when she's like talking to. The police officer.

• 1:31:16David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  But then to realize that it just came on.

• 1:31:19David Sims?

  I think the cardinal activated it.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:22David Sims?

  The cardinal is, I mean, I had really avoided any advertising for this movie. I didn't watch the full trailer, but I'd obviously seen the teaser a couple of times.

• 1:31:30Griffin Newman?

  The full trailer also literally dropped while we were in the screening and I watched it afterwards.

• 1:31:35David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:35Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, there are 10 things in this trailer that I never would have put in the marketing in a way that bummed me out.

• 1:31:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:42Griffin Newman?

  Whereas the early stuff was vague.

• 1:31:44David Sims?

  You're trying to get people in.

• 1:31:46Griffin Newman?

  I get it.

• 1:31:46David Sims?

  And that early trailer was heavy on the animal stuff, almost to the point of abstraction where you're just kind of like, is this movie about, I mean, I get that it's aliens or something, but like, is this movie about like animals being in league with aliens or something?

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  It's not just the animals, it's the shot of the, the home that looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

• 1:32:06David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  And everyone's like, the fuck is this? Like.

• 1:32:08Griffin Newman?

  There were CGI complaints.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Griffin Newman?

  It makes sense in the context of the movie, the way the scene plays out, but it's somewhere around this concurrently, we've set up that Colin Firth is the head of the agency. Everyone's gone into sort of crisis.

• 1:32:21David Sims?

  War deck.

• 1:32:22Griffin Newman?

  War deck.

• 1:32:23David Sims?

  War deck is in crisis mode because stuff's been stolen and people who work for it are missing.

• 1:32:29Griffin Newman?

  And in particular, Coleman Domingo, a manager.

• 1:32:32David Sims?

  High up is missing Hugo.

• 1:32:34Griffin Newman?

  And he's a guy on a headset. He is basically has the air of a stage manager.

• 1:32:38David Sims?

  Right. He's literally in a warehouse and they're making something.

• 1:32:41Griffin Newman?

  They're building a set around him and he's sort of talking to Josh O'Connor and saying like, you know, follow the plan.

• 1:32:46David Sims?

  It'll be okay. Everything's going to be okay.

• 1:32:49Griffin Newman?

  I love this guy.

• 1:32:49David Sims?

  It's going to be all right. You're just gonna make it happen.

• 1:32:52Speaker 02

  It's also a very fun subversion to have his character be so like warm and chill versus like, we need to hear ASAP. Like, you know?

• 1:33:02David Sims?

  You have to go.

• 1:33:03Speaker 02

  So often man on phone is like, really like, like kind of riling up the tension. And this every time he's like, it's okay.

• 1:33:14Griffin Newman?

  This is the first place I felt the manifestation of 50 years of Steven Spielberg studying SNL. Cause like Heidi is one of the people who would tell me about him coming to visit. And I'd go like, so what does he do? And she said, he just is obsessed with how the show gets made. He loves just watching it come together and the stuff you can't see unless you're in the studio during the commercial breaks, how calmly people construct a set out of nowhere. Right? All these sets are like in slats that have to be rebuilt and dressed in like 90 seconds.

• 1:33:45David Sims?

  No, obviously it's been much covered over the years, but the way that SNL is made is crazy.

• 1:33:50Griffin Newman?

  Insane. And he loves the dance of that and he loves the hyper professionalism of that. And it certainly manifests in the final, final sequence, which we'll get to. But I, everything about Hugo felt very, this is like SNL AD. You know, this is floor manager. This is just watching the team just do everything very calmly and be like, it'll get done.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  And like at this time Hugo and Daniel are in contact with each other, but Emily Blunt is kind of on her own.

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  You don't know how she's connected.

• 1:34:19Speaker 02

  Um, and then so Hugo and his employees get Josh and Eve to a safe house, which is like a farmhouse. And then we learn what the stick, the alien stick does.

• 1:34:34David Sims?

  Sort of. I feel like the impression is it actually probably does more stuff.

• 1:34:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:34:39David Sims?

  This is just a thing it can do.

• 1:34:40Griffin Newman?

  They've figured it out. Yeah.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  But it seems to, all the alien stuff seems to kind of amount to sort of an empathic power of like, they can kind of see in your head or talk to you in your head, right? This sort of classic gray, big head thing of like, maybe they're telepathic, like, right? You know?

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's psychic abilities.

• 1:34:58David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:34:59Griffin Newman?

  But that's what makes them more powerful than us is that they've cracked empathy.

• 1:35:02David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 1:35:03Griffin Newman?

  At a time where we've become more divided.

• 1:35:05David Sims?

  And like the stick is maybe like an amplifier, like a radio antenna that just kind of like zaps your brain to a thousand.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, Colin first will hold the stick and he'll look at a photo of someone.

• 1:35:17David Sims?

  They call it diving.

• 1:35:18Speaker 02

  And then he can kind of present in their like personal space and talk to them, but no one else can see them. So it's kind of like, I guess it's just like they're, you're, he's in their heads.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  They also make it clear that Coleman Domingo was the main one who operated the. That it's like a high skill level thing.

• 1:35:35David Sims?

  And common problem, you sort of get the idea is like, is a more empathetic person.

• 1:35:40Griffin Newman?

  Innately.

• 1:35:40David Sims?

  So he's probably better at it.

• 1:35:41Griffin Newman?

  He's innately more empathetic, but also by wielding this, he has now learned more. He has absorbed their feelings, their message has gotten through to him, and that's why he has basically become radicalized of we gotta open the doors, we gotta let everyone know.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  So they're explaining the stick, but they're also setting up with the videos of really why.

• 1:36:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  They're forming this resistance.

• 1:36:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Which is that this company, this private company has been torturing aliens.

• 1:36:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:10David Sims?

  And look, I think, I think David Kep and Spielberg are smart about is like, we're gonna do the classic conspiracy theory. It's gonna be the basics that even an audience member who doesn't care about this stuff might know. Just to sort of lay out what we kind of learned is like, there's definitely was like a crash. Area 51 definitely is a place where alien stuff is.

• 1:36:29Griffin Newman?

  Richard Nixon brought fucking Jackie Gleason there.

• 1:36:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33David Sims?

  Richard Nixon maybe brought Jackie Gleason there to see an alien because he was drunk and was like, wanna see an alien?

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  That like.

• 1:36:38David Sims?

  That's a conspiracy theory.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:36:40David Sims?

  Yeah, totally. That Nixon would get drunk and be like, get the alien box out. I wanna look at it, you know, or whatever. That, and that like, there's a company or a subcontractor in the DOD that has basically, Men in Black style, moved beyond governmental control by making money off of like patenting tech.

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 1:37:00David Sims?

  Right? Like, that's how they do it.

• 1:37:02Speaker 02

  The first thing that comes up.

• 1:37:03David Sims?

  Can even tell them what they're, you know, what to do anymore.

• 1:37:05Speaker 02

  When I Googled Nixon, Jackie Gleason UFO is a clip from the Joe Rogan experience.

• 1:37:11Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:37:12Griffin Newman?

  Good. I thought Joe Rogan was very good in this movie, by the way. And no one's really used him as an actor this well since Zookeeper, maybe?

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  Is he?

• 1:37:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he is. He plays the villain. He's actually incredibly bad. It feels like he won a contest or lost a contest and was forced to be in the movie.

• 1:37:27David Sims?

  When you look up what's called the disclosure movement, which is people who believe, you know, this is government covering up for aliens. I sent this to the big, you know, to the news and deals thread.

• 1:37:38Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:37:39David Sims?

  You know, this is the first guy pictured.

• 1:37:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:42David Sims?

  On Wikipedia.

• 1:37:42Griffin Newman?

  And I believe Chris Ryan said, this looks like a guy who runs a boutique physical media website out of his garage. And I think I said blood discs.shop app.

• 1:37:53Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think he looks more like a Pawn Stars kinda guy.

• 1:37:56David Sims?

  Right, right. Kind of like, I can give you 22,000, you know, like, yeah, that kind of guy.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  These things aren't mutually exclusive, Marie. Guys, guys buying pallets of discs from Europe and also he's doing some pawning on the side.

• 1:38:07David Sims?

  And, and you know, and Sean and Chris or Sean and Alex are, we're like, oh yeah, that guy's like the star of the documentary.

• 1:38:13Griffin Newman?

  Age of Disclosure.

• 1:38:14David Sims?

  Age of Disclosure.

• 1:38:15Griffin Newman?

  Which got very big on Amazon a year or two ago.

• 1:38:17David Sims?

  He's a guy who worked at the DOD and is basically like, well, I know people who knew things.

• 1:38:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:38:24David Sims?

  Because as much again, as I was like, well, stuff's been disclosed, like the big hearing that Congress had, a couple of people testified where they're like, well, someone I worked with told me that they saw an alien. You know, there was never the compelling thing. It was more just hearsay, kinda indirect testimony. Nobody sat down and was like, I worked at the Department of Defense and my job was cover up aliens. And I'm going to admit it now.

• 1:38:48Griffin Newman?

  And I dapped up an alien and it was chill as hell.

• 1:38:51David Sims?

  Right. And when I touched his skin, I got powers and I saw rainbows.

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  I saw new colors.

• 1:38:57David Sims?

  Reticuli or whatever.

• 1:38:59Griffin Newman?

  I, I think another thing this movie is doing is yes.

• 1:39:02David Sims?

  So I think, yes, this movie's playing in that pool.

• 1:39:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:04David Sims?

  And it's a bit of a pool where when you, yeah, it's a Joe Rogan-y pool.

• 1:39:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a Joe Rogan-y pool.

• 1:39:09David Sims?

  Cause Joe Rogan loves that shit.

• 1:39:09Griffin Newman?

  If, is there too much money at stake? And then you have what feels very Spielbergian for some people might be a little too corny. And I bought that, cause I felt like they did just the right amount. The idea that this, all of this behavior was justified by a sense of self-preservation or defensiveness that then has sort of justified perhaps advanced interrogation techniques and such. But also there's so much money at stake that they're continuing to justify all of their reasoning while also hiding behind this, it's for the good of the people.

• 1:39:43David Sims?

  That's the thing. Right.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky animals and you know it.

• 1:39:48David Sims?

  Others would just kinda be like, okay.

• 1:39:51Griffin Newman?

  I'd dap them and I'd say, thanks God.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  I'd be like, oh my God, this is incredible. Life is magical.

• 1:39:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:57Speaker 01

  The universe is incredible.

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  I'm trying to think of like, what it would take for me to believe it. I'd either have to like.

• 1:40:05David Sims?

  So this is the big question, right? Would it work on you? The disclosure.

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  I'd have to like meet an alien face to face.

• 1:40:10David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  Or it would have to be like a like legitimate press conference, like Obama saying, we killed Osama, but just not Trump.

• 1:40:21David Sims?

  That's the problem.

• 1:40:21Speaker 02

  Someone else walking out and being like.

• 1:40:23Griffin Newman?

  If any of it happens during the Trump administration, then I don't believe it. Here's, here's what it would take for me.

• 1:40:28David Sims?

  Okay, go ahead. And then I have a thought.

• 1:40:29Griffin Newman?

  LGBT absolutely eating its snatch game.

• 1:40:36Griffin Newman?

  Like he comes out like Wayland Flowers in Madam.

• 1:40:40Griffin Newman?

  At the Tony.

• 1:40:40David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, just where would LGBT be?

• 1:40:43Griffin Newman?

  Host the Tonys.

• 1:40:43David Sims?

  Right, you know, like.

• 1:40:44Speaker 02

  I thought Pink did a great job.

• 1:40:46Griffin Newman?

  I didn't watch.

• 1:40:47David Sims?

  I, I also, it was one of those things where women and I was like, why is Pink hosting that? And I was like, well, you know what? She's a board entertainer. She's doing well.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I were seeing Zodiac with a friend of the show, Leslie Hadland. We were hooting and hollering. We were having a grand old time.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  Do you think we will, uh, we will find the Zodiac killer? Or like believable evidence of aliens?

• 1:41:11Griffin Newman?

  Well, it was virtually Alan and we all know this.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Those knives in his car were for a chicken he killed for dinner.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  Doesn't the, the, the DNA not match on the post?

• 1:41:23David Sims?

  Who cares?

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  David, what were you gonna say?

• 1:41:25David Sims?

  So, um, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but right, like the end of the movie, which will, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll discuss things we're missing, but you know, like, yes, they show a bunch of clips and you could kind of explain away clips. But then the movie is ending with them pointing a camera at an alien who is then looking down the lens going, listen to me, I am an alien. I think that would really, would start to move the needle a little bit.

• 1:41:49Griffin Newman?

  There's just so much footage that is ultimately revealed here.

• 1:41:52David Sims?

  But then, right, I've, I've already debated this with some people where they're like, oh, I don't think, you know, in this age of no one believes anything in AI and Trump. And I'm like, right, but people believe that things are getting covered up. Like, why would they not believe that it's like, hey, it's true?

• 1:42:06Griffin Newman?

  This is one of the things that Fielder is like setting for himself as a challenge is, what could you do that actually would grab everyone's attention?

• 1:42:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:42:15Griffin Newman?

  And hold everyone together.

• 1:42:16David Sims?

  Make a movie about a guy who snaps a twig to have a girl like him.

• 1:42:19Griffin Newman?

  One wish, Willow.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  Is there, is there something happening where Emily Blunt is using her like?

• 1:42:27David Sims?

  Her empathetic powers.

• 1:42:28Speaker 02

  Empathy to then make everyone?

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  Like to connect with everyone over the airwaves.

• 1:42:34David Sims?

  A little metaphorical more than actual.

• 1:42:37Griffin Newman?

  I think it's not like she's sending the vibes through the TV.

• 1:42:39David Sims?

  She can definitely like read the alien, you know, and kind of translate.

• 1:42:43Speaker 02

  It's just the thing where I'm like, oh, this is a moment where every like he shows like people on the subway, on their phones, people, they've stopped walking. They are just all glued. And I'm like, I don't know.

• 1:42:55David Sims?

  No.

• 1:42:55Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:42:56David Sims?

  Alien?

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  You don't know what?

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  I buy it.

• 1:42:58Griffin Newman?

  But this is the moment.

• 1:42:59Speaker 02

  I'd be like, oh, there's someone on like a Kansas City news channel is talking about aliens.

• 1:43:04Griffin Newman?

  The movie's gonna live or die on this. I a hundred percent believe that if I was on the subway and like I, I could see the moment where like someone's phone pings and another person's phone pings. And then everyone in the car is like, are you seeing this? There have been moments like this and this would be the biggest one that had ever happened in the history of humanity.

• 1:43:22David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 1:43:23Griffin Newman?

  I, by the way, it plays out down to even just the transferring of like, oh no, this is getting bumped up to the nightly news. This is no longer Emily Blunt's broadcast. She breaks the story. This woman I think is so fucking good who plays the newscaster at the end.

• 1:43:37David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, she is really good. The one, the newscaster, she's having to play like, I don't know what's going on.

• 1:43:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm processing this in real time.

• 1:43:44Speaker 02

  Would you, would you cry?

• 1:43:47David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

• 1:43:48Griffin Newman?

  I kind of think so. I got choked up watching this film when that happens.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  I got choked. I didn't get choke up choked up during the disclosure part. I got choked up during the, uh, when they're in the house.

• 1:44:01Griffin Newman?

  Um, which, oh, the two things, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:05David Sims?

  What happens?

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  Uh, and so it's, uh, oh, wait, before we get there, we just have to acknowledge another thing, which is that, uh, Eve Hewson has been at one point is taken over by, uh, Colin Firth's directives to she needs to eliminate.

• 1:44:22Griffin Newman?

  He's trying to jump in her brain and get her to.

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  Basically kill her boyfriend, Josh O'Connor.

• 1:44:27Griffin Newman?

  And she's, she's, she is, this is, this is why I wasn't bumping on this is that. There's, the movie's a dangerous risk of getting into can faith overcome all? But I think you can read it more literally, that it's not that like the power of Jesus is stopping the alien technology from being used in a bad way. It's that like, the way she is squeezing the, the cross necklace and causing like, you know, pain in her hand and actual like lacerations is like, the, the literalization of how she applies her beliefs to be able to guide her through situations, not the inherent power of those beliefs, if that makes any sense? That was the distinction for me.

• 1:45:12Griffin Newman?

  And it's down to the fact that she's causing herself pain, right? That it's not a self punishment thing as a sacrifice. It's that like, the idea of the cross doesn't really do anything. It's what you apply it to that is made manifest then. But she basically, yes, is like using a tremendous amount of willpower to stop Colin Firth from making her kill him.

• 1:45:35Speaker 02

  And there are a lot of cool shots with like reflections and a knife.

• 1:45:38Griffin Newman?

  And it gets into then, right, them needing to like evolve their level of communication, their relationship where she's like, I don't trust me, tie me up. I should be withheld or yeah, restrained. And I, I love the bit of him and the, they go to like a random hotel and he immediately tries to find every single item in the hotel that has the name or the address because he's like her eyes are a transmission device.

• 1:46:03David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. It's really cool. How does he eventually, he like moves something?

• 1:46:08Speaker 02

  It's, he's holding the, um.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  Stick.

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  The, the one wish Willow.

• 1:46:12David Sims?

  The diving stick.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  Oh, no. He's holding a piece of paper that he wrote down.

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:16Speaker 02

  His, cause he is able to, he sees the clip of Emily Blunt speaking alien language and is like, oh, that's a mathematical equation. He starts translating it by hand on a piece of paper from the hotel notepad.

• 1:46:27Griffin Newman?

  While he thinks she's sleeping.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  He's holding it in his hand and he drops it and so she can see.

• 1:46:32Griffin Newman?

  Immediately.

• 1:46:33Speaker 02

  Immediately, the, yeah.

• 1:46:34Griffin Newman?

  Um, this was the thing I forgot to finish setting up, but this notion that the Colin Firth character is so completely. Curdled that he is so kind of like Colonel Kurtz died in his beliefs largely in the wake of his wife's death.

• 1:46:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:50Griffin Newman?

  He lost his emotional center.

• 1:46:51David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:52Griffin Newman?

  This man's completely corrupted now and and the way the Coleman Domingo tries to relate to him of like, you used to actually think about things and now you're so concerned with losing your position, your money, your status, your power. These people who just then, you know, the the desire for security, even when you become a billionaire, just completely rots your fucking brain. And you'll do anything to make sure that no one takes a dollar from you anymore, basically.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  Yeah, and I think Spielberg's commenting, obviously, on like, people who crave power and government and then will do anything to keep it working for, say, Donald Trump, sorry to say his name. You heard of this guy?

• 1:47:31Griffin Newman?

  If you say it too loudly, Robert De Niro is gonna break into the studio.

• 1:47:34David Sims?

  He's no good.

• 1:47:35Griffin Newman?

  Kool-Aid Man style. Throwing up his middle fingers.

• 1:47:40David Sims?

  But I also, the implication I sort of got is like, you know, maybe back in the day Hugo and Converse cock Noah, you know, were like, we're gonna one day figure out.

• 1:47:51Griffin Newman?

  Trying to get the public.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  How to finesse this out. And then at some point Hugo realized like, oh no, you're never right. Your your plan is to just keep making money on this shit.

• 1:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:48:01David Sims?

  Keep operating in the background, but never actually let people know about it because like that you're just too scared of like.

• 1:48:06Griffin Newman?

  And he argues strongly that this is, I I am correct, it will destroy society if we allow them.

• 1:48:13David Sims?

  And I remember one of my favorite things at the is at the end when he's finally cooked.

• 1:48:17Griffin Newman?

  He was like.

• 1:48:18David Sims?

  Who plays the underling?

• 1:48:19Speaker 02

  I don't know, but he looks mean.

• 1:48:21David Sims?

  That guy was very good.

• 1:48:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:48:22David Sims?

  Okay, his name, I think, is Henry Lloyd Hughes. You know, he's just like the guy who with the gun, right? Like the guy who's kind of his, his, his fist.

• 1:48:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:30David Sims?

  But like, there's just that moment where finally when the broadcast is starting, where first just sits in the chair and he's like, fine.

• 1:48:35Speaker 02

  He's British, too.

• 1:48:36Griffin Newman?

  It's over.

• 1:48:36David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Spielberg respects, respects the Brit.

• 1:48:39Griffin Newman?

  Where was this filmed primarily?

• 1:48:41David Sims?

  So.

• 1:48:42Speaker 02

  New Jersey.

• 1:48:42David Sims?

  Was filmed.

• 1:48:43Griffin Newman?

  Well.

• 1:48:43David Sims?

  New Jersey.

• 1:48:44Griffin Newman?

  Well. Shout out.

• 1:48:46David Sims?

  Huntingdon, New Jersey, Ben. Also a little Atlanta, a little New York City. But yeah, like the Cape May Seashore Line Railroad was used for the railway.

• 1:48:57Speaker 02

  Shout out to the Jersey Shore.

• 1:48:58David Sims?

  There you go.

• 1:48:59Speaker 02

  Did that in a little accent.

• 1:49:00David Sims?

  You did. Yanush obviously shot it.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Yanush Kaminsky shot the scenes.

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  Did. Did you know that?

• 1:49:07Griffin Newman?

  I did, yeah.

• 1:49:09David Sims?

  Uh, edited by Sarah Brother, who, uh, directed, uh, who edited like the last bunch of Spielberg movies with Michael Con, but is getting the solo, uh, credit here.

• 1:49:21Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Michael Con is like 96.

• 1:49:23David Sims?

  Uh, Michael Con is 95 years young.

• 1:49:26Griffin Newman?

  95 years young, John Williams is 94. Like, there was something striking, looking at the credits of this movie and realizing like, the guys that Spielberg has been with for decades. And Janosch is a little younger than Steve.

• 1:49:38David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's just still out there.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  But when he started, he found a bunch, Steve was the young guy, and he found a bunch of collaborators who had 10 years' experience on him.

• 1:49:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:49:46Griffin Newman?

  And these guys are getting really, they're dancing around retirement.

• 1:49:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:49:51Griffin Newman?

  These are sort of the final laps around for a lot of them.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  They get captured in the hotel, or at least Daniel does.

• 1:49:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Jane escapes with a stick. We cut back to Margaret, who has left the hospital, ditched her friggin', uh, lame ass boyfriend.

• 1:50:08Griffin Newman?

  Tried to sell her down the river.

• 1:50:09David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, he's sort of, you know, you sort of, it's a good Spielberg character because you empathize that he's like, well, I think my girlfriend's having a mental episode.

• 1:50:18Griffin Newman?

  It also starts and it feels like this couple's gonna break up in six weeks.

• 1:50:22David Sims?

  But, yeah, definitely, they're already kind of weird because she's like, I think we should move again. And he's like, but I wanna like, sell guitars in Kansas City, or whatever it is he seems to do.

• 1:50:31Griffin Newman?

  It's unclear.

• 1:50:32David Sims?

  But, um, you know, the thing we've sort of mentioned, but there's, you know, like, it's like, when they're in the gas station, it's pandemonium because everyone's prepping for what seems to be, maybe not the end of the world, but some kind of escalation in a, in a foreign war, like Russia and North Korea.

• 1:50:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48David Sims?

  That might be like a nuclear exchange or something like, something crazy's happening. None of our main characters care.

• 1:50:53Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:50:54David Sims?

  Ever.

• 1:50:54Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:50:55David Sims?

  Uh, you know, so it's all backgrounded, and I love that it's all kind of just like, you know, North Korea, you kind of just hear this sort of vague, like, you know, yeah, the situation continues to escalate.

• 1:51:04Griffin Newman?

  It's also, if anything, and they make it, you know, textual at one point, but there's a concern of, will anything we do even be able to cut through the noise?

• 1:51:13David Sims?

  Right. It's like, there's already such a big story happening.

• 1:51:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:16David Sims?

  But, so, yeah, so like, when Wyatt Russell is finally kind of clearly like, I think I need to, you know, hand Emily off to the authorities, they're in a gas station where it's all popping off.

• 1:51:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:51:26David Sims?

  So she can kind of sneak out.

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  Calls and reports her.

• 1:51:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:30Speaker 02

  Emily and Josh link up.

• 1:51:33David Sims?

  Wait, do we, I'm sorry, one more, do we like the scene where it takes him three times to run over the phone with the car? Oh, I love that.

• 1:51:39Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 1:51:40David Sims?

  Where she's like, you didn't fuck it, the wheels didn't even get it.

• 1:51:42Griffin Newman?

  Just drive, drive forward.

• 1:51:44David Sims?

  And like, I was watching it being like, I also would struggle. It's like, I don't know exactly where the wheel is when I'm sitting in the car.

• 1:51:50Griffin Newman?

  It's really good. She's really funny. Yeah.

• 1:51:53Speaker 02

  At this point, they establish, you kind of see what the other people are seeing as they're talking to Emily Blunt, where there's like that shot in the trailer where you see like an old woman turn into Emily Blunt when the camera passes a guy's, the back of a guy's head. And without any context, you're like, oh, is she a shapeshifter? But really, that is just like the visual way to represent that every time she is connecting with someone, she is, they are seeing her as someone.

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  I read it as it's one of her powers, much like the language thing. It's like, when that's what she needs to do, that's what it is. Cause you have the scene later where she gets out of custody and she does it by looking at 15 consecutive people.

• 1:52:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:52:38Griffin Newman?

  And to each of those people, she is the, the one person who a silent look from would make them stop in their tracks.

• 1:52:44Speaker 02

  I thought that sequence was insane.

• 1:52:46Griffin Newman?

  I thought that sequence was incredible.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  That's another time when I started to like, kind of tear up a bit.

• 1:52:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think this movie's so beautiful.

• 1:52:51David Sims?

  That's how she frees Josh.

• 1:52:53Griffin Newman?

  Yep. Yes.

• 1:52:54Speaker 02

  And then they are like, we just got to get back to Kansas. She started off leaving Kansas, but now she's got to get back to Kansas.

• 1:53:00Griffin Newman?

  They just find each other in the way that Hugo said of like, you'll know where to go. She'll know how to reach you. There were always two.

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. When they get to Hugo in his little warehouse where he is, we find out that he has been reconstructing her home from childhood. And it is important that they reconstruct the circumstances.

• 1:53:23David Sims?

  Circumcision?

• 1:53:25Griffin Newman?

  Nope. In fact, David, I have to push back here. They do not reconstruct Steven Spielberg's circumstances.

• 1:53:30David Sims?

  What if Spielberg's like, the problem is the aliens have been circumcised? And then you're like, wait, what's he worried about? This was his problem?

• 1:53:38Griffin Newman?

  It's an anti circumcision streak.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  And he starts going on like weird TikTok interviews, you know, like with like circumcision influencers.

• 1:53:46Griffin Newman?

  I must, I must call out, who else recently reconstructed their childhood home in exacting detail? To then restage the events of primal trauma.

• 1:53:55David Sims?

  Huh, wait, who?

• 1:53:56Griffin Newman?

  Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg.

• 1:53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the Fableman.

• 1:53:59David Sims?

  Yes. Right? I wonder if, cause like, I feel like this movie was entirely built post Fableman.

• 1:54:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, correct.

• 1:54:07David Sims?

  If he's like, right, reckoning with like, what a strange emotional experience that was for him.

• 1:54:12Griffin Newman?

  To reenact these things.

• 1:54:14David Sims?

  To build these things, right?

• 1:54:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:15David Sims?

  Like, you know, cause like so much of the magic trick of the movie. And what I love also is that when Emily Blunt is confronted with her home, she's not just like, wow. She's like, all right, so it's my house. What's going on? Why is this my house? I know this is my house.

• 1:54:29Speaker 02

  She's like totally overwhelmed.

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  And yes, I am the exact age that like, I guess, they say that she's 38, which Emily Blunt is not 38.

• 1:54:40David Sims?

  She, how old do you think she is though?

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  I think she's like 43.

• 1:54:42David Sims?

  Yeah, she's not that much older.

• 1:54:44Speaker 02

  But I am 37 and a half.

• 1:54:48Griffin Newman?

  Bruh. I'm 37 and a half as well. Marie and I are very close.

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  We're very close.

• 1:54:51David Sims?

  You know how old I am?

• 1:54:52Speaker 02

  You're 40.

• 1:54:53Griffin Newman?

  40.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  Uh, and Ben's about to turn 41.

• 1:54:56David Sims?

  Woo.

• 1:54:57Speaker 02

  But just like that, the, the way that the house looked.

• 1:55:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:55:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. The TV, the stacked VHSs. And then when you got to her bedroom, I was just like, oh. I started thinking like, how I would react if someone reconstructed. Cause my home was torn down.

• 1:55:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, my, my, I, there's, my parents gave up where I grew up. Yeah.

• 1:55:18Speaker 02

  So I can never go back.

• 1:55:20David Sims?

  All my homes.

• 1:55:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I just, I, I started to think about what an overwhelming experience.

• 1:55:26David Sims?

  No, totally, I know. Like, I could, I know, I always visit my house in London, which.

• 1:55:31Speaker 02

  I visited your house in London. I stood outside and took a picture for you.

• 1:55:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's in Dismington, right?

• 1:55:36Speaker 02

  Yes, it's in Dismington.

• 1:55:36David Sims?

  No, it's in Camden.

• 1:55:37Speaker 02

  And there's a little, there's a little, uh, there's a little blue plaque outside saying David Sims.

• 1:55:42David Sims?

  My street does have a blue plaque on it.

• 1:55:44Speaker 02

  It did, but yeah.

• 1:55:45David Sims?

  Uh, it's a, I think it's Kwame Nkrumah. It's a very interesting person.

• 1:55:49Griffin Newman?

  It says Bark, Bark, Woof, Woof, the dog lived here.

• 1:55:52David Sims?

  Maybe one day there will be a blue plaque.

• 1:55:54Griffin Newman?

  Maybe.

• 1:55:55David Sims?

  Famous podcaster Davidson's and people go like another new low for blue plaque. God, I didn't think they could get any stupider.

• 1:56:04Griffin Newman?

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:56:06David Sims?

  Used to just be like Charles Dickens. Now it's fucking this guy.

• 1:56:09Griffin Newman?

  Co-creator of gay ET David Sims?

• 1:56:12David Sims?

  And then so I was like, oh, actually, that's pretty funny. He's like, all right, all right. Maybe it's funny.

• 1:56:15Griffin Newman?

  They didn't even land on LGBT and they're like, he caught up with it like two years later.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

  Does Ben, does your dad live in the home that you grew up in?

• 1:56:23David Sims?

  He does. Not only does he live in the home he grew up in, he lives in like a family home that's generations.

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  It was my great grandmother's home.

• 1:56:31Griffin Newman?

  And that's where the jeans were buried. That's, that's a, that's a home built.

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  Hallowed ground.

• 1:56:35Griffin Newman?

  Built by Hozli.

• 1:56:36Speaker 02

  Is your, is your bedroom still your bedroom or has it been converted to like?

• 1:56:41Griffin Newman?

  Does it have like Ninja Turtles posters and shit?

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  No, it's not all that was taken down. It just functions as a guest room.

• 1:56:48Griffin Newman?

  What happens next? You basically you get the chase, the train.

• 1:56:51Speaker 02

  And then they're in the house and they both are, you know, they're holding the stick and they have to like, they have to kind of go back to the moment of what we learned to be their first alien encounter.

• 1:57:04Griffin Newman?

  Common Domingo has been focused on her. We're trying to find her. He knows that there was a human, a child that was abducted by an alien. What he realizes when Joshua Connor calls him and tells him that he can understand what she said on the broadcast, there were two, there were always two, of course there were, that they were abducted together as children.

• 1:57:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:57:23Griffin Newman?

  By a bunch of woodland critters in their Thomas Kinkade Christmas cottage. That's how they may visualize it to them so that the children would not be terrified, which is why it looks so artificial. And they were imbued with these powers of communication to hopefully be able to someday. Maria, are you about to cry at this idea?

• 1:57:42Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'm thinking about like.

• 1:57:43Griffin Newman?

  I think this movie is incredible.

• 1:57:44Speaker 02

  I'm thinking about how, because they're animals. It's often brought up as kind of like a failure of humanity that we have more empathy

• 1:57:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:57:53Speaker 02

  For animals than we do for other humans.

• 1:57:55Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:57:56Speaker 02

  That people get more upset when they see animals being hurt in movies than they do.

• 1:57:59David Sims?

  Like the classic, like Hurricane Katrina, people were more freaked out when they saw a dog

• 1:58:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:58:03David Sims?

  On a roof, you know, even though they've been watching suffering.

• 1:58:05Speaker 02

  And there, there is something.

• 1:58:07Griffin Newman?

  Purposeful.

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  Yes, that they, that the aliens have chosen to present themselves as like, I know just, if there's like a scene where you see the way the fox is looking at them, you're like,

• 1:58:16Griffin Newman?

  I like that they stack up on top of each other. I like that they make a little kind of like.

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  There's like, there's like a little raccoon at one point.

• 1:58:22David Sims?

  Interesting. The animal stuff, animal stuff never really works on me, which probably means I'm a monster. But I mean, like, I can find an animal cute and not want to see an animal be in peril. But like, for me, I was much more just like, the kid stuff gets to me of just like, the idea of a kid not knowing what's happening and all, you know, like, now that just like freaks me out so much.

• 1:58:42Griffin Newman?

  You're right, Murray, that there's the thing of like, if they presented to us as aliens, would we be terrified? And they presented as humans, would we be distrusting? Only by presenting as a magical deer cardinal and raccoon who will all stack up on top of each other and are good friends, the big three, deer, raccoon, cardinal.

• 1:58:59David Sims?

  Sure, of course.

• 1:58:59Griffin Newman?

  Um, would, would we feel safe and comfortable enough?

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to share, because I've said on this podcast many times that I am jealous of people who've been abducted by aliens.

• 1:59:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you have said that.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  And that is something that I've always wanted. Friend of the show, Chris Berube.

• 1:59:15Griffin Newman?

  Hmm, the great Chris Berube.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  Uh, producer and sometimes host of 99% Invisible, great podcast.

• 1:59:22Griffin Newman?

  A person who is so nice, he makes you feel like an asshole.

• 1:59:24David Sims?

  The, yeah, I was about to say, the friendliest man in the world.

• 1:59:28Griffin Newman?

  There's no more genuine friendly person than Chris Berube.

• 1:59:30Speaker 02

  Was he abducted by an alien?

• 1:59:31Griffin Newman?

  Probably.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  No, but I was talking to him about this movie and my relationship with aliens. And he did challenge me, where he said, wouldn't that be really scary?

• 1:59:40David Sims?

  Obviously.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  And I was like, huh.

• 1:59:42David Sims?

  Obviously.

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  Uh, maybe.

• 1:59:44David Sims?

  You are more talking about like, kind of, again, like, I feel like we're all nostalgic for the 90s aesthetic around alien abductions, which.

• 1:59:53Speaker 02

  Bright light.

• 1:59:55David Sims?

  Right, which also bled a little bit into, and I'm not gonna call you out here, Ben, but, uh, you know, drug subcultures, right? Of kinda like, you know, T-shirts where there's a gray alien and then maybe he has a joint and he's got his fingers up and he's coming in peace.

• 2:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Who's like the fifth lead of this movie is that guy?

• 2:00:13David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:00:14Speaker 02

  There's also like the SNL, the SNL skit, the Alien Encounter skit where it's like three of them had had, like, I was bathed in a warm light and I felt held and cared for and it was magical and then you have Ken being like, uh, actually they stuck stuff up my butt.

• 2:00:30Griffin Newman?

  I was Donald Duck in it.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Like, I guess in my mind, I'm like, I'm gonna show them Sega Genesis. And we're gonna have a blast.

• 2:00:40Griffin Newman?

  They'd love it. To jam an Earl, they'd love To Jam an Earl.

• 2:00:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, they would.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  They would, that's, those are those, they're kinda guys.

• 2:00:58Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, disclosure day. Uh, little kids getting abducted by aliens and...

• 2:01:03David Sims?

  Yes, that seems very effective.

• 2:01:04Speaker 02

  It's very effective.

• 2:01:05Griffin Newman?

  They remember everything now.

• 2:01:06Speaker 02

  They remember everything. Uh, Colin Firth is still trying to fucking fuck with their shit. They have to like make themselves invisible, which is another thing you can do with the alien stick.

• 2:01:16Griffin Newman?

  Invisible car.

• 2:01:17Speaker 02

  And that, we discussed that sequence, that that was really fun.

• 2:01:20Griffin Newman?

  Invisible house.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  Bunch of guys get bonked.

• 2:01:22Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 2:01:22Speaker 02

  A lot of guys get bonked. I do wanna say, and this is like, if we're talking about like empathy in cinema, one of the guys that plays one of Hugo's assistants, I think his name is like Brandon Wilson?

• 2:01:35Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:36Speaker 02

  The entire movie, every time they showed him, I was like, I know this guy from somewhere, but I don't think that he's an actor. I think he's someone that I know, who like happens to be in a movie. Like, I just felt like I had some sort of different connection with him. No, Brandon Wilson.

• 2:01:52David Sims?

  Well, I don't know who Brandon, he's not showing up.

• 2:01:55Speaker 02

  Maybe his name's wrong.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  No, you're, you're gonna.

• 2:01:57David Sims?

  Yeah, you're right. Brandon Wilson. Here he is. Yeah, he's in Nickel Boys.

• 2:02:00Speaker 02

  That's the whole thing where I thought I knew him.

• 2:02:03David Sims?

  Because that movie's so empathetic.

• 2:02:06Speaker 02

  And so the whole time, well, you're placing the other guy's head.

• 2:02:10Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  For most of the movie and that guy's your friend. And then only after the movie, when I looked it up and I was like, oh, it's the guy from Nickel Boys. I was like, God, that's a crazy reaction that I had.

• 2:02:18David Sims?

  That's a really good movie.

• 2:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's an excellent movie.

• 2:02:21David Sims?

  You know, no shit, like, you know, good movie that I have not felt the need to rewatch or not felt the desire to rewatch because it's so emotionally demanding and all that.

• 2:02:29Griffin Newman?

  It's such a complete experience.

• 2:02:30David Sims?

  Right, but.

• 2:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Throw it on.

• 2:02:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're listening to this and you've never seen Nickel Boys, you should watch Nickel Boys.

• 2:02:36Griffin Newman?

  Nickel Boys 4DX. If we can get it back in theaters for a little 4DX, make it even more of an empathetic experience.

• 2:02:43David Sims?

  Funny how interested you are in ruining movies with 4DX.

• 2:02:47Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, you pronounced preserving the art of theatrical movie going in a very strange way.

• 2:02:53Speaker 02

  Hoppers is now on Disney Plus and I was watching it with my, uh, my like three and a half year old nephew.

• 2:03:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:01Speaker 02

  Who loved it.

• 2:03:01Griffin Newman?

  Sucked sitting in a stool chair.

• 2:03:03Speaker 02

  The whole time I was having like PTSD flashbacks to like being jostled around.

• 2:03:08Griffin Newman?

  We had a great time. We were hopping about.

• 2:03:10David Sims?

  You guys saw Hoppers in.

• 2:03:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, with Ehrlich.

• 2:03:12Speaker 02

  Still to this date, my only 4DX experience. And both Ehrlich and I were like, I don't, we don't know how you do this.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm going tonight and I went last night.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  What are you seeing tonight?

• 2:03:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing two consecutive nights.

• 2:03:22David Sims?

  What did you see last night?

• 2:03:23Griffin Newman?

  I took, I took my little cousin to see He-Man Masters of the Universe last night. And then tonight I'm going to see Scary Movie.

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  In 4DX.

• 2:03:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they're gonna smoke up that theater. Yeah, 100% get better. And I'm gonna laugh. I'm gonna laugh.

• 2:03:38David Sims?

  That's pretty funny.

• 2:03:39Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 2:03:40David Sims?

  One of the other people in Hugo's crew.

• 2:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Noah Robbins?

• 2:03:46David Sims?

  Her name?

• 2:03:46Griffin Newman?

  Sorry.

• 2:03:47David Sims?

  Gabby Beans. It's a great name.

• 2:03:49Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes. Yeah, she's a very good actor.

• 2:03:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52David Sims?

  I like her. Um, I was just looking her up, Gabby Beans. We've also got, because it is the classic Spielberg, like, he's so famous, he doesn't have to worry too much about star power thing. Hetian Park, who I really like, who plays this, who plays this character a lot, plays the kind of like-

• 2:04:12Griffin Newman?

  Column first, number four.

• 2:04:13David Sims?

  Right. They're like person next to the boss on the phone being like, okay, get it done, get it done. Right? You know, like, um, but you know, she's really good.

• 2:04:21Griffin Newman?

  You're saying that he doesn't need to cast major star, but-

• 2:04:24David Sims?

  Jeremy Sheamus.

• 2:04:25Griffin Newman?

  Gabby Beans, of course, was Honey Don't's personal assistant. Honey Don't's secretary. You don't get more famous than that.

• 2:04:30David Sims?

  And they have like bits about coffee or whatever.

• 2:04:32Griffin Newman?

  They do the coffee bit. Spider, her secretary.

• 2:04:36David Sims?

  Jeremy Sheamus, you know-

• 2:04:37Griffin Newman?

  I love him.

• 2:04:37David Sims?

  Who's a great theater actor. I mean, he's done TV.

• 2:04:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but great local New York actor.

• 2:04:42David Sims?

  Incredible New York theater actor. He's like, what is, I mean, he's in charge of the local broadcast, you know, he's like Emily Blunt's boss or whatever. He's so fucking good. And because-

• 2:04:53Speaker 02

  I like when he like doesn't want to, he's like, why am I going to get off the air right now?

• 2:04:57David Sims?

  Right. Like, cause he has basically two scenes and scene one is him being like, why are you late? And like, this is so stressful. Wow. You know, and then scene two is her returning and being like-

• 2:05:05Speaker 02

  Oh, you're talking about the, the like, the manager. I thought you were talking about the guy anchor.

• 2:05:10David Sims?

  Oh, he's, he is funny when he's doing it. Yeah. But no, no. And her returning and being like, this is what we're gonna do. And he's like, I don't really get it, but okay. And you watch him snap into action. He's so good.

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, agreed.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  Don't you think?

• 2:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:21David Sims?

  But he's also reacting to her suggestive power somewhat too. She's working on him.

• 2:05:25Griffin Newman?

  She's working on him.

• 2:05:26David Sims?

  But that's okay.

• 2:05:27Griffin Newman?

  But that's where you realize this movie is gonna build to a final set piece of they just have to get on the news and they have to show everyone everything. And this is the real SNL thing because this becomes a sequence that's a tribute to live switchboard editors.

• 2:05:41David Sims?

  Totally. So that's

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  Oh, I found that so thrilling.

• 2:05:44David Sims?

  It's so cool. And like, look, I'm someone SNL for sure. I love sports. Like, it's something where sometimes in sports, you'll see a behind the scenes look at that of like, and here's how that play was, you know, called live in the, in the broadcast, but where you see the guy. You know, ready 10, 10. Yeah, yeah. Like the Oscars is perfect for that.

• 2:06:05Griffin Newman?

  Junior speech where he's in real time directing.

• 2:06:07David Sims?

  Right. Get a camera over to her right now. You know, I want to see the mom. I want to see the, you know, like, you know, like, and then right. But just the whole like, ready three, three, you know, like just the way they have some kind of internal metronome. So cool.

• 2:06:19Griffin Newman?

  I'm going to invoke it.

• 2:06:20David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  It reminded me of Sully where you will cut to a sequence where the hero of the sequence is a guy you met 30 seconds ago, not the lead character, you know, where it's like, suddenly who's pulling this off? People were just meeting for the first time. Our characters have taken us to this point, but this is new.

• 2:06:35David Sims?

  You know who else pulled it off?

• 2:06:37Griffin Newman?

  Sully.

• 2:06:38David Sims?

  Chesley Sully.

• 2:06:40Speaker 02

  I thought when they cut to the like NBC headquarters in New York, I thought we were going to get like a cameo from like

• 2:06:48Griffin Newman?

  From Lorne?

• 2:06:51Griffin Newman?

  Or Domingo.

• 2:06:52David Sims?

  Can I do my impression of Lorne at the Tony?

• 2:06:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Okay. Marie, phone out, phone out. Marie, get a picture.

• 2:06:57Speaker 02

  Okay, wait, sorry. And

• 2:07:00Griffin Newman?

  He was sitting low, low and slow barbecue style.

• 2:07:05David Sims?

  You know, they announced Shmigadoon.

• 2:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:07David Sims?

  And then for some reason he accepted. I mean, I know he's a producer, but I like, I don't think he's the lead.

• 2:07:12Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:07:13David Sims?

  But it just cuts to him.

• 2:07:20David Sims?

  It's just like fucking Lauren. Like really? Like, I love Lauren. Like, I was fine with Lauren. Lauren's cool.

• 2:07:26Speaker 02

  It was a very anticlimactic final award.

• 2:07:30David Sims?

  That was just one of those Tonys. I love the Tonys.

• 2:07:32Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 2:07:33David Sims?

  But every year there's this strain to the Tonys even more of the Oscars of like, we're really trying to sell mainstream America on the things we have on offer right now, right? On like what Broadway's got for you. And some years it rocks. Like they're like, look at all this cool shit. And you're like, yeah, this rocks. And some years it's like Shmigadoon's the best musical. And unfortunately, we must also contractually, because it was nominated, present like a number from Titanic or whatever.

• 2:08:00Speaker 02

  You're Titanic, Kate.

• 2:08:01David Sims?

  So bad, dude.

• 2:08:02Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen it?

• 2:08:02David Sims?

  It's the most epic bacon millennial like loser shit. Throw it in the ocean.

• 2:08:07Speaker 02

  Titanic like four years ago at the old UCB thing.

• 2:08:11David Sims?

  That's where it belongs. That's where it must stay, not on Broadway.

• 2:08:16Speaker 02

  What will you say?

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, what is Frankie Grounday supposed to do? If we don't give him the space.

• 2:08:22Speaker 02

  You don't like the fact that the character is named Victor Garber? That's so funny to me.

• 2:08:27Griffin Newman?

  That's funny. That sounds like a funny joke.

• 2:08:28Speaker 02

  So funny.

• 2:08:29Griffin Newman?

  I'm laughing. Listen to me laugh.

• 2:08:31Speaker 02

  You guys suck.

• 2:08:32Griffin Newman?

  No, I don't suck. I rock. Kind of funny. I haven't seen it. Romley texted me that she was watching it the other day and said it was terrible.

• 2:08:38David Sims?

  It's one of those things that, you know, it broke containment. Like it belonged, you know, on off, off, off, you know, like Broadway. Did you know that, yeah, Lorne Michaels has two Tonys? He also produced Leopold Schdat.

• 2:08:49Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:08:49David Sims?

  So he's got two Tonys.

• 2:08:50Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  So we see a montage.

• 2:08:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  It's really long. The whole history of aliens.

• 2:08:57Griffin Newman?

  Different.

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  Stuff that is always.

• 2:08:59Griffin Newman?

  Quality, different formats.

• 2:09:00Speaker 01

  Large.

• 2:09:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:02Speaker 01

  And other stuff I'm not familiar with. I feel like if you're a real head, you're probably really recognizing a lot of this stuff.

• 2:09:10Griffin Newman?

  Joe Rogan would have a lot to say about it.

• 2:09:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was telling the guys.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  I would prefer to shout out Tom Delange.

• 2:09:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. Yes.

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  Tom would have a lot to say.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  Spiders.

• 2:09:19Speaker 02

  And I did say this before we started recording, but I watched a documentary by James Fox last night. Prepare for this.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. And it was called?

• 2:09:30Speaker 02

  I don't remember the fucking name of it. I'm gonna have to look it up again.

• 2:09:33Griffin Newman?

  And what did the Fox?

• 2:09:34David Sims?

  And it was not.

• 2:09:37David Sims?

  Griffin got a different joke out before I was gonna say, and it was not the star of Ray and Collateral.

• 2:09:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  Oh, Jamie.

• 2:09:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:09:45Griffin Newman?

  Go see the kingdom.

• 2:09:46Speaker 02

  So what I watched.

• 2:09:46David Sims?

  James Fox.

• 2:09:47Speaker 02

  Was called The Phenomenon, but it was not. It was narrated by Peter Coyote.

• 2:09:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right.

• 2:09:53Speaker 02

  And I was like, there really is something crazy about the guy who nominate, who, excuse me, narrates Ken Burns like historical docs narrating a thing about like, you know, New Mexico, Socorro, New Mexico, like alien encounters or whatever.

• 2:10:07Griffin Newman?

  It's more crazy that it's Keyman from fucking ET being like, this is real now.

• 2:10:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:10:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:12David Sims?

  Griff said this to Marie and she went, hmm, sure.

• 2:10:14Speaker 02

  I went, yeah, that he's mostly a Ken Burns guy.

• 2:10:16Griffin Newman?

  I was applauded for my bravery.

• 2:10:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Is he also in Bitter Moon?

• 2:10:20Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 2:10:21Speaker 02

  He's the other guy.

• 2:10:22Griffin Newman?

  I believe so. Is that right?

• 2:10:24David Sims?

  Checking.

• 2:10:25Griffin Newman?

  There's a long sequence, it just.

• 2:10:27David Sims?

  Him and Hugh.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  What I like is that I like that it goes into real time, basically, that the movie slows. They're not even showing you this really from the perspective of our characters. You're seeing people see it, but you're also just seeing it. And you're seeing ships, you're seeing cellphone videos, you're seeing super eight footage, you're seeing like bad DV camera footage, you're seeing everything. You're seeing the aliens, you're seeing the torture. And then they start to wheel in to the television studio.

• 2:10:54Speaker 02

  Alien in a wheelchair.

• 2:10:56Griffin Newman?

  And I did kind of grab Reese, the king of Tik Tok and go like, is he gonna fucking do it?

• 2:11:01Speaker 02

  This is, so when I said the ending didn't really work for me, I just had trouble buying all of it.

• 2:11:10Griffin Newman?

  That people are affected by it?

• 2:11:12David Sims?

  That it would work, that it would go over.

• 2:11:14Speaker 02

  There's like a moment where like, uh, someone at NBC News is like, I put the footage through our AI filter and they confirmed it's 99% not AI or whatever. And I'm like, okay, like that.

• 2:11:25Griffin Newman?

  You'd think people wouldn't believe it.

• 2:11:27Speaker 02

  Someone, I needed a little more skepticism.

• 2:11:30Griffin Newman?

  I mean, but the whole movie is built to this idea.

• 2:11:33David Sims?

  Yeah, we have to, you know, we have to like, just think about like the ensuing minutes and hours.

• 2:11:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:39David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like, it's not like that all flashes and they're like, anyway, that was your one look at it. You know, it's like, this is just the start of all of this is now just out.

• 2:11:48Speaker 02

  I think it, I think I have this problem generally with alien or monster movies that anytime I see it.

• 2:11:58Griffin Newman?

  The, the thing, the creature.

• 2:11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, then it is like.

• 2:12:01Griffin Newman?

  It feels fake.

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  It gets deflated for me.

• 2:12:04David Sims?

  The, um, what is it? Night of the Demon?

• 2:12:06Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:12:07David Sims?

  The classic old movie where they show the demon and you're like, ah, fuck, you didn't have enough money for the demon. Like, there's some great movie where it's like, the atmosphere is so good. This movie is incredible. And they're like, and now behold the demon. And I'm just like, oh. It looks okay.

• 2:12:21Speaker 02

  Something like under the skin really works for me because like it's, we spent most of the time. Aliens like a human, but acting weird. And I'm like, yeah, man who fell to earth. Like those sorts of things work better.

• 2:12:34David Sims?

  I mean, I'm looking at it now and it looks pretty fucking good. I don't know.

• 2:12:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that looks awesome.

• 2:12:41Speaker 01

  I think that Steve knocked it out of the park with this alien design. I think it looks great.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  The design. And I like the ships. I like the weird kind of X ships.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:50David Sims?

  The ships are really cool.

• 2:12:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:52David Sims?

  Right. You get glimpses of.

• 2:12:53Griffin Newman?

  I love this, but we walked out and like half of our friends were like, he really went full Spielberg at the end, huh? And I'm like, he went full Spielberg at the end. Truly like, yeah.

• 2:13:02David Sims?

  My review is Spielberg is the movie because the end of the movie is everyone watching. And it's just every single face, mouth, the jar, kind of, right? You know, just, yeah.

• 2:13:11Speaker 02

  There is a line that I really liked from the movie.

• 2:13:15Speaker 02

  Elizabeth Marvel says when she's talking to Eve Pusyn about how she lost her calling or whatever. And she tells her, like, you didn't lose faith in God, you lost faith in humanity. And that is what caused you to turn away from your faith and believing in something. I think I unfortunately am just so cynical right now about.

• 2:13:39David Sims?

  Gotta get less cynical, my friend.

• 2:13:41Speaker 02

  That I.

• 2:13:43Griffin Newman?

  I don't disagree with that, but this movie successfully made me buy in the world, the reality of the film, that it would work. I don't believe it would work.

• 2:13:53Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:13:54Griffin Newman?

  In life, and I don't feel good about anything, but I did buy it within the context of the movie.

• 2:14:00Speaker 02

  I think once we got to, like, once I actually saw, like, NBC News. And then I was like, okay, now it's like, that's when it started to feel a little more.

• 2:14:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, their programming is totally lost. I mean, they wouldn't know what to do with this.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  What do you think happens? People are just like, eh, whatever.

• 2:14:14Griffin Newman?

  We don't know.

• 2:14:14Speaker 01

  And then they just go back into film Twitter and just are posting like, is that?

• 2:14:18David Sims?

  I mean, film Twitter is pretty good.

• 2:14:20Griffin Newman?

  Let them post through it.

• 2:14:21David Sims?

  You know, like, what if there's a gif?

• 2:14:23Speaker 01

  Okay, what if?

• 2:14:25Speaker 02

  I am having, I don't know if I believe that a broadcast in Kansas City would get picked up right away.

• 2:14:33David Sims?

  You got, you gotta roll with this a little bit.

• 2:14:35Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:14:35David Sims?

  You just gotta roll with this a little bit.

• 2:14:36Speaker 02

  I know. I was having trouble rolling with it.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  These things would move fast.

• 2:14:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:40Griffin Newman?

  They really would, especially in internet age where people can communicate with each other this much. It's, it, it just.

• 2:14:45Speaker 02

  I can see it showing up on the internet before it gets put.

• 2:14:49Griffin Newman?

  But I, I think about, I mean, you invoked it, but I think about shit like the night that they fucking got Bin Laden.

• 2:14:53David Sims?

  I think about Bin Laden, which is, is one of the last times that I was like, I think I have to turn the news on.

• 2:14:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I'm hearing.

• 2:15:00David Sims?

  And that will happen again when something crazy happens.

• 2:15:03Speaker 02

  Which we won't say because we don't want anyone coming after us to investigate us. When it happens.

• 2:15:08David Sims?

  When it happens.

• 2:15:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, when it happens.

• 2:15:10David Sims?

  Okay, well, the box office game.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  I really have.

• 2:15:12David Sims?

  Disclosure Day.

• 2:15:13Griffin Newman?

  I would guess right now that it's gonna open to 40, which feels like in the middle of where the projections are, but I really have no idea and I don't know how it's gonna play. I've had friends for the last couple of weeks, because we got to see this early and thank you to the kind folks at Universal for helping us with podcast scheduling, but people have asked me what I think about it and then it's followed by, do you think it's gonna work? Is it gonna work as an Oscar movie? Is it gonna work as a box office movie? And I went, I don't know. It's really classical, it's really old fashioned, it's classic Steve, but it doesn't feel in conversation with this moment in a way that maybe is what people want, because this feels like a moment of everyone rejecting the traditional blockbuster model the last 20 years. Now, they're mostly rejecting it for 20-somethings with One Wish Willows and Backrooms, and this

• 2:15:58Griffin Newman?

  is literally the elder statesman.

• 2:16:00David Sims?

  I was so excited when Spielberg was on Rewatchables. He's like, I'm about to go see Backrooms, I'm excited. It's just like, it just rocks.

• 2:16:05Speaker 02

  And then he gave like a red carpet interview where he like shouted Kane Parsons and Curry Barker out and was like, they're young guys and I was young and I think it's so great. And I'm like, you know what? Good for you, Steve.

• 2:16:15Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest moments in the history of podcasting is on the 2001 Rewatchables where Bill Simmons.

• 2:16:21David Sims?

  Simmons is like, trust, she's pretty good. Check it out.

• 2:16:23Griffin Newman?

  No, the moment for me that's the best where he goes, but, but 70 millimeters back now, do you know about this? As if Steven Spielberg isn't.

• 2:16:31David Sims?

  I think Bill's, I think Bill's having a little fun when he says that.

• 2:16:34Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. It's a great moment either way.

• 2:16:36David Sims?

  The part of the magic of Bill Simmons, in my opinion, though, is you're always kinda like, does he know he's doing a better than?

• 2:16:41Griffin Newman?

  Who knows?

• 2:16:41David Sims?

  Half the time he does.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:43Speaker 02

  I I I compared, I said this movie felt like a Shyamalan movie to me, which I am a Shyamalan

• 2:16:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:49David Sims?

  It does feel Shyamalan.

• 2:16:50Griffin Newman?

  It's very Shyamalan.

• 2:16:51Speaker 02

  It's very Shyamalan.

• 2:16:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:16:52Speaker 02

  And but I I also think that it's going to run into the Shyamalan thing of it being so open hearted and earnest.

• 2:16:59Griffin Newman?

  It's really earnest.

• 2:16:59Speaker 02

  That it's going to rub people the wrong way.

• 2:17:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:01Speaker 02

  I think it's going to be divisive.

• 2:17:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I really, I really don't know.

• 2:17:04David Sims?

  It's gonna, no, I think so. It's gonna be quite polarizing. And then, as with almost all the movies he makes, a few years later, people are gonna be like, Spielberg kind of cooked on that one, huh? I'm rewatching it. It's like, it's got a few sequences that are really hit. It's just what's happened with all of these movies of his. Even Ready Player One, the most hated of them.

• 2:17:23Speaker 02

  I like Ready, I like Ready Player One.

• 2:17:24David Sims?

  I'm a fierce defender.

• 2:17:25Griffin Newman?

  People keep telling me I'm wrong about it.

• 2:17:26David Sims?

  Has its fierce defenders, like, and yeah, it's just, you know, it's just what our man's doing.

• 2:17:32Speaker 02

  I rewatched the post last night, and I remember being like, eh.

• 2:17:35David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:17:35Speaker 02

  On it when it came out. The ending is still, I think, somewhat disastrous.

• 2:17:39Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. I agree with that.

• 2:17:40David Sims?

  I don't really even, is this a Supreme Court steps?

• 2:17:43Speaker 02

  No, it's like they're setting up the like Nixon Extended Universe and they start with like the Watergate.

• 2:17:49Griffin Newman?

  It's a cliffhanger that he never made good on with the sequel. You have no idea what's gonna happen.

• 2:17:53David Sims?

  Well, what do you mean, what happened? He went to see an alien with Jackie Gleason.

• 2:17:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, they had a great time.

• 2:17:57David Sims?

  He's picking up the thread here. Yeah.

• 2:17:58Speaker 02

  But there are just some really good shots in it. And I'm like, oh, man. This is like.

• 2:18:03David Sims?

  You know who's in that movie?

• 2:18:04Speaker 02

  Tracy Lass.

• 2:18:05David Sims?

  Let's see.

• 2:18:05Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:18:05Speaker 02

  Carrie, Carrie Kuhn.

• 2:18:06Griffin Newman?

  Both of them. I have felt even in the Spielberg movies I have loved in the last 20 years that he's had a bit of a running ending problem.

• 2:18:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:15Griffin Newman?

  That he doesn't know how to leave well enough alone.

• 2:18:17David Sims?

  That's true.

• 2:18:18Griffin Newman?

  He overstays things four times.

• 2:18:19David Sims?

  Right. This is a full stop ending for him.

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  It's great.

• 2:18:22David Sims?

  That's rare, because usually he loves an epilogue.

• 2:18:24Griffin Newman?

  Like, the disclosure is big, but then it just ends at the exact moment. And I was just like.

• 2:18:29David Sims?

  He hasn't done that.

• 2:18:30Griffin Newman?

  The kind of the one time he's fully nailed the ending for me since Jurassic Park.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  One more thing with him on rewatchables, where like, I do truly love that he was like, I made Ready Player One because I loved to end that. Like, I, because of the ending where he's like, by the way, it's closed a few days, so we go outside, please. He's like, that's why I made that movie.

• 2:18:49Griffin Newman?

  He also was like, my kids hated me for that one.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  Yeah. Hell, yeah.

• 2:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:52David Sims?

  Fucking tell. Spielbe.

• 2:18:54Griffin Newman?

  So we think uh obsession is gonna be number two at the box office again.

• 2:18:59David Sims?

  Oh, right. Uh, yeah, I think possibly. I think Scary Movie and Masters of the Universe will likely drop quite a bit. And so I would put obsession at two. I'd put those at like three and four.

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  You were asking.

• 2:19:10David Sims?

  Backrooms is kicking around at five. I don't think there's any other big release this.

• 2:19:13Griffin Newman?

  You were asking, do you think Scary Movie is gonna have a big drop? That franchise maybe traditionally has the biggest second weekend drops of any franchise ever.

• 2:19:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:20Griffin Newman?

  My all time favorite stat.

• 2:19:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:22Griffin Newman?

  Is that Scary Movie four made a quarter of its domestic total on its opening day. It made like 20 on Friday and then it went to like 10 to five.

• 2:19:33David Sims?

  I will.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  And ended up at 60.

• 2:19:35David Sims?

  Uh, some other movies coming out this week. Uh, Stop That Train, which was not made with AI. I will not. No AI.

• 2:19:42Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 2:19:43David Sims?

  It wasn't.

• 2:19:44Griffin Newman?

  Made by hand.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  Saying this, people will believe me. Uh, and a movie that Alison Wilmore told me rocks, The Furious.

• 2:19:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:19:50David Sims?

  It's like a Hong Kong action movie.

• 2:19:51Griffin Newman?

  David Berbinski also said this rules. David or like.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  See.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  Gotta see that.

• 2:19:56David Sims?

  Uh, Mandalorian and Grogu. Oh, oh, I'm actually predicting that to Kuntuplets.

• 2:20:01Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna surge.

• 2:20:01David Sims?

  Jump back up.

• 2:20:02Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's realizing it's good now.

• 2:20:05David Sims?

  That is the next present my daughter is going to get for continuing to stay in bed.

• 2:20:10Griffin Newman?

  Galactic Snack and Grogu?

• 2:20:12David Sims?

  Correct. The, which, which she's very excited to receive. Of course. What do you think the first of the fucking bag of toys I brought back for that are swag from, uh, people who give us nice toys?

• 2:20:21Griffin Newman?

  Mostly Reese, the king of TikTok.

• 2:20:22David Sims?

  The wonderful Reese, uh, King of.

• 2:20:24Griffin Newman?

  Gave you a lot of Nintendo swag and I gave you Galactic Snack and Grogu.

• 2:20:27David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:20:27Griffin Newman?

  What was the first?

• 2:20:28David Sims?

  What do you think?

• 2:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Ambassador Junior?

• 2:20:29David Sims?

  Bingo.

• 2:20:29Griffin Newman?

  He's an all star.

• 2:20:30David Sims?

  She's just like fucking Ambassador Junior.

• 2:20:32Griffin Newman?

  He's got the paintbrush.

• 2:20:33David Sims?

  The best guy in the world.

• 2:20:34Griffin Newman?

  What was your joke? You made a joke about someone else's son having a magical paintbrush?

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  Can't remember.

• 2:20:39Griffin Newman?

  I just like this as a joke structure that anyone's son has a magic paintbrush.

• 2:20:42David Sims?

  It was the name Junior that activated me, but I can't remember. Uh, you know, uh, yeah. So, um, Mando and Grogu does exist. Oh, Wayne Grove Junior was my joke.

• 2:20:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right.

• 2:20:53David Sims?

  That he too will have Wayne Grove Junior and he has a paintbrush.

• 2:20:55Griffin Newman?

  We were saying.

• 2:20:58Griffin Newman?

  We were saying that Tim Simons should read for Wayne Gro Jr.

• 2:21:02Speaker 02

  That's so good.

• 2:21:04Griffin Newman?

  And then Sim said Wayne Gro Jr. And his magic paintbrush.

• 2:21:09Speaker 02

  But I don't, I haven't read Heat Two, so I'm very confused about the time.

• 2:21:13David Sims?

  Don't worry, when you read Heat Two.

• 2:21:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it won't make anything more clear.

• 2:21:16David Sims?

  It rocks, to be clear. But you don't read Heat Two and go, I definitely see how this is a movie. You're like, whoa, okay.

• 2:21:24Speaker 02

  All right. You know what? Mikey Man, I trust you.

• 2:21:27David Sims?

  Uh, but yeah, that, I mean, I, there's nothing else big, uh, this week. So yeah, I do think it'll be mostly these holdovers.

• 2:21:34Griffin Newman?

  I do, I just, I got the hard number. So I just want to share this. Toy Story Five, which I do think is going to rule the summer. I do think, uh, Odyssey being R rated kind of solidifies unless Spider-Man is way better than we're guessing. It does feel like Toy Story Five kinda has the runway now.

• 2:21:52David Sims?

  Uh, I, I mean, I know what you mean, but the Odyssey pre-sale stuff is completely unprecedented and insane. Like, it's just kind of insane.

• 2:22:00Speaker 02

  Also, Oppenheimer is more ostensibly more boring and also rated R.

• 2:22:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:22:05David Sims?

  And three hours.

• 2:22:06Griffin Newman?

  But Queen B Barbie and Toy Story Five might make Barbie numbers.

• 2:22:10David Sims?

  It might. The family movie thing, it's just like, people, you know, are like, yeah, it'll have legs for, for, you know, for years because of, you know, family movie stuff. And it's like, that can be true, but then oddly, sometimes it's not like Disclosure Day is also hoping for its second weekend is a Father's Day weekend.

• 2:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:22:27David Sims?

  It's hoping for a nice hold, I think, because of that.

• 2:22:30Griffin Newman?

  Good dad movie.

• 2:22:31David Sims?

  Because, right, it's going for dad, but obviously it will be up against Toy Story Five. I don't think Leviticus or the Death of Robin Hood are really too threatening there. Then the next week you got Supergirl, and I think now with these fucking superhero movies, it seems like it's just kinda like, they, they open okay.

• 2:22:48Speaker 02

  It's not, Supergirl's not gonna get the blank check bump. So I think that's really.

• 2:22:51Griffin Newman?

  That's so brutal.

• 2:22:53Speaker 02

  And, uh, I.

• 2:22:54David Sims?

  And also, there's another thing standing in Toy Story Five's way.

• 2:22:57Speaker 02

  My most anticipated movie of the summer, Minions versus Monsters.

• 2:23:01David Sims?

  Minions and Monsters.

• 2:23:02Griffin Newman?

  It's got some time before Minions swings around.

• 2:23:04David Sims?

  It's got two weeks.

• 2:23:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:23:06David Sims?

  Uh, but beyond that, every time I see a Minions and Monsters trailer, I'm like, am I into the Minions now? This rocks.

• 2:23:12Griffin Newman?

  Strange. I just want to read, cause I got the, the actual numbers here. Scary Movie Four. Open to forty four million and ended up at ninety. It was a straight double and the first four days it opened on Easter weekend. It went from nineteen to thirteen to seven to three on four consecutive days.

• 2:23:31David Sims?

  Look, these movies are bad.

• 2:23:32Griffin Newman?

  Perform, yes, but in forty X, smoke.

• 2:23:38David Sims?

  So you saw, okay, so you saw scary movie four and four.

• 2:23:41Speaker 02

  No, he's seen that tonight.

• 2:23:43David Sims?

  I thought you already saw it, though.

• 2:23:44Speaker 02

  No, he's.

• 2:23:46David Sims?

  He's going back. Time in forty X.

• 2:23:48Griffin Newman?

  Look, it's promises made to friends.

• 2:23:51David Sims?

  You saw it for the first time with Mitchy.

• 2:23:53Griffin Newman?

  I saw it with Mitch and Zachary.

• 2:23:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:23:55Griffin Newman?

  Annabelle Cherry. Yeah, it was great. And Micah's.

• 2:23:57David Sims?

  And Micah's, the great Micah's.

• 2:23:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:00David Sims?

  And what's the, what's the other thing you saw in forty X yesterday?

• 2:24:02Griffin Newman?

  I saw He-Man, which I've also seen twice. Both movies I kind of like.

• 2:24:08David Sims?

  Yeah, two movies you didn't write really recommend.

• 2:24:10Griffin Newman?

  The movies!

• 2:24:11David Sims?

  No, look, I'm pro movies.

• 2:24:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's stuff in He-Man I like. It's just, it's, they fixed half of the script. And if they had another year, I probably would fully like it as a movie.

• 2:24:21David Sims?

  I'm gonna watch it.

• 2:24:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:23David Sims?

  But I will say the initial reaction had me push it down the sort of priority list.

• 2:24:28Griffin Newman?

  Especially with it not being based on things you care about at all.

• 2:24:32David Sims?

  I don't care about these things. I, it's true. He-Man is not one of my, one of my fellows.

• 2:24:37Griffin Newman?

  I do, I just, I, I really.

• 2:24:39David Sims?

  Care Ben? He-Man? No, no, you never.

• 2:24:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm really, I'm smarting from what they did to my boy Orko. They did not.

• 2:24:45Speaker 02

  Is he not in it at all or is it a hurt his situation?

• 2:24:48Griffin Newman?

  Credit thing that I think is worse than if he hadn't been in it, period.

• 2:24:51Speaker 01

  Now, if there was a Thundercats, then I'd be in.

• 2:24:54Griffin Newman?

  I believe Adam.

• 2:24:55David Sims?

  I watched some Thundercats.

• 2:24:56Griffin Newman?

  Is supposed to do Thundercats?

• 2:24:58David Sims?

  Really? The one for me is if Matt Johnson really is making a Magic the Gathering movie.

• 2:25:03Griffin Newman?

  He's seriously serious about it.

• 2:25:04David Sims?

  That is the like sleeper code activated. Do you know what I did the other day?

• 2:25:08Griffin Newman?

  And then this has to be the end of the episode.

• 2:25:09David Sims?

  Yeah, so I went to a baseball card store because I'm obsessed with baseball cards again. So I went to a card store.

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:15David Sims?

  But I'm looking for baseball.

• 2:25:15Griffin Newman?

  David now just spends so much time buying toys and trading cards. I want to call out the context.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  I don't buy toys.

• 2:25:20Griffin Newman?

  For your, for your daughter.

• 2:25:22David Sims?

  For my wife.

• 2:25:23Griffin Newman?

  For your wife.

• 2:25:23David Sims?

  Well, mostly I'm getting free toys for my daughter, but yeah, sure, I buy.

• 2:25:26Griffin Newman?

  I'm just, I'm not saying you're collecting for yourself. I'm just saying suddenly.

• 2:25:29David Sims?

  With the car, baseball cards. Love the baseball.

• 2:25:31Speaker 01

  Please.

• 2:25:32David Sims?

  I'm in the store. I'm like, hey, do you have this? And they're like, I know it doesn't drop you a series two of the 2026 tops. You know, like, doesn't drop till next week. And physically, I'm kind of like, oh, that's fine. I'm walking around and I see Magic the Gathering, which has gone all in, much like Lego back in the day on like, they just do like, you know, Lord of the Rings cards now, right? Like, they just, they just let license them out. And I loved that game when I was a kid. They had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Magic the Gathering cards.

• 2:25:57Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:25:57David Sims?

  So I bought a fucking box of them.

• 2:25:59Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:26:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:00Speaker 01

  Cause we did a role playing game years ago. And that was kind of a fun format.

• 2:26:05David Sims?

  Magic is a little, cause it's like a strategy game, though. It's a little less fun, like, to, to maybe record.

• 2:26:11Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 2:26:11David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:26:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. I've never played.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  It was cool. All right. Well, we get it. You're cool. No, it's fine.

• 2:26:16Griffin Newman?

  Ben, can you do me a favor as we, um, wrap this episode up?

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26:20Griffin Newman?

  Can you turn the printer on so I can print the sides for the audition I'm gonna run to go do?

• 2:26:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:26:25Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 2:26:25Speaker 02

  We have a printer here?

• 2:26:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we do. It's right there.

• 2:26:28Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:26:28David Sims?

  I mean, thank God we have some things that are useful in this office.

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  Hey, what?

• 2:26:32Griffin Newman?

  An office full of useful things. Uh, so next week, we start Andrew Stanton.

• 2:26:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:37David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:26:38Griffin Newman?

  The Toy Story five episode.

• 2:26:39David Sims?

  Finding Nemo.

• 2:26:40Griffin Newman?

  Will be coming at a delay.

• 2:26:41David Sims?

  Cut out the part where I basically threatened to murder you about three hours, 15 minutes in.

• 2:26:44Griffin Newman?

  I also hope we cut that out.

• 2:26:45Speaker 02

  In the Finding Nemo episode?

• 2:26:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Just cause if we don't, it'll be really.

• 2:26:50David Sims?

  More fuel for the fire of like, oh, David wants to murder Griffin Newman.

• 2:26:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's also just like, I'm not gonna agree to license that out to the Netflix doc in five years.

• 2:26:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:26:58David Sims?

  Wait, no.

• 2:26:58Griffin Newman?

  My family.

• 2:26:59David Sims?

  If Netflix wants him.

• 2:27:01Griffin Newman?

  My estate.

• 2:27:02David Sims?

  Excuse me.

• 2:27:02Speaker 02

  So you're gonna murder him?

• 2:27:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:27:05Griffin Newman?

  That's what he claims in the Nemo episode.

• 2:27:08David Sims?

  I don't say that.

• 2:27:08Griffin Newman?

  And look, we'll cut all of it out, but he gets like detailed.

• 2:27:13David Sims?

  That sounds like a Doughboys episode where Mike starts talking, bitch starts like, you're like, wait, bitch, have you planned something?

• 2:27:18Griffin Newman?

  That's what they talk about having songs to show.

• 2:27:20David Sims?

  That's true.

• 2:27:21Griffin Newman?

  The Boys is the best podcast in the world.

• 2:27:23David Sims?

  No, Stanton, starting with Finding Nemo, a little known film.

• 2:27:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:27David Sims?

  A small one by him.

• 2:27:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, one of the most successful movies.

• 2:27:29David Sims?

  With the great Rebecca Alter from Vulture.

• 2:27:31Griffin Newman?

  We got Rebecca.

• 2:27:32David Sims?

  And then, yes, we will discuss, you know, some very successful films and also in the blink of an eye.

• 2:27:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:27:39David Sims?

  I mean, it was successful. I mean financially successful.

• 2:27:41Griffin Newman?

  And John Carter, the definitive

• 2:27:44David Sims?

  Bounce.

• 2:27:44Griffin Newman?

  Hollywood bounce of the last 25 years.

• 2:27:46David Sims?

  It's a bounce.

• 2:27:47Speaker 02

  I'm really excited to reread that New Yorker article.

• 2:27:50Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the best.

• 2:27:51David Sims?

  I know, you know, somewhere in the middle there, we will, of course, discuss Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, as previously mentioned.

• 2:27:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and that series will end with Toy Story 5, which will obviously be late, but it means I'll have gotten to see it two times.

• 2:28:02David Sims?

  Yeah, you'll have percolated on it because we're recording it next week because he's off.

• 2:28:06Griffin Newman?

  I have tickets.

• 2:28:07David Sims?

  Griff's on vacation.

• 2:28:07Griffin Newman?

  I'm going, well, it's work. I'm seeing it a third time after we record the episode. That is the actual fact.

• 2:28:14Speaker 02

  Have you already seen it?

• 2:28:15Griffin Newman?

  No, we're all seeing it together.

• 2:28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:17Griffin Newman?

  And then I'm seeing it the night before we record.

• 2:28:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 2:28:20Griffin Newman?

  And then I'm seeing it again the night after we record. So I get three in before I go to insert foreign country here.

• 2:28:26Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:28:27Griffin Newman?

  The printer's running, which means everything's working and I'm going to run out of here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Pod C, a mini series on the films of Andrew Stan that has to be said that way or else it doesn't make any sense.

• 2:28:41Speaker 02

  See.

• 2:28:41Griffin Newman?

  Pod C.

• 2:28:43David Sims?

  You can also check out our Patreon over at patreon.com slash blank check.

• 2:28:47Griffin Newman?

  That's so true. It's so true.

• 2:28:48David Sims?

  We are currently covering, I want to say. We just recently released the Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft. I don't remember the exact title.

• 2:28:59Griffin Newman?

  The Concert Tour 3D.

• 2:29:01Speaker 02

  Slash our trip to Wisconsin.

• 2:29:03David Sims?

  Yeah, as well as paired with a live discussion at the Wisconsin Film Festival we did about Babe Two and the City.

• 2:29:11Griffin Newman?

  I mean, no offense when I tell you that's what the episode is.

• 2:29:14David Sims?

  I appreciate that, Chris.

• 2:29:15Griffin Newman?

  Of course. And then, yes, we're running through Robocop, Robert Cop.

• 2:29:20David Sims?

  Yes, that's right. Robert Cop, a movie with one really good one and then some bump.

• 2:29:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's one of the, one of the types of commentary series we do.

• 2:29:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:29:29Griffin Newman?

  Failure to ever make one good follow up.

• 2:29:32David Sims?

  And frustration mounting.

• 2:29:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:29:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:29:35Griffin Newman?

  But I think they're all fun episodes. I certainly go Griff mode on several areas.

• 2:29:40Speaker 02

  So does that mean that David threatens to murder you again?

• 2:29:43Griffin Newman?

  No, I feel like we actually had good times on those.

• 2:29:45David Sims?

  Generally, I think our frustrations are with the Robert Cop franchise on those ones.

• 2:29:51Griffin Newman?

  We have a mutual anime.

• 2:29:52David Sims?

  We start to get a little grumpy on them.

• 2:29:53Speaker 01

  The 2014 one is so bad, so bad that I just remember being really mad.

• 2:29:59Griffin Newman?

  You got worked up. You got, Ben got really worked up. Anyway, tune in for that. And as always.

• 2:30:14Speaker 01

  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 Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali 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

• 2:30:56Speaker 01

  franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.