Green Card with Esther Zuckerman

Most filmmakers dream of making ambitious, big-budget epics once they're able to cash in their "blank check." Peter Weir wanted to make Green Card. Writer and romcom expert Esther Zuckerman joins us to talk about this 1990 oddity, released the same year as Pretty Woman, but centered around the star persona of Gérard Depardieu instead of Julia Roberts. We're talking about the romcom genre, the many attempts to bring international stars to Hollywood, the golden age of Andie MacDowell movies, and the undeniable smokeshow that was early 90s Bebe Neuwirth in this episode. Pardon our French. Literally. Get Esther's Book Falling In Love at the Movies https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/esther-zuckerman/falling-in-love-at-the-movies/9780762484461/?lens=running-press Read FILM VIEW; 'Green Card' Apes 'Pretty Woman' https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/03/movies/film-view-green-card-apes-pretty-woman.html Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:12David Sims?

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

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

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

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

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

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

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

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

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

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

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

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 03

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

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  The story of two friends who got a podcast, did bits, and then fell in love.

• 1:46David Sims?

  So true.

• 1:46Griffin Newman?

  Now, this movie does have a perfect tagline.

• 1:50David Sims?

  It's a really great tagline. Do you know the tagline?

• 1:52Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:54Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna read-

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Was it, was that it?

• 1:55Griffin Newman?

  That was a riff, that was a little bit of a riff.

• 1:57David Sims?

  It's the story-

• 1:58Speaker 02

  So it's like, two friends who got married.

• 2:00David Sims?

  Not two friends, because we're the-

• 2:01Speaker 02

  No, yeah, no, obviously, okay, yeah, you said two friends. Two people?

• 2:04David Sims?

  The two, the story of two people who got married, met, and then fell in love.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's good.

• 2:08David Sims?

  Kinda gets ya.

• 2:09Griffin Newman?

  That's how the fucking film industry used to work. If you could walk into a room-

• 2:13David Sims?

  Now-

• 2:14Griffin Newman?

  And say-

• 2:15David Sims?

  I will say-

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Imagine the poster-

• 2:16David Sims?

  The poster does look like Obelix is kidnapping a woman.

• 2:20Griffin Newman?

  David, I like this movie a tremendous amount. I had never seen it before.

• 2:23David Sims?

  Look, look at him.

• 2:24Griffin Newman?

  I know this is a favorite of yours.

• 2:26David Sims?

  She is mine.

• 2:27Griffin Newman?

  This is a thing we're gonna have to keep talking about in this movie, where this movie is super charming and sweet and exquisitely made, and yet, it is all the study of, what is the weird charm of this guy?

• 2:42David Sims?

  Totally.

• 2:42Griffin Newman?

  And part of it is, this guy is, why no Shrek? Is he a emotional terrorist? You know, like-

• 2:51Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna do something like, I, I wanted you to do something like in a French accent, like, I am a beast, or the beast will come out.

• 2:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Or something like that.

• 3:00Griffin Newman?

  Right. This movie is trying to present Gerard Depardieu as like, the Walt Disney version of the beast, who's not actually that bad of a guy, but obviously has this kind of like, rough, oafish personality. And then you're just like, you know, it's really close to like, just, we took all the bad things out of Gerard Depardieu and left the baseline.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm sure we're-

• 3:24David Sims?

  Gerard Depardieu was hot and sexy, guys. I hate to, you know, I hate to break it.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  I do not get it, and I think we will, we'll discuss that I-

• 3:31David Sims?

  But it was not like a-

• 3:32Speaker 02

  No, I know it's not like a-

• 3:34David Sims?

  A shocking proposition in 1990. This is the thing. Times change, or do they?

• 3:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, yes, but also-

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I think times change for Gerard Depardieu.

• 3:41Griffin Newman?

  This was, this was the real project. This was the, do we get, how do we make Americans get Depardieu?

• 3:48David Sims?

  And I think this is the one time- That Americans really got him.

• 3:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:54David Sims?

  I guess so. As like a romantic lead?

• 3:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:57David Sims?

  Yeah, I think the other stuff.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  My father, a hero. A, oh, God.

• 4:02David Sims?

  1492, you know, like his other stuff later.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  But like, didn't Americans, it was the same year, but like, didn't Americans get him even though in Cyrano?

• 4:12David Sims?

  That was, that was.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Which is like, obviously a French film, but.

• 4:15Griffin Newman?

  Gets him an Oscar nomination.

• 4:16David Sims?

  Yeah, it was just a huge crossover.

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  Right, yeah. But like, here's this guy who's in his third decade of being a movie star in France.

• 4:24David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  And had worked with Bertolucci, had sort of like touched the, the membrane of Hollywood without fully crossing over.

• 4:33David Sims?

  I mean, he was a French actor. That was the, the most crossing over international film that existed.

• 4:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 4:39David Sims?

  Yeah. And he was in like the last, well, we'll, we'll talk about.

• 4:41Griffin Newman?

  And in the nineties, there was this push of like, are you ready to meet France's Robert De Niro?

• 4:47David Sims?

  Got that baguette for you. Well, he got a fucking handjob next to Robert De Niro.

• 4:50Griffin Newman?

  And that's where De Niro said, you know, you should try, uh, bein' me.

• 4:55Griffin Newman?

  I wish there was a, a French Fockers trilogy with Depardieu.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  There must be something approximating that. That sounds like, there's like, there's so many crazy.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  So many movies, yeah.

• 5:07David Sims?

  Like, he made a bunch of silly, like, he probably did something.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Also, French comedies, I, I know, I, I don't want to offend someone who is French.

• 5:15Griffin Newman?

  My mother is French, yes, yes.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Are some of the most insane, stupid things on the planet.

• 5:22David Sims?

  Or isn't it always like, oh, my daughter, she married an immigrant. Oh, sacré bleu, right? Like, it's like, oh, a lot of that, right?

• 5:29Griffin Newman?

  A lot of that. Let's also acknowledge that Depardieu's breakout was in the movie Going Places, which is basically just about a fucking contest. I'm sure a bunch of French listeners are going to explain how I'm not paying proper, proper respects to Going Places.

• 5:44David Sims?

  No, I don't think so. Going Places in, you know what in French it's called? Like, you know, that was the American title for Going Places. And then we'll introduce our pocket. In France, it's called Les Valises, which means the ball.

• 5:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 5:58David Sims?

  It's like slang for the balls, but like, that's what it means.

• 6:01Griffin Newman?

  That's what it means.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Every year I can, I've been going for three years now and every year there's some movie that sort of pops up. That's like the French pick. And it's like, often there's like a French comedy and you're like, oh, wow, this is just playing so much differently here than it would.

• 6:18David Sims?

  You see the French response. Right.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:21Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're like, it's, there's French comedies that are like based on very retrograde cultural socioeconomic racial stereotypes.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:31Griffin Newman?

  And then regional stereotypes as well. Bonvenu le Chitie, which is like the biggest French comedy of all time. I think it has not been beaten since. But then there's like, you, you will go to France and there will be giant billboards for a movie that is just like four firmly middle aged actors, wearing like suits and dresses, making faces. And you're like, what's that? And it's like, it's been number one, five weeks in a row.

• 6:59David Sims?

  It's called like, you know, the fucking fart family.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 7:04David Sims?

  Walking into walls and stuff.

• 7:05Griffin Newman?

  It's called about like a, a chers chance. And you're like, what's it about? And you're like, um, it's kind of just about like two couples have a dinner, but then it finds out that they've all slept with each other.

• 7:16David Sims?

  There's a lot of puns, but there, you wouldn't understand because it's French puns. And so there's a lot of, you know, double meanings to the words.

• 7:23Griffin Newman?

  Are like these kind of classical, almost like stagey French farces, just four characters.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Haven't really gotten over that.

• 7:29David Sims?

  No. I remember when I lived in Paris, there was a movie called Paris, made in 2008, starring Juliette Benosh, that I believe was sort of like the, you know, Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve of like French movies, because it was like a big ensemble movie with a bunch of stars that was just called Paris. And the only thing about it was it was set in Paris.

• 7:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:53David Sims?

  And I was, is it? Is it? Have you seen it?

• 7:56Griffin Newman?

  The Sutra Klapash film?

• 7:57David Sims?

  Yes, correct.

• 7:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah.

• 7:59David Sims?

  And I remember when I was just like, looking at that, I was like, is this like the biggest French movie? Or it's just called Paris?

• 8:03Griffin Newman?

  Is this the biggest French movie of all time? Or is everyone?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  What if we had like New York?

• 8:09Griffin Newman?

  Because there was Perry and Don Perry were around the same time and Don Perry is much better. Don Perry is Louis Gourrel and Roman Deris.

• 8:18David Sims?

  Yeah, that one's fun. That's about like some, some, you know, shaggy boys, right?

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  Depression. Yeah, it's about two brothers. That movie rules. And then Perry, I'm trying to remember, but I have seen as well.

• 8:28David Sims?

  It's got a huge cast, man. A lot of Frenchies. Roman Deris is in that one, too.

• 8:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:33David Sims?

  What's he up to these days?

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I realized, because he's so good in All the Money in the World.

• 8:40David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  He's excellent in that film.

• 8:41David Sims?

  Sort of a movie I forgot.

• 8:42Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, yeah, he doesn't do enough like American films. And I looked and I think that's literally the only one.

• 8:49David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess it's just not. Well, you know what? He was the French voice. This is so fun when you learn this, of the Edward Norton character in I Love Dogs. I'll tell you that much.

• 8:58Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 8:59David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, but he does a lot of, oh, man, and he did a movie called Ifell about Gustave Yfelle, like a biopic.

• 9:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 9:06David Sims?

  Where you're like, that doesn't even make it to America. But in France, they're like, please.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  He was also in that really big Three Musketeers.

• 9:13David Sims?

  Yes.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  He could not make The Tower.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:15Griffin Newman?

  He's a great actor. Like, I think he's one of the best movie actors working. And he's, yeah, but it's just interesting.

• 9:21David Sims?

  He's got a hanger. I've seen it.

• 9:22Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 9:23David Sims?

  In like 50 movies.

• 9:24Griffin Newman?

  But I even feel like his biggest French movies haven't crossed over super wide here.

• 9:29David Sims?

  Not since like Beat That My Heart skipped, you know, but in those early days, he was having some.

• 9:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:37David Sims?

  What can you do?

• 9:37Griffin Newman?

  What can you do?

• 9:38David Sims?

  I'm sure, was he in De Person or whatever it's called? You know, is he in Call My Agent?

• 9:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It just felt like Depardieu was the one male French star. They really tried to make work. There's a history of here's the most beautiful woman in France.

• 9:54David Sims?

  Sure.

• 9:54Griffin Newman?

  And we try to make her convert. And that usually does work, but for a period of time. You know, you have your Sophie Marceau, you have your Isabelle Jeanne, um, you know, I'm sure certainly Bardot and like Marion Cutilar has probably had a better, more sustained, fully French and American career.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  La C'est Do.

• 10:16Griffin Newman?

  La C'est Do, yep.

• 10:17David Sims?

  I mean, you're forgetting the queen, the number one. No, no. Benoche. Benoche. Benoche. The whole thing with Juliette Benoche is anytime you see her in a movie, you're like, this is the best movie I've ever seen in my life. I had this experience.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Also, mothers around the country were captivated by Chocolat.

• 10:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:37David Sims?

  Well, that's true.

• 10:38Griffin Newman?

  And you wanted a bite?

• 10:39David Sims?

  Um, love her. Uh, yeah, of course. Right. You just named one. The, the, the, the French actors who've crossed over, it is an interesting list because I'm thinking of like Vincent Cassel, right?

• 10:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:49David Sims?

  Where it's like, he crossed over, but in America, mostly he plays the weasel.

• 10:52Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, with the men, it's usually kind of that where you're like, in, it's a little Mads.

• 10:57David Sims?

  Jean Reno, he plays the living cigarette?

• 11:01Griffin Newman?

  But the Mads Mikkelsen effect where you're like, Hollywood has accepted this guy doing one kind of thing.

• 11:06David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe two.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Garell has sort of had a little.

• 11:10David Sims?

  But no, if Garell shows up again, you're just like, who's this molester?

• 11:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 11:15David Sims?

  I know in Little Women.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:17David Sims?

  He has the, but you know, that's sort of a thankless role.

• 11:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 11:20David Sims?

  So there was one French actor who accepted an Oscar with pleasure. And what was his name?

• 11:25Griffin Newman?

  Jean.

• 11:26David Sims?

  Jean.

• 11:27Griffin Newman?

  Jean.

• 11:28David Sims?

  Jean.

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  Jean.

• 11:29David Sims?

  Jean.

• 11:30Griffin Newman?

  Dufus.

• 11:31David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 11:31Griffin Newman?

  Jean Dufus.

• 11:33David Sims?

  Dujardin. I'm gonna help you out here.

• 11:34Griffin Newman?

  Jean Dujardin.

• 11:35David Sims?

  Who did he beat for best actor?

• 11:36Griffin Newman?

  Uh, George Clooney.

• 11:38David Sims?

  I guess he just recently won.

• 11:39Griffin Newman?

  Brad Pitt?

• 11:40David Sims?

  Yeah, right. For Moneyball.

• 11:43Griffin Newman?

  He beats, um.

• 11:45David Sims?

  I just like, I recently watched his like win and the other four guys, you're like, hmm, heavy hitters. One of them is Demi and Beshear, who's a great actor.

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:53David Sims?

  Obviously, but he kind of snuck in in our, in our friend Chris's film.

• 11:56Griffin Newman?

  And then there's the other one, Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor?

• 11:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:59David Sims?

  Pretty good.

• 12:00Griffin Newman?

  Pretty good. But that's, that's my example of like, we, I, we've talked about too many times, but Jean Dujardin, a name I know how to say, wins best actor. And you're like, you know what? This is kind of a little ready-made for Hollywood. He's making it easy for them to cast him. He's weird cartoon version of a Frenchman.

• 12:21David Sims?

  On the other hand, it's weird that he has an Oscar and a bunch of the guys we just mentioned don't.

• 12:25Griffin Newman?

  And he basically does not do any American productions anymore.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  But also, he doesn't speak in the movie.

• 12:32Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't.

• 12:32David Sims?

  He did Monumental, right?

• 12:34Griffin Newman?

  He's more bilingual now than he was when he was doing the Oscar campaign.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Also, that movie.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Like doesn't exist.

• 12:42David Sims?

  Truly is a memory hold film.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  But he has this small collection of like, I'll do a two scene role in Wolf of Wall Street. I'll do a couple of scenes in Monuments Men. And I feel like there's one other film in that period where it was like a supporting ensemble role. And then he has not made any sort of American film in over 10 years.

• 13:02David Sims?

  I think those might be the only two.

• 13:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:04David Sims?

  Uh, he's made plenty of other films.

• 13:06Griffin Newman?

  He works steadily in France. He's there.

• 13:08David Sims?

  He's a big star.

• 13:09Griffin Newman?

  Biggest star. Yeah.

• 13:10David Sims?

  He's a big star, certainly. And he did another OSS 117 finally.

• 13:14Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yeah.

• 13:15David Sims?

  Uh, and he did Zorro recently. Did you know that?

• 13:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I did.

• 13:19David Sims?

  A French Zorro?

• 13:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 13:21David Sims?

  Jeanne de Chardin?

• 13:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes. He's like a Chris Pratt. He's stealing all the characters. He was already Lucky Luke.

• 13:29Griffin Newman?

  He of course originated Brice to Nice.

• 13:33David Sims?

  Uh, what's that?

• 13:34Griffin Newman?

  Brice to Nice.

• 13:35David Sims?

  What's that?

• 13:35Griffin Newman?

  He's a surfer from Nice.

• 13:37David Sims?

  Oh, that guy sounds silly.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  That was kind of his Wayne's World that broke him out.

• 13:41David Sims?

  Like their version of like a kind of right, like a Venice beach kind of dude, like, I am from Nice.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  This is the Dujardin.

• 13:48David Sims?

  I have tan, my sunglasses though, so it's white around my eyes.

• 13:52Griffin Newman?

  Anytime I would go to Paris and there'd be a poster for a big comedy film and I'd ask someone, what is this? They'd be like, um, it's a very specific type of person who lives there.

• 14:04David Sims?

  I mean, that was.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  It's like we have stereotypes too.

• 14:07David Sims?

  I mean, as a child, I was obsessed with Asterix books, as I've talked about, I'm sure before. And those are all about ethnic stereotypes, mostly of internal French ones. Where I would be like, I don't get the joke. And my dad would be like, people are from Bordeaux are like that. And I'm like, they are? And he's like, I think so. I think that's the joke. And I'm like, okay.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  Like Bonvenu le Chitie is like, big businessman has to move to small town to like, take care of the operations there. And 90% of the jokes in that movie are the people in this small town, say S H at the end of every word. And it performed like Avatar.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Are French people gonna be mad at this episode?

• 14:46David Sims?

  Probably. What are they not mad about?

• 14:48Griffin Newman?

  Probably.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Ah, yeah.

• 14:50David Sims?

  I lived in your great country. It was nice.

• 14:53Griffin Newman?

  But it is, it is example of like, right, Depardieu, if American audiences had familiarity with him, it was like, here's this big, like, fucking burly man who's doing historical epics and intensity and playing the great characters. And they're like, but in France, we find him charming. Would you believe in France, he's something? We wish to kiss him. Mwah! Is what we call a kiss wisher.

• 15:19David Sims?

  What's our podcast called?

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  Our podcast is called Blank Check Avec Griffin at David.

• 15:25David Sims?

  Check donk.

• 15:27Griffin Newman?

  Je suis Griffin.

• 15:28David Sims?

  Uh, je suis David.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I'm giving up the French. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have

• 15:35David Sims?

  Directors.

• 15:35Griffin Newman?

  Directors.

• 15:36David Sims?

  Directors.

• 15:37Griffin Newman?

  Who have massive success. Director.

• 15:39David Sims?

  Realisateur.

• 15:40Griffin Newman?

  Realisateur. Oh, cinema. Um, this is the worst episode we've ever done. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes those checks get interviewed by the immigration agencies.

• 16:03David Sims?

  By Neelix from Star Trek Voyager.

• 16:05Griffin Newman?

  Baby.

• 16:05David Sims?

  Yes. Ethan Phillips.

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  Today, we are talking about a motion picture called Green Card. It is written, directed, and produced by Peter Weir.

• 16:14David Sims?

  Uh, yep.

• 16:15Griffin Newman?

  I believe it's got a big honkin' fucking final.

• 16:18David Sims?

  Yep.

• 16:19Griffin Newman?

  Opening credit card.

• 16:21David Sims?

  You're right.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  It's a flex.

• 16:22David Sims?

  You're right.

• 16:22Griffin Newman?

  And this is kind of his first, in a way, this is his first American blank check. He basically says that he took Witness to figure out how to break through to Hollywood, that this was the dream, his passion project at this moment that he really wanted to make. And the success of Witness granted him.

• 16:43Griffin Newman?

  And certainly Dead Poets as well, granted him the freedom to make this.

• 16:48David Sims?

  It's just so funny. If you look at his career, as we will discuss, you don't really see a, I've just been waiting to make green card.

• 16:55Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 16:56David Sims?

  In there.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  And yet you read that was-

• 16:58David Sims?

  Like exactly how he feels. Right?

• 17:00Griffin Newman?

  He's like, I really liked the script and I want to make it.

• 17:02David Sims?

  Which I think is correct because it's a great film.

• 17:04Griffin Newman?

  But he's just taken like two assignment jobs.

• 17:07David Sims?

  Mosquito Coast and Deadpool Society, Esther, to be clear. And well, I'm witness. So really three.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. He's taken three assignment jobs. And he's like, have I proved myself enough that a lower budget with my casting choices, you let me make the one I want to make? And you're right that it is funny because and so often in these cases, you're like, now can you let me make the ambitious thing? With the scary budget that you wouldn't grant me unless I proved myself in other arenas? And he's like, no, I want to make like a pretty contained.

• 17:39David Sims?

  Right. Pretty cheap.

• 17:40Griffin Newman?

  $20 million. I have to imagine 20?

• 17:42David Sims?

  Uh, the budget is listed at $12.5 million.

• 17:48Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So is that USD or francs?

• 17:50David Sims?

  USD.

• 17:51Griffin Newman?

  I had to ask. I had to ask. Our guest today returned to the show.

• 17:57Griffin Newman?

  To talk about this rom com. And we can discuss the balance of rom versus com in this movie, which I think is an interesting starting point for conversation.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:06Griffin Newman?

  The great Esther Zuckerman.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  Something of an expert on the subject.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  So I had never seen this movie.

• 18:14Griffin Newman?

  Neither did I. Oh, huh huh.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Oh, huh huh.

• 18:18David Sims?

  Guys are crazy.

• 18:19Griffin Newman?

  We're not.

• 18:20David Sims?

  We're gonna do the wide weekend, I think. Just FYI. Just, I'm just inspecting the box office choices here.

• 18:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So just establish that tab and then place it two hours from now.

• 18:30David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 18:31Griffin Newman?

  Esther, you wrote a book on rom coms.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  I did.

• 18:33Griffin Newman?

  Is it now available in paperback?

• 18:35Speaker 02

  No, it's never gonna be available.

• 18:36Griffin Newman?

  It's never gonna be available in paperback?

• 18:37David Sims?

  Because it's sort of the form factor is more like a little hardback.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  It is for, yeah, but yeah, you can still buy it. It's still available.

• 18:46Griffin Newman?

  And one should.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:48Griffin Newman?

  But did not watch Green Card?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  No, it didn't really come up in my research. Like I, cause I did try to like fill in a lot of like blind spots and somehow Green Card never came up.

• 18:59David Sims?

  It's a great film that I was introduced to at a young age by my mother because it's a great New York rom com, but I do feel like it's not part of any particular or particular movement.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:10David Sims?

  Or like sort of star narrative or anything like that. And certainly it's by a director who never made a rom com again.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:17David Sims?

  So it's just kind of like a funny little thing. It was Oscar nominated. It was a solid hit. Like yada, yada, you know, like it's not like it was a forgotten movie.

• 19:24Griffin Newman?

  That's the wild thing.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  But it is sort of forgotten now.

• 19:27Griffin Newman?

  I think it is.

• 19:28David Sims?

  That's crazy.

• 19:28Griffin Newman?

  I think it is.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  I mean, it's interesting. I was.

• 19:31David Sims?

  I'm right here.

• 19:31Griffin Newman?

  That's what we're here to do.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  David and you were sort of carrying the torch, I feel like for this movie.

• 19:36David Sims?

  My mom showed me this movie when I was a kid. This is just like a Sims family classic.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  But I was like, for instance, I was at a, I was watching the Superbowl with some friends, um, some very film oriented friends.

• 19:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 19:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Griffin Newman?

  Um.

• 19:50David Sims?

  And Rob was there.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Rob was there. Allison was there.

• 19:53Griffin Newman?

  Spike, Marty, Frances.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  I mean, and now bra, our friend Rob is someone who has seen literally everything like.

• 20:02Griffin Newman?

  The great Rob Shear.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Rob Shear.

• 20:03David Sims?

  I mean, God bless Rob, who is our friend. He is, you know, certified.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Psychotic. Yeah.

• 20:08David Sims?

  He goes to see movies where I'm like, I've never heard of this. He's like, well, let's do one showtime at like the Regal Essex at 11 a.m.

• 20:14Griffin Newman?

  He's like movie going Pac-Man.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, he is like the king of Cinematrix. Like he sends me his grids every day and I'm like, are you cheating? And he's like, not cheating. He just has like an insane memory and he had not seen it and Allison had not seen it. And you know, I think it is sort of memory hold a little bit.

• 20:34Griffin Newman?

  I agree. I think David's a little right that it might have to do with the fact that this basically becomes just like a blip in the nineties, Andy McDowell kind of arc.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  But it's before. That's the thing about like, which I honestly didn't even like really clock. It's before her rom com arc. It is after.

• 20:54Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna put a pin in this. Yeah. But, but I agree with you. That's what I think is fascinating. And I just want to be able to fully zoom out and talk about the Andy McDowell thing. The Depardieu thing is so much what's selling this movie of like, we're trying to make you like this guy, which worked at the time, but then because it did not last, that also feels like a weird dead end. And then as you said, David, like, we're didn't make a movie before this with this kind of vibe, never made a film after this with this kind of vibe.

• 21:21David Sims?

  Not really.

• 21:21Griffin Newman?

  Despite coming from comedy, this is a very gentle comedy, is not one hard on laughs. And his movies that have comedic elements tend to be harder comedic elements than this.

• 21:32David Sims?

  Yeah. It's, um, yeah, I'm looking at McDowell again. Very interesting career.

• 21:37Griffin Newman?

  I had completely, let's just do McDowell now then.

• 21:39David Sims?

  So the film stars Andy McDowell.

• 21:41Griffin Newman?

  I had completely flipped in my mind that the reason that she is so bad in Four Weddings and a Funeral is because it was before she kind of figured out her thing through working with better directors after.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:55Griffin Newman?

  It's the exact opposite.

• 21:57David Sims?

  No, the whole thing with Andy McDowell and Four Weddings is that it will never be explained. You can, you, I'm serious.

• 22:03Griffin Newman?

  No, truly.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  I'm just laughing because I thought you were going to explain it.

• 22:07David Sims?

  If you look at her career, I will run it for you right now, quick. Okay? She breaks out in Gracestroke, Tarzan Legend of the Apes, where she is.

• 22:14Griffin Newman?

  It's dubbed. But like, yeah, it's dubbed.

• 22:16David Sims?

  Famously dubbed, but she's gorgeous. Right? And it's like, okay.

• 22:19Griffin Newman?

  Ben, producer Ben, she is cast as Jane in a live action Tarzan movie, Big Warner Brothers production because of her look.

• 22:26David Sims?

  And she is very young.

• 22:27Griffin Newman?

  So bad in the film that they hired Glenn Close to redub all of the dialogue.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Well, it's also because she's like, you know, she's got the Latin accent thing. Yeah.

• 22:35Griffin Newman?

  But, but she's landing immediately with this framework of like, well, she's nice to look at.

• 22:41David Sims?

  I guess so. Sure. She has a small role in St. Elmo's Fire, which is a big, you know, movie for that generation, but is obviously a stupid movie. In 1989, she's in Sex, Lies and

• 22:50Griffin Newman?

  Three years later.

• 22:51David Sims?

  Probably. Yeah. She did a little TV in between, but not much. Probably kind of her best role. She's amazing in that movie.

• 22:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Right. Soderbergh looked like a genius.

• 23:00David Sims?

  Huge movie.

• 23:01Griffin Newman?

  She's so effective in it. Yeah.

• 23:03David Sims?

  Then she's in Green Card, which she absolutely rocks.

• 23:06Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 23:06David Sims?

  Thunderous, like 82 points.

• 23:08Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 23:08David Sims?

  Kobe.

• 23:09Griffin Newman?

  She's awesome.

• 23:09David Sims?

  Fucking crazy. And then she's in The Object of Beauty, which is-

• 23:14Speaker 02

  They're skipping right over Hudson Hawk.

• 23:15David Sims?

  No, I am not.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Okay, sorry.

• 23:16David Sims?

  That's next. Object of Beauty, which I've never heard of, but it's a rom com with Malkovich with the poster. Looks like this.

• 23:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 23:23David Sims?

  I'm not turned on.

• 23:24Griffin Newman?

  Me neither.

• 23:25David Sims?

  I don't really know. It might not be a rock. It might be a rock. No, it says it's a romantic comedy about the fine art of thievery. Okay. Uh, then Hudson Hawk, which is a huge bomb. I've never, I've never seen.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  I have seen Hudson Hawk.

• 23:36David Sims?

  How is it?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  I think it's pretty fun.

• 23:38David Sims?

  That's one where people are kind of like, that's not so bad.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's not-

• 23:41David Sims?

  Is she good in it?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  I mean, she's barely like, I mean, she's-

• 23:45Griffin Newman?

  It's a nothing part.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  She plays a nun who falls in love with him and helps him like-

• 23:50David Sims?

  He's Hudson Hawk.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  He's Hudson Hawk. He's saying, you know, he and Danny Aiello saying throughout it.

• 23:55Griffin Newman?

  Only people in the movie who doesn't get to be fun.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:58Griffin Newman?

  Like so much of-

• 23:59David Sims?

  She just gets to have a crush on-

• 24:00Griffin Newman?

  Embarrassing reputation is that everyone's like swinging for the fences and every character's overconceived and she's kind of playing the straight character.

• 24:08David Sims?

  She plays herself in The Player, little, little funny cameo. She's in a movie called Deception, pretty forgotten movie with Neeson, sort of like a thriller, whatever. She's in Groundhog Day. Incredible.

• 24:18Griffin Newman?

  Phenomenal.

• 24:18David Sims?

  Incredible. So charming.

• 24:20Griffin Newman?

  Out in Groundhog.

• 24:20David Sims?

  You're in love with her.

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:22David Sims?

  She's in shortcuts. Really incredible in shortcuts.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  Agreed.

• 24:25David Sims?

  Like, and everyone's good in that, but she's kind of one of my favorite parts of it.

• 24:28Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, great. Andie MacDowell has totally figured out how to act. She's arrived as a movie star.

• 24:32David Sims?

  One of the most important romantic comedies ever made, like where everyone is on fire good. That is a huge hit and gets nominated for best picture and she's weirdly flattened it. It doesn't make it-

• 24:43Griffin Newman?

  She's a contest winner, plucked off the street.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  I don't think it's entirely her fault.

• 24:49David Sims?

  I don't think it's-

• 24:49Speaker 02

  I mean, I-

• 24:50David Sims?

  My point is it's clearly not her fault.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah. I mean, and there's-

• 24:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  I love Four Weddings and the Funeral like more than any other movie. And I think it's just, part of it is that she's up against Chris Thomas, who is just like, again, you know, like- I don't know, slam dunking the ball. And she's just so out of place in it.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  What's it about?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Four weddings and a funeral?

• 25:12David Sims?

  Have you never seen?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  No.

• 25:14David Sims?

  It's about, it's

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Are you, are you setting us up to say four weddings and a funeral?

• 25:18Speaker 03

  I sure am.

• 25:19David Sims?

  It's about, it's about a group of friends. It's about the lives of a group of friends set over four weddings and one funeral that they attend.

• 25:26Griffin Newman?

  Those are the only events you see.

• 25:27David Sims?

  Oh.

• 25:28Griffin Newman?

  Their life connected by.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  And she is an American.

• 25:33David Sims?

  Romance that you, you grant in her have.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, she is an American. I think she works for Vogue and she's very stylish and she shows up at the first wedding and they sort of, they, they have sex actually that first wedding.

• 25:45David Sims?

  Sure do.

• 25:45Griffin Newman?

  But kind of assume they'll never see each other again.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  And then one of the, yeah, no spoilers.

• 25:50David Sims?

  She's hot, like, and the whole point is she's this sort of mysterious object of affection. But she and Grant just don't really have much chemistry and it's sort of weird. And it kind of doesn't matter. The movie rules. It weirdly doesn't affect the movie that badly.

• 26:06Griffin Newman?

  But yet everyone comes out of it going, why is she so bad?

• 26:09David Sims?

  And then she, her career dies.

• 26:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:12David Sims?

  Like she keeps making movies, but like she never was like a big deal again.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:17David Sims?

  When it should have been like, great, you were just in a huge hit, like get ready. And she's in, of course, Michael, a film we've covered on this podcast.

• 26:23Griffin Newman?

  Yes, she's in The Muse.

• 26:25David Sims?

  She's in your favorite film of all time, Muppets from Space.

• 26:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's pretty good in it.

• 26:29David Sims?

  Can't say I remember.

• 26:30Griffin Newman?

  First of all.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Do you like, do you actually like?

• 26:33Griffin Newman?

  I have a lot of issues with that film.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's bad.

• 26:35Griffin Newman?

  But she plays a rival new, local news reporter who Miss Piggy is trying to beat to the scoop of alien existence.

• 26:43David Sims?

  She's never stopped working. Like she's, you know, working all the time. She has produced, of course, a Hollywood's great ingenue now, Margaret Qualley.

• 26:53Griffin Newman?

  I thought she was excellent in Magic Mike XXL.

• 26:57David Sims?

  Loved her in that.

• 26:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:57David Sims?

  Did you like her in Goodrich? She has a couple scenes there.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  We talked about that movie on the show.

• 27:02David Sims?

  We did.

• 27:03Griffin Newman?

  I, I do feel like every time I see Annie Mc Dowell show up in that size of role.

• 27:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 27:08Griffin Newman?

  In like a dramedy, I'm like, she's really kind of aged into something interesting.

• 27:12David Sims?

  I remember liking her in Ready or Not, the horror film. Very fun.

• 27:16Griffin Newman?

  Same, I really.

• 27:16David Sims?

  Obviously she's in Beauty Shop, your favorite film.

• 27:19Griffin Newman?

  Not.

• 27:20David Sims?

  Your favorite film?

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  Not my favorite film.

• 27:22David Sims?

  She says for your FYI, or does Alicia Silverstone?

• 27:24Griffin Newman?

  I think Alicia Silverstone says that, yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  She is quite good in the limited series, which I'm sure you guys didn't watch, Maid, which was, which was, it was Margaret's, it was, it was a role for Margaret that she plays her mom in. And she's very done. I mean, I think the beautiful thing about-

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  Oh, M A I D.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I remember that.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  I think the beautiful thing about, you know, I mean, she looks incredible. Yeah, she, and she looks incredible and she has gone totally natural, like she has gray hair.

• 27:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  She like, if she's had work done, it's like super barely. She has aged incredibly.

• 28:01Griffin Newman?

  It is one of the things.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Feels, and she now has this, I mean, I guess she always had it, but she feels so earthy now in a way that's very interesting.

• 28:08Griffin Newman?

  It's the, one of the things I like most about seeing her show up and stuff now.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:12David Sims?

  It is crazy that, it's just a crazy weird career.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  She also has the best hair of any human that ever lived. I mean, there's that moment in this movie where he's like, where she puts her hair up to go to dinner and he's like, your hair looks better down.

• 28:28David Sims?

  Here's another reason I think this movie is a little forgotten.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:32David Sims?

  What year did it come out, guys?

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

  1990.

• 28:34David Sims?

  What's another movie that came out in 1990?

• 28:35Griffin Newman?

  Pretty Woman.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. There was actually, I was doing a little bit of research and I'm sure that-

• 28:41David Sims?

  And which is, in my opinion, a far inferior film to this film. I don't really like it.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  No, I, I think, yeah, I don't like Pretty Woman that much, but-

• 28:47David Sims?

  I appreciate the phenomenon. I'm not, you know, I'm not here to deny it.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  I, I didn't mean to step on JJ's toes, but I did do a little Googling. I didn't do that.

• 28:59David Sims?

  They're gonna have to fire you?

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  We've been trying to get JJ to Google. We've been asking him for years.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  No, but there was a story in the New York Times, literally about how green card, I can't remember which came first, but like green-

• 29:11David Sims?

  Pretty Woman came first.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Well, that, yes, I think Pretty Woman came first because there was a story in the New York Times that was basically like, oh, this is trying to do the Pretty Woman thing and it's not working. Like, you know, it's not working is like, well, and it's like, it's, it was almost framed as they were trying to copy it, but it was like-

• 29:27David Sims?

  Pretty Woman was March 1990.

• 29:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:29David Sims?

  And was obviously this runaway success for like the whole year. And Green Card comes out Christmas time, 1990.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it's a funny article. I I read it sort of confused almost like, why would you even compare these two movies? You know?

• 29:43David Sims?

  Well, it's got two people in it. A man and a woman.

• 29:45Griffin Newman?

  Have two people.

• 29:46David Sims?

  And they're kind of.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Card, the literally, oh, Karen James wrote this.

• 29:50David Sims?

  Oh, Karen James.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Karen James, our colleague at the.

• 29:54David Sims?

  Colleague at the.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  New York Film Critics Circle. Green Card Apes Pretty Woman was the headline. Green Card was not conceived as Daughter of Pretty Woman, although it seems that way now.

• 30:05David Sims?

  Pretty Woman, she's walking down the street. You know?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Also, they were both touchstone.

• 30:11David Sims?

  Been like that.

• 30:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes, they're both touchstone.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  They're both touchstone and part of it was that it wasn't that, oh, the movies were the same. But the touchstone was trying to market it the same way. Because they were like, you know.

• 30:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I also think there was this codification of what a touchstone movie was, which was really important to the film ecosystem for a while. I remember a Mad Magazine article in the early 90s.

• 30:35David Sims?

  You read it for the articles.

• 30:37Griffin Newman?

  I read it for the articles. I only read it for the articles.

• 30:39David Sims?

  Sergio Agonius, you tore it out. I don't want to see it.

• 30:43Griffin Newman?

  Sorry. Those spies are up to no good.

• 30:46David Sims?

  We cannot support the spies.

• 30:47Griffin Newman?

  Get out of here, Antonio Prohass. He, there was an article that was, what if Walt Disney was awakened from cryosleep? And it was a multi-page illustrated comic story of Walt Disney being shown around the 90s.

• 31:05David Sims?

  Right, like how things have changed.

• 31:06Griffin Newman?

  Walt Disney by Michael Eisner.

• 31:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 31:08Griffin Newman?

  And it's saying, and here we have touchstone pictures. And he goes, what's touchstone pictures? And he goes, touchstone pictures is our label for films with more adult themes that we could never release under Walt Disney Pictures. Like, for example, Pretty Woman, a movie about like a financial maven who falls in love with a.

• 31:25David Sims?

  Oh, ho, ho.

• 31:26Griffin Newman?

  A prostitute.

• 31:27David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 31:27Griffin Newman?

  And he goes, oh, and at the end, she's like sent back to her life of struggle. And he's like, no, she basically like marries her and makes her a princess. Like the bit that they were sort of found a way to make movies that almost had.

• 31:40David Sims?

  A Disney arc to them.

• 31:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 31:42David Sims?

  Despite being for grownups.

• 31:43Griffin Newman?

  I think of touchstone films with a lot of warmth.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:47Griffin Newman?

  Because there was, not just because of the era it represented, but it did feel like Touchstone had a lot of good, mid-budget, kind of gooey movie star comfort films.

• 31:57David Sims?

  I think of the warmth because when lightning strikes.

• 32:00Griffin Newman?

  Hot.

• 32:01David Sims?

  And that's what Touchstone.

• 32:03Griffin Newman?

  You don't want to touch the stone if lightning's hit it.

• 32:05David Sims?

  You don't.

• 32:05Griffin Newman?

  Um, I think.

• 32:06David Sims?

  No, I do too. You see that logo and you're like, ah.

• 32:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:09David Sims?

  Hundred percent.

• 32:10Griffin Newman?

  I think that's sort of maybe what people were starting to comment on is like, is this just going to be their fucking beat now? And, you know, up until that point, when they founded Eisner and Katzenberg, their whole strategy was like, get diminished value stars.

• 32:29David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Like a sort of a B-level guy.

• 32:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. They were like, Ben Midler, five-picture deal. Richard Dreyfuss, five-picture deal.

• 32:35David Sims?

  It would be so easy.

• 32:36Griffin Newman?

  No, it was either people who had flops they were too afraid to recover from.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, or.

• 32:41Griffin Newman?

  Or had just kind of like, alienated too much of the industry and you could get them at a bargain.

• 32:47David Sims?

  Dreyfuss wasn't either of those, right? Right? He hadn't had any flops or alienated anybody.

• 32:51Griffin Newman?

  No. It's, I think it's down and out Beverly Hills is Dreyfuss, Nolte, and Midler, who were all like fucking bargain basement clearance must-go movie stars. And that movie opened to number one at the box office and they were like, see our fucking thing works. The trailer for Green Book, which is very deranged.

• 33:11David Sims?

  I assume you mean Green Card.

• 33:12Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 33:12David Sims?

  Yes. Because nobody does an accent in Green Book.

• 33:16Griffin Newman?

  You're right.

• 33:16David Sims?

  That film. No one's doing a kind of like a big ethnic sort of accent.

• 33:19Griffin Newman?

  Let me correct myself.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  No one's eating a pizza.

• 33:21Griffin Newman?

  The trailer for Green Book.

• 33:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  Is sensitive, profound.

• 33:26David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 33:26Griffin Newman?

  Abruptly funny.

• 33:28David Sims?

  Right, yep.

• 33:28Griffin Newman?

  And it has.

• 33:30David Sims?

  A beating heart.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  A beating heart at the center named Linda Cardellini. The trailer for Green Card is insane.

• 33:36David Sims?

  I haven't seen the trailer.

• 33:36Griffin Newman?

  It's a peak 90s trailer.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  I didn't watch the trailer.

• 33:38Griffin Newman?

  It was on the Blu-ray. It felt like it was 12 minutes long.

• 33:41David Sims?

  She's a horticulturalist. He, we actually, it's hard to fucking tell what he does. Who knows?

• 33:46Speaker 02

  He's maybe a composer, but maybe he's not.

• 33:49Griffin Newman?

  It's a lot of that, but there's so much voiceover talking you through every plot.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  He's heaps in the pod.

• 33:53David Sims?

  She needs the.

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  But this is the one, the part I want to call out. Touchstone Pictures presents France's most acclaimed actor Gerard Depardieu and America's newest film sensation, Andy McDowell, in the story of two people, yada, yada, yada. Like, the wind up on that fucking trailer.

• 34:13David Sims?

  I mean, I guess I get it because it's like neither of them are household names, but they are both, you know, you can present them credibly as like this, these are new, exciting people.

• 34:22Griffin Newman?

  We need to explain to you why these are movie stars.

• 34:24David Sims?

  He just won the fucking, you know, in a movie that won the Palme d'Or.

• 34:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 34:27David Sims?

  And he is from France, which is cultured.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  But do you think like the sex?

• 34:33David Sims?

  It's a hero.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Like, do you think the Sex, Lies and Videotape was?

• 34:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  At all of a selling point for her at this point? Okay.

• 34:41David Sims?

  That was a big movie.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  I know it was a big hit, but it's interesting, I guess, to.

• 34:46David Sims?

  Sex, Lies and Videotape made more money than Green Card. Like that, Sex, Lies and Videotape was a big old hit.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Also, though, to like transition from that into sort of like sweetheart territory.

• 34:58Griffin Newman?

  Also why I think they're not.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  That's sort of what I'm, I, I, I'm more mean, which is like, you know.

• 35:04David Sims?

  A little sugar.

• 35:04Griffin Newman?

  I think that's why they're not naming. They're not going, and from Sex, Lies and Videotape.

• 35:10David Sims?

  You know that movie, I'm filming people who fuck.

• 35:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. They're saying America's newest film sensation. And you're like, oh, right. They let you fill in the blank because they're trying to frame her a different way.

• 35:20David Sims?

  They did a good job. We love Andy McDowell for about five or six years and then we kind of get sick of her.

• 35:25Griffin Newman?

  I just think the tagline for this title, which I butchered.

• 35:29David Sims?

  But it's a great tagline.

• 35:30Griffin Newman?

  But is the thing that like 90 studio exec dreams were made of, of like walking in and you're like, here's the poster. One movie star holding another movie star. And you're like, you're promising me two movie stars? And then you're like, yes, TBD.

• 35:44David Sims?

  Probably.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  The title is Green Card and the tagline is the story of two people who got married, met, and then fell in love. And you're like, you've just told me all three acts. I see the movie in my head.

• 35:57David Sims?

  And it's like, everyone knows what a green card marriage is.

• 36:00Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 36:00David Sims?

  No one's thought to do the movie yet.

• 36:02Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 36:02David Sims?

  You know, like it's so obvious from a set up.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Though I think what's interesting about the movie is the three acts come are more subtle and not exactly what you would expect.

• 36:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  From that tagline, like I'm expecting, I was watching and I was expecting like, you know.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Oh, there's one night when they, you know, they, they

• 36:26David Sims?

  Get drunk on the beach, confess your secrets.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:29David Sims?

  And then he gets a raft and says, fuck you, Linda. Sorry. Keep going. Sorry.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Was that send help?

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  Have you sent help yet?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I sent help with David. Yeah. I sent help with David. Um, I love send help. But yeah, you're expecting, there's that scene where they're, um, where they each, they each go to bed in her apartment for the first night. And, you know, he's bare chested and burly and he asks her what side of the bed she sleeps on and you, and she looks at the door and you sort of, you know, in a more tropey movie, you know, she walks out the door, she sees him, they, you know, they kiss. They maybe do something else, but it doesn't, but it doesn't happen that way. And I think that's a good thing about this movie. But it also makes it a little bit more of an honor duck than you're expecting.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  I found this movie odd. I loved the ending. I

• 37:28David Sims?

  So good.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Had

• 37:30Griffin Newman?

  Ending is incredible.

• 37:30David Sims?

  The ending is kind of like, oh, fuck.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Good.

• 37:33David Sims?

  This whole thing made sense.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Any, yeah, that any sort of reservations I had went away, but I still have my problems. I also have problems with DepR due.

• 37:45Griffin Newman?

  That's my thing as well.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  It's a little bit of a hurdle for me to get over. And it's not just because we know now he is a bad person.

• 37:54David Sims?

  He is a bad person.

• 37:56Griffin Newman?

  He's a bad person. It's quite a terrible

• 37:58David Sims?

  Fairly definitive that he's

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Is now when I can

• 38:01David Sims?

  Quite the ogre. Yes.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Is, is it, can I now tell my story about, okay. My, my most recent DepR due story was I was in Cannes last year and I got an email from an editor of the New York Times, asking me to write a, um, story on, it had just, his conviction had just been announced.

• 38:20David Sims?

  When you say conviction, he has been accused and put on trial several times for various things.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  But he finally

• 38:26David Sims?

  But there was one that got

• 38:27Speaker 02

  There was his sexual assault conviction, actually. Like, he actually was convicted.

• 38:31Griffin Newman?

  There have truly just been decades. Of stories about Gerard Depardieu. And even in this moment in 1990, where it's like Cyrano's getting him in a best actor nomination. He's starring in Green Card. He's doing his American press, like his first real run of like, is, are we ready for France's biggest movie star? He says like seven insanely objectionable things in interviews that were litigated for weeks in the press. In a way that like feels like our modern discourse cycle. Back then, people would kind of move on.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  He was found guilt like he was found guilty of sexual assault in Last Met.

• 39:06David Sims?

  And was he getting a pass because he was foreign? Well, this is what Esther's about to tell you.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Well, this is like, I, yeah, I, so they were like, can you write a story about like Cannes reacting to it? Um, and obvious, he's the king of Cannes. Like, you know, you walk down the street, there are pictures of him. He's been in, um, like so many, like so many movies that were at the festival. And so basically my task was to go around and find people to talk. I got the sign and I, I went to a party and I was like, I'll, I'll shirt on, on the beach. It was very fancy. It was very Cannes. Um, surely I'll find people and I sort of started putting out feelers with American colleagues. Like, do you know any French colleagues that would like be willing to speak? And a lot of the thing was like, no, no, no, no.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Like we, we cannot speak about Gerard. And I finally just sort of was like going around, listening and seeing if I heard French accents and going up to people.

• 39:58David Sims?

  Profiling people, Esther.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Well, yeah. Um, and so I found, you know, like a publicist who's like, you know, and, and the quotes were exactly what you would expect, which is like, he's probably guilty, probably, I found the quote, probably guilty, probably been a very bad man, but he's also been, he has been also more respectful. A man who has achieved an unbelievable work in many domains. And it's just like, it was so like walking around and everyone's blowing cigarette smoke in my face. It was just like the most, but I think there's been a, yeah, years and years and years of this happening and being like, whoa, but he's Gerard. This is, this is what Gerard does. He's, this is fine.

• 40:38David Sims?

  France's whole response to Me Too made America looked like fucking. Point 10, you know, like, like, it's just like where they're always just like, uh, yes, but he is good actor, you know, and I'm being, I'm doing a dumb accent and I'm being like silly and dismissive about it. But it is true that when you like, like artists would just like sign petitions randomly defending people. And it's like, why? And they're like, well, he is such a celebr- like, how can you attack art?

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:03David Sims?

  This is, you know, you are lynching this man, you know? Presidents.

• 41:06Griffin Newman?

  Right. The tone is very often like, you know, who knows if these things are true. And even if they are true, such things happen.

• 41:15David Sims?

  Boys will be boys, you know, blah, blah, blah.

• 41:17Griffin Newman?

  But what we cannot deny is that Gerard gave us 50 years of film history.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:23Griffin Newman?

  And how dare you threaten to erase that? Like the French's response.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  They do not care. Like he was found guilty and they were like.

• 41:30David Sims?

  I think it's getting a little more serious that like, I do feel like there's been genuine cultural, like sort of.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  And there have been people who've taken like an incredible stand, like Adel Hennel.

• 41:43Griffin Newman?

  But it's basically only this current younger generation of French filmmakers and actors who are actually pushing back on the thing. And even so have experienced insane career repercussions. Um, but yeah, no, their attitude is just like, it felt like what they saw was, oh, so what? People say a story about Kevin Spacey and now Kevin Spacey movies no longer exist. They cannot do that to our culture. And they get so defensive about like.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Honestly, they feel that way about like Kevin Spacey too.

• 42:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  He was all over Cannes last year too.

• 42:16David Sims?

  Other thing is that he became this like comical, like cube of a man.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:22David Sims?

  Who not only was like credibly accused of basically just being a total creep, you know, for decades, but also was like, and I will pay no taxes.

• 42:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 42:33David Sims?

  And I can piss anywhere on an airplane that I want. And like, you know, it was just like, he was just this like cartoon villain, like.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

  But he was given like such cultural indulgence, right? That you're like, this guy is just like.

• 42:47David Sims?

  He randomly like wrote a letter about how Putin is good. Like he was really freelancing out into other areas of evil, like in the 2010s and 2020s. Like, kind of like the sort of Steven Seagal approach of like, I'm flooding the zone, like bad in every direction.

• 43:02Griffin Newman?

  And also like my, my uncle, who's an actor in France is just like, yeah, it's like one of the open secrets that Gerard has used an earpiece for like 25 years. Even when he's doing like stage, when he's doing TV, when he's doing film, like he's a lazy piece of shit and he doesn't learn his lines. That is me quoting an angry working actor in France at like how much they let Depardieu get away with. And basically would say like he shows up and he doesn't know what the character is and the audience applauds. Like he just became so deeply tied reputationally to the idea of French cinema. Like this is our living legend and nothing he could do would distort the sort of enormity of all of it. So just made so many fucking movies.

• 43:46David Sims?

  A ton of movies.

• 43:48Griffin Newman?

  It's like 15 years.

• 43:49David Sims?

  A bunch in Hollywood, but way more in France.

• 43:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 43:52David Sims?

  And he's sort of-

• 43:53Griffin Newman?

  In every genre.

• 43:54David Sims?

  Right. He's sort of successfully morphed from young, you know, interesting actor to leading man to like older comic actor, supporting to Obelix.

• 44:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like he even-

• 44:04David Sims?

  I mean, when they were making the Asterix movie, they were like, there is one Obelix. And it is Gerard Depardieu.

• 44:08Griffin Newman?

  I remember-

• 44:09David Sims?

  But no one else could play this man.

• 44:11Griffin Newman?

  I remember reading an Asterix book in like the early 90s. And in the front page, they had a caricature of Gerard Depardieu-

• 44:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 44:20Griffin Newman?

  -as Obelix. And I was like, why'd they make it Depardieu? And my mom was like, because they just know he's gonna play him in a movie at some point.

• 44:27David Sims?

  It'll happen. Because like the Asterix keeps changing in those movies and Depardieu is Obelix for the first four. Like he didn't change.

• 44:34Griffin Newman?

  Here's how I would put it, Ben. Okay? Imagine if the biggest star in Hollywood, and I know in your head, you're probably thinking John Goodman, right?

• 44:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 44:45Griffin Newman?

  Was not asked to play live action Fred Flintstone, was basically asked to play live action Barney Rubble.

• 44:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:54Griffin Newman?

  He did it like-

• 44:55David Sims?

  Obelix is sort of the Barney.

• 44:56Griffin Newman?

  10 times.

• 44:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 44:58Griffin Newman?

  And the guy playing live action Barney Rubble had over decades been seen as the nation's greatest heartthrob.

• 45:04David Sims?

  Right.

• 45:04Griffin Newman?

  Or most intense dramatic actor.

• 45:06David Sims?

  I mean-

• 45:07Griffin Newman?

  Like all of it, you know? And you're like, now kids are like, yeah, Obelix.

• 45:22Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 45:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:26David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 45:29David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 45:30Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:36David Sims?

  Okay.

• 45:36Griffin Newman?

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

• 45:41David Sims?

  Wow.

• 45:41Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 45:43David Sims?

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

• 45:50Griffin 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.

• 46:02David Sims?

  Yes.

• 46:02Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 46:03David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 46:04Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:10David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 46:11Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:14David Sims?

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

• 46:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 46:18David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 46:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 46:20David Sims?

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

• 46:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 46:25David Sims?

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

• 46:28Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show.

• 46:29David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 46:30Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 46:31David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 46:32Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 46:33David Sims?

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

• 46:43Griffin Newman?

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

• 46:58David Sims?

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

• 47:02Griffin Newman?

  What happens? 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.

• 47:14David 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.

• 47:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 47:37Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 47:38David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 47:38Griffin Newman?

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

• 47:46David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 47:47Griffin 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.

• 47:55David Sims?

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

• 48:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:01David Sims?

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

• 48:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 48:11David Sims?

  No.

• 48:12Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 48:12David Sims?

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

• 49:00Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 49:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 49:01Griffin Newman?

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

• 49:05David Sims?

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

• 49:10Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 49:12David Sims?

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

• 49:19Griffin 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.

• 49:28David Sims?

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

• 49:51Griffin 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.

• 50:23David Sims?

  All right, I'm going to open the dossier before we can, we can return to this sort of where Deprado was in his career for Green Card. But I want to open the dust. Witness, Peter Weir. He's transitioned to Hollywood. He made a massive hit called Witness, wins two Academy Awards.

• 50:36Griffin Newman?

  John Book.

• 50:38David Sims?

  His name is John Book.

• 50:39Griffin Newman?

  His name is John Book.

• 50:39David Sims?

  He's got to go to Amish country.

• 50:40Griffin Newman?

  He witnessed.

• 50:41David Sims?

  You like Witness?

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 50:43David Sims?

  Witness the Fitness?

• 50:45Griffin Newman?

  Witness the Fitness?

• 50:46David Sims?

  British song. People will understand.

• 50:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, my God.

• 50:49David Sims?

  Uh, his follow up.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  I thought I was like, what?

• 50:51David Sims?

  Witness. His follow up, The Mosquito Coast, not successful, not.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  I like that movie.

• 50:56David Sims?

  I do too, but you know, you know, sort of went over a little tepidly at the time, doesn't really get awards and so on and so forth. Peter, we're very frustrated by this. Thinks about getting out of Hollywood altogether. Um, and, uh, you know, he hasn't written a movie since You're Living Dangerously. That's the last time he's credited, uh, on a screenplay. But so then he's just kind of like, I think I should just write something for myself. It can be something commercial, but like, maybe this is what I'm frustrated about right now. Green Card is kind of, he says, it's like, it's, I gotta get back in the game.

• 51:28Griffin Newman?

  His movies have been getting more epic too. He was working in extreme landscapes, period, different cultures. Yeah.

• 51:34David Sims?

  The way he puts it, I was reviving something Frank Capra had perfected, the romantic comedy, a light snack.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  I do love a light snack.

• 51:42David Sims?

  Girl dinner, as they say.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Is our rom coms now girl dinner?

• 51:47David Sims?

  Our rom coms girl dinner. Now, of course, rom coms have to be about FBI agents who are rumbled and it turns out they're they're going to do a spy mission.

• 51:54Griffin Newman?

  There was one.

• 51:55David Sims?

  Is there another one?

• 51:56Griffin Newman?

  There was one announced, I think, yesterday, a new Eddie Murphy, and I'm astonished to say this, streaming movie.

• 52:03David Sims?

  Wait, Eddie Murphy wants to make a straight to streaming movie? It won't be anonymous.

• 52:08Griffin Newman?

  He has some weird medical condition where if they project him onto a big screen.

• 52:12David Sims?

  He melts.

• 52:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:13David Sims?

  Like Alex Mack.

• 52:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:14David Sims?

  Bottle of metal.

• 52:15Griffin Newman?

  I'm just waiting for him to start to become the first actor with an exclusive deal with Delta Airlines.

• 52:20David Sims?

  No, he's gonna be the first actor who's like, they AI'd me. I'm a fucking AI now.

• 52:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 52:24David Sims?

  They could just put me in anything now.

• 52:25Griffin Newman?

  I watched his last one, The Drop, which sucks. Eva Longoria plays his wife in it and is quite good. They've announced that, of course, they now need to re-team, as if the public's demanding another.

• 52:34David Sims?

  Wait, he made a movie called The Drop?

• 52:36Griffin Newman?

  Or it's called The Take?

• 52:37Speaker 02

  There's another movie called The Drop.

• 52:39David Sims?

  Yeah, cuz The Drop is the one with Tom Hardy.

• 52:40Griffin Newman?

  Maybe it's called The Pickup?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  And then there's Drop.

• 52:43Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Which is the phone one.

• 52:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:45David Sims?

  Looks like Pete Davidson's in this one, too.

• 52:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. Kiki Palmer.

• 52:48David Sims?

  Was Pete Davidson?

• 52:49Griffin Newman?

  Eva Longoria.

• 52:49David Sims?

  Was he playing a character that's like really different from like his general vibe as a guy?

• 52:53Griffin Newman?

  David, you joke. I would argue the problem with that movie is he is playing a character that is way too different from his general vibe as a guy.

• 53:00David Sims?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 53:01Griffin Newman?

  It is Pete Davidson as, I can't get laid, I don't know how to talk to girls. And I'm like, are you fucking winking at the cameras this whole movie?

• 53:08David Sims?

  But I feel like Eddie Murphy looks at him and is like, is that his deal? Like Eddie Murphy's just like so on planet famous, he's like, what's this nerd's deal?

• 53:17Griffin Newman?

  That's the energy of the movie is like Pete Davidson making Eddie Murphy look at text exchanges. Eddie Murphy being like, I don't fucking know, shut up.

• 53:24David Sims?

  So you didn't like it?

• 53:25Griffin Newman?

  No, it sucks.

• 53:26David Sims?

  Okay.

• 53:26Griffin Newman?

  It's a movie for idiots and losers.

• 53:28David Sims?

  But he's announced another streaming film, of course.

• 53:30Griffin Newman?

  Eva Longoria is kinda good in it.

• 53:32David Sims?

  Okay.

• 53:33Griffin Newman?

  And then it's like they got a re-team. The chemistry was so undeniable on Amazon Prime. That they're making a new movie and it was called like parental attachment style or something like that?

• 53:43David Sims?

  I saw, I believe I saw.

• 53:46Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, okay.

• 53:48David Sims?

  Attachment parenting.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  Attachment parenting. And I was like, okay, okay. That's like, sounds low concept enough. It's like a green card-esque title. Is it just about the two parents empty nesting? No, it's about they get. Get tied into the mob.

• 54:03David Sims?

  Right. Relationship is put to the ultimate test when they're forced to counsel a crime boss's family while being held hostage.

• 54:09Griffin Newman?

  Great. Sounds like it has a bunch of fucking guns in it.

• 54:12David Sims?

  Probably has a lot of guns.

• 54:13Griffin Newman?

  Like the first.

• 54:14David Sims?

  Couple of guns.

• 54:14Griffin Newman?

  Sense of that, I was like, is it just gonna be Eva Longori and Eddie Murphy have to figure out what their marriage is like now that their kids have left the house?

• 54:21David Sims?

  Professional comedy. Yeah.

• 54:22Griffin Newman?

  Right. And just let them talk to each other.

• 54:24David Sims?

  A light snack.

• 54:26Griffin Newman?

  A light snack. It sounds like a light snack. Can we talk a little sort of like larger rom com theory here, Esther?

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Okay. What do you mean?

• 54:34Griffin Newman?

  Well, I just, the modes of rom com and sort of like what we each believe in in terms of like what makes a fruitful rom com.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:44Griffin Newman?

  There is a thing this movie does that I value greatly and I realized while watching it, how few examples I could think of, of this being utilized, which is I am often frustrated by the rom com that is predicated on a lie.

• 54:58David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. You know, the lie is gonna get busted up.

• 55:01Griffin Newman?

  Fall in love and it's just kind of an annoying tension till they get to the conversation and they blow up and someone has to come apologize for being mad about a thing they should have been mad about in the first place.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:11Griffin Newman?

  Right? This movie is they're in the same lie.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:16David Sims?

  Uh, yes, right, right, right.

• 55:17Griffin Newman?

  They meet each other, basically.

• 55:18David Sims?

  For different reasons.

• 55:19Griffin Newman?

  Forming a lie.

• 55:20David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 55:20Griffin Newman?

  But they're 100% on the same page within that, which is so much better as a kind of like pressure cooker for tensions to develop.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think, I do think there are other examples, um, though nothing is coming to my, I'm sure if I thought about it harder. Um, but I think the, the situation with the, like the rom com of deception. Is always hard because then somebody needs to forgive someone.

• 55:51David Sims?

  Sure.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  And you always have, and then, and sometimes it works and sometimes it like absolutely doesn't. And that's like, but it's been, I mean, and that has been like, for instance, like the, um, the Doris Day, Rock Hudson rom coms, like two of them, not the last one, but like, are all like, he's pretending to be a Texas guy and she is like a working woman and like literally, you know, at the end of Pillow Talk, he literally like carries her out of bed and like, you know, brings her home. And it's like, okay, she's fallen in love with him, but do we really believe this?

• 56:26David Sims?

  The movie has to end. So that's what we, we have.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  The movie has to end. So that's what we have to do. And obviously it always seems more fair when either the lie is so outrageous or there's so much of a double sort of standard, like, I think, like, I think sometimes the, the lies work when, you know, it's for instance, a like Lady Eve where she sort of double crosses him and then double crosses him again. And it's like triple crosses him. I don't know. I don't know numbers.

• 57:06David Sims?

  I.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  But, um, how many crossing?

• 57:09David Sims?

  I'm going to give you some other ones.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:11David Sims?

  While you were sleeping.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:12David Sims?

  The most insane built on a lie things ever where you're like, I love this movie, except for she will eventually have to reveal, I am a psychopath, like, or I had been.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  I mean, you've got mail.

• 57:21David Sims?

  Sleepless in Seattle and you've got mail. Both have this.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:24David Sims?

  Um, I'm trying to think what else.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Well, does Sleepless in Seattle actually has it have it outside of the fact that she, it doesn't really, she's like stalking him, but like, you know, she doesn't really lie to him.

• 57:36David Sims?

  No, that's more, she's just being insane.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  That's more, she's being insane. You've got mail is more the like, he actually lies to her.

• 57:44David Sims?

  He's not telling her something.

• 57:46Griffin Newman?

  What, what's interesting to me is Lady Eve, which I think is as good as any rom com ever made.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  Does the triple lie at least? And yet it almost feels like it pushing it that far is a commentary on how many rom coms were already built upon lies at that point.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:02Griffin Newman?

  Like, it feels like the postmodern version of like, they're just gonna keep fucking lying to each other. And then spoilers, the end of that movie is the guy being like, I don't even fucking care what reality is.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, but the thing is, is they break up in the first place with that movie because he is mad, he actually is mad at her for lying to him. And then she gets pissed at him. So she get, because she actually does fall in love. So then she lies to him again to back, and then he's just so confused. And that's the screwball thing that happens all the time, which is like, they just get so confused at the end, like someone just gets so confused at the end and they're like, whatever, let's fuck.

• 58:36Griffin Newman?

  But his takeaway is also like, the energy of you as a person is who I want to be with and who I am in love with. I'll work out whoever the fuck you actually are later.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:47Griffin Newman?

  Is kind of, yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I feel like there's some, you know, I mean, this is a shitty movie. Well, it's not a shitty movie, but like.

• 58:55David Sims?

  This movie?

• 58:56Speaker 02

  No.

• 58:56David Sims?

  Oh, the movie you're about to.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  The movie I'm about to say. I do think there are some that try to do like double deception, like, you know, I don't like this movie very much, but like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

• 59:07David Sims?

  That's a classic. They're both lying about different things.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  They're both lying about different things. And so you're sort of like, but I, I mean, I just don't think that movie is that good.

• 59:15Griffin Newman?

  No. I think the unified lie is an underused power move.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:20Griffin Newman?

  And I think it's also because the best rom coms are, there is a circumstantial reason these two people need to be together.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:29Griffin Newman?

  There's a reason they can't leave. This is like forged in fire. And you can have the arc of like, they're driving each other crazy and then they start to connect and then they realize their feelings and they hurt each other in a way that doesn't feel like, hey, why wouldn't you walk out the front door? Why are you still bothering with this guy?

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, and there've been some more we have to date, you know, to like more recent ones.

• 59:51David Sims?

  It's such a romance novel trope.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like we have to fake dating to in order to, but I think what's interesting about this is that also they don't. They don't, getting into it, they don't think they have to spend any time together. Whereas the fake dating thing has, is often, oh, we have to pretend like we're in love. And so then we actually fall in love. This event gets there eventually, but they literally are like, bye.

• 1:00:16Griffin Newman?

  Once again, it's why the tagline's good because

• 1:00:19David Sims?

  They meet?

• 1:00:20Griffin Newman?

  They fucking, no.

• 1:00:21David Sims?

  I mean, they get married?

• 1:00:22Griffin Newman?

  They get married, then they meet. They don't exchange pleasantries until after they marry.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Griffin Newman?

  And it's a like, so long for the road. I guess I should know what your name was.

• 1:00:31David Sims?

  Peter Weir, great quote. I thought Green Card was a film that should be seen at five o'clock in the afternoon. The perfect sort of late matinee. I never thought of it as a night out sort of film.

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  Initially, he wrote it for an Englishman, right? Like that was his, that was his concept, right? You know, it would happen one night. He put it in a bottom drawer, cause he said, just kind of felt irrelevant. Felt like it'd been done before. Like I was writing it for like a Dudley Moore, you know? Gerard Depardieu. He's told many different stories of how he sort of first noticed him. But it's basically like, I kept seeing this guy in movies. Now, the movie he cites the most often is Danton, the great Andre Wajah movie about the French Revolution, which is mostly, which rocks, especially if you love the French Revolution, like I do. But is a lot of sweaty, hot Depardieu as Georges Danton in his final days. Basically like going like, oh, they are going to execute me. This is so bad.

• 1:01:27David Sims?

  And then yelling at everybody, why would you do that to me?

• 1:01:31Griffin Newman?

  Part of the riddle for American audiences is they'd be like, they think he's hot?

• 1:01:36David Sims?

  A little bit, but I, look, I'm sorry. Like I think Gerard Depardieu is so hot. I like, you know, nineties, eighties and nineties Depardieu. Yes, absolutely. Like he, I find him incredibly magnetic.

• 1:01:47Griffin Newman?

  Get it in this movie.

• 1:01:49David Sims?

  I, I, I super get it in like Last Metro and shit like that, like all that stuff.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Earlier stuff part two. I think here he, here he feels inches inching to

• 1:02:00David Sims?

  Quasimodo.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  I mean, the hair is all

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  Slouching towards Quasimodo.

• 1:02:05Griffin Newman?

  He's a full shrek.

• 1:02:06David Sims?

  Because he's always got the like, this like cloak on. It just makes him look like some

• 1:02:12Griffin Newman?

  I know. We've said this about other actors before, and I just want to say, as a hyperbolic person, I'm about to say it and mean it as the ultimate. He has the most face of any person ever.

• 1:02:26David Sims?

  There's so many crevices and contours.

• 1:02:30Griffin Newman?

  It's insane.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  And it also just like, there's no way you can point a camera on him and that face not taking up like the full frame. It's just like.

• 1:02:38Griffin Newman?

  It's like a fucking, it's like a Frank Gehry building or something. You're trying to figure out how it's like set up.

• 1:02:44David Sims?

  You know, it's interesting, his son, you know, Guillaume Depardieu, who died very young, right? Like, but like, he, you know, who he had with Elise Fontre, right? His sort of very beautiful wife, was sort of like, what if you kind of programmed a computer to make a sort of more conventionally handsome Depardieu, but you don't lose the nose? Like, you still see him in it, but it's kind of like, this is like the sanded off Gerard.

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  I think it was Let the Sunshine In.

• 1:03:09David Sims?

  That's sure.

• 1:03:10Griffin Newman?

  The Claire Desmings film where he comes in at the very end.

• 1:03:13David Sims?

  A movie about how French men are. Normal.

• 1:03:17Griffin Newman?

  A movie I love.

• 1:03:18David Sims?

  Great movie.

• 1:03:19Griffin Newman?

  And ends with France's most normal man being her therapist, her like spiritual.

• 1:03:25David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, it's a good twist.

• 1:03:28Griffin Newman?

  And he shows up just in a close up, like jump scare, cut in.

• 1:03:31David Sims?

  He's like a psychic. He's like reading her fortune.

• 1:03:34Griffin Newman?

  Like 80, 90 minutes in, I swear to God, for a second I went like, is this movie in 3D? Just looking at his face in 2015 or whatever. And you saying like, Peter Weir was like, who's this French man who keeps popping up on my screens?

• 1:03:47David Sims?

  Little bit. I can't shake this guy.

• 1:03:49Griffin Newman?

  He wasn't buying tickets for Depardieu movies. There were just Depardieu movies playing on the screen next over and his nose slid in.

• 1:03:56David Sims?

  I invade. So he writes this screenplay with Depardieu mine, doesn't tell the actor, I'm thinking about you or anything like that. He's just kind of like, all right, the Englishman thing is not sparking for me. What if I wrote it for a Frenchman? He's afraid of calling him up to say that he did this. So instead he. Took a picture of him that ran with an interview he gave in the local paper and he kept it on his desk and he would just look at it, I guess, probably just go like, whoa, like, every time he looked, wow, there he is again. Danton, he likes the picture. The Frenchman, Gerard Depardieu, had never given an English language performance. So it's not even like, you're not even automatically assuming he'd work, you know, in a movie where

• 1:04:36David Sims?

  he has to speak English. Here's how, uh, here's the things that he was interested by. His masculinity, his vulnerability, his mysterious contradictory quality of child and man, beauty and beast. I mean, yeah, sure.

• 1:04:49Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing I'll, I'll throw out that I think's worth considering as well. He's just done Peter Weir, three big A-list Hollywood movie star movies in a row.

• 1:04:59David Sims?

  Two Harrison Fords and then, um,

• 1:05:01Griffin Newman?

  Robin Williams. He gets along with these guys really well, but that's a level of stardom where the plus side is automatic green light, big budget given to you, confidence from studio. The downside is you're kind of, you've got some co-authoring with those guys.

• 1:05:16David Sims?

  And you're on their rails. Yeah. And like, obviously he, with Mosquito Coast, he went against type with Ford and Ford's there with him. Yeah. But then the reaction from everyone is like, this doesn't make sense for Harrison Ford. Like at the time, everyone was just like, nah, he's trying to do something he can't do.

• 1:05:31Griffin Newman?

  It does feel like he is strategically here trying to make a movie where he, it can be his movie and he is selecting actors. And unlike those guys who are going to command a big salary, but also an automatic green light, the alternate way to go about this is to basically bet on movie star futures and get two people who are in a transitional state where you can point to, here's what's worked up until now. And if I can get this, them over this line, suddenly you have a movie star who's worth more than you paid for them.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  There's also, but that's such an interesting thing in the case of. Depardieu, I think, because I think usually when you're betting on movie star futures, it's that people haven't fully figured out their persona yet when you're betting on. And here, the movie does have to be so catered to the Depardieu-ness of it all because he's so, like, there's no way for him not to be that. So it's just an interesting thing because he, he's, yes, he's not Harrison Ford, but...

• 1:06:40David Sims?

  Did you ever do like an action movie?

• 1:06:41Griffin Newman?

  Harrison Ford?

• 1:06:42David Sims?

  No, Gerard Depardieu.

• 1:06:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it was, uh, I don't know.

• 1:06:48David Sims?

  I genuinely was wondering.

• 1:06:49Griffin Newman?

  Him buying a fucking piece of ham, I don't know. No, I don't know. I feel like he never was that.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  I guess what it's saying is that like, he has such a star persona, you know?

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he does. He does.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  And that's just an interesting sort of, you know?

• 1:07:02Griffin Newman?

  And his, his star persona is like...

• 1:07:04Speaker 02

  And obviously it's untested in the United States, but it's also just so like, the minute you see it, you're like, okay, I get it, you know?

• 1:07:12Griffin Newman?

  His star persona was inherently a little lascivious. And it starts with him making these like really edgy sex comedies where he's a young man. And it's just sort of like, man, this like young dumb, full of cum guy who's got this life to him. You know, and he's like built like a fucking rugby player. And, and then, yes, as it goes on, it's like he becomes this more legitimate, like versatile, heavyweight leading man, but there is always that like sexual charge to him. Which is like some of the stuff where I struggle with this movie. Where you're like, this character is not presented in a way that makes me uncomfortable. But the movie is pointing to a character and I can't stop thinking about how

• 1:07:54Griffin Newman?

  right past that line, real world Gerard Depardieu starts.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Well, no, and I, and obviously again, it's, you know... Trying to think of where we were then and where we are now. At the same time, I think one of the interesting things, and I agree with you, maybe, I wouldn't say troubling, but one of the things hurdles you have to get past is people keep talking about how dangerous this man is.

• 1:08:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes, right.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  And how he's, you know.

• 1:08:26Griffin Newman?

  It's baked into the text that this guy seems like he could.

• 1:08:29David Sims?

  Something unpredictable about him.

• 1:08:30Speaker 02

  And obviously, we get to the point where it's like, oh, he just did like kid stuff, whatever. And yet, you're sort of like, oh, did he do something real bad? Because I feel like this guy could have done something real bad.

• 1:08:41Griffin Newman?

  That's, that's the innate dangerous energy Debra Do has. And I think Weir was really smart to make a movie that leads with that.

• 1:08:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:49Griffin Newman?

  Right. You're, you're worried. And then the chips start to, the layers fall away.

• 1:08:52Speaker 02

  And he's, I mean, there's that moment where he gets mad and he slams the thing and her, her picture falls down and breaks glass. And I don't know, there's a weird, it's an interesting thing. And it's obviously modern opinions versus now, but there's an interesting thing to reckon with too, where, I don't know, if a man ever did that, like, that freaks me the fuck out, like a little bit, you know? And I think it gives the movie, I think, this oddness that you have to reckon with now.

• 1:09:22Griffin Newman?

  Which also, I, I like this movie a tremendous amount as well, but it is kind of predicated on Andie MacDowell keeps not being satisfied by these kind of hyper woke, liberal.

• 1:09:35David Sims?

  Greg Edelman.

• 1:09:36Griffin Newman?

  New York soft.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah.

• 1:09:38David Sims?

  Get him out of here.

• 1:09:39Griffin Newman?

  I know, but this movie sets up like a series of like.

• 1:09:42David Sims?

  He's the big one.

• 1:09:43Griffin Newman?

  Indefensible Baxter.

• 1:09:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Griffin Newman?

  And then the way she talks about her past relationships.

• 1:09:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:48Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, this guy doesn't even eat meat? All of this is not stuff I hold against the movie.

• 1:09:54David Sims?

  It's the no oil, no salt is where Edelman loses me.

• 1:09:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57David Sims?

  Or no butter, no salt, whatever.

• 1:09:58Griffin Newman?

  It does feel like in doing that, the framework is anything you might find unsavory about Gerard Depardieu is just a byproduct of him being quote unquote, a real man.

• 1:10:09David Sims?

  Well, it must suck.

• 1:10:10Griffin Newman?

  Real men do get angry.

• 1:10:11David Sims?

  Edelman gets the fucking call for this. It's like, you're playing a chinless loser.

• 1:10:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:10:16David Sims?

  Debra G is gonna throw you through the window.

• 1:10:18Griffin Newman?

  And also, Depardieu like fucking clocks you for being too sexually pushy? Like, that's the worst case scenario as an actor, is Depardieu is like, you are not respecting women's boundaries.

• 1:10:32Griffin Newman?

  Throwing him down a flight of stairs.

• 1:10:34David Sims?

  Playing Georges Fare.

• 1:10:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:35David Sims?

  So Debra Ju reads the script finally loves it says for me this is a great situation. You can make a comedy with this, but you can also make the truth. He likes the, you know, the setup. He's committed to make two other movies, so he can't shoot green card for the year and a half. We're is like, ah, fuck, like, I want to make this. Katzenberg's like,

• 1:10:53Griffin Newman?

  What year is this?

• 1:10:54David Sims?

  We're talking probably like 88 or whatever, because Katzenberg at Disney goes like, it's fine, we'll put the movie on hold, we can start in 18 months. Here's the script, by the way, in the meantime, Dead Poets Society goes off and makes Dead Poets Society. And so Katzenberg is, and then Katzenberg is like, you can have final cut on green card. I like this script. It's not going to be expensive. Like, go for it, you know, which cool, like, like God bless. Like, they don't do that much anymore. And we're, I think somewhat convinces Disney to basically just be a distributor, gets a lot of like independent financing, like maybe like an Australian French co-production.

• 1:11:33Griffin Newman?

  There was still,

• 1:11:34David Sims?

  That's like a big profit from the, like, we were made like a ton of money off this movie because he had like a genuine cut.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he got the Australian film board to partially finance this movie.

• 1:11:45David Sims?

  He's making it essentially. No Australians are in it.

• 1:11:47Griffin Newman?

  Right, I guess at that point in time, there was still a lower tier kind of level of support you could get if it is a Australian filmmaker and some number of Australian crew people, even if you don't film in Australia or with any Australian cast. So he really built this movie in a way that is closer to modern film financing and kind of made out like a bandit. Yeah. While having the full support of Disney in the United States.

• 1:12:11David Sims?

  He, Debra Ju barely spoke English. They would translate the screenplay into French for him and then translate it back in English, so he understood what he was saying. Debra Ju's famously like completely lost in 1492, which is the Ridley Scott movie in which he plays Christopher Columbus. It's one of the worst, it's the worst Ridley Scott movie ever made. It sucks so, so hard. And I think part of what happened there was he truly did not know the lines he was saying. Is like what these supposedly, you know, and Ridley Scott was probably just like eating cigars and just being like, just get on with it or whatever.

• 1:12:40Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this movie benefits from leaning into his like rough franglais.

• 1:12:46David Sims?

  Right, exactly. Yeah, it's sort of, it doesn't even, right, it doesn't even matter.

• 1:12:50Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:13:00Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:13:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:13:06David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:06Griffin 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?

• 1:13:17David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:13:19Griffin 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.

• 1:13:41David Sims?

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

• 1:13:53Griffin 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.

• 1:14:02David Sims?

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

• 1:14:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:05David Sims?

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

• 1:14:12Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:14:28Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:14:31David 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.

• 1:14:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:15:03Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:15:04David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:15:04Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:15:08David Sims?

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

• 1:15:18Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:15:22David Sims?

  They're changing the way people bank. They're not like traditional banks who charge fees and get 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?

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee-free. We love it.

• 1:15:37David Sims?

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

• 1:15:42Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:15:43David Sims?

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

• 1:15:57Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free?

• 1:15:58David Sims?

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

• 1:16:13Speaker 04

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

• 1:16:34Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:16:34David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:16:35Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:16:55David Sims?

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

• 1:17:15Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:17:31David Sims?

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

• 1:18:07David Sims?

  Stephard, you didn't really have a desire to be a Hollywood actor, didn't feel like he was ever going to become one based on how he speaks, right? And like, I do feel like, though he made a lot of Hollywood movies, after this, he largely just sort of plays villains or comical oafs.

• 1:18:24Griffin Newman?

  My Father the Hero is the year after this. That's certainly comical oaf then

• 1:18:28David Sims?

  What's the Dalmatian?

• 1:18:29Griffin Newman?

  1492 is the year after that. The Dalmatian?

• 1:18:32David Sims?

  He's in, isn't he in 102 Dalmatian?

• 1:18:34Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's in 102.

• 1:18:34David Sims?

  Yeah, he's, isn't he the villain in that?

• 1:18:36Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's Crellis' right hand man.

• 1:18:39David Sims?

  Right. I saw that film in years.

• 1:18:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, the French My Father the Hero is 91, the American remake, which he also starred in was three years later. And then there, I feel like there's one other big, well, there's like Bogus, which is insane.

• 1:18:55David Sims?

  Never, never even heard of that one.

• 1:18:57Griffin Newman?

  Bogus is Norman Jewison's last theatrical film, I believe. Unless, no, no, The Hurricane.

• 1:19:02David Sims?

  The big three, Will Pico, Jared Dupont, and Hilli J. Osmond.

• 1:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's Haley Joel Osment is an orphaned boy who's taken in by Whoopi as his godmother and Gerard Depardieu is his drunk, French, invisible friend named Bogus.

• 1:19:16David Sims?

  So far, it sounds like a role he's suited for.

• 1:19:19Griffin Newman?

  But then, right, he's in Branagh Hamlet, he's in Man in the Iron Mask.

• 1:19:23David Sims?

  Right. Well, he's, he's obviously right. In Man in the Iron Mask, that's kind of where they found him.

• 1:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:19:28David Sims?

  That kind of like, yeah, you can play drunk, French musketeer.

• 1:19:31Griffin Newman?

  But then also, most importantly, in 1999, he does a film called Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar, and he's like, I don't need this American bullshit. I got an Asterix movie every three years, no matter what.

• 1:19:41David Sims?

  Yeah. And like, I mean, Griff, you and I have certainly both seen Le Placard, you know, like that gigantic hit. Like, he made, you know, he made giant French movies.

• 1:19:50Griffin Newman?

  A movie where you cannot believe Disney didn't remake that in 2005. Do you know this movie, Esther?

• 1:19:56David Sims?

  I do not.

• 1:19:57Griffin Newman?

  It's Daniel LaToye as a man who's going to be fired from his job as an exec at a condom company.

• 1:20:03David Sims?

  It is at a condom company. It's the most French ass.

• 1:20:05Griffin Newman?

  And his next door neighbor is like an old, sad, gay, French man who was like, I could never come out, but I tried to march in this and that. But the times have changed. And now if I were gay, they wouldn't have been able to fire me. And it inspires Daniel LaToye, and he tells everyone that he's gay and he was fired by discrimination.

• 1:20:24David Sims?

  Well, and it's like, because they're a condom company, they cannot fire a gay man, is the implication.

• 1:20:29Griffin Newman?

  But then they basically make him like the spokesperson for the company. They keep traveling, like pushing him around, saying like, look at our gay employee.

• 1:20:36David Sims?

  And Gerard Depardieu plays the boss who has to do the Seinfeld-y like, not that there's anything wrong with that, and then starts to be like, am I in love with?

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Depardieu is incredibly funny in it.

• 1:20:47David Sims?

  He's very funny.

• 1:20:48Griffin Newman?

  It's like perfect.

• 1:20:49David Sims?

  It's a really dumb movie. It was like, it made like one trillion francs. It was like a giant smash.

• 1:20:54Griffin Newman?

  It won the Olympics that year. France submitted it in track and field. But yes, like, that's the kind of stuff he then gets into where it's like, he's playing Obelix, he's playing like funny supporting guy. He'll have like-

• 1:21:07David Sims?

  He does art movies.

• 1:21:08Griffin Newman?

  Two scenes behind a desk and in a cop drama or whatever it is. It does feel like he kind of never did a movie where he was running around holding a gun. But even like him showing up in like Lovey on Rose was just sort of like, if you're gonna make a legitimate French movie, you need three minutes of Depardieu. He's like blessing your production.

• 1:21:26David Sims?

  Maybe, but I do feel like he stopped like the whole thing with him in the seventies and eighties is he is a true collaborator with like a lot of the like giant French filmmakers. And that kind of goes away. He's still like a mainstay in French cinema, but he is not being picked up by like the newer names in French cinema at all.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

  I think he stops being collaborative, period. And I think he becomes a shut up and pay me guy.

• 1:21:47David Sims?

  Evil asshole who's right, impossible to work with and is the sex offender.

• 1:21:51Griffin Newman?

  There's one I really like called, uh, When I Was The Singer. And it's him and Cécile de France.

• 1:21:58David Sims?

  When I was a singer.

• 1:22:01Griffin Newman?

  It's called something like that.

• 1:22:02David Sims?

  Constatation Tour by Xavier Gianoli.

• 1:22:07Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of an attempt to do a, a

• 1:22:10David Sims?

  sort of fabulous Baker Boys thing, like he's one of the few remaining dance band singers in France.

• 1:22:15Griffin Newman?

  It's that plus Lost in Translation. Yeah, it's the sort of like weird, is this guy sad, stuck in the middle in a loop? Kind of movie that I thought he was very good in. Yes. But it definitely feels like the 2000s are the last time where he even kind of gives a shit.

• 1:22:31David Sims?

  I mean, true, like if you look at his, yeah, it's like, I just have not heard of many of these movies and I've not heard of many of these filmmakers. Whereas in the seventies, you know, he worked with Rene, he worked with Bertolucci, obviously.

• 1:22:45Griffin Newman?

  He worked with Truffaut.

• 1:22:46David Sims?

  Yes, I mean, that last match was incredible. Like, uh, he worked with, you know, Bertrand Blier. You know, Under the Son of Satan is a big movie that is Marcus Pliat. You know, he's a zillion things. And obviously Jean de Floret is like kind of a big breakout.

• 1:23:03Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:03David Sims?

  You know, all the way to America.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  It's another thing that helps push him to America. But like 2022, which is the last year before his legal troubles completely consume him, he has seven credits. And I think what you're talking about Esther of like the, the act of trying to introduce a star, right? Or like, Explode them in that way, getting someone who has the potential and the juice potentially, was so different at this point in time with international stars.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Griffin Newman?

  Because it's like, it is insane. I think it is one of the few things where I feel the need to constantly give Netflix credit. Netflix figured out how to get people over subtitles. Right. It is fascinating. Right, right, right. Right? That it was just always like, even people would struggle with British shows and you'd have to fucking remake them in English, you know, in American English. And Netflix has just made it like, we are an international company, everything goes on the same site, it catches on with this audience.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  And you watched it with subtitle, you watch everything with subtitles.

• 1:24:04Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And so if like someone pops in Squid Game, Hollywood isn't like, oh, I watched this weird thing, this guy is good. How do we find a new way to introduce him to a new audience from square one as if to them, he hasn't done anything? It's like, no, put the Squid Game guy in Star Wars. Like, there, there is a kind of open playing field in that way. Even I feel like, like Omar Sy, who was like, one of the last guys where it's like, this dude's become the biggest star in France, let's put him in Jurassic World. And you're like, oh, he's in this, he hasn't really made an impact, he's in a couple other American action films, then he does Lupin French series and everyone's like, oh, cool, yeah, show us the real fucking thing.

• 1:24:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I do feel though, that there are still hurdles for a lot of these people in the sense that what, it was sort of what you were talking about earlier, so I don't want to repeat anything, but it's like, it's the Mads Mikkelsen thing of what they're getting in the United States is still like third lead in a Star Wars thing or, you know, sort of some villain role. You know, I think it was like, it was sort of what you were talking about with Li Bianhong on your No Other Choice episode, which is that like, you know.

• 1:25:26Speaker 02

  The American roles have not been, and this is, I mean, I guess this is not really post, his is not really post Squid Game, but like still, he's still, he's still getting better work in South Korea.

• 1:25:39Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's had like six franchisee, big budget movies in which he played a principal character and all of them are basically exactly the same and did nothing for his career other than normalizing his name above a poster in America. And then you're like, yeah. And then in his fucking homeland, he gets to do whatever the hell he wants. He's got like infinite range of versatility.

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  And like, I mean, I was just looking up because I was like, what has Omar Sy done? Like post? And it's like, he's doing a, you know, upcoming, he did the John Woo remake of The Killer and upcoming he has.

• 1:26:12David Sims?

  Some people tell me that was kind of good.

• 1:26:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I never watched it, but I heard it was directed. He directed it.

• 1:26:17Griffin Newman?

  And Natalie Emanuel?

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:19David Sims?

  Yeah, but I mean, John Woo doesn't have a perfect track record these days.

• 1:26:22Speaker 02

  No. Um, what was that Christmas movie?

• 1:26:24David Sims?

  That movie was Silent Night.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 1:26:26David Sims?

  The worst shit I ever saw.

• 1:26:27Speaker 02

  Uh, but Omar Sy's next big thing is Shadow Force, a Joe Carnahan, like, I think, direct to something.

• 1:26:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Griffin Newman?

  I think that's been in the can for a while. Netflix? I think that came out. Am I wrong?

• 1:26:41David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  No, it's, I mean, it says it's in post.

• 1:26:44Griffin Newman?

  I'll say this.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  I don't know. Whatever. Well, maybe that did come out. I have no.

• 1:26:47David Sims?

  Yeah, it came out last year.

• 1:26:48Griffin Newman?

  I went to see Thunderbolts and they were holding us. We couldn't leave the theater because.

• 1:26:54David Sims?

  Because you were so excited?

• 1:26:55Griffin Newman?

  Because the thunder force?

• 1:26:57Speaker 02

  Shadow Force.

• 1:26:58David Sims?

  The Shadow Force.

• 1:26:59Griffin Newman?

  Shadow Force. The Shadow Force premiere was happening at the same time.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:03Griffin Newman?

  And they held us in the lobby of the AMC Lincoln Square so that Omar Sy could get to his.

• 1:27:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:07David Sims?

  Like, God, the Shadow Force is here. Lupin, Lupin.

• 1:27:11Speaker 02

  I don't know. It still feels very hard for that true.

• 1:27:17Speaker 02

  Like crossover.

• 1:27:19Griffin Newman?

  It does.

• 1:27:20David Sims?

  Yeah, it's unusual.

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  In a leading role.

• 1:27:22Griffin Newman?

  I think the only thing that's changed is it used to be like Gerard Depardieu has been one of France's biggest stars since 1975. And now we are going to present them to you and explain to you how historic they are and ask you to just buy in here in his third decade. Right? And that's like, what would sometimes feel like a psy op of like, the way there was so much energy behind trying to get Robbie Williams to connect to America.

• 1:27:54Speaker 02

  Well, you make him a monkey.

• 1:27:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that it took him too long to figure that out. But everyone's response to that was just sort of like, why do you keep telling me how big this guy is? Let me form my own opinion. I think that tends to fuck people a little bit. And when Gerard Depardieu's whole thing is so strange to begin with, you're like,

• 1:28:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Griffin Newman?

  Are you tricking me?

• 1:28:14Speaker 02

  The hair is just, I, I don't.

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  You don't like my hair?

• 1:28:17Speaker 02

  I don't like.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  He's too mushroomy.

• 1:28:20Speaker 02

  Too mushroomy.

• 1:28:20David Sims?

  So Andy McDowell, he took a year to find her. Not that she was nobody, but like, you know, like he auditioned people for a long time. But he liked her.

• 1:28:28Griffin Newman?

  I assume he saw sex lies or was it?

• 1:28:31David Sims?

  Yeah. And Gerard loved sex lies and videotape.

• 1:28:33Griffin Newman?

  Weird. Which parts of that title do you think he liked?

• 1:28:35Speaker 02

  He was like, he was like, I too film.

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  I love to lie.

• 1:28:40Griffin Newman?

  He might've added like five more words to that title.

• 1:28:43David Sims?

  So Peter Weir, uh, really enjoyed making the film. Had final cut. He had a great, you know, incredible amount of control. Katzenberg did, did want the ending to change and was basically like, if you reshoot it, if they don't separate, if they humiliate the wreckage immigration officer, I think you're going to make like double your money. And Weir was just like, I thought about it, but I was just like, no way. Like the ending is the ending, like, which I also think Katzenberg's kind of wrong.

• 1:29:12Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:29:13David Sims?

  I mean, maybe.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Cat, Jeffrey Katzenberg is wrong.

• 1:29:16David Sims?

  Jeffrey Katzenberg make the sort of wrong decision?

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  Has he, I mean, what about if he had, if he comes up with an idea for

• 1:29:24Griffin Newman?

  I'm reading here.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  Vertical, short form.

• 1:29:27Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy you say that, Esther. I'm reading here in the dossier, he also pitched to Peter Weir, what if the ending is five minutes long? Doesn't play at the end of the movie. It plays as the final installment.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  Of a Quibi original you can only watch after sundown.

• 1:29:43David Sims?

  He was right about many things, obviously. He was once a very savvy executive. I mean, I guess he's just kind of going for the like, you need a happy ending for good word of mouth. But I think the green card ending leaves you feeling pretty satisfied.

• 1:29:56Speaker 02

  It's very satisfying.

• 1:29:57David Sims?

  They're gonna figure it out.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  That's for all my quibbles with Depardieu and how I couldn't, I was just like, oh, I love it. Like, I love the ending so much, you know, and it's perfect. I mean, I think that's another rom com thing that we like, talk about a lot. It's the perfect sort of like bitter sweet ending that I think some of my favorite rom coms do. That it's like, you know.

• 1:30:22David Sims?

  And you're watching the whole movie thinking, all right, so what are they gonna pick here for the end? Like, you know, like what, you know, because like, you know, the sort of roads this movie can take. And they picked the right one. Like, that's how I feel watching them. Like, yes, good, good job, guys.

• 1:30:35Speaker 02

  Like. Because it's because I think, and again, this is sort of the thing that I like about the movie. It's all of these beats that don't happen exactly the way you would expect them. And don't feel perfectly tied up in a bow. They don't have like some amazing sex and then are like, oh, I have to be with you. And they aren't like, and they don't get their happy, their perfect happy ending, but they do find that they're in love with each other. And he does have to go back to France. Like, it's just like, it's the, it's sort of.

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  The big moment is he gets it wrong.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:06David Sims?

  You know, in the interview. And that's when he realizes like, oh, but there are actually a million things I do love about her. And who cares that I've been obsessing over this?

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  Bob right now and ask him if he could name the face cream that I use though.

• 1:31:18David Sims?

  I feel like, I don't know. It's like in a blue container. I don't know the fucking name of it.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's funny that like, that is the one it hinges on where like, an obvious. And then, I mean, his bigger fuck up is that he says that he, I memorized all of them. I think that's how he messes up. If he had just not remembered it, he would have been fine. But it is funny that it's like, I, I guarantee you Bob would not be able to name the face cream that I use.

• 1:31:41David Sims?

  Hans Zimmer did the score. Young Hans Zimmer in his sort of more synthy days. Very good score, in my opinion. But the composer-

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Does have a little bit of that Hans Zimmer

• 1:31:52Speaker 02

  sort of exoticism that people sometimes get mad at them.

• 1:31:56David Sims?

  Well, his early, his early scores are very world music.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

• 1:32:00Speaker 03

  Do you revisit the score?

• 1:32:02David Sims?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:32:03Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:32:03David Sims?

  Those early Zimmer scores are really good. The Rain Man, this, there's a third one. Like, I'm a big fan of Lion King.

• 1:32:09Speaker 03

  It's just visualizing you-

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  A lion.

• 1:32:12Speaker 03

  Putting, throwing this on.

• 1:32:14Speaker 02

  Remember when Jeffrey Katzenberg almost got bit by a lion?

• 1:32:16David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, no, but yes.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  Do you know this? Do you know this video?

• 1:32:21David Sims?

  I do. Yeah. Yeah, wait, wait.

• 1:32:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:32:22David Sims?

  I want Ben to finish his thought and then-

• 1:32:24Speaker 03

  Oh, I just find it very weird to be like, what did I do today? I listened to Green Card soundtrack.

• 1:32:30Speaker 02

  That's why we love David, though. There is a video-

• 1:32:33David Sims?

  I'm doing a thumbs up.

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  -of a promotional event for The Lion King, where they brought out a real lion, or maybe it was like the illustrator. I can't remember exactly what it was. Somebody can correct me, but basically, the long story short of this is that it seems like Jeffrey Katzenberg might get eaten by a lion in this video.

• 1:32:53David Sims?

  Right. The lion gets aggressive and the lion has to be-

• 1:32:56Speaker 02

  Like towards Jeffrey Katzenberg.

• 1:33:00David Sims?

  So when this film, I want to say, begins with, R.I.P. to her, we love her and we miss her, the nine train. A little shot of a nine train disappearing-

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, you need to tell us about the nine train.

• 1:33:11David Sims?

  You don't know about the nine train?

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:33:13David Sims?

  You're kind of pre-nine train. Back in the day, Ben-

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  I was born in 1990.

• 1:33:16David Sims?

  Yeah, well, the nine train was still existing then, but it was, it was on its way out. So back in the day, Ben, you know, on the Seventh Avenue line, the, the red lines of the subway, right? There's the one, two, and the three.

• 1:33:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26David Sims?

  Right? The two and the three are express in Manhattan. The one is the local. There used to be a nine train on that line, too.

• 1:33:33Speaker 03

  Weird.

• 1:33:33David Sims?

  And it was a local as well. It was the same as the one in every way, except-

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  There's no eight train.

• 1:33:38David Sims?

  There used to be an eight train, Ben, long ago.

• 1:33:41Speaker 03

  What the hell?

• 1:33:42David Sims?

  Yes, there used to be an eight train as well in the Bronx. Let's not talk about that right now. But the nine was skip stop with the one, north of- 96th Street. So like when the one is on its own. And the idea was just like, oh, at rush hour, like just to speed things along. These trains kind of like hop and it was too annoying. And I think people who lived in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, didn't even like it that much. For me, who lived on the, on that line, but not in the skip stop area. It did nothing different from a one train, but I was just still always if we got a nine, I was like, look at nine train.

• 1:34:13Griffin Newman?

  It was also, it was so funny to get to the platform and be like, what's here? One, two, three. Okay, cool. I bet I can guess what the fourth train is. Nine skipping all the way over.

• 1:34:23David Sims?

  Yes. So when Peter, we're, this movie has great New York, I would say, energy in general.

• 1:34:29Griffin Newman?

  I would agree.

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  Is navigating a subway station. He hears a chorus of voices led by the unhoused singer, Harry Stewart and the Erasmus group, sorry, the Emmus group singers, named after Harlem's Emma's house for the unhoused. And he was like, I love this. I want this to be in the film. So that's why those guys are in the movie.

• 1:34:47Griffin Newman?

  For the opening. Yeah. I do want to call out because I know what happened while I was in the bathroom. I do think Hans Zimmer score in this is great.

• 1:34:54David Sims?

  I agree.

• 1:34:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I just wanted to second.

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  Did you hear us or did you just think?

• 1:34:59Griffin Newman?

  I heard David saying this was an early Hans Zimmer score.

• 1:35:02David Sims?

  It's a great score.

• 1:35:02Griffin Newman?

  I think a lot of the early Hans Zimmer comedy scar scores have aged to varying degrees.

• 1:35:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:35:09Griffin Newman?

  Some of them age better than others.

• 1:35:11David Sims?

  I was just talking with Esther about his kind of early, like world music vibe.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  But also.

• 1:35:15Speaker 02

  Hey, you're still doing it.

• 1:35:17Griffin Newman?

  Dune. Right. I think this is like, kind of one of.

• 1:35:20David Sims?

  Driving the stage.

• 1:35:21Griffin Newman?

  The better comedy era Zimmer scores.

• 1:35:23David Sims?

  I like, I like that era of his career. It's interesting to hear it now, obviously knowing what he like turned into.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:35:30David Sims?

  Turned into something interesting as well. It's just like completely different.

• 1:35:33Griffin Newman?

  But this is like, it's, it's so much my problem of the modern rom com, which barely exists. But what does exist feels like it is just trying to be one step elevated above the like hallmark Christmas movie churn, which is this could have been shot anywhere and we're pretending it's anywhere else. And rom coms benefit so much from like a place of specificity, from the feeling of like neighborhood haunts. And like the, the rhythm of whatever the fucking city or the town is. And like, just the fact that I put this movie on and immediately it's like subway drummer, people getting on and off the train.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I'm so.

• 1:36:12Griffin Newman?

  This is set in a place. And it speaks to very quickly what is kind of actually the biggest point this movie is making. We talk a lot about the cinema of men will literally blank to avoid going to therapy.

• 1:36:27David Sims?

  One of your favorite tropes.

• 1:36:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, this is, and I think this movie is dead on the money.

• 1:36:32Speaker 02

  Can I say it?

• 1:36:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  Women will literally get married for, to get a great apartment.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  I think it's, women will literally do anything to get the right apartment.

• 1:36:41David Sims?

  Amen.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  And women in New York City.

• 1:36:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, would you get green card married to get that apartment?

• 1:36:48Griffin Newman?

  To, oh.

• 1:36:49David Sims?

  Fucking.

• 1:36:49Speaker 02

  And I, my answer is a hundred percent.

• 1:36:51David Sims?

  I would marry and deport you now. I wouldn't pay his legal fees.

• 1:36:55Griffin Newman?

  Same.

• 1:36:55David Sims?

  But that, that has to be specified.

• 1:36:57Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing this movie gets so right that has only aged better with every successive year, the opposite of Gerard Depardieu, who ages worse every year, is you're just like, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:08David Sims?

  So now.

• 1:37:09Griffin Newman?

  You could justify almost anything in the reality of the movie if there's an apartment this good on the market.

• 1:37:14Speaker 02

  Now, I did look it up and it is, they did, it's a shout, it's a soundstage.

• 1:37:18David Sims?

  I'll tell you, I'll tell you.

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  Cause imagine if that happened.

• 1:37:21David Sims?

  Can I tell you?

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Imagine if there was, is there a greenhouse in an apartment?

• 1:37:25David Sims?

  I mean, maybe somewhere, yeah, like, so I'll tell you, the first garden that they used, that's a community plot, that's a real place. But you know, there was another garden that's like a treed garden, right?

• 1:37:33Speaker 02

  The one that, in, in BB Newer's parents.

• 1:37:35David Sims?

  Correct. That, they basically moved a bunch of crabapple trees in Central Park Conservatory Garden, which is on 5th and 105th, over to like, a sort of terrace to create that kind of like.

• 1:37:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49David Sims?

  Fakey, it's sort of like the frick or whatever, like this weird kind of.

• 1:37:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looks sort of, it looks, so yeah.

• 1:37:54David Sims?

  The main apartment.

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  It looks like the part of MoMA outside of the modern.

• 1:38:00David Sims?

  Right, yeah, so yes, like that too, exactly. And the, the main apartment, yes, they built it on a soundstage because they were like, we are building paradise here. Like, we, we, like, it's such a specific vibe. It's supposed to be basically out of her dreams with the arch and the wall fountain and the tiles and all this stuff. But very cool. I'm sure there are places in New York, yes, like weird, don't you think so, Esther?

• 1:38:24Speaker 02

  I'm sure.

• 1:38:25David Sims?

  Like weird pre-war buildings that are like, oh yeah, there's the weird conservatory apartment.

• 1:38:28Griffin Newman?

  I, I love that it's also not just, man, there's a great apartment, she wants it really badly.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  No, it's really important to.

• 1:38:36Griffin Newman?

  Specifically tied to her interests and her behaviors.

• 1:38:37David Sims?

  To her, and, and I love the fucking co-op board, by the way, being like, the, the one lady's like, well, I like the couple from the bank. Because like she's a horticulturist. She'll probably be good for this place.

• 1:38:49Griffin Newman?

  I mean, my, my best friends often mentioned on this podcast, Sophie Fader and Hawk and Lindsay. He is a ceramicist.

• 1:38:59David Sims?

  Cool.

• 1:39:00Griffin Newman?

  And it's like.

• 1:39:00David Sims?

  So he lives in a kiln?

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  Living in New York City, he's constantly having to like calculate everything based on what kind of work he could legally do within a New York living space.

• 1:39:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:39:13Griffin Newman?

  You know?

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  Am I allowed to have X in this house?

• 1:39:15Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  Sorry, I, I literally just Googled greenhouse, a New York greenhouse apartments and there was, there's a street easy thing. And honestly, this is like.

• 1:39:26Griffin Newman?

  It looks like a dream apartment?

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, I mean, it's very expensive, but it's not as expensive as I thought it was.

• 1:39:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay, can I ask a couple of questions? Cause you're trying to figure out why.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  Upper West Side, Upper West Side.

• 1:39:37Griffin Newman?

  You're trying to figure out why it's so cheap. Washer dryer included?

• 1:39:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Griffin Newman?

  Walk up?

• 1:39:42Speaker 02

  Um, yes.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  In unit de par deux?

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:39:47Griffin Newman?

  Cause that would drive the price down.

• 1:39:49David Sims?

  Yeah, I was gonna say that knocks about $200,000 off your list.

• 1:39:53Griffin Newman?

  If there is a non-negotiable.

• 1:39:55David Sims?

  Unfortunately, a French ogre lives here.

• 1:39:56Griffin Newman?

  In unit de par deux, they might pay you to live there.

• 1:40:01Speaker 02

  Yes, he's just there being like, oh, your coffee is bad and I like butter.

• 1:40:09Griffin Newman?

  I don't want to keep going back to the same joke, well, but it is crazy how much he looks like Shrek.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  He is Shrek.

• 1:40:15Griffin Newman?

  He is Shrek and he only becomes more and more Shrek. Do you know who voiced Shrek in France?

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  It was a Gerard Depardieu.

• 1:40:21Griffin Newman?

  No, Alan Shabba, because they were like, that's too fucking on the nose. It's too on the bulbous nose if we hired.

• 1:40:26David Sims?

  Does the French guy voicing Shrek do a regional accent? You know, like, like.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  He says he do the French version of Scottish.

• 1:40:33David Sims?

  What's the French version of a Scottish accent?

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  We're back to, to French stereotypes.

• 1:40:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, I, I believe he does. You know Alan Shabba?

• 1:40:42David Sims?

  Sure, Alan Shabba! I mean, sure. I mean, I don't know him personally.

• 1:40:46Griffin Newman?

  Really? You should meet Alan.

• 1:40:47David Sims?

  Be funny if I did.

• 1:40:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, let me see if I can find what kind of accent. Keep going through the dossier.

• 1:40:53David Sims?

  Uh, one of my favorite, um, films that Alan Shabba made where he was, because he would direct and star, uh, is just called this.

• 1:41:02David Sims?

  Not kidding. That's what it's called.

• 1:41:03Griffin Newman?

  It's called Rrr? What's it about?

• 1:41:05David Sims?

  I don't know. Looks, sort of looks like holes.

• 1:41:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:41:09Griffin Newman?

  He also made a movie called DDA about a dog.

• 1:41:12David Sims?

  Sounds great.

• 1:41:12Griffin Newman?

  It's a dog who turns into a person. He plays the dog.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Sounds like good shit.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  Made one trillion dollars in France.

• 1:41:20Griffin Newman?

  DDA is on their money.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  Shrek five got moved.

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:25David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:41:25Griffin Newman?

  To summer of twenty seven.

• 1:41:27Speaker 02

  Some of the voices or something, or maybe redo like.

• 1:41:30Griffin Newman?

  They were redoing the animation because people didn't like the new character designs.

• 1:41:33Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:41:33Griffin Newman?

  I think it also might be script things. They're taking some big swings on this.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  Was it that people like figured out what Shrek five is about, didn't like it, and so now they're scrambling?

• 1:41:41Griffin Newman?

  It's maybe.

• 1:41:43David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:41:43Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. I heard what Shrek five was about a couple of years ago.

• 1:41:49David Sims?

  What you described to me didn't sound great.

• 1:41:52Griffin Newman?

  It, but it was a big swing. It was wild.

• 1:41:55Speaker 02

  Well, off mic, you gotta tell me.

• 1:41:56Griffin Newman?

  I could, I will. I could see them either panicking and going, do we have to rethink this? Or saying, if we're going to do this, we have to get it right.

• 1:42:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16David Sims?

  So the plot of Green Card, which is a tidy, you know, hour forty five this film. And it's a really, it's a film with, you know, some, it's got a great cast, but like pretty much all of the supporting players. It's like a couple of scenes, right?

• 1:42:28Griffin Newman?

  Prosky comes in, just knocks it out of the fucking park.

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  He must have had more like.

• 1:42:34David Sims?

  I'm doing Prosky right now.

• 1:42:34Speaker 02

  He must have had more scenes. I'm sorry.

• 1:42:36David Sims?

  I can't believe you broke the law.

• 1:42:38Griffin Newman?

  And his character's name is Bronte's lawyer. We should mention.

• 1:42:41David Sims?

  Her name is Bronte Parrish.

• 1:42:43Speaker 02

  Because all of her, because, because her dad named all of her siblings after authors.

• 1:42:49Griffin Newman?

  So it's Bronte, Austin.

• 1:42:51Speaker 02

  Austin Elliott.

• 1:42:53Griffin Newman?

  Elliott, right.

• 1:42:54Speaker 02

  Colette.

• 1:42:55Griffin Newman?

  Colette.

• 1:42:55David Sims?

  After female author.

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58Griffin Newman?

  And then who's the fifth one?

• 1:42:59David Sims?

  I don't fucking know.

• 1:43:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, uh, Coontz.

• 1:43:03Griffin Newman?

  Dean Coontz.

• 1:43:04David Sims?

  Yeah, there you go. My name's Coontz.

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes.

• 1:43:08David Sims?

  Coontz Parish.

• 1:43:09Griffin Newman?

  Like to pick up a trashy airport paperback.

• 1:43:11David Sims?

  Nothing wrong with it.

• 1:43:12Griffin Newman?

  Fun read.

• 1:43:13David Sims?

  Um, yeah, Robert Prosky crushes, I would say, in his one scene. You've got the great John Spencer, like a nice horticulturalist. You've got Lois Smith as Bronte's mother. Like, when she bad.

• 1:43:26Griffin Newman?

  As you mentioned before, Neelix, Dr. Neelix.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  Do you spot Andau?

• 1:43:30David Sims?

  Andau is Peggy. Yeah, quick Andau. Young Andau, not a bald one.

• 1:43:35Griffin Newman?

  Nope, nope. Quite a head of hair on this one.

• 1:43:37David Sims?

  She's, what if, and I'm sure that Bald Andau, who I know.

• 1:43:43Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show.

• 1:43:43David Sims?

  Yes, has interacted with Andau in some way at some, right? At this point, I'm not actually sure. But like, what if one day Andau does take it all off for a role? Just to find, just to kind of complete the circle.

• 1:43:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:54David Sims?

  You know, it shows up, like, does a THX remake or something like, something where she's bald? I don't know. Um.

• 1:44:01Griffin Newman?

  I mean, my favorite performance in this movie.

• 1:44:04David Sims?

  It, yes?

• 1:44:04Griffin Newman?

  Bebe Neuwirth.

• 1:44:05David Sims?

  Bebe, amazing.

• 1:44:06Griffin Newman?

  My god.

• 1:44:07David Sims?

  Just.

• 1:44:08Speaker 02

  And also, can we just talk about?

• 1:44:09David Sims?

  Illegally hot.

• 1:44:10Speaker 02

  That's the thing. That's what I was gonna say. Can we talk about how Bebe Neuwirth is the hottest person?

• 1:44:14Griffin Newman?

  I want to talk about Bebe.

• 1:44:15David Sims?

  And I just want her to throw me into like a sewer and just like spit on me.

• 1:44:20Speaker 02

  Also, she has these little like rat earrings. Did you clock her?

• 1:44:24Griffin Newman?

  I clocked her cool earrings. I clocked everything that was going on here.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  What's, so like, what's she, cause she's, this is her second film role.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  Period?

• 1:44:32David Sims?

  Period. Her first film role is Say Anything, which she has a small role in.

• 1:44:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes, very small.

• 1:44:37David Sims?

  Obviously, she'd been on Cheers for years in that kind of like quasi-supporting role. You know, like sort of quasi-guest, quasi-supporting, you know?

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  She went from, she's got like two standalone guest appearances. Then they decide to bring her back. Then she becomes a recurring. Then she becomes a regular and then she goes back down to recurring.

• 1:44:55David Sims?

  Right, she got.

• 1:44:56Griffin Newman?

  She wins two Emmys?

• 1:44:58David Sims?

  Uh, two Emmys.

• 1:44:59Griffin Newman?

  Does she have both of them by the time she does this movie?

• 1:45:02David Sims?

  She has one.

• 1:45:03Griffin Newman?

  And she's got another one to come.

• 1:45:04David Sims?

  And she has one more the next year.

• 1:45:05Griffin Newman?

  That's what's crazy.

• 1:45:06David Sims?

  But she had already won a Tony for Sweet Charity. I mean, she's a big theater actor.

• 1:45:10Griffin Newman?

  But she won a second Emmy for the final season when she demoted herself to recurring.

• 1:45:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  But she did enough episodes to count.

• 1:45:20David Sims?

  Back then, they were very, they were very like fungible about it, I think. Uh, she has two Tonys, of course. Uh, can you tell me her second Tony is for?

• 1:45:28Speaker 02

  Chicago.

• 1:45:29David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:45:29Griffin Newman?

  Chicago.

• 1:45:30David Sims?

  I recently saw a clip from the current, like a current production of Chicago.

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, cause it's the secret, it is, it is the secret life of a Mormon wife.

• 1:45:38David Sims?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:45:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:40David Sims?

  I was kind of getting the vibe where I was like, if I paid for this, I think I would call it the Better Business Bureau.

• 1:45:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:45:45David Sims?

  It looked pretty shocking.

• 1:45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:47David Sims?

  Because like she's obviously doing nothing and the other ones are like, the, let's just sort of around, they're like flapping their arms around.

• 1:45:53Griffin Newman?

  They were on C track or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:45:56David Sims?

  Yeah. What's going on over there? Is it time to wrap it up with Chicago?

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  I think it's time to wrap it up. But I think they keep making money by like, by and throwing all these like reality TV stars in there.

• 1:46:07Griffin Newman?

  I also feel like all of their runs are pretty short where they're like, if one of them sucks, they're out in 10 days and maybe the next one's better.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  And then the other thing about Chicago is there are like standbys, like who are, have done it for years. Like I, I believe like Charlotte Danbord does it, who's like a legendary dancer and like does it all the time. Like there are people that can always do it and Bianca America, like there are people that can always do it and they always just throw them back in.

• 1:46:32Griffin Newman?

  But also like do twice a year, do they pick up the red phone and go, Wayne Brady, we need you back?

• 1:46:38Speaker 02

  Yes, I believe so.

• 1:46:39David Sims?

  We should get Wayne Brady on this show.

• 1:46:41Griffin Newman?

  At the King of Podcasts.

• 1:46:42David Sims?

  Remember when he crushed it on Comedy Bang Bang?

• 1:46:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:45David Sims?

  He was so good.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  Wayne Brady's awesome.

• 1:46:47David Sims?

  Plugging that heckum show that no one listens to, but he was so good on.

• 1:46:52Griffin Newman?

  His WTF is amazing.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  Back to BB.

• 1:46:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, BB.

• 1:46:56David Sims?

  The big, big BB.

• 1:46:57Griffin Newman?

  It's not like this is her best work ever, but it is such a great, uh, time capsule of BB at kind of.

• 1:47:03Speaker 02

  Also when she is like, when they go over to dinner at her parents' house and she shows up and she's just like, oh, like her days. And it is so, and you're just. Like, well, everyone should just like fuck BB because she's the hottest person that has ever lived.

• 1:47:18Griffin Newman?

  She's like two foot negative five.

• 1:47:20David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, she's, she's, she's a small woman.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  She's so cool.

• 1:47:24Griffin Newman?

  And yet she appears in anything and you're like, this is the funniest, smartest, coolest and hottest person who has ever lived.

• 1:47:30David Sims?

  Very like debonair, very funny, very wry. She's very, very, she's very, very, very, very cool.

• 1:47:37Speaker 02

  Also, you just want to hang out with her. She's so fun. Like, like this character, you're sort of, you sort of expect like, oh, is she gonna be sort of like a villain? And she's like, no, she's just like a fun hang.

• 1:47:44Griffin Newman?

  Esther, that's exactly what I like about it.

• 1:47:47David Sims?

  She gonna cause trouble. Right. You're like, is she gonna make a pass at Depardieu and it's gonna cause all kinds of problems?

• 1:47:52Speaker 02

  She's sort of just like, no, she just likes to party. She's got rich parents and she's an artist and she just likes to party.

• 1:47:58Griffin Newman?

  I think there's a really another real positive function of her character, which is you're set up to think, oh, she's gonna stir some shit or she's gonna try to steal Depardieu and she's gonna make a bigger mess or any of this stuff. No, it's like, you understand that this is Annie McDowell's closer friend, that this is someone who can call Annie McDowell out on her shit, knows her well, cares about her, and also is like, this guy's interesting. The cosign of, I don't know, there's something kind of going on there. It's less about that she's gonna make a move on Depardieu and more that it forces Annie McDowell to reconsider. Wait, you're interested in him?

• 1:48:34David Sims?

  Like, maybe I should take a second look at this.

• 1:48:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:37Speaker 02

  And I also feel like, I mean, it's another way in which the movie sort of subverts the tropes that you're expecting, which is, you know, hot, brassy lady comes along and steals the guy and then he realizes that's not right for her, you know, like, that's not right for him. And it's like, no, she's just, again, she's hot and fun and having a great time.

• 1:48:58Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what this movie feels like to me? It's like eating a birthday cake and then being told after the fact, this cake is entirely vegan. There were no eggs. Right? Like it's soybean frosting and you're just like, huh, it tasted good. I didn't question it at all. And the more I study how you were able to make this without doing the usual things, the more I have to like applaud you.

• 1:49:23David Sims?

  Right. Without doing, as Esther said, like the trophy things, you would imagine if I told you it's about a green card marriage and then they have to pretend to like each other and then they do like.

• 1:49:33Griffin Newman?

  It removes all the unhealthy ingredients in a way that is so unshowy that you're taking it for granted of like, yeah, it's like doing a rom com thing. And you're like, no, it's actually like harder.

• 1:49:43Speaker 02

  I also think the other thing is when they're studying, you know, when they're, when they're doing sort of the part where they're studying each other and studying up on, there's something very earnest about it. Like especially, there's something very, you know, they do the montage of them taking photos, but there's something so, sort of like the genuine facts of like, how do you get to know a person as opposed to the sort of Hollywoodized version of like, let's just blast through this and like, make it all a joke. There's something very genuine about like, the way, you know, though I did, I don't know if that is Gerard Depardieu's actual handwriting, but it looks like a serial killer's.

• 1:50:26David Sims?

  Interesting.

• 1:50:26Griffin Newman?

  That's a thing.

• 1:50:27David Sims?

  His personality doesn't suggest anything like that in his sort of backstory way behaves.

• 1:50:32Griffin Newman?

  I, I think you're right though, Esther, that like this movie deprives its characters of kind of like snappy, small talk, get to know you banter because of the language divide. So it's so often them communicating through actions or struggling to get the other one to understand their meaning, or then like basically leapfrogging to deeper, more direct questions because the formality of needing to study for this test means that you're just like asking things you would never ask on a date.

• 1:51:02Speaker 02

  But I will say that's also the thing that unsettles me a little bit about it too, which is like, there's something unnerving about it to.

• 1:51:11David Sims?

  Like, what's the deal with this guy?

• 1:51:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, what's the deal with this guy? It's also just his presence. He's so, in addition to being like, you know, his face is sort of funny and his haircut is insane. Like, he's so looming. He's so sort of terrifying and-

• 1:51:25Griffin Newman?

  Seems kind of quick to anger, even though he doesn't explode that many times. And he's, he's got some level of criminal history that he explains as like, boyish shenanigans.

• 1:51:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:37Griffin Newman?

  But also this series of tattoos that are all these kind of like impactful moments of his life that he can't really unpack.

• 1:51:43Speaker 02

  That like, doesn't, never is resolved, which is, you know, which is sort of scary where he has the knife and it's like, you draw the knife on one side. If it's like, the knife is drawn and then you, then you should put it back in its shaft once you've gotten your revenge.

• 1:52:00David Sims?

  You said shaft.

• 1:52:01Speaker 02

  Okay, I think, sorry.

• 1:52:03David Sims?

  John Shaft, of course.

• 1:52:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you put it back in its hilt? No?

• 1:52:07David Sims?

  Uh, sheath is what I would say.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  Um, once you've gotten the revenge and he hasn't gotten the revenge, so it's like-

• 1:52:14David Sims?

  He's kind of giving you a Sean Connery Chicago way monologue here, if you think about it.

• 1:52:20Speaker 02

  It's just like, there is a sense of danger to him.

• 1:52:23Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:25Speaker 02

  And I am not opposed to, like, rom-com leading men having that sense of danger.

• 1:52:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  But maybe it's just the Deppard do of it all.

• 1:52:37David Sims?

  You guys are getting hung up on the real guy, which I understand.

• 1:52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it's not just the real guy and his real actions. It is like, what is his energy on screen? And I do think, Esther, there's something to, perhaps, in this type of character, often you cast a charming person and have them as an actor work to affect a layer of edge on top of that, that can then melt away. And Deppard do is the opposite side of the equation, which is, here's a guy who feels a little dangerous and he's working to like, show you the charm inside of it, but so the edge never melts away.

• 1:53:14David Sims?

  But it's not really like, you know, it's not like a Heathcliff thing of like, this is a monster that she must tame.

• 1:53:20Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't hang out with the calico cats or anything.

• 1:53:22David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 1:53:23Speaker 02

  I, I mean, and- Here's the thing about that joke, which every person I know has made, um, or at least just three men and that I know have made with the new weather in Hyatt.

• 1:53:35Griffin Newman?

  It's the joke of the season.

• 1:53:36Speaker 02

  It's the joke of the season. I think we maybe have to have a moratorium on that joke.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  On that, wow, you're calling for a end to Heathcliff joke.

• 1:53:44Griffin Newman?

  You're saying specifically Calico?

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  No, I think you did a good job with it. I'm just saying that like.

• 1:53:50David Sims?

  Okay, okay, all right, all right.

• 1:53:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying the other men you're talking about, were they just making jokes about Heathcliff the cat? Or did they go for a specific?

• 1:53:56David Sims?

  No, I have not heard the Calico angle yet.

• 1:54:00Speaker 02

  No, I haven't heard the cat, and so I'm fine with it. I just think everyone thinks they're so fucking clever making a joke about the fucking cat. But, you know, sorry, Bob.

• 1:54:10David Sims?

  Was hearing about this.

• 1:54:12Speaker 02

  Do you, how do you think Emily Bronte would feel about Heathcliff the cat?

• 1:54:16David Sims?

  Oh, the cat, I think she would be bemused. I don't think she'd mind the cat.

• 1:54:21Griffin Newman?

  Guys, what's up? I'm sorry.

• 1:54:23David Sims?

  What's going on?

• 1:54:24Griffin Newman?

  I need to.

• 1:54:25David Sims?

  They're not called the Calico cats, are they?

• 1:54:26Griffin Newman?

  Retire BIP myself.

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  It's not Calico.

• 1:54:29David Sims?

  Coisted by your own, you're always seeing yourself in the ceiling?

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  He's orange.

• 1:54:33David Sims?

  No, no, no, but there's, he's referring to.

• 1:54:35Griffin Newman?

  Critters, the line of toys, the little fuzzy animal.

• 1:54:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:38Griffin Newman?

  I was confusing them with who Heathcliff hangs out with, who are the Cat-a-lack Cats.

• 1:54:45David Sims?

  Cadillac Cats. This is from the Heathcliff, like, animated series.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the one that was recorded while Mel Blanc was dying.

• 1:54:51David Sims?

  Right. They kind of like flew a drone into his hospital room and were like, I don't know, say some shit into the safer corner.

• 1:55:03David Sims?

  Wow, he really was on his way out, damn.

• 1:55:06Griffin Newman?

  Cadillac Cats.

• 1:55:07Speaker 02

  Anyway, sorry to.

• 1:55:08Griffin Newman?

  Okay, no, you're right. Everyone is banned from making this joke now.

• 1:55:12David Sims?

  You're right, you're right.

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  I do think there is a thing where if I had seen this movie when I was younger, prior to knowing the whole DePardieu of it all, I think I might have been more purely charmed and just been able to get over my shit with that, you know? And now, and it's again, like, I think I'm pretty good as a, you know, watcher of things to be like, to separate myself from, to put myself in the time period in which it was made and to like, I mean, like, it's something you have to do for your job and like all this stuff. But obviously, I do think if I had seen this when I was just before I knew all about.

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  Maybe if I was just an American moviegoer in 1990, who was like, I want to see this in Saranau, and I'm just like charmed.

• 1:56:07David Sims?

  Different. I just like, there's nobody like him.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  There's nobody like him.

• 1:56:10David Sims?

  And that's the whole appeal.

• 1:56:11Speaker 02

  And it is, I, I do think that is a thing to the movie's credit, which is like, you can't ima-, you can't like recast it with someone else.

• 1:56:18David Sims?

  You can't, and like the movie, but also that the movie is not like, this is a stunning.

• 1:56:23Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:56:24David Sims?

  Like fucking babe. It's more like, this is, what is this?

• 1:56:27Griffin Newman?

  What is this?

• 1:56:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28David Sims?

  I gotta look at this from ten angles. Like what's going on with this guy?

• 1:56:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:32Speaker 02

  But it's just, the whole thing is that like, but there is a whole thing where his energy is so off in a strange way. Where like, like when he goes and plays, when he's asked to play the piano and he just like bangs on the keys and then plays like a lovely thing.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  Kind of rocks.

• 1:56:51Speaker 02

  It rocks, but it's so weird. Like the first scene where they go to the, was that a real restaurant? I meant to look that up. The All Nations Restaurant?

• 1:57:00David Sims?

  I couldn't, I didn't think so. I couldn't quite tell.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Where it's like, you just are like, hey, we have the Swissm dish and we have the, you know.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  But let's even zoom out here for a second, right? The piano scene. We can dig into the piano scene as kind of emblematic of the whole thing. This movie's set up on the idea that he wants to become an American citizen because of the opportunities that could provide him in his career as a composer. And whenever she sort of asks him about it, because his English is so broken, he responds strangely. And I watched the movie the first time and like, is the composer thing a lie?

• 1:57:35David Sims?

  Right. Is he truly making this up? Because we don't really have any sense of him.

• 1:57:38Griffin Newman?

  Is he making it up?

• 1:57:39David Sims?

  Her, we know she wants to fucking have a husband so she can get this apartment.

• 1:57:43Griffin Newman?

  This board won't approve. A modern woman living single.

• 1:57:46David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:57:47Speaker 02

  That doorman, what a, what a fucking rat.

• 1:57:49David Sims?

  Women's lib, hey!

• 1:57:51Griffin Newman?

  I hate it.

• 1:57:52David Sims?

  The guy.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:53Speaker 02

  Also, that is what's sort of so strange about it is that like, is he a composer? Is he not? Is he actually, you know, they talk about how he's, you know, he's got stuff in his past. Like, is he actually trying to be in America?

• 1:58:06Griffin Newman?

  On the run.

• 1:58:06Speaker 02

  Cause he's on the run. Like, he is a composer, but there's no sort of, he gets fired from his restaurant job and he's like, well, that's fine. You know?

• 1:58:15Griffin Newman?

  Well, he says, I quit.

• 1:58:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he says, I quit.

• 1:58:18Griffin Newman?

  Everything's a little.

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  Everything feels.

• 1:58:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20Speaker 02

  A little like he's lying to you just in his persona. And then that never fully, he is a composer.

• 1:58:28Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:58:29David Sims?

  Of some impressionist sort.

• 1:58:30Griffin Newman?

  Can we unpack this scene for a moment? So like, BB Neuwirth takes a liking to him, brings him to the party, right? When you're meeting Bebe and she's so big, part of you is going like, is she doing this to make her friend jealous?

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:42Griffin Newman?

  Or is she just sort of such a like wild-

• 1:58:44Speaker 02

  She's just a fun girl!

• 1:58:45Griffin Newman?

  -pre-rolling that she's like, I don't know, this guy's weird, let me figure out what his fucking thing is. Everyone at the party is kind of a little confused, but like, oh wow, a Frenchman, how interesting. Comes up that he's a composer, they ask him to sit at the piano, he sits there very intensely, and then just starts like mashing the keys with his fist.

• 1:59:02David Sims?

  To the point that you're like, he's, he's been rumbled, like, you know, he's making something up because he doesn't know how to do this initially.

• 1:59:09Griffin Newman?

  That's what it feels like. And then you're like, it's just like, there are moments of tonality within it.

• 1:59:16Speaker 02

  I still don't know if that was supposed to be a real piece.

• 1:59:19Griffin Newman?

  I don't either.

• 1:59:20David Sims?

  I think it is, but you don't totally know.

• 1:59:23Griffin Newman?

  Is it him saying fuck you, is it, this is the kind of composing I do? You don't know, and you wonder like, is this him revealing that he's never touched a piano before in his fucking life? And then he like comes around and like plays this beautiful piece and does this spoken word poetry over that is like translated in real time, and it's Depardieu in close up while playing a piano, basically looking down the barrel of the lens with tears in his eyes. And I'm like, this is undeniably effective.

• 1:59:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:59:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it works.

• 1:59:53Griffin Newman?

  The whole movie is built around this, which is, you're just like, why am I drawn into this? Right? This guy has not made sense to me up until this moment, and something is happening here that's emotionally affecting. Bebe Neuwirth goes, I think you just got your flowers. And that's what happens. He fucking, she got the trees because whatever Gerard Depardieu just did charmed the shit out of everybody. Then like 30 minutes later, when they're going through the studying for the test, he brings up, or she repeats, they filled in this information at some point, that he stopped playing music because he was in love with a woman, they got married, she died, and he couldn't hear the music anymore. And he realizes the way to explain in this interview, why they fell in love, to make the case in the most ecstatic way without overly explaining

• 2:00:38Griffin Newman?

  that their love is real is to say, when I met her, I heard the music again. Which is so kind of beautiful and poetic that you see her get charmed by that, even if it's only a strategic lie. The notion that he could think that way starts to open-

• 2:00:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Griffin Newman?

  -her up to him a little bit.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  It is the rom-com leap that I think you have to make with a lot of rom-coms, which is like, if this were real life, how would I react to this? And there's something for me that is still,

• 2:01:13Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 2:01:16Speaker 02

  By the end, I get there, but for a lot of it, I don't know if I fully, there's something still like that creeps me out about

• 2:01:24Griffin Newman?

  This movie?

• 2:01:25Speaker 02

  The, the mystery that is written into the character. And the fact that even at the end, it still feels like I don't fully know this guy. And she is willing and she has fallen for him and he's written her this thing and she's willing to do it. But like,

• 2:01:43David Sims?

  But we don't even know what she's totally willing to do.

• 2:01:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, yeah.

• 2:01:46David Sims?

  They know.

• 2:01:46Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing.

• 2:01:47David Sims?

  They know something's going on that they can't ignore anymore, like in the last.

• 2:01:51Griffin Newman?

  To make a very dumb comparison point.

• 2:01:54David Sims?

  Make sure this is very dumb, please.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  If you were to try to watch The Cosby Show and apply. Let me say this.

• 2:02:03Griffin Newman?

  Let me say this.

• 2:02:04David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 2:02:05Griffin Newman?

  And try to apply cognitive dissonance and go, look at just this show, history nostalgia for me reminds me, right? You are in an episode of The Cosby Show, pretty unlikely to butt up against something that directly reminds you of everything you now know about Bill Cosby.

• 2:02:20Speaker 02

  I'm not even, at this point, I'm not even talking about the departout of it all. Genuinely, I'm genuinely talking about the way this character is written.

• 2:02:29Griffin Newman?

  This is my problem. Yes.

• 2:02:31Speaker 02

  That there is still something that feels odd about him and off about him in a way that feels either potentially dangerous or potentially. If David's shaking his.

• 2:02:48David Sims?

  I'm not, I'm not with you on this.

• 2:02:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let me, let me finish my bridge here because I think Esther and I are feeling the same thing. Right? Which is like, if Cosby Show episodes.

• 2:02:56Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 2:02:57David Sims?

  I don't want to talk about Bill Cosby.

• 2:02:59Speaker 02

  I think you have to stop. You have to, I, I, I appreciate you defending me, but also I don't want to hear about Bill Cosby.

• 2:03:05Griffin Newman?

  Cause this is not defending me or you. This is me just like how I think about it, right?

• 2:03:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:03:10Griffin Newman?

  If Cosby episodes had him regularly going like, I'm going on a date tonight. I'd be like, well, now I can't stop thinking about what would happen on that date, right? And I think similarly.

• 2:03:19Speaker 02

  No, no, no, that's not what I'm doing.

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  No, I just think the fact that there is mystery to this character and the mystery is coded as being a little bit dark. It's hard not to let your brain go to darker things. Because of the guy who's playing.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  I don't even think that's it. I just think there is.

• 2:03:37David Sims?

  I understand what you're saying, Esther.

• 2:03:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think I have to say it again because I'm just like, and yeah, we can disagree to disagree. I just, I think there is something in the writing of the character that leaves me at arm's length.

• 2:03:49David Sims?

  Ben, you gotta decide. You gotta weigh in your take on green card, which we haven't heard yet.

• 2:03:53Speaker 02

  Anyway, still marry him for the apartment.

• 2:03:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:03:55David Sims?

  I mean, did you like this movie? I mean, you haven't, you haven't weighed in.

• 2:03:58Speaker 03

  It was okay.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  Yeah, fair enough.

• 2:04:00Speaker 03

  I don't, I'm not a huge rom com guy.

• 2:04:04David Sims?

  You know, what's your favorite rom com?

• 2:04:06Speaker 03

  I have no idea.

• 2:04:07David Sims?

  What? I guess I never thought about this. Yeah.

• 2:04:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:09David Sims?

  You never really talk up a rom com.

• 2:04:11Speaker 03

  No, no, nothing comes to mind.

• 2:04:14David Sims?

  Nothing comes to mind.

• 2:04:15Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 2:04:16David Sims?

  Not a single thing.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:04:18David Sims?

  Very fair enough.

• 2:04:20Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll look. Maybe there's one, but here.

• 2:04:22David Sims?

  It's gotta be one.

• 2:04:23Speaker 03

  But here, this is what I'll say. I watch Deportue and I'm like, there's definitely Mo Mysterio's effective.

• 2:04:31Griffin Newman?

  No question.

• 2:04:32Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 2:04:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:34Speaker 03

  He's got a great face, great nose, big old nose. I don't see the riz. I just, it's not popping for me.

• 2:04:44David Sims?

  Society, really, at the time and now.

• 2:04:46Speaker 02

  The hair, the hair is such a problem.

• 2:04:48Speaker 03

  He looks like a old ass painting come to life.

• 2:04:52David Sims?

  What you just described is to me is the riz.

• 2:04:55Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:04:56David Sims?

  Well, yeah, because how many people look like that?

• 2:04:58Speaker 03

  I know, but it's like, he should be wearing one of those like Shakespearean weird collars.

• 2:05:04David Sims?

  Well, he did a lot of movies or two where he's done that. Right, right. I mean, if you want to see him in period dress, certainly.

• 2:05:10Griffin Newman?

  Allow me to speed round a couple of things.

• 2:05:12David Sims?

  Yes, please.

• 2:05:13Griffin Newman?

  One, this is kind of.

• 2:05:14David Sims?

  You're allowed.

• 2:05:15Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 2:05:17Speaker 02

  No Cosby.

• 2:05:18David Sims?

  That's true. With one corollary.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay, allow me to speed around one thing.

• 2:05:23David Sims?

  Yes, go ahead.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm joking. First of all, this is a really strong invisible craft movie where has done so much at this point that he knows exactly how to service whatever type of film he's making. That having been said, there are two camera moves in this movie that I thought were so

• 2:05:40Speaker 02

  Is one, can I guess one?

• 2:05:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:05:42Speaker 02

  Is it the, um, what are, what are those things called? Um, in the door?

• 2:05:47Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, that's good. Yes. The, the kind of peephole in the door and the click.

• 2:05:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:52Griffin Newman?

  Um, that's a great shot. No, it's, it's two moves.

• 2:05:55David Sims?

  Classy camera moves.

• 2:05:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Where I was like, this is using the movement of the camera for storytelling and for emotional connection in a way that is so unshowy. One of them is when he's talking to Annie Mc Dowell's dad, her parents show up unexpected and he takes on the role of the handyman to justify why he's there. And her dad, you feel like is sniffing him out as a fake. Annie Mc Dowell's saying, go, you're done. And he wants to stay because clearly he's interested in her enough that he's kind of curious to secure her parents to eavesdrop in on this. And the dad goes into the kitchen after him and he's going in, you worry motivated by suspicion of who is this fake? When in fact, what's motivating him is I kind of sense

• 2:06:40Griffin Newman?

  the, the heart of an artist inside you. I sense an artistic spirit inside you. You know, I used to work jobs like this when I was writing poetry. What are you really? I'm a composer. They're having this whole talk. They're having this male bonding thing. He notices that her dad is, has his arm on a table atop a bunch of papers, including their marriage license. And Deprado's like, I gotta get that fucking away from him so that he doesn't see and this whole thing doesn't explode. And he tries to grab it and it kind of is too aggressive. The dad freaks out a little bit or is a little shaken, falls to the ground. They both go to pick it up. And it's a Polaroid from their faked honeymoon.

• 2:07:24Griffin Newman?

  They stand on the roof of this apartment that is absolutely worth marrying Gerard Depardieu to get with skis. And they they fake like three different vacations they've taken together, put in a scrapbook. And the camera move is these two men are both holding the Polaroid on opposite sides. And it's basically the POV of her dad. And the camera just like dollies up with Depardieu of the two of them, the feeling of maintaining eye contact as they're holding this object that they know says a tremendous amount that now needs to be acknowledged in some way. And Depardieu holds that close up really fucking well. And it's that feeling of you are stuck in a moment, as you two would say that you can't get out of.

• 2:08:08David Sims?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:08:09Griffin Newman?

  And then there's another one, which is when

• 2:08:11David Sims?

  It's a beautiful day.

• 2:08:13Griffin Newman?

  He basically drops Annie McDowell off with a fuckhead boyfriend.

• 2:08:17David Sims?

  Yeah, Greg, what's his fans?

• 2:08:18Griffin Newman?

  And Phil.

• 2:08:19David Sims?

  Edelman.

• 2:08:19Griffin Newman?

  Depardieu's like halfway down the block with Envy, realizing for the first time he Yes. Jealous he is. And rather than walk the opposite way as he should, he walks towards them to basically challenge her. Are you going to break reality on this? Or are you going to treat me like a stranger? Either way, I get a closer view of whatever's going on with you. And the camera tracking with him as he does that is like really, really

• 2:08:44David Sims?

  I think you're I think you're speaking to what Weir brings to so many of the movies we've discussed so far and will continue to discuss, which is that kind of like quiet, classy, non showy, but stylish.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Logical.

• 2:08:58David Sims?

  Visual storytelling.

• 2:08:59Griffin Newman?

  It is like, what does this moment need to convey?

• 2:09:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:09:02Griffin Newman?

  And what is the best technique to get that feeling across in the story?

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  And it's like, not as slick and over the top or like whatever, you know, like it's not going to pop in the way that certain big stylish filmmakers do.

• 2:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Here's another thing I like about this movie that I feel like doesn't happen often enough. It's like a rom com that isn't very funny.

• 2:09:22David Sims?

  No, it's a good point.

• 2:09:24Griffin Newman?

  It would be false to categorize it as a rom dram.

• 2:09:26David Sims?

  Right, but it's certainly not like a screwball movie with a bunch of lines.

• 2:09:30Griffin Newman?

  It is funny. It has jokes. More than anything, it has a sustained comedic wavelength to it. But I think it's very concerned with.

• 2:09:39Speaker 02

  It's not over the top.

• 2:09:39Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't want to break its own reality.

• 2:09:41Speaker 02

  Well, and the reality of it is something interesting that I wanted to bring up, which is that it is very rooted in like 1990 and 1990 New York. And some of that, some of that feels a little creaky now. You know, the, I think the talk about, I mean, obviously some of it's just the time periods, but like the garden argument and like the, the under, oh, the underprivileged kids. We just bring such joy to their lives of chaos. I mean, it's also funny that it's Lower Side and now, you know.

• 2:10:13Griffin Newman?

  Even just this energy of, you know, some people don't eat meat.

• 2:10:17Speaker 02

  Right. And also some, there's this moment.

• 2:10:19David Sims?

  You will have fish, of course. No, I don't eat that either.

• 2:10:23Speaker 02

  There's this also, there's also a moment where she tells him he's being very right wing right now.

• 2:10:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Cause I am no wing. You are wing.

• 2:10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:32David Sims?

  And I don't want to pay taxes, to be clear.

• 2:10:34Griffin Newman?

  And I pee any airplane I want and not in the bathroom.

• 2:10:38David Sims?

  No, no. In fact, I avoid it. I get fit.

• 2:10:43Griffin Newman?

  Your cup of coffee.

• 2:10:44Speaker 02

  But it is, it does, it is a version of New York that is very rooted in the real world of the time as opposed to even, you know.

• 2:10:55David Sims?

  Pretty Woman.

• 2:10:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, Pretty Woman, of course, but like, you know, even the Nora New York, which is its own form of.

• 2:11:03David Sims?

  But she's got this sort of snow globe.

• 2:11:05Speaker 02

  She's got a snow globe of New York.

• 2:11:06Griffin Newman?

  Curated bubble. I mean, even just down to like, starting with like fucking subway musicians and shit. It's like, this is like real New York. We're not doing your kind of.

• 2:11:14Speaker 02

  And some of it feels a little clunky, I think. And but I think it's interesting. I think the weird thing about rom coms is there are a good number that have this feeling of, you know.

• 2:11:31Speaker 02

  You know, David put it, I, his letterbox, which I saw, but like the gentleness. And like, I do think there are, there are a couple that, you know, get this like, it's not really that funny, but they get the romanticness, right?

• 2:11:49Griffin Newman?

  And, and they're really tied into the characters. They are well observed.

• 2:11:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:54David Sims?

  My Letterboxd review refers to a list of gentle movies that I curated for my wife after our first child was born.

• 2:12:00Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:12:01David Sims?

  Where she was basically like, I cannot watch any movies with a lot of like peril or stress and certainly no like danger for children. And so I like, kind of like, I was like, all right, let's really narrow the focus to movies where it's like pretty low, like stakes, a lot of rom-coms, obviously, but you know, some other stuff too.

• 2:12:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:18David Sims?

  Twenty Seven Dresses.

• 2:12:19Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:12:20David Sims?

  Where you're just like, who gives a shit the whole time, but I'm happy.

• 2:12:22Griffin Newman?

  I'm a little worried if she's gonna hit 28 or not.

• 2:12:25David Sims?

  Morning Glory.

• 2:12:26Griffin Newman?

  At the best.

• 2:12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:27David Sims?

  Serendipity.

• 2:12:28Griffin Newman?

  The Paper.

• 2:12:29Speaker 02

  I hate Serendipity.

• 2:12:30David Sims?

  It sucks.

• 2:12:30Griffin Newman?

  You hate Serendipity.

• 2:12:31Speaker 02

  I hate Serendipity.

• 2:12:32Griffin Newman?

  The Paper, I do think, kind of fucking rules.

• 2:12:34Speaker 02

  The Paper is, The Paper is so good.

• 2:12:35David Sims?

  The only issue with The Paper is that you're like, why isn't this a master?

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  Agrees.

• 2:12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:41David Sims?

  Because like, it's totally good, everyone in it's having fun, you have fun.

• 2:12:44Griffin Newman?

  Papers.

• 2:12:45David Sims?

  But you're like, the ingredients are incredible.

• 2:12:47Griffin Newman?

  It's a three star general and the whole time you're watching it, you're like, shouldn't this just be perfect? What is it not pulling together?

• 2:12:54Speaker 02

  David, did you only rate Working Girl three and a half stars?

• 2:12:56David Sims?

  I don't like that movie that bad.

• 2:12:57Speaker 02

  That you are fucked up.

• 2:12:59David Sims?

  I think that movie has huge flaws.

• 2:13:01Griffin Newman?

  I would say.

• 2:13:01David Sims?

  There are things about it I love.

• 2:13:02Griffin Newman?

  I would say Working Girl is kind of the patron saint of the thing we're talking about.

• 2:13:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Where it's like a rom-com mostly with dramatic actors.

• 2:13:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:13:10Griffin Newman?

  Who have comedic chops.

• 2:13:12David Sims?

  But it's not that funny.

• 2:13:13Griffin Newman?

  The comedy is more tonally.

• 2:13:15David Sims?

  I mean, the funny stuff is like Jon Cusack going, wah!

• 2:13:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it is kind of doing character.

• 2:13:19Speaker 02

  What? No bows?

• 2:13:22David Sims?

  Uh, Kate and Leopold, one of my favorites. Uh, Someone Like You, a movie for nobody that I have seen like five times. Uh, Made in Manhattan, terrible. Forces of Nature, hugely underrated. Leap Year, Two Weeks' Notice, Fever Pitch, The British.

• 2:13:35Griffin Newman?

  Leap Year definitely was a modern, semi-modern attempt to do the same kind of thing.

• 2:13:39David Sims?

  And it's not that good.

• 2:13:40Speaker 02

  It's all that good.

• 2:13:41David Sims?

  There's no room at the end, which we always love.

• 2:13:44Speaker 02

  You have to sleep in this little bed! Another one that I was thinking, Only You is another one that sort of does this.

• 2:13:49Griffin Newman?

  Which one is that?

• 2:13:50Speaker 02

  That's the Norman Jewison, um, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey.

• 2:13:54Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. Is that good?

• 2:13:57David Sims?

  I've always wanted to watch that.

• 2:13:58Speaker 02

  It is. It is one of those you have to like get over the hurdle that she seems fucking insane.

• 2:14:05David Sims?

  Because it's like she's gonna get married.

• 2:14:07Speaker 02

  She's gonna get.

• 2:14:08David Sims?

  Destinies to marry Robert Downey Jr.

• 2:14:10Speaker 02

  Like, it's like, I'm trying to remember the exact thing, but it's like the night before her, there's like a fortune teller who's like, you're.

• 2:14:17David Sims?

  You're definitely gonna marry Robert Downey.

• 2:14:18Speaker 02

  You're gonna, no, you're gonna marry somebody with this name.

• 2:14:21David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 2:14:21Speaker 02

  And so then she goes to like.

• 2:14:24David Sims?

  Robert Downey Jr.

• 2:14:25Speaker 02

  So then she goes to Italy and he thinks trying to find this guy and then Robert Downey Jr. Lies to her that that's his name. And then it's like, you know.

• 2:14:34David Sims?

  Right. It sounds pretty good.

• 2:14:35Speaker 02

  It's like.

• 2:14:36David Sims?

  And by good, I mean, it sounds kind of insane.

• 2:14:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's very insane and you have to get over the fact that it's like insane and they lied to each other, you know, all that.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  I want to, no, no, you finish your thought because I'm pivoting off.

• 2:14:47Griffin Newman?

  My thing's a little bit of a pivot as well. It's a mini pivot.

• 2:14:49David Sims?

  I want to shout out Mary Louise Paulson, the only actor in this we haven't cast a true legend, like a face you guys all know, has a Tony, great theater actor. She's so good.

• 2:14:59Griffin Newman?

  Lois Smith as Annie McCall's mom.

• 2:15:01David Sims?

  Yeah, we said, we said, we shout everyone else out, I think, yes. Prosky, of course, we've, we've always, but we must give him many flowers. It is crazy that he doesn't have one more scene, but whatever.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  It is. Yeah.

• 2:15:14David Sims?

  They're probably, I don't know, it's a pretty economical movie.

• 2:15:17Griffin Newman?

  It is. But the billing on it is also weird. Like Prosky's like high billing. John Spencer's like single card.

• 2:15:24David Sims?

  And he's in like one scene, but he was sort of a name, I guess. He's a great actor. I have a great John Spencer story. I'm going to tell you guys off mic. Is there anything else we want to talk about?

• 2:15:34Griffin Newman?

  I just want to do this, this, this soft pivot.

• 2:15:37David Sims?

  Yes, yes, what's your?

• 2:15:37Griffin Newman?

  Off of what we were talking about of this kind of modality of rom com that is one that's really hard to execute. And especially now we live in a fucking desert where we're only getting like the dumbest, most synthetic rom coms, or they have to also be gun movies, right? Like either they're like $2 movies. Our buddy Amanda Dobbins on Big Picture was making this case recently where I think they were talking about the people we meet on vacation.

• 2:16:04Speaker 02

  That movie.

• 2:16:05Griffin Newman?

  And was saying how like Hallmark. And Netflix have made people think that rom coms are designed to be really cheap programmers, right? And she was like, you know, there are entire Instagram accounts now with millions and millions of followers based off of travel and based off of, look at how nice the sweater I bought was and this face cream I'm using was, right? If it's just about the access to the luxury events, locations, items, like people can get that. They don't need it delivered to them in a movie. And yet, if you're not actually putting that level of like, production value on screen,

• 2:16:46Griffin Newman?

  and those things are production value tantamount to like, a Marvel movie not investing enough in CGI, then you're like, then what the fuck am I doing here?

• 2:16:54Speaker 02

  I mean, I think the other issue, though, is that for me, the appeal of the rom com location is not the same as the appeal of someone's Instagram or TikTok. You just want a rom com to feel like it exists in the real world.

• 2:17:12Griffin Newman?

  I think it needs to exist in a specific place.

• 2:17:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, for the fantasy to work, at least for me, the fantasy has to be rooted in the reality of a place and has to be rooted in the tangibility of that place. And then I can forgive some of the rom com tropes, some of the rom com ridiculousness that you have to get over because I feel like it's in the real world. I was talking about this with somebody another day where it's like, I always have trouble, like, I love rom coms and I have trouble reading romance. I've tried rom com novels and I have trouble with them.

• 2:17:47David Sims?

  They tend to be very tropey.

• 2:17:49Speaker 02

  Because they're so tropey and also because the writing's just not good enough for me to like glom onto.

• 2:17:57David Sims?

  But also not to dismiss a genre that I know people enjoy.

• 2:18:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, not to dismiss a genre that I know people enjoy, but I just don't feel like I can latch on in the way. And I feel like when I latch on to a rom com, it's because the fizziness is in the dialogue, is in the writing and the reality.

• 2:18:17Speaker 02

  Is in the world.

• 2:18:18Griffin Newman?

  I think it even goes beyond that, which is just like, for me, it's the magic act of the chemistry the two people are creating. And then when that's working in tandem with the writing, with the location, with the supporting cast, all that stuff, when it feels like you've created an ecosystem. But I do agree with you. It needs to feel like it is grounded in the specific. And the specific can't just be the tropes of the characters or the plot beats. It also needs to be like a sense of place, even if that place is made up or heightened. And I feel like we're stuck in a lot of like streaming movies that are based around vacations where the characters have no relationship to the place they're in, and the place is being rendered

• 2:18:58Griffin Newman?

  very artificially, which is like the worst of all worlds. We're in a fake Maui and they just happened to meet here, you know? And it's like, great. So now you get a fucking surfing sequence? The fuck is this? Doesn't mean anything. And I think like, you know, it's, you want some level of like tactility. You want a level of like time and place in that specificity. A movie I love, which I will continue defending for the rest of my fucking life, is Materialist, which I think has been so wildly misunderstood. David is making the rudest face a person could possibly make.

• 2:19:34David Sims?

  I don't like that movie.

• 2:19:35Griffin Newman?

  I know you don't. You've made that very, very clear to me. But I think Materialist is-

• 2:19:39Speaker 02

  I like Materialist. I don't love it, but I don't.

• 2:19:42Griffin Newman?

  David, David is now making-

• 2:19:43Speaker 02

  No, I know. I was just-

• 2:19:44David Sims?

  I saw it with you.

• 2:19:46Speaker 02

  We sat next to each other.

• 2:19:47David Sims?

  Yeah, we did. We sure did.

• 2:19:49Griffin Newman?

  And David is making a face that says, don't talk to me ever again. But I feel Materialist is with like a pitch black heart and a real cynicism, more attempting a movie on this kind of wavelength than a proper rom com.

• 2:20:02David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:20:02Griffin Newman?

  I think so much of the, the hyper negative response to Materialist, which I fully understand is a very acquired taste movie that's not going to work for most people, is that it felt like 824 successfully marketed to people. We're bringing the rom com back and people were so ready to just see a fun love triangle movie. And then it was this kind of movie digging into is all of dating bullshit, which then made people feel like you offered me a cookie and then like threw acid in my face. They made the money.

• 2:20:32David Sims?

  Yeah, no, I was proud of them making their money. I was happy it made money. I like movies making money.

• 2:20:37Speaker 02

  I want to hear Ben's rom com.

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:20:39Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I look up this list. I don't know. There's a bunch. I just went to IndieWire, like 100 top rom coms. And it's, it's a reminder that this subgenre, what comes to mind is the stuff I remember as a kid that were very, like, very much leaning into the tropes.

• 2:20:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:21:00Speaker 03

  And that's like all of the McConaughey movies.

• 2:21:03Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:21:03Speaker 03

  So I forget when, when I look and I'm like seeing stuff like Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'm like, yeah, I guess.

• 2:21:11Griffin Newman?

  McConaughey did a lot of damage. The McConaughey run was quite bad and kept getting worse.

• 2:21:17Speaker 03

  And he, he knows it.

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  No, and that era was the death of it.

• 2:21:21Griffin Newman?

  It was. And it felt, it felt very cynical. And the, like, the McConnaissance was all about him being like, yeah, I agree. Those movies sucked, which kind of left those movies even further in the dirt without anyone stepping up to try to reclaim or recontextualize. There's also just the big thing, which is basically like Knocked Up skewed everything. When Knocked Up hit, people went, oh, can you make a rom com that's dude perspective first and has this kind of like harder comedy edge in it? And women will be more willing to see a dude rom com than dudes are to see like a more female perspective driven rom com, which I think had always been seen as a bit of a hurdle. And then that leaves you with like nothing. When that goes down.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  They started to lose respect for their audience.

• 2:22:08Griffin Newman?

  They did. Yeah. And they, they felt like they had contempt for themselves, were like embarrassed to be rom coms and had to be like, but it's not really a rom com.

• 2:22:17Speaker 03

  Okay, but I'll say 500 Days of Summer.

• 2:22:21Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:22:21Speaker 03

  Moonstruck.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  Well, yes.

• 2:22:24Speaker 03

  Harold and Maude.

• 2:22:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:26Speaker 03

  And then Roman Holiday, which I just saw recently. I watched with my wife because we were going to Italy and it was great. Yeah, it had a bit of a Roman Holiday.

• 2:22:35David Sims?

  We did. That's, that's true.

• 2:22:37Griffin Newman?

  I mean, for the first 60, 70 years of cinema, a like wild percentage of the greatest movies ever made could be classified as rom-coms. And it's really when they start to nail the formula down to the wall in the eighties and then like kind of nineties touchstone like just fucking goes like, here it is. It's math.

• 2:22:56David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a little bit of a like, take actor A, actor B, you know, add situation C.

• 2:23:01Griffin Newman?

  There are wildly successful movies that come out of that era and ones that have stood the test of time. And even the middling ones are fun to watch now, but it does feel like, you know, it's, it's like what fucking happens to Marvel where people go like, oh my God, I get it. I know what's gonna happen. I've seen 20 of these. They never change.

• 2:23:19Speaker 02

  I get frustrated like when I was in the process of writing this, that like rom-com fans have this idea of the rom-com sometimes as being only this like 2000s sort of.

• 2:23:31Griffin Newman?

  There's a lack of history.

• 2:23:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:23:33David Sims?

  Like they think 27 dresses is the apex.

• 2:23:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:23:36David Sims?

  She did have 27.

• 2:23:37Speaker 02

  She, she did have 27. And that I find very frustrating. And I think the problem with reviving the rom-com a little bit is that that stuff will still maybe looms a little too large.

• 2:23:51David Sims?

  Did you see Your Christmas or Mine?

• 2:23:53Griffin Newman?

  What was that?

• 2:23:55David Sims?

  No one's seen it.

• 2:23:56Griffin Newman?

  Your Christmas or Mine?

• 2:23:57David Sims?

  They made a sequel as well.

• 2:23:58Speaker 03

  You know, even thinking about movies that we've covered on the show that came up, broadcast news, all of the Nora movies.

• 2:24:05Griffin Newman?

  Nancy.

• 2:24:06Speaker 02

  Nancy.

• 2:24:07Speaker 03

  Nancy, totally. Did we like classify them as rom-coms during those series? Were we like?

• 2:24:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you did.

• 2:24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Cause I don't, I don't know. I don't even think of them as really that. Maybe the Nancys.

• 2:24:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, and look.

• 2:24:20Speaker 02

  No, I mean Nora is the queen of it. Like Nora is the like.

• 2:24:24Speaker 03

  Always at the top of the list.

• 2:24:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:26Speaker 03

  But I don't know why I just, I'm like, those are funny movies. Whereas rom-coms, I also equate kind of in my head as being like a little bit schlockier.

• 2:24:35Speaker 02

  But I think that's the problem. Is that like, that's like the inherent like.

• 2:24:38Griffin Newman?

  Talking about is that it used to be like, these have to be high thread count movies. Like people want to see movie stars looking incredible.

• 2:24:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:47Griffin Newman?

  You know, they want to see.

• 2:24:47Speaker 02

  And I think this is how the.

• 2:24:49David Sims?

  Huge problem with materialists.

• 2:24:50Griffin Newman?

  Nice homes and outfits. You think that's a huge problem with materialists?

• 2:24:54David Sims?

  Every actor is so wrong for it. And then is styled wrong is like, just like they not locked into whatever character she wants. Like that, that's the biggest thing with that.

• 2:25:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. See, I disagree on that.

• 2:25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I have some issues with the casting in that movie, but I I will say it, but I think that's the thing that like bothers me, which is that rom com got. No, wait, let me, okay.

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  That Pedro Pascal and and Dakota.

• 2:25:17Speaker 02

  I have a point to make.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  The point.

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  Stop it. I have a point to make.

• 2:25:21David Sims?

  You go ahead, Esther.

• 2:25:21Speaker 02

  Rom coms got equated with chick flicks.

• 2:25:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:25:24Speaker 02

  And that is the big and.

• 2:25:26David Sims?

  That's sort of a 90s thing, right?

• 2:25:28Speaker 02

  It's a 90s thing and into the 2000s thing. And I think it's a problem on multiple levels because I also don't think like the term chick flick should not exist because.

• 2:25:38Griffin Newman?

  It's in and of itself productive.

• 2:25:40Speaker 02

  And then you factor into now that rom com has been like so inundated with the Netflix schlock and the Netflix, you know, and.

• 2:25:49Griffin Newman?

  And the Netflix schlock is ripping off the Hallmark.

• 2:25:51Speaker 02

  The Hallmark schlock and that is the problem and it's all been denigrated. And I mean, I think it's all comes from like a sexist place, which is that like at a certain point, they start, they stopped realizing that everyone likes these movies and they thought that only women like these movies, but it's like a very frustrating thing.

• 2:26:06David Sims?

  Well, that's also just right that we don't have to make an effort as long as it's your Christmas or mine and their Christmases get swapped.

• 2:26:12Griffin Newman?

  That's the problem with the Hallmark and the Netflix stuff is people go, oh, if they'll watch it and we put.

• 2:26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:17Griffin Newman?

  $2 into the budget and it stars Joe Fuck and Alice, who gives a shit?

• 2:26:21David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:26:22Griffin Newman?

  Then, right, then then no one fucking matters. I also think you're right that it's one of those genres that in the 90s and the 2000s where it was financially very, very lucrative. It was never treated with a lot of respect by the industry itself. It was like, this is one of those things we have to fucking make. We we thank Julia for keeping our industry afloat, but we're not going to take her seriously until she does Aaron Brockovich, right?

• 2:26:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:26:45Griffin Newman?

  Whatever it is, even that arc between like 90 and 2000, where it's like, they cannot ignore her in Pretty Woman, they have to give her a best actress nomination.

• 2:26:56David Sims?

  Such a phenomenon.

• 2:26:56Griffin Newman?

  It's seismic, but by 10 years later, they're like, you're not getting one again until you actually break the genre. And it was always just, well, if they keep making money, we'll keep making them, even if we don't really respect them. The second the fucking obsession with overseas grosses blew up.

• 2:27:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:13Griffin Newman?

  It fucked everything up because these movies are super culturally specific. And it's like in the same way that we don't fucking want to watch the French movie called Calca Chance, about like four people drinking wine and finger banging each other. They don't want to see our movies, even if they are our stuff.

• 2:27:30David Sims?

  But they don't want to see our movies?

• 2:27:31Griffin Newman?

  It's rare. Those aren't the movies they want us to export as much, right? And they rarely would connect.

• 2:27:37Speaker 02

  Really brought it around to culture homes.

• 2:27:39Griffin Newman?

  Unless the premise is like so gold. But even then, you look at the best rom coms and they tend to be remade in every country where they're like, we'll do our version of that premise.

• 2:27:49David Sims?

  Like what?

• 2:27:50Griffin Newman?

  Uh, well, there's so many French comedies that were remade as American comedies, like Three Men and a Baby and, and stuff like that. But even like, what was the, Olivia Wilde's new movie?

• 2:28:01Speaker 02

  The Invite. Yeah, it's a remake.

• 2:28:03Griffin Newman?

  At Sundance. Is like, it was a Spanish film originally.

• 2:28:06Speaker 02

  Coda?

• 2:28:07Griffin Newman?

  Coda.

• 2:28:08David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  But that movie is a Spanish film, and I believe it's the fourth remake, like three other countries remade it before we did?

• 2:28:17David Sims?

  It's called The People Upstairs. I haven't, I, I'm excited. Olivia Wilde, though, she's made a film? Directed it?

• 2:28:23Griffin Newman?

  No, no, she's an actor.

• 2:28:24David Sims?

  Oh, okay. Right. That makes more sense.

• 2:28:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:25David Sims?

  And she's in the film.

• 2:28:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, of course. If she was directing a movie, I would have heard about it.

• 2:28:29David Sims?

  The story ends there.

• 2:28:30Griffin Newman?

  I would have heard about it. I pay attention to such.

• 2:28:31David Sims?

  Green Card was released limited Christmas. We're done. We're wrapping up. I'm wrapping this up, guys.

• 2:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Do you have something you want to say?

• 2:28:39Speaker 03

  This has been a spirited conversation.

• 2:28:41David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:28:42Speaker 03

  It's a good reminder, though. I need to revisit how I think about the rom com. And you know what I'm gonna do?

• 2:28:48Speaker 02

  What are you gonna do?

• 2:28:48Speaker 03

  I'm gonna pick up Esther's book.

• 2:28:50Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, you're bad.

• 2:28:52David Sims?

  She's got some great, great recs in that book. Uh, seriously, if you just like watch along with her, like, I highly recommend.

• 2:29:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:00David Sims?

  Her other books are trash, though.

• 2:29:02Griffin Newman?

  Not true.

• 2:29:02Speaker 02

  Garbage.

• 2:29:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but Falling in Love at the Movies.

• 2:29:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:29:06David Sims?

  Well, yes, but, but, but, but we're not, I mean, you know, we're not at the plugs. I mean, we should plug Esther's book, Plug Away, but I mean, um, also.

• 2:29:13Griffin Newman?

  We kept talking about it and not naming it. I thought it was good to name it.

• 2:29:15David Sims?

  Oh, that's a good point.

• 2:29:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. David, Box Office.

• 2:29:17David Sims?

  Um, yeah, it comes out Christmas, uh, expands wide-ish February 1st.

• 2:29:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:29:24David Sims?

  Uh, made $30 million domestic. I think more worldwide. So like, we are made some good movies.

• 2:29:30Griffin Newman?

  It gets a best screenplay nomination.

• 2:29:32David Sims?

  Good money. So that I wanted to point out.

• 2:29:34Griffin Newman?

  Golden Globe, it wins best musical or comedy?

• 2:29:37David Sims?

  I have all this queued up. So.

• 2:29:39Griffin Newman?

  Do you want to say it?

• 2:29:39David Sims?

  Yeah. So it wins best musical or comedy at the Golden Globes, which is shocking because the other nominees were, this is crazy that it won. I don't know. They must have paid someone off. Or maybe it was the classier movie. I'm going to give you the nominees for best comedy or musical.

• 2:29:55Griffin Newman?

  Euro voting base.

• 2:29:57David Sims?

  You're right, but so, but listen.

• 2:29:58Griffin Newman?

  Cause Gerard also wins best act.

• 2:30:00David Sims?

  He does. He does. But at least he's sort of, you know, listen to this.

• 2:30:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:04David Sims?

  Dick Tracy. Okay, fine. That wasn't going to win.

• 2:30:06Griffin Newman?

  Pretty funny though.

• 2:30:07David Sims?

  Pretty fun. Yeah. Ghost?

• 2:30:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I mean, Ghost is, feels like it's slam dunk.

• 2:30:12David Sims?

  Home Alone.

• 2:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but they.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  They may be snobby about it, but it had made a billion dollars.

• 2:30:17Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 2:30:18David Sims?

  And Pretty Woman.

• 2:30:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:20David Sims?

  It beat all of those out. Like, was there almost like a weird, like, the bigger movies were sort of splitting votes or something?

• 2:30:27Griffin Newman?

  I think it's crazy. I think it's a Euro thing. And I think Pretty Woman being released at the beginning of the year and Green Card at the end of the year, I think it was probably positioned as that this is the headier Pretty Woman. This is the rarefied, the upper class. And I think it's the Euro thing.

• 2:30:43David Sims?

  Jeff R. G. beats out Macaulay Culkin, Richard Gere, Patrick Swayze. Again, you'd think the Globes, it might be going for these guys.

• 2:30:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:52David Sims?

  And Johnny Depp and Edward Scissorhands.

• 2:30:54Speaker 02

  It was the Hollywood Foreign Press. So they were like.

• 2:30:56David Sims?

  I guess so, but like, you know, uh, Andy, I think was nominated, but she, she lost to Julia Roberts. They at least for that one were like, I think Julia Roberts maybe should win the Golden Globe.

• 2:31:07Griffin Newman?

  And what were the other screenplay nominees?

• 2:31:08David Sims?

  I'm going to tell you, cause it is, it's quite. A bunch. Now, the winner is Bruce Joel Rubin's screenplay for Ghost, which is a stupid winner, but obviously that movie was such a phenomenon. And I think there was that Hollywood of like, you know, you wrote the movie that was sort of out of fashion.

• 2:31:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:24David Sims?

  And it worked.

• 2:31:25Griffin Newman?

  It's also like he invented silly putty where you're like, I don't know if we needed this, caused a sensation and no one else was gonna think to write.

• 2:31:33David Sims?

  The other reason he won is you look at the other nominees and none of them really feel like winners. It's Woody Allen for Alice, which is like a weird fucking movie.

• 2:31:41Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't exist.

• 2:31:42David Sims?

  It's a really interesting movie, but certainly not gonna win an Oscar. Barry Levinson's Avalon, which was, I feel like a movie that everyone thought was gonna be like,

• 2:31:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:50David Sims?

  His big, like next Oscar epic and everyone was a little tepid on it. Pretty good movie.

• 2:31:54Griffin Newman?

  Favorite of my father.

• 2:31:55David Sims?

  It's a pretty good. It's a pretty good movie. Yeah. It's made though, with this kind of like, It's very historically.

• 2:32:02Griffin Newman?

  It's like his Fableman's or whatever.

• 2:32:04David Sims?

  Exactly. Yeah, it is.

• 2:32:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:06David Sims?

  And then Whit Stillman for Metropolitan, which is a feat of writing. Yeah. And thank God he got in there, but like,

• 2:32:12Griffin Newman?

  But feels like you're lucky to be nominated. We're giving you that level of respect. Yeah.

• 2:32:16David Sims?

  It's a weird one because it's the 90 Oscars. So it's Dances with Wolves and Goodfellas are like the big, you know, sort of awards contenders and then shit like, you know, fucking Bugsy.

• 2:32:26Griffin Newman?

  A shit like fucking Bugsy.

• 2:32:27David Sims?

  Is it Bugsy? No, it's not the Bugsy year. It's, uh, no, Dick Tracy is the favorite movie.

• 2:32:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. So it's the following year of shit like fucking Bugsy.

• 2:32:35David Sims?

  I guess, I mean, Misery wins best actress, best actor, Jeremy Irons for reversal of fortune. You know, they, all the comedies we just noted, which are like memorable smashes.

• 2:32:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:46David Sims?

  Ghost, Home Alone, Pretty Woman. It's like, yeah, take your noms. I mean, Ghost got some wins, right? You know, but like, at the end of the day, this was an Oscars that, right, that tended to ignore that stuff.

• 2:32:56Griffin Newman?

  I don't know how much of it's the 10, but I've just been thinking a lot about, are we a little past the era of like, The Oscar winning performances are the only nomination for the movie.

• 2:33:08David Sims?

  Yeah, it doesn't happen much anymore, but partly because right 10, 10 best picture nominee. I mean, were there any this year? I mean, weapons?

• 2:33:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh, weapons. Yes. Could quite possibly, yeah, pull off that exact trick. But like, you know, I feel like a historic one is, is that Michael Douglas was the only nomination that Wall Street got.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  It's a weird.

• 2:33:28Griffin Newman?

  Reversal of Fortune didn't get a ton of nominations, did it? Or am I wrong?

• 2:33:32David Sims?

  I might've gotten a few though. Let's, let's, great movie.

• 2:33:35Griffin Newman?

  Cause misery, I think similarly was just the one.

• 2:33:38David Sims?

  Uh, reversal of fortune got weirdly got three noms, uh, director, actor screenplay.

• 2:33:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:33:43David Sims?

  Well, Glenn is truly in a coma for most of it. Um, she is, I mean, he fucking put her there.

• 2:33:48Griffin Newman?

  Let me ask you though.

• 2:33:49David Sims?

  Or did he?

• 2:33:50Griffin Newman?

  Did you see her blink once? It's a pretty good performance. Made a choice and stuck to it.

• 2:33:57David Sims?

  Uh, misery, I think just got the one not misery is the rare truly, which is a little rude. Cause like, it's actually really good adaptation.

• 2:34:07Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:34:07David Sims?

  But I think it's a very crowded field that year.

• 2:34:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:10David Sims?

  Con is great.

• 2:34:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:12David Sims?

  Con is great.

• 2:34:13Griffin Newman?

  Con is great.

• 2:34:14David Sims?

  I sound insane right now, but he is, he's.

• 2:34:16Griffin Newman?

  Con is great. Yeah.

• 2:34:18David Sims?

  Box office. Uh, so I'm giving you the February 1st expansion. It's still only number six. It was a slow grower, this one. Number one at the box office, we've mentioned it a few times already. It's a phenomenon, a Christmas phenomenon. It's been number one for three months.

• 2:34:32Griffin Newman?

  Home Alone.

• 2:34:33David Sims?

  It's called Home Alone.

• 2:34:33Griffin Newman?

  R.I.P Catherine O'Hara.

• 2:34:35David Sims?

  That's absolutely right.

• 2:34:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it was one of the 10 highest grossing films.

• 2:34:37David Sims?

  And yet the wet bandits is still at large.

• 2:34:39Griffin Newman?

  They're still at large, unfortunately. Uh, one of the 10 highest grossing films of all time upon release.

• 2:34:44David Sims?

  It made 285 million dollars domestically.

• 2:34:48Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 2:34:50David Sims?

  We need to remake it. I mean, they've tried so many shitty versions of sequels and remakes and reboots and like, it never, it's, nobody cares anymore.

• 2:34:59Speaker 02

  Also, isn't there like a John Hughes thing? Like he is very specific, like the.

• 2:35:03Griffin Newman?

  No, cause they've done other ones. I, I think, no, sorry, Esther, I was not saying that in a dismissive way. Just that they've done shitty runoff Home Alone stuff in a way. That I think maybe because he didn't direct it, the contracts weren't as tight.

• 2:35:17Speaker 02

  Maybe, yeah.

• 2:35:18Griffin Newman?

  Cause I know he wouldn't let something like Ferris or.

• 2:35:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:35:23Griffin Newman?

  Although they were about to make a fucking Ferris Bueller spinoff at Paramount Plus and it got shut down the last second.

• 2:35:29Speaker 02

  Thank God.

• 2:35:29Griffin Newman?

  God.

• 2:35:30David Sims?

  The fucking Super Bowl ads obviously are horrendous now.

• 2:35:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I hate all this shit.

• 2:35:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're so bad.

• 2:35:35David Sims?

  Broderick where he's like, I love AI because it helps me like do spreadsheets and shit. And I'm just watching and I'm like, Broderick, you've never done a spreadsheet. What is this? If you don't work in an office.

• 2:35:45Speaker 02

  The only good.

• 2:35:46David Sims?

  Get out of here, Broderick.

• 2:35:48Speaker 02

  Was the one with the toilets thing.

• 2:35:50Griffin Newman?

  I didn't see that, but it sounds like my kind of thing.

• 2:35:52David Sims?

  And I mean, it was okay.

• 2:35:53Speaker 02

  I laughed.

• 2:35:54David Sims?

  But there wasn't like a, you know.

• 2:35:55Speaker 02

  It was bad.

• 2:35:56David Sims?

  A single tier, like, you know, kind of Super Bowl ad that you were looking for.

• 2:36:00Griffin Newman?

  There's like the two to three shitty post Macaulay Home Alone, the sequels, and then the reboot attempt.

• 2:36:07David Sims?

  Home.

• 2:36:07Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like Macaulay more recently started being like, what if we did like a legitimate one and it was me as the dad? I think Catherine O'Hara dying kills that.

• 2:36:16David Sims?

  Kills it even harder.

• 2:36:17Griffin Newman?

  I think it kills it really fucking hard.

• 2:36:18David Sims?

  In the weird way, of course, like her, like later in life, like.

• 2:36:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:22David Sims?

  Fifth wave of success probably would have made it easier.

• 2:36:25Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:36:25David Sims?

  Like, and now it's sort of like, oh, forget it.

• 2:36:27Griffin Newman?

  Right. And people wanting to see the two of them together. If it's just him.

• 2:36:31David Sims?

  Griff, you just know if they do a Home Alone now, it's like he'll have an app. He'll like, you know, swing the, swing the cans with like an app.

• 2:36:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:40David Sims?

  He'll do, he'll like put a TikTok filter on his face to order the pizza.

• 2:36:44Griffin Newman?

  And he's not even swinging cans. He's taping older iPhone models to friends. And then he's using an app to. It's, it's all the apps.

• 2:36:54David Sims?

  Number two of the box office is the best picture winner.

• 2:36:56Griffin Newman?

  Dancing with Wolves.

• 2:36:57David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:36:57Griffin Newman?

  So these are.

• 2:36:58David Sims?

  We've covered it on this podcast.

• 2:36:58Griffin Newman?

  These are just like fucking juggernauts running the box office that are gonna.

• 2:37:02David Sims?

  I mean, just three months.

• 2:37:04Griffin Newman?

  Month long campaigns. Yeah.

• 2:37:05David Sims?

  Number three is a film I didn't see in theaters, but definitely saw as a boy. Uh, I'd say. An adventure film for, for, you know, for young people.

• 2:37:14Griffin Newman?

  It's an adventure film for young people. It's not Homer Bound.

• 2:37:16David Sims?

  No, it's more like grown up and dramatic than that. But it's definitely still like for, you know, kids and teenagers to Disney film. It's a major, great actor as a young man, uh, you know, young.

• 2:37:29Speaker 02

  Newsy?

• 2:37:30David Sims?

  Nope.

• 2:37:32David Sims?

  You know, that level of prestige.

• 2:37:34Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's not, it's not the Cusack one. It's not the Ethan Hawke one.

• 2:37:39David Sims?

  It sure is an Ethan Hawke.

• 2:37:40Griffin Newman?

  It's the Ethan Hawke one.

• 2:37:41Speaker 02

  Oh, what's the name of this movie?

• 2:37:43Griffin Newman?

  I get all these titles confused. It's not.

• 2:37:45Speaker 02

  Something with a G?

• 2:37:46Griffin Newman?

  Never Cry Wolf?

• 2:37:47David Sims?

  No, but it doesn't involve a wolf.

• 2:37:49Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't involve a wolf.

• 2:37:50Speaker 02

  White Fang.

• 2:37:52David Sims?

  White Fang.

• 2:37:53Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 2:37:53Speaker 02

  I got that before him.

• 2:37:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you nailed it.

• 2:37:56David Sims?

  White Fang, Esther Zuckerman.

• 2:37:57Griffin Newman?

  Esther, and I say this, look at me. I say this from the bottom of my heart. Points.

• 2:38:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:38:03David Sims?

  Based on Jacqueline's novel, you know, he's, he's in Alaska or wherever the fuck he is. There's a wolf dog. They go on an adventure. I saw it as a kid. I can't say I remember it very well.

• 2:38:14Griffin Newman?

  Ethan Hawke.

• 2:38:15David Sims?

  Yeah. Randall Kleiser film.

• 2:38:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:17David Sims?

  Who made Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

• 2:38:19Griffin Newman?

  Hmm. And Grease.

• 2:38:21Speaker 02

  Did you know there's a new TV show where.

• 2:38:23David Sims?

  Lagoon, Big Top Peewee.

• 2:38:25Speaker 02

  Where Elizabeth Banks is shrink.

• 2:38:27David Sims?

  And it's like, let's shrink.

• 2:38:28Speaker 02

  There's, there's like a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids TV. Well, it's not, it's not Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but it's called A Miniature Wife and Matthew McFadyen shrinks Elizabeth Banks. I just think it's funny.

• 2:38:39Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm going to say this from the bottom of my heart.

• 2:38:41David Sims?

  Oh my God, this is coming up.

• 2:38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's coming out soon.

• 2:38:44David Sims?

  He made her tiny.

• 2:38:45Speaker 02

  He made her small. It's literally Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but it's Elizabeth Banks.

• 2:38:48David Sims?

  And you can just imagine McFadden going like, oh.

• 2:38:51Griffin Newman?

  Which platform is this on?

• 2:38:53Speaker 02

  I believe Peacock.

• 2:38:55Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna say this from the bottom of my heart. I think we need to create Skynet and use it to destroy the servers that all of these streaming platforms use. I think we need to wipe this shit out. Enough is enough.

• 2:39:09David Sims?

  Whatever the algorithms are that are making it like they've got to go.

• 2:39:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:39:14David Sims?

  We need to do a movie about your mission to like, tear out like, servers in like Hollywood basements or whatever.

• 2:39:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, I'll just, I'll get a sledgehammer right now and just start.

• 2:39:25David Sims?

  We fucking ran the McFadden, Elizabeth Banks, she shrinks her, it's enough. It gets, you know, like, the profit loss, it gets us there.

• 2:39:33Griffin Newman?

  And I don't know, I, we have to create an entity, we have to create, we have to find a Podkova. I don't know what we have to fucking do.

• 2:39:40David Sims?

  Man, remember how often they say Podkova in that movie?

• 2:39:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:44David Sims?

  We saw that film together.

• 2:39:45Griffin Newman?

  I still have so many questions.

• 2:39:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:47Griffin Newman?

  Number four. Tried to work through, I've gotten somewhere, still waiting on Christopher McQuarrie's remaining 800 hours of explaining why it's good. He tapped out after four.

• 2:39:57David Sims?

  He did. I would love him to come aboard. I wonder, I would truly wonder how he feels.

• 2:40:01Griffin Newman?

  I genuinely want him to go through a couple of years of therapy.

• 2:40:04David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:40:05Griffin Newman?

  Maybe write like a book.

• 2:40:06David Sims?

  Even make another movie?

• 2:40:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:07David Sims?

  And then like, be like, okay, you know what? Fine. In retrospect, I made a couple.

• 2:40:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm opening the Final Reckoning files.

• 2:40:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:40:15Griffin Newman?

  3 million will remain redacted, but 3 million will be released to the public.

• 2:40:20David Sims?

  Maybe I didn't mean to do that many flashbacks. Um, number four is a Best Picture nominee, from a director who we will cover on this podcast one day. You're always saying we're going to cover her.

• 2:40:31Griffin Newman?

  I'm always saying we're gonna cover her.

• 2:40:32David Sims?

  As a jerk.

• 2:40:33Griffin Newman?

  Penny Marshall. It's the motion picture Awakenings?

• 2:40:36David Sims?

  Awakenings. Wake up!

• 2:40:38Griffin Newman?

  Kind of just like, ultimate sturdy Oscar bait movie.

• 2:40:42Speaker 02

  Why is Penny Marshall a joke? Like, I genuinely think you should do it.

• 2:40:46Griffin Newman?

  No, great question. And I'm glad you're saying me up for this because I think the longer it's been a joke, the more people think.

• 2:40:52David Sims?

  You're making fun of Penny Marshall.

• 2:40:53Griffin Newman?

  We would never do it, and we don't think she's worthy of a series.

• 2:40:56Speaker 02

  But like, she is.

• 2:40:57Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. 100%. And I actually want to do her as a series.

• 2:41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I need to do a Penny episode.

• 2:41:02Griffin Newman?

  Which Penny would you want to do? A Penny for your thoughts?

• 2:41:05Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 2:41:06David Sims?

  You can't just call League of Their Own, so come on.

• 2:41:08Griffin Newman?

  You can, what, I, I'm not asking her to call one, I'm saying which one would you want to do in your heart of hearts?

• 2:41:12Speaker 02

  I mean, obviously, I would want to do a League of Their Own, but you'd get someone more famous to do that. Sorry, you guys are big time now.

• 2:41:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's just A-Rod had told us he was interested. A-Rod's become, A-Rod's become a blankie and a checkmate.

• 2:41:25Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 2:41:28Speaker 02

  Obviously, I mean, look, riding in Cars with Boys would be fucked up to do.

• 2:41:34David Sims?

  That's fun.

• 2:41:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:35David Sims?

  It's more fun than League of Their Own, dude. League of Their Own is kind of like, yeah, it rocks. Yeah, I mean, it would be fun, but like, the weird ones are funner.

• 2:41:42Griffin Newman?

  Also, A-Rod has like a lot of takes on that one. He said he has some personal stories that he thinks would be a good place to share. I know the actual answer is it was a bit very early into our run when we had been covering kind of like more obvious people and landed on that as the joke answer to throw people off our scent.

• 2:42:02David Sims?

  It's a grift bit.

• 2:42:02Griffin Newman?

  And then now it has circled back to just, I can always say we're doing Penny Marshall next to divert people's attention from what we're actually doing. But to be clear.

• 2:42:11David Sims?

  Which is Roman Polanski.

• 2:42:14David Sims?

  And Esther, you're on every episode.

• 2:42:16Griffin Newman?

  To be clear, I would very much like to do.

• 2:42:18Speaker 02

  DePauw, Polanski, just people who have, other people have signed petitions in support of.

• 2:42:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:24Griffin Newman?

  I would very much like to do Penny Marshall.

• 2:42:26David Sims?

  Yeah, we'll do it.

• 2:42:26Griffin Newman?

  And I'd like to do it sooner rather than later. How's next week for you, David?

• 2:42:30David Sims?

  Yeah, let's do it. Number five at the box office is a romantic comedy drama, uh oh, about a young woman who falls for it, eventually marries an overbearing older man who proceeds to rub her close knit family the wrong way. Would you believe that this film stars Richard Dreyfuss?

• 2:42:49Griffin Newman?

  This is what about Bob?

• 2:42:50David Sims?

  No, this is not a movie I really know. It's a Lasse Hallström movie. It's his first English language film, the great Swedish director, Lasse Hallström, who became a very mediocre Hollywood director.

• 2:43:02Griffin Newman?

  Mediocre Hollywood director is almost, yeah, too kind.

• 2:43:04David Sims?

  He did make Chocolat. Well, he made a couple of good American movies.

• 2:43:08Speaker 02

  We're coming back around. Everything's in a circle.

• 2:43:10Griffin Newman?

  Look, I watched Chocolat for the first time like two or three years ago after mostly knowing it as like ultimate Oscar villain.

• 2:43:16David Sims?

  You took a bite.

• 2:43:16Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, this shit rolls.

• 2:43:18David Sims?

  Yeah, Chocolat's pretty good.

• 2:43:19Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, being nominated for Best Picture is the worst thing that ever could have happened to it. I wish we had three Chocolas a year.

• 2:43:25David Sims?

  Can I ask, what is Chocolat about? Dude.

• 2:43:28Speaker 02

  It's about a man.

• 2:43:29David Sims?

  It is about what if you were a stuffy French town and Juliette Binoche. Like at her peak performance.

• 2:43:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:36David Sims?

  Showed up and started, started making chocolate and everyone just got so horny. And then Johnny Depp showed up. And Johnny Depp is there too, but he's on, you know.

• 2:43:43Griffin Newman?

  Johnny Depp is like a Romani drifter who like.

• 2:43:46David Sims?

  Got a guitar.

• 2:43:47Griffin Newman?

  Steals her heart and then returns it to her. Alfred Molina's seemingly coming straight from the set of Dudley Do Right.

• 2:43:54David Sims?

  He's just like.

• 2:43:54Griffin Newman?

  Snidely with.

• 2:43:55David Sims?

  This chocolate is bad.

• 2:43:57Griffin Newman?

  He's got the mustache and the cape and everything. Her daughter's Ponet, the saddest girl in the history of movies.

• 2:44:03David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:44:04Speaker 03

  All right, I gotta, I gotta watch this.

• 2:44:05David Sims?

  It's a pretty silly movie.

• 2:44:06Griffin Newman?

  Judy Dance is an old lady who's like.

• 2:44:08David Sims?

  She's good.

• 2:44:08Griffin Newman?

  The chocolate.

• 2:44:09David Sims?

  The chocolate makes them horny.

• 2:44:11Speaker 03

  I will report back.

• 2:44:12David Sims?

  I think that like Gilbert Grape, Chocolat are the sort of, I guess, the two best Hallstrom Hollywood movies. I've never seen something to talk about.

• 2:44:22Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:44:22David Sims?

  The Julia Roberts movie he made.

• 2:44:24Griffin Newman?

  Is there another 90s one?

• 2:44:25David Sims?

  Cider House. Cider House. It's a movie that is, again, it's like, if you remove the Oscar nominations, like the unjust wins that it got.

• 2:44:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:34David Sims?

  You're kind of like, oh, this is interesting. There's things about this that work. Like it's just. My princes of New England.

• 2:44:39Griffin Newman?

  Personally, I think Cider House rules.

• 2:44:41David Sims?

  Ah, boo.

• 2:44:43Griffin Newman?

  I had, I had to do it.

• 2:44:44Speaker 03

  I liked it. I liked it.

• 2:44:47David Sims?

  Cider House rules. But you know, My Life as a Dog is like incredible. Like he made great movies. Anyway, this movie I've never heard of. I'll tell you the stars. Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Danny Aiello, Laura Sangia Como. So, uh, Andy McTell's co-star.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:01David Sims?

  Also in Pretty Woman, there's a like a lot.

• 2:45:04Griffin Newman?

  Jennifer Rollins is in it.

• 2:45:05David Sims?

  Roxanne Hart, Tim Gunnery. I don't know this movie. Do you know, guys know this movie?

• 2:45:09Griffin Newman?

  Is the title a sentence?

• 2:45:10David Sims?

  No, it's like a very generic sounding title. It's called.

• 2:45:14Griffin Newman?

  Broken Hearts?

• 2:45:15David Sims?

  No, it's called Once Around.

• 2:45:18Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:45:19David Sims?

  Produced by Griffin Dunn. I wonder if he ever considered directing or something. I have no idea.

• 2:45:23Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. He was producing a lot in that era though. He produced Running on Empty.

• 2:45:26David Sims?

  I'm telling you, it's a winter.

• 2:45:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:45:29David Sims?

  So that's the top five. Number six is Green Card. Number seven is It's Not a Tumor.

• 2:45:34Griffin Newman?

  Tinder Garden Cop.

• 2:45:36David Sims?

  Number eight is a movie called popcorn. What is that?

• 2:45:39Griffin Newman?

  That's a horror film. Isn't it about a haunted movie theater?

• 2:45:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:43Griffin Newman?

  I've always wanted to see it.

• 2:45:44David Sims?

  I've seen this poster. I've never seen this movie.

• 2:45:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:47David Sims?

  College students hosting a film festival stalked and murdered by a serial killer. Sounds fun. Number nine is The Grifters, another Oscar holdover. Great film.

• 2:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Great film.

• 2:45:58David Sims?

  And number 10 is Hamlet. I think the Mel Gibson Hamlet.

• 2:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:46:02David Sims?

  Which is very, a very solid kind of like.

• 2:46:05Speaker 02

  I remember what Mel Gibson said.

• 2:46:08Griffin Newman?

  What did he say?

• 2:46:08David Sims?

  It's clueless. She's.

• 2:46:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, oh, got it. You got a lot of the, the kings of the nineties in that 10.

• 2:46:15David Sims?

  True.

• 2:46:15Griffin Newman?

  For, for being.

• 2:46:16David Sims?

  Dreyfus, you mean?

• 2:46:18Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you got, you got Macaulay and Arnie and Costner and Gibson.

• 2:46:25David Sims?

  Totally.

• 2:46:25Griffin Newman?

  It is like, it's a snapshot of a movie star era.

• 2:46:28David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 2:46:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:29David Sims?

  I mean, hell, number 11 is Godfather Part III.

• 2:46:32Griffin Newman?

  Well, look at that.

• 2:46:33David Sims?

  Pacino's there. Number 12 is Jacob's ladder. Tim Robbins.

• 2:46:36Griffin Newman?

  The biggest, tallest.

• 2:46:38David Sims?

  He is tall.

• 2:46:39Griffin Newman?

  One of our tallest actors.

• 2:46:40David Sims?

  I just saw Howard the Duck for the first time recently because I'm trying to watch.

• 2:46:44Speaker 02

  You know what? I know this because you liked Ross Loophold's review of it.

• 2:46:49David Sims?

  I thought it was funny.

• 2:46:50Speaker 02

  During, and it was, he got that notification during our Superbowl watch. He was like, well, no, because you liked it. And then a bunch of people started liking.

• 2:46:59David Sims?

  If I like a review, I don't mean to do this, but because I have a big following.

• 2:47:03Griffin Newman?

  A little bum.

• 2:47:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:47:04Speaker 02

  He was like, he was like, what the fuck is happening?

• 2:47:07David Sims?

  I mean, his review to me nailed. I know I, you've discussed Howard the Duck many times on the George Lucas Talk Show. I'm sure.

• 2:47:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:47:12David Sims?

  Yes. Yes, duck tits, right. But his review nailed the whole thing to me where he's like, what bugs him is the duck is not funny. He's not trying and failing. He's not even intended to be funny. He's just grumpy about being a duck in the real world, the whole movie.

• 2:47:28Griffin Newman?

  It feels.

• 2:47:29David Sims?

  Where's the point of the comic book characters? He's like, eh, my wise cracking duck. And this one, he's just like, what the fuck's up with me not being in my duck world?

• 2:47:36Griffin Newman?

  It feels like real Lucas influence. That if he had been like, I read the comic book and I liked it and I hired funny filmmakers and I let them do whatever they wanted to do.

• 2:47:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:47:46Griffin Newman?

  I'm not sure the movie works, but it's probably more of an out and out comedy.

• 2:47:49David Sims?

  Right. I kind of went into it because of its weird status now, thinking like, this is gonna be interesting. And then I put it on, I was like, this is like sludgy. Like, this is really slow and boring.

• 2:48:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I prefer Garbage Hill Kids movie to Howard the Duck.

• 2:48:03David Sims?

  I mean, and it fucking has Leah Thompson in it, who I would like run a thousand miles for, and she looks great. It also has a duck in it. Howard. The Duck. And Tim Robbins is in it. I just remember.

• 2:48:17Griffin Newman?

  And Jeffrey Jones?

• 2:48:18David Sims?

  Who, he's really good.

• 2:48:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, legally.

• 2:48:22David Sims?

  In a movie.

• 2:48:26David Sims?

  What am I supposed to do about the fact that half a Hollywood resext criminal is Griffin? What do you want me to do about this?

• 2:48:33Griffin Newman?

  Stop inviting me to your birthday party. That's all I'm asking.

• 2:48:37David Sims?

  I haven't had a birthday party. Well, I had one last year. What should I do this year?

• 2:48:40Griffin Newman?

  Invite Jeffrey Jones, or just text him and ask what he's up to. Oh, my God.

• 2:48:44David Sims?

  1-800-JEFFREY. Cosby, Jeffrey Jones.

• 2:48:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we gotta.

• 2:48:48David Sims?

  Who else?

• 2:48:49Griffin Newman?

  We already invoked Kevin Spacey.

• 2:48:51David Sims?

  Oh, sure, we did.

• 2:48:52Griffin Newman?

  Cosby runs maybe cut out. Polanski, we mentioned Polanski. And tripled. I was thinking, it is kind of nice that they got Beetlejuice Beetlejuice made while Catherine Herr was still alive, not knowing that we were gonna lose her so soon.

• 2:49:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:49:08Griffin Newman?

  Like, that that movie ends with her being reconnected with her dead husband, whose top half has been bitten off, so you don't have to look at Jeffrey Jones anymore. But the movie ends with you being like, she seems happy.

• 2:49:18David Sims?

  Yeah, totally. She rocks in that movie. She's really fun in that movie.

• 2:49:21Griffin Newman?

  She's so good in that. Yeah.

• 2:49:22David Sims?

  Not a movie I like, remember that well, otherwise.

• 2:49:24Griffin Newman?

  Watched it again, and it grew for me a little. It's a fun, it's fun.

• 2:49:27David Sims?

  It's pretty fun.

• 2:49:27Griffin Newman?

  It's fun.

• 2:49:28David Sims?

  I definitely was not like, like, watching that movie. I was like, eh.

• 2:49:31Griffin Newman?

  No, you know what movie rules?

• 2:49:33David Sims?

  What?

• 2:49:33Griffin Newman?

  Beetlejuice.

• 2:49:34David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:49:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, a little bit less. Esther, anything you wanna plug?

• 2:49:39Speaker 02

  My writing.

• 2:49:40Griffin Newman?

  You're writing everywhere.

• 2:49:41Speaker 02

  Well, obviously, my book has been a plug, rom com, so. Falling in love with the movies, rom coms from a screwball era to today. Um, I write many places, uh, including the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. So you can read my writing around there. I'm working on a new book, uh, that will be out, um, by this time.

• 2:50:03Griffin Newman?

  Are you allowed to say what it's about?

• 2:50:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's about the television show Girls.

• 2:50:07Griffin Newman?

  Hey.

• 2:50:08Speaker 02

  And.

• 2:50:09Speaker 03

  People are talking about it.

• 2:50:10Speaker 02

  People are talking about it. It will not be out by the time this is done and it may be not out by the time I come back on the show. So we will see.

• 2:50:18Speaker 03

  You're doing great.

• 2:50:18Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:50:19Griffin Newman?

  You're the best.

• 2:50:20Speaker 02

  I appreciate you guys.

• 2:50:21Griffin Newman?

  In fact, I would say you are the best.

• 2:50:23Speaker 03

  Uh, never forget.

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:50:27Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Esther, I've rewatched Aloha in the last year and do you know that it secretly rips now?

• 2:50:31Speaker 02

  Okay, we should, I should rewatch it.

• 2:50:33Griffin Newman?

  I've been trying to get David to rewatch it, but if you get around to rewatching Aloha, please touch base with me.

• 2:50:37Speaker 02

  I will.

• 2:50:37Speaker 03

  I would rewatch.

• 2:50:38Griffin Newman?

  Cause I really, I.

• 2:50:39Speaker 02

  Should we do a reunion pod?

• 2:50:41Speaker 03

  Hmm, let's not get crazy. It's only an hour 45. It's not like a big task.

• 2:50:46Griffin Newman?

  Let's say aloha to our previous episode on aloha. And meanwhile, say aloha to our new episode on aloha. Here's another thing. I bought the Blu-ray and I dug into the special features. There's a 20 minute alternate opening with Jay Baruchel as Bradley Cooper's brother, who is entirely cut out of the movie and has multiple scenes.

• 2:51:03Speaker 03

  Sounds like they really had a handle on that movie.

• 2:51:05Griffin Newman?

  There's also like a 15 minute alternate ending.

• 2:51:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:51:08Griffin Newman?

  It's insane.

• 2:51:08Speaker 03

  Sounds like they definitely knew what was going on in that movie.

• 2:51:11Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Esther Zuckerman for being here. Tune in next week for.

• 2:51:18Speaker 03

  We have, uh, our episode on Fearless with guest Timothy Simons.

• 2:51:24Griffin Newman?

  Hitmaker, you mean. Hitmaker.

• 2:51:26Speaker 03

  And over on the Patreon, just a few days ago, we released a special Ben's Choice episode on the film Edge of Tomorrow.

• 2:51:36Griffin Newman?

  Slash live, die, repeat.

• 2:51:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:51:37Griffin Newman?

  Slash all you need is kill.

• 2:51:40Speaker 03

  Love that movie. Excited. Well, I mean, we haven't recorded yet, but I'm sure it went great.

• 2:51:46Griffin Newman?

  Or have we recorded it like 150 times?

• 2:51:49Speaker 03

  Oh, there's gonna be so many bits.

• 2:51:51Griffin Newman?

  So many bits.

• 2:51:52Speaker 03

  Well, let's have like two. But anyway, if you're interested, you can sign up for Blank Check Special Features over at patreon.com/blankcheck.

• 2:52:02Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah. Esther, you could just get in front of David's mic for one second here. I'm just trying to remember the movie Aloha. It's about the sky.

• 2:52:13Speaker 02

  Where is the market?

• 2:52:19Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. 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, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for

• 2:53:00Speaker 03

  exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Well, then I'm gonna start rolling.

• 2:53:15Speaker 02

  Are you gonna do a French accent?

• 2:53:17Speaker 03

  Better. Better push that nose up. Get a little hunch, hunch, sort of. Push it up, but then push it down, kinda?

• 2:53:27Speaker 02

  Like.

• 2:53:27Speaker 03

  We can discuss. We can discuss.

• 2:53:29Griffin Newman?

  All this is going at the end of the episode.

• 2:53:30Speaker 03

  Sort of the contours of that nose.

• 2:53:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay, ready?