Drive Away Dolls with mxmtoon

Two gals and a briefcase full of dicks. What more could an 84 minute caper need? mxmtoon joins us to chat about Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s lesbian road trip movie Drive Away Dolls, and brings with her the fascinating perspective of someone whose first Coen movie was…Drive Away Dolls! We’re chatting about Ethan and Tricia’s unconventional relationship, the legacy of Cynthia PlasterCaster, and the unlikely leading man trajectory of Pedro Pascal. Plus, we’re mourning the dearth of lesbian bars and Geraldine Viswanathan vehicles in our current cultural climate. Check out mxmtoon’s YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtuYNnKhOOQL_H6F-EzUaZg Read Ethan’s Collection of short stories https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/186779/ethan-coen Support The Lipstick Lounge if you are in Nashville https://thelipsticklounge.com/Or Sugar and Spice Bar, The Cattyshack https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/fashion/sundaystyles/where-the-girls-are.html, The Cubby Hole https://www.cubbyholebar.com/, Gingers https://www.instagram.com/gingersbarbrooklyn/?hl=en Check out Demon Slayer http://crunchyroll.com/series/GY5P48XEY/demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba?srsltid=AfmBOop3Ux6R0kZaPaH--6gT4bwtCNN5eUPjxABoc-b12AxhAX9v05yP Follow mxmtoon on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/mxmtoon 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. Yep. We did a live show. Yeah, remember? Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things. Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly. Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now. Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20Speaker 02

  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 02

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  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 01

  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. I was locked in. Yeah, very locked in and you were funny. Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny. Oh, thank you. And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it. You might see me shine Marie's shoes. Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 01

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 02

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

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Marian, you have got to have a good, steamy podcast. Now, what I wanted to do originally was. Is the word fuck? Yeah, correct.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47Griffin Newman?

  What I wanted to do originally was, and then I realized I don't think the context clues are quite strong enough, was, won't anybody podcast curly? Yes. That's my favorite line in the movie. I think if I put the word podcast in for save, it sounds like I'm saying fuck. That's what's weird. Anyone.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Won't anybody podcast?

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  Podcast. Curly. But you can't say, won't anyone save podcast? That, David, that's nonsense. You're right. And this is a serious movie with no nonsense. This is one of the most serious films we have ever covered on this podcast.

• 2:20David Sims?

  Such a heavy weighty film.

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  We've talked in the past, the many times we've covered the films of Holly Hunter, someone who's come up in this mini series, my struggle to do a Holly Hunter impression.

• 2:31David Sims?

  And you think that Margot Qualley is struggling throughout this film to do a Holly Hunter impression?

• 2:35Griffin Newman?

  I think I'm pretty well teed up to do a Margot Qualley in Drive Away Dolls impression because it's very close to my bad Holly Hunter.

• 2:44David Sims?

  Now, Margaret Qualley.

• 2:45Griffin Newman?

  And I'm not saying that as a slam against the performance. It just is a convenient for me.

• 2:50David Sims?

  Obviously, her mother is a southern belle with a famous accent with a lilt.

• 2:55Griffin Newman?

  I think she's doing some of her mom. I think she's doing some of her mom in this. Yeah.

• 3:00David Sims?

  But Margaret Qualley, it's kind of like she's born in Montana. Her parents broke up when she was five. She lived in Montana. She lived in North Carolina. And then like they split up and then she moved to Asheville. So she's like, she's got a lot of southern in her.

• 3:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:16David Sims?

  But she don't talk like this, I guess.

• 3:17Griffin Newman?

  She doesn't.

• 3:18David Sims?

  I guess in interviews, she's not like, well, yeah, park my keister and, you know, in the audition and I got it. Like she doesn't talk like.

• 3:25Griffin Newman?

  She doesn't pretend to.

• 3:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:27Griffin Newman?

  No, I do think she's doing a bit of her mom. I do think she's doing a bit of Holly Hunter. I'm not the first one to make this. Do you know where I'm going with this?

• 3:34Speaker 04

  I think I have a sense. Does it start with an S?

• 3:37Griffin Newman?

  Three, two, one, Sandy Chee. Yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  Sandy from SpongeBob.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 3:44David Sims?

  Okay, right. So I don't have like the appropriate amount of SpongeBob like sort of awareness.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  That's a perfect example of the minor age difference between you and I is missing the SpongeBob thing entirely.

• 3:56David Sims?

  SpongeBob SquarePants.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  What's crazy is I'm younger than both of you and I'm actually closer to David, though, because I did not watch SpongeBob at all.

• 4:03Griffin Newman?

  Now, did you lead for SpongeBob?

• 4:05Speaker 04

  I, no, I wasn't too late for SpongeBob. I was kept from SpongeBob. I had crunchy granola parents that were like, it's going to rot your brain. You can't do it.

• 4:13David Sims?

  Could you watch any TV or was it all?

• 4:14Speaker 04

  I watched PBS Kids, so shout out to PBS Kids.

• 4:17David Sims?

  So who should we be shouting? Obviously, Daniel Tiger or were you too old for Daniel Tiger?

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Honestly, I don't know. Just look at the back of my phone case. I've got like so many stickers on the back. We've got cartoon stickers. We have W, uh, DW on there. Monster, Kermit, etc. Dragon Tales. That was kind of my era.

• 4:33David Sims?

  Arthur in the mix.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  I wish I didn't have room for him, but also representation for sisters of all kinds.

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  DW is your, is your first pick. So I talk about this far too often on the podcast.

• 4:43David Sims?

  That sign doesn't mean anything to her because she can't read.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:47David Sims?

  See, I know a lot of these through memes.

• 4:50Griffin Newman?

  You were not an Arthur kid either.

• 4:51David Sims?

  I, I read the books when I was a kid, but I didn't have the show. The show was maybe I was too late for it or it was around. It wasn't, it wasn't a big show for me.

• 4:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It was just like, it quietly has as many episodes as like Gunsmoke.

• 5:03David Sims?

  It's got 493 episodes.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  No way.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  What?

• 5:07David Sims?

  I mean, I think the episodes are like 10 minutes long, but yes.

• 5:09Griffin Newman?

  They kept going. They only ended it very recently.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  I did not realize that.

• 5:13David Sims?

  2022.

• 5:14Griffin Newman?

  That's the other thing is a lot.

• 5:15David Sims?

  Weird. Arthur got hit by a car and just dies and they're like, roll credits.

• 5:20Griffin Newman?

  You joke about this. My, my little sister Romilly was obsessed with Caillou.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 5:26Griffin Newman?

  The, the French Canadian animated show that was another PBS Kids staple. That was her favorite show.

• 5:32David Sims?

  It's the little boy who looks like, uh, yeah, he's bald. He's got a little like sort of, he's got a hat missing a propeller, but it looks like a propeller belongs on top of it. Yeah.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  It's the most gentle, conflict free show in the world, which my sister always really wanted that. I like Peanuts and Arthur maybe sometimes got a little too intense.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  And Caillou. And there was one day my dad woke us up and he was like, we have to do everything we can to make sure she doesn't see this. And it was on the New York Post, the voice of Caillou had been hit by a car.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 6:04Griffin Newman?

  The image was like the face of the voice actor and the cartoon character and the car.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  Where we're like, even if she can't read this, she's going to ask follow up questions and we have to shield this.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  That's awful.

• 6:17Griffin Newman?

  It was like Arthur.

• 6:18David Sims?

  Yes. She was the second voice of Caillou.

• 6:20Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 6:21David Sims?

  She was hit by a car. That's very sad. She died very young and she was replaced of course by another Canadian French actress, Annie Baudrillard.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:32David Sims?

  Just telling you guys what's going on with Caillou. I don't know why you guys are so hostile and furious.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  I thought it was Genevieve Bujol took over the role of Caillou.

• 6:39David Sims?

  No, but Genevieve Bujol was famously, isn't she the one who quit Star Trek Voyager Weekend or whatever?

• 6:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:46David Sims?

  I think that, I think that's right.

• 6:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 6:47David Sims?

  Like, it's like-

• 6:48Griffin Newman?

  Was it supposed to be Janeway?

• 6:49David Sims?

  She was cast as Janeway. I don't know if you guys, if you're a Star Trek person, Maya, probably not.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  I'm not, I'm not.

• 6:55David Sims?

  Another great, famous French Canadian actress.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:58David Sims?

  And she, there's like stories all over the place, but I think that the sort of settled version is basically like, everyone was kind of nervous because it wasn't going that well. And they started stressing her like, you know, it's a lot of work, you know, like this is a big commitment, Star Trek, like you're gonna have to do this all year. Like, and she was like, huh, maybe I want to quit. And they were like, oh, fuck. You want to quit? Shit, you should quit. Go, go away now. We're casting Columbo's wife.

• 7:27Griffin Newman?

  She was pushing them to do every line of dialogue two ways.

• 7:31David Sims?

  Right, we gotta do-

• 7:32Griffin Newman?

  Translate it. And they were like, that's gonna double.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 7:35Griffin Newman?

  We don't-

• 7:36David Sims?

  It's just because it was a, yeah, it's just, it's crazy that they recast their lead.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:43David Sims?

  Yeah, she left two days into the filming of the pilot.

• 7:46Griffin Newman?

  To close the loop on this.

• 7:47David Sims?

  Sorry, Gary.

• 7:48Griffin Newman?

  I had like trash monger father, crunchy granola mom.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:51Griffin Newman?

  Who very much was like PBS Kids.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  That's it. And was like, all the Nicktoons are banned, right? Like, all the Saturday morning cartoons are banned. Like, tried to block me from all this stuff. It was Cartoon Network, because that was old. They didn't have original shows at the time.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 8:06Griffin Newman?

  And PBS Kids.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:07Griffin Newman?

  And then SpongeBob starts when I'm 10, I think. But my sister is nine years younger than me. And the, the, she had given up by the time my sister was born and protecting anything. So I was like, just at the right age to be like, is it still kind of cool to watch SpongeBob? Because SpongeBob's the cool one. And then watching it with her for a while. But I feel like they have been very upfront about the fact that Sandy Cheeks was like, we want Holly Hunter as a astronaut squirrel under the sea. And it feels like, okay, so Sandy is like cartoon version of Holly Hunter. And this character is cartoon version of cartoon squirrel.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  So it's just a loop.

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  It is that removed-

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Kind of just a chain.

• 8:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:51David Sims?

  Who the fuck are the character? Who is she?

• 8:53Griffin Newman?

  In SpongeBob?

• 8:54David Sims?

  Yeah, who is she?

• 8:55Griffin Newman?

  David, she's very cool.

• 8:56David Sims?

  I believe you.

• 8:57Griffin Newman?

  Her name is Sandy Cheeks and she's basically on a research mission from the land. So she wears a little astronaut suit. It's like she's

• 9:05David Sims?

  Right, because of course squirrels don't

• 9:06Griffin Newman?

  has to live under the sea. And she's like a Texan squirrel.

• 9:09David Sims?

  Okay.

• 9:09Griffin Newman?

  In an astronaut suit who lives in a bubble.

• 9:12David Sims?

  Okay. And she's She like a main character? Or she kind of pops in?

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, she's a main character.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, more than most.

• 9:17David Sims?

  You got SpongeBob, okay? And he's a little sponge and he works at the burger place.

• 9:21Griffin Newman?

  He loves

• 9:21David Sims?

  I'm gonna try and give you everything I know.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:23David Sims?

  And then his best friend is a starfish called Patrick, who's like dumb.

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's a little behind the eight ball.

• 9:28David Sims?

  He's a little simple, okay.

• 9:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:30David Sims?

  And then their boss is, okay, okay. Their middle manager is Squidward, who's grumpy.

• 9:35Griffin Newman?

  Squidward is like the more tenured employee who hates how hard SpongeBob tries.

• 9:40David Sims?

  He's, okay.

• 9:41Griffin Newman?

  He's been kind of clocking and clocking out. All he wants to do is read books and play clarinet. He's very much a bird.

• 9:46David Sims?

  He's a bird. He like just wants to take it easy. He doesn't want to get sucked into any

• 9:49Griffin Newman?

  And SpongeBob is an Ernie if they work together and they were never friends.

• 9:54David Sims?

  They don't even really like each other.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  No.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  No, but SpongeBob always wants to play with Squidward.

• 9:58David Sims?

  Right. And Mr. Krabs is the boss.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  He's the

• 10:00David Sims?

  He owns the burger place.

• 10:02Griffin Newman?

  He loves money.

• 10:03David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 10:04Griffin Newman?

  And his, and his daughter Pearl, who's a big whale.

• 10:07David Sims?

  Where, no.

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  This is deeper, that's deeper.

• 10:09David Sims?

  I don't have that, that's not there. And, and I guess I knew there was a squirrel maybe, but I don't think so.

• 10:16Griffin Newman?

  She's main crew, that's the main tier. Are you, do you know from Plankton?

• 10:21David Sims?

  That, is that the little guy?

• 10:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:23David Sims?

  And what does he do?

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  He is all Plankton, he is like an evil mastermind. His thing is he wants to steal the recipe for the Krabby Patty because he runs the rival restaurant, The Chum Bucket, across the street, which is not popular. And he's married to a computer named Karen.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  I forgot about that.

• 10:37David Sims?

  And, and SpongeBob is a grown up? What is he?

• 10:41Griffin Newman?

  Ostensibly.

• 10:42David Sims?

  Is he like adult or is he teen? He lives alone?

• 10:46Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 10:46David Sims?

  In a pineapple.

• 10:47Griffin Newman?

  And you see his parents, they'll come to visit.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Like, what would you say if you had to guess how old SpongeBob was canonically?

• 10:54Griffin Newman?

  He's a little in that Tremblay zone. Where you're like How old is he actually? How old is he playing?

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  Like he, we might.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  The SpongeBob?

• 11:03Griffin Newman?

  Because like, you know.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  Parents?

• 11:04Griffin Newman?

  It's SpongeBob. You see them, they're a little, I don't want to age Shane.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 11:08Griffin Newman?

  They're not in the prime of their life. They're, they're not cutting the same kind of figures.

• 11:12David Sims?

  SpongeBob arrived 1999. So I was 13 years old. So I only knew SpongeBob as a thing that I might watch ironically as a teenager being like, oh, this is kind of clever. But like, obviously my era of clever cartoons was your Ren and Stimpy and Ah Real Monsters and Rocco's Modern Life and all that. And all of those were like, right, Gen X cartoons about like how boring it was to have a job.

• 11:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 11:36David Sims?

  You know, like I loved Ah Real Monsters because it had monsters, but like the people who are making it are like, fucking wage slavery.

• 11:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 11:42David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Same with Rocco's.

• 11:43Griffin Newman?

  And they were getting like underground cartoonists and indie comics and whatever to make these shows.

• 11:47David Sims?

  And then SpongeBob, it feels like, does have the same thing of like, yeah, it sucks to clock in and clock out at the burger place, but it's a little more silly, little more kind of cute.

• 11:55Griffin Newman?

  And the thing is SpongeBob loves it so much.

• 11:58David Sims?

  Right. He's a cheerful guy.

• 11:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:00David Sims?

  SpongeBob is happy.

• 12:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  I want to make it. Age answer.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 12:04David Sims?

  Yeah. How old SpongeBob?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Apparently you see SpongeBob's driver's license in an episode and it's listed that he was born on July 14th, 1986.

• 12:14David Sims?

  So, oh, he's, he's three years, three months younger than me, basically.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  So he is currently 39 years old.

• 12:20David Sims?

  Yeah, that's my age.

• 12:21Griffin Newman?

  Wait, but in theory, when the show premiered, he would have been 13, living on his own, emancipated?

• 12:27David Sims?

  But like this is, but like, what is the society that?

• 12:29Griffin Newman?

  When is the episode with the driver's license, Ben?

• 12:33David Sims?

  It doesn't matter.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  More information about SpongeBob than I've ever.

• 12:37David Sims?

  But like, he doesn't live in America. He lives up in the sea.

• 12:39Griffin Newman?

  He lives in pineapple under the sea.

• 12:40David Sims?

  Right. So it's like, what's the government?

• 12:42Speaker 04

  13 years old, you can get your driver's license.

• 12:44David Sims?

  Maybe you can. Like, is there a president in SpongeBob? Like, is there a, you know? How high does this go?

• 12:50Griffin Newman?

  A president. I feel like there's a mayor.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  So it was.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  Bikini Bottom.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  It was featured on Sleepy Time is the name of the episode and the air date was in 2000, January 17.

• 13:01David Sims?

  So pretty early. He was 14 years old. So the, the mayor apparently is like a big green fish.

• 13:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sounds about right.

• 13:08David Sims?

  Okay.

• 13:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. What are you talking about? New York City?

• 13:12David Sims?

  Go on.

• 13:13Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. Eric Adams is like a big green fish.

• 13:15David Sims?

  See?

• 13:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:16David Sims?

  Feel like your satire canon kind of went off.

• 13:20Griffin Newman?

  Look, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 13:22David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 13:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. In a way, this is one of the blankest checks we've ever covered on this show.

• 13:37David Sims?

  Well, I was gonna say, right? Then they clear and then they bounce and then maybe they evolve into, right? Some new phase of their careers, separate from each other and start to do even crazier passion projects.

• 13:48Griffin Newman?

  But this is just permanent revolving line of credit, right? This is, your Ethan Cohen, in any form, will basically follow you to do anything you want.

• 13:57David Sims?

  You can, I feel like the thing.

• 13:59Griffin Newman?

  At a small enough size.

• 14:00David Sims?

  I was about to say, I think the thing with Ethan and Joel's solo careers is it's like, right? They can always get a cast. Anyone's gonna want to work with them. So that will give them a budget.

• 14:11Griffin Newman?

  And Ethan has continued to work with working title who bankrolled so many of their movies together for so long. They seem on board to just being like, anything you write, we want to do.

• 14:21David Sims?

  Um, right.

• 14:22Griffin Newman?

  But this has been a mini series. This continues to be a mini series on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen, together and separately. Sometimes with their wives. Uh, it is called Pod Country for Old Cast. And today we're talking about Drive Away Dolls slash Title. I don't know if I can say.

• 14:39David Sims?

  Henry James's Drive Away Dykes.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  David said it. He went for it.

• 14:42David Sims?

  And when it was announced, I feel like it was announced as Drive Away Dykes and they, then they, it was like, what was the, um, you know? Fuck, No Strings Attached was called like Fuck Buddies. And they were like, we're calling it Fuck Buddies. We're not budging on that.

• 14:55Griffin Newman?

  We're putting asterisks in the title.

• 14:57David Sims?

  It's called No Strings Attached. Or it was the other one. I can't remember which one it was.

• 15:00Griffin Newman?

  No, that, it was that one.

• 15:01David Sims?

  What's the other one called?

• 15:02Griffin Newman?

  Uh, the other one is Friends with Benefits.

• 15:04David Sims?

  And that one's bad.

• 15:06Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 15:07David Sims?

  I like No Strings Attached.

• 15:09Griffin Newman?

  Which is the good one.

• 15:09David Sims?

  And I don't like.

• 15:10Griffin Newman?

  That's the Liz Merriweather, um, fucking Ivan Reitman.

• 15:13David Sims?

  Ivan Reitman, and I don't like Friends with Benefits. I have, every time.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Is that the one with Mila Kunis?

• 15:18David Sims?

  Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake.

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:21David Sims?

  And I assume various other people.

• 15:22Griffin Newman?

  Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.

• 15:24David Sims?

  Right. But No Strings Attached has like Greta Gerwig. It has a fairly robust supporting cast.

• 15:28Griffin Newman?

  Mindy Kaling, Guy Burnham, uh, Carrie Elwes.

• 15:33David Sims?

  Of course.

• 15:34Griffin Newman?

  Kevin Kline is really good in No Strings Attached.

• 15:36David Sims?

  Kline's there. Looks like Jake Johnson showed up and Ludacris.

• 15:40Griffin Newman?

  Jake Johnson and Ludacris are Ashton Kutcher's friends.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  What?

• 15:43Griffin Newman?

  They're his, dude, I don't know about this brunch.

• 15:47David Sims?

  How many strings are attached to it?

• 15:50Griffin Newman?

  This is a thing we've really lost in the death of the studio comedy and especially the death of the studio rom com. Well, that, but also specifically the casting of The Best Friends.

• 16:00David Sims?

  Yeah, man. Just be like, okay, we need three guys. One of them should be a musician. At least one needs to be a person of color.

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  Hang out with each other.

• 16:08David Sims?

  Maybe one should be gay.

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  25 years of partner age, but all have a little juice in different areas of the industry.

• 16:15David Sims?

  Because in, okay, so in, have you seen any of these movies, Maya? And we haven't introduced you.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Well, hello.

• 16:20Griffin Newman?

  And also, how do we introduce you?

• 16:22David Sims?

  Oh, yes.

• 16:23Griffin Newman?

  I say our guest today is MXM Tune.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  That's perfect. That's great. But you can call me Maya. Cause that's, it's wordy to be like, so MXM Tune, what did you think about?

• 16:31Griffin Newman?

  The musical artist MXM Tune, who we will now be socially.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Yes, perfect.

• 16:35Griffin Newman?

  If you've granted us curly, curly permission.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:38Griffin Newman?

  To use the familiar name.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  I grant you familiar permission.

• 16:42David Sims?

  Thanks, Maya. Welcome to the show.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 16:45David Sims?

  We really appreciate you being here. So no strings. I'm sorry, Friends with Benefits. Have you seen all of these movies?

• 16:51Speaker 04

  Friends with Benefits. And I remember distinctly being like, this movie's ass. Like this is a bad movie. But I don't know if I've seen No Strings Attached.

• 16:58David Sims?

  Now, Friends with Benefits.

• 16:59Griffin Newman?

  It's a Will Gluck joint?

• 17:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  Written and directed?

• 17:02David Sims?

  I believe you're right. But that was the one that was, I think, PG 13, right? Like it was trying not to be.

• 17:07Griffin Newman?

  I think that one's R and the other one's PG. Am I wrong?

• 17:10David Sims?

  All right, let me find out.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 17:12David Sims?

  I mean, there's only one way to find out.

• 17:14Griffin Newman?

  It's a facet.

• 17:15David Sims?

  Me Googling.

• 17:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:15David Sims?

  But Friends with Benefits was R. No Strings Attached was also R.

• 17:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 17:21David Sims?

  Two Rs.

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  I give him credit.

• 17:23David Sims?

  Yeah. So Friends with Benefits had Jenna Elfman, Nolan Gould, Brian Greenberg. It did have Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson and Patricia Clarkson as parents. And apparently Emma Stone swings in. I guess that's probably a sort of a Will Gluck.

• 17:38Griffin Newman?

  Ex. She dumps him at the beginning and I think Sandberg is Mila Kunis's ex?

• 17:43David Sims?

  Sandberg shows up. I assume that was kind of a just in favor.

• 17:46Griffin Newman?

  But those are the breakups at the very beginning that lead to them creating the arrangement.

• 17:50David Sims?

  Gluck had just done Easy A.

• 17:52Griffin Newman?

  He's cashing the Easy A check.

• 17:54David Sims?

  And then he, he moved on to do Annie. Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit two. It's a weird career. And then Anyone But You, which was a hit.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:08David Sims?

  And starred a person that everyone's normal about, Sydney Sweeney.

• 18:12Griffin Newman?

  And a movie that has actually historically bad best friend casting.

• 18:16David Sims?

  I mean, that movie is so bad. I'm sorry.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  It's awful.

• 18:19David Sims?

  As much as I was rooting for it to like, yeah, save our rom coms and all that, like that movie stinks.

• 18:24Griffin Newman?

  We, we, we saw that like five days into its release. So it, the opening weekend had bombed. And it was before the second wind started where it just inexplicably became a hit. And we went with a bunch of friends and we're drunk and we're like, look, we gotta support this thing. This thing sucks, but like we're always bemoaning the lack of studio rom coms and let's just have fun watching this. And then we were just sort of like, well, that was a good experience of a terrible movie and a weird crowd.

• 18:52David Sims?

  We had a, right. We had a really weird experience.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  What was going on that made it so strange?

• 18:56Griffin Newman?

  With threats in the theater kept saying the N word.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 18:59David Sims?

  It was the craziest movie.

• 19:00Griffin Newman?

  It was the craziest. Our friend Fran Hoffner said, this is the least real thing that has ever happened.

• 19:07David Sims?

  It was one of those things where we didn't totally clock what was happening at first, but something was happening. And like clearly, I really think that person had booked that screening because they were like, who's gonna come to like a 10pm?

• 19:21Griffin Newman?

  It was like Thursday, December 29th.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  No way.

• 19:25Griffin Newman?

  At 10pm and clearly was just like, oh, fuck, a bunch of podcasters came in.

• 19:29David Sims?

  Bobby Dinger and Lindsey Weber and Fran Hoffner. And we're like, woo. And she just said the N word about every two or three months.

• 19:37Griffin Newman?

  Intensified and it got clearer and there was, there was no deniability.

• 19:41David Sims?

  And just, I just, I probably should get that movie another shake just cause it really was crazy.

• 19:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Also, it's probably better watching it that much. But I think, right, like my, my, my, uh, I, I don't know. There was a certain like leniency I was granting the film for just like, well, they tried. That the bigger a hit it became, and the more people were eating it up, the more I was like, no, fuck that. This movie's a mess.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  It's bad. Glenn Powell can't even save it. I watched it on an iPhone at the gym and I was like, this is, first of all, it's a busted viewing experience to be watching that movie on a treadmill. I was literally like, I might as well leave this gym so I can stop watching this movie right now.

• 20:21Griffin Newman?

  But yet, that feels like a movie that was basically designed to go straight to Taxi TV.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yes. A hundred percent.

• 20:27Griffin Newman?

  It should not be seen on a big screen.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  No, no. It's bad. It's a bad movie. You don't need to watch it again, David. You don't.

• 20:33David Sims?

  Okay, I won't do it. Maybe I'll watch it on my phone at the gym, though. That's okay. Um, so, Driveway Dolls. Okay, we're here to discuss Driveway Dolls, which I guess is the second Coen, solo Coen, right? Like Macbeth had already come out, or am I wrong?

• 20:49Griffin Newman?

  Macbeth has already come out. We will have covered Macbeth.

• 20:52David Sims?

  Yes, the, the, of course, the tragedy of Macbeth.

• 20:55Griffin Newman?

  It was not funny.

• 20:57David Sims?

  From Joel Coen.

• 20:57Griffin Newman?

  And I'm glad they put that in front of the title so I could adjust my expectations accordingly.

• 21:01David Sims?

  So, the Coens did not make a movie after Buster Scruggs in 2018. Then they break up. Joel wakes Macbeth and Ethan, I don't know.

• 21:10Griffin Newman?

  Ethan does his Jerry Lee Lewis documentary.

• 21:13David Sims?

  Which is bad.

• 21:15Griffin Newman?

  It is very strange. It feels very, uh, high school film.

• 21:18David Sims?

  It's called, uh, Trouble in Mine. And it's a documentary, a TV documentary, basically. I don't know, I guess it was at like the Cannes Film Festival.

• 21:27Griffin Newman?

  It played at Cannes, A24 bought it, but then it went basically straight to streaming and VOD.

• 21:32David Sims?

  It's about Jerry Lee Lewis.

• 21:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 21:34David Sims?

  Who was a bit of a controversial figure.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Wait, what did he do?

• 21:38Griffin Newman?

  Normal guy.

• 21:38David Sims?

  Normal things, always.

• 21:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But David is-

• 21:42David Sims?

  Married people at normal ages and stuff like that.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  But they were like-

• 21:46David Sims?

  Related.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 21:48Griffin Newman?

  His balls of fire were a normal size.

• 21:51David Sims?

  It is wild for your Wikipedia personal life entry. Maya, you should aim for this. Your Wikipedia personal life should begin. Maya was married seven times, including bigamous marriages and a marriage with his underage cousin.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  No. Oh, that's just the exact like compass of what not to do.

• 22:08Griffin Newman?

  It's always great when personal life has subsections.

• 22:11David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 22:14David Sims?

  But you got to shout out, and this is something we discussed in our King Ralph episode. I love rock piano.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 22:20David Sims?

  It's a kind of a lost form.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  But you're being serious, right?

• 22:24David Sims?

  Yeah, I think it's so fun.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  I agree with you.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  I'll try to bring it back.

• 22:27David Sims?

  When they start playing for behind, I mean, that's

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Come on. Put more stunts on stage. I want to see stunts with instruments on stage.

• 22:34Griffin Newman?

  Have you considered doing this during any of your concerts?

• 22:37Speaker 04

  Rock piano?

• 22:37Griffin Newman?

  Working rock piano into the

• 22:39Speaker 04

  Not yet, but I mean, Ben is so enthusiastic about it. I'm like

• 22:43David Sims?

  I mean, come on, this?

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Under the leg?

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  Ben's doing under the leg.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  It's good. It's good.

• 22:47David Sims?

  Well, what instruments do you play, Maya? I know you play the ukulele.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Yes, that is, I mean, on my Wikipedia page, I'm sure there is mention of the ukulele. There are no subsections about my seven marriages yet, but

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Maya has owned seven ukuleles, including a bigamous ukulele?

• 23:03Speaker 04

  I, that is crazy. I play the ukulele. I grew up playing like classical music and stuff, but I found the ukulele through like school and middle school, but then ended up learning more over YouTube and it became my job, which I'm grateful it happened, but I couldn't have predicted it not from a mile away. Yeah.

• 23:19David Sims?

  Apparently, according to your Wikipedia, you've played the cello and the trumpet as a classical musician.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Yes, I only did the trumpet to learn the Star Wars theme. That was literally the only reason. Yeah.

• 23:30David Sims?

  I love that big brass. Do you ever just fire up the Star Wars theme just to get the first 10 seconds to just like fucking shoot you out the door?

• 23:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:39David Sims?

  Do I do?

• 23:40Griffin Newman?

  Do you do? Have you ever set it as a wake up alarm?

• 23:43Speaker 04

  Yes, that's how my dad would wake me up for school every day.

• 23:48David Sims?

  Aggressive.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  It was. It was. Like, he was the biggest Star Wars nerd ever. Very sci fi. But it was also part of the reason why I never watched a Coen Brothers movie until Drive Away Dolls was because

• 23:58Speaker 02

  This was the first

• 23:59Speaker 04

  This was the first one.

• 24:00David Sims?

  That's why I think she's a great guest for this episode.

• 24:02Griffin Newman?

  This is great. Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  It was nuts because I only watched sci fi.

• 24:05David Sims?

  Your dad from, oh, I see.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Like, but you didn't watch Trek. I didn't watch Trek. My parents watched Trek. They were very into it, but Star Wars and like Lord of the Rings were kind of my fantasy and like sci fi, whatever worlds that I was living in. But my dad would show like anything that had to do with space to me and my brother. But like because the Coen Brothers and as I was.

• 24:24David Sims?

  They've never gone to space.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  They've never gone to space. Never. And I was doing my homework because I knew I would be doing the podcast with you guys and I had not watched many Coen Brothers movies. My boyfriend.

• 24:33David Sims?

  I saw you logging.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 24:35David Sims?

  I saw some logs, some old Coens logs.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  Hey, I credit that to my, my lovely boyfriend, Jack, who got me into it and he's a fan of the show, but I.

• 24:42Griffin Newman?

  Some people call you Messina because you be logging. I'm trying to do a side version of this joke.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  You're, you're launching jokes.

• 24:49Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:50David Sims?

  Messina?

• 24:51Griffin Newman?

  Loggins and Messina. They were a duo. Kenny, Kenny Loggins before he went solo. It was Loggins and Messina.

• 24:56David Sims?

  I didn't know that.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  The best part of the joke is when you explain it. I've always said, I've always said, yes.

• 25:02Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna.

• 25:02David Sims?

  Jim Messina. He was from Buffalo Springfield.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:06Griffin Newman?

  I think the best part of the joke is when you defend it.

• 25:08David Sims?

  Loggins and Messina? What was their big song?

• 25:11Griffin Newman?

  Not just explain it, but defend that you were right.

• 25:13Speaker 04

  There's multiple parts, yes.

• 25:15David Sims?

  Let's see. It looks like Your Mama Don't Dance was one. Well, let me put, you know what? Let me put him into Spotify and see what the top song is.

• 25:22Griffin Newman?

  Did they do, um, am I wrong in thinking Loggins and Messina did Danny's song?

• 25:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 25:30Griffin Newman?

  I think that was Loggins and Messina.

• 25:32David Sims?

  I think you're right.

• 25:33Griffin Newman?

  I think Messina was in the picture at that point.

• 25:36David Sims?

  What happened to Danny?

• 25:38Griffin Newman?

  You gotta listen to the end of the song.

• 25:40David Sims?

  How's he doing?

• 25:41Griffin Newman?

  You've, you've naturally backed us up into this.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:44Griffin Newman?

  But, uh, uh, met your, your lovely boyfriend. He came to the Blank Check our show.

• 25:51Griffin Newman?

  It was the day when I was rocking the porch installation. You were not there.

• 25:57Griffin Newman?

  And we had been messaging and I found out you were a listener and he told me that he was a fan of the show. The two of you started dating. He talked about the podcast to you and your response was, oh, that's the thing my parents listened to. All of you listen.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:14Griffin Newman?

  I should get into it. But I just brought this up to Ben and David as I think you are the first person we have ever heard of who's like. Yeah, Blank Check. That's the thing my parents told me to listen to.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  My dad just loves podcasts about movies.

• 26:28Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  So you guys are like, obviously one of the preeminent podcasts about movies.

• 26:31Griffin Newman?

  Thanks.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so.

• 26:32Griffin Newman?

  Uh, shout out to your dad.

• 26:33David Sims?

  Yeah. What's your dad's name?

• 26:35Speaker 04

  My dad's name is Cameron. Shout out to Cameron.

• 26:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So he loves Star Wars.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  He loves Star Wars.

• 26:40Griffin Newman?

  You grew up on Star Wars.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  Exactly. And grew up waking up to it blaring over a speaker and like, that was traumatic. But truly because I think my dad was such a lover of like sci-fi and my mom, she was like an English teacher most of my childhood. And so she taught like English classes around like Hitchcock movies and stuff like that.

• 26:58Griffin Newman?

  Oh, cool.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  So there was a real like gap between like a Hitchcock and watching like Star Wars. And then kind of what I discovered watching the Coen Brothers movies this last like month was really just like, oh, that's why I never watched them was because it was just, that's not what they're doing.

• 27:13Griffin Newman?

  It's in between the gap.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  And yeah, exactly. So it was a lot of fun. I had a lot.

• 27:18Griffin Newman?

  Which ones have you seen now?

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Okay. So I watched, we think I would need to pull up my letterbox.

• 27:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 27:24David Sims?

  Let me look at your letterbox.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you, David.

• 27:26Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'll say, we've been messaging to try to find an episode to have you on.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:29Griffin Newman?

  And there was some stuff next year that was like, oh, some of that might work.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:33Griffin Newman?

  And then we were looking for someone for driveway dolls and I noticed you had a positive log.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  You said to me, you were like, it was either you are one of the only or the only person with the like on the movie.

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  Possibly. Certainly in the circle of people I follow.

• 27:47David Sims?

  I mean, yeah, this is a movie.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  That was my most recent one. So I rewatched it.

• 27:51Griffin Newman?

  That was on the rewatch.

• 27:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 27:52Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:53David Sims?

  Um, you have seen No Country For Old Men. You rewatched that. You watched Barton Fink. You watched True Grit. You watched Fargo. You watched Raising Arizona. You watched The Hunger Games Catching Fire. They directed that.

• 28:08Griffin Newman?

  They did. Yeah.

• 28:09David Sims?

  I think that might be it unless there's another one like.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  But that's a lot of the crime caper ones, which are the interesting ones to watch.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 28:17Griffin Newman?

  For this. And you watched all of them in the middle of a sandwich where the pieces of bread are, you seen driveway dolls two times in theaters?

• 28:24Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 28:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay. And then again this week.

• 28:26David Sims?

  And you saw it and I don't want to blow you up, but you did say you saw it because it had, and I quote, lesbians.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  Yes. And it's because, I mean, like, I think I'm very interested. I identify as bisexual. There are so many queer stories oftentimes in media where like, you know, I want to see a happy end for lesbians as much as the rest of the world. And so I was curious because this is like. I don't know. I mean, there are, of course, lesbians in cars historically in cinema that you can watch on a screen. But I was curious about this one. And I just have lived above an Alamo Drafthouse when I was in New York at the time that this came out. And so I was just like, All right, let me see what's playing tonight. And that one showed up and Margaret Qualley, I'm immediately sold to see what she's up to. And then I showed up and I was like, maybe I'm not immediately sold to see what she's up to.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  I like her.

• 29:13David Sims?

  I really like her.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  I like her.

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  I think she went balls to the walls and like, did not care what the end result was. I think that it just didn't land with me.

• 29:22Griffin Newman?

  I also think, look, I think that is the approach the entire movie is taking. And not to like, pre-fight a straw man, but I anticipate this will be one of those episodes where a contingent of our listeners are like, what the fuck are they talking about?

• 29:38David Sims?

  I get angry comments for giving this movie a mildly positive.

• 29:43Griffin Newman?

  A polite three stars.

• 29:44David Sims?

  A Letterboxd rating every time I log in, which is three times, which I do think is a lot of times to have seen this movie.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  That is wild.

• 29:51Griffin Newman?

  This movie is a very breezy, enjoyable 76 minutes.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 29:57Griffin Newman?

  It goes down.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  Like, it's a movie.

• 29:59David Sims?

  In short.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  You can't be pissed off. It's a movie. You get to the end and you're like, that was, it had all the parts, you know?

• 30:05Griffin Newman?

  This.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  It had all the parts.

• 30:07Griffin Newman?

  This movie is very sloppy.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:09Griffin Newman?

  In a way that is purposeful. That is not me creating like, an armor of defense of anything you think is bad about it is on purpose. But we'll talk about the intent behind this movie. And I just think when I watched this movie, which I've now seen twice, I haven't caught up to David yet.

• 30:26David Sims?

  I saw it twice in theaters, once at a press screening.

• 30:28Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 30:29David Sims?

  And then I took my friend Molly to see it because.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  Your best friend.

• 30:32David Sims?

  My best friend Molly, who, because she was like, let's see a movie. And it was kind of the most Molly sort of appropriate movie out there. It can be tough to find it a Molly. This, the death of theatrical comedy.

• 30:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:44David Sims?

  Means there are less Molly appropriate. Like, she doesn't want to go see a superhero and she doesn't want to see a horror movie.

• 30:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:49David Sims?

  And that tends to be what's in theaters.

• 30:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:51David Sims?

  Especially, when did this come out?

• 30:54Griffin Newman?

  This was February?

• 30:56David Sims?

  Exactly, especially in those early months.

• 30:58Griffin Newman?

  I think it was February of last year.

• 30:59David Sims?

  So I saw it again and I was like, yeah, it's still cute, in my opinion. And I fired it up for this third viewing and I was like, okay, I think I might be done with Drive Away Dolls. Not in an angry way, but it's just sort of like, I think I've gone as deep as I can on this one.

• 31:11Griffin Newman?

  I was feeling very tired and congested last night.

• 31:15David Sims?

  Oh.

• 31:15Griffin Newman?

  I was supposed to go see Weapons, Past and Future Guest at Cragger.

• 31:21David Sims?

  Best movie of the year.

• 31:22Griffin Newman?

  I refunded my preview night tickets because I was just like, I don't feel up for it. I don't want to see Weapons if I'm feeling bad.

• 31:28David Sims?

  You want to be in a good mood.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  And I gotta watch Drive Away Dolls. And I got into bed and sometimes, look, our job is very easy.

• 31:34David Sims?

  Yes, it is.

• 31:35Griffin Newman?

  But sometimes you're like, what's the fucking movie I have to watch tonight? Even if it's a movie I like.

• 31:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:39Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, I'm rewatching this and I gotta watch it like closely to talk about tomorrow. And I put on Drive Away Dolls and I'm like, I'm having a good time.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Like, come on.

• 31:47Griffin Newman?

  I immediately was.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  It's not bad.

• 31:49Griffin Newman?

  I'm having a good time and I'm still gonna get to sleep early.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 31:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Like, you can't be mad at that. I feel like any movie that's like short enough that I can digest it like appropriately without being like dreading how long the watch time is.

• 31:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  I gotta give it a little credit.

• 32:01Griffin Newman?

  And certainly I get that some of this sounds like faint praise awards, but I also think we'll talk about the intent of this movie, which is like, A, I went to see this with my sister, who is a little older than you, but generationally similar. And it was another, like, we try to find movies that we can go see together.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:19Griffin Newman?

  She likes movies more than maybe Molly does, but also there's a lot of stuff she doesn't want to see. And I was like, let's see Drive Away Dolls. And she was like, yeah, that looks fun. Like, girls' road trip comedy.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 32:29Griffin Newman?

  And then I think it was maybe not until we got into the theater that she was like, Ethan Coen directed this? I thought she knew that was part of the sales pitch.

• 32:39Griffin Newman?

  But she was like, well, that's in Congress with what I thought I was going to see, which is, I thought this was a movie made by like a 25-year-old. Like someone just out of film school?

• 32:48Speaker 04

  It does feel like that, I think, in a lot of the ways, which is kind of part of its charm is like, I think that the wackiness of it feels, it's obviously very intentionally supposed to be sloppy. And I think that that is why I liked aspects of it, but it's also, I feel like it's Achilles heel a little bit in a lot of ways.

• 33:04Griffin Newman?

  We will crack open the dossier momentarily, but I think about Connor Raloff, our friend on our Ladykillers episode made, kept making the joke how Ladykillers, what is basically consensus viewed as their worst film, is the first movie in which the Coens both got credited as director because of weird DGA rules.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  Okay, I heard about this.

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  And because you guys, did you talk about it on another episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So they don't start actually being co-credited as directors until Ladykillers. And every slam of Ladykillers, Connor said, but you have to remember, this is the debut film of a new filmmaking team. So for a first film, it's pretty good.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 33:41Griffin Newman?

  And I do feel like despite all of Ethan Coen's experience and pedigree, this is like a debut film of a new

• 33:50Speaker 04

  New team.

• 33:51Griffin Newman?

  Team and a new register, right? Like this is him trying to do something, even though it has a lot of shared DNA with especially the Coen crime caper comedies. It is very much the start of a new thing. That is continued and we will see how long it goes on for, or if roads re-diverge later.

• 34:15Griffin Newman?

  David? Yes? Mmm. Is that the Cine's cow? The Cine's cow is back. Haven't heard from her in a while. Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers. Okay. And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Wow. The cow likes chicken. Remember cow and chicken?

• 34:38David Sims?

  Let's look it up. While you tell the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 34:43Griffin 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, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 34:56David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 34:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:03David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 35:04Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:07David Sims?

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

• 35:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 35:13David Sims?

  This movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 35:21Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show.

• 35:22David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry. Also in it.

• 35:25Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 35:26David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. Won the 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.

• 35:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 35:51David Sims?

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

• 35:55Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 35:57Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:07David Sims?

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

• 36:19Griffin Newman?

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

• 36:24David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 36:30Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 36:31David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 36:31Griffin 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.

• 36:39David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 36:40Griffin 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.

• 36:47David Sims?

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

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:54David Sims?

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

• 37:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:04David Sims?

  No.

• 37:05Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 37:05David 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 in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 37:53Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 37:53David Sims?

  Yes?

• 37:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 37:58David Sims?

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

• 38:03Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 38:05David Sims?

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

• 38:12Griffin 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.

• 38:20David Sims?

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

• 38:25Griffin Newman?

  Cookware, kicks, toys to high-tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly. Search every shop.

• 38:35David Sims?

  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.

• 38:44Griffin Newman?

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

• 39:13Griffin Newman?

  David, you want to crack open the dossier?

• 39:15David Sims?

  Yeah. So driveway doll. So yeah, so it is, you're right. It is Ethan Coens feature filmmaking debut in a way, but it's not really. He'd actually made all those other movies with Joel.

• 39:24Griffin Newman?

  But the point I want to make here is he has been very upfront the entire time of like she co-directed this movie with me. She cannot get that credit because the DGA, she's not a member and I'm already pre-established as part of another team. But much like the early Coens films, it is written by both of them, produced by both of them, directed by him, edited by her. But he's like, we did everything together.

• 39:48David Sims?

  Trisha Cook.

• 39:49Griffin Newman?

  Trisha Cook.

• 39:50David Sims?

  Grew up in Southern California in a town called La Mirada. But since no one knows it, she usually says she's from Whittier, which is where Richard Nixon is from, of course. Got it. Born in a somewhat conservative community, but around the age of 15 or 16, she realized that she didn't like boys. And then she attended USC as a theater major and then went to grad school at NYU, where it's easier to frequent a lesbian bar, perhaps. Yes. And date other women. And she tapped into queer scenes and experienced her queerness in full ways. And at NYU, she remembers that Joel and Ethan came to Screen Raising Arizona,

• 40:34David Sims?

  and she remembers that she and her friends were not interested.

• 40:37Griffin Newman?

  What'd they go to see instead?

• 40:38David Sims?

  Coianna Scottsi.

• 40:39Griffin Newman?

  Boom.

• 40:40David Sims?

  Which of course is a movie that I love very much and that we've covered on this show. This is a little different from Raising Arizona, less dialogue.

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  A little bit less talky.

• 40:48David Sims?

  But after her graduation, she sought a job in the camera department on Miller's Crossing, which was the third Coen Brothers movie. She's like, I wasn't a big Coen Brothers fan, but I needed a job. At MIU, she trained as an editor.

• 41:01Griffin Newman?

  But it's the kind of classic, you're out of film school, you've trained a little bit in everything, you're looking for any position you can get. She gets the camera position and has the boldness to sort of make the play to get into the editing room.

• 41:12David Sims?

  And because, right, she's working, once she's in there, she's like, if you have any room, it's like an apprentice in the cutting room. And the Coens are like, yeah, we'll make some room for you. And she works as assistant editor on Barton Fink and Hot Sucker Proxy. She's an associate editor on Fargo. She's a co-editor on The Big Lebowski. Oh, brother, where art thou, a man who wasn't there? Of course, the Coens are essentially their own editors at that point, under the pseudonym Rodrick James. And soon after they met, Ethan expressed romantic interest in Trisha Cook, and she told him, I'm a lesbian, I'm not interested.

• 41:47Griffin Newman?

  And that's the end of the story. They never got married or made a film together.

• 41:50David Sims?

  They got married in 1993.

• 41:53David Sims?

  Their marriage is non-traditional, they're very upfront about it. She has a partner, Ethan has another partner. They've been in this dynamic for over 20 years.

• 42:02Griffin Newman?

  They have two kids together. She said that it was like, she was very upfront with him. They continued being friends, and then at some point, to her surprise, she started developing romantic feelings. But obviously, it is a multifaceted thing. Ethan's line that jumped out to me is he said he applies the Alfred E. Newman philosophy to it, which is what me worry?

• 42:20David Sims?

  That is correct. That is how he explains his marriage. They have a son named Buster.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  Buster.

• 42:27David Sims?

  Scruggs, and a daughter named Dusty.

• 42:32David Sims?

  And so she slowed down. Once they had kids, she raised the kids a little bit, you know, blah, blah, blah, started writing more. And essentially, you know, she makes, whatever, she's sort of like, got like a bit of Coens. She obviously like works with them and all that. Like, she's got a little bit of the Coens in her, but she's got other interests that they don't really explore. Not a lot of queer characters in Coen Brothers movies, period, right? I mean, Miller's Crossing has like, you know, closeted.

• 43:03Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, there are a lot of coded closeted.

• 43:07David Sims?

  But yes, like, it's not, it's not territory they've really dipped their feet in too much.

• 43:10Griffin Newman?

  No, it's another quote in the dossier that Ethan says, I'm dumb and straight, and she's fun and queer.

• 43:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 43:17Griffin Newman?

  And Joel and I could never make a movie like this because we're both dumb and straight.

• 43:21David Sims?

  She worked on a documentary film called Where the Girls Are about the Dyna Shore Weekend in Palm Springs.

• 43:27Griffin Newman?

  It's a short I've been trying to find.

• 43:29David Sims?

  I've never seen it.

• 43:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:30David Sims?

  She came up with the idea for Drive Away Dykes with her friend Marmalina when they were drinking at a bar.

• 43:37Griffin Newman?

  In the late 90s.

• 43:38David Sims?

  Uh, early 2000s, but yes.

• 43:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 43:39David Sims?

  Uh, that's really all they had. Yeah. But this screenplay, she, you know, starts working on it with Ethan. They liked the title. They were like, we'll just do like an exploitation movie, right? Like, we'll just do like, what kind of movie would have this title?

• 43:52Griffin Newman?

  It's also really funny where he was like, in interviews, he was like, we want to make our like queer homages to like Roger Corman movies, even though I've never, neither of us have seen a Roger Corman movie. And then Trish Cook's like, I've seen Roger Corman movies, uh, or not Roger Corman. I'm sorry, um, Russ Meyer. And then, uh, she was like, but I think in a way they're more homages to like, uh, Doris Wishman, uh, and Ethan's like, even though we've never seen Doris Wishman. And she's like, I've seen Doris Wishman.

• 44:21David Sims?

  The Jamie character in the film, who is played of course by Margaret Qualley, is sort of Trisha's idealized, like, I wish I could be this liberated and sort of free spirited and, you know, go to the bar and just like connect with people and like be carefree and have sex all the time. But it's not exactly, it's not her at all, really. It's more of a sort of like, you know, fantasy hero.

• 44:43Griffin Newman?

  And then Marion is the more extreme projection, the opposite direction of the self-fear. This feels like an id ego movie.

• 44:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 44:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 44:51David Sims?

  Um, uh, so they write this thing together. They write it probably in a similar way to the, the Coens Brothers, where they're just like in a room, talking to each other, typing, whatever.

• 45:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think they write very similarly.

• 45:02David Sims?

  And then they put it on a shelf.

• 45:04Griffin Newman?

  I never, I never, uh, like trained as a writer. It's not how I primarily think of myself, but I had all these ideas and characters that were things that Ethan would never come up with himself. And he's so helpful with the dialogue and the structure. They write this together and it's sort of talked about in a way very similar to their process of writing Barton Fink to get them out of the, uh, uh, writer's block on Miller's Crossing of Ethan being like, it's nice to be able to go off and do these side things. And like Ethan's written fucking poetry in one act.

• 45:32David Sims?

  I read a short story collection with the ear on the cover.

• 45:35Griffin Newman?

  He does a lot of stuff like this that feels like, I just wanna like, Get it out. Work things through the system without the same pressure and seriousness of the movies.

• 45:45David Sims?

  They have this script. They pitch it to Alison Andrews, who's sort of like a fairly legendary indie director of the 90s, I feel. Like, less known these days, maybe, but Gas Food Lodging was like a big early 90s indie film about women.

• 46:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I think she is one of-

• 46:02David Sims?

  Mabita Loca. I'm trying to think, great to my heart.

• 46:04Griffin Newman?

  Few narrative filmmakers to get a MacArthur Genius Grant?

• 46:08David Sims?

  Wow.

• 46:09Griffin Newman?

  If I am not wrong.

• 46:09David Sims?

  She did get a MacArthur Genius Grant.

• 46:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 46:11David Sims?

  I'll tell you that much. They pitch it to her. They call it a naughty comedy.

• 46:16Griffin Newman?

  It is announced.

• 46:17David Sims?

  Yes, Alison Andrews is into it.

• 46:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. To your, to your point, Maya, a big, sort of birthing point for this movie.

• 46:24David Sims?

  But they never got funding.

• 46:25Griffin Newman?

  Is that Trisha Cook is seeing like a tiny wave of lesbian stories being made by lesbian filmmakers in the 90s. And she's like, those movies all have some sense of self-importance.

• 46:39David Sims?

  They tend to be, right, like, sort of more tragic or-

• 46:41Griffin Newman?

  An issues drama or even something like But I'm a Cheerleader. Yeah. Needs to be a movie that is like about coming out, about the self-identification, and is a comedy that is like so overcranked to sell that kind of thing. And she was like, where is like the trashy, like 50s B-movie where that's just the stated reality? Where that is not the conflict of the film in any way, it is just the starting point for the world and the characters. The other thing is, she's like going to NYU in the 90s where there are a lot of lesbian bars. There's a filmmaker, Alina Street, who I've worked with before, who's been doing this thing called The Lesbian Bar Project for the last couple of years. That's a documentary series about how much they have disappeared.

• 47:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Where I think it's like low double digits for the entire country now. And in the 90s and the early 2000s, there were a lot. It's one of the reasons why, even though it took 20 years to make this film, she decided we should still set it in 1999. Aside from like cellphone tech reasons, she was like, it actually just rings false to be like, two women can make a road trip itinerary based on multiple lesbian bars in every town.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  I did not know that. And that was one of the things that I was thinking about while I was watching the movie was like immediately you're hit with the 1999 timestamp at the very beginning. And I, I felt like while watching it, I at least because I didn't know about the fact that there is such a lack of lesbian bars now presently in the United States.

• 48:06David Sims?

  It's like thirty five or something.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  And I live near one of them in Nashville, shout out Lipstick Lounge, but I like didn't know that. And so it makes a lot more sense, I think, to have it grounded in the understanding that she had too of like a road trip planned around that being a primary function of why they were going to certain locations.

• 48:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  But for 1999, given the timestamp, I felt like while I was watching, I was like, what is indicative about this time period that's like present in the movie? Just because I, I don't know. For me, it felt like it was hard to be like, what about this is specifically in the nineties?

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  I mean, whenever I see that, I'm like, first and foremost, I assume they don't want to have to deal with cell phones.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 48:42Griffin Newman?

  Right? But, but the bar thing makes more sense.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 48:46Griffin Newman?

  And I also think it's when she writes the script and it's when it's like this, I wish this movie could exist now.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 48:52Griffin Newman?

  And even when they're trying to like do it with Allison Andrews and everything, they always talked about they couldn't get the financing because it was like.

• 48:59David Sims?

  It wasn't tragic enough. It wasn't your, you know, mysterious skin, a movie they love, which is sort of made around that time, Gregor Rocky. Now Gregor Rocky made, um, you know, more flippant films before then.

• 49:11Griffin Newman?

  Very small.

• 49:12David Sims?

  But a tiny budgets. Mysterious Skin was a small budget movie. They wanted a much bigger budget. Like I'm sure Drive Away Dolls at this version of it costs what do you think?

• 49:22Griffin Newman?

  They say like twenty?

• 49:23David Sims?

  Yeah, fifteen, twenty million dollars. Probably not that much then, but still they wanted too much money.

• 49:25Griffin Newman?

  They say John Waters a lot.

• 49:27David Sims?

  Too much.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  And two thousand and six or two thousand and five is when Dirty Shame comes out, which is the last time he's gotten a movie made. And that was the only time he's gotten a budget like that in the modern era. And he is like, I'd love to make another movie, but I'm not going to make a movie for $300,000. I'm fucking seventy. So I think there was this feeling of like, even when they could get big stars attached, the studio didn't want to give them that amount of money for something that seemed kind of like a lark. And I'm sure there were stars who were like hesitant to do it. It just felt like circumstantially, they, this is not the time that we'll accept this film.

• 50:01David Sims?

  Now, the boys make Hail Caesar and Buster Scruggs, their last two movies together. Uh, but to be clear, they put this movie on a shelf. Essentially, they just had their, they're like, we have two and a half scripts is how they described it, that we just kind of put in a drawer and said, maybe the kids will find them.

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  Honey, don't.

• 50:14David Sims?

  Honey, don't is the second script and there's some supposedly a third.

• 50:16Griffin Newman?

  Go beavers. It is called Go Beaver.

• 50:20David Sims?

  Okay.

• 50:20Griffin Newman?

  Cool. It might be a college horror movie.

• 50:23David Sims?

  Fine. Okay.

• 50:25Griffin Newman?

  But yes.

• 50:26David Sims?

  Now.

• 50:27Griffin Newman?

  They were, they would just mention, oh, there's this trilogy of lesbian genre films.

• 50:32David Sims?

  Yes. Honey, Don't, which is obviously by the time this is coming out, has been released and forgotten by society is more of like a hard boiled detective story. It still has comedy in it, but it is not as like light as this movie. And yeah, I mean, it's still funny. It's still, whatever. You'll see it. Probably. Maybe not. Maybe we'll skip that one.

• 50:57Griffin Newman?

  We're doing it on the podcast.

• 50:58David Sims?

  I might just skip it. Any tune in next week. And but so Ethan says, Hail Caesar and Buster Scruggs were very hard movies to make, heavy productions. You know, like not dramatically so, but just like, you know, they're big complicated.

• 51:11Griffin Newman?

  Both of those movies are basically eight movies. That's the thing he talked about is like Buster Scruggs felt like separate productions.

• 51:18David Sims?

  Bunch of stories that are not connected.

• 51:20Griffin Newman?

  And that had to keep resetting.

• 51:22David Sims?

  Hail Caesar has all.

• 51:22Griffin Newman?

  Hail Caesar has all the movies within the movies. And also like they, True Grit, not too shortly before that, he was like, we did too many westerns. We did too many environmental things. He always sort of talked about it. It was just like, I felt burnout. It was starting to feel more like a job than a joy. I don't want to get stuck in that rut. I need some time away. Joel sort of felt similarly, but maybe not as extreme as me. There was nothing dramatic.

• 51:46David Sims?

  Been very clear that nothing dramatic has happened. They see each other all the time. It's not like there is a schism exactly. It's more that Ethan got really.

• 51:53Griffin Newman?

  We still write stuff.

• 51:54David Sims?

  Exhausted.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. Of, of the actual wear of the production and the pressures and the money and all this sort of stuff.

• 52:00David Sims?

  Now Joel goes off to make Macbeth, which is like, it's so clearly what happens to Ethan as well, which is like Frances McDormand wanted to do that. He wanted to do it too, but like it's a project that's generating with her. She's sort of challenging him to do something like that. Ethan would never have wanted to do it. They were both very clear, like, you know, so.

• 52:20Griffin Newman?

  Do projects with their wives that feel like very deep collaborations of the thing they would never do on their own or with their brother. Right? But the. Timeline is like this sort of whisper, much like the Soderbergh retirement of like, people are saying they might take a break, then they're being upfront in interviews, right? And they're just like, we're just tired. Ethan in particular is burned out. He wants some space. Then Joel and Frances announce Macbeth and you're like, okay, cool. Interesting. I guess that's the kind of thing that Joel does while Ethan is on hiatus. Then Ethan announces the Jerry Lee Lewis movie, which comes about strangely as like their friend, T-Bone Burnett, had been working on some larger project that included a lot of archival footage that wasn't just about Jerry Lee Lewis, but never quite came together. And he's just like,

• 53:04Griffin Newman?

  we have all this material. I know you're a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, his personal life, not his music. Ethan, to be clear, said the opposite thing. Do you want to do something with this? And they were like, in deep lockdown pandemic, I think what happened to a lot of

• 53:20David Sims?

  Right. Gotta do something.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  Filmmakers who were like, I'm getting tired. I'm slowing down. Then there's like 18 months where they're doing nothing and they're like, fuck. Yeah. What if I never make anything ever again? So they start editing this during the lockdown and are like, this kind of got like Trisha and I are doing this together, working with pre-existing material. It's just sort of a construction project. Movies admittedly very sloppy, but they're like, it got us kind of back into the rhythm of doing it. And so coming out of lockdown, they're suddenly like, do we try to get those scripts made? So even though Ethan was the one who had sort of kickstarted the retirement, or at least the hiatus, now suddenly it's like, we sold two movies and we're going to shoot them back to back.

• 54:01David Sims?

  So they decided to keep it a period piece because of course they could have spruced it up, I suppose. When it was prepped in the early 2000s, it's shocking to learn that Holly Hunter was considered for a role.

• 54:12Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't sound like it.

• 54:13David Sims?

  As was Selma Blair, Christina Applegate, Chloe Sivini. I mean, we're just sort of naming actresses.

• 54:18Griffin Newman?

  People who make a lot of sense.

• 54:20David Sims?

  Indie movies and stuff. When the project was revived, they cast Geraldine Bissawanathan pretty much right away based on blockers, which is a movie she's very funny in.

• 54:30Griffin Newman?

  You know what she's very funny in? Literally every movie she's ever done.

• 54:33David Sims?

  Basically the most luminous, beautiful person in the world.

• 54:36Griffin Newman?

  I think she is. She is one of those people who I just think is always funny without ever feeling like she's pushing. Also, I never get over her accent.

• 54:45David Sims?

  She's a bit.

• 54:46Griffin Newman?

  No, but I'm saying that she's Australian.

• 54:48David Sims?

  I know. She's got a great accent.

• 54:49Griffin Newman?

  She has the most immaculate American accent.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 54:52David Sims?

  That's Australian power. They're always doing all the accents, but she's great in pretty much everything I've ever seen her in. But it is interesting that they cast her in this role off of Blockers, because in Blockers, she's sort of like the horny, chaotic one. And in this one, she's the straight laced, you know, fuss budget. But so she did audition for, um, yeah, she auditioned for Marion. Yeah, whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I was, I thought, I thought the research threw me. I thought she was, yeah. Margaret Qualley also auditioned for Marion.

• 55:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 55:22David Sims?

  But they loved Geraldine, so she tried again for Jamie.

• 55:26Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:26David Sims?

  And she got the part. Wow. Crazy.

• 55:30Griffin Newman?

  JJ really finding gems here.

• 55:32David Sims?

  What are you gonna do? They all wanted.

• 55:34Griffin Newman?

  Seen auditioned and received the role.

• 55:37David Sims?

  Beanie Feldstein, uh, who's very funny in this movie, I think.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  Great. Yeah.

• 55:43David Sims?

  You know, she had a great time making it. Matt Damon shows up for a day.

• 55:47Griffin Newman?

  Ethan had a great quote about Beanie Feldstein.

• 55:50David Sims?

  What's his?

• 55:50Griffin Newman?

  Which he said, there's nothing better than hiring a great actor and just telling them to play angry.

• 55:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 55:55Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, that is so much of the Coens' interest.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 55:59Griffin Newman?

  Is someone they think is a skilled actor and then writing like pages of just furious dialogue.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  I think that's so fun to be the actor.

• 56:05Griffin Newman?

  It's always fun. Yeah.

• 56:06David Sims?

  They bring in, um, Miley Cyrus and are like, so I don't know if you've heard of Cynthia Plastercaster, who is basically who she's playing in. And she was like, oh, I'm very aware of Cynthia Plastercaster. And we were like, okay, great. So then she got it. But yeah, I think Miley and Damon basically are just doing like a day.

• 56:23Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 56:24David Sims?

  I've seen Pedro Pascal similarly, but they made his head.

• 56:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:28David Sims?

  Uh, he probably got like.

• 56:29Griffin Newman?

  A lot of Dame favorites.

• 56:30David Sims?

  Domingo for a week or so.

• 56:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:32David Sims?

  Right? I mean, I don't know. Right. Everyone's just kind of dropping in.

• 56:35Griffin Newman?

  Pascal above the title, front and center on the poster. Um, Miley Cyrus uncredited. Ben, you had not seen this movie before. No. I assume you are familiar with the Cynthia Plastercaster legend? Or did you not know about it before this movie? No, I did not. So the Miley Cyrus character is based on this real woman. Uh, the film is dedicated to her.

• 56:53David Sims?

  Yes. In 2022.

• 56:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes, dedicated to Cynthia Plastercaster, 1947, 2022, we remember is the dedication at the end of the film, but she was this like infamous groupie. I put in in very strong air quotes where her signature was every rock star she slept with, she would take a cast of their erect penis.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm.

• 57:17David Sims?

  Frank Zappa gave her a lot of money, but never got his dick cast. He really liked what she was doing, but he never, he never did it himself.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  He's a real dang ass freak.

• 57:28David Sims?

  Famously, Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Hendrix is maybe her most famous.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  I remember that, maybe Jim Morrison too.

• 57:33David Sims?

  Yep, Jim Morrison got his dick out for somebody. Are you sure that guy?

• 57:38Griffin Newman?

  But it's like.

• 57:38David Sims?

  I feel like every story about Jim Morrison is like, and then he got the concert ended early because he fucking got his dick out.

• 57:45Griffin Newman?

  The dick wanted to do a jazz set.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  Rock piano.

• 57:49David Sims?

  Probably, yes.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  My god.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 57:51David Sims?

  I believe there's, there's a famous museum in Iceland that is like a museum of penises. And I believe some of her most famous works are housed there.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 58:00David Sims?

  It's called the Iceland Philological Museum, and it is the world's largest display of penises. Have you been there, Maya?

• 58:06Speaker 04

  No, I haven't been there, David, but I have heard of it. Yeah.

• 58:09Griffin Newman?

  Is the Rasputin jar there?

• 58:11David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 58:12Griffin Newman?

  There's the infamous Rasputin jar.

• 58:14David Sims?

  I don't think it's there.

• 58:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I'll let you guess what's in the jar.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  I would know. Yeah.

• 58:20David Sims?

  It is funny that they took so fucking long to kill Rasputin, right? Like the whole thing with this, like they shot him, they threw him in the river, they stabbed him. He was like, I'm still alive. And they're like, Jesus Christ. And he's finally dead. And they were like, get his dick.

• 58:35Griffin Newman?

  They're like pushing him into the incinerator.

• 58:38Griffin Newman?

  I got a jar.

• 58:41Griffin Newman?

  I think this is a very clever thing.

• 58:43David Sims?

  What's a clever thing?

• 58:44Griffin Newman?

  To reverse engineer a noir caper around.

• 58:47David Sims?

  Around Cynthia Plastercaster style.

• 58:50Griffin Newman?

  The twist of this movie that is hidden in the marketing.

• 58:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:53Griffin Newman?

  Is that the entire conspiracy around this movie is that a conservative politician is worried that his reputation can be ruined by a mold that exists of his penis. From the one, the one time quote that he smoked marijuana. And the idea of this briefcase that is five men whose reputations could be ruined as like conservative ball busters. By knowing that they had promiscuous use, I think is fun.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:20Griffin Newman?

  I just think it's like a fun twist on the like, what's in the suitcase thing.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  It's perfect.

• 59:24Griffin Newman?

  To be like, it's the goofiest and most embarrassing thing that these guys are so in their heads about.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  The weirdest form of blackmail.

• 59:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  That I've seen in a story.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:34Griffin Newman?

  But it also speaks to the sort of mission statement of this movie, which is just like, this is silly. This movie is about people shooting each other over a briefcase full of dicks. It's literally a briefcase full of dicks.

• 59:51David Sims?

  The Kinsey Institute also has many of her casts. Just FYI, I'm just really.

• 59:56Griffin Newman?

  Very academic voice here. Yeah.

• 59:59David Sims?

  It's funny because it's like, I feel like this was this kind of weird underground whim of hers. And then culture and society shifted and by the 2000s, museums were like, can we get some weird dicks?

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  So many of these dicks died at 27 that it's like, we didn't know we weren't gonna have them around for this long.

• 1:00:16David Sims?

  Dicks. Anyway, so they made the movie together. Trish is basically a co-director of the movie in every way but name. Because of, as we've said, DJA stuff. Ethan is a DJ member. He can't exactly be joining a new collaboration without a lot of work. So yeah, he really liked making this movie. To quote Ethan Cohen, as someone says in John Carpenter's The Thing, I'm all better now. I think it's Wilford Brimley right before he turns into a raving space monster.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  It's the thing they kept saying was they were both feeling so rundown and worn out that they were like, if we're gonna make a movie again, we need to have fun. And this is a movie that's clearly just people being like, eh.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  Let's have some fun. Yeah.

• 1:01:01Griffin Newman?

  No, I understand. It is very frustrating and perhaps perplexing to some people who are used to the very meticulous, intentional, tight craft of the Coen Brothers movies they know. To watch a movie that has like every fucking iMovie special effect edit in it. And like basically like fart sound effects. And feels kind of like, I wouldn't say indifferently constructed, but feels loose.

• 1:01:30Griffin Newman?

  Um, but he very much like talks about this. It's, it's his other stuff he does like these books, like he'll do these nights of one act plays, his poetry, these things where it's clear like, I need to let off steam and that stuff doesn't get as much spotlight on it. And this is because it's a movie more studied, you know, in, in comparison to his canon.

• 1:01:52David Sims?

  The, you know, the crew, you know, Ari Wenger, Wenger, Wenger.

• 1:01:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:01:57David Sims?

  You know, is the DP incredibly respected.

• 1:02:00Griffin Newman?

  Power of the Dog.

• 1:02:00David Sims?

  Who did Power of the Dog.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Academy Award nominee.

• 1:02:02David Sims?

  Um, you know, like it's not Carter Burwell, of course, shows up to do the score. Like it's not like.

• 1:02:08Griffin Newman?

  Still skip leaves, say, but a lot of their key collaborators are, are different on this.

• 1:02:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, it's like half and half.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  They make it clear that like Deacons probably would not have operated the camera this way had they, you know, had they used him, right? Uh, they shot it in Pittsburgh, uh, even though obviously it's a road trip movie. Uh, the many of the bars, uh, in the film are inspired by real life bars that Cook enjoyed like Sugar and Spice, uh, a bar in Brooklyn that doesn't exist anymore called Caddyshack, uh, the Cubby Hole, which is a famous.

• 1:02:40Griffin Newman?

  That's one of the last ones still standing in New York.

• 1:02:42David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, Ginger's of course in Park Slope.

• 1:02:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:02:45David Sims?

  Is the one I, I, I have been to and I love that bar. Um.

• 1:02:48Griffin Newman?

  David put his hands over his heart.

• 1:02:49David Sims?

  I've been going there since I, I used to live next door to it, uh, when in like 2008. And, uh, one thing you might not have noticed about this film, it's a little different from other Coen Brothers movies or whatever. It's filled with lesbian sex.

• 1:03:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:03:01David Sims?

  Uh, to quote Trisha Cook, I'm very sex positive. I think there's a lot of embarrassment around sex and shame. And if you have too much sex, you're considered a slut, but let's just embrace love and sex, especially if it's good humor and not crass, though I'm not against crassness.

• 1:03:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I will also say this.

• 1:03:16David Sims?

  I would say this film is not exactly crass, but it is, you know, you know, it's juvenile in good, we fun ways. It's silly.

• 1:03:23Griffin Newman?

  I also think, uh, a lot of embarrassment and shame around sex is how sex is almost exclusively portrayed in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen working together, you know, like sex is usually something that is like embarrassing or is used as like a weapon or something that feels tortured. Uh, it's just, it is very odd to watch this movie introduce characters like in like it states of pure ecstasy, which is not a thing that's your usual entry point into the world of like Coen Brothers characters.

• 1:04:01Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:04:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:08Griffin 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?

• 1:04:19David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:04:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film. Everyone knows a 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.

• 1:04:54Griffin 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.

• 1:05:03David Sims?

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

• 1:05:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:06David 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.

• 1:05:13Griffin 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.

• 1:05:27David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:05:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:05:32David 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.

• 1:05:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:04Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 1:06:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:06:06Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:14David Sims?

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

• 1:06:19Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:21David Sims?

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

• 1:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:06:25David Sims?

  This is true for me. I will say, I go to Quince.

• 1:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:28David Sims?

  I buy a thing like a polo shirt, a sweater, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I like that. Guess I'll get a bunch more. Cause now that's what I'm gonna put on.

• 1:06:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:06:50David Sims?

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

• 1:06:55Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:06:55David Sims?

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

• 1:07:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:07:10Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:07:11David Sims?

  What?

• 1:07:12Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:07:13David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:07:14Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:07:16David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:07:17Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:07:23David Sims?

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

• 1:07:51Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 1:07:51David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:07:51Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:07:55David Sims?

  When I was younger.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:57David Sims?

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

• 1:08:07Griffin Newman?

  That's where Chime comes in.

• 1:08:08David Sims?

  Chime. 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?

• 1:08:22Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee free. We love it.

• 1:08:24David Sims?

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

• 1:08:29Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:08:30David Sims?

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• 1:08:44Griffin Newman?

  Fee free.

• 1:08:45David Sims?

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

• 1:09:00Speaker 05

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

• 1:09:20David Sims?

  Let's talk about the film Driveway Dolls.

• 1:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:22David Sims?

  It's about a couple of girls. Jamie and Marion.

• 1:09:27Griffin Newman?

  We open with.

• 1:09:28David Sims?

  Said their names many times.

• 1:09:29Griffin Newman?

  Pedro Pascal.

• 1:09:30David Sims?

  We open with Pedro Pascal.

• 1:09:32Griffin Newman?

  In a gay bar doing full kind of like noir.

• 1:09:35Speaker 04

  We, isn't a gay bar or is he's just in a regular bar, but he's a gay man, which is why I thought it flips later on in the movie.

• 1:09:41Griffin Newman?

  I thought, oh, you might be right. Yeah. You're right.

• 1:09:45David Sims?

  I was really thrown because I've never seen that guy in a movie before. Who is he?

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:09:49David Sims?

  What's he up to?

• 1:09:50Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about, because this is basically the start of the two year run of Pedro Pascal being in everything.

• 1:09:56David Sims?

  He was.

• 1:09:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57David Sims?

  Yes. He was in a lot of things in 2024 alone and 2025. He's taken a break and only been in three movies that came out within a month of each other or whatever. And then next year, of course, he will be in the Mandalorian Krogu all over it, I assume.

• 1:10:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes, all in it. He's inside.

• 1:10:13David Sims?

  And then he is maybe either the most important Avenger or has five minutes in Avengers Doomsday, whatever they settle on for that one.

• 1:10:20Griffin Newman?

  I just think there was this barrage of him getting announced attached to every single thing.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26Griffin Newman?

  And even the amount of stuff he's dropped out of, like the aforementioned weapons, right?

• 1:10:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Griffin Newman?

  Because his dance card got too full.

• 1:10:32David Sims?

  It was gonna be the Brolin role, I assume.

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

  I find it funny, and it started with this film that I kept being like, how does he have the time to do all these movies? And then other than Fantastic Four, the answer to every single one of those is, he's not in it as much as you think. He has been.

• 1:10:47David Sims?

  It's true. Like Materialist, he's very much the third lead.

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:10:51David Sims?

  Least screen time there.

• 1:10:52Griffin Newman?

  And I liked him a lot in that, but like Freaky Tales is a movie that only I have seen.

• 1:10:56David Sims?

  I know, I watched it.

• 1:10:57Griffin Newman?

  It's good, right?

• 1:10:58David Sims?

  I thought it was okay. It bounced off me a little bit, but um, I liked it okay.

• 1:11:02Griffin Newman?

  I think he's really good.

• 1:11:03David Sims?

  He's good in it.

• 1:11:04Griffin Newman?

  I think his section's kind of the best.

• 1:11:05David Sims?

  It is. Yes.

• 1:11:06Griffin Newman?

  But that's a pure omnibus movie.

• 1:11:09David Sims?

  Yeah, that's he's only in 20 minutes of Am I What We? Did you like him in Materialist?

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  I liked him in Materialist. I think that I have like a lukewarm take about Pedro Pascal.

• 1:11:18David Sims?

  What's that?

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

  I feel like, I think maybe my take about Pedro Pascal is that I have a lukewarm feeling towards Pedro Pascal's performances in some of his movies. I really like him. I think he is like fun to watch on screens, but I would say the people in the movies that he has been in have been people that I've been more interested in watching.

• 1:11:37David Sims?

  Maya, I completely agree with you, and I don't think he's been good in a movie.

• 1:11:43Speaker 04

  Period?

• 1:11:44David Sims?

  Um, in a long time. And when I, and I don't mean bad, like maybe, all right, he has been great, if that makes sense. Like, I think he's usually pretty good, but when I ask people this question, and I have been doing it because he's on everyone's mind of what is Pedro Pascal's greatest performance? Almost everyone says Game of Thrones, which I think is the right answer, but you're kind of like, right.

• 1:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Five episodes.

• 1:12:06David Sims?

  He's still kind of dining out on that.

• 1:12:07Griffin Newman?

  Ten years.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Who the fuck was he on that?

• 1:12:09David Sims?

  He was, of course. Did you, did you watch Game of Thrones?

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I just have no memory.

• 1:12:15David Sims?

  Well, period. He played just.

• 1:12:17Speaker 04

  Just generally, like everything.

• 1:12:19David Sims?

  Played Obrien Martell, the Red Viper. He's the guy who shows up in, what is it? Season three from Dorne being like, you killed my fucking, you know, wife. Like I am, I'm sorry, sister, not wife. You know, I have a big spear. I want to have a fight. You don't remember him? And he's, he's bisexual. He's got a paramour. He's like, he's coming in. Do you care about Game of Thrones?

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  I haven't watched it.

• 1:12:41David Sims?

  Okay. All right. Well, I'm the only Game of Thrones fan here, I guess.

• 1:12:44Griffin Newman?

  I just remember.

• 1:12:44David Sims?

  Ben casual.

• 1:12:45Griffin Newman?

  I remember my brother, James, who was watching it.

• 1:12:47David Sims?

  Who is this fucking guy?

• 1:12:48Griffin Newman?

  Who is this guy? Is this guy going to be a big movie star?

• 1:12:50David Sims?

  Yeah. And he was already at that point, cause what is he? He's 50 now, like, so he was already like probably 40.

• 1:12:56Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:12:57David Sims?

  And like he'd been bumming around in movies for years, not getting famous.

• 1:13:02Griffin Newman?

  Small parts.

• 1:13:02David Sims?

  You know, being in stuff.

• 1:13:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:13:04David Sims?

  And then suddenly it was like, he was like, great to have as your like third guy, right? Like Great Wall, Kingsman two.

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Kingsman two is like, right. Great wall. He's the second guy. Kingsman two is, we couldn't get Channing Tatum for the full time. So can you do half the part?

• 1:13:20David Sims?

  Triple frontier. He's like, kind of the third guy in that.

• 1:13:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. He does a couple of seasons of Narcos.

• 1:13:25David Sims?

  Uh, you know, Wonder Woman.

• 1:13:27Griffin Newman?

  Two.

• 1:13:28David Sims?

  Eighty four, he's the villain.

• 1:13:29Griffin Newman?

  Beale Street, he's got a good, small part, but it's sort of like.

• 1:13:31David Sims?

  And he's always totally solid.

• 1:13:33Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of like, he's like high level character actor with matinee looks and charisma. I was talking about this with our buddy, Mike Carlson of Podcast The Ride, where he was just like, am I crazy in thinking? He is the rare case of someone who exploded where you can't point to. And that's the moment where it happened, where it's like exactly what you're saying. Game of Thrones, everyone's like, this guy's good. Then there's like six years of him showing up and doing sturdy work.

• 1:13:58David Sims?

  Being good.

• 1:13:59Griffin Newman?

  And then in like 2019, everyone decided, I think he's the guy now.

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  The guy.

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  But there was not the role that made everyone jump to.

• 1:14:07David Sims?

  I haven't seen the Cage movie, which I know everyone says he's fun in. The unbearable weight of massive talent.

• 1:14:12Griffin Newman?

  He's really good in that.

• 1:14:12David Sims?

  But I know that's sort of a jokey supporting role.

• 1:14:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:16David Sims?

  And I thought he was good in Gladiator two, but that's a movie that kind of doesn't know what to do with him.

• 1:14:21Griffin Newman?

  And that seems like the inverse of the Kingsman thing of maybe he wasn't available as much as they wanted.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  That's exactly what happened with that movie because he. I mean, you know, spoiler dies and I was told by someone like initially he didn't die and then they were like, oh, he's, he's got to go.

• 1:14:35Griffin Newman?

  Pedro is now kind of a Sean Bean because of scheduling. I mean, the bubble is the worst movie ever made.

• 1:14:43David Sims?

  Don't listen to that.

• 1:14:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's 20 Freaky Tales, Drive Away Dolls, The Uninvited, Wild Robot, which he's very good in.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  He's great.

• 1:14:51David Sims?

  Gladiator 2. He's good in Wild Robot.

• 1:14:53Griffin Newman?

  That's the movie that fucking Walton Goggins, uh, wife wrote and directed that has every actor in it because of being friends. He hosts SNL. He does the SNL 50th. He does the fucking Spike Jonze AirPods commercial, Eddington, the last.

• 1:15:09David Sims?

  I think he's very well deployed in Eddington. Like, I think that's a good performance, but it's not, again, it's not the crux of the movie in a way.

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Could we unpack the AirPods 4 commercial? Just talk about some of our favorite standouts.

• 1:15:20Griffin Newman?

  You want to do a whole, like, Denim Invasion on that?

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  I think we might actually, yeah. You're, you know what? We should just do a separate ad.

• 1:15:25Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that's the moment, when that commercial starts playing, that's the moment where everyone's like, okay, too much.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:31Griffin Newman?

  You can't also be in ads. And it's also because since everyone loves him, and the weird answer to this is like, I think he's become more of a star because of press tours than performances.

• 1:15:42David Sims?

  He's lovable. He's good on SNL.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  He's charismatic. Yeah, etc.

• 1:15:46David Sims?

  He's got a great mustache.

• 1:15:47Speaker 04

  He does. He does.

• 1:15:49David Sims?

  He's a good looking guy. I think he's fine on The Last of Us, but I think he was not well cast and whatever. That show's just kind of.

• 1:15:57Griffin Newman?

  I think Eddington and Materialist cast him very well because in both cases, he's kind of a fake movie star in them. That's what I like about it, right? Is I'm like, this is him acknowledging that the movie is about the idea of him being the guy and he is good at showing how much of a kind of facade it is.

• 1:16:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:14Griffin Newman?

  I think Fantastic Four is like a pretty brutal miscasting.

• 1:16:17David Sims?

  He's, he's oddly cast and/or the movie isn't working to like fit the character around him or whatever.

• 1:16:26Griffin Newman?

  I was questioning it when they announced him. I liked that movie a lot more than you did, but I cannot deny that like the movie's biggest issue in a way is that he is not the right motor for that vehicle.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Or, yeah, or just change.

• 1:16:39David Sims?

  You've cast him and then I get just changed the part a little bit to, I don't know. He feels uncomfortable in that movie.

• 1:16:45Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:16:46David Sims?

  And that movie also is just kind of like.

• 1:16:48Griffin Newman?

  I wonder if part of it is that that's the only movie that's asked him to like really be the guy at the center.

• 1:16:54David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 1:16:54Griffin Newman?

  In a certain way that is maybe not what he's good at doing.

• 1:16:58David Sims?

  Well, driveway dolls did. He's at the center of this movie.

• 1:17:00Griffin Newman?

  For 90 seconds.

• 1:17:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is the thing. When he does stuff like this, I'm like, I love this guy. It's cool that he showed up for a day.

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:17:09Griffin Newman?

  And used his cachet. Like, that's the part of him I really like.

• 1:17:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Griffin Newman?

  And I also think like, in 90 seconds with almost no dialogue, you're like, he's having fun here.

• 1:17:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:17:18Griffin Newman?

  You're like, this guy is like making comedic choices. I don't want to oversell this performance, but I'm just like.

• 1:17:24Speaker 04

  I thought it was good.

• 1:17:25Griffin Newman?

  He's enjoying the like broadness of it.

• 1:17:27Speaker 04

  Like go, wine, cork. Like it's, it's good.

• 1:17:29Griffin Newman?

  He's doing business, but this guy is basically chased down a dark alley with a briefcase and then killed. And then we hard cut to Cunnilingus. Is that correct?

• 1:17:39David Sims?

  Yeah, hard to go to a sex scene.

• 1:17:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:17:41David Sims?

  And Jamie, our character, our hero Jamie, played by Margaret Qualley, is a free spirited lady in Philadelphia, who has a girlfriend, Beanie Feldstein, a suki, but their relationship is essentially imploding because Jamie sleeps around a lot, I guess.

• 1:17:59Griffin Newman?

  She's in the middle of a hookup.

• 1:18:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:01Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 1:18:03David Sims?

  With a cop? Is that what, is, is the, no, Beanie's the cop.

• 1:18:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. This is a friend of theirs.

• 1:18:07David Sims?

  Yeah, but I remember the like, right, all the cop paraphernalia.

• 1:18:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:18:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  I love a classic answering machine goes off.

• 1:18:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  While you're home.

• 1:18:17David Sims?

  Give you some exposition about the character.

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:19David Sims?

  Their message.

• 1:18:20Griffin Newman?

  Another reason for this movie to be set in 1999. You know, that it's just like a tape goes like beep.

• 1:18:26David Sims?

  I mean.

• 1:18:27Griffin Newman?

  And there's no way to turn it off.

• 1:18:28David Sims?

  The fucking Big Lebowski, the dude is not in. It is a good way to, yeah, to set out the, yeah. Have you seen Big Lebowski?

• 1:18:35Speaker 04

  I haven't.

• 1:18:36Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 1:18:37Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:18:37Griffin Newman?

  I guess Big Lebowski is the second most sexual film in the canon behind this. And yet.

• 1:18:43David Sims?

  Right, but what's so funny about.

• 1:18:45Griffin Newman?

  Overwhelmed by sex.

• 1:18:47David Sims?

  Yeah, but in Big Lebowski, I mean, I just, I love that movie, but like, it's like Julianne Moore being like, you know, so sexual at him and he's just like, uh huh. Like, it's funny.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  And even his sexual fantasies, he has no agents.

• 1:19:01Griffin Newman?

  But um, you know, Jamie's a free spirit and she barely wears clothes and she has a great time and then she's got a friend.

• 1:19:07David Sims?

  She has the best look.

• 1:19:09Griffin Newman?

  Go ahead.

• 1:19:10David Sims?

  Her character, I just, I love the cutoff sleeves.

• 1:19:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14David Sims?

  I love the haircut. It's, it's kind of like rocker chick. Like all of her fits throughout. I'm just like, damn, I want to cut my sleeves off.

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  You can, man.

• 1:19:26David Sims?

  Ah, I don't know. It's not quite the gun show.

• 1:19:30Griffin Newman?

  You're working on it.

• 1:19:31David Sims?

  I'm working on it.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  You're working on it.

• 1:19:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I just want to call out, uh, Pedro Pascal is credited at the end of this film as penis collector.

• 1:19:39Speaker 04

  I think I saw that when I watched the credits for the first time and I, I laughed.

• 1:19:43Griffin Newman?

  There, there are a lot of characters in this movie that don't have proper names. You know, it's the goon, the goon, the chief penis collector. But we're introduced to Marion, uh, at her office job, being sort of, uh, hit on by a wet blanket dude. She is literally buttoned down. She dresses like, uh, office, uh, Austin Powers.

• 1:20:06David Sims?

  Yeah, she, she's very overdressed. She's, I think her intro scene is very funny. Just, just her manner and the way of shutting the guy down and all that.

• 1:20:17Griffin Newman?

  I, I think if she has, uh, a fastball, a special move, uh, she is better at doing high energy deadpan than almost anyone else. You know?

• 1:20:28David Sims?

  She's working, you know, she's in stuff, but what can we do to make her America's sweetheart?

• 1:20:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean, to go back to earlier point, she is very much a star where you're like, we don't make the movies that help her.

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Griffin Newman?

  You know, and when she like took over the role in Thunderbolts that I O vacated, you're sort of just like, I guess that is good for her. Like, does anything to get her more exposure?

• 1:20:54David Sims?

  That role was bigger than I thought it was going to be when you hear like, oh, she's the assistant. You're like, well, that sounds like.

• 1:20:59Griffin Newman?

  And I like that she's got like flirtation with Sebastian Stan. At least they're letting her not just be a functionary.

• 1:21:05David Sims?

  She's gonna be songbird, right? Isn't that the end? Yeah, not to.

• 1:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Does that mean anything to you, Maya? The idea that Geraldine Viswanathan is gonna be songbird?

• 1:21:14Speaker 04

  That was a lot of talking coming at me for just a second.

• 1:21:17Griffin Newman?

  Songbird.

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  She might be Songbird. I actually, I do love the MCU. I fell off after.

• 1:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Did you grow up with the MCU?

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  I did. Like, I had the encyclopedias. I still have the encyclopedias for like.

• 1:21:27Griffin Newman?

  But were you a comics person or was movie?

• 1:21:30Speaker 04

  Mostly was movies. Mostly movies. I, I think like comics kinda came later, but I love the MCU. I went and saw Thunderbolts just because it was like the first movie in a long time that I had heard like.

• 1:21:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's good.

• 1:21:41Speaker 04

  It's different than what they'd been doing because I, I got tired.

• 1:21:44David Sims?

  It's different from what they had been doing, which was bad movies.

• 1:21:46Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:21:47Griffin Newman?

  Did you see Fantastic Four?

• 1:21:48Speaker 04

  I didn't yet, but it's on my list. I have to do it.

• 1:21:51Griffin Newman?

  You're doing the song?

• 1:21:52David Sims?

  Yeah, the music.

• 1:21:54Griffin Newman?

  Um, no, I, I, look, I like that movie and yep, I think you're better off watching seven Coen Brothers movies in a month.

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  I had a great time, yeah.

• 1:22:01Griffin Newman?

  Rushing to the theater. I'm not gonna argue.

• 1:22:04David Sims?

  But yeah, my Geraldine question, right? There's a, the 10 years ago, hey, you're gonna play Mel in this movie, but we, we have plans for you to be Songbird in three more movies. That's exciting.

• 1:22:15Griffin Newman?

  Who knows?

• 1:22:15David Sims?

  Now it's kinda like, oh, you're gonna be Songbird. And it's like, yeah, in what? Like, what do you actually have going on, guys?

• 1:22:20Griffin Newman?

  To what end?

• 1:22:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:21Griffin Newman?

  She works a lot.

• 1:22:22David Sims?

  She does.

• 1:22:22Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like she gets.

• 1:22:23David Sims?

  She's very funny in Ojai, uh, which she made with, uh, Molly Gordon, who I think she's friends with.

• 1:22:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:29David Sims?

  Uh, she's, you know, she's great. I just want her to be in more stuff.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  Like Broken Hearts Gallery was meant to be a theatrical movie.

• 1:22:36David Sims?

  Stunk. Sorry.

• 1:22:37Griffin Newman?

  But I remembered the reviews at the time being like, when is someone gonna write a good vehicle for?

• 1:22:42David Sims?

  I watched that.

• 1:22:42Griffin Newman?

  There's a lot of that energy.

• 1:22:44David Sims?

  Around Tom, let's go, baby. And it was pretty bad.

• 1:22:46Griffin Newman?

  And she's so goodness, and I do think she's like the best reason to see this is it is the best Geraldine Viswanathan vehicle we have gotten so far.

• 1:22:54Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:55Griffin Newman?

  She is very much the heart of the movie.

• 1:22:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:22:57Griffin Newman?

  Even though it's sort of, uh, Qualy driving the story.

• 1:23:01David Sims?

  Right, but Qualy is like.

• 1:23:02Griffin Newman?

  The movie is entirely her.

• 1:23:04Speaker 04

  She's so big. It's like so hard to have the grumpy sunshine, Bert and Ernie vibe of like Geraldine's character. Miriam is such a wet blanket.

• 1:23:12David Sims?

  She's tough. She's a tough.

• 1:23:14Griffin Newman?

  That's what I mean about the high energy deadpan thing, you know? Like, she still does feel like she exists in this world that is pitched at such a high register.

• 1:23:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Griffin Newman?

  David's hugging baby Joy. Is there a point you want to make?

• 1:23:27David Sims?

  Um, Margaret's character, Margaret's character, whose name, of course, and I'm checking now is Jamie. I keep forgetting the name. Uh, it's like, yes, does she have an arc? Her arc is that she maybe learns to be 5% less much, right? Like, it's just like, hey, Jamie, dial it down slightly. Sometimes you're, you go a little overboard.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  She is, you know, she represents my favorite Ethan Coen thing, which is the character who takes 18 paragraphs to get across a one sentence.

• 1:23:54David Sims?

  She reminds me of Walter in Big Lebowski, but like in a positive energy way, instead of a negative energy way.

• 1:24:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02David Sims?

  Not just in that she won't shut the fuck up, but also in that like, she will start doing a plan without even checking with anyone. Like she'll fucking graffiti the car. Like, like she'll just sort of do stuff where you're like, why would you do that?

• 1:24:15Griffin Newman?

  That's even like-

• 1:24:16David Sims?

  That's actively harmful to what we're doing.

• 1:24:18Griffin Newman?

  Those characters are often a little evil, or at least malicious and dark.

• 1:24:22David Sims?

  And she's not.

• 1:24:23Griffin Newman?

  It's like the Professor Ladykillers and all these people like, I mean, he's well intentioned, but um, uh, Nick Cage and Raising Arizona, who's similarly kind of this like machiavist. I mean, the, the, I've had it with love. I know bards and troubadours are high on it, but I don't believe it's relevant to the modern 20th, soon to be 21st century lesbian. That kind of like sentence that like goes off into side directions within it.

• 1:24:46David Sims?

  Hard. It's quite a challenge to lob an actor.

• 1:24:49Griffin Newman?

  And her arc is that she comes to realize that maybe she actually wants emotional underpinnings in her relationships with people.

• 1:24:58Speaker 04

  I feel like, I don't know. I wasn't convinced by the end when you get to like, yeah.

• 1:25:04David Sims?

  The big question.

• 1:25:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05David Sims?

  Cause this is a movie essentially about Jamie and Marion falling in love and finding happiness with each other.

• 1:25:12Griffin Newman?

  It is two women of the same orientation who share a friend group who've known each other a long time, but have never been romantic or sexual with each other, going on this road trip that is sort of driven by this kind of super bad, we gotta get you laid tonight.

• 1:25:26David Sims?

  Right. Initially, Jamie's like, okay, forget me. You need to be getting laid.

• 1:25:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:32David Sims?

  Right. To Marion and Marion's like, oh, I don't want to deal with that. I just want to read Flaubert or whatever it is.

• 1:25:36Griffin Newman?

  But there's a sort of surprising catching feelings.

• 1:25:39David Sims?

  Henry James.

• 1:25:39Griffin Newman?

  Thing of, they never have seen each other that way. Then it's sort of like, do we need to do this just as means to an end? And then have we actually fallen into something deeper? I think Geraldine plays that perfectly.

• 1:25:53Griffin Newman?

  I think maybe part of what we're getting at is that like the scenes where you need to be sold that Quali is going through the same kind of or her own parallel transformation are still heard just monologuing seemingly unaffected by what any other character is doing.

• 1:26:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12David Sims?

  Would you want to marry Jamie? Not marry, fine. Date Jamie. Like be in a serious relationship with Jamie.

• 1:26:17Speaker 04

  No, I don't think I would.

• 1:26:19David Sims?

  I think it's so annoying.

• 1:26:20Speaker 04

  I would want to hang out with Jamie, but nothing more.

• 1:26:23David Sims?

  Great hang, someone to be crazy with and then be like, okay, Jamie, I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

• 1:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Is there a slightly better version of this script where in the last 20 minutes, Jamie becomes a little more pulled back and Miriam starts to be the one?

• 1:26:41David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 1:26:42Griffin Newman?

  You know, like, yes, instead. Sell that more if there's a transference of energy rather than them meeting a little bit towards the middle?

• 1:26:49Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 1:26:50David Sims?

  Go ahead, Maya.

• 1:26:51Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, like, I was struggling so much while watching this movie because I feel like there's kind of the, when you get to the end of the movie, I was like, that's a fine movie, but like, it feels like there's something missing, but there's not inherently anything on paper that feels like there's like actually anything missing. But when you look at the two main characters, I think there's like, you have Geraldine giving like an excellent performance to a wet blanket character who feels like is playing it. She's playing it so straight, the whole movie with like the wackiness going on around here where Margaret Qualley's character Jamie is like so zany and out there and kind of feels like obviously they're thrown into this, the midst of something that they were not supposed to be involved in. And that's the whole point. But I think like the performance from Quali feels like it kind of does Jamie's

• 1:27:34Speaker 04

  character makes it a little bit too left of center, but then Geraldine's character is such a wet blanket to the point that like, you know, Miriam just kind of doesn't feel like she fits into the zaniness of like Jamie. It feels like it's kind of like two things dancing around each other that never kind of meet up.

• 1:27:50Griffin Newman?

  And I think Miriam gets to the middle much more than Jamie does.

• 1:27:55Speaker 04

  I totally agree with you.

• 1:27:55Griffin Newman?

  The midpoint of them. Right. And it's like, maybe that is the. I don't know. Does this movie not have complete

• 1:28:04Griffin Newman?

  character arcs? No. In a way. I think it's tough to, yeah. You know, the Coens' love in their work together, avoiding the obvious outcome and the kind of like clean cycle and whatever. But when this movie is aiming for far less profound things, you're like, do I want the emotional catharsis of kind of the obvious thing happening at the end? And I do feel like you want the scene at the end where when they're with the two goons, Marion is suddenly able to like, fast talk of her way around them, the way Jamie has before. Like, that kind of thing does feel like it would be satisfying. Basically, Miriam wants to go visit her aunt.

• 1:28:45David Sims?

  Right. The purpose, they're both bummed out.

• 1:28:47Griffin Newman?

  Jamie's bored.

• 1:28:48David Sims?

  Jamie's bored and just got dumped and kicked out of her house.

• 1:28:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  By Suki.

• 1:28:52Griffin Newman?

  And she knows about this, the notion of the drive away, that there's a car that needs to be gotten from one drop off point to another. They will pay you money.

• 1:29:02David Sims?

  A one way rental, but right, you're basically being paid for it.

• 1:29:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. But basically.

• 1:29:06David Sims?

  I feel like this does not exist anymore in any way.

• 1:29:08Griffin Newman?

  No, but it's a very good setup for a movie. Another reason this film has to be set up. In a year, it is.

• 1:29:14David Sims?

  It's the same premise as Blank Check. The film Blank Check. They walk into the business one minute before the person.

• 1:29:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:22David Sims?

  You know, is supposed to get the thing, like this criminal enterprise has been agreed upon. In Blank Check, it's you will be handed a million dollars or whatever, as part of some mob payoff or whatever the fuck is going on in that movie. I already forgot. The kid shows up a minute before and so on, you know, there it goes. In this one, they show up, we want to go to Tallahassee and Curly. Best performance of the movie, obviously. Bill Camp completely crushing it.

• 1:29:46Griffin Newman?

  Has just gotten off the phone.

• 1:29:47David Sims?

  Is like, okay, you're the people's taking the special, you know, delivery to Tallahassee. Take the.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  Which they're also being so argumentative and unclear with him on the phone. Like this sort of like, do we need to fucking repeat it for you again thing? That when someone comes in 15 seconds later and says Tallahassee, he's just so frazzled by it.

• 1:30:06David Sims?

  Joey Slotnick and CJ Wilson as two Coney heavy, you know, bickering hitman guys.

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Then I saw CJ Wilson in recently.

• 1:30:15David Sims?

  Well, CJ Wilson, I feel like is

• 1:30:17Griffin Newman?

  It's great.

• 1:30:17David Sims?

  An exceptional theater actor.

• 1:30:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes, does a lot of Lonergan stuff.

• 1:30:21David Sims?

  Yes, doesn't do a lot of movies at all or TV.

• 1:30:25Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I saw him show up young in something and had that kind of shock.

• 1:30:30David Sims?

  Uh, were you watching, I mean, young?

• 1:30:33Griffin Newman?

  He's in Manchester.

• 1:30:35David Sims?

  Yeah, he is in those.

• 1:30:36Griffin Newman?

  No, you know what it was? I was watching.

• 1:30:38David Sims?

  What were you watching?

• 1:30:39Griffin Newman?

  I was rewatching Netflix's The Characters. Do you remember that?

• 1:30:43David Sims?

  Uh, well, yeah, sure. Like when the comedians had like the, yeah, cause Tim Robinson had one.

• 1:30:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's what I think you should leave comes out of, but that 10 years ago, they were like, let's give character comedians the ability to make their own half hour special and can be whatever format they want.

• 1:30:58David Sims?

  Tim Robinson's one has the, the, the gambling guy.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Lady Luck.

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  Lady, have you seen this?

• 1:31:04Speaker 04

  I haven't seen this.

• 1:31:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  I like Tim Robinson.

• 1:31:06David Sims?

  He's playing a guy who's like a, you know,

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  Is he just like a classic?

• 1:31:10David Sims?

  Sinatra. Well, he's like, hey, I'm a gambler, like Lady Luck. He's like, put it all on like whatever. He rolls the dice. He's like, fuck, I lost all my money.

• 1:31:19Griffin Newman?

  It's like three minutes of wind up.

• 1:31:21Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 1:31:22Griffin Newman?

  They do like Koochalas Kopa Kavanna tracking shot of him knowing everyone at the club and being awesome. And then the first time he bets money.

• 1:31:34Griffin Newman?

  And then he just keeps doubling down on it. But this show was like a big flop, but that's

• 1:31:40David Sims?

  Yeah, it didn't really.

• 1:31:40Griffin Newman?

  His episode was so liked by comedy people.

• 1:31:43Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 1:31:44Griffin Newman?

  That like Lonely Island, some other folks were like, we'll back you up in doing a Netflix show that no one will ever watch. And that became phenomenal. Anyway, he showed up in that. But this is a lot of the stuff that I love in Coen movies of like these side characters who feel like they are living off entire stories that are happening just to the side. The whole Curly thing of just like this character getting a little more time and investment than any other movie would give. But also this like odd side narrative to the goons who are similarly going through a weird evil version of the main plot.

• 1:32:17David Sims?

  It's a funny idea, right? They have their own personal, they don't need to hook up, but they do have some dynamic they need to untangle.

• 1:32:24Griffin Newman?

  But they have hooked up. Right. That's the blow up at the end.

• 1:32:27Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  Is like, these two guys are stuck in this car together, like this Fargo dynamic yelling at each other. And the one guy, the classic Coens, like big guy and little guy thing, yelling at the other guy for not being masculine enough, right? And sort of pushing this like sexuality and this like machismo. At the end, you realize they like hooked up and both are really freaked out about it and defensive and they shoot each other.

• 1:32:50David Sims?

  Joey Slotnick has come up on this podcast because Alex Ross Perry is kind of obsessed with him.

• 1:32:56Griffin Newman?

  He was a frequent Craig Kilborn punchline, which it's a classic Alex Ross Perry. You don't remember that? Everyone remembers that. That was the biggest thing on TV in the 90s. I can't believe you don't remember Joey Slotnick. You weren't watching Kilborn every night. Everyone watched Craig Kilborn every night.

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  Exceptional impersonation of Alex Ross Perry interrogating you about something.

• 1:33:17Griffin Newman?

  The only time I take a shower is 5pm. You're a lunatic if you take a shower.

• 1:33:20David Sims?

  That is the big argument I had with Alex once. You weren't even at the table. I just.

• 1:33:25Griffin Newman?

  No, but I still repeat that to other people to explain Alex.

• 1:33:29David Sims?

  I just sit down and he's like, when do you take a shower? I'm like, what? He's like, when do you shower? I'm like, in the morning after I wake up. And he's like, insane.

• 1:33:37Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:33:38David Sims?

  When do you shower, Maya? You don't have to answer that question. You're a night shower person.

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  I'm a night shower person.

• 1:33:43David Sims?

  Joey Slotnick used to have big bouffant curly hair. And I feel like it was like a definitive part of his like on screen, like when you would spot him in a movie, you'd be like, oh yeah, Joey Slotnick, there he is.

• 1:33:54Griffin Newman?

  I believe, did he not play Larry in the Three Stooges TV movie? There was a very austere, Three Stooges TV movie produced by Mel Gibson, that I think he played Larry in because he looks so much like Larry Fine.

• 1:34:10David Sims?

  Um, you are thinking of somebody else because Evan Handler, the great bald actor Evan Handler, uh, played him. I feel like.

• 1:34:18Griffin Newman?

  You know what I'm thinking of?

• 1:34:19David Sims?

  What are you thinking?

• 1:34:20Griffin Newman?

  Joey Slotnick has been doing fucking Marx Brothers on stage.

• 1:34:23David Sims?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:34:24Griffin Newman?

  He does Groucho.

• 1:34:26David Sims?

  Well, maybe he's good.

• 1:34:27Griffin Newman?

  There, I think he did a stage duck soup.

• 1:34:31David Sims?

  Okay. Um, that sounds like something I wouldn't want to see. I'm going to be honest with you. But I think he also played, um, I hate to bring this up. It's so silly, but I must bring it up. Steve Wozniak, inventor of Apple.

• 1:34:47Griffin Newman?

  Pirates of Silicon Valley.

• 1:34:48David Sims?

  In the TV movie, The Pirates of Silicon Valley, in which Noah Wiley played Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall played Bill Gates.

• 1:34:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:34:54David Sims?

  I just had to say that.

• 1:34:55Griffin Newman?

  That was a big TV movie. It had billboards all over the place at a time where TV movies were not legion. And I just remember walking by that as a kid and being like, God, the casting could never get better than this. Something about it felt faded in the nine, in the late nineties to be like Wiley and Michael Hall, absolutely.

• 1:35:15David Sims?

  Anyway, but it's just fun to see him here. He's an actor I hadn't thought about much. And he shows up as a grouchy hitman. I thought he was pretty good. So he and CJ Wilson are there. You've got Coleman Domingo as the chief. Who's I guess the chief of this operation. Uh, and he wears a suit and he has this kind of, I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but he's fairly arresting voice. Delivers lines in kind of a like melodic and interesting way.

• 1:35:38Griffin Newman?

  He's very much a guy I could listen to, say anything.

• 1:35:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41David Sims?

  Um, and then who else is in the mix? I mean, Bill Camp, we shouted out and Beanie Feldstein is, uh, the grumpy ex-girlfriend who's a cop.

• 1:35:48Griffin Newman?

  That's kind of it. Coleman Domingo kind of has quietly been doing the Pedro Pascal thing, but it's totally working.

• 1:35:56Speaker 04

  But I love him. I love anything he's in.

• 1:35:57Griffin Newman?

  But it's the similar thing. If that guy was around forever, I for so long had been like, this is one of the best actors on the planet. And it felt like it's finally like growing and he's catching on. This guy quietly, without like leading man movie star pressure, has gotten two consecutive best actor nominations.

• 1:36:14David Sims?

  He has.

• 1:36:15Griffin Newman?

  You know, like this guy works perfectly as character actor, supporting lead, lead, doing every genre, every type of thing.

• 1:36:23David Sims?

  He's, he's very, very good in Sing Sing. I did not like Ruston.

• 1:36:26Griffin Newman?

  I didn't either.

• 1:36:26David Sims?

  Much at all, but I was happy when he got the Oscar nomination because it felt like a certain.

• 1:36:30Griffin Newman?

  I felt like this is a nice anointment. And then Sing Sing, I was like, oh, it's great. He's been nominated for something good that he is great.

• 1:36:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38David Sims?

  Um, yeah. So they get the, they, they get to go on their trip to Florida.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. They got this car.

• 1:36:44David Sims?

  Car just for fun. They're not, they're not aware that they're transporting a briefcase of dildos. Right? That's what's in the car.

• 1:36:51Speaker 04

  As well as Pedro Pascal.

• 1:36:54David Sims?

  Pedro Pascal's head with on ice. Why is that included?

• 1:37:00Speaker 04

  I hate.

• 1:37:00David Sims?

  Like, what, what is the plausible plot reason to put a head in there?

• 1:37:03Speaker 04

  I actually have thought about that. His head.

• 1:37:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think it's a clue.

• 1:37:07Speaker 04

  Just classic, just classic.

• 1:37:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Okay. There's the part where she mentions.

• 1:37:13David Sims?

  Not sure I buy that, but okay.

• 1:37:15Griffin Newman?

  There's the part where she mentions like, you know, in her very flowery way, the like, don't look in the box. I saw a movie where they keep asking what's in the box. And when you look inside, something's terrible. That's like meant to be seven, right?

• 1:37:27David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that's what I think of when I think of a head in the box.

• 1:37:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's just funny to think of like Ethan Cohen sitting down and being like, I'm gonna make a seven reference. When their movies don't really reference other pop culture, especially not contemporaries.

• 1:37:40David Sims?

  Not usually. Maybe Joe's gonna sit on my shoulder.

• 1:37:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay, baby Joey is sitting on David's shoulder.

• 1:37:45David Sims?

  So they go on a trip and of course, boring old Marion just wants to drive down the interstate. And fun, Jamie wants to go to every single like lesbian bar she can think of and see the world's largest Dixie cup. Is that what it is?

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:38:00David Sims?

  Among other things. And they're going to Tallahassee, Florida, which I've never been to, but I do like that. Uh, Marion is like, it has Spanish moss or whatever.

• 1:38:10Griffin Newman?

  And Miami is trashy. They gotta get away from Miami.

• 1:38:12David Sims?

  Right, right. And, um, you know, there's not too much plot. There's just happening.

• 1:38:21Griffin Newman?

  This movie is truly 76 minutes long before the credits roll. And it has, uh, long interstitials. Like it is a thing a lot of people threw out of like, how is it 76 and feels padded?

• 1:38:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:34David Sims?

  It has multiple like.

• 1:38:37Griffin Newman?

  Extended Austin Powers-esque psychedelic interludes.

• 1:38:41Speaker 04

  Crazy.

• 1:38:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, there was a universe in which you're like. I am loathe to say this because I'm all for the power of the movies and the movie as an art form, but there's almost a universe in which you're like, hey, Ethan and Trisha Cook, you have like a pile of scripts and like side notes, maybe make this like an anthology series, maybe do like a couple 45 minutes, you know?

• 1:39:05David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:39:06Griffin Newman?

  We were talking about in one of our group texts, there was the, the nineties Showtime series where they got a bunch of directors to remake like Roger Corman road pictures, like Dante and Robert Rodriguez and stuff, and you could like see them thematically fitting together more in that kind of way. That I mean, said, I don't feel like this movie is like, Jesus Christ, an hour and 15 minutes and they're running out of steam.

• 1:39:33David Sims?

  No, it's not. I do think if it was a minute longer, I would shoot myself in the head though.

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  I don't disagree.

• 1:39:40David Sims?

  It's like, it definitely needs to be done, like when it's wrapping up.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about the editing?

• 1:39:45David Sims?

  You're not like, I want more.

• 1:39:46Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about the editing?

• 1:39:48David Sims?

  Yes, we can. Trisha Cook.

• 1:39:50Speaker 02

  Let's just cut to a little like animated sequence really quick. That has no connection to anything.

• 1:39:56David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:39:57Griffin Newman?

  It's call forwards to the state of hallucination that Matt Damon's character was in when his dick was being cast. Yeah. Cause you start to see Miley Cyrus appear in those before her actual appearance.

• 1:40:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:11David Sims?

  That is the ostensible purpose of them.

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  I guess I did not read that.

• 1:40:17Griffin Newman?

  It's why you need to watch the movie three times, Ben. It's a naughty text.

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I see.

• 1:40:21Griffin Newman?

  It's a naughty layered text. Um, okay. Well, we had that interlude and here's how we're going to cut back to the main conversation. That was me doing my impression of some of the transitions in this movie.

• 1:40:35Speaker 04

  That was really good. That was super good.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:40Griffin Newman?

  This movie is co-directed by an editor who is seemingly enjoying breaking every rule of respectable editing.

• 1:40:50David Sims?

  Yes, Trisha Cook edited it after working for many years as the assistant editor to the Coens, right? It's not like Trisha Cook had never edited any movie before.

• 1:41:01Speaker 04

  No, this is an experienced person.

• 1:41:03David Sims?

  So I think there's a thoughtfulness to how the movie is being presented to us in terms of like, this thing is rickety. It's barely standing on its two feet. Like, it's silly. You're supposed to get that it's silly. And I do get that it's silly.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  They make it very clear.

• 1:41:17David Sims?

  Yes, I think, and I think that's fine. I like the idea that it's ramshackle and it's this car that's gonna fall apart in a minute's notice.

• 1:41:23Griffin Newman?

  And that's like playful. That's just trying stuff.

• 1:41:25David Sims?

  Yeah, I do understand perhaps some, some cinema goers sitting down and being like, you know, I paid like $18.

• 1:41:35Griffin Newman?

  I heard a baby sitting there.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  I mean.

• 1:41:37Griffin Newman?

  Is this an affront to a good ticket?

• 1:41:39David Sims?

  You didn't want to just like think about some of this stuff like for a second like.

• 1:41:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:41:42David Sims?

  But I do think that's, that's the atmosphere of the film.

• 1:41:46Griffin Newman?

  And you got like not expecting this movie to have like a great show, awesome job vibe.

• 1:41:52Speaker 04

  Imagine me, like, this is the first Coen brother movie I've ever seen.

• 1:41:57Griffin Newman?

  But I think that's ideal.

• 1:41:59Speaker 04

  It was awesome.

• 1:41:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. You're like, oh, so they're just guys.

• 1:42:01Speaker 04

  Exactly. I literally was like, oh, so this is their deal. Like, they're just wacky, silly guys putting whatever they want in a movie. And like, truly, I walked in, I used my movie pass. That movie cost me $0. It was a last minute decision to go and see Drive Away Dolls. I walked out being like, yeah, I liked it. Like, it's great.

• 1:42:19Griffin Newman?

  This movie is a perfect argument for movie going subscription programs.

• 1:42:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:42:24Griffin Newman?

  Like, you're right, David. If, if I recommend it to someone who does not see movies often.

• 1:42:28Speaker 04

  To pay $18.

• 1:42:30Griffin Newman?

  Just to see this. But I'm like, if you're spending $20 a month, make Drive Away Dolls one of your two or three in February.

• 1:42:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:38Griffin Newman?

  When the pickings are slim.

• 1:42:39Speaker 04

  Oh, God. The pickings were so slim when this movie came out, too. Like, I remember feeling like, oh, well, I guess this is it. Yeah.

• 1:42:45David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 1:42:46Griffin Newman?

  I, I have this.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  And you will see, like, what's that old tweet of like, ah, fuck, let me find the tweet. You say your thought, I'm gonna find the tweet.

• 1:42:53Griffin Newman?

  I have this theory and this movie falls into this, right? But it's this sort of old master thing. We were talking about this in one of our group texts the other day of like old filmmakers who contend when people are like, why did you go to digital? Why did you like change your filmmaking style? And they're like, I think this looks as good as any of my films. And you're like, your movies used to look immaculate. And now you're old and people are offering you less money and you just want to get it over with quickly. There's a lot of that vibe where it's just like, I don't want to belabor this in the same way. And you need to judge those movies differently. Of course, it doesn't mean they're better than their best films. But you're like, this is the prism of like this person's at a stage in their life where they have something they want to say, but maybe they're not as obsessive about the craft and the construction.

• 1:43:37Griffin Newman?

  And I think when Megalopolis was coming out and there was this feeling of like

• 1:43:41David Sims?

  Normal movie with normal editing.

• 1:43:43Griffin Newman?

  Coppola is going to return to the main stage and he's ready to make like, you know, it's been decades, but he's going to make another Apocalypse Now, another Godfather. David's hugging Joey very tightly. And then people were alarmed when they saw the trailer and they were like, why does it look like this? Why is the dialogue like this?

• 1:43:58David Sims?

  Why does it look like a Linkin Park video?

• 1:43:59Griffin Newman?

  All of this shit. And you're like, this guy has not made a normal looking movie in 15 years. Right? And I think there's something like late period Wachowskis has a lot of this as well, like Sense Eight and what I think threw a lot of people off in Matrix Resurrections, where especially people who like early in their career are so obsessive about like technical innovation and craft and visual storytelling and like perfect construction and whatever. And then you get to a point where it's like, congratulations, you have made perfect movies. You have made movies that not only will like go down in history forever, but people will study as every hair on this head is like perfect. How do you challenge yourself at that point?

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  You don't. You make driveway dolls.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  I really think there is a point of like, the only way I can actually push myself and challenge myself now is to sort of try to make something incorrectly on purpose. Which isn't to say make a bad movie on purpose, but like I followed all of the rules and even evolved them and I got to the end of that. And then I transmuted it onto lateral genre exercises and I did that as well. What more is there to do other than to sit down and go, well, everyone knows a movie shouldn't be edited like this, but what if I try it?

• 1:45:17David Sims?

  The tweet I'm referencing is by Mike Gin, G I N, not sure that's his name. And here's the tweet. I think about it all the time. It's a very famous tweet. Why must a movie be good? Is it not enough to sit somewhere dark and see a beautiful face? Huge. And that is how I feel a little bit about driveway dolls. I'm like, look at all these pretty people.

• 1:45:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39David Sims?

  Yeah. Driving around, taking their tops off, being silly, like everyone's having fun.

• 1:45:45Griffin Newman?

  I sat in a room and there was a big machine behind me that projected a bunch of light onto a screen in front of my face and then colors moved around.

• 1:45:53Speaker 04

  That's exactly what I was here for. Nothing more, nothing less.

• 1:45:58David Sims?

  So, yes, okay, what are some of the things they do?

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Very short movie. It's basically the halfway point. Like the 30 minute mark is when they hook up, which I also like that is not something that has held to the very end. It's sort of like.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  For they go to a make out party with a soccer team.

• 1:46:13Griffin Newman?

  High school soccer players.

• 1:46:14David Sims?

  Yes, and they make.

• 1:46:15Griffin Newman?

  I know a little too old to be at a sleepover.

• 1:46:17David Sims?

  Right. They're in a basement and everyone's making out and then someone blows a whistle and everyone moves one to the right or whatever. I chuckled too. I think the whole thing is funny and obviously this is what right gets them to make out because they, you know, they have to move along and they're like, oh, fuck, we don't, you know.

• 1:46:37Griffin Newman?

  Qualy's kind of like, this is no big deal. It doesn't mean anything. And then there's the moment where Geraldine pushes away and is just tearfully says, please don't bring someone back to the motel room tonight. Cause we've already set up this thing of like, she's going to pick up a new partner for that night in every single town while Viswanathan sits in the fucking lobby of this shitty motel.

• 1:46:57David Sims?

  And the Europeans.

• 1:46:58Griffin Newman?

  Reading a novel.

• 1:47:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:00Griffin Newman?

  Reading Henry James. Yeah.

• 1:47:02David Sims?

  Right. Of course it's Henry James because that's the joke. Henry James is driveway dykes at the end. So that happens. They do hook up. They found the head at some point.

• 1:47:11Griffin Newman?

  She runs away and right. Qualy kind of recognizes, oh, I think maybe an emotional thing happened that I need to reckon with.

• 1:47:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:19Griffin Newman?

  But then she gets picked up by the cops.

• 1:47:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:47:23Griffin Newman?

  Geraldine does.

• 1:47:24David Sims?

  Geraldine gets picked up by the cops for what? Like vagrancy because she's like walking around in the darkness?

• 1:47:28Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:47:29David Sims?

  I don't even know. Yes.

• 1:47:30Griffin Newman?

  But basically they get split up for that night is the point. And you have the flashback sequence to her sort of like activation moment, which also helps make her feel like more of a character, even though these are not like super complicated scenes that there is just like a kind of viewpoint

• 1:47:48Griffin Newman?

  and perspective on it. And then, yes. The arresting thing is just that they get split up for the night, but then discover.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  Back to like the police officer.

• 1:48:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:48:01David Sims?

  She's arrested for being mouthy.

• 1:48:02Speaker 04

  Gotcha.

• 1:48:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:04Griffin Newman?

  Discover the dildos. Call up Beanie Feldstein to try to get her to help them because now they realize we're being chased. We're caught up in something bad.

• 1:48:14David Sims?

  Yes. And then they make it to Tallahassee.

• 1:48:17Griffin Newman?

  The greatest moment, of course.

• 1:48:18David Sims?

  Quicker than you think. What's the greatest moment?

• 1:48:20Griffin Newman?

  The goons going back to kill Curly.

• 1:48:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:48:23Griffin Newman?

  And Beanie Feldstein going to check in on him. And this kind of like cruelty of the universe Cohen's move moment in a movie that otherwise is kind of devoid of that.

• 1:48:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:48:31Griffin Newman?

  Of he is lying, dying his final breaths and he takes all the sheets of paper around him and tries to throw them up just to get her attention before she leaves the window. And it doesn't happen. The paper falls back on his chair, his chest. And he says, no one's going to save Curly.

• 1:48:46David Sims?

  Won't somebody save Curly? Do you think he dies? Or do you think he's just in pain?

• 1:48:51Speaker 04

  I think, I think he's just in pain. My first time I watched this, my Letterboxd review was rumor is has it. Curly is still on the floor.

• 1:48:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:59Speaker 04

  So I like to believe he's still with us.

• 1:49:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, I think he's still doing fine. There's no driveway dolls wiki yet, so I can't check in on Curly's individual character entry.

• 1:49:08Griffin Newman?

  They need to come up with a name for what they're calling these movies. Do you know what I'm saying? Cause then we could make a bigger wiki for the universe. I assume they're not interconnected because we already have two qualities.

• 1:49:18David Sims?

  Correct. They are not.

• 1:49:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:49:19David Sims?

  Honey, don't has nothing to do with driveway dolls, except that it also feels like it was made very quickly.

• 1:49:28David Sims?

  And has a bunch of famous people in it, which is fun, but right, being silly. Uh, driveway dolls. Yeah. So they go to Tallahassee. They go to this, uh, hotel. There's a lot. It's a, I realized on my third watch is I've now, you know, become an expert in this movie. I'm the mayor of driveway dolls. Like they get to the hotel kind of fast and like, then we are in the last act of the movie for almost half of the movie of this short movie.

• 1:49:51Griffin Newman?

  But that's, I, I.

• 1:49:52David Sims?

  Like the Alamo's dropping your check. They are.

• 1:49:55Griffin Newman?

  They are.

• 1:49:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:56Griffin Newman?

  I do like the decision that it's not about them getting to the hookup, that it's like, there's the make out. Then there's the sort of like, we have to reckon with these emotions. The dinner at the hotel, which is Geraldine doing this like very overwritten. What are you saying? I'm saying I want to try having emotions for once.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  Right. I want to have emotional sex rather than just fun.

• 1:50:19Griffin Newman?

  That both, I think we should sleep together, that I'm the person to get you out of your rut, but also maybe me living this life without letting myself get, catch feelings for any people is depriving myself of something greater.

• 1:50:32Griffin Newman?

  Falls asleep, wakes up, uh, Margot Colly going sicko mode.

• 1:50:38David Sims?

  Yes. I was going to say, I was going to bring this up earlier where it's like Qualley's or Jamie's emotional depth or her evolution where she's like, I simply had to jerk off. I could not contain myself. There's a whole suitcase of dildos. I cannot wait 20 fucking minutes for you to wake up or whatever.

• 1:50:57Griffin Newman?

  It's not only that, but she plays that scene. Physically, it feels like a cartoon character with their finger in a fucking light socket.

• 1:51:05David Sims?

  Right. Like, but they're just being like. And like, that she can't even stop to say, sorry. Like I couldn't contain myself, but she has to continue doing it.

• 1:51:15Griffin Newman?

  That it feels like she's waking up next to someone in bed, having a seizure, like she's in danger. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:51:22Griffin Newman?

  But from that moment on in the movie, they're like together.

• 1:51:25David Sims?

  Yeah. And they start having more emotional sex.

• 1:51:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:29David Sims?

  Right? Like the shower sex. It's like, it's all shot in this kind of like not Looney Tunes way. It's all very gentle and lovely. It's fine.

• 1:51:37Griffin Newman?

  And Qualley's been doing, making her own side casts, backups.

• 1:51:43Speaker 02

  There's a really funny moment in the shower where Geraldine is like, I would like to, and you think she's going to say something emotional? I would like to also use the dildo.

• 1:51:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But everything is still very like point of fact with her. And I like the fucking concierge at the hotel a lot.

• 1:52:01David Sims?

  Yeah, his name is Josh Fitter.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  Fitter. No, he's the bellboy at the end who finds the dildo.

• 1:52:06David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. So, okay, so who plays the, um, cause he is funny.

• 1:52:10Griffin Newman?

  He's funny and I just like it a lot as like the movie is setting you up to think that this guy is gonna be like, well, I never about everything.

• 1:52:18Speaker 04

  No, we accept the rainbow card.

• 1:52:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. He just loves everything. He's just super cordial. Yeah.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  I'm trying to find his name.

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:25David Sims?

  Or I'm trying to find the actor. What do we think his name is?

• 1:52:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna find it.

• 1:52:29Speaker 02

  Okay, while we're looking, did we talk about the goons and their whole like sort of?

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  We, we, we touched on it. Yeah.

• 1:52:36Speaker 02

  Game of them, the sort of the one being like, I appreciate talking to people. You're so aggressive. I, I think it's fun with the two goons visiting the previous locations that they've come from. Interacting with the cheerleaders is really fun.

• 1:52:52Speaker 04

  That was good.

• 1:52:53Speaker 02

  They, you know, misdirect them. They end up in this like bar way out of the way from Tallahassee.

• 1:53:00David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, that is a funny.

• 1:53:01Speaker 04

  What is this? Then it just is like a guy who's like, starts talking to them about nothing and then it's done and then it never comes back. It's.

• 1:53:09David Sims?

  Well, then he distracts the other guys.

• 1:53:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:12David Sims?

  Right. Uh, John Menchon is that actor.

• 1:53:16Griffin Newman?

  I'm so glad I looked up the conquistador desk clerk.

• 1:53:20David Sims?

  Oh, here he is.

• 1:53:20Griffin Newman?

  His name is Braxton McCollum.

• 1:53:22David Sims?

  Braxton McCollum.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  Fucking name.

• 1:53:25David Sims?

  He's only, it's his first role.

• 1:53:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's really seems like he only did like short films before that.

• 1:53:29David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:53:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but he's very good.

• 1:53:31David Sims?

  He's got a funny face.

• 1:53:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But this is like getting to this point of just like, there is no scene in this movie that I don't find pleasant to watch.

• 1:53:41David Sims?

  Uh, exactly. Totally. It can be a bit of a chore on your third viewing, maybe, but it's, it's pleasant. Um, and it's fun and it's bubbly. And you know what? Get off my back. Three and a half stars on Letterboxd.

• 1:53:55Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk Maya?

• 1:53:57David Sims?

  Comments on each blog. It's like, three and a half stars. Come on, buddy.

• 1:54:01Griffin Newman?

  This is why I don't do the stars. I basically, I will only give a star rating if it's a one or a five.

• 1:54:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:54:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and then otherwise I'm like, it's binary heart or no heart. And heart is basically liked it.

• 1:54:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I do the same thing. I used to actually give star ratings and then I was like, I think I don't know what I'm talking about when I give a movie like two stars. But if I like it, I'll give it a like. If I don't put stars, it doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's just like not worth being like, wow.

• 1:54:30Griffin Newman?

  I just never want the quibbling of like 3.5. That's the same rating you gave this.

• 1:54:35David Sims?

  Yes, I love that.

• 1:54:36Speaker 04

  So like 3.5 is either like the glowing review of like, whoa, you're rating this way too high. Or somebody's like, it's fine. Right. It's just, yeah.

• 1:54:43David Sims?

  But I like giving star ratings precisely for this reason, to fuck with people. And then I like that I'm constantly adjusting everything in my Letterboxd.

• 1:54:51Griffin Newman?

  I know it is.

• 1:54:52David Sims?

  Nothing is finite. I'm always thinking about like, okay, how's that movie settled with me? Or how did it do on rewatch or whatever? Like, and I love fiddling with stuff and I'll see now because people pay attention to me. On Letterboxd, I'm not bragging. People being like, you took it down to a four and a half. What does it mean? What's it mean? I'm like, I don't know. I just liked it a little. Or, or I'll take a look at my year list and I'll be like, eh, maybe nothing's actually really reached kind of top for me, right? And like, actually the stuff I like the most is, has a bit of a ceiling on it or something. I don't know.

• 1:55:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:24David Sims?

  Having fun.

• 1:55:25Griffin Newman?

  No, I like doing it. But that's why I'm like, I can walk out of Jurassic World Rebirth and confidently be like, one star.

• 1:55:31David Sims?

  Oh, you didn't like that one?

• 1:55:32Griffin Newman?

  You know, and I can like re-watch Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and be like, five, no question. Anything in between, I just kinda don't wanna fucking deal with.

• 1:55:40David Sims?

  Distortious Rex?

• 1:55:42Griffin Newman?

  You think he's gonna show up in something else? Did you see Jurassic World Rebirth?

• 1:55:46Speaker 04

  I didn't.

• 1:55:46Griffin Newman?

  Oh, no.

• 1:55:47Speaker 04

  Cause it's, as I hear, a one star movie.

• 1:55:49Griffin Newman?

  It's a, it's, it's, it's a bit of a, yeah.

• 1:55:53Speaker 04

  Is it a chore? Yeah.

• 1:55:54Griffin Newman?

  It's not a chore. It's more than, it's worse than a chore, for sure. I found it very boring. I did too. There was a point- Very low energy. In my, in my Superman Patreon episode where I, I went off in the rant, the thing I forgot to mention was, there was a moment where I felt like the movie was ending. And I was like, oh, thank God. At least it's almost over. That feels right. Right? And then I remembered, oh, the big mutant dinosaur that they show you at the very beginning. We have not seen him yet. Has not come back yet. And I turned to my friend.

• 1:56:22Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:56:22Griffin Newman?

  In like defeat. And I was like, oh, fuck, there's another half hour. Distortionous Rex! Another half hour. And walking out of that movie, I would have been like, that was three hours on the nugget. And it's like 2:06 with credits? It feels- It feels longer. Infinite.

• 1:56:38Speaker 04

  Yikes.

• 1:56:39Griffin Newman?

  Do you like Jurassic Park?

• 1:56:40Speaker 04

  I do. I love Jurassic Park. Yeah.

• 1:56:42Griffin Newman?

  Cool. This is what I wanna dig into a little more.

• 1:56:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:56:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. Your, your Coens experience with now watching them later?

• 1:56:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:56:49Griffin Newman?

  What has been your experience in watching a handful of the classics now? And especially the, the Crime Capers?

• 1:56:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. Really fun. I, of course, have to mention, my boyfriend has been a really good guide, cause he knew that I was, I would be doing the Drive Away Dolls episode. And he is well versed in the Coens universe. And so he was like, I think these are kind of the closest we can get based off of what their filmography is to what Drive Away Dolls ended up being. And so we watched a lot of the Crime Capers. But I truly, like, every time we watched a new one, I was like, these guys love law enforcement being present somewhere in a movie. Like, it's very, but that is, that is it. But I, I, I had so much fun with it. And I think that like, it was more fun for me to view these movies with fresh eyes at an adult age than like, being, I don't know,

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  introduced to them when I was younger and not necessarily getting to like, understand the full scope of the characters or the worlds that were being crafted or anything. Yeah.

• 1:57:42Griffin Newman?

  I also, I think, you know, the Coens films are for me so much about like, trying to find a way to live in a like cruel, merciless world that lacks meaning.

• 1:57:57Griffin Newman?

  Like, they are not completely nihilistic because the characters are fighting to find something through that understanding of the lack of meaning. But this is one of their few movies where it is like, and then they ended up happily.

• 1:58:11Speaker 04

  That is so awesome.

• 1:58:14Griffin Newman?

  Where like, things can be defeated. Like, the cleanness of, oh, Matt Damon is gonna be doing the handoff at the same time that Beanie Feldstein is there with the cat, and she can shoot him, and his whole corruption can be blown open in a newspaper cover story that no one questions.

• 1:58:31David Sims?

  The newspaper cover, I want to find it because it is so funny.

• 1:58:34Speaker 04

  Senators shot outside of lesbian bar or something?

• 1:58:37David Sims?

  I want to read every single moment of it, every single line of it, but yes.

• 1:58:41Speaker 04

  Verbatim, please, yeah.

• 1:58:42David Sims?

  Let me find it.

• 1:58:43Griffin Newman?

  Okay. As David looks around.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  Keep talking, everybody.

• 1:58:46Griffin Newman?

  I was watching the very limited special features on this Blu-ray, which are basically three, three-minute or under YouTube featurettes. They're like so bad and apathetic, but one of them has like the three main actresses talking, and Beanie Feldstein talked a lot about like, the canon of the Coen Brothers' cop is so big, it is such an honor to be like a cop in a movie.

• 1:59:08Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:59:09Griffin Newman?

  Written by Ethan Coen, but then it's also so funny where you're like, a lot of times it is like these deeply corrupt, immoral characters, or it is Marge Gunderson, who is like the ultimate moral good.

• 1:59:19Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:59:20Griffin Newman?

  Like, one of the purest characters that has ever existed in film, and feels like almost this rebuke to not just real cops, but also the way cops are usually depicted in movies. But that is a character who is like working hard to like fight for some sense of light, for like the value of like the three cent stamp, but also she can't solve shit. And like, this is gonna keep happening, and it's happened before. You know, all she can say is like, why all this for a little bit of money? And then in this, the stakes are sort of like, even when people get murdered, it is not landing with any actual weight. Even I would say the deaths in Ladykillers feel more dramatic than this.

• 1:59:58David Sims?

  It's definitely some pretty lighthearted death. Senators shot outside lesbian bar, subhead, channel, channel, oh, that's his last name, I guess, was carrying human head plaster penises. I can explain this for covering.

• 2:00:11Speaker 04

  It's a good joke. It's great.

• 2:00:14Griffin Newman?

  But the idea that they could like catch him all in one and be like, here's, here's the weapon, here's the motive, here's the backstory.

• 2:00:24Speaker 04

  He can explain.

• 2:00:24David Sims?

  Wow, Peacock trying to start up Love Hurts for me.

• 2:00:27Speaker 04

  That's what happened to me when I watched Drive Away Dolls and I was like, that's the craziest segue. And so trying to watch.

• 2:00:32David Sims?

  That does feel like a reach for Peacock. Have you seen Love Hurts?

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  I've not seen Love.

• 2:00:36David Sims?

  That's the Kehu Kwan, uh, actioner.

• 2:00:38Griffin Newman?

  I have heard it is quite poor.

• 2:00:40Speaker 04

  I have also heard that.

• 2:00:41Griffin Newman?

  I have many friends who went to the film with very open hearts and were just like, I want this to be.

• 2:00:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:00:48David Sims?

  For this guy.

• 2:00:48Griffin Newman?

  What it's being sold as. And they were like, it so fails to deliver on the bare minimum of that idea.

• 2:00:54Speaker 04

  That's a bummer. I like him.

• 2:00:57Griffin Newman?

  I do too.

• 2:00:57Speaker 04

  Rooting for him.

• 2:00:58Griffin Newman?

  I mean, look, he's the main villain in Zootopia two. I'm sorry, I'm checking the title here. Zootopia Snake in the Form of a Two.

• 2:01:06David Sims?

  Told my daughter recently, I, I alerted her.

• 2:01:09Griffin Newman?

  You've been shielding her.

• 2:01:10David Sims?

  There will be a Zootopia two.

• 2:01:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:11David Sims?

  And that we will be seeing it, I assume.

• 2:01:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:15David Sims?

  She was excited, but now she's all in on Spider-Man right now.

• 2:01:17Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 2:01:18Griffin Newman?

  Watching what the.

• 2:01:20Speaker 04

  Which ones?

• 2:01:20David Sims?

  The amazing friends, the baby ones.

• 2:01:22Griffin Newman?

  Is she watching the one with the dinosaurs now? There's one with dinosaurs.

• 2:01:25David Sims?

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:01:26Griffin Newman?

  There's a new one.

• 2:01:27David Sims?

  What does that mean?

• 2:01:27Griffin Newman?

  Where the Spidey and friends team up with dinosaurs.

• 2:01:30Speaker 04

  What?

• 2:01:31Griffin Newman?

  There's like a spider.

• 2:01:32David Sims?

  Are they doing that?

• 2:01:32Griffin Newman?

  Rex and a, a green goblin Rex and whatever.

• 2:01:36Speaker 04

  The multiverse is getting too wide.

• 2:01:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:38David Sims?

  We need a, right. We need a doomsday for the, the Spidey friends.

• 2:01:42Griffin Newman?

  There's an Iron Man one too that I think.

• 2:01:44David Sims?

  There is.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:01:45David Sims?

  And my daughter, he, he's popped up and my daughter's like, who's that robot? And I'm like, it's hard to explain Iron Man, I guess.

• 2:01:50Griffin Newman?

  This guy's got conservative.

• 2:01:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:55Griffin Newman?

  Getting radicalized by baby Iron.

• 2:01:57David Sims?

  He loves Hulk or as she calls him, Hoke. Hoke.

• 2:02:01Speaker 04

  Hoke.

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  Hoke. So it sounds like she's saying hook. Because he's green and angry.

• 2:02:06Griffin Newman?

  That's sweet. Is that her favorite character?

• 2:02:08David Sims?

  Yeah, she talks about him the most. I think she's kind of transfixed by how he's like kind of a good guy, but seems angry.

• 2:02:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You can be angry and be good. He's, he's like a toddler.

• 2:02:17David Sims?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:02:18Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 2:02:18David Sims?

  I mean, I would say.

• 2:02:19Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes you just see Hulk out.

• 2:02:20David Sims?

  In the Spidey Friends verse, he seems pretty gentle to me. Like, he's not so much like, ah, my rage! Like, but he's a little angrier.

• 2:02:28Griffin Newman?

  David, because I can already sense our listeners gripping their armrests, needing the follow-up question. Does Rolk exist anywhere in the baby animation universe?

• 2:02:38David Sims?

  I have not seen him yet, but of course I haven't visited the White House. And maybe he's there.

• 2:02:43Griffin Newman?

  He's a little baby president.

• 2:02:45David Sims?

  Have, did you see that interview with Harrison Ford? Because he's doing interviews. What's he, for Shrinking, I guess? Emmy campaigning or whatever, where they're like, has Feige gotten you to like,

• 2:02:53Griffin Newman?

  He's, he even said.

• 2:02:54David Sims?

  Play Red Hulk again? Nope, nope.

• 2:02:56Griffin Newman?

  Did you see Brave New World, Maya? No, I didn't. Okay, so that's.

• 2:03:01David Sims?

  Maybe not very patronic.

• 2:03:02Griffin Newman?

  I know, guys. Just pay your respects to the office. I'm so sorry. The position's still being something. It's been enough time that I feel like I can do a bit of a Brave New World spoiler here.

• 2:03:13David Sims?

  Uh, yes.

• 2:03:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:14David Sims?

  Please.

• 2:03:15Griffin Newman?

  Here, here's.

• 2:03:16David Sims?

  They spoiled the movie in the trailers. I mean, basically.

• 2:03:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes, here's a non-spoiler spoiler. He does not die in that film. Okay. Right? And the movie, called The Thunderbolts, that has already now come out. In the comics, that is a team led by that character, hence why they are called The Thunderbolts. It's like he's doing the bad guy Avengers and he's the Nick Fury for the bad guy Avengers.

• 2:03:38David Sims?

  He's kind of the Amanda Waller. Red Hulk is?

• 2:03:41Griffin Newman?

  Well, Thunderbolt Ross. That guy before he became Red Hulk, before, when he was just Hulk's girlfriend's dad. Uh huh. So everyone was like, oh, William Hurt dies. They hire one of the biggest movie stars of all time. He's gonna play General Ross. And they announce a Thunderbolts movie, multi-picture contract for Harrison Ford. And then I kept on hearing from people. He dies at the end of Captain America. He has nothing to do with Thunderbolts. They got him for one movie. He's never coming back. And I was like, that's a weird choice. Liv Tyler was photographed filming Brave New World 18 years ago. Somehow was filmed doing that before she had been in Armageddon.

• 2:04:24David Sims?

  Or the Lord of the Rings.

• 2:04:26Griffin Newman?

  Shooting a funeral scene.

• 2:04:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:04:28Griffin Newman?

  Paparazzi photos of her at a cemetery.

• 2:04:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:04:32Griffin Newman?

  Seemingly mourning his death, her father's death, right? And it's a big plot point in the movie that he keeps trying to call her. My daughter won't pick up. How are you doing? She hates I'm a Rulk.

• 2:04:42Speaker 04

  You guys are good at that.

• 2:04:43Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 2:04:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:43David Sims?

  I've been thinking about him a lot in that movie.

• 2:04:45Griffin Newman?

  At the end of the movie, he-

• 2:04:47David Sims?

  Need my pills. Yes?

• 2:04:49Griffin Newman?

  At the end of the movie, he does not die.

• 2:04:50David Sims?

  No.

• 2:04:51Griffin Newman?

  In a sequence that feels like it was being reshoot as you're watching it.

• 2:04:54Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:04:55David Sims?

  It's not so good.

• 2:04:56Griffin Newman?

  And then he goes to supervillain jail.

• 2:04:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  And Liv Tyler goes to visit him in jail, and that's the emotional closure of the movie.

• 2:05:03David Sims?

  Hey.

• 2:05:04Griffin Newman?

  Liv Tyler in a performance that absolutely was not done by a physical person on a set. It is very clear that she was like, I can't do the reshoot. If you can't rework that cemetery footage, you gotta fucking construct it some other way.

• 2:05:17Speaker 04

  My god.

• 2:05:18Griffin Newman?

  And I don't understand why they end that movie with him being alive if they don't ever want to, they had no specific place to use him again. And he's like, I don't want to fucking do that shit again.

• 2:05:28David Sims?

  They just probably were like, who knows? Maybe we can just have like computer Red Hulk smash someone.

• 2:05:33Griffin Newman?

  Ben, just put like Rulk, like spoiler alerts in the edit points and in out of this segment. Rulk!

• 2:05:39David Sims?

  You definitely do not.

• 2:05:40Griffin Newman?

  Rulk!

• 2:05:41David Sims?

  Let's play the box office game for driveway dolls.

• 2:05:43Griffin Newman?

  Do we want to say any other things about driveway dolls?

• 2:05:45David Sims?

  I don't have anything more to say on driveway dolls, I don't think. Um, it's fun.

• 2:05:50Griffin Newman?

  Of the coins you've watched now, which is your favorite?

• 2:05:52Speaker 04

  My favorite is probably, oh man, I loved Fargo and I loved, uh-

• 2:06:01Speaker 04

  No country for old men.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  Those are good ones. Those ones do, do be hidden.

• 2:06:06Speaker 04

  Man, yeah, they're all good.

• 2:06:08David Sims?

  It would be funny if you were like, driveway dolls, I think.

• 2:06:10Speaker 04

  Driveaway dolls, five stars with a like.

• 2:06:12Griffin Newman?

  But those are both a bag of money ruins everyone's life movies, right?

• 2:06:16David Sims?

  And this is bag of money goes great for them.

• 2:06:19Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 2:06:20David Sims?

  You're right.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's bag of dicks.

• 2:06:21Speaker 04

  Bag of dicks goes great for them.

• 2:06:22Griffin Newman?

  Ends up perfectly.

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  Need more movies like that.

• 2:06:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I liked it. It's fine. I think people just got, I think people, it was marketed for a group of individuals that were showing up expecting something, or not marketed, but I think the people that were expecting what it ended up being were obviously going to be disappointed. Whereas people who have never seen a Coen joint could walk in and walk away feeling like they were happy with what they got.

• 2:06:46Griffin Newman?

  I think that's a great point. And I think understandably, the folks at Universal were like, we have a movie that was co-directed by a Coen brother. We should push that really hard, which maybe doesn't do the movie any favors in its framing.

• 2:07:03Griffin Newman?

  I also just think there is this impatience of like, they are arguably amongst the best filmmakers on the planet. And people are like, are they really never gonna make something together again? And it's like, okay, Ethan Trisha did another one and now like Joel and Francis have announced another one. And then like, can they get back together after this?

• 2:07:23David Sims?

  There's right, there's rumors that they are, the brothers are working on like a horror movie together.

• 2:07:28Griffin Newman?

  They have talked about it. As of a year ago, they were writing it. Yes, there is a thing they want to do. And I do kind of feel like, not that this movie is ever gonna be reclaimed in a serious way, but I think some of the intensity around like, what the fuck is this? Will be removed if within the next five years, we get the Coens doing their thing together again. And then it'll just be like, this was that weird exploratory period.

• 2:07:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, let them have some fun, you know?

• 2:07:54David Sims?

  I agree with that.

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:56David Sims?

  I agree with that, Maya. Why, you know, again, like, it's not right. It's not like he made sort of self-important drivel that I would really have a problem.

• 2:08:04Griffin Newman?

  That would make me miserable.

• 2:08:05David Sims?

  Right, exactly. It's like, oh, this is what you were sort of like. And of course, we talked about it already, probably, and we will talk about it again. But like, it was so interesting to watch Joel go off and make something that is so visually distinctive and like beautifully presented. And then Ethan make a silly bullshit thing about a bunch of idiot criminals.

• 2:08:25Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:08:26David Sims?

  And you're like, right, these are the elements of the Coens. We've like split sodium and chloride into, you know, two separate, right, you know, like, so now we don't have table salt, we have two interesting things.

• 2:08:36Griffin Newman?

  This is a good thing to talk about, is that like, when this came out, I do feel people went, oh, so now I know who does what.

• 2:08:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. And there was the sense of

• 2:08:45David Sims?

  Certainly felt that way.

• 2:08:46Griffin Newman?

  All of their collaborators and the actors who worked with them forever would be like, no, they really are like a two-headed director. They do everything together. They finish each other's sentences. They're on the exact same page. It's crazy. And then they made these two movies that felt very like, oh, this guy is adapting the most like proven source material in the world and just going visually ham on it. And the other guy is doing the like goofiest version of his usual obsessions. And they're both like, you know, through the prism of their wives and collaborators, showing the things they wouldn't do together. And I think the takeaway from a lot of people there is like, oh, okay, so Joel's the director and Ethan's the writer conclusive. And that Joel needs Ethan to add humor and Ethan needs

• 2:09:31Griffin Newman?

  Joel to add like, structure, or discipline, or whatever it is. And I think it's more that like, maybe each of them certainly leans a little more in that direction.

• 2:09:42David Sims?

  A little strength.

• 2:09:43Griffin Newman?

  And then left to their own devices, they're just gonna do the hardest, most hardcore version of that. I also think in both cases, when people are like, even Macbeth, which was well-liked, and we will have discussed, people were just sort of like, this isn't like a knockout in the way all their other stuff is. This is sort of like handsome and impressive. That the juice with them is so much that you have two brilliant filmmakers working together. It's not that I don't think, oh, they can't make things without each other. It's like, right, but they're twice as good as other people when they're working together. David, what are you looking at?

• 2:10:18David Sims?

  The box office game, which we're gonna now play. I'm also ordering myself some sushi. Dome came out February 23rd, 2024, and it opened at number eight. It was, I think, was not ideal because that's 2304.

• 2:10:30Griffin Newman?

  And I believe it opened to?

• 2:10:32David Sims?

  Two, $2.4 million, uh, which is not a ton of money.

• 2:10:37Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:10:37David Sims?

  Made worldwide 7.9.

• 2:10:42Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:10:43David Sims?

  Which I think was not good.

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  When did they start production on Honey, Don't?

• 2:10:49David Sims?

  Oh, like, so you're like, when do they maybe get their keys taken away?

• 2:10:53Griffin Newman?

  This was on the shelf for a little bit because this was also a movie that got pushed back because of the SAG strikes, uh, and not having actors to promote it. I think it was supposed to come out summer 23.

• 2:11:03David Sims?

  Honey, Don't started production a month after this came out in March 2024.

• 2:11:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:11:07David Sims?

  So.

• 2:11:08Griffin Newman?

  So I just want to quickly salute the fine folks at Working Title for being like, Ethan, Tricia, just keep doing this. It speaks to the level of cachet that they have, that it does feel like similar to 824, not just doing Macbeth, but also buying the iMovie Jerry Lee Lewis documentary, that it feels like all of the film financiers and distributors in town are still like, we want to be working with you in case you ever decide to go back to doing your thing together again.

• 2:11:38David Sims?

  Yes, we want, we want to stay in the co-owned business.

• 2:11:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:41David Sims?

  But a flop. Number one at the box office is a somewhat surprising success of, I remember, not huge or anything, but, um, a music biopic. It's the second week at the number one position.

• 2:11:54Griffin Newman?

  Is it, uh, Bob Marley, One Love?

• 2:11:56David Sims?

  Bob Marley, One Love.

• 2:11:58Griffin Newman?

  I couldn't remember what the order was, what was before and after the co.

• 2:12:01David Sims?

  You nailed it. The Renaldo, Reynaldo, Reynaldo, there you go. Jesus, Marcus Green film starring Kingsley Benadere, who is the guy, uh, who was Malcolm X in that other movie. Right? Playing a lot of famous people.

• 2:12:17Griffin Newman?

  This is one of my least favorite trends right now is the Top Gun mavericking of music biopics, where I'm like, you get to pick. Either your title is the name of the person.

• 2:12:27David Sims?

  Oh, you don't like the title?

• 2:12:28Griffin Newman?

  Or it's like the song lyric. I don't like Springsteen, colon, Deliver Us From Nowhere.

• 2:12:35David Sims?

  No, certainly not.

• 2:12:36Griffin Newman?

  But they just announced that title too. And I'm like, you're either calling it Bob Marley.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  But that's right.

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  Or Bob or Marley or. Root B pick a song title.

• 2:12:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:46David Sims?

  Maya, did you see Bob Marley, One Love?

• 2:12:48Speaker 04

  I didn't. I'm just not on the music biopic train like entirely. I

• 2:12:53Griffin Newman?

  Until they make one about you.

• 2:12:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, obviously. Which of course it will be called like MXM tune crying in a prom dress.

• 2:12:59David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Who will play you? I was gonna say Texas.

• 2:13:02Speaker 04

  Who will play me? I'm thinking about this. Uh, I'm thinking about Weishun women in movies.

• 2:13:10Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:13:11Speaker 04

  I'm thinking about, uh,

• 2:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Chase Suzy Wonders?

• 2:13:14Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:13:15Griffin Newman?

  Can we do that?

• 2:13:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I'd be very honored if Chase Suzy Wonders was me.

• 2:13:19David Sims?

  She's very, she's very charming.

• 2:13:21Griffin Newman?

  You have not seen, uh, I Know What You Did Last Summer, parentecal 2025?

• 2:13:25David Sims?

  The, the, the new one.

• 2:13:26Griffin Newman?

  Have you seen it?

• 2:13:27Speaker 04

  I haven't, but I was watching the studio and my uncle texted me being like, her character reminds me of you. And I was like, wow. Thank you.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a compliment.

• 2:13:35David Sims?

  Yeah, successful. I don't know.

• 2:13:38Griffin Newman?

  That's another trend I want to die is a legacy sequel that isn't a remake with the exact same title as the original movie.

• 2:13:45David Sims?

  It's very annoying.

• 2:13:45Griffin Newman?

  It's just very confusing for our brains.

• 2:13:47David Sims?

  I agree with that.

• 2:13:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but she is very good in that movie in a way where you're like, she might be kind of bulletproof because this thing is disastrous dog shit. And she comes out unscathed.

• 2:13:57Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:13:58David Sims?

  Uh, Bob Marley, One Love, I, the trend I thought you were gonna bring up, which is a trend I do think is a problem, is the sort of, you know, uh, music biopic approved by the estate. So it's sort of like, we get to use the songs, yay. But unfortunately, like, we cannot delve too deep on this.

• 2:14:14Griffin Newman?

  That is

• 2:14:14David Sims?

  Complicated person.

• 2:14:15Griffin Newman?

  Also a huge issue is the reason the Scorsese Sinatra movie has not been made for 20 straight years because he keeps being like, I'll make this if you give me freedom.

• 2:14:24David Sims?

  Right. And they just want it to be about like, what a gent.

• 2:14:28Griffin Newman?

  I think that is

• 2:14:29David Sims?

  Never yelled at a lady.

• 2:14:30Griffin Newman?

  I think that is even more of a pox on documentaries now.

• 2:14:35David Sims?

  Uh, that

• 2:14:35Griffin Newman?

  That is the thing that's driving me insane is the celebrity profile documentary that is completely produced by the celebrity.

• 2:14:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:14:42Griffin Newman?

  And director they hire.

• 2:14:43David Sims?

  Access, but it means

• 2:14:45Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like, are we never gonna get a crumb ever again?

• 2:14:47David Sims?

  Right. Do you like Bob Marley, the musician?

• 2:14:50Speaker 04

  I like Bob Marley. I'm less familiar like with his whole discography and everything, but I, you know, I saw the trailers for One Love, one

• 2:14:57David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:58Speaker 04

  Marley, One Love.

• 2:14:59David Sims?

  I haven't checked it out.

• 2:15:00Griffin Newman?

  We also have the trailers. It, it made a lot of money. Yeah.

• 2:15:04David Sims?

  He made a decent amount of money, made almost a hundred million dollars. I mean, in a one way, you're like, yeah, well, he's really famous. Like, that's not that surprising. But I just remember at the time, people being like, oh, people are showing up for this. Like,

• 2:15:13Speaker 02

  Are you a reggae guy, David?

• 2:15:15David Sims?

  I've had my reggae phases. Yeah, I love reggae.

• 2:15:19Griffin Newman?

  Perry is just rubbing his hands together for Glee right now.

• 2:15:22David Sims?

  I am no expert on reggae.

• 2:15:26David Sims?

  I grew up in Britain, and I do feel like as respected as reggae is here, it is so ingrained in British culture. So I, you know,

• 2:15:36Griffin Newman?

  All the ska stuff.

• 2:15:37David Sims?

  All this, you know, right. The ways that the influence on other British music and all that stuff. And I like, like, dance hall music and all this. And then when I went to the Caribbean, when I was a teenager, I remember at like, the airport, I bought a bunch of like, random D discs.

• 2:15:51Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 2:15:52David Sims?

  Because like, I was like, I bet you, there's just kind of like, you know, basically like indie, indie music, right? Like, you know, just kind of like, music that will never escape this country. And I still have those discs. They rock. Because they are truly just, you know, guys making fun, silly, you know, dance hall music from the early 2000s.

• 2:16:10Speaker 02

  We gotta, we gotta get, we gotta get our hands on what these CDs are.

• 2:16:14David Sims?

  I'll dig one of them up.

• 2:16:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:16:16David Sims?

  Um, I mean, my CDs, Jesus, where are those? That is something that truly has been like, buried.

• 2:16:22Speaker 02

  My reggae?

• 2:16:24Speaker 04

  Reggae? It's fine. It's not fine. I don't want to say that in case there's reggae heads listening to this podcast. I'd be like, fine. Why'd she just say fine? I like reggae. I enjoy listening to it. Don't know, like, too much in the weeds on the genre. I'd say ska is more of my, my vein. Yeah. Big no doubt fan. Yeah.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  Do you listen to the, the Lonely Island Seth Meyers podcast?

• 2:16:45Speaker 04

  I don't.

• 2:16:46Griffin Newman?

  It is excellent.

• 2:16:47David Sims?

  It is highly recommended. Of course, they, they delve very deep into this.

• 2:16:50Griffin Newman?

  The Ross Trent episode?

• 2:16:52David Sims?

  Yes, which is very fun.

• 2:16:53Griffin Newman?

  But, but it's just, they go through that song and stop every three seconds.

• 2:16:56David Sims?

  Right, be a reference to this.

• 2:16:58Griffin Newman?

  Footnotes.

• 2:16:59David Sims?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 2:17:00Griffin Newman?

  And they're just like, look, we are just white guys who like reggae a lot. But you're like, that song has eight trillion references in it that are all very specific.

• 2:17:07David Sims?

  Yeah. Number two at the box office, opening new this week, is a Crunchyroll release making 11.5 million dollars. You will never guess the name of it, but you might guess the series

• 2:17:16Griffin Newman?

  Is it Spy X Family?

• 2:17:17David Sims?

  No, fuck.

• 2:17:19Griffin Newman?

  Do you think you know, you might be more equipped to answer this?

• 2:17:21Speaker 04

  I will say Demon Slayer.

• 2:17:24Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:17:24Speaker 04

  Okay, did you get the subtitle? No.

• 2:17:27David Sims?

  It is the, I think, the third theatrical release of Demon Slayer stuff. It is called Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba to the Harish Hashira Training. I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't know anything about this. I'm so confused. I'm Tim Robinson, like, I don't know what any of this stuff is. And I'm confused and I'm scared.

• 2:17:51Griffin Newman?

  The car driving.

• 2:17:53David Sims?

  I don't know what Demon Slayer is. What is Demon Slayer? I assume it is manga that was then became anime.

• 2:18:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I'm fairly certain it came from a manga and then turned into an anime. I myself only watched the anime and I went and saw Mugen Train, which is another theatrical release.

• 2:18:09David Sims?

  Train, right? That was the first?

• 2:18:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Mugen Train was also such a big deal because it opened really big in 2021 when people are like, are theaters ever gonna come back? And then Mugen Train made $20 million.

• 2:18:20David Sims?

  I'm always right. People are riding the Mugen Train.

• 2:18:22Griffin Newman?

  That started the Crunchyroll thing of like, we are gonna put wide release anime.

• 2:18:27Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 2:18:27Griffin Newman?

  Like almost every other month.

• 2:18:29Speaker 04

  Jujutsu Kaisen Zero was another one that I ended up seeing in theaters. I love Demon Slayer. It's very good.

• 2:18:36Speaker 02

  I watched a little bit of it.

• 2:18:37Speaker 04

  Okay, I love it.

• 2:18:38Speaker 02

  I only made it through like the first maybe 10 episodes. I, and then I just like fell off, but it's a great stuff.

• 2:18:44David Sims?

  They slay demons?

• 2:18:46Speaker 04

  They slay demons. They kind of, there's a villain in it that almost looks like Michael Jackson. There's a, um, it's very.

• 2:18:54Griffin Newman?

  What era of Michael Jackson?

• 2:18:55Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know the era of Michael Jackson like that.

• 2:18:58Speaker 02

  Like, um.

• 2:18:59Griffin Newman?

  Like he's a smooth criminal.

• 2:19:01Speaker 04

  Like he wearing like a fedora type vibe. He's got like kinda curly hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, smooth criminal. Um, but it's great.

• 2:19:07Speaker 02

  But the premise is basically there's like one original demon who keeps then creating more demons and, and there's like

• 2:19:14Griffin Newman?

  They must be.

• 2:19:15Speaker 02

  special team that has to, uh, you know, kill these demons.

• 2:19:20David Sims?

  Number three, the box office also new this week is a Christian inspirational drama film, but kind of as like vaguely legit one in that it has like, um, you know, Oscar winner in it. And it was like.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  Is it the, um, the Hilary Swank one?

• 2:19:35David Sims?

  It's the Hilary Swank.

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  That was also pushed back because of the fucking strikes. This is like the dumping ground of movies that were supposed to come out August, September 23. And we're like, we need to wait until stars can do talk shows. It's called. Better Angels?

• 2:19:50David Sims?

  It's called Ordinary Angels. What is so weird about it?

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  It's her and Reacher?

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  Yes, Alan Richson is in it. I haven't seen it. It's based on a true story about something that happened during the 1994, like, cold weather thing.

• 2:20:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:06David Sims?

  Uh, sorry to be dismissive of this real event that I don't know anything about. What's weird is that it was written by the actress Meg Tilly.

• 2:20:14Griffin Newman?

  That is very strange.

• 2:20:15David Sims?

  Uh, who people might know from like Agnes of God and the big.

• 2:20:18Griffin Newman?

  Nobel Prize nominee, Sister of Jennifer.

• 2:20:20David Sims?

  And then, and co-written by Kelly Freeman Craig, who's the great filmmaker who made, uh, you know,

• 2:20:26Griffin Newman?

  Are You There God?

• 2:20:26David Sims?

  Edge of Seventeen and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Um, so, you know, it's got like a bit of a, like, legit.

• 2:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Who directed it?

• 2:20:34David Sims?

  Uh, John Gunn, uh, who directed a bunch of Christian, you know, movies, uh, Christian inspirational dramas. It's opening to $6 million.

• 2:20:45Griffin Newman?

  Oh, great.

• 2:20:46David Sims?

  It's gonna make 20 worldwide.

• 2:20:47Speaker 04

  What was the drop off between Demon Slayer?

• 2:20:50David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, right. So it's 13 for Bob Marley, 11 for Demon Slayer.

• 2:20:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:54David Sims?

  Six for Ordinary Angels.

• 2:20:56Griffin Newman?

  Slowly.

• 2:20:56David Sims?

  Number four at the box office, I think your favorite film of 2024.

• 2:20:59Griffin Newman?

  Are you joking?

• 2:21:00David Sims?

  The one you watched the most? Sort of.

• 2:21:02Griffin Newman?

  Sort of?

• 2:21:03David Sims?

  I mean, like, I don't think it really was, but you were kind of obsessed with this movie.

• 2:21:06Griffin Newman?

  I was kind of obsessed with this movie. It's called Madame Web.

• 2:21:08David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Wrong. I have seen it, I believe, five times now. I keep hovering over the purchase button on the steelbook because it has yet to go on sale. And I'm like, my love for this film is not ironic, and yet do I want to spend $40 on a 4K steelbook?

• 2:21:24David Sims?

  Or oh.

• 2:21:24Speaker 04

  That's tough.

• 2:21:25Griffin Newman?

  And sometimes I'm waiting for like, is there some deal where I could combo, like, buy, buy one, get one kind of thing?

• 2:21:32David Sims?

  Have you seen Madame Web?

• 2:21:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, I have seen Madame Web.

• 2:21:35David Sims?

  The Madame.

• 2:21:36Griffin Newman?

  Have you gotten caught in the web?

• 2:21:38Speaker 04

  I have gotten caught in the web. I went and I think I probably saw it opening weekend with my brother. Our, like, favorite thing to do as we all do with our siblings is find a movie that we want to go see in theaters, but. Specifically, the shittiest movie that is accessible to us at any time in Madame Web, one of the shittiest movies.

• 2:21:54Griffin Newman?

  Is incredible.

• 2:21:54Speaker 04

  It's been accessible to me. We went and saw it. We had the best time ever, rivaled only by seeing Morbius. And I-

• 2:22:03David Sims?

  In person?

• 2:22:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:22:04David Sims?

  When he came to introduce-

• 2:22:05Speaker 04

  Exactly. Exactly. And we had a great time, but I didn't watch it after I saw it in theaters until I came back to my apartment when my family was in town in New York and I saw my grandpa, who is 81 years old, I think, sitting down on a couch, watching Madame Web by himself because he was like not wanting to join us for dinner or something. And he looks at me and goes, "This movie is so bad." And I just had to nod and agree.

• 2:22:31Griffin Newman?

  There's a reality distortion field. I also feel like you frame that story with an apology of, "It took me this long to watch Madame Web a second time." Which we just acknowledged culturally, all of us need to watch it a couple of times.

• 2:22:47Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 2:22:48Griffin Newman?

  You cannot get your head around it in one viewing.

• 2:22:50Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 2:22:51David Sims?

  Uh, maybe I gotta see it a second time.

• 2:22:53Griffin Newman?

  You still want to see it a second time?

• 2:22:55David Sims?

  I have not seen it. I'm being the villain.

• 2:22:57Griffin Newman?

  David is doing his impression of-

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  Entire thing is overdubbed. Number five at the box office is an animated film that came out in like December. It's been hanging out for three months.

• 2:23:07Griffin Newman?

  Migration?

• 2:23:08David Sims?

  It's the film Migration, which made 127 million domestic.

• 2:23:11Griffin Newman?

  It's a classic. It opened really fucking low and then it just hung on there like a family of ducks just cruising.

• 2:23:17David Sims?

  Kamel, Najiani.

• 2:23:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:23:20David Sims?

  Elizabeth Banks.

• 2:23:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:23:22David Sims?

  Now, I'm seeing here that Keegan-Michael Key and Awkwafina provided voice talent. They don't do that kind of stuff.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  No, no. They are allergic to voiceover booths. If you were to put them in a voiceover booth, it would be like Spock accepting the radiation at the end of R. You cannot get them to stand behind a microphone and do a silly voice.

• 2:23:39David Sims?

  I have not seen Migration.

• 2:23:40Griffin Newman?

  I haven't either.

• 2:23:41Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:23:42Griffin Newman?

  Davida was in it as well?

• 2:23:43David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:23:44Speaker 04

  All people that have never been in a voice-

• 2:23:46David Sims?

  Right, they're-

• 2:23:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:48David Sims?

  It was written by Mike White, who of course created the White Lotus.

• 2:23:52Speaker 04

  My Survivor goat.

• 2:23:53David Sims?

  And it was on Survivor.

• 2:23:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:23:55Griffin Newman?

  And also wrote the Emoji Movie.

• 2:23:57David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:23:57Griffin Newman?

  His live action canon is very good. I would say basically every live action thing he's written is good.

• 2:24:03Speaker 04

  Sometimes you need a check and that's just the reality.

• 2:24:05Griffin Newman?

  He's also credited on Despicable Me four.

• 2:24:08Speaker 04

  Really?

• 2:24:08David Sims?

  I think he's, he's very much in the like illumination wheelhouse. Number six, the box office is, and then he's like, right, I want Jason Isaacs to poison his whole family and I want, you know, whatever.

• 2:24:18Griffin Newman?

  Also, my dad and I are gonna do The Amazing Race again or whatever. Interesting life he leads.

• 2:24:23David Sims?

  Number six, the box office is Argyle.

• 2:24:26Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:24:27David Sims?

  Which was a bomb, but people forget, did make forty five million dollars. It didn't make nothing. Like people went to see it.

• 2:24:34Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing I feel like you and I need to push sometimes. It's like, this movie was a flop, but we must acknowledge that millions of people left their home.

• 2:24:43Speaker 04

  To go and see the movie.

• 2:24:45David Sims?

  Argyle.

• 2:24:46Griffin Newman?

  I saw it with friend of the pod, Rachel Lang. Have you seen that?

• 2:24:48Speaker 04

  I haven't, but I'm curious because, and I could be misremembering this. I feel like there was a wave of this like semi, maybe it was a joke and I was totally misreading the situation, but people who thought Taylor Swift had written the book.

• 2:24:59David Sims?

  It was a whole thing.

• 2:25:00Speaker 04

  And I was curious if that was like, why there were people showing up was because people were like, almost like, I'm supporting T Swift in this.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  Like a week before it came out, when the reviews came out, they like gave up the goose on, the, the person who wrote the book is the fictional character and here was the, the ghostwriter and whatever. And then it got kind of.

• 2:25:20David Sims?

  It was all because of the cat is Taylor Swift's cat.

• 2:25:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:25:24David Sims?

  Like, like she's got that cat in the movie.

• 2:25:26Griffin Newman?

  But the reason, the cat is in the movie is because that's the cat that Matthew Vaughn has and he based on his real cat. But the reason that's the cat he has is because his daughters were so obsessed with Taylor Swift that they were like, we want that cat.

• 2:25:39Speaker 04

  That is nuts.

• 2:25:40Griffin Newman?

  It's nuts. That is a movie that is infinitely more interesting to talk about everything around the movie. It's not even interesting to talk about the movie. It's interesting to talk about the bubble around the film. The movie is dog shit. It's the anti Madame Web is actually tedious to watch.

• 2:25:56David Sims?

  I agree with that. Number seven of the box office, hanging out for three months as well. Huge hit, Wonka.

• 2:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Wonka.

• 2:26:02David Sims?

  Paul King's Wonka, very fun movie in my opinion. Uh, driveway dolls at number eight. Number nine, The Beekeeper, uh, which I preferred to A Working Man, which I tried out last year, which, uh, this year, which is pretty bad.

• 2:26:14Griffin Newman?

  Maya, have you seen The Beekeeper?

• 2:26:16Speaker 04

  I haven't. I do remember, whoa, that when it was rolling out.

• 2:26:18Griffin Newman?

  Have people spoiled anything about The Beekeeper for you?

• 2:26:21Speaker 04

  I'm gonna guess.

• 2:26:22David Sims?

  Fucking beekeeper.

• 2:26:24Speaker 04

  I'm guessing there's bees involved and maybe a keeper of them.

• 2:26:27David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 2:26:28Speaker 04

  But I don't really know.

• 2:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Here's all I'm gonna say. I cannot strongly enough implore you to watch this film.

• 2:26:33Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:26:33David Sims?

  It's pretty fun.

• 2:26:34Griffin Newman?

  It is truly a movie where every 10 minutes, you could pause and write down what you think is gonna happen and you will never get anything right.

• 2:26:43Speaker 04

  That's fun. I like that.

• 2:26:44Griffin Newman?

  You can guess like, oh, he'll get revenge on people.

• 2:26:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:26:46Griffin Newman?

  But it has the craziest narrative turns I've ever seen. The way this movie heightens, where it gets to by the end is insane. We're recording this episode very far in advance. All I ask is, if you watch The Beekeeper between when we're recording and November.

• 2:27:01David Sims?

  Peacocker.

• 2:27:01Griffin Newman?

  Please send a voice memo.

• 2:27:03David Sims?

  MGM Plus.

• 2:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Of just your feelings on Beekeeper, but I strongly recommend watching.

• 2:27:06Speaker 04

  That is the easiest thing anyone's ever assigned me to do.

• 2:27:09David Sims?

  Yeah, it's pretty easy to watch it.

• 2:27:10Griffin Newman?

  It's an easy watch and the end will blow your fucking mind.

• 2:27:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:27:16Speaker 01

  Hello, blankies. This is me from the future. I ended up doing my homework. I watched The Beekeeper the other night and Griffin was right. There was no way I would have ever predicted how high the stakes were gonna be by the end of the movie. That was crazy. But as a fan of the Hitman video game franchise, I was majorly rocking with an angry bald guy doing some occupational based shenanigans on an assassination run. That was pretty fun to see. Um, I'll be tuning into more Jason Statham job based cinematic universe movies in the future. I want to just shout out Mini Driver for showing up for an hour and a half, getting her money and leaving. And also Josh Hutcherson's perm. Highlights of the movie for me. All right. Back to the bod.

• 2:28:02David Sims?

  Number 10 in the box office is The Chosen, Chosen, season four, episodes four to six. I mean, it really is. There's still just a lot of that happening in the box office.

• 2:28:11Griffin Newman?

  Are you aware of this phenomenon of The Chosen? The Chosen is a self-funded TV series about Jesus that I think is now in its third or fourth season. It was the biggest Kickstarter project, I think, of all time and now has outside financing. But every year or every other year when there was a new season, they released the season in theaters first. So they'll be like, this week, The Chosen, season four, episodes one and two, and it will be number three at the box office. And then two weeks later, the next two episodes will come out in theaters. They release them two at a time in theaters. They make millions and millions of dollars. And then they go up on like Amazon Prime or whatever.

• 2:28:50Speaker 04

  Whoa, I did not know about that.

• 2:28:52Griffin Newman?

  It is a bizarre thing. It's been going on for years that no one talks about. Imagine if any other TV show was released that way.

• 2:28:58David Sims?

  It's very silly. Uh, number 11 is Anyone But You, just to shout that one out.

• 2:29:02Griffin Newman?

  Perfect.

• 2:29:02Speaker 04

  We came back.

• 2:29:03Griffin Newman?

  It's still there. What's it up to at this point?

• 2:29:06David Sims?

  I made a healthy 87 to this point and it ended up at oh, 88. So it's almost done. Anyone But You, where Sydney Sweeney's there and she's got the, she's got the issues, I assume.

• 2:29:18Griffin Newman?

  I mean, you nailed it in your review of why does she always sound like she just came out of an egg?

• 2:29:25David Sims?

  That is my take on Sydney Sweeney. My take on Madame Web was that every line delivery feels like it's on a zoom delay. And my take on Anyone But You is Sydney Sweeney literally feels like she just hatched out of an egg. Or you can say beamed down from a spaceship. Like, it's just like, she just feels like she's never had a handle on dialogue sometimes.

• 2:29:43Griffin Newman?

  She can be.

• 2:29:45David Sims?

  Totally. She has given really good performances and shit.

• 2:29:47Griffin Newman?

  And in a way where you're just like, there are obvious ways you miscast her where she is not going to be able to do anything. But the way, the times of which she has been good, it can't be an accident. And yet it feels like it's a very narrow strike zone.

• 2:30:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:30:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:03David Sims?

  But, uh.

• 2:30:04Griffin Newman?

  Normal person, all discourse around her is normal.

• 2:30:06David Sims?

  She's just not good in that movie being like, oh, my life is so crazy.

• 2:30:09Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 2:30:10Speaker 04

  She's not funny. I think that's really it.

• 2:30:13David Sims?

  No, she's not funny.

• 2:30:14Griffin Newman?

  I also.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  Always be like a nun who's being terrorized.

• 2:30:17Griffin Newman?

  If you wanna.

• 2:30:18David Sims?

  High schooler who's being terrorized.

• 2:30:20Speaker 04

  Exactly. She's great at crying. Yeah.

• 2:30:22David Sims?

  Giant fucking eyes.

• 2:30:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. If you want her to be funny in a movie, you have to frame the movie around what she's already good at. And then have other characters comment on it rather than having her be like, oh my God, my boss is driving me crazy. I don't even have time to wash my hair.

• 2:30:36David Sims?

  I think about it with David Boreanaz all the time where like, he's in Buffy as Angel where like, what's your job? It's to be good looking, to be mysterious and dark and like, you know, yada, yada, yada. Then they're like, we're gonna make a show about you now. You're gonna be the lead. And I remember when Angel was announced, I was like, but Angel's boring.

• 2:30:53Griffin Newman?

  He's got a bounce off of.

• 2:30:54David Sims?

  And so, but they correctly were like, yeah, no, no, no, no. Everyone else around him will be kind of goofy and it'll, his straight man shit will be comedy like, you know? And he's a bit of a man out of time. And you're like, that's, that makes sense. That's good. And then Bones starts, right? And in Bones, he's a goof. And I'm like, where was this? Ten years of your career. And Bones, he's like, ah, Bones, you're so, you're dumb nerd.

• 2:31:16Griffin Newman?

  That's very similar to when they offered 21 Jump Street to Channing Tatum. And he was like, I'm not funny. I don't know how to do comedy. I shouldn't do this.

• 2:31:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:31:25Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, we'll build it off of you being the straight man. And then you see him get comfortable in that movie and find his moment.

• 2:31:31David Sims?

  He figures it out.

• 2:31:31Griffin Newman?

  And then he's just like, I know exactly how to be funny.

• 2:31:33Speaker 04

  He's one of my favorites to watch. I love him. He's great.

• 2:31:37David Sims?

  I love him too. What's he doing right now?

• 2:31:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh, well, you know what? I think Roof Man will have just come out.

• 2:31:42David Sims?

  Roof Man.

• 2:31:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, we, we talk about him a lot in the Hell Caesar episode and wondering what the future of his career is. And we weren't talking about Roof Man, which I, I hope Roof Man's a hit. Roof Man looks fun.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  Yeah. And of course he's in Avengers Doomsday.

• 2:31:57Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank God.

• 2:31:57David Sims?

  Film with a pot.

• 2:31:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I ain't seeing what I'm doing. Yeah. What's his fucking line?

• 2:32:02David Sims?

  Uh, we about to do something. Nick a name for us.

• 2:32:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:06Griffin Newman?

  Great. But yes, no, comedy Channing's my favorite. Yeah. Um, well, that's quite a top 10.

• 2:32:13David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, that's the top 10. And you know who else is top 10 person is Maya MXM Tune. What do you want to plug, bro?

• 2:32:21Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh. What do I want to plug?

• 2:32:23Griffin Newman?

  That's David's new catchphrase.

• 2:32:24David Sims?

  I should do that more often.

• 2:32:24Speaker 04

  That's really good. I like that. Well, bro.

• 2:32:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:27Speaker 04

  Um, honestly, just hang out. I'm online. I'm there. I'm on Letterboxd.

• 2:32:32Griffin Newman?

  You do a lot of Twitch streams.

• 2:32:33Speaker 04

  I do a lot of Twitch streams. I'm a big gamer and a big nerd. And movies have been kind of something that I have always loved, but I think I'm now more in the weeds on it. I'm like building the physical media collection, et cetera, et cetera.

• 2:32:44Griffin Newman?

  Um, you've been throwing off some good disc stacks.

• 2:32:46Speaker 04

  I'm doing my best.

• 2:32:47Griffin Newman?

  Especially when you're touring, you've been like finding local shops and posting some good stacks.

• 2:32:51Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah. It's been really fun. So I have really enjoyed that. You can find me on Letterboxd at M A I A P O G. Maya Pog.

• 2:32:58Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:32:59Speaker 04

  Um, and on Twitch under MXM Tune, but really anywhere. I'm MXM Tune.

• 2:33:02David Sims?

  What are you streaming?

• 2:33:03Speaker 04

  Like literally anything.

• 2:33:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:33:05Speaker 04

  I feel like I'm the queen of side questing, like, and that's why it's hard to plug stuff because I'm doing everything always. But I, uh, I've been streaming a lot of Fortnite classically, but I play, I love indie games. That's my bread and butter. So if you know a game that's been made by a singular person who has a hyper fixation.

• 2:33:23David Sims?

  Blueprints yet?

• 2:33:24Speaker 04

  No. What is blueprints?

• 2:33:26David Sims?

  Oh, you gotta check it out, bro. I'm not gonna tell you anything. Just play it.

• 2:33:29Griffin Newman?

  David, David exists in this world a little bit. Our researcher JJ, every week is plugging some new indie game.

• 2:33:38Griffin Newman?

  Made by someone with a hyperfixation.

• 2:33:39Speaker 04

  That's exactly it. Those are the favorite.

• 2:33:41Griffin Newman?

  We'll, we'll start passing along the JJ recommendations. The last thing he needs, feeling like his knowledge has any value in this world. What's your, what's your main Fortnite skin?

• 2:33:52Speaker 04

  My main Fortnite skin right now is Chun-Li, but usually it's Xenomorph.

• 2:33:56David Sims?

  Fucking shout out Chun-Li. That's my two main.

• 2:33:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:33:59Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I do, I've been, I haven't been playing for.

• 2:34:02David Sims?

  You've been playing Fortnite?

• 2:34:03Griffin Newman?

  I was playing a lot with my little cousin.

• 2:34:05Speaker 04

  You gotta play.

• 2:34:07David Sims?

  I do remember.

• 2:34:07Griffin Newman?

  And then he's gotten too caught up in baseball. He doesn't have time to do anything.

• 2:34:10David Sims?

  He likes baseball?

• 2:34:11Griffin Newman?

  He's really good at baseball.

• 2:34:12David Sims?

  Well, he should call me up.

• 2:34:14Griffin Newman?

  You are not meeting him.

• 2:34:16David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:34:17Griffin Newman?

  Now I haven't taken him to a movie in like months. We don't play Fortnite because he's doing like baseball five days.

• 2:34:21David Sims?

  Like his, his weekends are very occupied with baseball.

• 2:34:24Speaker 04

  His calendar is very full.

• 2:34:25Griffin Newman?

  I don't think he's on like a professional MLB track, but he's like at that level where it's like, you're really good at this and you like this a lot.

• 2:34:31Speaker 04

  You gotta hone it. Yeah.

• 2:34:33Griffin Newman?

  No, he's told me and I don't know.

• 2:34:35David Sims?

  Well, is he a pitcher or not?

• 2:34:36Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so.

• 2:34:37David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:34:38Griffin Newman?

  I'll find out.

• 2:34:38David Sims?

  Well, anyway, come, come the fall, you know, the, the season will be.

• 2:34:42Griffin Newman?

  We have plans to do a Superman Fantastic Four double feature at the end of the summer. He's, he's been away.

• 2:34:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:34:47Griffin Newman?

  But um, I, I was playing with him every Sunday and with our, our friend Sarah Rubin, a past and future guest, we would, we would all do it together. I was, I was doing Chewbacca.

• 2:34:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  But I was using the accoutrement of the wasteland.

• 2:35:02Speaker 04

  I've never heard somebody.

• 2:35:03David Sims?

  Magneto.

• 2:35:04Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:35:04David Sims?

  Magneto, what?

• 2:35:05Griffin Newman?

  They did a Marvel event.

• 2:35:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:35:07Griffin Newman?

  And there was a really good Magneto and you could get like classic Magneto, but there was also this wasteland Magneto where he had like a tattered cape and shit. So I give like Chewbacca the tattered cape.

• 2:35:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:35:17Griffin Newman?

  And the Magneto like pickaxe and stuff. So it kind of looks like a fucking Mad Max Chewbacca. It's pretty cool, David.

• 2:35:23David Sims?

  I, I.

• 2:35:24Griffin Newman?

  I haven't played in months.

• 2:35:25David Sims?

  I played Fortnite once and it, it, I didn't like it.

• 2:35:28Speaker 04

  Come on, guys. There's four of us here. It's not impossible to create a squad and reframe your enjoyment of Fortnite. Get you back into playing Fortnite. Ben, have you played Fortnite?

• 2:35:39David Sims?

  No.

• 2:35:40Griffin Newman?

  Get my nine year old cousin into the squad.

• 2:35:42David Sims?

  I assume it's more fun if you're being social. I would play with you any day.

• 2:35:46Speaker 04

  It's more fun. I play with you guys anytime. Just say the word.

• 2:35:48David Sims?

  I just like loaded it and was like, okay.

• 2:35:51Griffin Newman?

  This is, I'm.

• 2:35:51David Sims?

  And it was also years ago. I know that Fortnite has now become like very complicated.

• 2:35:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna get my, I'm gonna get my nine year old cousin's schedule and we're gonna, we're gonna figure out a squad.

• 2:35:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm so down.

• 2:36:00Griffin Newman?

  Squad night, a squad afternoon.

• 2:36:01David Sims?

  Fine.

• 2:36:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's the thing I want to plug. That's it.

• 2:36:04Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 2:36:04Speaker 04

  Playing Fortnite.

• 2:36:05Griffin Newman?

  Fortnite. When are we gonna get our own skins in Fortnite? It feels like that's inevitable.

• 2:36:10David Sims?

  That has to happen. Sounds good.

• 2:36:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Ben with bone pickaxe.

• 2:36:16Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Remember to tune in next week for Honey Don't, a movie that David clearly

• 2:36:25Griffin Newman?

  is calling in advance, there's a lot to talk about.

• 2:36:28David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:36:29Griffin Newman?

  You think Honey Don't is gonna make more or less than driveway dolls?

• 2:36:32David Sims?

  It has to be less.

• 2:36:34Griffin Newman?

  Has to be less?

• 2:36:35David Sims?

  I guess it's a low bar, so maybe not, but like, I don't think it's gonna be a hit.

• 2:36:39Griffin Newman?

  I don't either.

• 2:36:40David Sims?

  Yeah, but I guess.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  But the driveway dolls bar is low.

• 2:36:43David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:36:44Griffin Newman?

  Chris Evans.

• 2:36:45David Sims?

  I think it's gonna be higher. Chris Evans is there.

• 2:36:47Griffin Newman?

  We like him trying.

• 2:36:48David Sims?

  We like him trying and he's the, there is, he is not the problem with that movie at all.

• 2:36:53Griffin Newman?

  And it's not like a Pedro, he's like a proper role.

• 2:36:55David Sims?

  Completing the assignment. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but it's kind, it's not like a Pedro, but it is kind of the thing of these movies of like, you know, they clearly, yeah, they had him for a few days. He did silly stuff and like, yeah, right?

• 2:37:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'll go for that. Yeah.

• 2:37:08David Sims?

  Sebastian Stan will star in Radu Hude Jude.

• 2:37:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:12David Sims?

  Frankenstein.

• 2:37:14Speaker 02

  Okay, wrap us up.

• 2:37:14Griffin Newman?

  All right, bye. Another Frankenstein?

• 2:37:17David Sims?

  Yeah, well, that's true.

• 2:37:20David Sims?

  Wrap us up.

• 2:37:21Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay, well, you, you interrupted. Now I'm just spinning on the Frankenstein thought. And as always, more movies should be centered around a literal bag full of dicks.

• 2:37:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:36Speaker 02

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:38:20Speaker 02

  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.